I realise this is a theme for me at the moment, but vanilla dating is quite new to me and occupying a fair bit of my life.
A submissive friend asked me a little while ago if I could be truly happy in another vanilla relationship, which was a question I had asked myself many times before then. The reality is though, that finding Mrs/Ms/Miss Right in the kink scene is infinitely less likely than in vanilla land. So, this post is about how I might link those two worlds.
It occurred to me that dating someone vanilla or a submissive are very similar, because the foundation is always a man and a woman (being my preference). For both, I need to be a good human being, reliable, dependable, grounded, well-groomed, have a good personality and character and inspire feelings of safety and attraction in my date.
At the next level, me being at a certain age, I possess calmness, wisdom, experience, financial security, a non-reactive nature, and having lived a life I understand (mostly) a woman’s needs and can cope with her emotions and feelings sensitively and with emotional maturity. I imagine these to be universally good traits regardless of age as being volatile and reactive are likely to be undesirable.
So what does a Dominant add that is attractive to a partner that a vanilla rival may not, as this must be the key ingredient? My suggestion is that it is about his understanding and use of control and how desirable this may be to women in both camps.
I think this starts with self-control, something which I assume most Dominants have as they must first be master of themselves to be able to control another. Self-control is attractive and can be sensed and observed through many different actions or behaviours. On a primitive level, it demonstrates the man will be good in a crisis, unlikely to make rash decisions, not volatile and is very likely to be able to handle her emotionally when she needs that sold base to bring her back down. In short, she feels safe being with and around him. He can protect her should that proverbial tiger appear. She may naturally defer to him and enjoy looking up to him (metaphorically perhaps). I suspect this is still, despite the modern age and need for equality, something that is innate between men and women and therefore a nice way for them to feel together. He looks after her, takes the lead in the bedroom and just occasionally, rips her clothes off her and makes love to her against the nearest wall.
I feel I run the risk of angering many by trying to explaining a submissive's needs here. Forgive me for briefly genralising as I totally accept that each submissive is different and may wish for varying levels of control in different areas of her life. However, for the purposes of this thread, I will highlight what I think is the difference between the joy of vanilla control and that of our kink. For a submissive, a Dominant’s self-control and his ability to exert control over her, are both very statractive (when added to all the genric qualities listed above). It is that ‘extra’ element he is capable of that makes it a D/s relationship. She willingly wants to lose herself in his power over her. I will stop explaining now as I am sure others could explain what a submissive needs better than I.
So, the takeaway for me from this thought is that being authentic both in vanilla and kink dating has potential benefits. It may not always result in a catch, but if the right connections are made it could lead to something that is similar in the end, albeit the submissive will always be infinitely more desirable.
