The are two ways that domination can be expressed that can look very similar and yet be very different:

Leadership (for lack of a better term): “Do what I say”

Hierarchy: “I am above you”

(He had a third type that usually isn’t part of the femdom dynamics I’ve seen so I’m skipping it for this writing).

He broke these down into a lot more detail but at the base level, these two styles are quite different. For example, if we are talking about the queen, her position is externally imposed. She does not need to “prove herself”. She just is the queen. She has people who serve her because she is the queen. She is not telling people what to do to meet her needs. In fact, there is an expectation of anticipatory service. Hierarchy is expressed with a lack of social niceties, lack of vulnerability, lack of eye contact, concise verbal tone, physical posturing, with an expectation of privilege differences. By contrast, the leadership style is more about giving direction, organizing, supervision, controlling resources, and telling people what to do. It is a position that requires a level of respect and is an earned post.

So, imagine you are at a femdom party and you see lots of people acting out their Ds relationships. Some are following carefully laid out instructions and others may be providing anticipatory service. They may be doing what appears to be the same things. However, some are being watched and graded on how they are doing, and the others are doing what is expected, without much attention being given to them. This is kind of a big deal when you think about motivations and what works or doesn’t work for people trying to get into these dynamics.

If a submissive wants to be closely monitored and supervised, he needs to be with a dominate that has a leadership style. If they want to learn and serve their queen (without a bunch of accolades or attention), then they may be better suited to someone with a hierarchy style. As someone with a hierarchy style, this makes so much sense. @Gillinator serves me because that is his love language. He takes very good care of me. However, he has said to me many times, “but if you ever tell me what to do!” as though I ever would. It sounds like the most ridiculous statement to me. That is because I have an expectation of service. If I have to “tell him what to do” then we’re not doing this right.