I've been thinking about the many times I've been approached by someone and told one or both of my Ladies have misbehaved in some fashion, or didn't behave as "Slaves" or "Submissives". The irony is I've also on a regular basis gotten comments on how perfectly they've behaved, and how submissive they are. I suppose it does seem an odd paradox at first, but the reality is actually very simple. They choose to obey. They are never forced to.
I've never really found a need for formal, intentional punishments. Successful relationships aren't based on punishment and reward, they are based on mutual respect and in adopting the role within the relationship you want to fulfill. That said, I've never pussy-footed around about whether I was satisfied with a specific behaviour or not. I can clearly remember having one of the Ladies approach me after the other had made a pretty glaring error and been told I wanted the task completely redone. I wasn't cruel, or rude, or even angry. This was an unusual situation, I didn't feel the failure was intentional, and I didn't assign any punishment other than doing the task correctly and never intended to. I also was not at all flexible. It wasn't good enough, it wasn't right, and it needed to be redone. This failure and my recognition of it left the Lady that had made the mistake a little depressed. Her sister seemed to think I should feel badly about that and cut her some slack. My response was "She let me down, she SHOULD be upset. If I'd let her down, I'D be upset. Isn't that how it's supposed to be?" I'm not certain she agreed, but no more was said.
Another time, the sister had not met the standard. This was pretty early in our relationship, and she basically said she felt it didn't matter how hard she tried, that nothing she did was ever good enough, so maybe she should just leave. My response was to point out to her that in our case "Good enough" had clearly been defined before she started. The standards had not wavered at all. They had not changed in any way. In this specific instance I had repeated what I expected to her three times. She had agreed to do it each time. She had not gotten it correctly done. I told her if she wanted to leave, that was certainly her prerogative, but I wasn't going to coddle her by pretending she had met the standard when she hadn't, and I wasn't lowering my standard. Obviously since we're still together she tried again, and this time succeeded. She's even come to me since and thanked me for being so hard on her in the beginning, because now she realizes she was capable of better, and just not willing to put in the effort until I insisted.
In fact they are each tough, brilliant, dedicated, loving, and loyal to the core. When I get a complaint about the behaviour of either of them, I usually listen. But the truth is it's usually a matter of some individual that doesn't even know us trying to apply his standards to the Ladies, and expecting I'll simply agree either as a courtesy or because it's some version of a standard within a style we don't adhere to (Think Gorean, for just one example).
The reality is that if the Ladies don't respect someone in fact, they aren't going to respect that person in action. And if that person thinks I will simply "Order" them to pretend to respect them, or to aquiesce to them out of respect for me, or some supposed D/s "Tradition", or some other silly, intangible, fantasy reason then they are in for a rude awakening. Further, trying to manipulate me into forcing the Ladies to do something just to prove I can is only going to result in me losing all respect for that person as well. Now the Ladies don't respect the complaining party, and I don't either.
In fact I'm quite certain the Ladies would do any number of degrading, debasing things, either sexual or not, to please me if I asked them to. But the thing is, I value and respect them far far far too much to play such a silly, moronic game. I simply get absolutely nothing out of that kind of activity in "Real life", and very little in "Scene play" situations. Now in play I can kind of understand it. I mean people like all kinds of different things. And if the a Lady likes a particular thing, I like to do that thing to some extent just because I like to see her slipping into her happy place from what I'm doing. But I've seen so-called "Dominants" require things just to prove their submissive would do it if ordered to. And I've seen the submissive do it, while giving off an aura of being totally horrified by the act. I can't fathom how that submissive has any respect for that dominant after the dominant has been so blatantly and easily manipulated into some action they otherwise wouldn't have taken, especially since the act basically gained neither party anything. I mean I just don't get that.
To my mind it comes down to respect. Yes, simple RESPECT for your submissive, or slave, or dirty little bitch, or whatever you call her in your personal dynamic. My dynamic happens to involve respect for my loving partners, but even if we are discussing one of those relationships where the submissive is nothing more than a thing to be used, the dominant partner should respect that. We should all respect even the THINGS in our lives, at least if we want them to be around for long. I don't care if it's your dog, your classic car, or your refrgerator, if you treat it with disdain, a lack of attention, and begin to take it for granted and offer it no maintenance then that thing will immediately start to deteriorate. It seems blatantly obvious to me that no matter what the dynamic of a relationship, mutual respect is critical to the continued success of the relationship. I would suggest that anyone that claims to be dominant but feels respecting their submissive somehow diminishes that dominance, isn't actually dominant at all.
