The Sacrifice of Control… (1-4) – Commentary

If you’ve read The Sacrifice of Control…, you’ve basically read the seed of everything I say later about Doms, Masters, and responsibility.

It’s a short piece, but it’s doing something important:

If submission is a gift,
then control has to be a sacrifice —
or the whole thing rots.

Submission as a gift (and not a discount code)

The opening line:

“If submission, in a dynamic, is considered a gift, then the responsibilities of the one in control should be considered the sacrifice.”

People love to say:

  • “submission is a gift”
  • “your submission is precious”
  • “a sub’s trust is everything”

Cool. Great. Yes.

But a lot of so-called “Doms” secretly treat that as:

  • gift = entitlement

as in:

“If you’re a sub, I’m owed your body, your time, your emotional labor, because that’s The Role™.”

This piece flips it:

  • If your submission is a gift,
  • then my control has to cost me something:
    • time
    • attention
    • responsibility
    • self-restraint

or I’m not actually holding you—I’m just collecting you.

Control as sacrifice

This line is the spine:

“the responsibilities of the one in control should be considered the sacrifice.”

Control isn’t:

  • “I get the final say at all times.”
  • “I get to do whatever I want to you.”

Control is:

  • “I’m volunteering to carry more weight than you in this specific context.”
  • “I’m choosing to be the one who stays conscious when you deliberately go soft.”

That’s why I say:

“Whether you are the one who gives submission or the one who takes control, the sanctity of another’s will… could be considered a beautiful sacrifice of freedom.”

  • The submissive sacrifices a certain kind of freedom:
    • the freedom to always choose alone,
    • the freedom to drift,
    • the freedom to stay unheld.
  • The Dominant sacrifices a different kind:
    • the freedom to ignore impact,
    • the freedom to disappear when it’s inconvenient,
    • the freedom to act like this is just “for fun” with no fallout.

If only one side is giving anything up, it’s not a dynamic—it’s extraction.

Entitlement = where it all breaks

This line is the warning label:

“If you step into this lifestyle with a sense of entitlement, based solely on how someone describes their role, that is where failure will happen — for both individuals.”

Translation:

  • If you see “sub” and think:

    “Perfect, built-in doormat.”

  • Or you see “Dom” and think:

    “Perfect, built-in life guru / therapist / ATM / god.”

…it’s already broken.

The piece is trying to get both sides to see the same thing:

“Your role gives you a direction, not a personality transplant.
Your behavior still has to be earned, chosen, and maintained.”

Subs aren’t upgraded service workers.

Doms aren’t upgraded customers.

Both are signing up to sacrifice something to build a third thing:
the dynamic.

How this fits the larger project

Later in Cycle II, when I talk about:

  • littles,
  • slaves,
  • Masters,
  • D/s “references,”
  • and people turning kink roles into purity tests—

this little piece is the quiet ancestor.

It’s the moment where I commit to this standard:

“If I’m the one holding control, I should feel that weight as a sacrifice, not a perk.”

If I accept your submission, I’m also accepting that my freedom shrinks:

  • less room to be careless,
  • less room to vanish,
  • less room to pretend “it was just a game.”

If this post landed for you as:

  • “Oh. My surrender is expensive.”

or

  • “Oh. My control should cost me something.”

then it did what it was supposed to do.

Everything else—collars, rituals, titles, rules—sits on top of this one idea:

Submission is a gift.
Control is a sacrifice.
If those two don’t balance, someone’s going to bleed for it.

Cycle I – Coming on Strong · 04 · Commentary (v1.00)

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