There are dozens of ways subs may ruin relationship opportunities. Here’s my short-list of the three most common types of self-sabotage.
They think bdsm is a magical kingdom
Carolyn came to me with anger in her heart against the world of BDSM. She had spent three years trying to find the perfect dom and had failed on every front. She had read a pile of books about BDSM and scoured the Internet; she attended numerous munches and a couple of educational outreach programs. She’d heard masters and subs talk about the joys they’d found, but she could not find hers. The BDSM world, she concluded, did not live up to its reputation. Her experiments with doms were disappointments. Either they didn’t give her hard enough sensation or she felt they violated her consent. Was it all bullshit? Was everyone just pretending to be happy? She was envious whenever she saw a happy couple, so envious she thought they were lying, and would pick apart their relationships to prove to herself that they couldn’t possibly be happy.
It took her a while to accept that she’d read BDSM fantasy novels as if they were simple, no-fail real-life templates. She believed that once a sub met a dom, they’d each knew their role, and would play it happily ever after. She ignored the human factor: people are still people. We are people first, with our own needs and desires and — important to note — our own weaknesses. You know, like normal humans. Dominants are not all-knowing mind-readers who naturally understand your limits, nor sages who are prepared to take you on exactly the journey you jerked off to for years, especially when you can’t or won’t negotiate for what you in clear terms. In fact, any dom who tries to convince you that they know what you need better than you do is probably a predator, and any dom who gives you that line before he or she gets to know the full you, is definitely a predator.
BDSM can feel magical when you find your people. BDSM can promote healing and provide ectasy. But not all BDSM people ARE your people any more than all people who attend your church or go to your school necessarily align with your core values. . Adjusting to this reality is, for many, one of the harder steps to take in BDSM, and that applies to everyone, top, bottom, straight, queer, fetish, and poly.
Carolyn had to get over her belief that BDSMers were “supposed” to live up to her fantasies. She grew to understand that even “natural born leaders” can make mistakes or feel confused. She came to realize that subs who do not ask for what they want, rarely if ever get what they want.
Carolyn luckily went on to have a magical relationship — but it took a year or two of completely shifting her BDSM mindset by seeking out people who were more personally compatible with her and not expecting doms to fit into one category except for “the person who will take charge in an erotic experience.”
They quietly wait for the dom to fix them
Yvonna had a very caring dom who was willing to work with her to fix their relationship. The problem was she couldn’t tell him what she wanted, not in any significant detail, so their sex life and power dynamics were collapsing. Now her biggest fear was that she would lose him. After a dysfunctional childhood and an abusive first marriage, she resorted to manipulations, tears, and outbursts of anger to get his attention. That only further alienated him. She could tell he was losing interest in playing with her because he feared her triggers.
Yvonna never tried therapy before. She always thought that things would automatically get better if she could only find the right Master. Now that she was with Jim, it seemed like he should have been perfect for her. So why was she still having many of her old problems with moods, and depression, and anger?
She learned that the only way to move forward was to heal from past experiences. As nice as Jim was, he was not equipped to fix her deep-rooted emotional problems. A good dominant can support and guide your journey. It still has to be YOUR journey, not the one a dominant scripted for you because “this is what a submissive should be.” If you buy into the myth that there is a way you “should be” in the first place, it will only lead to bigger failures down the road because you’ve accepted an unrealistic (for you) model.
Yvonne worked on her abuse issues in therapy, fought back a few demons, and gained a new perspective on what kind of journey she really wanted. She put the focus on holding a safe-space with her Master. Soon, productive and peaceful conversations replaced tearful shouting matches. Truth replaced manipulations . Her history of passive/aggressive patterns faded. Needless to say, her new-found sense of self worked wonders for her relationship.
They don’t value themselves
I used to watch my sub life-partner throw so much energy at people, she had barely any left over for herself. It was a pattern I’ve often seen among BDSMers. Subs (and also tops, especially service-tops) can be such people-pleasers that (a) it totally stresses them out as they get stretched thin in different directions and (b) they forget to please themselves. They tell themselves that they get pleasure out of just being helpful, and it’s true to a degree. Helping the people you love, helping a group you care about, helping a person who can’t help themselves — those acts carry spiritual value to most good people. But my girl wasn’t just helpful to the people who were close to her, she was helpful to everyone, bending backwards for people who didn’t appreciate how much she was giving.
It seems sweet on the surface, but deep down it was self-destructive. All of her positive energy went outwards, no one was feeding her positive energy back, and she went down a negative rabbit hole, of self-blame and stress over her inability to solve problems she shouldn’t have taken on in the first place. It eroded her focus on the people who mattered most to her, and that eroded her overall quality of life.
The other day I asked a group of friends whether they come first in their own life. I wasn’t surprised that several women said they thought it was selfish to put your own needs first. So I’m going to quote 2 famous questions from the work of Rabbi Hillel (Pirke Avot 1:14)
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
Memorize this. I believe this philosophy is 50% of a healthy self-love. If you don’t believe in your own right to get positive energy back from people, to have your time and your concerns respected, then you are not for yourself. And if you are not for yourself, you are ignoring literally the most important person in your life. If you weren’t here, who else would do all the things you do? If you have kids, and you don’t prioritize staying sane and healthy, who will still be there for them when they have kids? If you don’t value yourself, why do you think your partner (kinky or straight) will value you? If you don’t believe you are entitled to the same level of happiness that other people have, how will you ever lead a happy life?
The other 50% of a healthy sense of self-love comes in Rabbi Hillel’s second question.
But if I am only for myself, what am I?
Memorize this too. Being for yourself does not mean other people don’t matter. Being for yourself is not a license to be narcissistic, as some people misuse it. Being for yourself means you are at peace with yourself and have the inner resources to be emotionally generous to others. It means that your own needs are being met, so you have lots of energy to give to others. It gives you a firm foothold on your own life that allows you to lift others without feeling emotionally depleted. It allows you to prioritize the people who are truly the most important in your life and place their needs ahead of your own without resentment.
For those of us who get it, being our best selves means we give back to our families (biological or chosen), our friends, and our communities. But in order to become your best self, you have to know whether you are choosing a good balance between giving and receiving or whether you’ve turned into a martyr because of low self-esteem or displaced submission/masochism. (Yes, that happens!)
I’m delighted my partner changed and started living her own best life by directing her amazing energies to her personal goals, projects, and to people who truly appreciate her. It translates into a happier life not just for her, but for everyone who loves her.
