“So are you a switch or what?”
That’s a question that gets asked of me a lot. After all I am a Dominant, but I have a Mistress. I dominate and submit, isn’t that almost the very definition of being a switch? Perhaps but as with all things human, I believe it to be more complex than that.
Let’s start with how I define a switch. To me a switch is an individual who can be equally happy acting as dominant, or submissive of the two in a relationship. They are equally, or at the very least near equally, comfortable in either role.
Switches seem to get as much shit thrown their way as bisexuals do in the LGBT world. Called “greedy” or “wishy-washy”, accused of wanting their cake and eating it too. Personally I just think they’re awesome people who live their life in a way that they find fulfilling and comfortable.
But that doesn’t answer the question that starts this article.
I believe there may well be in addition to dominant, submissive and switch, two other definable positions in the BDSM spectrum. Dominant who chooses to be in submission, submissive who chooses to be in dominance. Okay, okay yes you shouting at the back, I agree that they could be folded into the switch category. But what if they truly are separate unique states?
Let’s take myself and a woman I once knew as examples shall we?
I am a Dominant,I take it very seriously and have worked hard to develop my skills, as well as my personal philosophy. But I have a Mistress. What’s with that?
When I met my Mistress I desperately wanted to be her partner, however she is in no way what-so-ever submissive. But BDSM is an integral, undeniable part of who and what I am. How to overcome this problem? In the end I taught her how to do the technical, skill based BDSM stuff. Showed her my beliefs where BDSM was concerned, and then let her make up her own mind. It took 6 months for her to say yes to being my Mistress. So I became her Slavegirl, actually the Alpha Slave in her house. Does that make me a switch?
I don’t believe so. I am not submissive in any way. Some of my friends still laugh at the idea of me submitting to anyone. And rightly so, it does not come naturally to me at all. I fight it constantly. But to be with this woman I had to decide to be submissive to her, and her alone. That’s what to my eyes, marks the difference between a switch and a Dominant in submission. For the latter it’s a minute by minute conscious choice out of love, not by nature. It’s someone purposely going counter to their true nature to express love for another.
Of course I have to admit, being polyamorous and thus free to pursue a slavegirl of my own does help with taking some of the sting out of that choice.
As for being the Submissive in dominance, I once knew a woman who’s Master’s nature changed. Where he had been dominant in the extreme he now felt the overwhelming, impossible to deny need to submit. She was not dominant at all, but she made dominating him, her submission to the man she still loved. Again a conscious choice to go counter to her own nature, out of love.
Being switch, being comfortable and happy in both positions is a nature of being, just as much as being Dominant or submissive is. But being a DiS or a SiD I have come to believe is the exact opposite. It’s accepting that we can’t help who we fall in love with, and making the most profound sacrifice possible to be with them and make them happy, by purposely subverting our own natures for them.
Is that being switch? Some may think so but I don’t. Now when asked whether I’m switch or not I answer, “I am a Dominant, who met the one woman she had to submit to, to be with.”
My Random Ruminations. 