Hi Alex,

I'm pulling one paragraph out of a long message you wrote in response to mine to comment on:

>>> However, I suspect one further motive is quite powerful in determining the popularity of this preference of subs for experienced doms and their dislike for inexperienced ones. It's a prejudice that I have often mentioned, a widespread assumption (that may have some sort of "statistical" basis, particularly as it has some "self-reinforcing prophecy" character, but is still unwarranted in many cases): that in BDSM, if there is learning and teaching growing on, it's the pitcher that's doing the teaching (or most of it), the catcher that's doing the learning. <<<

I heard a gay male top relate a story once about how he was instructed and even initiated into S&M by his partner of the time in a charming nonverbal manner. He was naturally toppish or dominant, and his partner sensed that and smacked him on the butt. He said, "Stop that! I really don't like it," and his partner promptly did it again. The top threatened, "If you do that one more time, I'm gonna whip your ass," and of course his partner did it and got the expected result. The soon-to-be top discovered, against his expectations, that he liked doing this stuff and his partner (who was actually an experienced bottom) continued after that time to teach him, mostly nonverbally, about S&M. That's the only story I've ever heard about a sub-bottom teaching a top-dom. That may or may not make the experience rare.

However, I think I understand the emotional roots of the assumption that the top-dom should do the teaching while the bottom-sub does the learning, at least in contexts where power exchange is important. It's the old "knowledge is power" thing, tof which experience gets associated with, I think. I can't speak for other subs, but if you were to line up a rogue's gallery of dominants in front of me and told me I had to pick one and that my decision was going to have permanent or long-term consequences, I'd try to pick the dominant who seemed the most intelligent across the board (IQ, emotionally, experientially), and I'd also try to pick someone who was smarter than me. Someone who's smarter than me in all or most of the ways you measure intelligence and someone who knows more than me is probably someone who'd be more likely to be able to dominate me than someone equally dominant but dumber. Why? Because I'd be able to outsmart the dumber one, manipulate him, trick him, wrap him 'round my little finger. And if I can do all of those things, I have the power, don't I? Just as I said in another thread that if I had a safe word I'd probably (over)use it, if I have more brains, I'm going to use them, as well. I can't just dumb myself down for someone: lose at chess or pretend to be dominated by someone who doesn't have the mental resources to do these things. It wouldn't feel like a real power exchange because I would be trying to be someone I'm not, I'd be faking it--pretending to him and to myself I wasn't smart enough to outfox him and snatch the power away, perhaps without his even noticing.

I've had this conversation with others before in email, but I thought it'd be interesting to see what the public reaction is. Is intelligence an essential part of dominance for people? If I try very hard, I can sort of imagine a Flowers for Algernon situation, where my dominant loses all his smarts but retains his dominant personality, and I try to imagine whether I would feel submissive or not in such a situation, and it's actually hard to do. I think not...but I'm not sure. I'm always craving that sensation of feeling small, feeling reduced, feeling lesser, Rosie instead of Rose and all of that, and I don't know if a partner less intelligent than I am could give me that.

To sort of bring this back to the original thread of your message, which was about the reasons for the allure of experience over inexperience in doms or tops, there's a relationship I've observed between intelligence and experience that might be pertinent: often, the more intelligent you are, the more you learn from your experience and the more you use or draw upon your experience in creative ways to deal with novel situations. Someone less intelligent with an equal amount of experience often exhibits less of a tendency to try to apply their experience to current situations, even if the situation is identical to one they've experienced before!

Perhaps what attracts me and some subs to experienced dominants is not their level of experience per se (again the example of poor Denis from BC and his 25 years of dominance comes to mind--g) but the ways they seem to use that experience to compound their natural abilities and competence. You know, I think that's about 50% of the sexual-attraction equation for me: someone who's intelligent enough to know how to use their experience. Another 25% of my equation is an awareness that they are doing so, self-methodology-knowledge? , and, of course, the confidence that brings. The final 25% is...

(oh, you have no idea how tempting it is to use that new trick Frenchy taught me and just write "[secret 25% of equation deleted]"--but I'm a good girl, so I won't give in to it, I won't, I won't, I won't--g)

...perversion of course: sick, twisted, sadistic pleasure at seeing someone squirm under your thumb in a thousand different ways.

Anyway! To get back on topic: the whole top-bottom spectrum which does not involve power exchange strikes me as a whole other ballpark when it comes to teaching and learning, however. In those situations, where the two people regard themselves as more or less equal in power, the image of the bottom teaching the top doesn't seem to me the least bit odd or disconcerting or undesirable. Although I've never experienced such a situation (and due to absolute indifference to BD or SM without DS probably never will--g) I can easily imagine myself, as an experienced pervert bottom, taking the teacher role, without emotional angst on my or my partner's side.