So, you want to enter the world of BDSM and 'learn' to be submissive.
First let me ask some important questions. On a scale of 1-5, how much do you like doing what you want to do, when you want to do it?
How much do you enjoy choosing what and when to eat, what and how to dress, how you wear your hair, how to wear your make-up?
How willing are you to share your darkest, most shameful secrets? How honest can you be about your deepest desires? Are you willing to share things that will make you vulnerable?
How much do you value your me-time or your girl-friend time? Do you have friends that are male and are they important to you?
How much do you value your body autonomy, your freedom of choice, your independence, and your privacy?
How much do you enjoy choosing, controlling and navigating your own pleasure and sexual experiences now, in your 'vanilla' life?
These questions aren't just rhetorical—they're essential to understanding what your consent actually means and choices you will face in relationship.
The Nature of Submission
We know that sex is more than just a physical act, but how often do we really think about how it connects with our brains, bodies, and our feminine/masculine identity? To submit to another person—one who holds you accountable for all of your actions and then—incorporates expectations for a posture of submissiveness with accountability means you give yourself over to a new identity. One that is, by many dynamic definitions, not independent.
Not autonomous.
Instead, you become dependent.
Are you ready for that?
Whether you're with a "real" Dom, some version of fake Dom, or you are just role-playing, diving into D/s can a change you. You are opening new doors of desire and you don’t always know what is on the other side.
Learning to be submissive will and should change you. I'm talking a whole new you – different emotions, a different way of seeing yourself, including changes in your brain make-up. That is right. Your brain patterns will change. The actual ridges and valesy on your brain, change. Your thought patterns will change.
Some studies show that people in D/s relationships feel more self-aware and authentic, like they're finally becoming who they're meant to be. But it is like opening a door that once you've walked through, it's impossible to go back. If you invest in this lifestyle, mixing your submission with sex, (and a dose of behavior modification, positive/negative reinforcements, and other common Dom training techniques) it will become a real part of who you are.
Those feel-good chemicals released during D/s activities—dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin—make the experience nearly addictive, (even though it's not officially classified that way, those are the same chemicals released in porn addicts and sex addicts brains and bodies.)
The Reality of Daily Submission
I have yet to meet one dominant who was willing to let me make my own choices about getting my hair cut or changing the color. That’s really a simple thing, isn't it? I'm a 56 year old woman. I spent most of my life making those choices. At times in self-expression, at others in full-on empowerment, and others just because it needed to be done but always, I decided what I wanted. It’s my body after all.
In submission I give up that choice, among many other choices about my body. I now dress to please my Sir or Master. Depending on a dynamic, some Sir's are more involved in those choices than others. I don’t mind doing this. It actually makes me happy to please my Sir and every day, when I get dressed, having someone see me, acknowledge me and tell me that I look good has become an embedded affirming practice.
Not only is having a Sir in my life my reason to daily make an effort, no matter what my plans are for the day, getting his approval is as natural as making him a cup of coffee before I make my own.
Daily routines make up my week, my month, my life in countless ways. I am now accustomed to someone knowing where I am at all times, daily check-ins and and phone calls that I must answer. (I was not before. I never did any of that in twenty years of marriage.)
Some things challenge me more than others.
Once upon a time I went to the movies by myself and splurged on popcorn, coke and candy. No more.
The act of doing as I'm told and behaving as I'm expected has become embedded into my being. Now learned, I will not suddenly wake up one day, say fuck off to this lifestyle and be able to embrace an independent feminist battle yell.
And for a dominant, don’t estimate the connection created when he is the one to do all of this for and with you. It’s not just about teaching you to give a good blow job.
The Pain of Loss
Losing this connection and affirmation, this grounding practice—will create a hole in my life. There will be an absence, a loss.
It will hurt. I've heard it described like a death.
I've written it in poetic form, like this:
I'm not afraid of being alone
I'm afraid of the ache
The dull, painful throb
Of a major artery cut open
And pulsing, pulsing
Down my belly
In desperate red heart beats.
I fear
The bone squeeze emotion
Of my suddenly raw knees
Scraped open
And hollowed out with no one
There to yield and bend for
And the cracking vertebrae
As my holiest of love offerings
Becomes just another
cheap little sin.
A dominant has been a part of my life and taken daily center stage in it. When I lose him... if I lose him, I lose my routine, my habits, the voice that cheers me on, that corrects me, that confirms me. I lose my reason.
There is a chance, if I have engaged in specific orgasm training with a dominant, that I could also lose the ability to do that, too. I’ve seen people on reddit and on fetlife, talking about how long its been. For some…years. Has anyone told you this yet?
The Vulnerability After Loss
For me, who always had a tendency to yield to authority, it has become difficult to even say no to any persuasive, pushy man. I know this because after my first D/s relationship ended, to my horror, I experienced it. I obeyed when I should have ran. I responded when I should have ignored or blocked.
Why? Why did I let myself be a victim?
Because I craved. There was this great need welling up in me, an aching, and hurting, with so many wordless, dangerous, moans. I could be alone, by myself. But I wanted to be commanded more…I wanted to feel those commands against my skin, more, and I would let that desire take me down roads that shamed me, and created a risk for my family. What risk?
I played like an addict. Recklessly. Giving my name. My address. I made a fool of myself. (Those fake Doms…) Allowed myself to be used and treated like trash while chasing after a feeling I gotten from deep, vulnerable trust and relationship. Trying to fill a hole that felt like the open mouth of a grave.
The Power Dynamic
Before D/s I spent most of my life as the decision maker with my ex-husband and my kids. Back then when some decisions didn't go my way, I got angry. I shared how I felt, loudly and often. I pushed back on what I thought was the right way to do something and proudly maintained my right to push and have a say or make things go the way I thought they should. I played all kinds of passive aggressive games. I did what I wanted to, spent what I wanted to spend, and went where I pleased.
When a submissive engages with a dominant man she must know, now, that he is going to have his say. Many good men will give a sub a right to discuss something, but most if not all reserve the right to make global choices for the couple. When, where, what type of choices including the when and where to have sex or play, what happens during that play, and what happens after.
Sometimes you might really be in that sexy mood. He can and will tell you no. Sometimes he will be in the mood and you are not.
The dominant leads. The sub follows.
I think in the hot, steamy moments of our imaginations sometimes a submissive, or someone who wants to learn to be submissive forgets the follow part. We can hang our faith on consent, and expect that we always get a choice.
I guess that can depend on the dominant, but most of the dominants I have had conversations with choose the role of Dominant because they need/want to be in charge and in control. It is not only their relationship style, it is often their entire persona. They aren't going to waste time arguing or with power struggles over who gets to make the decisions when they begin to the relationship or encounter or whatever, in this state of mind.
Never has 'let it go,' meant more than it does now as I live out a submissive lifestyle.
The Deeper Implications
Relationships with a dominant might help us fully live in our feminine energy, but it often becomes co-dependency, where we rely on the Dom for validation, or the Dom depends on our presence and service. We become his reason, too.
There aren't a lot of studies that really dig into how D/s, the addiction-like natural cocktail producing chemicals in our bodies, co-dependent behaviors, and submissive people-pleasing attachment styles all mix-up together. There should be. But there are not.
Even good, sexy things have a risk. If something is going to change you, change your brain patterns, then that risk extends to your body and your spirt. Your entire being will be changed, should be changed in submission.
Embrace submission knowing that you will never be the same and that a consent clause will not save you from doing things you're not in a mood to do.
A Final Warning
Before rushing in, remember.
You will be changed.
You may be changed in ways you are not currently prepared for. You cannot undo the change without intense new conditioning and therapy. Feeling seen, experiencing trust, the sweet blank of subspace and the euphoria high of being in-love/lust and totally-physically-satisfied create chemical cascades in your body that change your brain. I realize there are no good studies on this but I know how sex, porn and the brain work and there are plenty of studies on that. Now just add real bodies, real people and real feels and tell me you can walk away unchanged.
You may want more and more sex and attention.
You may feel extreme pain at the loss of a dominant and go hunting for anything to replace that feeling, like an addict searching for a fix. The loss will hurt.
You could be trained into someone you don't want to be.
You will have to do hard things. You will be challenged. You will have to let go of your own will and inherent right to independence and let another decide things for you.
D/s is way more than just a kinky scene. It's a journey that changes you inside and out. It unlocks authenticity and mind-blowing intimate connection, but it also comes with risks like compulsive reactionary behaviors, co-dependency, and identity shifts that are hard to undo. By hard I mean months and months of learning how to think and feel again.
Understanding all of this and going in with your eyes open is essential.
If you are like me, even knowing that, you will rush in, hungry, ready, in-love, determined.
Sing along with me, 'let it go, let it go," and know that if you are still attached to doing things your own way, or you are afraid to share all your darkest secrets, or you aren't ready to take responsibility for saying yes and not knowing what is on the other side…then maybe you aren't ready to learn to be a submissive.