Note: Just so you know, when I mention “service” I mean cleaning or doing chores for someone with aspects of D/s involved. Non-sexual (from my experience).
I had never considered it a question of if I enjoyed service or not. Of course I enjoy it. Even though I’ve only met one other submissive that really craves performing service.
But it was how the question was phrased that gave me doubts:
“Is service the easiest outlet for your submission?”
It’s the only outlet for my submission.
Cue the self-doubt:
What if that’s the only reason I enjoy service? What if it’s just because it’s the only way I can get a taste of what I need?
Over the past year, I’ve worn the phrase “service-oriented submissive” as a badge of honor. I’m more interested in pleasing than getting my own rocks off. That’s true sexually and also why I enjoy service. I enjoy service because I like the feeling of doing something for someone I respect and want to please.
That’s why I’m doing it, right?
What if I’m so desperate to get that feeling that I’ll take whatever I can get? It’s certainly easier to find someone to clean for than to find someone to beat the hell out of me or to let me worship them. It helps because sexual attraction isn’t necessary in service.
I’ve always said I’ve enjoyed service for service sake and I wasn’t one of those guys that want’s to clean for someone in the nude. What if that’s just because I’ve never met someone I was hot for who I could clean for?
What if I was really attracted to someone sexually as well and was performing service for them? Would I wish my service had more sexual tones to it?
Am I being more selfish than I thought? Am I the one who’s using them since it’s giving me that feeling I can’t get anywhere else?
I do know that I enjoy pleasing, making someone happy and making their life easier, but doesn’t everyone? Doesn’t everyone like making someone else feel better?
Maybe I’m not special at all and the only reason I enjoy service is because I’m so desperate to feel submissive that I’ll take what I can get.
What does service-oriented mean anyway?
I think if I ask one more question, I’ll be on the next train to crazy-town.
12 Comments
Holy crap, honey, slow the train on down.
I phrased the question that way (yes, I’ll admit I asked the question) because I didn’t want to make the assumption that service was the only way in which you feel submissive. But if it is? That’s okay.
Yes, it’s good to question why you do things and why you choose the avenues you do. But avoid the common pitfall of thinking that something you enjoy doing is necessarily less submissive because you enjoy doing it.
“Am I the one who’s using them since it’s giving me that feeling I can’t get anywhere else?”
Getting your needs met doesn’t necessarily mean you’re using someone.
And the fact that you’re asking all the questions in the first place shows that you do make an effort to please (how hot is that?!) and to understand yourself.
That in turn will improve your servitude as you become more comfortable with your needs and desires as well as those of whom you serve.
Eileen- Pleeeeeeeeasseee know that I think it was a great question to ask. It’s helped me re-evaluate what I should be looking for.
Instead of putting up ads on CL for service (because it’s easier to find) I’m going to go back to putting up posts for things I’m really trying to experience.
MsS&S- Yeah I know, but it still kinda feels like I’m being greedy.
First, it seems perfectly fine and quite beneficial to grow more fond of something that is easier to come by.
Yes, it does seem more acutely obedient to do something you don’t get anything out of because your dominant has requested it. (It’s kinda hot, too.) It doesn’t seem like that works very well in large doses in a relationship, though.
I tend to think that service oriented people must get something out of serving, otherwise I doubt they’d do it much. They’re special because for them, that ‘something’ is something like the knowledge that they’ve improved someone else’s life, or the feedback and praise from that, or the opportunity to obey, or the feeling of being at a lower status–while others might want to provide service in exchange for the opportunity to crossdress, or to be spanked, or to sit at the feet of a pretty woman in boots.
So, maybe pleasing is a form of getting one’s rocks off, and maybe that’s what defines a service submissive. I certainly don’t see a problem with that. 🙂
Ok, bear with me, because I’m going to reference a Friends episode here. In the episode, Joey challenges Pheobe that there’s no such thing as a selfless good deed. Pheobe tries to perform good deeds, but she would always end up feeling good in the end. There’s nothing wrong with feeling good because you’ve helped someone. God, if people didn’t get that warm fuzzy feeling, who knows if we’d still bother trying to help people.
And be careful about dissecting your kink- you don’t want to drive yourself nuts!
These questions are pretty intense. And yet in some ways, I think they might be irrelevant. You *do* derive pleasure from service, and that’s erotic whether you’re in the nude or not, because it comes from eros or the pleasure drive.
Moreover, don’t forget that, like all binaries, D/s can deconstruct itself. It’s like Avah said; you’re not doing this out of self abnegation, so you’re not exactly in a one-down position. I wouldn’t say you’re “using” the other person, but if you want to assert service as a means of empowerment and control? Go for it. Because you’re right. For you, it seems to be.
I don’t have much experience with which to address many of your questions, but I’ll second Ms S&S – just because you are benefiting from your service doesn’t mean your using the person your serving. Its a mutual trade, really. You get your submissive needs met, and they get cleaning and chores done. I think, in the best case scenario, its a fair and even exchange of services.
A hopefully helpful example:
As a young Wendy, there was a boy I fancied at work. And I didn’t just fancy him, I wanted to submit to him. I wanted to roll over and bare my throat. I mean, I didn’t quite realize it at the time, but dude, I was 17.
It became a game wherein no one but Eric could get me to do something I didn’t want to do. He’d give me and order and a look, and I’d go do/stop doing whatever it was I was doing. I got my early submissive rocks off. Was I using him? I don’t think so. After all, he got something out of it too. I’d go do stuff, and I’m sure he was getting his unknown rocks off as well.
I have to join the chorus to add my brief analysis.
There’s little doubt in my mind that “service-oriented submissives” enjoy service simply because there is something about it that lets it get (one part of) their rocks off. I also think such service is easier to come by. Therefore, in isolation, these two facts only prove that “service submissives” like you enjoy it and such service is more easily available. In fact, I often envied submissives like you in the past because I thought, “damn, if only I really got off on service, I’d be able to find what I need so much easier!”
However, it does not logically follow that service-oriented submissives enjoy service only because it’s easy to find. Likewise, it doesn’t follow that because it’s easily available, its availability is not one reason why they might seek it out often.
In other words, I think service-oriented submissives enjoy service for service’s sake, and seek it out because it’s easy to find. I also believe that most service-oriented submissives do this unknowingly, without the self-awareness that they’re doing it.
I think that’s the worst thing about their service.
I don’t like service because I prefer interactions where the female partner is motivated by sexual desire. Men who want service always strike me as men who don’t want the woman to be turned on ’cause that would be icky; men who want the ice queen.
Is it service that is easier to find or women who want their lawns mowed rather than women who have connected with a dominant sexuality?
Having said all that, I am still mildly annoyed by the fact that Jack expects me to make my own tea.
Doesn’t everyone like making someone else feel better?
Sure D/s is sex and love. A very different form of performing sex and love to be sure. And most of us do want to please our lovers.
Even if it is in any sense a sort of compromise it is good that you’ve found a means to get part of your needs met. And will look good on your submissive’s c.v.
I too think of myself primarily as a service-oriented submissive male. Making the life of a [dominant] woman gives me tremendous satisfaction. Being in non-sexual service and assistance demonstrates my respect and hopefully is appreciated by those women who find such submissive men to be of value.
john
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