How to develop confidence as a Dom, Master, or Mistress? by Cowhideman
Someone asked:
The issue is I often get nervous to do certain acts etc. How do I gain more confidence to be the true mistress I wish to be?
I answered:
First thing to remember is that unless you say so, or unless you flinch, or unless you apologize, your partner has no clue what it is you intended to do. Yes, confidence comes from success, and success comes from getting it right, and getting it right comes from practice, and by definition, “practice” means, often, not getting it right.
What you can do is project confidence. Certainly, if you fuck up in such a way that an apology is appropriate, apologize promptly and sincerely. But if no harm was done, take a cue from a cat and act like, “I meant to do that.”
So, if you are feeling all dominant sitting in your Dominant chair and you accidentally order your girl to get the flogger instead of the paddle, do not say, “Oh, shit, damn, I meant the paddle. I’m so sorry, I fuck everything up. Please go get the paddle.” Instead, let her get the flogger and bring it to you. Then say, “Thank you. Well done. Now, put it back and bring me the vibrator and the lube.” Then say, “Thank you. Well done. Now, go and bring the paddle.”
When I was a senior midshipman at the Naval Academy, I once got my left and my right confused and nearly marched an entire company of first year students into the river. I managed to stop them with the front rank literally standing on the wall overlooking the river. Thinking fast, I said, “Now that I have your attention, we are going to march with the shorter people in front for the rest of the afternoon, so you tall people understand how hard it is to follow, and you shorter people understand how hard it is to set the pace. Now. ABOUT FACE.”
I got formal recognition for my creative training, and our company later won the competition for formal drill (marching well). After that, people were marching all over campus with their people reversed, in the way I had “pioneered.”
I have one friend who negotiated a scene where the sub was to let himself into the garage, close the door, and strip naked. He knew he’d see the guy drive up and hear the garage door. But he must have been in the bathroom at just the wrong moment, because when the sub was 45 minutes “late” he realize that the sub has parked too far to one side to be seen from the window and had been naked in the garage for nearly an hour. He said nothing and started the scene.
The sub later told him it was the hottest scene he’d ever had, because being alone, naked, in the dark for an hour had turned him on more than anything he’d ever done, and told everyone what a wonderfully sadistic Dom my friend was.
Those pauses and gaps that feel to you like “proof” that you have no clue what you are doing? To your sub, they feel like you deliciously stretching out the anticipation, unless you make it clear something else is going on.
Never fudge on safety. Never delay a needed apology. Everything else is attitude, and that’s open to “fake it until you make it.”