The Pleasing Conundrum

[10:37] ***: So as an experienced bottom, do you have any useful feedback on things I could/should have done differently?

This will take a moment to get through, bear with me.

There's always been an argument in the BDSM community about motivation. Some submissives will call themselves masochists, because while they do not get sexual gratification *from* pain specifically, they do get it *during* pain because they're submitting wholly to something that they do not "get off on", simply because the person they are submitting to wants to do it. Although I never have (and never would) call myself a masochist, that's exactly how I feel about many things, and precisely the reason I have the big toy bag - I am prepared, pretty much for anything (my short limit list outstanding of course), because what "gets me off" and the reason I am there is to please. If that means I suffer at someone else's hands, or it means I have twenty orgasms at someone else's hands - doesn't matter. It's the pleasing that pleases me. That doesn't mean that I don't brat occasionally, and it doesn't mean that I don't test boundaries (I do, no question, not often, but sometimes), it just means that ultimately, pleasing is what I want to do.

On the converse side of that, you have the unique situation where a submissive may be mentoring, or teaching a dominant. Now, for a submissive, like me, who aims to please, doing that can be quite fun (as I've already witnessed *wink*), but it can also cause a bit of concern. "If I tell him what he could have done there, will he do it next time - and if he does, is he doing it for me? or because he wants to? And what if those are the same thing sometimes, but other times they aren't?"

Just as a submissive wants to please, she wants the dominant to please himself; to use her as she's given him leave to. If she has the suspicion that he's doing something just because *she* likes it, what will that do to the moment?

Well, nothing, provided she has his word that he's not going to do anything "just for her" unless that's his goal at the outset. Meaning, what's going to get *him* off that night is getting *her* off. He's not doing it so much to please her, he's doing it because at that moment, pleasing her is what pleases *him*.

More than anything, I think it's a trust thing.

You compared it recently to "topping from the bottom" - the whole mentoring thing, but those two things aren't related in this at all. Topping from the bottom in an established relationship is one thing - but handing you the tools to explore what's inside you, and helping you do that effectively and safely isn't topping you; it's turning you into a better top.

(The you's and I's in this are generic by the way, for the most part *smirk*)

I realize that that doesn't answer the original question. But it does explain why I'll be careful answering it. At least, I hope I will.