d/s

My Sub In Rope and Dreams in Vancouver

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It can’t be helped that in my site’s long period of malfunction, various writing got caught in the delay. This was started months earlier this year, but I suppose its better shared here than put into the delete pile. It’s got a certain timelessness to it.

When I entered the kink community, rope topping was very much a boy space.

I took this to flatter him, not me because male bondage doesn't do enough for the female gaze

I am occasionally shy to talk about my bondage because I told myself I am bad at it. I am not, and tying up Silver in a Vancouver hotel room was the kind of meta empowering I know is going to stick with me until I am old.

I took a lot of pictured for posterity, even filmed us playing by carefully setting my phone on a tripod. When we watched the clip together later, you could hear me saying over and over again: pretty, pretty, pretty.

I was savoring his body, marveling that he could be wholly there for my consumption.

The pictures that include me, and indeed the angle I captured my own use of him, both didn’t care how I looked. He was the prize, I the winner. I take a good enough selfie and know where I sit on the matter of the artifice of performed beauty. The ability to put him as the object, in rope of my design made me the victor.

I doubt he knew he was going into the moment with me with a metamour of ten years of pent up irritation at how kink, as a community, treats my sexuality, but this was a rare moment in which I was able to see this creature and step on its throat.

In the late aughts, all of the BDSM world was obsessed with the shibari master/rope bottom dynamic. even vanilla fashion was deeply influenced by the endless pictures of diamond pattern body harnesses, posted by fancy male photographers and exhibitionists- the strappy elastic body harnesses that are still worn today are its descendant. The ability to string a flexible young woman up was a mark of prestige for men and women alike. Events were happy to have one or more “bunnies” artfully suspended as the centerpiece. Big to dos, like LordMorpheous‘s thing in Toronto, wedged a shoulder into the Overton window and created a space to be kinky that both challenged everything, but was not so unfamiliar as to upend any hegemonies that would make it impossible.

Women being tied to things for pleasure, being excused as art has always been a wedge issue for erotic content, since long before The Perils of Pauline bound a woman to train tracks, a sawmill, and any other excuse that has let kinky content squeak through. The self identified bunnies and edgy topping-as-art tie boys were the good kind of pioneer, don’t get me wrong. It also was a rising tide that profoundly didn’t float my boat.

So, let me continue, I do have a lot to say.

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The Secret of Being the Best Submissive

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being the best submissive

I will punch you if you suggest there’s something wrong with my sub because he’s not a domestic slave.

Okay, it will be a no contact punch, delivered with my mind through making my eyes very narrow and growling at you, probably miles away, over the internet. I never claimed to be effectual about my anger management problems.

Any yet, it’s not unusual to make a big deal about being the best at BDSM. Both dominants and submissives worry about what makes them good at being their orientation. No online kink community is complete without a couple ongoing discussion threads to that line. Of course, regardless of the kink being catered to, the usual conclusion is that people want a sane person who can look after themselves. Which, unsurprisingly, is what all the Vanillas generally say they want too. We are not so different!

However, once you leave the territory of minimum obligations for healthy human relationships, that’s when people start getting picky, and you start getting the anxiety and the whining. And the posturing. And the fantasies. The top two things that seem to come up, time and time again when it comes to sub hunting, is male doms wanking about not wanting a doormat because it reaffirms their masculinity/dominance or something, and female doms and subs talking about how they don’t want another sexually objectifying asshole. And of course the male subs would please like to stop being treated like they need to pay to breathe and the femsubs are getting tired of being asked to relocate to Utter Pradesh after doing a naked webcam show for a man old enough to be their grandfather or young enough to be their son. Both doms and subs get pressed to be “true” and role conform.

But, I feel like submissives deal with a lot more silly assumptions on what they must do as subs, and how things are supposed to work. And it’s also a self inflicted thing as well as an external thing.

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FAbQ: Should You “Train” With Someone?

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Getting practical experience is a challenge.

One of the confusing things about kinky sex, is that the term “train” is used without much explanation  When we talk about someone in a D/s relationship, especially in an erotic context, “training” is often put under extreme focus- And in stories and porn, the dominant will often train someone to submit, or train someone to serve. Teacher/student or Trainer/animal are really popular role dynamics

Logically, if you’re new, it may feel like the next step is to find a dominant to show you the ropes. And if you got introduced to this, you may decide that being “trained” by a dominant is a good idea. On the flip side, as a dominant, you may be ultra nervous if you’re starting out, or feel like you don’t deserve to be a dom until you have experience.

So, should you offer yourself up to a dominant on an apprenticeship basis?

No, not really. This isn’t to say that mentors and educational resources like work shops are a bad idea, but the first thing a noob runs out and does should not be to find a dom. Experienced people can teach you all sorts of positive things, but looking for a person specifically to train you as a sub to either learn to be a submissive or learn to dominate is not a good idea because it will be hard to find someone to take you on, and it will severely limit you when you learn.

The problem with “training” is that in practice, people experience D/s as part of their general relationships. Of course this might sound like a perfect idea- I mean if you’re vanilla (not kinked) and a virgin you would want to get a boyfriend or a girlfriend, right? Of course it’s a good idea to find people that you connect with to experiment with! But when you’re new to kink, waiting until someone takes you on to start learning is like trying to experiment with sex without knowing anything about birth control, which orifices to use, etc….

1) It’s not safe for you. In practice, kink is usually pretty safe, at least on the same level that vanilla sex is pretty safe. You usually won’t get badly physically hurt if you mess up- at least if you don’t go into the complicated or painful stuff. However there is no central regulating board of kink. Any damn fool can call themselves a dominant. They can claim any number of years of experience and make any grand claim of skill they like. If you learn about what you like and find reasonable first, it is easier for you to know when you should be rolling your eyes at pompus Lady DoomWhip or Master DemonShovel.

Besides, ,ot only could you pick up all sorts of stupid or abusive ideas (eg, a submissive always obeys all dominants), but you may have a problem giving informed consent. That is to say that you will be able to consent to trying something with a clear understanding of what it is and what its effects might be.

2) There aren’t that many promiscuous people looking to “train” out of the goodness of their hearts. As I said, for many people, D/s is a love or sex thing. A lot of people, myself included, are happy to talk about kink, but we are not so happy to give our favours out freely. It can be highly personal to connect with someone and a purely training relationship presupposes lots of single/poly doms who just live to indulge random people’s kinks.

Besides, if you’re happily married, this leaves you rather high and dry if you can only get initiated through dropping monogamy. Because most kink is happening between normal couples, not in the stricture of apprenticeships.

3) There is no such thing as universal training. People are delightfully different. There are many ways to do BDSM, and all of the correct. Generally when a dominant does train someone it is to serve in the manner that that person finds pleasing.

For example some people really like anticipatory service, that is, someone who will figure out what the dom needs without being told, while other people only want obedience based service. Some people are really into fussy protocol, while others don’t care if you walk ten paces behind (or whatever) as long as rope, or feet (or whatever) are involved. Playing with people is a good chance to experiment, but even individual subs respond well depending on what happens.

4) Not everyone is a switch. This is particularly important to the concept of becoming a dom through learning. There is a concept that you will get a better intrinsic attitude to submissive psychology and limits if you actually try it. In practice… there isn’t one set way to approach it, and more to the point, if you’re lacking submissive tendencies in some way  you won’t get much to extrapolate from. A serious masochist, for example, trying to apply that to a “sensual” submissive won’t get very far, and if all you feel is bored, frustrated and uncomfortable that’s going to give you funny ideas what subs like.

So it’s not wrong to look for mentors and people to experiment with, but you shouldn’t muddle D/s training with learning.

I’m Doing This For Me, For You

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Subs often talk about how their D/s dynamic is posited on making them better people. The negatives in their life, from house cleaning to working on their mental health, become positives when it’s to serve, please or obey a dominant. It’s not something you usually get at a dom and yet, there’s something motivating about owning someone.

I did not expect to take the “gift of submission” seriously, until someone I really respected decided to submit for me. I won’t go into particulars about Strong…

But he does just that, he makes me feel stronger and more responsible. It’s a weird feeling, but something clicked- “Oh my god, I have to get my shit together.”

And I started working on a lot of stuff that needed fixing about myself. I think I carry a lot of shame about not meeting up to my own standards and with strong, it is easier to ignore the distractions because of the internal voice that counters them with “Fuck it, you have Strong, you don’t have time for this shit.”

It’s not a panacea, and my attitude to these things is pretty distrustful. I don’t think I’m an inherently trusting person at the best of times, and I tend to see strong emotions as particularly suspect. I can’t tell, of course, how much of that is familial habit and how much is a fair take away from experience. It’s always been natural for me to have both a primary emotion and a degree of detachment buffered by secondary emotions, so there’s the raw LovesLovesLoves! torrent ripping its way through my head, and there’s the analytic part of me, taking measurements like some sort of lakes and rivers worker taking water samples from a flood.

So there’s the compulsion to be a better person. I can’t say how long it will last or if it is healthy, but while I might have scoffed at the saccharine “Dom’s Responsibilities” , and still scoff at the facebook forward style lists that make it to the Kinky & Popular section of fetlife, I decided to go with it.

D/s also does weird things to your perspective, because it asks things of you that are otherwise not supposed to be part of your relationship repertoire. For example while caretaking is a great part of any relationship, you’re not supposed to think it terms of over riding other people in healthy vanilla. It’s also a funny sort of game, because if you can have a healthy relationship with someone they need a degree of self sufficiency and mental tidiness as a single person. Being completely dysfunctional, no matter how well intended, is going to scupper your D/s

I’ve got a friend who is a bit older than me, a sub, who I guess I’ll call him the Professor. Nice guy, very emotional in that sort of hedonistic pleasure seeking sort of way. He recently re-hooked up with his old flame, a woman from when he was younger. She discovered she was a dom and they’re attempting to launch a life now.

As a background, generally speaking Professor likes a particularly zany woman, the kind that seems, from his reporting, to be somewhere between manic pixie dream girl and hot mess. Lots of intense, passionate flings and one night stands. Anyhoo I generally assumed this was more of the same.

Now I’m, at my core, a judgmental and cynical bitch, but this is one of those cases where I looked at the actual instructions Blume was giving Professor, who is, himself, a bit of a hot mess. Basically she was having him do the shit that’s good for him.

Oh. Right. Quick reminder these people are still okay as separate individuals, but have found a way to connect. And she was over riding him and it was working out well. Judgmental bitch voice -Silenced!-

But for me, Strong has the weird effect of making me want to be more competent, capable and otherwise able. I feel like I suddenly have to develop a lot more focus on my life. It’s absurd, because he’s perfectly capable of surviving without me, but I feel like suddenly I am needed in a profound way and I must be better at things. All the things.

FAbQ: What Is a Dominant or Submissive and How Do I Know What I Am?

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This is intended to be a regular feature on this blog, in which I try to talk about the absolute basics. I personally won’t be able to teach you elaborate rope tricks or fancy ways to flog or how to make someone orgasm on command. The goal here is to cover the things people say they wish someone told them when they were new, and to answer the Frequently Asked beginner Questions.

This time I’m going to look at dominance, submission, how to figure out what to call yourself and most importantly, the sanity rules.

What is this, anyway?

One of the first pieces of confusion that comes up for new people is finding out how the Dom/sub thing works in real life. Sure a host of porn covers the things they might do, but it really doesn’t explain possibilities in reference to how it tends to go down with real couples and also people are generally not given a sane approximation of the limitations of a D/s (that’s Dominance/submission or Dom/sub) relationship. It also doesn’t let you figure out what to call yourself if you’ve only ever had fantasies.

First, the sanity check.

  • All submissives do not have to do what all dominants say just because Dominants are dominant.
  • Individual submissives do not have to do what their particular dominant says they should do, without prior negotiation. If you agree to a D/s relationship this is not automatic implicit consent.
  • There is no central licensing system for dominants or guild system of training. Despite desperate hopes, even tales of “Old Guard” or “Leather Families” do not replace common sense in the quality of the dominant. The dominant can be as inexperienced or more inexperienced than the sub.
  • Every D/s relationship is different. Some involve sadomasochism, some do not. Some are built on pure obedience, some involve deliberate disobedience on the part of the sub.
  • Dominance and submission are identification labels not personality types. Doms can be shy and quiet and nervous, while subs can be aggressive and outspoken and have fantastic careers.

Now, some terms:

Dominant: The dominant person is a relationship is the one who is in charge. Dom, domme, dominatrix, master, mistress are all used to refer to this sort of person. The way you become dominant is by deciding one day to call yourself that. The way you act dominant, more often than not, is to convince someone else to call you that too. However the act of the stereotypical dominant (you know the one in leather chaps or the latex corset who is whipping someone?) can also be referred to as a Top if the level of compliance/disobedience is less important than the hitty bits or rough sex. Generally dominants get a warm fuzzy feeling from control that may be sexual arousal.

Submissive: The submissive is the one being told what  to do. How accurately these commands are followed is really defined by what sort of relationship two people want to have. The submissive might like thinking of themselves as a slave, a pet, a servant, or simply the other half of a happy couple, maybe even all of the above over the course of a night. The sensations only version is a bottom. Generally submissives get a warm fuzzy feeling from someone being in charge of them. This could be arousal, feeling ‘safe’ and any number of other pleasant sensations.

Switch: Surprise! Some people are both! In some relationship people switch off on the roles with each other sometimes. In other cases, people feel dominant towards some and submissive towards others. Some switches are more there for the sensations, for example they could be equally happy being spanked or spanking. Switching isn’t even on/off and some people like ambiguous dynamics.

Okay, that’s nice but what am I?

A lot of people starting out don’t really have a clear idea of what they want to call themselves. Even your taste is porn is no help, for example it’s not uncommon for male subs to enjoy female submission as masturbatory material and many dom women find the stereotypical pro-dom shtick causes them to flee the room. If you’ve never done all this, for example you’ve never been spanked or actually had control over someone outside the safe limits of work you probably just have a vague idea some things are kinda hot.

It’s okay not to know what you are. If you’re filling out a profile, put yourself down as ‘unsure’. You have all the time you need to figure it out. Me, as a masochist I was under the impression that I’d be happiest as a sub. A friend who is entirely submissive mislabeled herself as a dom. Neither of us had the world explode on us as we worked out what we were.

Plenty of people even shift how they ID over the course of their life. However if you’re urgently trying to figure out a leaping off place with a label you can either go generic with ‘switch’ or give your fantasies a holistic look. Unlike a lot of quizzes I’m not going to think about whips and chains because if you’re not sure that’s probably just more confusing.

Are you more comfortable (in your fantasies!) being in charge or having someone else tell you what to do?

If your nurture someone are you being ‘responsible’ and taking care of things or are you ‘serving’ them with pampering?

If you like the idea of someone handling all the details of a problem or task for you is it because they are being responsive to your needs and letting you delegate or are they in charge and you feel great because you can just do as you’re told?

Your lover gives you a token to wear, like a neck charm or a bracelet or maybe a jacket  When you put it on do you feel “Mine, mine, mine! My person!” or “I am marked and connected to them!”

I phrase the questions this way because not all dominants do the ‘harsh’ thing and not all subs are into passive. You will need to decide even beyond that, what kinds of dynamics you like. This could be anything from 1950s household or full bore wicked dungeon slavery games to equals with bedroom wrestling. And it’s all okay.

Catamite Pt. 17

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He watched as Annette dressed, filament fine stockings drawn on with protective gloves as the roughness of bare fingers would ladder the knit instantly, clipped to the garters of the girdle, beige tinted elastic panels containing and lifting her, smoothing the child worn belly, hoisting her breasts and pushing her ribs down. Like a woman of his class letting herself be seen with a bare face, as an unmarried man it was another mystery Annette had initiated him into, the hooks and straps that held the daughters, mothers and wives of great men ridged backed and tight around the abdomen, each point of restraint giving just enough that the body could move, but collaborating together to hold the woman up so no muscle could let itself rest untightened or sigh and shrug could excuse a slouch.

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Catamite Pt. 15

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Annette came back early, more tired than the shortness of her ride justified. After the tedious business of side saddle mounting, a horse with a lame foot and some worry about the possibility of rain, the women had only been able to follow the trail to the point that it crossed the road, and there they’d been met by a soldiers’ checkpoint. They had no issues with the matter of identification or the acceptance of their papers, but the soldiers had turned them away anyway, citing danger to life and limb.

The ongoing insurrection had been particularly loud that week, derailing a train, blowing up police stations, and recently, leaving an informer crucified in the middle of the little village about eight miles away. A little gathering of respectable ladies, no matter how well chaperoned by their guards, were far too tempting a target for the soldiers to be willing to risk and the armed and armoured men made grovelling apologies, especially in light of who Annette’s father had been. She could have pressed the point, if she’d wished, but she saw the wisdom in the soldier’s caution and agreed with their decision. And so the pre-dinner entertainment was a write off and each woman retired to her own pursuits: Agatha into a fashion video downloaded straight from the runways of the capital, and Patricia went for a walk around the grounds with Pitor as an escort.

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Catamite Pt. 14

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Vitaly was braced against the heavy wooden table, buttocks separated by the intrusion of Maria’s mercifully slim arm. He was making deep, guttural noises , repetitive grunts that came out “..ut!…ut!…ut!”

Each wrist was clamped into a cuff and fixed to the opposite legs of the table, keeping Vitaly’s chest flat with the plastic covered wood. Maria’s shoulder drove her arm back and forth in a straight line, with the steady rhythm of a rock breaker.

The tawdry underpants were abandoned in a small heap on the floor, but Vitaly makeup had been refreshed, more pink and red with the subtlety and detail of a four year old’s colouring book. Phillip knew, from observation, that Maria’s hand was clenched into a fist and that minimal amounts of lubrication had allowed her to wiggle first two fingers, then her pointed hand up to her knuckles, and finally her clenched grip.

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Catamite Pt. 13

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The ropes were a dirty dun colour, thin, but wound several times around his body in rippled bands so that the bite of one cord was negated by its sisters. Such comforts gave him the full ability to concentrate on the hanging weights and the cross linked cords that made each of the four men intimately connected and gave them one contact point with the ground.

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Catamite Pt. 12

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Annette sat just above his groin, her bodice in disarray and her skirt in crumpled folds to that her lace covered legs were fully exposed. She was pinching, all over his skin, where there weren’t freshly sealed cuts from his last misadventure. Her hands would grab a patch of skin and yank hard until he groaned and this would make her twist on top of him, pushing her pelvis hard and scrubbing back and forth.

Phillip remained inert under her grinding, letting her use his body like dough, pummelling and kneading it. She pulled his ears, put her fingernail into the delicate skin just inside his ear canal and bit his lip when she kissed him. Cruelty begat cruelty, her nails raked his neck and shoulders and she slapped his face.

Slapping carried its own sort of pain, so close to the eyes that it picked tears out of their ducts, despite his acceptance. He’d let his whole body go flaccid, surrendering to whatever she was intending until her barrage of hurt ended, but every time she slapped he had to scrunch up his face and move his jaw.

“Adam, darling?” Annette had her hand around his neck, but she’d stopped hitting him.

“Please, my Lady, is this my punishment for losing tonight?”

“No, I gave you a choice. You are mine and I simply draw satisfaction from seeing you suffer. I am very happy with you.” She gave him a slow, tender kiss.

“Yes, my Lady,” Phillip closed his eyes. His body was tired and he stung all over.

“But Adam, really…” She was wistful.

“I’m sorry, my Lady?”

“Kiss me back. You are my lover and companion. So act like it.”
“I didn’t know I was allowed to, my Lady.”

“This was the whole point. I own you to enjoy.”

Phillip craned his head up, not daring to put his hand on her. Their mouths met.

“Undress me like the lover you are supposed to be.”

It took him a moment to figure out the closures on her dress, undoing the hook capped zipper that peeled down to let the stiffly cut dress fall away from her body. The fabric was the most muted shade of red possible, more brown than scarlet and heavy, but still the loudest thing he’d ever seen her wear. Her slip was white and soft, covering the brassier that kept her breasts in the fashionable level and the fastenings on her lace stockings.

“You wore another colour, today, my Lady” Phillip left the dress laid out beside them, pulling the net and pins out of her long hair.

“I was feeling less confined,” Annette drew him against her breasts. “Blue is for work and quiet, at home. Adam, I will use you some more.”

His arousal was reticent, not from lack of want for her body but from the previous and lingering pain. Annette seemed unperturbed, taking her time to get him ready. She brought his hand to her groin and he felt she was saturated, and showed him how to crook two fingers inside her the way she liked and circle her clitoris around until she was breathing in and out, with the same ferocious lust that rose up when she hurt him. When he mustered a passable erection, she took it, awkwardly finding the right position by first mounting and rocking her hips and then switching to a squat.

This time she did the work, vigorous and rapid. Her hands were back on his throat. “Tell me how it feels?”

“Good, my Lady, good.”

Phillip saw her flushed face, loose hair tangling and falling in the way. She brushed it aside. “Don’t reassure me, tell me when it feels good and when it hurts.”

The hand on his neck was just enough to make him aware that she could cut off his air, but not enough to strangle. She took her time, patient with his timorous libido, coaxing out his lust until he was able to muster an orgasm.
Feeling the sperm wash into her, she let herself stay lodged firmly down on his cock until he finished his spasms. Under her tutoring he had begun to touch her, tentatively stroking what he could reach as they fucked. Still aroused, she levered herself up and off and knee walked the length of his body.

Phillip felt her hover over him, before he felt the release of their mixed coupling land on his neck and chin.

“Prettier on you than on the bed sheets,” Annette said by way of explanation.
She made him take a hot shower with her in the guest bathroom; a smaller room than her lavish bathroom in the Harrington country house, but still large and almost excessively decorated, with green flecked marble surfaces and gold worked into the surface of the pipes and taps. Annette was gentle as she soaped down his body and worked a lather into his hair, but the least little motion of his head was still restricted by her hands.

He could feel the pads of her fingers pressing into her scalp, finger combing and focusing on the sensitive edge of his hairline and behind his ears. Annette stood behind him so the majority of the hot water hit his skin, letting him relax against her body.

“You’re going to sleep beside me, tonight. I can’t have you all sweaty and tacky to touch.”