The first SubVerse Unassertiveness Workshop went down very well with our first ten participants. The workshop was presented by two SubVerse Writers, Voxx and elle. Unfortunately the workshop got off to a late start so SubVerse took the opportunity of selling its paraphernalia before the workshop began, the booklets were very popular, the first hand-painted SubVerse tea mug was sold and an order was received for a large male SubVerse vanilla lavender tea-shirt.

The workshop began with an "introduction to unassertiveness" by elle finn, followed by the first exercise which was to choose what exercises we would be doing. The most popular item for discussion was "Spotlighting Submission" which led to a lively debate on what was attractive about unassertive and submissive people. Attractive unassertive qualities that came up were sweetness, politeness, accommodation and easiness. Someone commented that the mainstream view was that unassertive people weren't attractive, which led me to make a short autobiographical speech about how much better I have felt about myself after discovering a home for my submissiveness in BDSM. The same person also made a point about submissive people being wide open to abuse, to which I made the point about how important responsibility and trustworthiness were for unassertiveness to be a positive way of life.

The second item we did was the Introducing Unassertiveness opening exercise, which involved people adopting an unassertive posture (a lot of people chose to kneel) and replying "Yes I will" to the introductory workshop question that was asked of them.

The next exercise was called "The right sub for the job" and involved six potential SubVerse poetry tea maids serving tea in a variety of styles. After being served tea in an angry, sullen, paradoxical, helpful, enthusiastic and flamboyant manner, our interviewer for the day concluded that the helpful manner was the only one where he felt like he was being served, as the manner focussed on the other rather than the self. Curiously, this style was the least popular style among the potential tea maids.

The next exercise was "A thing of beauty" which was a thinking and writing exercise about what it felt like to be someone's beautiful object and how it felt being owned, being beautiful and being an object. The exercise brought out many beautiful, poetic musings, which I'm hoping may get donated to SubVerse.

The workshop ended with people being given their SubVerse Certificates in true submissiveness or real dominance and writing down what they thought about SubVerse Writers and the Unassertiveness Workshop. People thought the workshop was thought-provoking, evocative and challenging. They also said they would have liked a prompt start, more practical exercises and a proper ending, all of which I am working on for next time.

I am hoping to run further Unassertiveness Workshops in 2002 at SM Pride and similar events.

Best wishes,

elle finn