training

The topic of “training” was raised by Joscelin again the other night. The basic gist is that training is a very hot idea for him, central to his kink, perhaps, and though it is also hot for me, it’s not generally what I’m doing or trying to do with him, and that makes him insecure and worried.

This came up a long time ago and he backed off a little bit and I stepped up a little bit and I thought everything was going fine around the training idea, but he brought it up Sunday night with some angst. And the way the conversation went was that I gave him 12 entirely different answers about it, because, honestly, it’s a complex thing, and I have a lot of answers to give. So here are some of those answers.

A lot of my own fantasies revolve around training, but it doesn’t really appeal to me to be trained in real life, at least in any way that is serious at all. (I mean in a d/s context. I like learning things in general.) With Jos, it’s hot for me to talk about training him, but it’s not something I really maintain a focus on over time.

I worry that intentionally setting out to train him in some way would just lead to us spending more of our precious, limited time together doing things that had become obligatory rather than things we actually wanted to do in that moment.

Meanwhile, when Jos gets insecure about the training thing, and starts asking me about it a whole lot, including a lot during sex, I stop knowing what I think at all and it gets really difficult. I compared this to someone continually asking you if you really love them. After a while you start doubting whether you feel what they (apparently) need you to feel and after a while longer you don’t know what you feel at all.

Also, Jos tends to focus on training the inside of his head, if you will, perhaps because I don’t overtly train him to do anything, and I think inside-his-head training is not that interesting for me. (What I mean is, for instance, training him to accept my control over his orgasms, or training him to see his pleasure as secondary to mine.) I sort of prefer an idea like “you will do what I say and what’s inside your head is your own business.” I mean, as hot fantasy concepts [that may or may not work in reality] go, that one is hotter to me than the idea that I will take over his mind.

As for training him to do actual things, I worry that everything I would want to train him to do is probably a limit, or else would take more time than he is willing to put in, or is a misuse of my powers. There are ways I want to change him into someone he isn’t, and I don’t know how many of those desires are OK versus deeply dysfunctional in a way that d/s can’t help with. And I tend to be terrified to make these kinds of suggestions.

We did agree last night to get rid of our idea that we don’t use orgasm control for reward or punishment, which he remembers (probably correctly) as an early insistence of mine.

I do think his insecurity over his sexuality is a problem, and I want to tell him something that he once told me about different insecurities, namely, I see your sexuality as valuable and desirable, but if you don’t, that’s not a hole that I can fill. I think he should focus more on recognizing the value of his sexuality and not have that be dependent on my valuing of it.