Life’s confusing sometimes, but struggle through – you’re worth it!
Are Dominant/submissive (D/s) relationships any different than vanilla ones when it comes to basic rules of engagement?
In a D/s relationships you must:
- Negotiate what aspects of the relationship each one of you are responsible for (who’s doing the laundry, who’s balancing the checkbook, who’s cooking dinner, who’s topping or bottoming various activities, the list of course, goes on…)
- Make rules or guidelines about communication, and communicate a WHOLE LOT about what is and is not working within the relationship for each of the participants so that you can make it work better (or reconsider parts if not the whole thing)
- Communicate, communicate, communicate…
- Decide how open or closed the relationship will be and in what contexts it is alright to “play” (whatever that means to y’all) with others
- Respect one another’s personal, sexual, emotional, psychological, and physical boundaries or limits when gettin’ it on together and strive to value your partner as best you can
- Care for one another while also making time to fulfill your own needs as an autonomous human being who has needs unfulfillable by others
- Negotiate the terms of disengagement if/when that sad mess comes around
- What else… I’m sure there’s more… But I think you’re starting to get my point
I would say that in any healthy relationship, D/s or vanilla in nature, all of these things must be addressed in one way or another. Where I see the types of relationships differ in the “how to” arena is simply in what types of activities might be negotiated the most – but then, isn’t that true of every relationship? Different people get turned on by different things, and you’re probably always picking up a thing or two from your new partner.
Whether you like anal sex, being hit by stingy toys, tying someone to the bed, sex only in 3 positions, a hand on the neck during orgasm, never reaching orgasm at all, missionary as the only way, telling people you love what to do, being served, cleaning boots with your tongue, orgies, getting or giving a great massage as foreplay, mummification, regularly trying out new ways to “do it”, sex toys, only intercourse on Friday nights during reruns of Matlock, or whatever else it is that blows your hair back, your relationship is going to have peculiarities and subtleties all its own that you’ll navigate or… well… not.
We all need to negotiate a bunch while getting to know our partners (and in my experience that doesn’t stop being a thing ever). We all need to feel safe enough to give parts of ourselves to the people we want to play with. We all need to consent to what we allow our partners to do to our bodies and minds and hearts…
Looking at it that way, D/s doesn’t have to be so scary, does it?
To Breath and Being,
~ Karin
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~Thank you.
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