Handcuff's Half Hour - 30 shady minutes

This article was posted in the Swindon Coaching Team September Newsletter Swindon Coaching Team member David Rigby has been reading this summer’s best seller ‘Fifty shades of Grey’ (in the interests of psychological insight you understand!) and reflects ……..

As it’s the surprising best seller of all time, I felt obliged to read the book to find out what everyone’s talking about. Then it seemed an idea to review it from a man’s perspective. The main character, Grey, is a dominant, but has committed the biggest blunder of his hobby, falling for his submissive. It’s a great conversation topic, especially when talking to women, and I have been surprised by the number of people who will happily discuss the detail. I will never view a tie in the same way again! But the effect on me is to give a new light on relationships: dominance and submission. How many relationships work on the dominance and submission model? Where one is in charge and the other likes to be told? As a submissive, if you totally trust the person who is dominating, it can give you the courage to try out new experiences you may never have known abou,t let alone tried. But is it courage or is it fear? Are you forced into doing things – either in the bedroom or workplace because you like submission or in fact because your partner is dominant? I have come across people who claim to be submissive but actually are quite dominant in demanding dominance from their partner but only comply when it suits. Who is in control now? In particular who is the victim? Wanting to please someone is part of the submission role, Submission is not about being used, submission is about being of use. Submission is not about what is done to you. Submission is about what you do for others Submissives want to be of service to others, dominants just want to serve themselves. Who is better for society? Is being dominant part of insisting everything be done your way? Failure to be brought new experiences and fear of delegation and losing control? Do you need to be a tyrant to cover your inadequacies and fear of being found out? Loss of face and inability to change are common features. To parody Frank Sinatra ‘You did it my way’. Signs of inability to delegate too! If you chose to be in these roles and are happy in them, you may ask yourself why? As a dominant or submissive type you can feel like a victim. The important thing here is choice. The relationship can become that of victim and bully – not only an abuse of power but also of trust upon which the dominant/submissive relationship was based. The roles of bully/victim may be more familiar to us and can be equally painful and guilt-ridden. The difficult bit is breaking the cycle. Here’s the good bit – if any of this feels like your relationship you’ll find our coaches are the unshockable and non-judgemental ‘friend’ and confident who can help you gain control of your life again. Get in touch if you want to talk about aspects of relationships, be they personal or work based. David specialises in helping people make the right choices.