What’s true of subs is often true of doms, particularly when it comes to relationship skills. Today, I’m following up on my last blog, 5 Ways Submissives Self-Sabotage, by unpacking how dominants also self-sabotage.
Doms make a lot of mistakes in handling their relationships. Self-sabotage among doms is common enough that it routinely arises in my therapy practice.
If you’re a dom, sorting out your problems and knowing your limits when leading a relationship is crucial to its success.
So let’s look at some signs of relationship self-sabotage in dominants and how they can work on themselves and improve their skills.
1- Believing a Power Dynamic Means Carte Blanche
You know doms like this. Maybe you are a dom like this. And, perhaps, if you are like this, you find that you cannot hold on to subs or that you constantly see friction in your power relationships.
Here are some important thinking points to consider.
- Doing things to your subs without their eager consent. It will build resentment. It may take them a while to figure it out, but once they begin to count up the consent violations, they’re likely to walk away — or flee — and tell everyone all about you.
- Pressuring subs to become the sub you want, instead of the sub they are, will lead them to feel like failures. Instead of enjoying their journey, they feel worse than before they started the journey.
- Failing to negotiate, on the principle of “my way or the highway,” can sound sexy to a sub at first, but ultimately leads to failed relationships.
- Isolating subs from other people: some doms believe that problems will go away if their subs don’t have friends who influence them. This is a form of domestic abuse. You may think you’re protecting them by keeping them in a hothouse away from others but you are only protecting your interests (or downright bad behaviors).
Power Is Not a License to Harm
BDSM is a consent-based system. That means learning to control some of your impulses when you recognize that you’re pushing limits past a sub’s wishes.
Since not all D/s dynamics use safe words, and since many subs avoid using safe words for their own reasons, it is critical to ensure they can handle what you are giving them. It also means learning to read your sub accurately, so you are fully aware of their limits and check in on their feelings during play. The best way to do this is through dialogue before you play and by negotiating limits.
Even if you’ve pre-negotiated, it’s good to pause throughout play to check on them by asking direct questions. “Are you okay?” “Is that rope too tight?” “How does this (intense sensation) feel?” “How many more strokes (of whips, paddles, etc.) can you take?”
When someone is in subspace, they may not realize their arm is numb or experiencing a bad kind of pain (v. pain they can handle). Always check in with them during small pauses in play.
Three Guiding Principles of Dominance
- Self-Control: if you cannot control your impulses, you are not fit to control others
- Mood Regulation: If you cannot control your anger or other moods, your sub is at risk
- Mutual Benefit: if both partners don’t walk away pleased, it isn’t BDSM
2- Believing All Subs Want the Same Things
Non-kinky people assume all submissives are alike. Some doms in our world also seem to carry that myth into our world. They believe subs all share the same desires and needs. That leads them to treat subs as interchangeable.
While they may share common traits, every person you play with brings unique personality traits. To achieve a satisfying power dynamic, you must take the time to get to know them as individuals and tailor your dom style to their needs.
Instead of discovering the individual quirks and differentials, they push subs to conform to their concept of what a sub “should” be, without first finding out WHO they are. You are sabotaging the relationship. If you don’t learn to tailor your dominant skills to the person in service to you, they will learn they have to leave.
3 You Chose Your Role To Pump Your Ego
Just as some subs pick the wrong label because they are in denial about being dom, some doms become doms because they are embarrassed or feel socially disadvantaged by being submissive. They end up picking a dom role because they are still coping with shame about being submissive — or decide they’ll get more action as a dom than a sub.
There’s nothing wrong with evolving from sub to dom! Many people do it for good reasons, whether it’s because they come to realize they prefer having power (see “They Picked the Wrong Role” in 5 Ways Submissives Self-Sabotage) or because they’ve had enough experience as submissives to know they need more or different in kink).
If you label yourself dom while hiding your authentic identity as a submissive, you are automatically sabotaging the chances of getting what you want out of BDSM.
4- You Blame Yourself for Every Problem
A higher level of dom self-awareness is when you realize that you are not to blame for everything that goes wrong in relationships. BDSM is a breathtaking evolution to power for doms — and with power comes responsibility, right?
BDSM/power relationships are a dance with infinite steps on both sides. You may, for example, accept responsibility for your mistakes – but leave room to see how your partner might also share responsibility. Have they been lying to you? Did they hold back a safe word? Did they assure you they wanted to do something – only for you to find out they were nowhere near ready?
Blaming yourself every time is as irrational as blaming someone else every time. Stop blaming and start speaking from the heart. Keep you and your partner on solid ground: people in relationships generally share some responsibility on both sides. Mistakes are normal. Don’t sabotage your dominant ego: take accountability for your mistakes, forgive your partner for theirs, and grow together from what you learned.
Fix Your Self-Sabotage and Flourish
Regardless of our labels and roles, BDSM is always about beginning a new phase of life — starting a journey of pleasure and, one hopes, enlightenment. That journey should not be grounded in your old non-kinky belief system.
It requires a fresh perspective. That requires questioning all of your pre-existing beliefs about how relationships work.
Dominance raises the stakes because you are now taking a share of responsibility for another person’s happiness.
Questioning yourself is both an art and a skill for dominants. Ask yourself whether you carry vanilla expectations into your kink relationships, Explore the many different faces of consent. You can Google SSC, RACK, CCCC, PRICK, CNC, ENM, and other consent models to fine-tune your style.
Then, follow my guidelines on 5 consent skills everyone should have.
Play safe and keep your BDSM relationships whole.
credit: Lukas Eggers at UnSplash
ESCAPE from the daily! My new book, KINK SO REAL, will take you on a different-loving journey, with femdoms, maledoms, and the subs who love them!
“And oh God, how he swooned then, oh God, yes, how euphoric he felt, never more alive, never happier to be alive. He felt complete. Powerful as a superhero. His back was raw from her whip, his chest aching from her bites, and his mind exploding with rapture. He had everything he wanted, everything he dreamed about” —- excerpted from Chapter 9, A Vision of Love
