When Dominants Want to Help You Grow: An Adjunct to Today's Fetlife Post

Every long-term relationship I’ve had has helped me grow, especially the one with my first dom. By accepting all the shame I brought to his door, he helped me to get in touch with my sexuality for the first time in my life. His unconditional love was like years of therapy, just as mine was to him. Every long-term relationship I’ve had has helped my partners to grow, too. This is what love does: it enriches the soil for dominants and for subs. It can’t not—Not in vanilla relationships. Not in families. Not between friends.

Despite that, I try my best to arrive in my relationships with my big girl panties on, my socks pulled all the way up, and my hems neatly sewn. Okay, so maybe not that thing about the hems. Or the socks, but definitely that first thing. I’m a grown up, and I prefer not to get involved in a serious dynamic with tangled insides and tears. That’s why I’ve spent the last two years single. My last relationship burned away all my self-esteem. Had I said “yes” to the first D-type who propositioned me, I’d have left that relationship in tatters.

I didn’t always choose celibacy during brokenness, and I don’t advise it for everyone all the time. Loving partnerships once kept me whole while I was still falling under the weight of my depression. These men did nothing more than love my world until it became a soft place, and in doing so, they helped me to survive. We all need that at one time or another, and I maintain that there’s never a bad place for love.

I still won’t accept your intention to help me grow—not because that’s your desire, but because you assume that subs automatically need that kind of help, and doms are naturally evolved enough not to. Your sexuality doesn’t make you any more or less whole than mine does. Submission is not a sign of weakness or brokenness, and your assumption that it is makes me want to run.

Several D-types have forced me to evolve. None of them, however, assume that’s what I need merely because I bottom. Their influence has pushed me forward because their love is a special combination of respect, wisdom, and unadulterated acceptance. All of them have the humility to grow from my own influence, too. Maybe that’s one of the reasons they’ve been able to guide me. 

So yes, it’s true that subs grow in our dynamics, just as dominants do. I still won’t be accepting your wish to guide me, though, because you think your toppy proclivities make you capable of that.