What I Look For in a Submissive Partner

From my blog, BDSM: Things You Need to Know. Here’s the list of characteristics that I look for in a submissive partner. Excerpt:

Possesses a strong will. As a friend of mine who’s the master half of a master/slave pair likes to say, “A good sub has a spine of steel.” …

Wants kink for the way it makes her feel. Doing it “for his sake” may seem like a submissive attitude, but activities which are not rewarding to her, either during or afterwards, are ultimately depleting and unsustainable.

Shares a few significant, non-kinky passions with her partner. D/s partners must have vanilla chemistry; they can’t spend every minute of the relationship in a kinky fog …

Attentive and curious. These are essential for a submissive partner, since she has to learn to read her dom, and to respond to his needs or goals in any situation where they’ve agreed she will submit.

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The Nature of Authority

A fellow dom recounts an experience which challenged and clarified his understanding of authority and responsibility to his partner and himself:

contemplative-domination:

Several years ago, when [my sub] and I were just starting out, I gave her orders in anger, over a subject that frankly doesn’t matter. She fought me on them, and hard. Here’s another secret: Fights in D/S couples are every bit as ugly and chaotic as fights that regular couples have.

I was, in a word, wrong. In my orders, in my state of giving them, and in my reasons for doing so. I later made that admission, and apologized. That should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t.

Even though I was wrong, you see, I resented her for defying me. I nursed that resentment and it created what was actually a longstanding conflict in the nature of our relationship. What was the point of my authority, after all, if she in her stubbornness would simply refuse me? Furthermore, considering I had been wrong, what right did I have to give any orders? If my judgment was suspect, how could I hold faith in it, or expect her to? [read more]

The Two Kinds of Subspace (BDSM)

From my blog, BDSM: Things You Need to Know. There are Two Kinds of Subspace that sexually submissive people encounter. Excerpt:

Subspace is a widespread experience among BDSM subs, and from my own experience with partners and discussions with friends, it manifests in two distinct forms.

What I call physiological subspace, which is the variant most commonly described, is induced through sustained pain play, especially from impact toys, e.g. a bare hand, flogger, paddle, cane, etc. It is apparently caused by endorphins, adrenaline, or other body chemistry…

What I call psychological subspace, which I had never seen discussed in writing before I witnessed it first hand, occurs far more commonly than the physiological kind. It is apparently induced by feeling drawn to a dom. [read more]

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Assuaging a Sub’s Fear of Abandonment

From my blog, BDSM: Things You Need to Know. Submissive partners often harbor fears of abandonment, which are the more frightening given the intimacy of D/s. Excerpt:

A few days ago, a reader sent me this touching request:

My little girl depends on me for a great deal, which I know is normal. But often she expresses that she is terrified if I were to ever leave her (she sees that other doms leave their subs). She says that her life would fall apart, and she couldn’t survive without me. I have no intention of leaving but her thoughts really concern me. Any advice?

Couples which identify themselves as master/slave, daddy/girl, owner/property, or even simply monogamous dom/sub, tend to be expressing an intent to create their own world together, instead of a merely open border between separate lands. … Yet doing so presents the possibility that such a world might crumble, casting its denizens into cold, black space. What then, can one do to allay the fear of such a disaster, or at least make its aftermath survivable?

Assuming a healthy relationship, the most common reason to fear losing one’s partner has nothing to do with the partnership, it has to do with the past. Many people, men and women, vanilla and kinky, have abandonment fears, due to previous experiences with parents, close friends, or lovers. Abandonment issues that form in childhood due to neglectful parenting are particularly tenacious. Painful experiences at that age create lasting impressions about how the world treats you. So there may be no quick way to quiet internal voices warning of impending loss. But it is often healing to identify sources of grief from your history, and tell one’s partner about how they formed. Recounting such stories from your life is bonding, and when a story taps into a well of pent-up grief, it’s cathartic. …

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Emotional Issues in Dom/Sub Relationships

From my blog, BDSM: Things You Need to Know. Common emotional issues can be destructive to D/s relationships. Excerpt:

Emotional issues can do serious damage to otherwise healthy relationships. When triggered, you stop thinking clearly, and may assign the current situation or loved one full blame for the strength of your hard feelings. Most lovers don’t take this too well; disproportionate reactions are rattling, and being blamed for them is frustrating. The damage is even worse when one partner’s reaction triggers an issue within the other, whose subsequent emotional response then re-triggers the first one. Such interlocking issues cause a kind of death spiral that’s difficult to escape. Issue interlock is, in my view, the single most common killer of good relationships …

D/s relationships thrive on the exceptional, magical connection that forms between dom and sub, and the altered states that this bond allows them to venture into. When emotional issues are triggered for one or both of them, it can impinge on their D/s dynamic. If their leader and follower roles desert them, suddenly they’re facing each other like egalitarian acquaintances, just when one most needs the other’s support. The simplest means to stop a damaging interaction is for either partner to speak their safeword (or simply say “safeword”) …

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BDSM: Things You Need to Know

A table of contents for my blog…

Reblogs appreciated; help get the word out!

Overview

BDSM Relationship Variations — ways that couples mix the elements of S&M and D/s.

Discovering, Embracing, Revealing the Self — on discovering you’re kinky, your vanilla self may protest! Self-acceptance takes time.

The BDSM Scene Is Not Everyone’s Kink — why the BDSM scene serves but a small subset of kinksters.

Who Is Will and Why Is He an Expert? — just how do I know these things you need to know about relationships with kink?

Dating

What to Look For in a Dom/Master — a collection of important, and irrelevant, characteristics of a dom or master.

Online BDSM Dating Tips — kinky dating should be easier online, but there’s so many fakes & nuts! Here’s how to cope.

How to Interview a Dom/Master Prospect — you must ask the right questions.

The Dangers of Dom/Sub Gravity — a risky attraction pulls together a dom and sub who’ve just met.

Two Kinds of Subspace — subspace can be physiological (from pain) or psychological (from attraction).

Relationships

Emotional Issues in Dom/Sub Relationships — common emotional weaknesses can be destructive to D/s relationships.

Essential Rights for a Submissive Partner — in lifestyle D/s, or master/slave relationships, a submissive requires certain promises of protection.

Why Safewords Are Not Safe — how safewords can fail, and why they’re only necessary for “no means yes” games.

Crossing the Line: Where Kink Becomes Abuse — power corrupts; occasional abuse may be a cost of regular kink.

Why Dominant/Submissive Romance Is Hard — there are few role models for kinky couples to follow when building a romance.

The BDSM Scene Is Not Everyone’s Kink

From my blog, BDSM: Things You Need to Know. Why the BDSM scene is not for the average kinkster. Excerpt:

It was a great disappointment to me to discover that the “BDSM scene”—or publicly accessible BDSM community—is not representative of the average kinky person. In addition to celebrating the kinks of consensual bondage, sadomasochism, and dominance & submission, the scene also emphasizes polyamory (maintaining multiple kinky relationships) and public play (exhibiting your kinks in a semi-public venue). While there’s nothing all that strange about the latter two, they have nothing to do with BDSM per se. And the portion of the population which is inspired by BDSM and polyamory and exhibitionism is, well, vanishingly small.

Some scene members will insist that the scene is the best way, or the only safe way, to get involved in BDSM. This isn’t the case at all. Indeed, the vast majority of folks who experiment with or adopt kinky sexuality do so in private and one-on-one.

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“Your Kink Is Not OK”

One of the ironies I observe about kinky people is that they’re more likely to attack kinks which they do not understand than the average vanilla person. This is commonly referred to as “Your Kink Is Not OK”.

While not a proponent of gun rights, I can say this: Kinks don’t abuse people, people abuse people. Identifying oneself as a sub with “no limits” is not a request for abuse, it’s an aspiration to have a partner worthy of defining what is acceptable. Assuming a rational, connected partner, that’s no less sane than doing it oneself.

Invoking examples of pathological, criminal behavior to impugn misunderstood kinks is no more fair than asserting that consensual spanking is abuse because domestic violence involves hitting.

I will be writing more extensively on this topic on my blog, BDSM: Things You Need to Know…

strongsubroutine:

‘Real’ subs who claim they have no limits are self-destructive psychotics…

sadisticgames:

My personal thinking is that any sub who says they have “no limits” is either too new to know any better, lying, or needs serious psychological evaluation.

(via strongsubroutine-deactivated201)

Source: sadisticgames

How to Interview a Dom/Master Prospect (BDSM)

From my blog, BDSM: Things You Need to Know. Tips on how to interview a prospective dom/master. Submissive women must ask the right questions, early on. Excerpt:

Just how are you to discern a poser from a dependable, balanced dominant gentleman? … You can’t see into the past, or read minds, so you have one method of discrimination before you take the risk of spending time with a prospect: inquisition—you ask him a ton of questions.

It’s one of the hardest chores for many submissive women. After encountering a gent she feels intrigued by, she must—although her sub side may already desire his direction—play detective …

Here then are some tips on the art of investigation:

Be sweet but skeptical. There are relatively few quality, single, monogamous doms in the world. Most of the so-called doms you’re likely to turn up (especially on kink sites) are insincere and/or unsafe. Don’t give a stranger the benefit of the doubt! Don’t grant him more trust than he’s earned …

Crossing the Line: Where Kink Becomes Abuse

From my blog, BDSM: Things You Need to Know. Power corrupts, at times, so BDSM relationships are vulnerable to abuse. Excerpt:

There is no hard, bright boundary between consensual kink and abusive treatment. No, it’s a foggy, broad gray-zone. Where the zone lies, and how wide it is, varies from day to day for each of us. Venturing out to your limits in a D/s context may lead somewhere transcendent, or terrible …

Simply defined, BDSM is sexualized power, sexualized punishment. Power corrupts. It’s cliché, but true. Impulses like anger and greed compete with rational notions like care and fairness. Males’ abuse of their power in vanilla relationships (aka date rape and domestic violence) is widespread. It can’t be a surprise that an intentional power imbalance within a romance, even if just during sex, leads to abuse at times …

If straying into abuse—whether intentional or not, acknowledged or not—becomes a pattern, you have an abusive relationship; the right choice is to leave it. But what sort of relationship is it when abusive events are infrequent, and discussed afterwards, and cause the partners to adjust course, yet remain inevitable? Can this be considered healthy? Can it be considered… sexy?

Don’t Feed the Tumblr BDSM Troll

Lately one Tumblr user is posting asks from users regarding BDSM, which he dismisses as pure “abuse”.

The way to shut him up is to stop asking him!

He’s not an expert on human behavior; actual experts don’t hold such opinions. His rants may be irritating, but sending him protests won’t change his views — he delights in each opportunity to blow his horn. We’re fortunate there’s only one such troll here.

For those unsure whether BDSM is OK, understand this: Humans sexualize things, lots of things. It’s our nature. BDSM is sexualized power and punishment. Power and punishment are essential elements of virtually all human cultures. Anywhere in the world, turn on the news, go to the movies, and find stories glorifying power and punishment. It’s really not a surprise that many sexualize these concepts. And in so doing, discover incredible intimacy and amazing altered states; that’s why we keep doing it.

The illegitimate exercise of power, in any context, constitutes abuse. Abuse happens in law enforcement, in the military, in government, in schools. So yes, some abuse happens in a BDSM context. It’s terrible, and we need to fight it, but it doesn’t negate the enriching experiences that most kinky people enjoy.

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