When it comes to things that ruin my morning coffee, right after the previously blogged idea that everyone needs to engage in humiliation to do D/s is the idea that everyone has to do D/s at all.
Right there at the end of BDSM we have S&M, you know, for sado-masochism or sadists and masochists. It's literally called out in one of the most common acronyms used for our lifestyle. But go onto most social media centers for perverts and you'll run head first into the Twue practitioners who insist that when you do pervy shit you need to have one person in charge and one person doing what they're told.
I wish I could say it's just a symptom of all the online stuff, but it's even in normal, real spaces. Walk into any event or party and you'll have a pile of people identifying as a D or s-type and maybe a handful who are just there because it feels good. It's a common question at munches, are you a dom or sub? And god help you if you say you're not a sub, you're just a bottom. You get quickly tagged as a "do me" sub because you don't want all the D/s along with it.
Why do we do this? Where did it all start? Who decided we should push every newbie into these hierarchical roles? Even as we sit here and muse about the spectrums that apply to gender and sexuality we have such stark, rigid roles for D/s. Unless, of course, you're the dreaded switch. Everyone knows you're just a switch because you're using it to lure someone in and you're really just a sub or dom, depending the rumor circulating.
There are options out there, folks. You, indeed, can engage in allllll this wonderful, perverted, kinky delightful stuff and NOT have to be in a collar or be in charge of someone. You can literally spank someone then be full equals with them. You can even spank them and THEN they turn around and flog you.
Clutch those pearls! CLUTCH THEM! Your Twueness demands it! SUBMISSIVES ARE GOING TO GET IDEAS! SWITCHES WILL RUN AMOK!
But to be less flippant about the whole thing, despite best intentions of authors and podcasters, we look at everything as a package deal and not the modular ala carte delight that our lifestyle is.
Think of it like Lego. I love this analogy, everyone else I've ever told it to hates it. But goddamnit, I'm running with it because fuck it, this is my playground and blog and I can be as strange and theoretical as I want!
Let's pretend that everyone has two of those nice, flat Lego bases. You know, the ones you click pieces onto so you can build a house with a yard or something. But you have two. One is for all the things you want done to you and the other is for all the things you want to do to someone else.
And on those pieces, you build with fetishy Lego. Every single kink out there has two pieces available to you, unique in shape and color. If you like doing that fetish, you snap it onto the "do to others" base. If you want it done to you, you snap it on the "do to me" base. There's a brick that represents whipping, spanking, drinking bodily fluids of various types, humiliation variations, exhibitionism, forced feminization, blood play, rope, it's alllll there!
When you're done, you'll have a tiny little modern art looking structure on each one. One might be loaded with stuff and the other might be a touch sparse, or maybe they're the same. Or maybe one has some things that never show up on the other. But I am willing to bet if every twue dominate and slave-hearted slave out there went through this exercise without lying they'd be surprised to see a few things piling up on the other base.
Oh, and don't forget control and dominance, that's a fetish. You're snapping blocks onto a base for that. You can literally fill your bases with blocks for physical play and never ever ever put a brick on there that pertains to being in control or being told what to do.*
You can also literally have a base where it's full of nothing but non-painful fetishes on the bottom side, like service, humiliation, orgasm control, all that good stuff. And that's okay, too.
Nothing says when you get into this lifestyle you have to take it all as a package deal. And maybe we should be more forthcoming in steering new people into the idea of looking at the menu and ordering what they think they like instead of buying a whole Combo # 2 with a side of collar. D/s isn't for everyone and you are not a lesser player for opting out of it.
*I have to asterisk this one, of course in mid play you might wanna listen to the top. When they say "don't move" while sticking a needle in you, it's usually a good idea to listen. Calling this out to head off the contrarians, safety requests in play are totally different from doing some D/sy stuff because you like to tell them what to do.