As I said in a previous post, subs should be time-makers, not time-wasters for their doms. Their presence in a Dom’s life should open up his schedule by freeing him from mundane, uninteresting tasks, like doing the dishes, so he can focus on more important or more enjoyable activities, like his hobbies.
Consequently, subs should, in an ideal world, not bother their doms with unimportant matters. If a decision isn’t important, the sub should make the decision without having to ask the dom about it. In that sense, a good sub is a lot like an administrative assistant. They should learn what the dom wants, what his rules and goals are, and then make choices accordingly about how to achieve those goals within the rules. Obviously some doms are more inclined to micromanage than others, but this principle still applies; if a dom wants to decide what shoes the sub is going to wear to work, by definition that choice is important.
The problem is that doms and subs often have very different ideas of what’s not important. For many doms, non-important things are the small mechanical issues. Should the floor be swept or vacuumed? Should the dry cleaning be picked up before or after work?
Subs, on the other hand, often struggle with putting things into their proper perspective and properly assessing what their dom thinks is important or not. Because they want to please their dom and make his life better, they may exaggerate how important a minor issue is. As one slave once said to me, “screwing up your breakfast is as bad as driving your car into a tree.” From my standpoint, these are two very different scales of impact, but to him, any degree of failure was catastrophic.
On the other hand, subs, because they feel small and unimportant (or want to), have a tendency to minimize the importance of their own needs and feelings. They are inclined to sacrifice their own comfort to please their dom, and that can lead them into neglecting important self-care (like downtime or personal hobbies). More importantly, when they are struggling with unhealthy feelings of worthlessness, inferiority, or other negative emotions, they may be inclined to downplay situations when they genuinely need help and support. They are inclined to stuff away thoughts like “I’m worthless, my dom can’t possible care about me”, when in fact those are moments when a sub needs to seek support and reassurance from their dom.
Alex is a good example of this. His basic instinct is that he’s not worthy of my time and attention. He starts to feel bad when he thinks I’m spending too much time talking to him. “You have more important things to do, Sir. I shouldn’t waste your time.” I frequently have to remind him that if I’m talking to him, it’s because I choose to, not because he’s forcing me to. I’ve mentioned that when he first left the hospital after his surgery, his idiot brother basically dumped him at cheap hotel with someone looking in on him twice a day. It was an incredibly risky situation for Alex, who wasn’t capable of taking care of his basic needs at that point. I was furious with his brother and spent a great deal of time trying to get Alex the care and attention he really needed. But Alex kept telling me “It’s ok. I don’t want to bother anyone.” So despite the fact that Alex could very easily have died in that situation, he thought his problem was unimportant.
What does this mean in practical terms. If you’re a sub, it means that you need to remember that, no matter how worthless you are in your dynamic with your dom, you are still a human being with needs. Your needs have to get met, and if you are struggling with something, you need to bring that to your dom and ask for support, guidance, more time off, or whatever it is that you think will help you. Your basic needs and mental health are by definition important. If your dom doesn’t understand that, you should seriously think about finding a new dom.
If you are dom, you have to pay attention to your sub and figure out when his scale of importance needs adjustment. You may have to order your sub to do self-care. You may have to order him to tell you when he has certain thoughts so you can reassure him. One of my slaves is inclined to trash-talk himself a lot. I have said many times, “Don’t beat yourself up, boy. That’s my job.” And when your sub comes to you with something they are struggling with, you need to treat it as important. Subs make time for us, which means that we have an obligation to make time for them when they need it.
Leather-Bound Press 
At first I was upset reading this, because you’ve said that a sub should make a Dom’s life more convenient. I spend all day at work trying to make someone’s life more convenient and I can’t say that I’m great at it. I’m no longer upset because I’ve read the other side of what you’ve said about the care and attention that a sub might need.
Today at work I was working with a client and the boss called. I’m her assistant and I would never tell her that I’m busy, but I kept trying to work virtually with the client. I sent a message to him as well as an email. I wrote a note to show to the camera saying that he should check his email. I was still listening to what the boss was saying, but didn’t want to cause her to feel that she was intruding. The boss eventually asked if I was with a client. I didn’t want to say that I was, but saying anything else hasn’t ever occurred to me. The boss often calls during scheduled client times.
I am not good at telling people that I am busy. It’s so bad that when I get off work.. I take the long way to my car in order to avoid conversations with people, because I just want to be alone until I can get to my car and immediately turn on my royalty free music. My Sir called today. I hadn’t been online at all because I’d been studying. I hadn’t had time to watch tv, play any game, or anything else. I go to work and then study until I fall asleep. Sir said that I sound tired. For some reason, taking notes while reading 50 to 100 pages a day takes a lot out of me. He said that I should rest, so I’m going to do some drawing. I also ordered some sticky notes as well as some highlighters, because mine ran out of ink. I can’t read chapters without a highlighter. I feel so far behind in my “Advanced Java Programming” class, but in reality I’ve been staying a week ahead. I don’t even need to take this class, but whenever I see someone struggling in a class, I always want to take on the class. I just want to experience the course, take notes, and complete everything so that I can help people, because I just don’t understand why and how it’s possible that they are struggling.
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Like a lot of subs, it sounds like you struggle to set healthy boundaries and wind up giving away all your ‘spoons’ to help other people. Predictably that leads to not having enough for yourself. Perhaps you should have a conversation with your Sir about setting some boundaries so that you’re not letting yourself get drained for trivial reasons. For example, maybe he should give you some rules that help you establish boundaries. I’ve had to do that with one of my boys.
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As a sub I found it very depressing to see that you think that a sub’s task to to make a dom’s life easier. In reality, both parties need to get something out of this- subs are as human as Doms (why does this need to be said) and have the same needs to pursue professional activities, hobbies and cultural activities, social activities and to grow their minds. They don’t need Doms for this.
These essential activities limit the extent to which subs can engage in activities that are purely designed to make a dom’s life easier. Doms need to take responsibility for their own lives too. They can hire outside help to help with domestic chores, or they can do these themselves to make time for a sub to engage in essential activities like work, cultural and social activities.
A sub that works full time has as much time as a dom to engage in hobbies and cultural pursuits.
So I’d rephrase this to say that the job of both parties in kink is to make the other party’s life better. This isn’t only a sub’s duty
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I entirely agree that the sub has to get something out of his submission. That might be the sexual pleasure of being fucked, the masochistic pleasure of being tortured or humiliated, or the mental pleasure of enduring what his dom wants to inflict or the joy of serving his dom in a non-sexual way—chores, tribute, or whatever. Subs are people and doms need to always remember that. A sub who -isn’t- getting something out of his interaction with his dom will eventually leave.
Your statement about chores implies that a dom should handle his own chores. Sure, unless doing the dom’s chores is part of how the sub wants to express his submission. If my boy wants to do my laundry, me doing my own sundry is depriving him of an opportunity to serve me in a way that feels meaningful for him. A majority of the subs I deal with want to sacrifice their time to make my life better and easier, and that’s an entirely valid expression of power exchange.
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Exactly. I agree
If that’s what a sub wants and agrees to it’s fine. But you can be a damn good sub without agreeing to any of this.
Your post says- without qualification – that subs should do a Doms chores to make his life easier. That’s why I commented as I did .
Subs do not have to do anything they do not want to do regardless of how easier it makes a dom’s life.
There’s enormous dignity in doing your own chores and in taking care of yourself and setting an example to a sub. That’s a hell of a way for a dom to hold himself to a higher standard.
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A further reflection: you say in many places in this excellent blog that Doms should “hold themselves to a higher standard”, which I entirely agree with.
To me that means that a dom needs to direct the submission of a sub in a way that consistent with that higher standard. Instead of using the free labour of the sub to get his own laundry done, how much better would be, given this, to direct the sun to help the elderly, children, infirm in the community at large with their domestic chores? The selfishness of the dom that chooses to use a sub to make his life better when he could make other peoples lives better is simply not consistent with maintains higher standard.
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If my sub wishes to give me the sacrifice of his labor, to refuse that is to say his labor is not valuable to me and that I don’t respect his needs as a submissive.
It’s clear that you don’t find domestic service a meaningful form of submission. That’s ok—every sub has to find what works for them.
But you shouldn’t be telling other subs and doms that they shouldn’t do a kink you disapprove of, because you wouldn’t want other kinksters telling you not to do your favorite kinks. That’s a form of kink-shaming. No one gets to tell me how I and my boy get to express our power-exchange except for me and my boy. My boys crave what you’re describing as my selfishness—to them it validates their identity as submissives.
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Fair point.
I do look down on Doms who behave in that way. Which is my prerogative.
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Here is literally what you say
« Their presence in a Dom’s life should open up his schedule by freeing him from mundane, uninteresting tasks, like doing the dishes, so he can focus on more important or more enjoyable activities, like his hobbies. »
I’d say fine – if the sub wants to and is getting something out of this behaviour.
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Indeed. But it’s you telling us subs what to do surely, not me.
Look again at how this post starts
“As I said in a previous post, subs should be time-makers, not time-wasters for their doms. Their presence in a Dom’s life should open up his schedule by freeing him from mundane, uninteresting tasks, like doing the dishes, so he can focus on more important or more enjoyable activities, like his hobbies.”
It’s you not me that’s telling people what to do.
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You clearly understand my point here, since you’ve read my blog and know that I argue that each sub has his own needs and desires and must be treated in a way that respects those needs. To insist that if I don’t make that point in each and every post then I’m disrespecting you is nothing but nit-picking, especially since you’ve already said on another post that you don’t respect me.
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I totally agree.
But that’s not what you say in the opening paragraph of this post.
Here’s what you say;
“As I said in a previous post, subs should be time-makers, not time-wasters for their doms. Their presence in a Dom’s life should open up his schedule by freeing him from mundane, uninteresting tasks, like doing the dishes, so he can focus on more important or more enjoyable activities, like his hobbies.”
I read that paragraph as it’s written meaning that you think that this is what all subs should do.
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I’m sorry that this post doesn’t meet your approval. I cannot please every person on the internet and will not try to. You understand my position and you’ve said you don’t respect me, so let’s end this conversation right here.
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Despite my disagreeing with you on this, your blog is great. I wish there were blogs like this written by subs from a subs point of view!
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