Shades of Gray With Lots of Color

[TP****]

6 hours ago, eyemblacksheep said:

I think this is just it that - well - a lot of ideas in kink especially from a community perspective are relatively new (and when we go older than this - kink was generally something that was paid for at a brothel - it's like folk think pay-to-play is new well up until probably the 70s or 80s it was the only way to specifically meet someone to experiment) 

I remember a few years ago I bumped into a friend from music circles at a fetish club and he is a little older than me so was active in the 80s and 90s; "it's all changed" he said, "In my day it was - you were sub, you were Dom, that was it - the Doms didn't sub, the subs didn't Dom - there were no switches, no brats, no this, no that" and actually we also kinda know that wasn't true - but in the communities he was part of then, it was true.  

The internet has allowed people to bring more ideas together.  If I opened a club and had a specific set of rules and told you it's "how kink works" you can easily chat to people on the web to find out I'm full of sh*t  - not something someone could do so easily 30 odd years ago

You either dom or sub. You’re confusing terminology and rank here. Think of all sub cultures as a taxonomic system. Dom and sub are broad terms that would be above things like brat or prey or Master or Owner. The family to the genus, as it were. Dominant and submissive are character traits, while brat or Master are personality traits. Just because a Master tells his slave to peg him that doesn’t make the Master a switch, the slave is still obeying her Master and he still retains the hierarchical authority, he just wants his slave to peg him, or tie him up, or whatever submissive behavior he’s decided to indulge in. It doesn’t change that underlaying power dynamic.

[ey****]

5 hours ago, TPECouple said:

You either dom or sub. You’re confusing terminology and rank here.

I'm not. You didn't quite read what I said.

There were people who will argue that people are (or were) either a Dominant or a submissive - that switches were tourists, not into kink and other roles were just fanciful.    This is one of the 'old school' attitudes people will push as "how things were" even if that might have seemed applicable in their communities at the time - it's certainly not how things were, or are.

Your example of a Master asking a slave to peg him, would be frowned upon by some - even though you and I would both agree this is fine for 100 different reasons.

[TP****]

1 hour ago, eyemblacksheep said:

I'm not. You didn't quite read what I said.

There were people who will argue that people are (or were) either a Dominant or a submissive - that switches were tourists, not into kink and other roles were just fanciful.    This is one of the 'old school' attitudes people will push as "how things were" even if that might have seemed applicable in their communities at the time - it's certainly not how things were, or are.

Your example of a Master asking a slave to peg him, would be frowned upon by some - even though you and I would both agree this is fine for 100 different reasons.

I don’t understand why anyone would have a problem with that, though I agree there are people who do. It’s not for me, however the nature of power exchange remains intact, the Master is commanding, the slave obeying. The act itself is unimportant. I would argue, though, that most switch behavior falls into this category. Can I be in charge tonight? Or why don’t you dom me tonight? Are different sides of the same coin. Someone initiates by asking permission or by asking for service. It’s still a dominate/submissive power exchange. That why I like using taxonomy as a reference. Broadly speaking, everyone is either more dominate or more submissive in the abstract. Actual roles are more nuanced but those roles are just details extrapolated from the broader category. I know people who would say primal aren’t dom or sub but more akin to ***s. Or that hedonists are neither dom nor sub. In both instances I’d disagree, there’s always a giver and a taker, who fills what role may shift but that doesn’t make someone a switch, it just means they lost or were seduced by a more powerful dom if they trend towards the dom side.

[Deleted Member]

I personally find that pegging is a turn on though I've never tried it. I view it as necessarily submissive not would I want to be dominant. I would view it as giving pleasure to my partner and getting pleasure from it. I would never view a man as less masculine from it nor would I want to be viewed as less feminine.