The (New and Improved) Loving Dominant (7 page)

This conundrum reminds me of a story about a politician, who being asked if he opposed liquor, said, “Are you referring to the demon rum that destroys lives, reduces families to ruin, and is the shame of our cities, or are you referring to the delicious elixir that rejuvenates the tired, gives peace to the troubled, and contributes so much in taxes to our national treasury?”

The problem seems to lie in a failure of the English language. Obviously there seem to be at least two, and perhaps more, kinds of pain. I’ve never known a submissive who got off on a stomach ache from a bad hotdog. However, many greatly enjoy the very similar pain resulting from an enema. A swat from a closing spring-loaded door is annoying, but one from a leather-clad lover is exciting.

Nor is enjoyment simply situational. More than once I have had to pause during a session to untangle a strap which was pinching my submissive or to ease her leg cramps. Why did these pains bring her down when she was receiving a substantially greater pain from the whipping, strapping or waxing?

The answer could be that the pains are different. Popular myth has it that Eskimos have dozens of different words for snow. We have only one word for pain, which is another interesting shortcoming for English.

As far as I know, psychologists have not examined this terminology shortfall. However, there has been considerable research into stress, which affects the body much like pain. The stress researchers found that there are two kinds of stress, eustress (good stress) and distress (bad stress). Interestingly, the distinction between these two stresses is completely within the soul of the individual. Where one person might see a roller coaster ride as the high point of her day, another might find it a glimpse into hell.

The same stress can be distress for an individual at one time and eustress at another. We all know individuals who revel in the push and tug of office politics. However, occasionally, even these political animals get fed up and need to get away when the eustress of political infighting becomes distress.

People in BDSM instinctively recognize that there are positive pains and negative pains. Our discussions are laden with indirect references to them. We may talk about something that “gets me off” or “sends me somewhere else,” while another activity/toy/person “turns me off” or “brings me down.”

Often, at the beginning of a session, we are dealing with a relatively narrow cone of positive pain. Most submissives prefer to begin with some relatively light, sensual, familiar stimulation. As the level of endorphins build and the submissive gets into his or her space, the cone of positive pain widens, and the dominant has a broader range of stimulation to choose from.

This is where experience and sensitivity come in. By riding just short of the edge where positive pain becomes negative, the dominant can take the submissive to heights of pleasure she never knew she could reach. However, crossing over that edge, moving outside the cone of positive pain, can distract the submissive and shatter the spirit of the scene.

This is what creates the intensity of communication between the submissive and the dominant. Body language, tone and timbre of cries, and even odor, provide clues that allow an experienced dominant to bring the submissive right up to the edge without crossing it. To make matters even more complex, this edge does not lie at a particular point on the submissive’s pleasure map, nor is the passage to it analogous to reaching a conventional wall or barrier. The edge varies from day to day and is responsive to the pace, timing of the stimulation and tool employed. In fact, in the non-Euclidian space of BDSM, it is also possible to go beyond the edge without passing it.

For example, a particular submissive may be in sheer heaven with hours of firm measured spanking but may reach the edge rather quickly with a few swats of the cane. Conversely, the cane may produce a marked negative reaction when used early in the session, but it could be welcomed as a scene-ender which drives that particular submissive right into paroxysms of pleasure when preceded by extensive stimulation with other toys.

Another thing that differentiates the kinds of pain is a sense of control and trust. Recently, doctors have been fitting patients with small pumps, which the patients can dose themselves with pain medication. To many people’s surprise, the patients used less medication than they would have been given in a typical nurse-supplied situation. It wasn’t that doctors and nurses had been overdosing patients; the patients who could control their own pain could tolerate more of it. They were in control of the situation.

This may explain why a twisted strap or cramp can be painful and a whip pleasant. The strap and cramp are unexpected and uncontrolled. There is no assurance that no harm will be done. The whip, on the other hand, is controlled by someone seen as trustworthy, one who would not inflict lasting or gratuitous harm. The submissive recognizes either overtly or covertly that he or she has the overriding say in the scene.

Because the previously mentioned cramp wasn’t part of the script between myself and my submissive, it was, therefore, frightening and painful. It was an alien intrusion into this dance of trust and submission. Since I did not control it, my submissive did not even have the indirect control over the stimulation to which she had become accustomed. This created a sense of negative pain, and she used her safeword to bring the situation once again under control.

This sense of control over the outer parameters of the scene may also explain why experienced submissives playing with unfamiliar dominants are unable to tolerate the same degree of stimulation they would enjoy with familiar partners.

It is the development of this trust that is the test of a true dominant. It is fragile, easily broken and can rarely be mended seamlessly. However, it is a treasure beyond price and the key that opens fantasy to reality.

Stalking the Wild Submissive

The single most common question in BDSM is, “How do I find a submissive?” (I’m also asked, “How do I find a dominant?” but that’s another book.) Occasionally, it is spoken with an air of angry frustration as if there should be a branch of Subs R Us on every corner. More often, the tone is one of frustration and disappointment.

I won’t sugarcoat the truth. It is difficult and frustrating for both sides in this eternal dance. If you are seeking a male submissive, remember that you are asking him to admit to desires contrary to every precept he was brought up to hold. If you are seeking a female submissive, keep in mind that by admitting her desires, she could be seen to be rejecting gains that women have slowly and painfully made over the last twenty, fifty, one hundred years. Is it any wonder the streets are not filled with people wearing buttons reading “I’m Submissive; Take Me”?

There are basically two routes to your goal. One is to attract an individual who has already made up his or her mind that submission is the desired path. The other is to help a potentially submissive person liberate his or her feelings. Neither is easy.

Let’s look at the first path. On the surface, it looks smooth. We have a group of submissives looking for dominants and a group of dominants looking for submissives. Put them together and all will be well. In an ideal world, this would be true. Unfortunately, you’re not looking for just “a submissive.” You want someone whose needs and desires complement your own.

To make things harder, within each group, there is a smaller group of people who are not what they seem. Each group includes mindfuckers, blackmailers and outright confidence tricksters. Removing them from the mix sometimes seems like an overwhelming task. (I should note here that there is also a kind of play called “mindfucking.” The kind of lowlife I’m referring to has no relation to that.) We’ll talk more about these people in a few pages.

Submissives are looking for someone strong in spirit and confident, someone to whom they can entrust their safety. A seemingly frenzied search does not present these qualities to the onlooker.

Perhaps, the best approach for a dominant to take is presented, somewhat tongue in cheek, in this short parable written on Prodigy by a Midwestern dominant.

Somewhere in the stormy North Atlantic, aboard the USS Dominance:

“Captain…our sonar shows subs lurking in the area.” “Easy, Mr. Libido. We’ll let them come to us.”

“Begging your pardon, Captain, but shouldn’t we be seeking them out?”

“Mr. Libido, you obviously don’t know how the USS Dominance retains its control over the high seas.”

A klaxon horn goes off, and an urgent voice blares from the loudspeaker. “Sub sighted off the starboard bow!”

“All hands, this is Mr. Libido! Man your battle stations! Full speed ahead!”

“Mr. Libido! You will rescind those orders and never dare to overstep your authority on my ship again!”

“Captain, the USS Dominance is a dominant ship!”

“Exactly, Mr. Libido. And as a dominant ship under my command she will stay her course while the sub approaches. Stand down from battle stations. Steady as she goes.”

“Captain, as Executive Officer on this ship I must protest your extraordinarily passive behavior in the presence of a sub.”

“Mr. Libido, protest if you will, but the sub will be handled my way, or it will not be handled at all.”

“Sir, do you mean we will capture it by projecting a calm, secure image on the rough seas?”

“Mr. Libido, continue to learn. One day you will be a captain of a dominant ship yourself.”

Rose, a New York submissive, phrased it this way: “I like a guy who respects himself. He is more likely to respect me and my gift to him. He is more likely to take care of himself, and by extension of me. I like a guy who understands that trust of this depth can only evolve if we take our time.

“Some guys always overdrive their headlights, no matter how rotten the driving conditions. That doesn’t mean that I don’t like to travel fast — only that there is a time and place for that and the beginning is figuring out where all the buttons are and what they do.

“Finally, since this is all about domination and submission, shaping behaviors and pleasing each other, I like a guy who understands at least the rudiments of shaping behavior. Some people are natural-born dominants, masters or trainers, but that doesn’t mean the skills can’t be learned. And there are lots of rules about shaping behavior that apply, no matter whom you’re shaping.”

Making contact

There are various media outlets for avowed dominants and submissives to seek each other out: newspapers, magazines, the Internet, clubs and associations.

Whatever the medium, the method is to give and gain trust, for a dominant must earn the trust of a submissive by being trusting, while keeping alert for those who are flying false colors. Submissives look for this trust in an attempt to separate us from the nonconsensual sadists and those who would do them harm. Unfortunately, there are those among them who would use this trust to hurt us.

Because of this danger, it is a good idea not to reveal too much about yourself during initial contacts. This, naturally, is directly at odds with the need to give trust. It is a delicate balance, not susceptible to easy solution.

It’s also good to keep a sense of humor. This may not seem easy when you feel as if your beating heart has been ripped from your chest by some bastard or bitch, but life goes on. It’s important to keep both the victories and defeats in proportion.

Without going into details, I’ll draw an illustration from my own life when things looked extremely black, so black in fact that I was sitting on my porch looking at a shotgun and debating using it to end the pain. As I sat there, I realized I needed to take a piss. At first, it enraged me that so physical a feeling should be intruding on the depth of despair I was feeling. But, then I really, really needed to take a piss. It hurt. Suddenly, I realized just how shallow a person I was to let a thing like a full bladder encroach on a moment of metaphysical torment. I broke out laughing, I pissed, and I went on with my life.

Contact at a distance

This is the section of
Loving Dominant
which has undergone the most “sea changes” as one edition follows another. Part of the changes have been due to advances in technology. When the first edition was being written, the Internet was still mostly a thing of corporations, universities and governments. Most people who had online lives did so with thirty-baud dial-up modems and connected directly to bulletin board systems, which could be as huge as Prodigy or CompuServe or as small as a home computer in someone’s spare room. Now, high speed lines connect homes to an information superhighway, and the web’s potential has increased exponentially. But one thing remains the same. People want to meet people, and computers provide powerful tools to do so.

Before the Internet, magazine and newspaper advertisements were the preferred way to cast a wide, but impersonal, net over a large population. There were kink- dedicated, kink-friendly publications like
Latent Image,
or swinging magazines where you could spell out exactly what you wanted. More difficult were vanilla publications where a kind of code was prevalent. Submissives would talk about “wanting to surrender to an assertive man/ woman” or “give up control.” Dominants would mention seeking someone “restrained” or “passive.” Often, literary references supplied the clues. “I loved reading
Exit to Eden/Story of 0/ Venus in Furs”…
with the writer hoping the minimum-wage toiler on the advertising desk wouldn’t be able to pick up the reference.

It is interesting that this same sort of subterfuge was necessary on some online systems in the early days. Prodigy, for one, was initially very anti-BDSM and would refuse to post messages referring to any sort of scene play. The kinky folks quickly found that they could gather in the literature section and post comments about Anne Rice’s Beauty books that were, in reality, thinly disguised description of their interests and activities.

Now most of these magazines are things of the past, and computers are the modern way to meet others who share your interests. During a class at The Boston Dungeon Society, one female instructor casually commented, “I don’t know how anyone can be serious about their sex life if they don’t have a computer.” It got a big laugh, but the point was serious. As the computer came of age, people realized that they had a very powerful tool for communicating as well as calculating. By linking the computers to other computers, people have created thousands of networks both large and small, which can help people of similar interests find each other.