-A mentor helps someone create their own plan on how to best achieve those goals. Again, I do not try to create their plan for them, but rather help them think clearly, plan well, and come up with possible ways to get what they want.

-Once someone has made their attempt(s) at achieving those goals, I am there to listen, debrief, and mostly help them to digest and make sense of whatever new experiences they encountered. We look to find the things they want to build on, those they want to discard, and those that need to get put on the shelf for a future exploration.

-In summation, a mentor should work with someone to improve their skills in self awareness, awareness of the motivations of others, interpersonal relations, good planning, implementation of their plan, good decision making, and developing effective means of reality testing. Not surprisingly, these skills aren’t exclusive to living a kinky lifestyle. They are important skills for living life. Kink is not the answer to all the things that don’t work in your life. If you are dysfunctional in vanilla life, you will probably carry all of your dysfunction into your kink life and probably suffer the same kind of setbacks there as you do in other walks of your existence. A mentor helps you improve the life skills that will serve you in almost everything you do, including kink.

So again, in my opinion…..your opinion my vary…..if a mentor only wants to focus on kink methods and teaching you their definitions of all the jargon, then they are only doing part of their job and they are cheating you out of the very best things they should offer. If a mentor wants to become your practical guide and make you their toy so you can learn? That is not what a mentor should be doing. They would be your play buddy, and should call themselves what they are.

You need to do the very first thing and decide what YOU want a mentor to do for you. If it is being your play partner, then look for that, not a mentor. If it is to find someone to hold your hand a little and impart some of their wisdom and experience as you explore, then you are a good candidate for being mentored. But that mentor has to be right for you, too. Regardless of whether your mentor is a Dom, a sub, or whatever…..if they click with you and you have good mutual respect and good communications, it can really be beneficial. I have mentored just about every kind of person in just about every kind of role identity. I had no agenda other than to help. So it made my goals as a mentor universal to anyone. The incompatibilities I have found with some people were never about conflict of interest …….. just different views on life and kink. Not all mentors fit all people. Your first choice might not be a good one. But making bad choices will usually teach you something so that the next opportunity you have, you will make a better choice.

So, if you can decide where you want to be heading in your kink relationships, a mentor may well be able to help you get there. As with any relationship, it is negotiable and you need to be getting the things you really need from your mentor. So as you look for one, try to find someone who not only preaches the gospel of kink, but also listens to you and understands what you you are trying to say. Look for someone you respect, who treats you with resepct, and you feel that you can really learn to trust. Beyond that, its simply a matter of building on your relationship with your mentor and staying with them if you feel you are gaining something. If not, talk to them. And if it is a bad pairing then graciously back away. If it has just become time for you to fly on your own, tell them you need to back away a bit till you need their assistance again. Any decent mentor will accept that with grace. I know I have, many times. And I have welcomed them back months…….even years later…….when they felt the need to ask my thoughts on something.

All these things are what I consider the role of a mentor……and of course, many more things, too. Best of luck in figuring out your starting point and in finding a mentor to help you launch from there.