Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission (16 page)

In traditional leather culture dominants undergo a period of apprenticeship to an experienced dominant during which they learn responsible dominance. Some dominants experiment with submission to gain insight into the submissive experience. This is called
starting from the bottom
.

The willingness or ability to switch does not, however, apply to all D&Sers.

Dominants particularly enjoy cultivating their imaginative abilities and inventing new ways to play.

Some dominants use the metaphor of playing a musical instrument to describe the process of arousing their partners to an intense pitch of excitement. They prod the submissive to accept increased input and intensity of stimulus. This is called
pushing limits
or
stretching limits
.

A final but important component is the aesthetic of D&S: Whether it is pride in one’s skilled bondage techniques or selection of outfits that accentuate the submissive’s sex appeal, dominants frequently enjoy complex and lengthy rituals of altering the visual and the physical to create an unusual and deeply satisfying image.

A complex and apparently self-contradictory aspect of D&S roleplaying, erotic “coercion” refers to the submissive being compelled to do something which he protests and which may be fundamentally humiliating. At the same time, this sense of coercion is precisely what makes the experience so arousing.

Erotic coercion is based on mutual consent; the activity is often planned in detail beforehand. For example, a male-to-female transvestite might fantasize about meeting a woman who will unexpectedly compel him to dress, walk, talk, and act like a girl. That any given woman, no matter how charitable, will spontaneously attempt to transform a man into a woman is highly unlikely. Further, that a sensible submissive would yield power to someone he doesn’t know or trust is even less likely. The transvestite must find someone who is amenable—and discuss his fantasy in detail. Consequently, how believable is it that the female is
forcing
someone who has so assiduously sought out and meticulously delineated a scenario?

Suspension of disbelief is a requirement in coercion scenarios. The competent dominant is charged with the responsibility of making the scenario believable. To the outsider, there is no external logic. How is it that a petite woman can force a man twice her size to his knees in shivering, whimpering helplessness with nothing more than a few soft words? But the internal logic is indisputable, if one assumes that the mind is a person’s most powerful erotic tool. Coercion scenarios depend on the submissive’s ability to enter into the fantasy and to feel that he is being forced to accept something, even if that something is precisely what the submissive craves. The dominant, correspondingly, is aroused by the fantasy of forcing someone to bend to her will.

If the dominant is convincingly stern, or if other elements—such as pain or bondage—are involved, the submissive believes, within the moment (and often long after the moment has passed), in the dominant’s absolute authority.

Coercion scenarios take so many forms that any catalogue would be incomplete. Naughty schoolboys are compelled to accept spankings from indignant governesses; feisty submissives are forced to wear the collars of strict masters; foot worshipers are imperiously commanded to kiss a lover’s toes; captive maidens must submit to ravishment by conquering lords. Literally thousands of scenes are played out in which the submissive is “forced” to do essentially what the submissive really wants to do. Regularly, thousands of submissives are forced to achieve multiple orgasms.

Coercion can, of course, have a darker side, even when the relationship in which it is practiced is negotiated. This darker side arises when dominants push submissives to accept activities that the submissives may genuinely dread. A dominant may, for example, compel her partner to accept increasing levels of intensity of stimulation. And some dominants punish submissives who willfully disobey; the intent is not to harm the submissive, but it may cause the submissive discomfort or sadness. Some D&Sers do not believe in
punishment but it is a real phenomenon, particularly in lifestyle relationships, where discipline may form a critical aspect of the dynamic. In fact, lifestyle submissives often desire both the risk and the reality of punishment, because it reinforces the reality of the power relationship. Sometimes a submissive will purposely misbehave—usually in playful ways—to incite the dominant to punish him or her.

D&Sers are intrigued by power. In some respects they are as responsible as mainstream individuals for perpetuating the myths about dominants as ruthless or imperious. Nowhere is this truer than among people who have evolved their fantasies and understandings about power relationships from cult books (such as the novels of de Sade, Pauline Réage, John Norman, and Anne Rice) and the seemingly limitless supply of fetish and S/M pornography. The literature that kindles so many fiery fantasies depicts characters who are almost always one-dimensional, no doubt because the purpose of most S/M-oriented literature is specifically licentious and not concerned with reality.

Novice D&Sers may believe that dominants are singularly appointed, semimystical creatures endowed with the power to reduce submissives to craven supplicants. This charming fantasy often succumbs to the reality of humanity among those who seek full-fledged relationships. Many who confine their experiences to episodic encounters, however, prefer to cling to the fantasy of the dominant as
ubermensch
(or
uberfrau
).

The dominant, for some, is the embodiment of a childish nightmare of the cruel or monstrous parent. Thus, even though all dominants are not cruel (some are), some submissives need them to be cruel—at least for the sake of erotic stimulation. But not all power is ruthless. A favorite activity among many D&Sers is the worship of a benign (albeit inherently quixotic) figure. In D&S culture this is usually a dominant woman who is perceived either to be a goddess herself or to embody the spirit of a goddess.

One of the better-known groups associated with the D&S Scene is the Service of Mankind Church (SMC), a California-based religious group whose theology is founded on goddess worship. The focus of a sociological study (
Erotic Power
),
³
the SMC’s philosophy specifically stresses spiritualism, but its rituals have been a magnet for secular submissive men and dominant women as well. The church holds that women who pursue a certain spiritual path may embody the spirit of goddesses worshiped in other (usually Eastern)
cultures. In this hierarchy men are inherently submissive to women who manifest divine qualities.

Goddess worship may take any of several forms. It may be a natural outgrowth of the spiritual aspects of sexual submission.

The worship may involve practical service, such as caring for the dominant’s possessions (e.g., boots, clothing, equipment). These services become symbolically loaded.

Although goddess worship seems to be the domain of straight submissive men, nontheological body worship is practiced by both male and female submissives. In a D&S context the submissive honors and adores the dominant by ecstatically kissing or caressing body parts—usually legs and feet, but
also hands and arms and, of course, erogenous zones—often in a kneeling or prone position.

Body worship is a supreme romantic surrender by the submissive to her dominant, and, for the dominant, an exciting display of the submissive’s humility and devotion.

I
NTERVIEWS

[S/M has] affected and expanded my life in a very positive manner. I’m a convert to D&S and S/M from being a bisexual, multiorgasmic, fun-loving gal who thought S/M was sick. In the late ’70s I had a successful career as a burlesque artist. The idea was to entertain—not to get people off, but to tease. Men brought their wives. It was quite erotic and fun. I was sexually sophisticated but misinformed about S/M: All I knew about it came from bad pornography. But then in 1979 a new roommate moved in with me. I found her extremely domineering and bossy, and when she told me she was getting into S/M, I thought, No wonder she’s so aggressive—she’s into that sick stuff of abusing and humiliating people!