When It’s Time To Change The Rules…

I recently replied to a question about when and how it’s ok to re-write one’s own Rules as a Dom/me. As I sincerely believe that we as Dom/mes are in fact ARTISTS, my answer is whole-heartedly in support of treating one’s own Rules as an ever-growing expression of oneself, one’s needs, and one’s current goals. Keeping one’s Rules and Protocols fresh and utilitarian, while remaining flexible in one’s thinking allows the Dom to grow and evolve themselves. Foundations and Traditions are awesome, but we live in a modern and ever-changing world. In this lesson I explain how being able to adjust one’s Rules and Protocols to make them as useful as possible is worth its weight in gold, and you as a Dom/me will evolve alongside this process while being perfectly able to remain True to Yourself and Your Style. 🙂

Enjoy.

I can definitely say that I have literally re-written my rules several times over the years. As we grow as Dom/mes, its quite common to find that a Rule written with all earnestness at an earlier stage of our own development suddenly becomes too limiting a Rule when we finally arrive in a Master-slave relationship with serious Depth. Rules that seemed brilliant at the time, covering topics that needed absolute clarification and written with all good will and positive intent, might become stale or even ineffective over the years as the Dom/mes own understanding of the D/s process grows, the slave’s inner workings evolve, and your own personal needs change and expand.

NEVER be afraid to re-write a Rule that has become stale; Or perhaps a MUCH better way to say this is that as a Dom you should never be afraid to “UPGRADE” yourself and your Rules.

Example from my own Rules: I have a system of hand signals that a slave could use when I am lecturing them to reflect how much information they are really absorbing or if I am overloading them (thus insuring my time and effort is well placed). I recently realized that my slaves almost NEVER use that system because it was overly complicated. The core need is still valid however, so I re-wrote that Rule / protocol to be more focused, easier to do, and simpler to understand, while doing away with the presumption of difficulty on the part of the slave that only made it unnecessarily complicated.

Another example: I have a unique “Safeword” at The Crow Academy that is specifically meant to be used when a command I give conflicts unbeknownst to me with my slave’s career. One day it became apparent that a whole new paragraph needed to be added to that Rule / Safeword to describe when that particular Safeword CANNOT be used, as it happened on more than one occasion that a past slave attempted to use that unique Safeword as a way to get out of being corrected for intentional misbehavior. It became apparent that rather than calling it a proper Safeword (an absolute which dictates a clear Limit), I needed to downgrade that Safeword to be redefined as a “Request” that could be approved or rejected by the Dominant based on the merit and specifics surrounding the Request. As such, using this Request would also require a convincing explanation from the slave before I would approve it.

At other times, during my own evolution as a Dom, I have had wonderfully well-meaning slaves bring up points that I had totally overlooked amongst my Protocols, and so I needed to codify how a set of overlooked-but-highly-desirable behaviors could fit into the current Protocols.

Example: A few slaves indicated that they felt limited in their ability to express joyous, ebullient, positive, spontaneous energy and affection – i.e. jump my bones – because they did not wish to “break etiquette” due to my style tending to emphasize High Protocol. Because I DO want my slave/s to feel good about expressing such positive energy and make it clear that in most cases I will approve, I proceeded to write a small treatise on when such expressions are in fact perfectly fine, which turned out to be much more often than the slave/s realized. This put the slave’s mind at ease and made it clear that I do indeed respect and appreciate such positive expression on their part. I already knew I felt that way all the time, but the slave/s needed it written down so they could clearly have a definition that gave the “OK” to when & where their emotional, spontaneous need to express affection was just fine. In short, the new written Rule allowed them to feel safe they that were not breaking a Protocol. It took me a few years to realize this actually needed to be written down as it seemed obvious and intuitive to me, but it turned out that it was not as obvious to the slave/s.

We as Dom/mes Grow and Evolve as a Species. There is NO Upper Limit to how much we can evolve as Dom/mes right alongside our slaves evolving in their own ways. NEVER be afraid to Upgrade your rules to really fit what your current life needs are at the time. NEVER feel that just because someone else has a rule that has lasted 20 years that you need to follow the exact same rule even when it feels out of place for you. ALWAYS feel that you can modify, spin, adjust, tinker with, and re-write ANY RULE YOU PLEASE if you feel strongly that it needs a revision. Remember the ultimate goal is Happiness in your D/s Relationship.

You as a Dom/me are a living, breathing, evolving creature, and you will change. Your needs will change. D/s and M/s are ART FORMS and they are growing, changing expressions of who you are. All artists change and grow. At any time you can change your paint-brushes, change your instrument, change your palette and try new things. Some changes will work well, some will soon prove to be erroneous, and some changes will make you feel like you just grew wings by way of how flawlessly they work and you cannot believe you never thought of that / tried that before.

Be thankful that there are so many STYLES of D/s and M/s because that means that you can always learn a new trick from someone else’s style. You try it – if it works well you keep it, and if it’s a bad fit you toss it. If it seems applicable but needs tinkering then you adjust it to better suit you and Your Style personally. Be flexible in your thinking.

Above all Know Your own Hard Limits as a Dominant when you are in a state of Perfect Calm, as that is when you will know if a new or revised rule really sits well inside of you. 🙂

For more on Knowing Your Hard & Soft Limits Click Here.

For more on The Hard Limits of The Dominant Click Here.

Best,
— Arcane