Today’s #AskMeAnything is more of a rant because a question was asked in a submissives group I’m a part of on Facebook and some of the most horrible answers were provided to this struggling submissive who had been looking for guidance in how to express her frustration with going months and months without sex. While that part of the post was bothersome enough, some of the incredibly dangerous responses I saw ticked me off to no end. Therefore, I wrote this. Curious what the #AskMeAnything is? Check out the official AMA page on my site over here.
Q: This isn’t really a question, but let me make something clear to everyone in the community. There’s no “right” answer in BDSM!
A: Earlier this week I was involved in the most infuriating, hours long, asynchronous argument with a woman who said she is involved in a Master/slave relationship with her husband, and has been for a long time. Over several posts she repeatedly told the original poster, me, and the general population of the group that if someone chooses to call themselves a slave they have zero right to express concerns.
I pulled the mental emergency break RIGHT THERE.
Look, I’m not going to rehash the mind-numbing, rage-inducing discussion we had, but I am going to rant a little on the dangerous behavior exhibited here. First things first, just because YOU choose a term for your relationship, and YOU negotiate guidelines for that relationship with your partner, does not mean you wrote a rule for the entire community. As long as you are safe, sane, consensual, and both parties involved are adults – I don’t care what you do. I don’t care if you choose to call your dynamic HIGH OVERLORD OF EARTH/tiny ant of mediocrity and your main kink is getting covered in grape jelly on Tuesday nights. None of that matters to me. I will respect your use of that term, and your kinks, and your decisions, even if I choose to use the same titles in my relationship and they mean something else to me and my partner.
Someone else’s definition NEVER has to be your definition.
Each relationship within the BDSM community is unique. There are zero perfect copies from one to the other, whether we are going with Master/slave, Dominant/submissive, Daddy/little, etc. Everyone is beautifully different, and negotiations happen in all directions. Kinks take relationships in new directions, the boundaries of social requirements, work requirements, etc. can change things. And that is completely okay! Just because something works like a magical cure-all in your relationship, does not mean it works for others, and to TELL others how to feel/act/etc is so dangerous and irresponsible that it makes me see red.
You can absolutely set boundaries in your relationship where you’re not allowed to voice complaints. You can make it so that no matter what is commanded, you say “Yes, Master.” You and your partner (regardless of what title you agree on) can decide to set just about any magical rule for your relationship that you would like. For me? I make my Dom’s coffee for him whether we’re at a nice dinner, or in his house. It’s just a rule. For some people, that would be silly, for us it works. Now, just because I’m a sub, and he’s a Dom, I do not expect everyone else that uses those terms to suddenly have a coffee guideline to their relationship for which they also wanted to use the Doxy wand original toy.
That would be ridiculous.
And that’s the point I’m trying to make. We have a D/s relationship. We have our own kinks and rules. And that’s how the whole thing works! YOU can set rules for you and your partner too, or have THEM set the rules and you agree to them, what-the-fuck-ever, but you don’t get to make it THE ONE RULE TO RULE THEM ALL for the entire community of kinksters across the planet, and you don’t get to look down your nose at those that don’t adhere to your rules like they are somehow a malformed, less-than-real submissive/slave/etc. Doing that just makes you a dick, whether you have one or not.
Now, if you go so far as to say you have no safeword within your dynamic, I’m going to respectfully suggest that you’ve sort of left the boundaries of BDSM and ventured into something else, because no safeword means your play is not safe, sane, and consensual. And telling others that THEY don’t get a safeword, or get a voice in general JUST BECAUSE you choose to call your partner Master, and he calls you slave, is fucking insane.
No one in the community gets to tell others what they can or can’t do within the BDSM kink.
You can have opinions. You can describe YOUR relationship and how well it works for YOU. But you don’t get to write the rule book on BDSM culture and pass it out to brand new subs like it’s iron-clad material from some secret bible of BDSM that only you have access to. Doing that would put far too many submissive women in serious danger to abusive and terrible men who might choose to call themselves a Master or a Dom. Telling others they have no right to speak up just because they’ve elected to identify as a sub or a slave is a recipe for trauma and disaster.
BDSM has a million different flavors, just like it has a million different couples in it. This concept is the whole reason that I write these ‘Ask Me Anything’ posts. I talk about my relationship, but I do my best to always remind you guys that it’s my POV. And I preach the basic tenants of good relationships regardless of kink. Communicate, communicate, communicate – & be safe. Be smart. Protect yourself.
To say anything else, to condemn or put down another sub because of your beliefs, is not just ridiculous – it’s cruel and pointlessly mean to people who we should be lifting up and supporting. We’re a fucking community for God’s sake, we get enough shit from the straight-laced vanilla crew, we don’t need to be tearing each other down, or insulting each other like we know better than the other on what gets them off or makes them happy.
Your kink is not my kink, and that’s okay.
I think more people could use a refresher course on exactly what that means.
