A Few WordS on "Training"
"Training." GRRRR, this is becoming one of my pet peeves. Training is something you do with a dog, not a person. Maybe it's just the terminology that gets my goat, but I hate it. I keep wanting to track down the person who started this line of BS about training and smack 'em. "Don't you realize how you're fucking up the heads of newbie submissives," I wanna shout, "implying that there's some universal guideline of how to do this stuff we do?"
Maybe it's the Gorean stuff or the "positions" a la Story of O and other far-fetched fantasies that are responsible for this idea of training, or maybe it's those manipulative bastards posing as dominants who offer to "train you" when they really mean "I want to fuck you without any of the responsibilities or commitments of ownership." Maybe newbies get a little confused and think that all D/s relationships are protocol-based. Most aren't. High protocol is a specific subset of D/s and in my experience, the exception rather than the rule.
Training implies there are techniques and skills to be attained. Dominants actually need more specific skill training than a submissive, because no one should just grab up a flogger, a coil of rope, a pair of nipple clips, etc. and start using them on someone without taking some time to learn how to use those things properly.
But if you are a submissive, then you are a submissive. There is nothing to be learned that can make you a submissive if you are not. Submission is mostly about how you react to dominance. Dominance in another person will call out to you -- and you will respond in a way that comes naturally for you. It's not something that can be learned, or faked -- it can be beaten into a person via abuse, or endured through sheer self-control, but not learned.
Submission will either come naturally for you -- because it makes you happy, it makes you wet, it excites the hell out of you -- or it won't. When a dominant grabs you by the hair, you will fall to your knees because it seems the natural thing to do, because usually you've dreamed and fantasized about this for years, and because you want very badly to be on your knees with someone's fist wrapped around a hank of your hair.
If someone has to train you on how to fall to your knees, then you aren't a submissive. (keep in mind, i mean the "right" dominant, not just any dominant -- but hopefully you know what i mean.) And to be "trained" to fall to your knees for just any dominant is a dangerous abomination.
There is nothing to be trained in, UNTIL you find the right dominant partner(s) for you. Then and only then can someone (your master or mistress) tell you what special areas they want you to be trained in -- or not.
No one, for example, has ever asked me to "present myself" or engage in any type of special protocol behavior. The vast majority of dominants i've met in the last eight years don't have a checklist of skills they are looking for, they are looking for the one whom they connect with -- whom they will then shape into a more perfect complement to their needs. And that submissive should have such a connection to that dominant that being shaped to those needs is what they really want. Ying and yang.
Sometimes people get annoyed at hearing, over and over, that there's no one right or wrong way to do this stuff, but it's the truth. BDSM is different for every single person who practices it. The only constants are Safe (i.e. learning to do things as safely as humanly possible, knowing the risks involved and doing what you can to minimize them); Sane (i.e. that you are firmly grounded in the real world, not in fantasies); and Consent (even if what you eventually consent to is to having no consent at all).
You may eventually find a dominant who wants to train you on how to assume certain positions, or how to serve formal tea, or to never sit on the furniture, or how to bark like a dog whenever he snaps his fingers.... but to train for that now, when you may never need it, is a waste of time.
The only exceptions I would make to this are learning things that will help you grow as an individual in this lifestyle, things that you'd like to know for yourself. Read, study, observe, ask questions. Learn the terminology people use, so that you can ask intelligent questions. Learn how it works for different people, so that you can open your mind to all the possibilities. Learn learn learn about SAFETY -- because a submissive needs to know things like how to tie someone up properly just as much as a dominant. If you don't know the right way it should be done, then you won't know when someone is putting you in harm's way when they do it incorrectly on you.
Now, if learning to serve formal tea gets you hot, or appeals to you for purely aesthetic reasons, then go for it. Find someone who can teach you that particular skill. And it will be a gift you can offer to the one who eventually takes ownership of you. But be aware that it may not matter to him or her at all. Your One may value the ability to belly-dance or juggle or balance his checkbook more.
You can explore different types of play -- to discover what you like, what you don't like, what your bad triggers are, what your good triggers are. Play as much as you can safely, to learn your tolerances. But you don't need a trainer to do this, you just need friends in the lifestyle that can be trusted not to take advantage of you, and have the experience not to fuck you up physically or mentally.
You don't need training. You need supportive friends, knowledge and self-awareness.
as always... my opinions. your mileage may vary
Maybe it's the Gorean stuff or the "positions" a la Story of O and other far-fetched fantasies that are responsible for this idea of training, or maybe it's those manipulative bastards posing as dominants who offer to "train you" when they really mean "I want to fuck you without any of the responsibilities or commitments of ownership." Maybe newbies get a little confused and think that all D/s relationships are protocol-based. Most aren't. High protocol is a specific subset of D/s and in my experience, the exception rather than the rule.
Training implies there are techniques and skills to be attained. Dominants actually need more specific skill training than a submissive, because no one should just grab up a flogger, a coil of rope, a pair of nipple clips, etc. and start using them on someone without taking some time to learn how to use those things properly.
But if you are a submissive, then you are a submissive. There is nothing to be learned that can make you a submissive if you are not. Submission is mostly about how you react to dominance. Dominance in another person will call out to you -- and you will respond in a way that comes naturally for you. It's not something that can be learned, or faked -- it can be beaten into a person via abuse, or endured through sheer self-control, but not learned.
Submission will either come naturally for you -- because it makes you happy, it makes you wet, it excites the hell out of you -- or it won't. When a dominant grabs you by the hair, you will fall to your knees because it seems the natural thing to do, because usually you've dreamed and fantasized about this for years, and because you want very badly to be on your knees with someone's fist wrapped around a hank of your hair.
If someone has to train you on how to fall to your knees, then you aren't a submissive. (keep in mind, i mean the "right" dominant, not just any dominant -- but hopefully you know what i mean.) And to be "trained" to fall to your knees for just any dominant is a dangerous abomination.
There is nothing to be trained in, UNTIL you find the right dominant partner(s) for you. Then and only then can someone (your master or mistress) tell you what special areas they want you to be trained in -- or not.
No one, for example, has ever asked me to "present myself" or engage in any type of special protocol behavior. The vast majority of dominants i've met in the last eight years don't have a checklist of skills they are looking for, they are looking for the one whom they connect with -- whom they will then shape into a more perfect complement to their needs. And that submissive should have such a connection to that dominant that being shaped to those needs is what they really want. Ying and yang.
Sometimes people get annoyed at hearing, over and over, that there's no one right or wrong way to do this stuff, but it's the truth. BDSM is different for every single person who practices it. The only constants are Safe (i.e. learning to do things as safely as humanly possible, knowing the risks involved and doing what you can to minimize them); Sane (i.e. that you are firmly grounded in the real world, not in fantasies); and Consent (even if what you eventually consent to is to having no consent at all).
You may eventually find a dominant who wants to train you on how to assume certain positions, or how to serve formal tea, or to never sit on the furniture, or how to bark like a dog whenever he snaps his fingers.... but to train for that now, when you may never need it, is a waste of time.
The only exceptions I would make to this are learning things that will help you grow as an individual in this lifestyle, things that you'd like to know for yourself. Read, study, observe, ask questions. Learn the terminology people use, so that you can ask intelligent questions. Learn how it works for different people, so that you can open your mind to all the possibilities. Learn learn learn about SAFETY -- because a submissive needs to know things like how to tie someone up properly just as much as a dominant. If you don't know the right way it should be done, then you won't know when someone is putting you in harm's way when they do it incorrectly on you.
Now, if learning to serve formal tea gets you hot, or appeals to you for purely aesthetic reasons, then go for it. Find someone who can teach you that particular skill. And it will be a gift you can offer to the one who eventually takes ownership of you. But be aware that it may not matter to him or her at all. Your One may value the ability to belly-dance or juggle or balance his checkbook more.
You can explore different types of play -- to discover what you like, what you don't like, what your bad triggers are, what your good triggers are. Play as much as you can safely, to learn your tolerances. But you don't need a trainer to do this, you just need friends in the lifestyle that can be trusted not to take advantage of you, and have the experience not to fuck you up physically or mentally.
You don't need training. You need supportive friends, knowledge and self-awareness.
as always... my opinions. your mileage may vary