Did your girl ask you to dominate her, but you fear you’re going to hurt her, or don’t know where to start?
This is, bar none, the most common reason men will seek out advice and coaching for BDSM. To one degree or another, the majority of women in the world are sexually submissive. The ones who crave to be dominated will at some point tell their man it’s what they want. They may say it in little hints, asking you to tie them up or choke them. They may come right out and say they want you to dominate them, force them to serve, and please you, as your sub.
Some men will tie up their girl, thinking that’s what they wanted, and maybe crank up the dirty talk. Other’s won’t even get that far. But just being tied to the bed is not what she needs or wants, she needs you to dominate her, emotionally and physically.
It’s a Lot Like Roleplay
If you’re anything like me, I’ve never really gotten too excited about the idea of roleplay. I have a hard time enjoying myself if I’m too busy pretending to be something else. But the principles of a Dominant/Submissive power dynamic are still based on the same ideals.
A good BDSM D/s scene is the beautiful contrast between reality and perception.
The reality: without any caveats, the reality of almost any D/s scene is the understanding that the submissive has the ultimate power and control. She gets to choose to give up her control to you, she has the power and ability to stop a scene if it’s not what she wants (this is where safewords come into play), and every choice you make as a Dom is made to be the best possible positive choice for her, your dynamic, and your relationship.
In other words, it’s a healthy relationship in which both of you are working together towards the same goal. It’s a relationship based on trust and respect.
The Perception: This is what I commonly refer to as the frame. The frame we build, the scene we set, is the exact opposite of the reality. This is where the overlap with roleplay begins. While you are acting like yourself, the frame you build is that of you holding utter, ultimate, control. It’s about using her as a toy to please you. The frame puts you above her in all aspects, physically and emotionally.
Obviously it’s only possible to achieve this level of power-exchange on a constant healthy level if both of these things are in balance. If you make the scenes and choices purely about you, your desires as a Dom, then you are walking a dangerous road to failure.
You’re Afraid of Hurting Her
Most men balk at the idea of hitting, slapping, choking, ragdolling their woman for fear of hurting them. If this is you, congratulate yourself. Causing pain, fear, anxiety, and distress to someone you love goes against everything you should hold dear. And this is the way it should always be, for reality. It’s your job as a man, a Dom, and a partner to protect and encourage your woman.
But when it comes to the frame, the rules of reality no longer apply. When a woman asks or begs, you to hurt her, or choke her, or pull her hair, then the best choice you can make, for her, is to give her what she desires in that scene. The line you have to walk is giving her enough punishment to sate, without causing any serious, lasting harm.
Where this line is drawn will be different for every person, in every relationship. Many girls don’t want to be bruised or marked in any way. Some want nothing more than to feel sore for weeks to come. It’s up to you to make sure you are following the two rules of sadism in BDSM:
No matter what she thinks, or says, she wants, it’s your job to know when to say no. If a woman asks you to punch her in the face and leave her with a black eye (this is an extreme example), chances are she’s caught up in the moment, and giving in to this request would negatively affect her life (and possibly yours) in the days to follow. It’s never okay to cause lasting future harm for current gratification.
It has to be about her, always.
The second rule is the only way to understand the line between kinky sex play, and domestic abuse. If you slap your woman because nothing you could do would turn her on more at the moment, then you are making a great choice. If you hit your woman because you’re upset, and are blowing off steam, that is abuse, pure and simple.
Despite being the Dom and being in control, you never get to give in to your own emotions and act purely on your own desires. Playing with a sub is not about you, it’s about her. It’s about giving her what she needs, and having the strength to take it as far as you need, and no farther.
Humans Are Tough Animals
All men are capable of terrifying destructive power. All men are capable of killing another human with their bare hands. All men have the ability to take a scene too-far and cause serious trauma. This is why all men fear hurting their subs.
What you need to understand is that the human body is incredibly resilient. With just a few pointers, it’s easy to avoid ever going too far hurting someone, without having to whimp out, and not give her the punishment she craves.
Start low and slow, and ramp-up. If you don’t know how aggressive you need to be, start low and slowly increase the intensity until you reach the desired level.
Choose your spots carefully. The fleshy part of the ass can take an incredible amount of punishment, but skin over the bone can not. You should never be hitting someone on the spine, the back of the head, the eyes. You should never be using a solid, hard, toy on ribs.
The goal is to punish her, not to destroy her.
It’s better, and safer, to increase duration rather than intensity. If you want to spank your woman until she cries, you don’t need to start swinging as hard as you can. Instead, you can just find a good solid slap, and continue until the pain grows unbearable. The more you spank the same spot, the more it’s going to hurt. By the end, you can be swinging softer than you were in the middle, but causing twice as much agony.
You want to be smooth. When you’re pulling hair, you’re grabbing it near the base and applying smooth constant pressure. Healthy hair can support the entire weight of a human body, but any jerking or twisting can have terrible results. Smooth and constant.
Never use any toys on the face. Be careful with slapping the face as well, it’s very easy to miss, hitting cheekbones, jaws, or eyes. In addition, a face-slap has far more of an emotional reaction than you may expect. Sometimes it will be negative, others positive.
Safe Words Will Set You Free
Finally, you want to embrace the glory of safe words. The standard safewords are ‘yellow’ and ‘red’.
Yellow: This means she’s reaching the end of her rope, no longer enjoying this particular sensation, and doesn’t want it to continue.
When you get a yellow, it’s your job to understand exactly why she safe-worded, and then move on with the scene. Always choose something contrasting to move to. If you’re beating on her ass and she says yellow, start giving her pleasure instead. Reward your subs for saying yellow, if they feel they need to say it, then it’s important you hear it.
Red: This is the vanilla equivalent of ‘No’ ‘Stop’ and ‘Don’t’. A scene ends on red, always.
Chances are, if you’re being a responsible Dom, you will never hear red spoken. But there are situations where it will happen, especially if your sub suffers from anxiety or panic attacks. If you get a red, the only thing left to do is have an honest discussion and provide the amount of comfort she needs. You should never continue a scene after hearing red, and you should probably never consider starting again that same night. Take red very seriously.
If you use these safewords, you can relax knowing they’re your safety net. If your woman asks you to spank her, and once you start she starts to cry and say “no, it hurts, no more, stop” the reality says it’s time to stop, you’ve gone too far. But the frame is different, for many women this is the sexiest part, being forced to take it after it stops being fun, being spanked past the point of tears and sobs.
If you trust your sub and are confident she knows and will use the safewords if she needs them, then her saying “no more, stop, it hurts” is part of the scene. If she actually needs you to stop, she will say yellow. This means what you are doing is correct, you’re hurting her as much as she needs to be hurt at this time.
As with anything in BDSM, everything you have read here is contingent on an extremely large amount of trust and communication with your partner. If she wants to use a safeword but doesn’t out of fear, that’s a very big problem. If you don’t have complete trust between the two of you, you should not be pushing any limits in BDSM, in any way.
Don’t Forget About the Law
The final note is this: everything I have talked about in this article is illegal.
It doesn’t matter if she asks for it. It doesn’t matter if you fill out a contract, explicitly stating exactly what she wants from you. In North America physically attacking another human is illegal. There is no form of consent that can usurp a law.
Let me be perfectly clear: it is absolutely possible for a woman to ask you to beat her, enjoy every second of it, thank you when you are done, and then go to the police and charge you with criminal assault.
For this reason, you need to be careful to never play with anyone you don’t fully trust.
