A teaching moment, collar of consideration and/or expression of consideration.

Image credits: Unknown

I recently came across a random post that caused a thought chain to get going in my mind that lead back to some lifestyle information I hadn’t explored in a while. I very rarely see anyone talking about giving someone a collar of consideration, which I don’t find quite that odd. But in this tumblr world where there is a lot of importance put on claiming another person on someone’s blog in some way it perplexes me that I don’t see any headers from Dominants that say “LilMissKittyPants is under consideration,” nor do I see any headers from submissives that say “Under SirMcColdShoulder’s consideration.” At some point that was a big deal in the D/s lifestyle. So for those of you not familiar with it who were looking to expand their knowledge base here it is a short primer. 

A collar of consideration is a collar presented to a submissive by the Dominant that signifies that said Dominant has taken a serious interest in said submissive, she has accepted and reciprocated this interest in a formal way. It’s a sign in lifestyler circles and the Greater D/s community as a whole, assuming the Dominant and submissive in this example are non-polyamorous, that other respectful/proper Dominants should not pursue the submissive and a sign that respectful/proper submissive’s shouldn’t approach the Dominant without offering some sort of sincere respect to the submissive. In D/s as a relationship cycle they are becoming more formal. More closed off and starting to move more as one entity. It’s a way of signaling to the community that they want time to come together without outside interruption to explore and see if they fit together. For most M/s dynamics and also some D/s dynamics it signals they are actively engaged in some form of training. That can obviously mean play. But it can also mean there is some formal assignment of tasks (journaling for example) designed to get to know the submissive and through exploration allows the submissive to get to know the Dominant. In a very practical sense it states to the surrounding community that boundaries and acceptable conduct with the way others interact with either party will most likely change. In a personal sense it tells the submissive from the Dominant’s side “you’re important to me” and acceptance signals to the Dominant from the submissive’s side “you’re important to me too.” If this collar of consideration never materializes into a proper collar or formal dynamic no hard feelings should be had, ideally. Because traditional D/s and M/s slave is a dance based on respect and formal conduct. Each gave the other the respect to focus on them for a bracket of time to learn them with no distraction for a length of time. That alone is a beautiful experience.