Kaya wrote this post today. And, as I’m practically having an affair with her blog, I became wrapped up in thinking about MY view on the situation/idea she presented.

I attempted to comment.

After over eleven hundred words, I decided I had failed.

Me and concise? We just don’t get along. (As it is, I have nearly 700 words sitting in a Word document that used to belong to this post.  I cut them with much distress.)

SO… If you want this post to make a shred of sense, I implore you to read her post first.

I am of two minds. One is concerning the idea of submission following abuse. The second is about the particular man in her post.

Submission Following Abuse

I believe a man, a good man, CAN dominate a woman who was previously abused in a manner that actually allows her to heal, and be strong and empowered.  I do.  I understand and condone a man seeking a woman he wants to dominate, and coming to love her enough, know her well enough, and being skilled enough to allow her to find a cleansed emotional experience coming from an activity similar to one she used to associate with something profoundly negative.

But, in my experience… (And, because I despise people asserting false authority… My experience is seeing a dozen different therapists to deal with my past, and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from a very respected university. These things neither make me an expert, nor someone you should even listen to at all. But, that’s what I mean by “my experience.”)

Anyway, in my experience, while people may go back and forth with the issue of a larger number of abused women turning to BDSM, the fact of the emotional matter is that it is not a simple task to take an abused woman and let her grow as a human and blossom beneath domination. (Obviously, this is if she has not already found a complete personal path to healing, as many don’t for a long while.)

So… If she has lingering issues, hang-ups, perhaps even PTSD?

Is it harder to dominate/manipulate her in general?  No.  And I’d hazard that it’s probably easier.

Is it harder to dominate her in a beneficial, honest, good way?  I believe so.

And, let me stop right here and say if you don’t think a dominant/submissive pairing should be beneficial to both partners? Well, you and I are not going to agree on this. And that’s cool; I’m just warning you that I DO think it should be a symbiotic relationship.

This Particular Guy

If he means he would like a woman who has been abused, but she feels things are resolved and she is absolved, and she’s moved to a healthy place? Okaaaaay, I guess. It still makes me uncomfortable for reasons I can’t put my finger on, but… But that’s just that’s NOT what I got out of his statement. I got that he has a two-point list which takes “sweeping generalization” to a WHOLE new level… “You need to seriously want a Dom. You were abused.”  

Uh, wow.

If I were to give him the benefit of the doubt, I’d call his stance the result of severe naiveté. (Incidentally, GREAT quality in a dominant! *rolls eyes*)

But, truthfully, it comes across as blithe more than anything else.

And that attitude about abuse survivors leads me to believe he is not looking to walk the long, and potentially very rewarding road of healing and turning her patterns into rewarding service, but is looking to walk the easier, and far more sinister road of sick and simple domination. He just didn’t seem to think his mindset should be at all mitigated by the mental and emotional intricacies of someone who was harmed – he just plugged it as number two on his list, and said “good” when he heard someone was a victim.

I don’t like the way he talked.  And not because I think the mindset of “it is totally possible to turn your abuse around, to harness your emotions and get something positive out of this while actively recovering” is wrong. It’s not! I mean, look at kaya, whose post was the impetus for mine. No, okay, sadly I don’t really “know” her, but from reading her words, and the occasional words from her Master, I firmly believe she is a shining example of this. She is success.

But the guy in that post? Well, he can continue to pretend he’s got some altruistic core (though, in reality, he doesn’t even bother trying to pretend that very hard)… But looking at his words, I call bullshit. Loud and clear, I call bullshit.

The fact that he has such black and white, simplistic thinking about it and the fact that he simply introduces this search for someone who was abused in what seems like the very beginning of a conversation worries me to no end.  I’d run, long and hard, away from ANY man who had such a view.

Many, MANY men take advantage of women and their weaknesses. They lie to sleep with them and the prey on their insecurities to keep them. (I’m not saying women are angels – they’re not. I’m not saying all men do – they don’t. I’m just talking about some guys here, kay?) Many seek power and sex and elements of submission, and they will do nasty, horrible things to get those things, and they don’t care about the emotions of the women they leave in their wake.  Come on, haven’t you all met guys like that?  I have.  I’ve watched friends, and myself, fall victim to them.

Well, this guy strikes me as someone who thinks he’s found a venue where this behavior is acceptable.  So he thinks can foster his selfish, predator nature by actively selecting (by basically asking for a show of hands) people he views as weaker, injured prey.

I mean, okay, I’m going to stop and finish with this:

What if the conversation had been this, with my substitutions in ALLCAPS (and I have held back editing the atrocious grammar… I mean “If you’re on my list there should be for two reasons” ?  WTF is that?)

Him: If you’re on my list there should be for two reasons:
Him: 1) you’re serious looking for a JOB
Him: 2) you have a history of FORCED CHILD LABOR in your past
Him: Which one is it..?
Me: both in a way
Him: Good…
Me: why is that good?
Him: I like when an EMPLOYEE has a history of FORCED CHILD LABOR.
Me: why is that?
Him: it turns her into a better WORKER..especially of she grew up to crave the sensations (not the emotions) what was done to her before.
Me: interesting
Him: and truthful..
Me: i’d like you to elaborate. Prefering PEOPLE WHO WERE FORCED INTO CHILD LABOR makes you seem a predator on broken PEOPLE. Those who haven’t healed.
Him: a predator..or perhaps makes me a BOSS who understands an EMPLOYEE who embraces the fact she has a need/urge to empower herself through something she now finds essential.

Him: replace the word FORCED CHILD LABOR by “early JOB TRAINING” and it changes the context completely.
Me: FORCED CHILD LABOR is NOT early JOB TRAINING.

Him: nonethless.. it change your WORK ETHIC completely.
Me: my WORK ETHIC was changed even before the FORCED CHILD LABOR

Him: THE BENEFITS OF A GOOD BOSS can only be shown nowadays through very distinct mechanisms

Him: THE BENEFITS OF A GOOD BOSS then can only be shown through the dynamics of guidance, discipline and punishment. Wouldn’t that be true..?
Me: no, THE BENEFITS OF A GOOD BOSS can be shown through many ways

Him: Which one of them is still inside your head when you lay at night and crave GETTING A JOB..?

Okay. Honestly.  Take a minute and think what your reaction would be if you heard this.  Are we still going to defend his views? Or would we be like “Yikes, he’s one selfish, sick puppy.” If a boss was looking for a worker, and he decided a good work ethic is best based on illegal, brutal, harmful treatment in the past? And seeks out only victims of that abuse? Are we really thinking, given the way the idea was presented, that it’s anything less than exploitation of abuse?

Are we REALLY shrugging and say, “Yeah, well, he’s not doing anything wrong! It could be a GOOD experience for the worker!” Or that “No one who was a child-laborer and isn’t over the emotional issues has any business getting a job anyway.”

Well, yeah, okay. It MIGHT be a good experience, eventually, if done right. And I think these people would be able to handle a job, if it was the right one.

I just don’t think I could change my opinion that there is a difference… A difference between: A man looking for a good worker, and either knows or discovers the employee was involved in the horrors of forced child labor, and then deals with it, and HELPS her and finds a way to make the experience work to his benefit AND aid in her healing… And a man who wanders around looking specifically for child-laborers because he thinks they universally make better employees.   It simply appears that he cares MUCH more about some fictionalized, nutty, generalized personal belief and he has not a shred of real experience.  In my head, that’s red flag for further abuse.  He’s creeeeepy.

In short (ha):

Can a formerly abused woman be a good submissive and a great servant? Can her past patterns be re-associated with positive things? Absolutely! NO ONE is a sick fuck for thinking that result is possible, good, and that in the end, the effects of abuse can even be viewed in a really good, positive light. And rock on for anyone who accomplishes that.

Is there something wrong with someone who specifically and solely seeks out an abuse victim in that cavalier, generalized, selfish manner?  Yep.  I think so.  I think he hasn’t got a clue what he’s talking about.  Avoid, avoid, avoid the guy with the giant head who clearly thinks he’s WAY awesomer and worldly than he really is.

EDITED TO ADD:  Because I absolutely, categorically, CANNOT shut up… Something I’m curious about after reading some of the comments in kaya’s blog… The comments about the chocolate ice cream, the blow-jobs, the skills acquired as a result of abuse… I don’t delude myself into think everyone will agree with me.  So, to the people who would say "yep, it IS just early job training!" – Do you think a person who was NOT abused cannot achieve the same level of skill as someone who was?  I guess if someone does think that, I can see where the "need" for an abuse survivor would come into play… But I don’t think that’s the case.  I think a pure desire to serve, not spurred by a history of abuse and associations with service/domination, can drive someone to reach the same levels of service.  I can plainly see how abuse can play into desires, just with the emotions originally backwards.  And if that’s part of healing, to reverse the emotional associations, to use the skills in a loving relationship you actually benefit from, rock on.  I don’t think that’s wrong.  I just also don’t think it’s necessary or universally beneficial, as this dominant seems to think it is…