When we serve we are no longer submissive or Dominant, Master or slave, but we are a human serving another human, serving ourselves, and our chosen world.
I think that we get very distracted by what service is supposed to look like and what traits we are supposed to be showing during that service. There is a lot of rhetoric when it comes to what a Dominant (or submissive) is "supposed" to do, how they should look, how they should speak or command/receive commands. And of course, there is a lot of rhetoric on who should be "in service" and what that should look like.
This rhetoric in kink causes cognitive dissonance when we see a fairly mild-mannered looking person wearing regular clothes who is not at all surly, bossy, or intimidating who calls himself a Master. We also have some automatic responses when we see women who call themselves Masters, sometimes merely for the fact that they are women and possibly not overly-sexualized. We also have this dissonance when we see a sub/slave who is powerful, unapologetically direct in speech and demeanor, and who does not immediately take on a submissive role when in the presence of a Dominant.
To further complicate the matter, when we dive into the realm of SM, we find that there are Dominants who enjoy receiving pain/play and submissives who enjoy being sadists and giving pain/play. I have often heard Dominants who say with derision, "I don't bottom," as if this were the most demeaning thing they can think of enduring. It's not so much a person's decision that they don't enjoy bottoming that I take offense to, it is the implication that one cannot be dominant and bottom and that bottoming is somehow only done by those who are "less than."
Although it is helpful to have broad categories which are useful to talk about how we enjoy being in the world, I would like to suggest that we move more quickly into the realm of specifics with people so that we can see each other as the incredibly complicated creatures that we are.
It does not serve us to maintain stereotypical notions of who we should be and what we should want, because that keeps us from having real relationships with real people. And it also keeps us from getting what we truly want and need from our lives. What is the point of breaking chains of vanilla convention if you are then bound by no less restrictive conventions of the kink world?
What I would like is for us to widen the paradigms we use. We all know the phrase "in service." I suggest that it would be of more use if we applied it to all of our relationships, regardless of our D/s or M/s status. Therefore, I am suggesting that we use the three goals of service which follow to start widening our perspective.
The first goal is service to ourselves. We must put energy and focus on pursuing self-actualization and caring for ourselves and our overall health. As Princess Bride's Count Rugen says, "If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything." If we are not taking care of ourselves, we will not have a renewable resource to give to others. If we do not become what is our highest potential, then we are not fulfilling what we are on this earth to do/be. What amazing things could you do if you were accessing all of yourself and your skills/abilities?
The second goal is service to another human. We look for those things which our chosen "other(s)" need/desire and we see how we are best suited to helping them attain that which they seek. We also see how they might help us meet our own needs as well. We often look for that sort of one-to-one reciprocity first and judge how well we are suited for a relationship based on our answers to those questions.
This is possibly where the Dominant or submissive tendencies can help us, as sometimes what our other needs only one fulfilling a dominant/submissive role can give. This is like the right tool for the job; you wouldn't use a screwdriver if you needed to dig a grave. The problem arises if we start making judgments on what it means to give specific types of service to another. If I am functioning as a Dominant, but I need someone who is physically or intellectually strong to achieve my goals, I don't believe I am less dominant for this, nor is the other person less submissive because they are powerful in my service.
An added element to remember is that we all have EVERY facet included within us. Sometimes we polish up one facet more than others or prefer to exist within a singular facet as a comfort zone. But this does not mean that we do not have the possibility of all things still inside of us. And often helping our "other" calls us to develop those facets which we have not yet explored and we are able to grow through our service.
The third goal is service to our chosen world. We all put energy into a world in which we want to live. Many people do not realize the power their service has to change their surroundings. However if we study history, we see people or groups of people who have transformed their surroundings simply because they were unsatisfied by what they had, could envision something else, and had the ability to implement that vision (usually with the help of other people with whom they shared that vision).
Whatever world we chose, we serve. Sometimes we accept the world others have chosen, and our energy or our apathy serves to continue that world. Sometimes we choose otherwise. But in the end, everyone is given the ability to choose.
I think if we can clarify for ourselves what our service is on all three levels, then we can know if other people can be helpful to us or we can be helpful to other people. And whatever our service looks like, it is still service. However we get our needs met, we are still getting our needs met. Whatever we name ourselves, however we identify, we are still utterly complex and wonderful. We can choose not to serve or to serve.
And once we have chosen to serve freely, then we can choose to whom/what/how we will be applying our power.
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