First, go slow. The newness, excitement, and even the dept of arousal can make it very easy for someone new to find themselves waist-deep, or deeper, in a D/S relationship and unsure how things when this far this fast. When another truly cares deeply, they will respect the desire to proceed at a steady pace and will not rush to fully integrate the lifestyle into the partnership. Slow but steady will help you to “win” the relationship race.
At other times, people can be so thirsty for experiences that safety concerns are set aside putting them in vulnerable positions. While this is not something exclusive to those newer to the lifestyle, most often inexperience and thirst combine to create potentially dangerous situations. One person in five, within five years of exploring/entering the lifestyle, will have their consent violated according to the National Coalition For Sexual Freedom. So it is imperative to remember that your safety is your responsibility and no matter how much one needs a drink from the kinky well, each individual must minimize their risk.
He's the kind of gentleman that twists your hair so perfectly in his hands so it's out of your way as you devour him. The kind of gentleman that makes you waffles and coffee and remembers to have creamer. The kind of gentleman that buys new sheets just to ruin them with you. The kind of gentleman that has your back in the smallest of ways. He's the kind of gentleman that can be anything, but gentle.
My submission is not sleek and tidy. It’s messy and ever-changing. There are days of epic devotion and days of total chaos. There are days my submission is obvious and days one would question my sanity, much less my ability to follow a lead. There are days of endless energy and days of complete exhaustion. At times it’s stormy and raging and other times it’s as calm and enjoyable as a glassy lake.
Some days my submission fits in a beautiful box sporting a pretty pink bow. Other days it overflows, and yet there are days it’s on its side with its contents spilled about. Some days it’s a massive struggle and some days it’s as easy as breathing. Some things always take a great amount of effort. I mean All. The. Time. That does not mean I’m not submissive. Not even close. That means I’m human. It means it takes a strong man to lead me. It takes a patient man. It takes an eager man. It takes a man willing to fail. It takes a man that will recognize my needs- or at least one that is inclined to try. Most of all it takes a brave man. A man that is not afraid to face my dragons, cherishes my softness and takes pride in my desire to serve him. It takes a man that knows submission is seldom neatly boxed.
It’s so rare to find someone that is your “safe place” in life. Your person that you can break down in front of. Your confidant. Your place of peace. Your keeper of dreams. Your partner to dream and build with. The person who encourages you to invest in yourself. The person who helps you figure out a way to accomplish things in life. The person who wakes up early or stays up late to be with you. It’s easy to feel like someone could be that, but it’s harder to find someone that actually is that. Finding people who are attractive or that turn you on or that flirt well, that’s easy. They’re everywhere. But finding someone who sticks around? Who stays? In the dark days? In the deep shit? Rare. Maybe a once or twice-in-a-lifetime thing. Hold people like that tight. Don’t let go.
When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies. When the garden flowers, baby are dead, yes, and your mind, your mind is so full of red. Your eyes, I say your eyes may look like his, yeah, but in your head, baby I'm afraid you don't know where it is. Tears are running down, they're all running down your breast. And your friends, baby they treat you like a guest. Don't you want somebody to love? Don't you need somebody to love?
By any standard pain is powerful, but for a masochist, it is even more potent. Pain can unlock the mind, or shut it down. For a masochist, it can quiet the loudest of thoughts, and leave in their place the echoes of affection.
Sadness, for most, will mean that they need to be held until the tears stop. When other women are angry, they may need space to cool off. Perhaps when they are frustrated, they need time to think and work through the problem. But that isn’t what I need. I need pain.
For a masochist, like me, pain can heal. Do I want to be held? Yes, of course. I need to feel the firm pressure of your arms around me, and your soft words whispered in my ear. I need you to hold me and tell me that it will be okay, to talk me back to reason, and remind me that this too shall pass.
But first, I need you to pull me over your knee and warm my skin with the touch of your palm. I need you to coil your hand around my neck until my sorrows fade to black. To tie me down and multiply my tears until there are none left to be cried. I need you to drown out my inner monolog with the floods of pain.
Not because I’ve been bad, not because I shouldn’t be sad, not because you don’t want to hold me, but because you know that your hand on my skin is affection. Because you understand that the lingering heat, the sharp sting, and the aching mark your hand leaves in its wake, still my mind. They remind me that despite the storm, I am yours. Because you know that the pain tells me that I am loved, and some days the voice of pain is the only one I hear.
She wondered whether there would ever come an hour in her life when she didn’t think of him; didn’t speak to him in her head, didn’t relive every moment they’d been together, didn’t long for his voice and his hands, and his love. She had never dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much; of all the things that had astonished her in her adventures, that was what astonished her the most. She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever.
The lifestyle or love style of Dominance and submission is a highly seductive one with its promise of highly focused devotion and intense, sensual, and sexual pleasures. It is easy to believe from popularization in mass entertainment and readily available online imagery that somehow Dominance and submission are the answer to all our desires and prayers for a relationship and sensuality. Indeed, whether online or in-person, there is a genuine high that can be achieved in the endorphin-filled early days of a D/s relationship.
New Dominants are often overeager to prove their “Dominance” and in so doing can overreach their knowledge and native abilities in their quest to be the “perfect” Dom or simply to attract attention. Similarly, new submissives are equally eager to attract the attention of a Dominant and feel compelled to “prove” their submission when they eventually find one.
As with any new relationship, there is a honeymoon period where everything seems perfect no matter how imperfect things may be. In the vanilla world, this phenomenon is called “romantic love” in which the brain is flooded with pleasure and reward hormones at the mere mention or sight of the new object of affection. Common sense and rationality are routinely overcome by the flood of endorphins we experience at the thought of our new companion. In this period, we are often incapable of seeing the faults or flaws in others or serious incompatibilities that may be obvious to others but to which we are blind. This is common and normal and not usually all that dangerous if we do not do something totally rash or life-altering during this period of emotional and sensual high that we may subsequently regret. If we give ourselves time to settle down and sort things out we will usually come to our senses and either affirm our place in the relationship or wisely decide to move on.
In a D/s relationship, we are subject to all the pitfalls of romantic love in the vanilla world but add significantly more peril to the equation. In addition to the usual romantic and sensual attractions and distractions of any new relationship we add an exchange of power, heightened and new sexual activity, and for those who engage in sadomasochistic activities, potentially intense stimuli. We take the endorphin high of any new relationship and amp it up by many orders of magnitude. This is part of the attraction of D/s to be sure but it also makes our ability to act like rational human beings even more challenging than normal by deeply clouding our ability to make good decisions or even protect our welfare. This is a particularly perilous place for a submissive who already has all the pitfalls of any new relationship to be concerned with but then may also be giving up power, authority, and even self-will to their new partner. Being submissive, the tendency is to fully trust a Dominant to be responsible and caring and to be subservient to them in many ways. Even if there is some question about how things are going on the part of a submissive, there is a natural reluctance to question authority or to stand up for themselves. Doing so seems to be “against the rules” and off-limits in some way and can exacerbate the already cloudy judgment found in romantic love. Sadly, some so-called Dominants will even prey upon this natural tendency and use it to their advantage in ways that might be less than responsible.
The state of mind frequently experienced by new submissives or even experienced submissives in a new and powerful relationship is often referred to as “sub frenzy.” This is a time when a submissive may be overwhelmed by the emotions and physical stimuli of a new D/s relationship (or even the idea or promise of such a relationship) and they fall all over themselves to please and be pleasing without much concern for their own emotional well being or even physical safety. This period is characterized by a desire to try and do everything at once, prove just how submissive they are or can be, please their Dominant at all costs, and do almost anything not to make a mistake or disappoint. The attraction to their Dominant is intense and almost overwhelming. The need for attention and validation is intense and an otherwise emotionally healthy individual can find themselves driven by neediness, jealousy, attention-seeking, people-pleasing, and a host of other negative traits that may heretofore be foreign to them. Or in the case of a submissive who already tended to these negative character traits, they may become particularly pronounced in the zeal of “sub frenzy.”
We are all subject to intense feelings and needs in new relationships, Doms and subs alike, but the circumstances are particularly perilous for submissives as they throw themselves at the feet of a Dominant who may or may not be educated and experienced in D/s or perhaps maybe less than scrupulous. Let’s face it, not everyone claiming to be Dominant is a healthy or well-adjusted person, some are and some aren’t. We are all people and we run the gamut of society like any other group, ranging from saints to criminals and everything in between. The good news is that most Dominants are just average people who have the desire to express their relationships a little differently than most societies. But as with all shopping experiences, caveat emptor (buyer beware) is the operative phrase, and being a cautious shopper is not easy when you are completely overcome with the desire for a shiny new object. Whether it is a car, a new pair of shoes, a piece of jewelry you simply cannot live without, or a Dominant, it is all too easy to be overcome with a desire only to have a serious case of buyer’s remorse later. In the case of shopping for a Dominant, the penalties of impulse buying and being totally infatuated with your purchase can have serious and lasting effects; emotional, physical, and even social.
Sub frenzy is real, very intense, and can lead to some very poor judgment and decision-making. There is no real cure for it as we all get excited and enamored with our new relationships. To some degree, we should be excited. It’s fun! But the best defense against doing something totally rash and potentially harmful in this prolonged state of delirium is to be aware that it is happening and be on guard for actions that might seem irrational in any other phase of our lives. It is also advisable to have someone rational and experienced in whom you can confide and who can check your motives and actions BEFORE you take them. This can be a friend, an experienced submissive, or an impartial, objective, and experienced Dominant. Have a mentor and a chaperone of sorts to help you see things objectively, someone who can see things through clear eyes and can pull you up short before you make a serious mistake. This can be hard to find when all our traditional friends, family, and coworkers would consider our exploration of D/s and BDSM to be absurd, irrational, dirty, or even deviant. It can be hard to find like-minded people whom we can trust to have our best interests at heart and whom we respect sufficiently to listen to when they are telling us something we desperately do not want to hear.
Obviously, there are many similarly-minded people gathering in places online with whom we can interact and compare notes but it is difficult to ascertain their level of experience and credibility. This is where reaching out in person to the D/s or BDSM community in your own geographic area can be very helpful. It is always easier to judge people in person than online since so much of our communication is through non-verbal/written means. Almost anywhere you go or live you can find gatherings of like-minded D/s souls that are open to the public and to which newcomers are readily welcomed. These are generally called munches and are usually held in a public location such as a restaurant or bar. Attendees most often wear street clothes and in fact, fetish wear is often prohibited out of respect to vanilla patrons of the establishment at which the gathering is held. Munches are a great way to meet people, share common interests, and generally become ingratiated into a new community. They are non-threatening events that are purely social in nature and I encourage anyone new to the D/s scene to participate. You can find lists of munches through Internet searches, by searching public events on social media outlets such as FetLife. Attending munches and meeting other submissives and Dominants is a good way to learn, see firsthand what falls within the norms of acceptability in the BDSM community, and possibly meet a mentor or compatriot who can help guide you through the excitement and irrationality of sub-frenzy.
Awareness, education, preparation, and objective outside counsel are key to success in navigating sub-frenzy and I urge anyone contemplating undertaking a new D/s relationship to do their homework, talk things over with an experienced and objective third party, and go in with eyes wide open. You may be a submissive but you are still an autonomous human being with the ability to make decisions and stand up for yourself. Do not lose yourself completely. Caveat emptor and enjoy the ride.
1. I am not going to be everyone’s cup of tea and that’s okay. Okay, ladies honesty time. I’m a bigger girl. I have thighs, hips, and a belly. Not everyone is going to be down with that. Those who do stick around are those who matter though. So what if you have a tummy and like to be tied up? I promise some guy somewhere will love every inch of you.
2. I don’t look like most porn photos. You know exactly what I am talking about. The photos that flood your feed, my feed, and even pictures you may have on your blog. Scantily clad women with svelte, slim bodies, flat tummies, skinny thighs, tight butts, and not even a hint of cellulite. Let me tell you a little tip though…NO ONE looks like that. Even the models don’t look like that. Photoshop is magic.
P.S. This applies to men too. Not all of you have a six-pack, chiseled jawlines, and perpetually wear a suit…but guess what? You’re still hot!
3. I will get criticized for my size. This is no secret. I can’t tell you how many times I have been told I need to lose weight or “Sorry but I’m not into fat girls”. Oh well, your loss. Trust me it sucks but as I said before someone will love your tummy, big butt, thick thighs, cellulite, and rolls. Someone out there thinks you are the sexiest thing to walk this earth.
4. I am just as sexy as anyone else. Plus size is beautiful. So what if you have a few extra pounds? ROCK THAT SHIT! Rock it so fucking hard!
5. D/s is for everyone! I’ve been told several times that due to being fat that I will never find a Sir/Daddy/Master. This is simply not true. I have found a few. I’ve been into D/s for about 4-5 years now and men find no problems with me being plus-sized. Well, some have but they don’t matter. Whether you are a size 2 or 22 D/s is for you.
6. Not all littles are “little”. I myself am not a little, I have little tendencies but I have seen so many pics on DD/lg blogs where again all the girls are tiny and cute. Well, guess what you can be cute and little and still have a tummy. Daddy will love you just the same.
7. Porn is unrealistic so stop stressing. Porn is pretty to look at and fun to watch but we all know that it isn’t real. It’s a fantasy. It’s a perfect dream scenario. It can be a guideline and a fun way to get ideas but it will never be 100% accurate. Laugh at your mistakes and imperfections. Sex is supposed to be fun. If you have never laughed during sex you are having bad sex. So what if you can’t twist your body like that? You are a person, not a pretzel.
8. Beauty is only skin deep. Cliché but true. There is so much more to beauty, love, and D/s than what your body looks like. Men want real. Honest, smart, funny, loyal, etc. Yeah, a hot body catches the eye but a charming personality ignites the soul.
9. Love yourself. Another cliché but an important one. Take it from someone who has been there. Dom’s HATE when their sub talks down about themselves. It hurts them in more ways than you know. 1. It hurts because they love you and you can’t see that you are gorgeous to them. 2. They feel like a failure. When a sub is down on herself, a Dom feels like he has failed her. A Dom wants his sub to feel loved, cherished, and important. If she is upset about how she looks he feels like he has let her down. Also, self-love is important because you know the saying “You must love yourself before you love anyone else”.
10. I’m a confident, sexy, beautiful, plus-sized submissive, and I KICK-ASS!!! Hell yes. I am plus-sized but so the fuck what? I’m hot as hell. I am smart, funny, sarcastic, strong, and one hell of a conversationalist. I am not what the porn industry would make you believe submissive looks like but I still kick just as much ass as those women do. No matter your size BDSM is for all. Be confident. Be sexy. Be beautiful. Stay Kinky.
