Dealing with limit failures

Greetings all,

I was asked the other day about how a submissive should deal with failure. Upon further questioning it became clear that in this case it was not a failure in performance of task or discipline (which can be easily handled through punishment/forgiveness) but rather a failure in ability, in this case the ability to handle the pain that she was feeling at the hands of her dominant partner.

She had to ask him to stop what he was doing, because she was simply to uncomfortable and in too much pain to continue.

Now to most of us this doesn't appear to be a problem. After all, when a limit is reached it makes sense to stop. But for the deeply submissive female this is not so cut and dry. After all, it is their nature to want to be pleasing. This very much includes being able to offer their dominant all the pleasures he desires. Not being able to do so is therefore seen as a failure. IOW - she feels that she wasn't good enough to satisfy her partner. No amount of punishment will correct this state of mind. Even her partner saying that he didn't mind, will not help re-balance the girl. In her own mind she has decided that she has been a failure. Therefore she is the only one who can forgive herself and move on.

But how can she do this thing?

The first idea that suggests itself is logical rationale thinking. It makes sense that all people have limits. It makes sense that everyone has their own threshold of pain. It makes sense that there are certain things that some people simply cannot do. For example, I know one girl (an extreme masochist) who loves the idea of being sutured, either at the mouth or the cunt. She also has fantasies of nails being used to pin her to a board. Does this mean that other girls should think of themselves as a failure simply because they could not handle such sensations? Hardly. Therefore, one can conclude that one one is not a failure simply because one has reached a limit.

Sadly, I do not think that the logical argument works well. For the female submissive the need to serve runs far below logical thought. Their need to serve often goes beyond the borders of rationale thinking. So, trying to solve thisdilemma via deductive logic probably won't do.

Another option might be via a self-imposed act of contrition. Even though they have not been punished they may choose to make some act of punishment and offer it to their dominant as a way of asking for forgiveness. The problem with this is twofold. First, the dominant partner may not really understand what is going on, since from theirpov nothing is wrong. Secondly, it is not the forgiveness of their partner that they need, but rather they must forgive themselves.

My suggestion is that they make sure this really is a limit, and having discovered that it is, they determine how they are going to deal with it. What I mean is that they test this limit more than once, until they are really sure it is real, and not something brought about by fear or circumstances. After all, the failure may have been caused by the current situation, not anything that is permanent. Perhaps there is a way for them to break through their limit. After all, people do this all the time in many area of training (i.e. the concept of "personal best"). Why not in BDSM play as well?

Still, regardless of how many times they try it may simply not be possible for them to push past the limit. When this happens, the only solution I can see is discussion with one's partner and a determination of what can be done. In some cases, if it is not that big a deal for the dominant partner, perhaps they simply decide not to experiment in that particular area. If the dominant partner really wishes to explore this area, perhaps asurrogate can be found who could be used instead. While not fully open, the BDSM community tends to be a lot more open than the vanilla world when it comes to the sharing of partners. Or perhaps the submissive can find an alternativeactivity that would be just as pleasing to her dominant.

The key, imo, is not to allow the matter to fester inside. It must be brought, examined, and dealt with. Otherwise the submissive will start getting into a head space of constant "not good enough" and be unable to perform well at all.

Dominants should always be on the lookout for signs of this going on. Remember, submissive require maintenance.

Be seeing you,