0 comments/ 21424 views/ 0 favorites Dominoes By: Joseki Ko I used to work for a company called Speedfam. They built Capital Equipment, it was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. Back when the electronics industry slowed down, we ran out of work. The company didn’t want to lay us off because replacing us was tough. You literally learned to be a specialist in this field. So with no work we literally had a lot of time on our hands. To fill the time we started playing dominoes. Now I’ll admit when we first started we weren’t all that good. But we had lots of time to practice. By the time we’d been playing for a couple of months we’d gotten pretty good. One morning we’d gone to the Papillion’s Too in Mesa. We drank there a lot of mornings but never really paid attention to what else went on there. A domino game was going on in the back. We kind of laughed about this and when they asked we admitted that we played. There were four of them playing three men and a woman. They finished their game and asked us to play. We said sure they split up. The catch was that we each had to pony up twenty bucks. All four of us agreed and took them two straight games before they quit playing. All in all it was fun. We had even started playing on line. Yahoo has a dominoes section and 15 of us would spread out over the company and play all night. We had some fairly good competition and it was a great way to get paid. One night our boss Eddie lets out a screech. We all came running over to find out what was going on. He looks around at all of us and it’s easy to tell he’s just stunned. “Guy’s I’m having cyber sex.” Eddie exclaimed. We kind of looked at each other and there was a mad scramble to get behind Eddie so we can read his computer. Sure enough someone named DominoGal was going to town. ‘Oh take me Eddie, I can feel you stroking me, your hands running over my tight body and your mouth at my breasts. Oh big dog just stroke me, stroke me, stroke me.’ Eddie just sat there stupefied; he had no idea what to do. “Ask her if she’s naked” I supplied. And Eddie dutifully typed it in. ‘Oh yes big dog I’m sitting here naked imagining your hands caressing my tender body, feeling my tender flesh. Oh you’re such a man.’ “Ok I’m done I’m exiting this game.” Eddie said. All of us were kind of enjoying this, so Dan grabs the keyboard and the rest of us rolled Eddie and his chair out of the way. Dan sat down and began some serious typing. ‘Hey girl lick your fingers I want you to taste yourself, then play with those beautiful tits.’ Now this really got her going. ‘Oh big dog I knew you could do it I’m licking my fingers and oh I love the taste. Now I’m caressing my tit’s. Oh I can just imagine it’s you feeling me up and squeezing my nipples. Oh I’m so hot.’ ‘Just think of me with my fingers deep inside you stroking back and forth my tongue invading your mouth.’ The speed of her typing seemed to slow but she kept going. ‘Oh big dog, I can feel you inside me your fingers twisting me about exciting me. Your tongue in my mouth tasting me and forcing me to silence.’ I looked around and all of us had our eyes glued to the screen. Adrian shoved Dan out of the way and took over the keyboard. ‘Tell me what you look like, I want to know what I’m looking at.’ She was into this. ‘I’m five foot seven inches, I have a 36-24-38 body with C-cup breasts. I’m Latino and I have long dark curly hair and fiery brown eyes.’ ‘Play with those nipples girl I want them rock hard I want them to hurt they are so hard I want them to want me.’ Adrian typed. There was a long pause but then she came back. Okay I’ve twisted my nipples and “m now rubbing them. Oh please I don’t think I can take much more.’ Adam shoved Adrian out of the way and typed in. ‘Oh I’m stroking, stroking, OH YES, cum with me girl.’ ‘YES’ she typed in and then gave us a good description. ‘Oh baby I came so hard I was sitting on a towel and now it’s all soaked.’ ‘Well it should be, after all you’ve just pleased us all.’ Adam typed. ‘All of you?’ Came the response. ‘All of us babe. Eddie is at work and we tossed him of the computer 10 minutes ago. You’ve been cybering with 15 of us all at once.’ We all read the response and just laughed. ‘You bastards!’ I have to admit I don’t feel guilty at all. After all we were just playing Dominoes. Dominology 101: Be Yourself The more things change, the more they stay the same. It's always been the case in BDSM circles that those who lean towards submissive tendencies have been the ones who really put in the effort of creating and holding together the communities. Dominants tend to be more aloof. It's a truism, sure, and of course there are exceptions. All you need to do in order to notice these trends is look at the blogs and message boards. The vast majority are managed by submissives. When you do see a dominant commenting you really can't help but get the feeling that either a submissive is putting him up to it, or maybe he's fishing around to find one. For whatever reason, it just seems to be something in our natures. I remember debating the possible reasons for this tendency going back well over a decade, and it hasn't changed. Whatever the cause, it's always been a lot easier to find insights from a submissive's perspective than from a dominant's. Now, I won't be the first to observe that this is inconvenient. Being a new dominant has as many if not more challenges compared to being a submissive. And on top of that, well, you know, a dominant is supposed to be in charge. He kinda needs to have an idea of what he's doing, doesn't he? There's a little bit of pressure involved here. So one of the things that I really wanted to do, in addition to the broader, more systematic 'how-to' methodology, was to address this. That's what these articles will be aimed at. Think of them as a bit of a grab bag of personal messages to my fellow dominants. These will be addressed specifically at their concerns, and in them I'll include ideas, reflections, tips, tricks; just a miscellany of things that I wish someone had suggested to me before several years of trial and error and finding my way out of pitfalls caused them to suggest themselves. And in addition to sort of being a clearing house for all the various bits of advice that I'm too lazy to fit into the more structured methodology of the 'how-to', I want to offer something that I think is all too lacking for dominants. That is quite simply encouragement. Starting out and practicing as a dominant is a daunting thing, and in a way the more responsible and informed about it you are the more stressful it can be. With all this in mind, I'd like to get to my first piece of advice to my fellows. It's probably going to sound a bit lame to many, like I'm being a bit Hallmark card feel-good. But the truth is it's the most solid advice I can give and sort of at the core of where I see the most dominants screw up. That advice is simply be yourself. Never, ever, feel pressured to behave in a way that you don't feel inclined to. Never try to 'learn to be dominant' by emulating anyone else. Learning to be a good dominant is like a craft that every single practitioner has to reinvent for themselves. Another can try to give pointers in developing that craft. But in the end, that can only really provide inspiration to help you draw this capacity from your own self. When done properly, this can be a very personal, esoteric thing, full of introspection, soul searching, and personal development and evolution. It's natural, when we start any endeavor, enter any social group or activity, that we tend to model our behavior on the things that we've seen other people do that attracted us to it in the first place. We pick out 'Master Joe' and want to be like him and so deeply crave a relationship like he has with his submissives. All too often I see more 'experienced' member of the lifestyle tripping over themselves to validate themselves by persuading newcomers that 'This is how you do it,' and 'This is how a true submissive acts' or 'My kung-fu is best'. And, especially when you're learning from experienced people or in a group (which is in many ways ideal) to an extent, you have no choice but to begin by experimenting with their protocols and ways of doing things. But it's important to keep in mind that these are just that; your initial experiments and experiences, and those protocols are like training wheels. You're supposed to grow out of them. Maybe the ways you find for yourself over time will look a lot like those, or maybe they'll be totally different. That doesn't matter. The measure of success of a mentor in BDSM is not how closely his protégées mimic his methods. It's how healthy and happy and how positive the effects of his protégées' practices look when they become experienced, themselves. Another aspect of this is especially true of people who don't have mentors, who are self taught. They generally form their ideas, maybe through some conversation, but largely through reading BDSM stories or watching videos. The problem with that is that the people who make stories and videos for any topic tend to want those to be exciting and gravitate towards more extreme or intense events and activities. And that's exactly the opposite of how you want to start the practice. Let me make this perfectly clear: there is only one measure of how well you're doing as a dominant, and that is how positively it's impacting you and your submissive, and the quality of the intimacy that is resulting. It has nothing to do with how extreme you can be or how cool you can look or how far you can push a submissive to behave. In fact the best dominants can accomplish more with a look or well chosen words than they could with handcuffs or floggers. The end result of any D/s oriented activity or session should be deepened intimacy between the participants. That is the only measure of success. Everything else is window dressing. And that's why this advice is so important. When you're starting out with a submissive, no matter how experienced either of you are, you figure where and how to begin by weighing two things: your nature and hers. You are basing this on you, not whatever videos you found hottest or how 'Master Joe says slaves should act' or 'How true dominants act'. That is quite tricky to do starting out, until experience slowly builds for you a sense of context and proportion. So, how do you do it? You start slow. Very slow. Never underestimate the potency of small, simple acts or gestures. Instead of imagining the most extreme ways to act out upon an urge or feeling, think about the smallest and easiest. It will be easier to observe the effects of those acts on you and your partner that way, as well, when you aren't tripping over each other to get as far outside your comfort zones as possible. If you're experimenting with impact play, start with a little bit of sting and see what happens. If you're working with bondage, see what having her wrists held for a moment does rather than trying to squeeze her into some manacles. If you're playing with exposure try hiking her skirt a bit instead of trying to strip her naked. If you're working with obedience, direct the conversation and have her respond to your questions rather than trying to make her get on her knees. Brush at boundaries with a feather rather than stomping all over them like you see in the stories. And while you're doing these things, you're not just observing the effects on the submissive, but on yourself. You're learning yourself; what you like and are comfortable with. Believe me, a submissive will respond to a little thing that you know you want far more potently than she will to some grandiose act you think you ought to want. Dominology 103: Honesty As a dominant, you're taking responsibility for seeing yourself and your submissives through some perilous emotional territory. You're also equally responsible to both yourself and your submissive partners, to ensure that those journeys satisfy as much and many of your mutual and separate needs as you can safely manage. At first this might seem pretty daunting. But keeping one thing in mind will make it easier. In a way, your leading this journey is itself to some extent the destination. It's a bit like being a cab driver for a passenger who just wants to take a ride. There's not really any particular place you have to find. You just have to pick them up, take a safe little trip, and get them home safely. In between, you simply make it as interesting as possible. There's a more subtle point in that. That is that you have to be driving. If that person doesn't realize that you're driving, or that the car is moving, or if they can't see the scenery rolling by, or if they have to take the wheel at points, then they've been just as short changed as if you don't return them home afterwards and make them walk the last few blocks. To push this metaphor just a little bit further, the passenger may also be a bit understandably irate at the end if any of those instances are the case. They key to preventing this negative outcome and keeping it positive is what I call accountability. It's a somewhat nuanced aspect of the responsibility that I've brought up elsewhere. To put it another way, when you're being dominant, the submissive has to realize that you are, or else it's cheating. It doesn't always have to be some formal agreement, or spelled out in any elaborate way. It doesn't have to be scheduled or measured and can be completely spontaneous. But the submissive has to consciously realize that some part of their volition has been surrendered to you in some way. It can be as complex as a personal little ritual involving putting a collar around her throat to denote that the rules of playtime are now in place, or it can be as simple as showing the girl a certain grin or a look in your eye as you reach for her hand to lead her off to do something a bit crazy. As long as it's a communication from you to her that you are leading this step in the dance and creating that understanding that the credit, good or bad, when it's done, is going to be on you, then you are doing it right. Cheating is doing it wrong. What do I mean? Why is it cheating? First, you can't be sneaky about this. Remember that part of your job as a dominant is satisfying your submissive's needs. The most constant and potent of those needs is simply the security and structure of your guiding whatever aspects of the situation that she has entrusted you with. This has to be a conscious matter. If you give her that grin, reach out and take her hand, then she is following you. If she is following you, those few paces that she takes under your guidance is giving her just as much as she's giving you. But, if you 'cheat' and say something like, 'Uh, the there's free beer over here' or somehow trick or persuade her without taking that accountability, she gets nothing from it. It has to be a committal expression of this wish on your part or you are getting compliance and offering nothing back in return. You have to consciously and visibly take responsibility for it to count. Second, recall my scary funhouse metaphor. You take her hand and lead her through this scary amusement park funhouse or rollercoaster. When she comes through all the strangeness on the other side, that release is part of this on-going intimacy building process. That process is what will allow her to follow you into scarier places the next time, and the time after that, to suspend more and more of her own inhibitions and to give more and more of herself over to you. On the other hand, if something goes awry, her knowing that you will be there so she isn't alone, dealing with it all without the structure and guidance that she needs is also something that is necessary to the process. As a dominant, this is the long game that you play. Anyone who thinks that deep levels of submission can be just offered up in a few minutes, or even in a single session or two or three has never put serious work into this field. Don't feel badly if you don't understand what I'm talking about, right now. Trust me, you have wonders to discover. Dominology 104: Limits & Boundaries Dominology 103 talked about the idea that you have to be expressing your wishes clearly as a dominant. In a way you might call limits the matter of gracefully accepting those wishes once given. Many people are reminded of a roller coaster when watching an experienced dominant work. They tend to start out slow and build a momentum. There is an illusion at play of a constancy of motion, as though the dominant was simply willing a session to hurtle ahead, faster and faster. But that's not really the case. What isn't as obvious to many is that there is a constant up and down at play, escalating and decelerating, intensifying and relaxing that momentum. This is because of the necessary back and forth process between a dominant and a submissive. The dominant is constantly expressing his wishes to the submissive and then allowing her space to fulfill that want. This is always the case, though sometimes it may not look that way. Consider a scenario where it generally appears to be the opposite: a session of heavy bondage and impact play. Once the girl is cuffed in place, she's surely along for the ride, right? The dominant is simply having at with floggers and paddles and whatever devilish implement he feels like pulling out, isn't he? In fact, he often affects a demeanor of cruel disregard for her wishes at that point. Well, first, that cruel disregard thing doesn't happen quite as ubiquitously as stories and videos would have you believe. But it does happen, so let's roll with it. That first moment is the biggy, of course. When the submissive is allowing herself to be bound that way, she's signing a contract of sorts. Most people can get this part. If she's agreeing to be strapped onto that diabolical looking contraption, she is agreeing to whatever comes next. But the back and forth grows much more sublime after that point. Watch an experienced dominant doing this and he'll be constantly communicating with the submissive, asking even apparently pointless, fussy little things, like 'is the cuff too tight?' or 'breathe' or 'relax'. Or else he'll even be teasing or taunting verbally; the old 'You like that?' sort of teasing. The dominant is constantly giving her things to react to. The anticipated reaction can be anything from reluctant compliance to begging to admission of pleasure to orgasm. But he has to allow her the time to react. This may be subtle, but if it's done properly, power exchange has to be fifty-fifty, equal parts action and reaction. Then there is the physical action itself. You might say that every lash or series of lashes is a question by the dominant, every reaction by the submissive is her answer. Sometimes in harsh 'discipline' oriented M/s protocols, the slave will be instructed not to react. In that case, the service of containing her reaction is itself the response. The point to be taken from this is that it's always a very specific back and forth. The dominant makes his statement, the submissive reacts, and he acknowledges the submissive's reaction before continuing onward. This exchange is the succession of baby steps in how you walk a submissive through a session. It's a conversation, constant communication. You may have the goal of the session in mind at the start. But you are taking it one step at a time, asking for the first step, accepting it, acknowledging it, asking for the next, and so on. One particularly poetic submissive I knew likened the dominant to an upright bass, laying the structure and the rhythm of a song, but allowing the space in between to belong to the submissive like a violin to embellish the melody. Always keep in mindthat is that it is far better to take less than a submissive offers at each step than to take more. You always have to allow the submissive that much space to react, which includes the space to refuse or reject. Sometimes, if bound or in a non-consent situation, that refusal or rejection can come in the form of a negative reaction. This is something you'll have to learn to be watchful for and to make adjustments to correct, which will be an entry on its own. Insight into to how much is given over to the dominant at each step is part of his craft. Some more experienced people were probably expecting me to start with a discussion of hard limits here. I feel it's the wrong place to begin such discussions. You don't need to worry about the outside limits. They're probably arbitrary guesswork on the submissive's part about how she thinks she'll react to something. You can't entirely trust that, because a play session is like battle; you never know how you'll react to something until you're confronted with it. Beyond that, even if the submissive is more or less right about her limits, if you're doing this right, you won't be going near them initially, and by the time you do, they will have likely changed. As a dominant, it's your job to do to know better and to alternate between being both more adventurous and safer than the submissive might have you be at a given time. Worry about the comfort zones that exist right now, and work on expanding those. Dominology 106: Self Discipline Note: To the folks that have been asking, yes, the missing entries are on purpose. These are excerpts from my blog where I try to post at least one thing a day, so sometimes they come out a bit redundant. So, to avoid repetition and such, I try to keep posting only the more significant entries, here. Thanks for asking! ***** The only thing that we can ever directly control is ourselves. We do not control the submissive. It's a difficult lesson for us to wrap our minds around. But, in my experience, our success as a dominant is contingent on cultivating the admittedly counterintuitive attitude. As dominants, we pride ourselves on our effect on others, on what we can make them do or feel. But to practice that craft in a sane way, we acknowledge this. If we don't, we begin to chase a certain result. We begin to calculate, 'What will make this person do this? What will make this thing happen?' And then we are lost. Because you're following something, at that point. And you can't lead and follow at the same time; you end up chasing your tail. It becomes a cycle of you displaying the behaviors that you think the submissive will respond well to, and the whole process will become an unguided morass. You're putting her in charge when it's the last thing either of you want. That's why it's necessary to remain detached from the result, to an extent. You provide a structure, a space for them, and allow them to react, and then continually modify and shape it. But have to remain aloof from it. It's a process of cultivation. Your will and hers must remain distinct, you might say, for them to produce the harmony of one being dominant and another being submissive. Another reason is that that space can become quite claustrophobic if you allow too little space inside it for the submissive to express herself and to respond to your stimulus. They need to participate actively, and that means having a range of motion. So whatever you demand from them has to allow some perceptible level of variation that is hers. For example, in Gorean protocol, there isn't just a single 'kneeling' posture, but several, all fairly precise in specifics, such as the angle of the head, the eyes, where and how the hands are positioned, the width of the knees, etc. So, you would think that such a precise protocol would be quite stifling to the individual. But the truth was that it was so structured that all the tiny nuances in the movement that took a girl from standing to kneeling, and all the tiny, usually ignored aspects of their physical expression became quite noticeable. And as a result no two girls would adopt the same posture in exactly the same way. This is why you see many expressing finding a sense of freedom in this structure. I knew some masters and slaves who were into geisha style protocol, and these people were amazing. Every motion, quite literally, was elegant, and flowing, so that asking a girl to pour you tea was like giving her an opportunity to perform a kind of ballet. The specific aesthetics may vary from person to person, but this is the attitude that must be cultivated. Your commands are giving a submissive an opportunity to perform. You asking something of her is giving something to her. But the dominant has one advantage in this that the submissive does not. A dominant can practice this alone. That notion might throw people, at first. A dominant dominates people. It's kind of explicit by definition, right? But it's not necessarily true. I advocate the attitude that the acts of domination, as one might observe them, should be viewed as a sort of side effect, an expression of someone being dominant. A manifestation of qualities that are there all the time, not only when in play with a submissive. Or, to put it another way, a leader doesn't require followers. He leads just the same, whether, whether people are following or not, by determining his own actions. A follower, on the other hand, when left on their own, is forced into the position of becoming a leader. Your next experience as a dominant should not be in a play session. It should be right now. Learn to get a bit more comfortable in your skin. Feel the space you take up. Live in it. Own it. Then take it with you. Develop a sense of self and take inventory of it. Learn to react more consciously. Watch what you do that is a reaction to things around you for a while, and learn to make those reactions a bit more conscious. Are you thirsty? Decide to go seek out a drink, don't let the stimulus simply mandate an action that you follow along for a ride. Don't react kneejerk. Develop a habit, when you find yourself doing so; something simple like taking a deep breath to get yourself back under your own steam. Strike up a conversation with someone and be a bit more passive and watchful. Watch how people react to you without fixing any particular attachment to the sort of reaction that they demonstrate in return. Learn to check your instinctual tendencies to seek and follow rapport. Be deliberate. Yes, I'm advocating to an extent an egocentric attitude. That doesn't necessarily mean being an ass or being selfish. You can be as kind, generous, or benevolent as you like. But learn to demand that it's on your terms. Begin to cultivate a sense of space around you and protect it. Value it. Take it seriously. Keep negative, stupid, annoying things out of your space. Not just you home, or living area, but wherever you go. Cultivate the sense of owning that space. Just know it's there, don't try to persuade anyone, or even point out it's there. When you establish it in your mind, you'll react as though it's there, and those around you will react to that. Learn to let the world react to you more than you react to the world. Make your dominance your own thing. Then, when you do play with a submissive, it's simply a thing that you share with her. Dominology 107: Do's and Don'ts Don't take yourself too seriously. I know it's always tempting to model our behavior on the action hero of our choice, but don't do it. You do not need to be cool, dark, broody, or to communicate in grunts. Be yourself. Laugh, smile, have fun, say stupid things sometimes. Be human and authentic. Do have a sense of humor. Crack jokes, be witty or funny, defuse tension with a laugh; there's no arena I know of where these are not good things. Don't be a goof. Humor is great, silliness less so. Remember that you're building a space, and if a submissive can't take you seriously that place falls apart. Worse, this carried too far can become a form of hardwired submissive behavior and will rock most subs out of their comfy space faster than you can say 'unbecoming'. Know when to reel it in a bit. Do be well mannered and polite. I'm not saying you have to read books on etiquette, though in truth that wouldn't be as silly an idea as it might seem. The problem here is that this is one of those areas that genders tend to see differently. Males tend to see 'good behavior' as a kind of conformity or surrender, if you will. Women tend to see it as a form of self discipline and maturity, and often associate it with authority. These are generalized tendencies, of course, but they're strong ones. For people working with female subs especially, but any submissive in general, proper demeanor tends to be a potent tool, and sloppy, undisciplined behavior tends to be counterproductive. Also, there's an old saying: you can only demand as much discipline as you can display. Don't be cute. Many doms, in the pattern of the bully, default to acting cute when their bluster or attempts at authority fail, and others even see it as a tool to elicit desired behavior. As I observed under being a goof, this is actually a submissive behavior so far as our biological hard wiring goes. It is also one sure way to torpedo any security structure you've built. On top of that, it tends not to match any behavior that it compels with corresponding accountability. So cut out the cute puppy-dog eyes. You can be lovable or you can be a dom, not both. Do be communicative. Many dominants feel it's somehow cheating or wrong to ask a submissive how she feels or what she might like to do. I once did a play session at a party and when I asked the girl what she wanted to do, everyone laughed and assumed I was joking. It's perfectly fine to ask your submissive questions as you play, like what she feels like or prefers, even for advice or about how she'd like to proceed. Now, there's a line here. Don't let the submissive make the decisions. A submissive can make a request and you can grant it, or you can ask what she'd like to do. But, except for maybe exclusively S&M sensation play, you can't let that go too far. It's important to always demonstrate that you are making these decisions. My own recommendation is to always try to deliver what she wants but never quite as she would have requested it. If she asks for something make her wait for it, or mix it with some other factor that is surprising. Making sure when you grant her request, that you put your own spin on it so it's clearly on your terms and not hers. If she asks for the cane, build up to it with different toys and let her wonder, or use a form of bondage that she finds daunting. Do keep your cool. Not to be confused with trying to look cool. This can be tricky. A submissive does need to know that you are controlled, and that in effect she's safer in your hands than in her own. Often times she'll have an inclination to 'kick up' or rebel, to provoke in order to see how secure and controlled you are before she'll move that next step into giving over to you. This is natural, and if you fly off the handle or she can get a rise out of you, then you will not get her over that next hurdle. An emergency stop is thrown on the power exchange. So it's important to be measured, secure, steady, and confident. I hate to say it, but the dog-whisperer stuff about calm, assertive energy does works on humans, too. Don't be a jerk. Now, guys can be forgiven for being confused on this, as we're most often the ones that get this wrong. This is another example of cognition tending to operate slightly differently along gender lines. Women tend to be socially inclusive, and to be very case and instance specific regarding behaviors. This is where they often get the reputation with men for nagging and nitpicking 'every little thing'. Their brain is wired, you might say, to keep all the members of the tribe harmonious by including everyone but also making sure a status quo is observed. Men on the other hand are hierarchical. We arrange ourselves in an order of value and worth. So, where a female mind will tend to see a behavior and react positively or negatively to it, we men tend to judge the person and be less responsive to specifics. So, where a woman tends to see 'a guy who does certain specific things that turn me on', a guy tends to see 'a jerk'. When we try to model his behavior, we tend to lump in all the behavior associated with 'jerk', because to our minds, that's what the girl seems to like. Obviously, this is unhelpful. It's important to be very specific on what behavior you're experimenting with at a given time. For example, if you're engaging in humiliation or objectification play, experiment with a specific type or feel and observe the reaction before moving onto another, at least until you're fairly experienced with how that sub will react. Another example: just because a girl might be aroused by being called 'slut' does not mean that any offensive word you come up with will have an equal effect. Do not try to see how much obnoxious behavior you can get a sub to let you get away with. Keep it simple and specific. Be precise. Do keep things in boundaries. People tend to talk a lot about a submissive's boundaries, but don't forget that you, the dominant, are allowed to have them too. It's very useful to confine this play to set sessions, especially within an existing relationship. Trust me, doing this all the time can get exhausting when you're not used to it. Also, don't feel pressured to experiment or play with things that you don't feel comfortable with, or up to at a given a time. A lot of people scoff at anything less than '24/7′ (basically permanent Master/slave protocol) or TPE (Total Power Exchange, or no defined limits). But it's far better to have a mutually recognized limit than an unspoken one that you both pretend isn't there in order to feel kinkier. Dominology 108: Being Bad I wanted to take a moment before getting into the material to thank everyone for the lovely encouraging comments. I am a total ham at heart, and I do tend to eat them up. Thank you! ***** We're probably getting on towards the material that some of you were waiting for, now. I wanted to get at least a basic survey of the approaches and philosophies that I advocate out there before approaching this topic. Most sorts of play, like bondage or discipline/obedience or impact play, can be fairly intuitive in terms of coming up with a way to experiment. Most intelligent people, when they understand to start out slowly and carefully, and take one step at a time, can come up with some fairly reasonable way to begin experimenting. But humiliation and objectification play is different. Let me define my terms quickly, first. They're closely related and often overlapping. Humiliation play is what you always see vanilla people who write about BDSM sprinkle heavily into the stories. It generally involves insulting, shaming, or demeaning the submissive in some way. Some see objectification play as a sub category of humiliation, but I prefer regarding them as distinct. And contrary to popular misconception, it does not simply involve treating submissives like inanimate objects, like tables. Rather, it involves modifying a person's role or sense of identity to solely suit their utility to a dominant. In other words, their value is based less on being human and more on how pleasing they are to him. Most Master/slave play involves elements of objectification, as does pet play, like you see with ponygirls. Both of these tend operate in apparent contradiction to explanation about power exchange functioning with the dominant providing a security structure to the submissive. It certainly doesn't usually look like the dominant is very concerned with her safety or emotional security. That's because the dynamic at play is a little bit more complex. In play that doesn't involve these, the dominant is providing security directly, in a caregiver sort of way. In instances where a submissive is affected by this dynamic, she tends to have an existing security structure that somehow impedes her experience of intimacy. Therefore, the dominant has to sort of dramatically contradict and supplant that structure with his own through their play. That's why this style of play also tends to mix with so much taboo. In other words, by proving that in play the dominant can be scarier or appear more powerful than these other emotionally charged fixtures, usually religious or cultural, and involving guilt of some sort, they become a source of safety from those other less personified influences that are sources of anxiety. This is why you see many taking pseudo-satanic imagery in their style of dress and such. By doing so, in play, they are usurping the emotional potency of all of the submissive's religious and cultural indoctrination, and freeing them to behave or feel in ways that would normally be emotionally constricted via their conditioning. This is also a style of play that has a bad taste left in many kinksters' mouths based on all too frequent negative experiences. Dominants, especially inexperienced ones, tend to be extremely heavy handed with this sort of thing. They tend to think of this as a default modus operandi, rather than an element of play to be used selectively. In fact many seem to regard abuse of this sort of thing as a direct indicator of their potency as a dominant. That's why I tend to be a bit pedantic with this sort of thing. There's nothing invalid with this sort of play when performed in measured response to the psychological dynamics in play between a dominant and submissive. It became the sort of archetype that it did in BDSM circles for a reason, after all, and that's because it can be a very powerful tool that has often been used positively and healthily. The problems emerge when someone doesn't understand the uses and reasons for it, and become humiliation one-trick ponies, unable to alter their approach, or, as they're often referred to in lifestyle circles, the 'on your knees, bitch' crowd. And the high volume of this occurrence has left many dismissing this topic as inherently unhealthy. I personally suspect that part of the omnipresent over-use of this is that this does tend to be one of those very potent tools, and is often particularly powerful emotionally, for male dominants. It encapsulates much of their urge to rebel from what they feel are structures imposed upon them by society, and so it comes with a profound feeling of liberation for many. And that isn't a bad thing. Many read my constant cautionary stance and begin to assume that everything that a dominant does has to be based solely on the disposition of their submissive. But that's not the case. On the contrary, it's important to the submissive that this structure that they share is a vehicle for the dominants wants and needs first. Yes, first. As I've pointed out the dominant has to look after both their needs. But every activity that he chooses doesn't have to please both their needs equally. In fact, the dynamic requires that the dominant be willing to at times be selfish, and to take things from the submissive simply because he wants them. That is part of the fuel that makes this work. So, it's fine to do things that aren't for a submissives benefit, aren't engineered for an effect on her, as long as the effect is a neutral one. In the same way, it's perfectly fine for a dominant to employ tools or toys or activities that hold no particular attraction for him, but are chosen based upon their effect or attraction on the submissive. It doesn't have to become equally positive for both, as long as the effect doesn't become negative for either. It's important that a dominant keep this in mind while he's experimenting. He's not only looking for positive effect on the submissive, but on himself, so long as the effect isn't negative for the other. And as I am so fond of explaining, the only criteria for determining if something is negative or positive is whether it adds to or subtracts from the structure of a submissive and dominant's intimacy. That, and avoiding emotional or physical damage. Duress is fine. Damage is not. In fact, often a submissive won't 'like' things that contribute positively. As a dominant you're going to need to learn to read that more accurately than the submissive can. I'm spelling this all out as clearly and carefully as I can because this is one of those emotionally charged, potent tools that can easily go astray and become damaging, and has a lot of negative connotations to counter its ubiquitous over use. Particularly, in my experience, objectification is one of those very, very common elements that many people want. But because not many consciously think of it as a variable to experiment with and to find a proper mixture and dosage of, it's often hit and miss. People wander around, rotating dominants and submissives until they find a particular agreeable 'setting' or 'flavor' of this sort of play that suits their tastes determines the tone that they are looking for. It truly seems that many simply never stop to consider adjusting this as they would any other level of activity, instead. But this entry is already my longest and getting unwieldy, so I want to rein it in and cover concerns specifically about how to start experimenting with this. I'll come back and talk about individual aspects more as we go. Objectification can actually be one of the easiest to experiment with. First, any sort of obedience or service play includes a greater or lesser degree of it. If you simply shift the focus of an activity from being oriented to the results of a compelled action to the action itself, it becomes a form of objectification. You can do this, either by requesting actions that have no particular objective other than to be pleasing, like sitting there with a certain pose that you find attractive. You can do it by setting protocols on a practical activity that are purely aesthetically designed. For example, many M/s protocols have a certain posture or little ritual when a slave brings a master a drink. They may kneel with head bowed and hold it up in offering or simply have to smile in particularly sweet fashion, depending on the tastes and aesthetics of the people in question. This is also something that's fairly easy to keep 'fresh' without escalating by simply altering those methods and procedures when one becomes backs. This is one of my recommendations, as it also tends to feel a bit more innocuous to dominants who may at first find making demands or requests feels awkward to them. Likewise, modifications to a submissive's clothing selection or appearance generally also fall into this category. The omnipresent collar is a big example. Just requiring a slave to wear one can have a profound effect. But, common less overtly fetish examples can be varying heights of high heeled shoes or skirt lengths, garters of various types, or even various sorts of cosmetics. It's a good idea to be conservative with these at the start. Begin on the outside edge of where the submissive is comfortable and slowly work outwards. Various tattoos and brands also fall into this category. Do not rush or be rushed into those or anything permanent. The point is that anything that emphasizes a submissive's catering to the tastes and pleasure of the dominant can be made into objectification play by focusing on it a bit more deliberately. Humiliation is a little bit trickier. Honestly, since many people find objectification play has a certain inherently demeaning quality, many of those methods are the easiest way to begin exploring humiliation as well. If that's not enough, simply altering the tone of that objectification play to be a bit more demeaning or antagonizing can do the trick. Not only dressing a submissive provocatively, but slutty or in the case of men, emasculating, for example. Men wearing women's lingerie, or women wearing fishnets or particular shades of lipstick are popular choices. Remember to go slowly. It's best to make the first sessions interesting, and both be craving more, than to go too far too fast and forever be turned off on this. Humiliation requires a lighter touch, at least at first, as it's not purely a more or less thing, but can be rather specific. One thing that may seem lesser to dominant might seem greater to his submissive. So one has to experiment and measure the impact of each thing separately. Also, everyone tends to default to purely verbal methods; dirty names and nasty talk. That's fine to experiment with, but don't rely solely on that. It gets old fast, and soon looks lazy and lame when it gets repetitive, so be sparing with it. You never stop and think about it, but over the course of an hour long session of play, for example, how many times will you have to use the word slut? Better get a thesaurus.