Dom/sub relationships

[Difflifestyle]

Hi

Myself and my partner are in a D/S relationship, Male Dom, female sub.

This is a lifestyle choice, not just the bedroom antics, harks back to early traditions, men being men, women being women etc. We are both committed and consenting to this.

We are interested to know, if one of your family or friends told you they were doing this what would your reaction be?

I am astonished that you think any of those things make the slightest bit of difference if you are shacked up with a coercive arsehole!

full and thorough discussion about likes and boundaries in advance of sex

'Where are her boundaries? Which can I push now? Which can I not yet push? Which boundaries do I need to push first in order to push those other boundaries later?'

I don't think you understand how controlling relationships work. Women who end up in them do not agree on day one to give him complete access and control of her phone, to have to account for every minute she's not with him, to stop seeing all her family and friends, to change her appearance, weight, exercise regime, to have sex when he says, have a child when he says, have an abortion when he says ... their boundaries are chipped away at slowly, imperceptibly, until they realise they have sleep-walked into hell.

How much easier if the first stage is all laid out neatly and you've had an in-depth discussion so you have a good idea which boundaries are hard limits (for now), and which can be pushed first?

have a follow up afterwards about how it went

Oh yeah, the trauma bonding bit or 'aftercare' is essential In other contexts this is called the honeymoon stage of the abuse cycle.

And then people around them have conversations like this:

'Did you see what he just did? Why is he treating her so badly?'
'Oh, it's fine, they've got a D/s thing going on.'
'Oh, OK then.'

Perfect cover.

And this bit -

have a stated get out clause included during the act

That's just normal isn't it? To be able to say 'stop' during sex and to expect your partner to stop? Most people just don't need a special word because they are not LARPing abuse.

Safe word or not, you have no more assurance that your partner will stop when you ask than anybody else does. You have a lot less chance of getting away if you're restrained though.

It would bother me if I thought my DD was in a relationship like this because i hate to think of a woman not giving control and submitting themselves completely to a man and I would hate to think about the message it would give to her children.

@PencilsInSpace

I understand that you are conflating the illusion of control with genuine control. But if you are determined to do so, there isn't much more I can say to persuade you otherwise.

@category12

I know dozens and dozens of people on the scene. I remember a couple of years back, we had one guy who was discovered to be genuinely abusive and he was made a pariah up and down the UK. He is still banned from almost every event, related to the scene or otherwise, where people know him.

I also know a fair amount of women who, once their bdsm relationship has ended, have said "yeah, that crossed over into abuse". And it's hard for the scene to know how to react, because the guy's got a good reputation and cries it's sour grapes, and some will believe her, some from personal experience of the same guy.

Fair amount of women agreeing to some stuff, and it going a lot further than they ever wanted too. And feeling they have no comeback.

Yep, banning happens. But you can't pretend that there aren't a lot of "creaking stairs" who people in the know are aware of, yet they're still active.

That's certainly not the case with any of the people I know or am connected with. And that's a huge swathe of people. But as I said, you can find abusers anywhere. But even should someone have encountered one, they should not have been expected to live their life in a way that avoids the possibility of abuse. That sounds like victim blaming to me.

I'd really wonder why they told me; we live Ds and none of my family and only a handful of very, very close friends know. That said we went to a bbq with a bunch of friends of mine who haven't met dh before thus summer and they have named him the alpha male and lots of them have made comments about my dh and our relationship not being what they expected from vocally feminist me so I suspect our dynamic is slightly more on show than I realise at times.

I have no interest in what people think of my relationship and don't expect to be invited to judge those of others. If someone told me they were Ds I'd hope what I hope for any relationship- that the people in it were happy and safe.

Tbh I lighten my hair light as husband likes it bright so know what u mean. I may question you as to why I.e difficult childhood/relationships etc. But each to their own x

So long as they were consenting adults I wouldn't have an issue with it at all. But then due to various past experiences I've had, I understand more about BDSM than most others I know. So long as the trust is there, and it was built up to naturally, and so long as there was constant communication from each other, and everything was safe, sane and consensual, I'd let them crack on with no judgement from me

Like I said, the theory's great. People, being people, tend to mess that up. You don't have to look far to find the rotten.

As PP have said, the sub has the highest level of control within the relationship. She/he dictates what they are comfortable with, and so long as that is adhered to then it's no one else's business what you get up too

It's really no more serious than a friend ordering lunch for you if you asked them to choose something for you.
But no one knows what you want more than you. If someone always orders for you how do you ever get what you really want?

But no one knows what you want more than you. If someone always orders for you how do you ever get what you really want?

If what you wanted was to abdicate responsibility, then you would have got exactly what you wanted. Doesn't really matter if it was soup or a sandwich.

There’s loads of men who get off on abusing women, it does not have to have a fancy name.

Attention seeking, putting your private business on people then pretending to be baffled when people are uncomfortable with the way you communicate. You're pushing people's boundaries by making private business public. It's rude. Never mind the concerns about how healthy your relationship may or may not be.

Everything aside, to answer this question:

We are interested to know, if one of your family or friends told you they were doing this what would your reaction be?

Assuming I don't really love and care about this person, I won't judge — I will just ignore you so you don't get the attention you were looking for by telling me that!

Agree with all pencils has said.

I'd also be pretty pissed off that this person was trying to involve me in their "kink" and steer clear of them.

I was in a D/s relationship and it just meant the bloke could ignore me when I said I needed anything and not help me in everyday life even if I was in physical pain due to the heels he encouraged or told me to wear (I don't cope with heels. One of my tasks was to practice walking in heels for 15 mins a day. We weren't living together, and by that point I was like 'fuck that' and secretly didn't bother.) he left me sitting on a wall when I couldn't walk anymore and asked him to nip up to the charity shop on the corner to get me some shoes I could walk in. He just pulled a face at me for asking. I had to walk there in stockinged feet.

I said I needed to see him more than one weekend a fortnight, and he said my asking for something I needed was 'fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of our relationship.'

He eventually broke my safe word. He wasn't happy with how much pain I had from being beaten that day and that I asked him to stop. So he carried on for a bit.

Some of the men in the BDSM scene use it to express their misogyny.

I have nothing against people being in a BDSM relationship if that's what they want though. But it does have it's own risks, flaws and can be pretty damn boring after a while.

Since I used to think I wanted a D/s relationship and since found out that actually having a shit load of therapy made me feel completely differently I would think:

• You have low self esteem
• Possible father issues
• Need counselling

I would be wary that the role playing was changing who they are...'to please him', you said it yourself.

I am not interested in friends sex lives, and if it was a lifestyle thing I would probably distance myself.

I understand that you are conflating the illusion of control with genuine control.

To be clear, I am saying that abusers will, and do, use the 'illusion of control' as you call it, as cover for genuinely controlling behaviour.

Safe word or not, you have no more assurance that your partner will stop when you ask than anybody else does. You have a lot less chance of getting away if you're restrained though.

A woman I knew was slashed mercilessly across the top of her breasts with a riding crop, leaving her badly scarred for life. The safe word was ignored and she'd been tied up so couldn't escape.

What makes things like this worse is that victims have zero recourse. All he has to say is "We're in a BDSM relationship and she asked me to do it" and the CPS won't be interested.

Thank you for a sequence of excellent posts, Pencils. I've agreed with every word.

Oh, and OP (if you're still reading) I'd have found your confession creepy and objected to you oversharing your fetish. TMI. Please don't bring DC into this relationship. It would set such a terrible example.

I’m not one that really agrees with the BDSM acronym. In the old days, it was S&M - that was the sadist who derived pleasure and gratification by inflicting pain, and the masochist who enjoyed it.

Ignore the term dom and sub. What you do in bed is S&M. The words matter because you may start out with perhaps rather vanilla dominant sex. Quite a lot of women find that arousing.

If you said to them, your prospective boyfriend is a sadist who enjoys inflicting pain for his own sexual gratification then most women would run.

Many of these men are sadists. They are simply using a more innocuous term to catch the naive.