A Pet Peeve

There's a lot of things that annoy me about "the community," mostly the "online community." It's anything but one big happy family.

One thing that galls me to no end is the people who think that those of us who participate in power exchange relationships have "better" relationships than "vanillas." (Holy cow on the quotation today Kiana.)

More trust is not needed in D/s.
The relationships are not deeper or more understanding.
Power exchange does not necessarily make people closer to each other.
Your love is not more profound, more powerful, more lasting, more anything just because one person controls the other in some negotiated way.

A relationship is a relationship is a relationship. It can only be what two people put into it, whether they be vanilla, hokey pokey (go NZ reference no one else will understand), or double dutch chocolate. (Incidentally, Annie Anatomy has a good post about that one over here.)

In any intimate long term relationship both people allow the other into their vulnerabilities. Trust someone with things the rest of the world doesn't get to see. Whether that is submission, a secret and personally shameful obsession with anime, an insecurity over one's driving ability....it could literally be anything. The trust it takes to show that to another person is not any different because it is kinked and/or sexual.

Trust, intimacy, communication, honesty, love. All of these things are needed for a relationship to succeed. Any relationship, power exchange or not. And I think anyone who deludes themselves into believing they are somehow a more evolved human being (which is what they are really trying to say) by participating in something as fantasy induced as D/s needs to get off their twoo pedestal and find their way back to real life.