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10  things a Dom expects a sub to know without being told

1. He needs to be the priority. Make him your priority regardless of how horny you are. A true Dom/sub relationship extends beyond sex into all other aspects of the partnership.

2. He has emotions and needs them acknowledged. The internet (and Tumblr is especially egregious in this regard) has created the toxic stereotype of the Dominant as this calm, cold, unemotional Olympian figure who is always as in charge of himself as he is of his submissive. Accept that your Dominant is human, and it is only normal, and that he will occasionally have a moment of weakness, or self-doubt, or — horrors! — shedding a tear.

3. Know him better than others. If your Dominant is having emotional difficulties, or even something as “insignificant” as a bad day at work, you should be sensitive to that, just as he needs to do likewise for you. It’s a mutually-caring relationship after all.

4. Let him control things (including you). That is his responsibility. Yours is to obey.

5. Abide by the rules. Your Dominant constructs various rules, tasks, rituals, etc, for a purpose. That purpose may not always be obvious to you. It doesn’t have to be. Trust that he knows what he’s doing. If you’re not willing to put in the work, then you should do some soul-searching and evaluate how deep (or even genuine) your submission really is.

6. Remember that he is yours. This is always reciprocal. Just as he expects your total devotion and commitment and fidelity, you have the right to expect those things from him. To be clear, this is not the same as taking your Dominant for granted. Just as he has to earn those things from you every day, so you also have to earn them from him every day.

7. Appreciate the work he puts into you, and let him know that you appreciate it. Being a dominant (especially in a day-to-day rather than sporadic relationship) is hard work. Let him know how much it means to you that he considers you worthy of all that work and direction and energy.

8. Be mindful of your respective positions in the D/s relationship. He is your Dominant. Can you be affectionately playful and impish? Yes; any Dominant who doesn’t  relish such from his submissive on occasion has some significant self-confidence issues. Sarcastic or willfully bratty? No way.

9. Give the same respect you get. If he shows you that, despite the way your relationship might look to the vanillas, he holds you in the highest respect, then return that  respect. If you come to the conclusion that he does not hold you in the highest respect, you might want to reevaluate your relationship and possibly move on.

10. Above all else: he expects your submission to be whole and complete and without reservation, save for those things that the two of you negotiate as equals before you offer him your submission (and renegotiate from time to time as the relationship evolves). You don’t get to submit just when you’re in the mood. There are no half-measures.

And on the flipside

10 things a sub expects a Dom to know…without being told

1. She needs to be the priority. She doesn’t want to compete with others. If every woman is hot, she’ll find it hard to stand out….and she needs to stand out.

2. She has emotions and needs them acknowledged. Probably more than you bargained for.

3. She needs you to know her better than others do….if her friends notice she was in a slump, you should notice first.

4. There are some things some of us just can’t physically do…don’t expect her to do something just because your last sub could or you’ve seen another sub do it. Not every sub can take a dick all the way down her throat.

5. Don’t compare her. She’s her own individual. She’s unique. That’s probably why you chose her in the first place. She may not be the hottest sub or have pics of her pink parts spread out for the world to see. But she goes out of her way to be the best in your eyes. Show her that she is.

6. Let her control things. ( wait, don’t let your heads explode here). If you’ve delegated certain chores to her…give her the control to do them. If they are getting done, does it really matter that they weren’t done in the exact way you would’ve done them?

7. Enforce the rules. All the time. Not just when it makes you feel Domly. After all, she’s in this D/s relationship because she needs the structure of the rules. She might sigh or grumble… but rules are partly why she’s here.

8. Remind her she’s yours. Every day. Even if you haven’t collared her, she’s given herself to you. She wants to hear and see that you own her. (Example: a hand full of hair while firmly kissing her will remind her of that…and get her wet in the process ;). )

9. Appreciate the submission she gives you. It takes more for some to submit than just the act of doing what they are told. She might find that she has to submit herself every day.

10. Be hers. Just as she is yours. Let her know that you aren’t just a Dom…you are HER Dom.

A team of researchers from Tübingen and Israel uncovers how brain structures can maintain function and stable dynamics even in unusual conditions. Their results might lay the foundations for better understanding and treating conditions like epilepsy and autism.

The neurons in our brains are connected with each other, forming small functional units called neural circuits. A neuron that is connected to another one via a synapsis can transmit information to the second neuron by sending a signal. This, in turn, might prompt the second neuron to transmit a signal to other neurons in the neural circuit. If that happens, the first neuron is likely an excitatory neuron: one that prompts other neurons to fire. But neurons with the exact opposite task are equally important to the functionality of our brain: inhibitory neurons, which make it less likely that the neurons they are connected to send a signal to others.

The interplay of excitation and inhibition is crucial for normal functionality of neural networks. Its dysregulation has been linked to many neurological and psychiatric disorders, including epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, and autism spectrum disorders.

From cell cultures in the lab…

Interestingly, the share of inhibitory neurons among all neurons in various brain structures (like the neocortex or the hippocampus) remains fixed throughout the lifetime of an individual at 15 to 30 percent. “This prompted our curiosity: how important is this particular proportion?”, recalls Anna Levina, a researcher at Tübingen University and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. “Can neural circuits with a different proportion of excitatory and inhibitory neurons still function normally?” Her collaborators from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot (Israel) designed a novel experiment that would allow to answer these questions. They grew cultures that contained different, even extreme ratios of excitatory and inhibitory neurons.

The scientists then measured the activity of these artificially designed brain tissues. “We were surprised that networks with various ratios of excitatory and inhibitory neurons remained active, even when these ratios were very far from natural conditions”, explains Levina’s PhD student Oleg Vinogradov. “Their activity does not change dramatically, as long as the share of inhibitory neurons stays somewhere in the range of 10 to 90 percent.” It seems that the neural structures have a way of compensating for their unusual composition to remain stable and functional.

…to a theoretical understanding

So naturally the researchers asked next: what mechanism allow the brain tissue to adjust to these different conditions? The researchers theorized that the networks adapt by adjusting the number of connections: If there few inhibitory neurons, they have to take on a bigger role by building more synapses with the other neurons. Conversely, if the share of inhibitory neurons is large, the excitatory neurons have to make up for this by establishing more connections.