JustGreenie asked a question on her blog, and unfortunately for everyone involved, it made me think far too much. Rather than belabor her comment section with an essay-length reply, I figured I would publish it here as a standalone piece.
Here is her original question:
After finding your way to knowing you were Dominant or submissive, how did you go about learning more about it? Did you have mentors? Educate yourself via books, websites or even networking?
The Label Was Not the Hard Part
My understanding and “awakening” as a Dominant has taken decades, honestly. I do not mean that in some grandiose way, though, I mean that the label itself was never the hard part. The harder part was understanding what it meant across my life, in my relationships, in my values, in my work, and in how I relate to other people.
I think a lot of men first get inspired or interested in Dominance through media, fantasy, or erotic imagination. It awakens something powerful. A deep male power fantasy, perhaps. It was not entirely different for me. There is something exhilarating about the power you hold in such an emotionally charged space. Early on, I remember meeting a woman and being thrown into the deep end, in a way. Would I sink or float? Did I have the Dominant gear? I floated. And through that connection and others like it, something in me woke up. That was the first real confirmation I found inside myself that this was not just a fantasy or a passing interest. It was who I was… or at least partially.
But that was only the beginning. At that point, I still had very little understanding of how being Dominant connected to the rest of my life. I did not yet understand how it could drive me, shape me, and empower me even outside a relationship. Even as a self-contained, unpartnered Dominant.
Learning to Hear the Signal
The journey for me has not primarily been about learning the “skills” of the trait. It has been about learning who I am, and who I am in relation to others. What attracts me to another person. What does not. What gives me energy and what drains me. Even detecting that feeling of empowerment was a journey. I had to learn to listen to the faint signals of drive and clarity inside me, and to untangle them from simple sexual enjoyment. Not because the sexual part is unimportant, but because it is not the whole thing. I also had to learn to notice the equally faint emotions that could pull me out of that state. That took a lot of introspection, personal scrutiny, and hard-learned experience.
Consent, Politics, and the Individual
One of the early hurdles in my growth was understanding how my deep-seated and now confirmed needs in relationships fit with my political views, and with my views on human beings in general. Explicit relationship dynamics are often seen as socially regressive at the societal scale. I understood that objection. I still understand why people react that way. Squaring my own needs with a broadly progressive worldview caused me real mental anguish in my 20s. Some of that came through private introspection and some came from being open with friends and finding that they were not always as open in return.
I remember talking to my sub about it years ago, and I remember her simply saying,
“But it’s what I want.”
I still think about those words often. Why should broad societal norms override the desires of an individual, provided no laws are broken and everything is done through constant consent, trust, and love?
That distinction has become very important to me. There is a difference between what consenting adults may choose between themselves, and how we believe society should be structured. Those are not the same question. That is also where I sometimes feel at odds with the “trad” community, even if there are surface-level overlaps. I may value femininity, masculinity, leadership, devotion, and structure in a relationship, but that does not mean I want those things imposed on society as rules. Consent is the difference. Desire is the difference. The individual is the difference. Today, that distinction feels obvious to me. In my 20s, it did not. It took time.
When Leadership Made It Click
Another pivotal point in my growth came in my 30s. By then, I was well into my professional career and finding my feet. I was growing in confidence, both as a man and as a professional. People began looking to me for support, judgment, and insight. I started mentoring others, and I noticed my focus shifting. It became less about my own direct impact and more about the impact I could have through other people.
Eventually, I became a people manager. I grew a team. I grew my scope. I grew my impact. Things started layering on top of each other, and I found myself in a loop of successful professional growth. But that was work. That was only professional me. Right?
One of my mentors and leaders modeled something I still think about often. I knew with certainty that if I was “under attack” in a meeting, or being questioned aggressively, he would have my back. He would jump in. He would protect me without making me weak. I felt safe, and because I felt safe, I also felt more loyal. I knew immediately that this was how I wanted to be perceived as a leader. I wanted my team to feel that way about me.
The perceptive reader can probably see where this is going, but it took me longer to see it clearly. My Dom self and my leader self are not separate people. They are the same man. That realization gave me a unified framework for my personality. Suddenly, many things clicked into place. Seeing my Dominance through the lens of leadership helped me align my growth toward one deeper goal. It also opened my eyes to what drives and empowers me as a man.
Feeling my team trust my judgment and direction empowers me as a leader. Understanding how to motivate people matters. Aligning people around a goal matters. Providing feedback matters. Managing morale and mood matters. Handling change and shifting priorities matters. Leading people through politically tense situations matters. Focusing on long-term growth matters. Then there are the more personal things that started linking up too: leaning into difficult conversations instead of avoiding them, stepping back and taking a breath when I feel my judgment being pulled around by emotion, encouraging feedback, receiving criticism without becoming defensive, and holding myself to the same standards I expect from others.
We Are the Team
All of this can and should apply when I lead my partner and myself through life. We... she and I... are the team. We have our own skills, priorities, needs, moods, fears, strengths, and goals. Those have to be balanced every day. It isn’t a scene… it’s life.
There are, of course, limits to this unification of myself. I am fairly sure HR would frown upon even the lightest and most playful over-the-knee spanking of my subordinates.
And more seriously, the level of intimacy, loyalty, trust, and priority in a romantic D/s relationship is naturally different from anything professional. The analogy has limits. But the underlying pattern still resonates with me.
The Weight of Trust
These days, I think much more clearly about who I am, why I am here, and what I need. It comes down to the weight of trust. The responsibility I feel for another person’s life. The feeling of being accountable. The need to be worthy of the faith placed in me.
That is what drives the feeling of empowerment for me. Not merely control and obedience. Not merely getting what I want. It is trust and responsibility. It is being chosen to lead, and then constantly having to strive to be the kind of man who deserves that. That creates a loop of growth and reinforcement in me as a man, as a leader, and as a Dominant. And for the right woman, I believe it can create something equally powerful in her... a deepening of her femininity, her softness, her trust, and her submission.
So Where Did I Learn It?
So, to return to the original question: How did I learn more about being Dominant? The answer is not as simple as “books” or “websites” or “mentors,” although all of those can matter.
I learned by listening to myself. By interrogating why I felt what I felt. By asking what empowered me, what unsettled me, what made me feel clear, and what made me feel false. I learned through professional connections. Through therapy. Through friendships. Through good experiences and bad ones. Through thoughtful comments that were not even meant to teach me anything. Through thoughtful questions on this site. And sure… through books, media, conversations, mistakes, reflection, and time.
But most of all, I learned through my interactions with submissive partners throughout my life. Through their trust. Through their love. Through the weight of what they gave me.
That is where the real education happened.