Decorum: Does labeling yourself a submissive mean strangers should treat you like one?

Reserved​(other male) • Feb 20, 2018

IMHO

I honestly would be turned off by you not insisting on not being called submissive until there is a dynamic established. I may be unique but I prefer a submissive who respects the value that she brings to the table as a person and that there is an absolute gift in submission. Then again I ask not to be called Sir until a dynamic is established because there seems to be an equal opportunity treatment of sides in the dynamic here. Just last evening a submissive "bonded" me and led off with "I need you to take me sir".

I wonder sometimes if people take for granted that at its boiled down core, the lifestyle is no different than any other interrelationship that one enters into. There is an introduction period (brief, long, in between) before the parties will permit the other to say or do other things without being turned off by them. The insistence of one acting a perceived way in the wide open lifestyle world is crazy. There honestly has never been a defined pattern to allow expectations to occur. Yes I anticipate RACK or SSC but beyond that I'd be no more surprised at someone who enjoys a golden shower from a suspended from the chandelier submissive than I would be by a submissive who merely kneels and speaks to their Dom about the Yankees.

In conclusion, you do you, and forget the fools who tell you that you're doing that wrong.

Caretaker​(switch male) • Feb 20, 2018

Even though I lean submissive and think that the sub moniker might work better for me than Switch, I prefer going by Switch. I too feel like putting the sub label out there sometime invites presumptions about myself that are not true.