General Advice

or, Things I Think Subbies Should Know

By *k

My first steps into the world of D/s were wobbly and fearful, but made easier by the fact that I had a friend I could turn to with questions. This friend later became (and still is) my beloved Master, but his value at the beginning was heavily influenced by the bits of advice he gave me. Seeking to make your first steps a bit less fearful, these are things I believe it serves every subbie to know:

D/s is not abuse

The motto of the bdsm community is "safe, sane, consensual". This means that activities that partners engage in are agreed to to the most minute detail, are safe for every party involved (this includes practicing safe sex), and involve a degree of what all partners agree falls within their definitions of sanity. D/s is above all consensual. Every single partner must agree to every single aspect of every single activity. Once the aspect of agreement is lost or coerced, the activity becomes abuse.

D/s does involve power and control and it can involve whippings, floggings and spankings. The thing that separates D/s from abuse is that every activity is consensual. If my Master ever raised his hand against me in anger it would not be an act honoring my submission to him and his dominance of me. It would be an act of abuse, and our relationship as Master and slave would end. You cannot submit to someone you cannot trust. Possibly you can fear them and cower before them, but submission is not based in fear.

Talk Talk Talk Talk Talk...did I mention TALK?

Remember the days when you would become frustrated because your vanilla partner refused to read your mind and guess what you were thinking and feeling and desiring, those days when it felt like this was a reasonable expectation? Well, kiss those carefree days goodbye. D/s relationships are built around intense, constant communication. If you're wondering about something, ask. If you want to experience something, make your desire known. If you're afraid of something, speak up! A dominant cannot read a submissive's mind, and it is unreasonable to expect them to do so. In order to engineer a good scene, talk about what you want and don't want. Throughout the scene, give your dominant feedback about your reactions to the happenings. When the scene is done, spend some time reviewing what worked and didn't work.

By spending time together a good dominant can read their sub's body language, but this comes with time and practice and (yes) talk. Have coffee and talk. Take a walk together and talk. Have a conversation while driving. Sit with your dominant and talk. If talking is difficult for you, write your dominant letters. Keep a subbie journal for your dominant to read. Find some way to put your feelings into words and share them with your partner. This degree of communication is intense, and it does mean that your feelings (all of them) have nowhere to hide, but this is essential to building a strong D/s partnership.

You Don't Have To Do ANYTHING You Don't Want To Do

This idea ties in both the ideas above. D/s is not abuse. You should not be forced to do anything you don't want to do. To prevent this from happening, talk to each other. Make it known beyond a doubt that you are uncomfortable with the whip, for example. Possibly you would be okay with trying the crop. Speak up for yourself! If you don't want the experience of being whipped you do not have to be whipped, but you DO have to make that common knowledge. No dominant has the right to tell you that you are "bad" or "wrong" in your desires. You don't have to justify your desires, you don't have to qualify your fears. They are yours and you have every right to them. You do not have to do a single thing you don't want to do. Ever.

That said, I can hear submissives out there yelping in protest. "Of course you do!" I can hear them yelling. "It's how you grow!" Some submissives, myself included, occasionally do things they don't want to do. Perhaps I want to nap, and Master wants to play. In that case, I rouse myself and we play. The important difference here is that Master and I have negotiated this way beforehand. I have ceded the right to make final decisions to him, and have given myself over to his use and control. In that way, I agreed to being woken up long ago. At that moment in time I might prefer to sleep, but ultimately I have chosen to give my Master the right to make me get up and play. Again, everything is negotiated.

None of This is Set in Stone

Things change. When I first submitted to my Master, I insisted that I could never find pain pleasurable. Pain was pain, I insisted quite vehemently, and wasn't anything I cared to experience except by freakish chance. Gradually Master taught me that pain is more than that. It is intense sensation, it is tingles and warmth, and it is something that I now enjoy and revel in. As I gradually came to crave his soft smacks on my bottom they got harder, and as I grew more curious I began to ask about different impliments. We talked and explored and experimented and talked some more, and now my "no pain" rule is a wry joke between the two of us.

Just as I gradually came to enjoy something I swore I wouldn't, it is also possible to stop enjoying something you originally enjoyed very much. Just because you agreed to something once, or many times, does not mean you are obligated to agree at all times in the future. Even having given Master the right to make final decisions, if this becomes uncomfortable for me for any reason I always have the right to say something, talk it through, and make any changes we feel are necessary to our dynamic. The potential for change goes both ways.

One final thought: there is no one right way of being submissive. If you're submitting to a partner and the dynamic works for you, more power to you. Possibly you would not be comfortable with an arrangement similar to the one I have with my Master, where he has ultimate control over most aspects of my life. Possibly you would be happy to submit to a partner for an hour every saturday, or for a weekend once a month, or after dinner and before bedtime, or when the moon is in the seventh house of Venus. Whatever works for you is the right way to do it for you. Talk it through, don't let yourself be pressured into anything, change things that aren't working, and be true to yourself at all times.