The (New and Improved) Loving Dominant (31 page)

I never agreed to do the branding, but one day after she had been firmly tied to the bondage table, I brought out a small hibachi. On it was a branding iron with my initial “W.” I had borrowed the branding iron from a set used for branding steaks as rare, medium and well-done.

As the iron heated, I played with her a bit with various toys, but whatever I did, her eyes rarely strayed far from the red-hot iron. Occasionally, I took it from the fire and held it close to her thigh while I pretended to evaluate whether the temperature was suitable.

She could not take her widened eyes off the steel block and the colors that chased themselves along its surface in response to the heat-roiled air. Time after time, as the tiny hairs on her skin writhed in the radiated heat, I pronounced, “Not yet, let’s let it get a bit hotter.”

Finally, when it was almost white hot, I said, “I think it is ready. Do you really want to go through with this?”

She gulped, speechless, but nodded vigorously.

I blindfolded her and then washed her thigh with some very hot water. When she felt the touch of the washcloth she arched and hissed through her teeth, but I said, “I have to make sure it is completely clean; we don’t want any infection.”

With that, she laid back, but every muscle in her body was standing out in sharp relief.

Then I took the branding iron and held it close to her thigh so she could feel the intense radiated heat. As the skin below the iron became a brighter and brighter shade of red, I asked, “For the last time, do you want to go through with this?”

Again, she nodded.

With one smooth motion, I put aside the branding iron and pressed hard on the reddened, heat-sensitized skin with an ice cube I had concealed in my other hand. Her scream was ear-splitting. She completely lost control of her bowels and bladder and passed out cold.

When she recovered consciousness, I had draped a white cloth over her body (and cleaned up most of the mess). She was almost incoherent in thanking me for what she called the most intense experience of her life. However, when I released her hands and she lifted the sheet, she was completely dumbfounded. I explained what had happened and pointed out that I had never promised to brand her.

Her reaction was a mixture of relief and resentment. I did notice, however, that for the next few days, she would gingerly touch her thigh with a hand as if to check that, indeed, she was not branded.

Some Special Relationship Issues

Contracts of submission

While a contract isn’t exactly what we generally call a toy, drawing up, signing and living under a contract of submission can be an exciting experience. While they are obviously not enforceable in court, contracts do have a very practical function: they clearly spell out various rights and responsibilities of each member in the relationship and require both individuals to think about them. They also allow you to define the universe in which you want to live, a created reality.

Clauses usually include:

• The duration of the contract
  
• Restrictions on where and with whom the submissive (or either) can play
  
• Limitations on the forms of bondage and discipline used
  
• Sexual activities permitted
  
• Types of behavior required for, conduct of and/or work to be done by the submissive
  
• Safewords
  
• How the contract may be terminated or modified
  

Most sample contracts like those in
The Leatherman’s Handbook II
and
The Lesbian S&M Safety Manual
strike me as a bit too one-sided. They certainly spell out what the submissive owes to the dominant, but the dominant’s duties are considerably more vague. Part of this, I suspect, is because these are sample contracts and, as such, contain more than a bit of fantasy. To give you some fair and realistic models

I am reprinting, in the appendices, two actual contracts between couples who are active in the BDSM scene. I think you will see the degree of give and take that was necessary to work out these agreements.

Polyamorous play

“Polyamorous” is another of those cloudy words whose meaning seems to change depending upon whom you are speaking. In the simplest form, it means having several partners for sensual play, and as such, it really doesn’t fall under the BDSM umbrella with the same certainty as, let’s say, flogging or bondage, but I’m including this section for two reasons.

First, successful polyamory shares a number of precepts with BDSM including consensuality and open communications. Second, there is a persistent belief that almost everyone in BDSM is polyamorous. I’ll address the second one first.

After many years in the public and private BDSM scene, it’s my firm belief that the majority of people who practice BDSM do so in the confines of a monogamous relationship. There are two facets of BDSM culture that tend to obscure this.

First, polyamory is relatively accepted in this subculture. No one raises an eyebrow when a domme arrives at a party with two slaves on a leash or when a dominant invites a submissive to join him and his partner in a three- person scene. It’s accepted as part of life, and for that reason, it’s done openly and above the board. To people arriving from the vanilla world where such liaisons are generally condemned and therefore conducted covertly, it seems that “these people are everywhere.”

When I hear that, I give a little shrug and respond, “They are also everywhere in the vanilla world. You just don’t see them.” When I was active in the academic and business world, there was rarely a time when someone wasn’t speculating if A and B weren’t spending too much time together and did A’s wife or B’s husband “know about it.” Parties spawned rumors like leaves falling from oak trees in the fall, and a giggle behind a hand served as an updated version of a scarlet “A” sewn on a Puritan’s dress.

Are there more “unconventional linkages” in the scene than in vanilla society? I can’t really say, but I do know that the ones in the scene are generally open to “public” view, while those in vanilla society usually lock the doors before locking lips. Because of the bias that multiple partners is somehow unusual, these relationships tend to stand out and seem to be “everywhere.” However, many, many couples are quite happy being monogamous.

Polyamory shares the same relationship with “cheating” as BDSM does with abuse. In both cases, the key differences are consent and how the partners feel about the situation.

For a polyamorous relationship to really work, all parties must be aware of what is going on and benefit from it. One of the great myths that dominants fall prey to is “I’m the dominant; what I want is what happens.” This ignores the fact that submissives are neither cartoon characters nor legal chattel (although the latter can be a hot fantasy). As I’ve written before, a dominant who fails to take into account his or her partner’s needs eventually ends up partnerless. Many doms have fallen on their faces, when they allow fantasy to write checks their skills can’t cash.

Because of the observation that “everyone else has multiple partners” or because it’s just a hot fantasy, many novice dominants feel that they need multiple submissives to be properly validated. First, nothing could be further from the truth. The quality of one’s dominance comes from one’s soul, not from counting the bodies one is surrounded by, and more importantly, like a desire for BDSM, a desire for a polyamorous lifestyle should come from the soul and not be created by an ego-driven need to look good to one’s contemporaries. As with BDSM, you should take a long hard look at what you really want as opposed to what you think is expected. Intellectual honesty is important in both realms.

You should also consider what you can really handle, because polyamory is hard work. It’s like single-tail play. You may really, really want to give a single-tail whipping (or, less nobly, be seen giving a single-tail whipping), but you can’t even think about applying a single-tail to human flesh until you have developed the appropriate skills. There is no equivalent of a pillow target for polyamorous skills; however, you can exercise moderation at first. For example, the two of you can try some casual play with a third party. Afterwards, sit down and talk about how it felt. Did new fantasies appear or did insecurities cloud the fun? Building slowly and limiting your expectations won’t guarantee a smooth transition but it is certainly better than running full speed into the psychological reefs.

In managing a polyamorous combination, you have to keep in mind a pair of interrelated fantasies, limits, realities and a multitude of other factors. One relationship coach wrote that, for a relationship to be really successful, each partner has to compromise seventy percent of the time. It may not make good math, but as a piece of practical empiricism, it seems to be pretty accurate. That’s just with two people. I have no idea what the percentage needs to be with three…or four…but it surely doesn’t get smaller.

To make things even more complex, there are a number of ways people approach polyamory. One of the tricks to making it work is finding a pattern that pleases both you and your partner. Some couples include intercourse in their relationships, while others limit sexual contact to oral play. With others, there is no genital sexual component. Some couples will only play with another as a couple, while each member of another couple is free to play alone.

There will be problems. Accept that up front. Such are inevitable. If you treat them as failures on the part of your partner or of yourself, you will be wearing away the core of the relationships. Problems are opportunities for change. Here, again, communication is the key.

Jealousy is almost impossible to avoid, so an admission of that early on can go a long way in limiting the power of the green-eyed goddess. Also, jealousy isn’t limited to submissives. It’s not unknown for a dominant to feel a little put out when submissives begin to discover pleasures that don’t entirely include us. What’s the best way to minimize it? It’s communications, again. It’s easy and more comfortable simply to create an environment where your partners feel uncomfortable in expressing jealousy and other insecurities. It’s so easy, in fact, that many people do it unconsciously. This is the emotional equivalent of putting a book on top of a pressure cooker because the noise of escaping steam annoys you. It’s a workable short term solution, but you end up with a big explosion down the line.

A better approach is to search out to just what is making any of you insecure and see if it can be dealt with. Sometimes the solution is as simple as just letting A know when you are going to be playing with B so he or she isn’t surprised. For example, Libby and I have a rule that anyone who wants to play with either of us, negotiates it with the other. That way each of us knows what and where the other is.

Dealing with expectations up front is another way of keeping jealousy under control. As with one-on-one scene negotiations, knowing what each party wants out of the relationship lets you either craft a mutually rewarding situation or recognize “this ain’t gonna work.” Just as before, recognizing the unworkability of a connection isn’t a judgment on any individual. It’s just an acceptance of the complexity of this world and how difficult it is to match needs and expectations.

Generally, I find those who seek polyamorous relationships are often disappointed, generally by this very complexity. It seems the best approach is to be open to a polyamorous approach if the situation presents itself, but not to be forced into what may turn out to be an unsatisfactory situation because of perceived outside pressures or unrealistic expectations.

Suggested Reading

The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures,
Dossie Easton & Janet W. Hardy, Celestial Arts Books

Protocol

In the world of BDSM, “protocol” is a word that has many meanings. Protocol, as in the vanilla world, can be the lubricant that allows disparate individuals to work together with a minimum of friction. As outlined in the chapter on party behavior, these rules are pretty much common sense and probably wouldn’t even be needed if individuals remembered the behavior they had been taught at their mother’s knee still applies, even in what seems like a no- holds-barred atmosphere of a play party.

What I’m writing about here is more like the created protocol of the military, the sign and countersign of Masons, the salute and pass-in-review of a regiment, the kneeling or prostration of a slave when his or her master enters the room, using both hands to pass anything to an honored guest, or even a submissive using third person to refer to himself or herself. Viewed from a lofty detachment, these protocols have no obvious utility, but they can touch deeply into the soul of both the dominant and the submissive.

We do not live in a slave-holding society. In fact, the real world where all but the most favored of kinky people live is one of transcendent egalitarianism. We need the symbols to remind ourselves that the world within is strikingly different from the world without.

For example, most slaves and submissives are out in the professional and work world where they are often required to take on the mantle of control and order others about, when their soul yearns for the different world with very different duties. As simple an act as touching a collar disguised as a necklace, or a bracelet camouflaging a cuff, can be immensely reassuring that his or her secret world exists.

Just as an astronaut has to pass through an airlock to go from the incredibly hostile world of space into the comfortable confines of the shuttle, some kinky people need a tangible transition as they move into their personal world. One couple I know of has the slave, each evening upon returning from work, kneel before her master and take her oath of obedience. Others reserve a special collar to symbolize that now they have moved from an inner, thought- driven BDSM to one of touch and action.

Groups also have protocol. These can be valuable in reminding the members of their special status. One of the things that I loved about the Marines was knowing I was part of something bigger than I was, both in size and time. When we did a pass in review on the drill field at Quantico, we were going through the same ceremony that warriors had been doing in precisely the same way back to the time that Queen Anne’s muster masters used it to assure themselves that a unit could march in formation and the officers could use their swords with skill and precision. That sort of thing touches the soul.