Annoyed at the assumption that D/S is gendered with Doms = men and Subs = women
Convinced that Doms and Subs are distributed pretty evenly through the population regardless of sexual identity
Sure the stereotypical “sissified” men we’re most often shown to are only one minor type of male Sub. And not a very representative one.
Sure the “femdom” or “dominatrix” women we’re most often shown are only one type of female Dom. And not a very representative one.
Confident there are therefore a lot of “missing” men who are Subs and women who are Doms…
And so my ongoing inquiry into where are all the missing Doms and Subs?
I’m motivated by this in part by the observation that when it’s safe for people to come “out” about their sexuality it’s actually incredibly healthy for them. Mental health and social acceptability are actually fairly well connected. Conversely, people who are either consciously or unconsciously “in the closet” have tendencies toward both anti-socially and self-damaging behavior.
Walking home from the grocery store the other day, thinking about kink as I’m inclined to do, I was pondering one of the perpetual D/S DD/Lg complaints about “Bratty Subs.”
You probably know what I’m talking about. Constantly testing and challenging their tops. Pushing back. Insisting things go this way or that. Often seriously unhappy. “Topping from the bottom.” Not following rules and often making demands of their Doms or Daddies and generally… behaving in ways that… suspiciously resemble things that Doms do!
Meanwhile, a reasonable number of Doms and (especially!) Daddies seem drawn to bratty subs, respond to their endless tantrums and demands, endlessly modify their behavior to satisfy their bratty subs, and frequently apologize left and right to them too. Hmm… in other words they behave in ways that suspiciously resemble things that Subs do!
Meanwhile…
Actual Doms and Daddies have approximately zero patience with bratty subs.
Actual Subs and Littles often have little or no patience with servile doms and daddies.
Hmm…
How ‘bout that stereotyped assumption that “Dom / Daddy = gendered man” and “Sub / Little = gendered woman?” Sounds a Little shakier now, hmm?
The problem with stereotypes, you know, is that even people being stereotypes feel pressure to conform to them. They might not like it. And if they’ve got consciousness / are woke they’re going to push back. But in the absence of out counter examples most people try and go with what they think is expected of them.
So if you just “know” all Doms and Daddies are men and all Subs and Littles are women then… you may just go through life imagining you’re just a bratty Sub, or maybe a pushover Dom or Daddy.
And in case you’re wondering, yes, I’m still a soft Daddy, and I’m not a Dom. But no, I’m not a closet Sub. Ahaha! No. I enjoy topping to much. I’ll listen to your ideas and sympathize with your frustrations, and I’ll dote on you as only a Daddy can. But I’m gonna OWN your cute little butt, half pint!
And while I can be patient with cranky Littles (because everyone gets cranky) I’ve got roughly zero patience for demanding, bossy, whiny, my-way-or-the-highway brats! Ahahah. Nope. Also, while I can be endlessly patient with someone who’s unable or unwilling to control their behavior in terms of kink I’m not into spanking, fucking, or otherwise interacting sexually someone I have to “reason” with,” fight with, or legitimately discipline to get them to settle down. Do, again, nope!
Which, see above, makes sense! Since I’m a fucking top I’m not terrifically turned on by anyone who’s trying to top me! ????????????
But enough about me!
If tops keep telling you you’re a shitty sub? Try on that maybe you’re actually a top! And if you’re horrified by the prospect of wearing those goddamn thigh-high leather “dominatrix” boots and Weimar-era-Germany eye makeup and whipping sissyboys? But it’s cool, so are most other women Doms! That’s the Tumblr porn stereotype, sure. But there are hundreds of other ways to be a Dom that don’t involve pegging your partner with a strapon while he hollers “mistress, mistress may I come on your feet!”
Think about it.
There are as many women who are Doms as there are ones who are men. If you’re not happy as a “sub?” hey, you might be a lot happier taking charge, laying down the law, and riding your big, Daddy Sub’s cock like a prize racehorse!
Think outside the box. You might make everybody happier! Even yourself!
(Note: in this context “bratty sub” should not be confused with regular Subs or Littles who are just mischief makers, scamps, scalliwags, or imps. There’s a very big difference between “annoying pain in the ass” and “adorable!”)
Ahahaha! Reposting because I found this awesome illustration! Ahahah!!!
By Thomas Oldenough | November 7, 2018 | Comments Off on Do you know of any DD/LG support groups that aren’t trying to dictate how to properly be a little? I’ve tried to join several but I don’t fit their “little agenda” :( It’s very frustrating.
Holy shit this made me so sad to hear. I feel like fighting back against people who want to define everything we play with with exacting criteria so they can form little “I belong” clubs and feelings is becoming a full time job.
Are there any DD/lg support groups out there who celebrate that people do little and Caregiver in many unique and subjective ways that neither need to be quantified, nor judged?
JD
Hmmm. Well. I’m not a group *technically* but I am a motherfucking menace and when I’m Big I’m Very Big, so idk maybe I’m big enough to be called a group – I’m totally loud enough to be mistaken for more than just one Little anyway…
I support DD/L and CG/L (and everybody else, in general) and I absofuckinglutely 100% support personal expression of fucking everything. No rules except one:
TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE.
So maybe? YMMV.
Also, what the fuck is a “Little Agenda”? And can you eat it – fuck it – use it to pay bills/buy shiny things? If not – then what’s it’s purpose, please and very thank you….?
^My Big Sis, everyone. Mine! :-D *Is proud.*
My personal Little agenda mainly involves glow-in-the-dark, practical jokes, and scoring more time with Super Daddy. I’m a real menace.
I’m an admin for a sfw safe space for all littles on kik…
Because if you’re going to play “my way or the highway” about how other people do kink then you’re not kinky you’re compulsive.
Big caveat: we’re not talking about “acceptance” or “inclusion” of underage Cg/L, let alone underage/adult-partner Cg/L, a manipulation many pedophiles and ephebophiles try to pull. They’re flat wrong, anyone who falls for it. If it’s not legal, competent, informed consent it’s not a kink it’s a crime.
But as with any kink, there are people who’s compulsions and (psychological, non-kink) fetishes demand that things be Done A Certain Way and anyone who doesn’t do it their way doesn’t belong.
For instance there are people who insist D/Lg is a subset of D/S and must include rules and punishment. Conversely others insist it must be entirely non-sexual. Still others say the Little has to “regress” to certain ages.
That’s fine if the group is very specific and clear about their narrow restrictions. But they shouldn’t characterize themselves as the One True Authority for the entire category of kink.
Comments Off on Do you know of any DD/LG support groups that aren’t trying to dictate how to properly be a little? I’ve tried to join several but I don’t fit their “little agenda” :( It’s very frustrating.
“The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation. For this reason, we have often turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the pornographic. But pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling. The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire.”
— Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power
So there’s a website called “The Worst Things for Sale.” It’s a hoot! They catalogue all sorts of things, all found on Amazon, that some chucklehead somewhere decided another chucklehead would buy if they had it manufactured.
My assessment of all those things (and lots of other things like the new class of supermegayachts) is that…
a) People who think maybe one of those things will be perfect for them, and b) They’re wrong – getting what they wanted isn’t actually very much fun.
This is how I feel about a lot of what I call industrial porn. Since I’m a kinkster I always single out Kink.com and its fake-BDSM imitators but there are tons of equally ridiculous vanilla and “vanilla” ones.
Yes. I get it. There are people in the world for whom being bolted into place by plumbers in janitor costumes and then quad-anal gangbanged is their favorite thing to do with their friends. There are only seven of these – not nearly enough to support a porn site… so instead they’re mostly consumed by the likes of incels, misogynists, and the type of people who have Johnny Knoxville’s Jackass episodes on their DVRs.
Point being that, like the purveyors of products listed on The Worst Things For Sale, a hell of a lot of porn represents things that
a) People think their sex lives would finally be awesome if they could just do what they see “everybody else” doing, and b) If they ever did it they’d find it wasn’t all that interesting, sexy, or even orgasmic.
That, to me, is the difference between Andre Lorde’s point about porn appropriating the erotic.
Speaking of appropriation, every site for tourists traveling to Japan seems to have the following quote: “He who climbs Mt. Fuji is a wise man; he who climbs twice is a fool.” Don’t know if this is true about Mt. Fuji, but I’m just putting it out there that folks who’ve enjoyed the pleasure of the kind of plain old kinky sex actual kinksters have, aren’t going to be interested in trying the shit you see in porn a second time.
Daddy I’m a dirty [racial/nationality] slut from disgusting [nation] who wants to get shamed on tour (sic) blog and hopefully raped in the end❤️
Got this in a first-time direct message from an otherwise empty blog. I won’t explain why it’s both rude and beyond inappropriate.
I am curious why me though. Is there anything in my blog that suggests I’d appreciate it? Welcome it? Be turned on by it? If there is please let me know so I can pull the plug!
I will say the poster should probably be ashamed of themselves. The nation they’re from is fine and so are it’s people as a whole. Even if some individuals from there, like people from everywhere, are pretty gross.
Tip: say hi first. Establish some kind of connection. . Many tops are willing to consider humiliation and degradation play, and consensual non-consent play too. But not without a little context. Or maybe a lot.
I’d rather not shame someone for their consensual kinks. But I’m fine shaming anyone who tries it on someone without their consent. That’s just plain rude.
It’s important to remember that D/S, D/Lg, bondage, S&M, other power-exchange and high-sensation kinks are cooperative kinks undertaken for mutual enjoyment.
Ugh. I can’t emphasize that enough! It’s the critical difference between a kink relationship and an abusive/codependent one.
It’s so common in porn and Tumblr posts to heighten the drama, to exaggerate the power differences, and to gloss over the extensive communication of consent and boundaries. It’s understandable, in a way, same as romantic shows and vanilla porn heightens the rose petals, slow motion, and string quartets. Porn’s job is to feed fantasy, not to show all the underpinnings.
But failing to make the reality clear does a double disservice: first because it reinforces mainstream misunderstanding but also, maybe more important, it gives newcomers a decidedly mistaken impression that it’s all about XXXTreme PAINANDPUNISHMENT. With the result that, way too often, people get hurt.
Non-sexual case study: The 1984 Olympics were the first to include a women’s marathon. One of the competitors, Gabriela Andersen-Schiess, arrived at the finish line dehydrated, cramped, and in very apparent distress.
There’s a video documentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBasZWjd92k She literally collapsed at the finish line but… watch what she said in the retrospective interview at around the 8-minute mark.
Two very different but bad things came out of that moment
1) As she staggered into the stadium, taking nearly five minutes to complete the last 440 yards, the mostly-male sportscasters (were there any other kind in 1984?) were declaring that this “proved” that women can’t run long distances, shouldn’t be in sports, that this would surely be the last time the Olympics would allow women’s marathons, and goodness they hoped she survived!
When reporters inquired after her two hours later she was rehydrated and completely recovered. She competed in another marathon 14 days later.
2) 1984 was the year marathons and ultramarathons really took off. A lot of women, and men, decided that marathons were cool and thought they’d hop right in and try it too.
Unlike Gabby Andersend-Schiess, and everyone else who competed in the men’s and women’s Olympic marathons a lot of them bought shoes and running shorts and… blew out their knees, ankles, feet, hips, lungs, and sometimes kidneys and livers because they didn’t know what the fuck they were doing.
The point being that what people didn’t get about “lady athletes” in 1984 they don’t get about kink play now. First that when done well it feels great and you recover quickly. Second that if you don’t learn about it, work yourself up to it, and make sure you know what you’re doing you can hurt yourself and others.
If you’re committed to kink you need to let people know what you’re doing too! Don’t just show off how cool you are – what a Subby-pain-slut-puppy you are, what a ruthlessly expert Domly Dom you are – evangelize too. The fun stuff and the before- and after-care parts.
Sure. Because BDSM is a newly minted, fresh out of the factory relationship construct created in the church of christian grey and the fifty shades theater. I will refer the anon here, if I could, to “Lolita,” by Vladimir Nabokov written in 1955 which, controversially, fictionalizes the DD/lg kink. This will shock the anon as it is the same age as our esteemed professor on @thefaculty, @instructor144.
I’ll also just float out this little tidbit for the anon…. you did not asexually reproduce, bud or are the result of spawning. Your parents had sex, hopefully still are. Maybe they even practiced bondage while you were conceived.
BDSM is HARDLY the purview of those under age, IDK, 35? 40? I’m just, I can’t. I mean. Even.
Was there a new addition to SSC/RACK? “Thou must be under the age of 30 and look EXACTLY like a TUMBLR black and white photo with a net worth rivaling Richard Branson.”
My suggestion to this anon? Sit down, before you hurt yourself. Be quiet, watch and learn. Go back to school, take some history lessons and for fuck’s sake, read.
Gunhild Swanson, age 70, finishing the Western States 100 mile endurance run.
Moi, age 50, having just finished running 100 miles.
Age is just another bullshit reason to quit on your dreams….
Today seems like a good day to reblog this @instructor144 .
I’m 63, but there’s a lot of wear and tear on the ol’ carcass, most of it self-inflicted. And one is never “too old” to be a Dom (or a sub). That’s like asking if someone is “too old” to be gay. It’s not something we do, it’s what we are. That being said, I still “do” the Dom thing pretty well.
And one is never “too old” to be a Dom (or a sub). That’s like asking if someone is “too old” to be gay. It’s not something we do, it’s what we are. – @instructor144
Bingo! You’re never too old to be… well… anything. Not too old to be a Dom. Not too old to be a Little. Not to young to be a Daddy for that matter. You can maybe move on from kinks by… [dad joke alert]… working the kinks out. But kink isn’t determined by age.
Dominance is not about control over a submissive. Dominance is about leading and the submissive following. These words have been said thousands of times by thousands of people. I suspect it will continue to be said for many years to come.
Submissives do not seek people to control them. They seek a leader that proves time and time again that they are qualified to follow.
Mistakes happen. Wrong decisions are made. It’s how you handle those decisions that make you reliable and trustworthy.
Ok. So most vanilla people understand roleplaying games. Not everyone understands D/S or D/Lg. They’re really not the same things but you can actually get a lot of mileage out of comparing D/S and D/Lg to roleplaying games that you just happen to play most of the time.
If I really controlled you then you wouldn’t be able to say things like “I don’t like this game, I want to stop.” If I really controlled you then you couldn’t say “you’re being a chad, I’m outta here.” Same if I was literally your custodial adult (though eww!) – I couldn’t say “this isn’t working for me” because I’d have a moral and social as well as legal responsibility for you.
But I wouldn’t really be the boss of you. You really wouldn’t be a ward in chancery.
D/S and D/Lg are like roleplaying games – either one of us can call a timeout or walk off the field entirely if one of us isn’t playing fair, isn’t playing well, or is just phoning it in.
Like any game, D/S, D/Lg, and all other power-exchange relationships are 100% consensual and therefore “control” is always, always negotiable, re-negotiable, and revokable.
By Thomas Oldenough | September 29, 2018 | Comments Off on Do you or your followers happen to know if it is common that the dom in a serious committed relationship places his sub above all others (before other family members and friends)? Is that how it should be? I’m in the process of vetting an extremely romantic and generous of heart dom who vows to forsake all others when we marry. I’m afraid of disappointment (he is trustworthy and reliable but I have severe trust issues which I went to therapy for). Should I put him to various tests?
That sounds like a pretty huge red flag. Balance is key. A willingness to cut out (“forsake”) friends and family indicates some deep-rooted attachment and esteem issues. I’d look into that before considering a relationship, much less marriage.
Yikes! There are definite red flags in that ask. Just not the ones the anon worries about.
I often say kink relationships are at heart relationships but it’s particularly important to filter D/S out of this one and just look at its essentials.
1) Forsaking all others probably isn’t a problem, but there’s an easy way to find out.
“Forsaking all others” has been part of the bog standard English wedding vows since before English was a language. (Back in the 11th Century they said “et omnes alias propter eam dimittere et illi soli adhaerere” but it means basically the same thing.)
In other words “forsaking all others” just means “you come first” and maybe “I’m making a monogamous commitment to you.” Also possibly “if you and my mom disagree I’ll side with you.” It’s meant those things for a very, very long time. I’m surprised that anyone would find it surprising.
Relationship researchers do often warn that men have a tendency to center their social lives around their long-term romantic partners, including abdicating much of their social scheduling to them. On the other hand those same specialists note that women will often unconsciously work to isolate their partners from their previous social relationships. Neither of these are ominous or conspiratorial – it’s just something relationship partners need to watch out for.
If this is a concern for the anon they might want to might ask him what he’s thinking when he says it.
2) Wanting to “test” a prospective husband or wife (or Dom or Sub) is a big red flag
Asking him what he means by “forsaking all others” as opposed to, I don’t know, maybe “putting him to various tests?” Because WT actual F?
My heart goes out to the anon. If they’re thinking about putting their own relationship and their partner’s emotional health at risk by performing “various tests” then… they’re suited for this relationship.
Trust issues or not, deliberately “testing” one’s partner is a manipulative, passive-aggressive, cynical, and quintessentially vanilla thing to do. It’s also abusive as hell.
I mean, one does obtain informed consent one’s prospective partner before performing possibly emotionally-damaging tests on them — tests which may result in you summarily dumping them if they fail, right? Right?
If you tell someone you’re going to test them then unless they’re “romantic” to the point of oblivion then they’ll never be able to trust you. If one doesn’t get their informed consent then one is unethical, immoral, and an abusive creep.
Testing is something one does to a thing. It’s something performed on a subordinate. And once performed, whether they pass or fail, the tester will never be able to have a peer-to-peer relationship with the person tested.
I’ve advised bottoms to break it off with tops who say they need to “test” prospective partners. If I knew the anon’s Dom I’d advise him to do the same with her.
The goal of human beings is to get rid of one’s own shit without putting it on anyone else. Again, my heart goes out to the anon, but lightening her own trust issues by dumping them on someone else just… isn’t a healthy approach.
Comments Off on Do you or your followers happen to know if it is common that the dom in a serious committed relationship places his sub above all others (before other family members and friends)? Is that how it should be? I’m in the process of vetting an extremely romantic and generous of heart dom who vows to forsake all others when we marry. I’m afraid of disappointment (he is trustworthy and reliable but I have severe trust issues which I went to therapy for). Should I put him to various tests?
Just because I like challenging perceptions, try on that a lot of men get off seeing women bound, put in stress positions, gagged and choked, ganged up on, degraded, and/or humiliated, and otherwise inconvenienced because women are so fucking badassed.
Male black widows spiders who don’t immobilize their partners before mating get eaten.
Anyway, continuing a theme, I think this helps explain why kink.com and it’s imitators are so popular with straight guys: they love the idea of hiring janitors and other workmen to immobilize women with Popular Mechanics style hardware. You know, like their dads would fix things for them in the basement when they were small.
Then consider the fact that after objective torture including ice baths, electric shocks, waterboarding (fucking waterboarding!!!) and getting fucked in the face with dildos on electric motors the women invariably smile gamely afterward to show they were fine with… ordeals that the average kink.com subscriber knows would leave him a quivering wreck.
And then look at all the memes with “He knows you need…” followed by absurd wish-fulfillment nonsense that, in fact, don’t interest even most Sub and Masochistic women and… yeah.
They’re terrified of women!
Meanwhile actual, real Doms, Daddies, Sadists, and other tops look at what they’re doing with their partner’s very differently. (Among other things we get that not all tops are men and not all bottoms are women, but I digress…)
Actual kinky people do things for and with our admittedly badass Subs, Littles, slaves, and Masochists. With them, not to them.
Because we get that a kink relationship is still a relationship. With someone we like. With someone who likes us too!
Cranky Daddy is cranky about knee-squeezing dweebs and douches who appropriate kink to both soothe and stoke their anxieties about women.
It’s vacation season so here’s a vacation analogy. Adults who like to go to Six Flags or Disneyland dont think they’re children. They just like the rides and spectacle and maybe they have a sense of nostalgia.
Adults who read Harry Potter aren’t pretending to be children. Singles groups that throw “Proms” don’t wish they were still in high school. They mostly enjoy using their imaginations and maybe they have a sense of nostalgia.
Similarly adults who like D/Lg don’t wish they were children or parents. They enjoy the terms and dynamics of age play and maybe they have a sense of nostalgia.
Point being it’s a nostalgic fetish not a transgression one.
