Domination & Submission: The BDSM Relationship Handbook (16 page)

You might think, after wading through all of the
negatives
that we’ve discussed thus far, that online BDSM relationships are not worth the
effort, but that isn’t
at
all
the conclusion you should take away
from this chapter.  Some of the most fulfilling and lasting D/s
relationships I’ve ever been in began in one fashion or another in an online
environment.  There really
are
a lot of positive aspects to seeking
or exploring a relationship online.

Ironically, one of those positive aspects is the
paradox that allows people to
be themselves
behind a cloak of relative
anonymity.  It’s been proven time and again in psychological studies that
people will typically reveal
more
of their inner thoughts and feelings
when they believe they are anonymous.  Most of us are taught from an early
age to stifle or conceal our sexual urges, kinks, and fetishes.  Under the
banner of
equality
, we are indoctrinated for most of our lives to reject
the notion that some people
born leaders
and others
born followers
,
or that there may actually be real and significant
differences
between
men and women.  In their quest to eliminate
real abuse
, many in our
society
stigmatize
those who may find pleasure in pain, enjoy corporal
discipline, or find fulfillment in giving themselves fully and
without
reservation
to the person they love.   Is it any wonder that many
people have difficulty finding an outlet for exploring and expressing such
things?  The online environment allows them to do just that.

Anyone who has ever been involved in an online
relationship can tell you that not only can it be a very
freeing
experience, but it can also be a very
deep
one.   The medium
forces you to focus on what is in your heads and hearts rather than on things
like appearances, age, physical characteristics, sex appeal, or social and
financial status.  For many people, it will be the first time in their
lives that someone is willing to overlook those
superficialities
to see
through to their souls, and
that
can be quite
intoxicating.
  

Another positive aspect of exploring an online BDSM
relationship is its relative
safety.
  Obviously, you’re not going to
get physically injured or contract a sexually transmitted disease from a
chat
room. 
That safety feature begins evaporate, however, the closer you
get to actually meeting for the first time.  In
Chapter 8: The First
Meeting
we’ll go over some of the steps you can take to preserve that
safety advantage.

The safety advantage of online BDSM relationships
goes far beyond the obvious fact that you can’t get physically injured by
online role-play.  It also forces us to do something that most of us don’t
really do very often.  It makes us
think through all of the little
steps that are part of a process.
   It’s incredibly easy for most
of us to
fantasize
about doing something without ever really considering
the steps which must be taken to accomplish it. 
Nothing
is ever as
easy as we think it is!  It may be
one
thing to
say,
“I’d
love to tie you to a chair and make love to you!” and another thing
entirely
to accomplish such a thing.  Even if you’re just
role-playing
out
the scenario in an erotic online chat, you’re forced to step through the
process in your mind until you realize that making love to someone whose butt
is firmly planted in a chair might actually be
harder than you thought.

Time
is another real
advantage of an online BDSM relationship. 
Time is your friend.
 
Time has a way of working
real magic
when it comes to separating the
wheat from the chaff.  The faster you move from the first online
hello
to a committed
real-life
relationship, the greater the probability that
it will end in an epic
train wreck.
  Sure, there are always
exceptions
to this rule (which I am sorely tempted to call
Makai’s Law),
but the
laws of probability are immutable and unyielding.  You should view any
online relationship as an opportunity to
really
get to know one another
at the deepest levels
before
you start sharing the rent.  If it is
a relationship that is truly meant to be, then the time you spend doing so will
be a
wise investment.
 

Some of the most rewarding relationships I’ve ever
been in began online and eventually transitioned successfully to real-life,
committed relationships.  Is it my preferred way to begin a
relationship?  No, it is not.  But, then again, you don’t always get
to choose
how, when, and with whom
you fall in love. 
Love
chooses you
, and it has an annoying habit of doing so in agonizingly
unpredictable ways. 

The keys to succeeding in any online BDSM
relationship are to go into it with open eyes, be aware of the many possible
risks and rewards, to have a plan, and to keep your expectations realistic.

Roxy
, a young
submissive who was new to the online BDSM lifestyle and had no real experience
whatsoever with the
real-world
one, seemed preoccupied and pensive as
her avatar kneeled stoically on a pillow in a quiet corner of the BDSM chat
room.  She was usually a cheerful girl with a bubbly demeanor but
today
,
she was anything
but
.  Something was
obviously
very wrong.

“How’s your trial with your new Master going?” I
asked.  She’d met Drago in this very room, just one week earlier, and had
agreed to a trial with him after only a few minutes of conversation.  At
the time, I’d considered it a rather rash and unwise decision, but it really
wasn’t my place to say so.  Roxy was silent for a moment, and then hesitatingly
replied,
“Meh.
  I told him to
go fuck himself.
”

I nodded silently in response,
not
giving
voice to the first thought that had popped into my head, which was:
Not
entirely unexpected. 
Instead, I diplomatically said, “I’m sorry to
hear that.  I’m guessing the trial is off, then?”  She gave a little
nod and replied,
“I guess so.” 
A moment passed, and she
tentatively added, “Umm...  He
threatened
me.  Do you think I
should be
worried?”

“What do you mean,
threatened you?”
I asked.
“What did he
say,
exactly?”

Roxy answered, “He said he would hunt me down in
real-life, and kick my ass.  He said he would make me sorry that I had
spoken to him like that.”  Long pause.  “He can’t really
do
that,
can he?”

“It’s
depends,
” I replied. “Which part? 
Hunt you down, kick your ass, or make you sorry?  I’m pretty sure he could
accomplish
all three.
  But then again, considering how hard headed
you can be, that whole
making you sorry
part may be a little harder
than he
thinks.”

Clearly, she
didn’t
like what she was
hearing.  “Are you saying that he really
could
find out where I
live? 
There is
no possible way!
  I have never even told him
what
state I live in
.  At most, he knows my first name, and that isn’t even
my
real
first name, it’s a
nickname.”

I sighed.  I have always hated the painful
process of trying to convince someone that she isn’t really as clever or as
anonymous as she
thinks
she is.  Once they’re shown just how
vulnerable they
really
are, some people simply log off and
never come
back.
  It’s that much of a
shock
to them.  But the
alternative is to stand by and do
nothing
while they risk being hurt or
even killed by some crazed
whack-job
.  It had to be done. 
“Don’t go anywhere,” I said. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

When I returned a few minutes later, I showed her
what I’d found:  Her full legal name.  Her home address and telephone
numbers, both her landline
and
her cell phone.  Her email address,
Facebook, Pinterest
and
Tumblr accounts.  Vacation pictures and
names of her and all of her family members.  And I found it all in less
than five minutes.  How?  Simple, really.  The trick is to find
a single thread and pull on it until the entire illusion of anonymity
unravels. 

In her particular case, a simple reverse search of a
photograph associated with her account led me to her social media accounts like
Facebook and Tumblr. 
Those
sites gave me her email address and the
name of her home town.  From there, it was easy to get her real name, home
address, and telephone numbers.

Predictably, Roxy was
not amused.

“The
difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken
is involved; the pig is committed.”

-
- Martina Navratilova

Ask the average person on the street, and he’ll tell
you that a collar is something that the owners of cats and dogs put around
their necks of their pets; they’re usually made of leather and have D-rings
which make it easier to attach a leash and any dog-tags which might help to
identify the pet in the event it becomes lost.  Ask someone in the D/s or
BDSM lifestyle for
their
definition of a collar, and you’re likely to
get a completely different answer.  In fact you’ll probably get
a lot
of
completely different answers, because even
within
the lifestyle, there are
divergent opinions on the significance and meaning of collars.

It might be overly simplistic to put forth the idea
that the common denominator that binds all of those differing opinions on
collars is the notion that a collar represents a commitment of some sort on the
part of the wearer and the one who bestows the collar, but even
that
becomes
problematic when one considers the fact that collars have become a vanilla
counter-culture
fashion accessory
for many.  You’ll also find, even
within
the BDSM culture, that there are some who wear a collar as a
fashion statement, socio-political statement, or purely for utilitarian
play
purposes
.  Obviously, there isn’t a
one-size-fits-all
definition that could put any raging collar controversies to rest, but we
can
focus on some of the most common characteristics, types, and assumptions about
collars in the BDSM culture.

To
most
of the people in the BDSM lifestyle
who assign meaning to a collar, it is symbolic of
ownership
and
represents a
mutual commitment
.  It is usually the
degree
of
ownership and/or commitment that typically becomes a point of contention in
BDSM relationships.  For some, particularly in the
online
BDSM
community, a collar may be nothing more than a
role-play accessory
which
has no more significance than an imaginary sword used in
World of Warcraft.
 
For others who may be living the lifestyle full-time in a
real world
setting,
a collar could represent something that – in terms of importance and level of
commitment - surpasses even
marriage
. 

Since collars are entirely
symbolic
in nature
to the people in this lifestyle, it is
extremely important
that anyone
considering entering into a relationship that involves a collar, or even the
possibility
of a collar in the future, have a frank discussion with his or her partner
about
exactly
what that collar symbolizes for everyone concerned. 
Imagine the potential problems which are bound to occur in any relationship
where a Dominant believes the collar symbolizes
absolute ownership
requiring
unquestioning obedience from the wearer, while the submissive simply thinks of
it as a coveted status symbol or fashion accessory.  Unfortunately, this
sort of thing happens
all the time
.

The actual, physical collars that are used by those
in BDSM relationships, if they are used
at all
, may consist of literally
anything
that is worn around the submissive’s neck.  For most
people, the
stereotypical
collar generally conjures images of a black
leather pet-style collar with a buckle and D-rings; perhaps even decorated with
adornments such as rhinestones or metal studs.  But in
reality
, a
collar is just as likely to be a fashionable choker or ribbon, or even a
conventional looking gold or silver chain with a pendant.  The bottom line
is a collar may be anything that the individuals in a relationship mutually
agree upon.  This applies equally to the rules governing the wear of the
collar.  For some, a collar is something that should never be removed,
under any circumstances.  For others, the collar is worn only in the
bedroom or at BDSM group functions.  It is generally a good idea to ensure
that any rules specifying what is or isn’t appropriate, when it comes to when,
where and how the collar is worn in your relationship, be established
before
the collar is padlocked around your neck.

As long as we’re discussing
physical
collars
here, we should take the opportunity to discuss something that is, for many,
the bewildering and often frustrating phenomenon of
online collars.
 
An online collar, for our purposes, is defined as a collar that represents the
relationship between two people who have
never actually met in real life.
 
This would also include solid, three-dimensional collars that are sent by
Dominants to submissives whom they have never actually met, in reality. 
At the risk of engaging in a generalization that will probably anger and offend
some readers, here’s what I think of online collars:  They are just like
real-life
collars, except
less so
.  By that, I mean that they are less
real
and less
significant
in practically
every possible aspect
,
save one – the
emotions
associated with it.  The emotions
associated with an online collar can be very real and very strong, however,
almost by definition, the
commitment
is not yet strong enough to merit
meeting
in real life
.  Do online collared relationships
ever
successfully
make the difficult transition to real life?  Of
course
they
do.  Unfortunately, the odds of it happening are
extremely
low.