Expert: Robert Rubel - 1/9/2012

Question
QUESTION: hello mr. rubel,

My wife and i have recently decided to take our relationship into the direction of bdsm. she expressed this interest to me as a need to be submissive. I will admit i have always loved the idea of becoming what I have recently learned to be a dominant...and eventually a master. Please add me to your notification list as I am interested in attending some of you webinars and conferences in the future. thanks

ANSWER: Hi, Keith...

If you'll send me an email to PowerExchangeEditor@yahoo.com I'll send you a list of Internet and book resources that may help you.  So far as learning to be more dominant, I'd suggest that you obtain the book: The 48 Rules of Power by Green.  Also, search for books about becoming an Alpha male.

Once I have your regular email address, I'll add you to my notifications list.

Thanks for writing; I wish you a fulfilling future.

Bob

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I meant to ask you this in the first question and my apologies if your suggested references cover this. My first challenge is figuring out the things that she really likes. Our sex life has suffered a little because she likes certain things and she is the type of submissive that does not like to tell you or discuss what she likes because then she feels as if she is in power...ok so i experiment a little but every wrong move i make completely turns her off and undermines my efforts to assert myself as the dominant. she wants me to magically know what to do. Emotionally, this woman loves me to death but sexually we have this barrier. Any ideas of how to approach this.

Answer
First, either you are in charge or she is in charge.

If you are in charge and ask her to reveal what she likes and she declines to do that, you are not in charge.  There is a consequence to such insubordination.  First level might be a writing assignment: how is it that you are my submissive and you are refusing a  direct request?

To help you...

When you ask her for an answer, she has two possible replies...

"Sir, the answer is X"
"Sir, I don't know the answer and I will find out and tell you by T-time"

If you ask her to do something, she has three possible answers...

"Sir, yes, Sir"
"Sir, if it pleases you Sir" which is "Ugh, I don't want to do that but I will."
"Sir, ONLY if it pleases you, Sir" which is as close to "no" as she is allowed.  At this point, though, you have to look inward and ask yourself if your intention is that she learn something by making her push through what she does not want to do (which is okay) or whether you are about to force her to do something that YOU want but goes against her moral code or something similar.

Your governing credo is: "Master's wants cannot trump slave's needs."

I realize that you're doing D/s and not M/s, but this is the general gist of how power exchange relationships play out.

If she is refusing a direct request for information, you do not have a power exchange relationship and she is controlling you from the sub position.  This is referred to as: "topping from the bottom" and subs who do this are called SAMs (smart-assed masochists).

Your challenge is to find punishments that are severe enough that she realizes that you mean business.  

I strongly urge you to join www.FetLife.com  it's free and there are LOTS of Master/slave and Dom/sub groups on there that can give you lots of ideas for correcting your sub's attitude.

In Leather,

Bob