There has been a lot of blogging lately about how subs can be made to feel submissive. Several people have talked about more discipline, several have talked about more verbal commands and Snake made his feelings known last week.
There are so many posts on what makes a Domme. If you do x, you aren’t really a Domme. If you don’t do x, you aren’t really a Domme. It’s the fantasy version of the woman in black leather holding handcuffs and a whip. It’s not reality. Sure, there is probably leather, handcuffs and whips in many of our arsenals. But I think those are tools, not the actual domination.
The domination comes from within. We know who we are. I don’t get up in the morning and wonder how I can prove myself to Snake. He doesn’t expect me to order him around. That isn’t our dynamic. I also don’t think he would ever question that I am in charge. I don’t have to be a bitch to him to make him feel subby.
Each relationship is unique. Each one has its D/s rituals. And as long as they work for the people involved, it’s all good.
As I write this, Snake is vacuuming the house, caged and naked. I didn’t tell him to do this. He has been doing the cleaning for years. He does it because he wants to help me. Does that make him less submissive because he wasn’t “ordered” to do it? No. It’s service. It’s how he takes care of me. He knows the rules are no clothes in the house unless someone is here. I didn’t have to tell him to undress. He knows the rules and follows them.
We don’t practice domestic discipline as part of our FLR. I don’t give him maintenance spankings. That dynamic doesn’t work for me. There have been punishments, but that isn’t how I choose to punish him. Usually the punishments are prolonged chastity, either a number of times he has to be edged or the number of orgasms I get before he is allowed to come. The worst punishment I ever gave him was actually telling him that he had to come up with the punishment. He obsessed about it all weekend.
Of course there have been times when Snake has tried to top from the bottom. He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t. We write a daily blog to each other with thoughts, ideas and, basically, porn. It is our “weather report” of how things are going. He writes about his feelings, shares fantasies with me and dissects a lot of his reactions. I rarely share feelings, never share fantasies and I ask more about his feelings and reactions. He likes to try to push me to commit to doing x or playing at a specific time. He gives me a hard time about not committing. My response is always, “I’ll do what I want to you when I want to do it.” He understands that they are my decisions. I want to know what he would like, but that doesn’t force me to comply.
When we first started, Snake and I discussed ideas and limits. Through pushing a little at a time, those limits have expanded. Things he thought he wouldn’t like he’s discovered push his subby buttons. Within the last couple of months, he basically has said that he will try just about anything, excluding hard limits. A year ago he would say that he would never get a piercing. We’re now 3 1/2 weeks into the PA. He loves it. He loves having his limits pushed. Sub-space is a happy place.
Outwardly to our family and friends, nothing concrete has changed. I can ask him to do something and he does it. Between him and me, he is submitting to me. He doesn’t need to be spoken to in any special way to act submissive. It is just our life.