My post from last week entitled Mood Killer triggered some thoughtful comments on the subject of feedback after sessions. It’s an interesting topic that rarely seems to get discussed. Pro-domme websites will often feature lots of positive comments and praise from grateful clients. Femdom sites will host review forums of highly variable quality and value. Yet it’s very rare to see feedback built into the 1 on 1 scene negotiation process. I’ve done a fair number of sessions over the years with different dommes. In all that time I think I’ve been explicitly asked for feedback just twice.
I should make it clear that my thoughts in this post are primarily about professional domination. The lifestyle dynamic, where kink is just a part of a bigger relationship picture, is obviously very different. In that case the motivation for working through issues and trying to solve mismatched desires via feedback is obviously much higher than a purely kink focused professional relationship.
My default approach when I’m playing with someone new and the scene doesn’t click is simply to not see them again. With little invested on either side, walking away is the obvious answer. I think volunteering feedback in that situation would be as pointless as writing feedback after a failed first date. Nobody needs that kind of nonsense in their life. Chalk it up to experience and move on.
It’s trickier with someone where I do feel a spark, but some parts of our scenes don’t quite work. Even with someone I know very well, I’m very reluctant to give negative feedback after a scene. However, there are a few approaches that I think work pretty well in these situations.
Emphasize the positive. This is an obvious move. Emphasize the bits you really enjoyed and make them a focus of your next pre-scene discussion.
Avoid pink elephants. This is the flipside to the above. I’ve found it’s better to totally avoid vaguely negative things in pre-scene discussion. Saying X didn’t really work last time or you’re not fond of Y makes some dommes instantly start thinking about they could fix that problem for you. Now they want to try them! You’ve mentioned the pink elephant and they can’t stop thinking about it.
Use your limits. There’s no reason to have the same set of limits for everyone you play with. They’re a function of trust and negotiation between two people, not a global declaration of your submissive capabilities. Make an activity a limit if it’s really not working for you. This is different to a pink elephant because you’re putting something very clearly out of scope rather than making it sound like a problem to be fixed.
Optimize for the dynamic. It can be tempting to focus on a favorite activity or kinky desire of the moment, but I often find it’s better to go with what works well for the two of you. Better to have an amazing spin on your 2nd favorite thing rather than an average one on your 1st.
Take a hint. Sometimes, despite using all of the above approaches, I’ll still find a domme repeatedly comes back to something that doesn’t really work for me. It might be an emotional response, an activity, an attitude or even just a practical thing around scheduling. Whatever it is, I’ve found the trick is to either make peace with it or walk away. If you’re getting frustrated by a predictable thing, then you can only blame yourself.
When it comes to dommes providing feedback to submissives the options are a little broader. Here’s one who looks pretty happy with the feedback she’s about to deliver. Hopefully he’ll take it in the constructive way it’s intended.
I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for this image. As usual, if you can help me out with that then please let me know via a comment.
Actually, my very first domme, who was the only domme I saw at all, for many years, had a feedback form that she insisted on my filling out at the end of each session. It was quite formal: there was a photocopied thing and while I was putting my clothes on, she’d go through ticking the activities we had actually done and adding any specifics (so it might have a category ‘role play’ and she’d add something like ‘schoolboy session with tawse’ or some such). Then she would hand it to me and I would go through scoring boxes with comments.
I’d assumed all dommes did that… I suppose she was just very focused! As she has continued to be – she is retired now and has a vanilla career, so has vanished from the Internet.
The advantage of the written feedback for me was that I’d be rather tongue-tied post-session and very reluctant to criticise anything, but could give something – say – 4/10 (especially if I reinforce the point by giving everything else 8 – 11) in written feedback, then hand it back.
I also always send a thank-you email when I get home, because I was brought up to be polite! I hope they like it – most dommes seem to apreciate it. If I do experience anything I didn’t like, I sometimes try to work some vaguely worded sugestion about that into it, but I go through agonies trying to word it within the overall delighted appreciation, so it’s usually too subtle. I imagine I should speak up more explicitly and I do realise they’d appreciate that too, but it just doesn’t suit my persona in or even out of session – but especially the former – to criticise goddesses.
Fortunately, I have now found one who is truly perfect, so that’s all right.
That’s fascinating. I’ve never heard of a domme having a specific feedback form before. That is very focused. Good attention to detail.
I think I’d find it pretty odd to provide feedback immediately afterwards, even in written form. I always want to ponder and think through feedback in normal circumstances, let alone when I’m buzzed and spacey post-scene. Although I can see how using it to emphasize what were the great parts and call out the odd miss might work.
Like you I tend to agonize over the exact wording in emails for far too long. Both for setting up a session and after the fact. I’m guessing that the few sentences I’ve spent hours on get flipped past on the domme’s phone screen while she’s standing inline waiting for coffee 90% of the time. But we can’t help the way we’re wired.
Glad you’ve ultimately arrived at perfection!
-paltego
I session when I travel, either on vacation or business, so I’ve seen a lot of Dommes over the years. I’d estimate at least 90% of the sessions were good to great. But if you see enough Dommes that are new to you you’ll have some disappointments. If I enjoyed the session, I always send a thank you email and mention a few of the things that we did that worked well for me or that they were particularly good at, even if it didn’t exactly float my boat.
If it was one of the 10% I just let it go and send nothing.
Makes sense. I’m kind of the same way. 10% is a pretty good miss rate though. As I posted a few months back, I’d say I’m roughly a third each on the splits of Awesome / Dynamic has Potential / Didn’t work for me.
If I’m travelling and I think it’s someone there’s a chance I’ll want to see again, I almost always send some sort of note and a thank you. In my home base of Seattle I’ll normally combine the thank you with my next session schedule request.
I don’t know who the photo is, but it kind of reminds me of Mistress Alex from NYC. She’s now doing other things, but she was active before 2015 I’d guess, and was very prominent and public in NYC.
Something about the photo reminds me of her.
I know nothing of Mistress Alex from NYC (I am sure I would have liked to, when she was doing this thing rather than other things) but I immediately assumed that photo was British. There’s a whole stable of movies, featuring rather hard ‘brassy’ ladies, typically chastising one of a small group of (to my mind, I’ll confess, rather irritating) Northern blokes. Montrose Academy and suchlike. It just has that vibe.
This kind of thing. In fact, in the welcome screen here, the lady second from the right, top row? https://www.strictmiss.com/home.php.
It does have that look to it. I wouldn’t swear that it’s the lady you pointed out, but she’s definitely a possibility. I’ll hunt around a bit more if I get the time.
Thanks,
-paltego
I do see the resemblance but I don’t think it is her. I’ve featured her a number of times over the years (for example http://www.femdom-resource.com/2012/04/23/on-the-cusp/ ) and shape of face and hair seem different.
It’s a lasting regret of mine that I never had the chance to session with her. She’s seems like a very smart and creative person., and created some great photographs
Cheers,
-paltego
You also featured her on October 4, 2012.
True!
And January 2013 – http://www.femdom-resource.com/2013/01/15/printing-your-own-toys/
And Feb 2013 – http://www.femdom-resource.com/2013/02/09/leash-laws/
And Aprol 2014 – http://www.femdom-resource.com/2014/04/25/enjoying-the-sights/
Hadn’t realized quite how many posts it was. I was obviously quite smitten with Mistress Alex :-). Or, at the very least, the visually striking photographs she shared.
-paltego