If I had to pull one myth out of the many in BDSM to highlight as “the one I’d most like to change”, it’s the idea that Dominance is some kind of pitting of your own personal force against something. It’s this picture of the world as a big boulder, with the idea that you exert your Dominance by pushing that big boulder up a hill.
I have nothing against people who enjoy that kind of thing. If it’s your desire to mould the world around you, control it, make it your bitch… more power to you. Some people do, and that’s perfectly legitimate. You can certainly find a partner whose desire is to be moulded and controlled. There is a yin for everyone’s yang.
The myth I would like to rip apart is that, by default, that’s what Dominance is.
Don’t laugh, because now that I’ve mentioned it you’ll see it in the questions of countless newbies and, for some people, it continues to drive their relationship. It’s inherent in questions like “how do I make my partner do X?”, and “how do I punish them when they don’t?”
I want to talk about two different ways of thinking about the roles, and the flow of energy, in D/s relationships, and then wind it up with a bit of ancient wisdom from the Chinese Tao.
IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP D/S OR BDSM?
It might seem like an odd question to ask, because D/s is plucked right out of the middle of the BDSM abbreviation, but which one guides your roles?
To some, the submissive is the one who is passive, who has things done to them. The one whose every decision is made for them. The responsibility is in the hands of another and they are “helpless” to change the course. For this type of person, submission allows them to escape pressure and just allows things to happen.
The Dominant, in this situation, considers the authority transfer to come with responsibility of control. They may take on the role of authoritarian or primary decision maker. It’s their show and they run it their way.
To others, submission is an active role. It’s about doing things to please a dominant; acting for a dominant. Obedience is a consequence of trying to please, rather than an end in and of itself. Often anticipation of a dominant’s needs is preferred, which requires intuition, observation and empathy. The sub’s job is complicated; requiring self-discipline. It carries with it the responsibility of performance to the standard established by the dominant.
The Dominant, in this situation, takes on a broader role of leadership. They’re often more consultative and more concerned with the greater good than their own personal satisfaction. It might still be their show, but they don’t necessarily feel they need to be primary actor, producer and director. It’s a team effort.
Many D/s dynamics are based on the latter definition of submission, whereas BDSM relationships tend toward the former.
If you enjoy getting away from responsibility for a while — and maybe regressing to a time when you had less decisions to make and less consequence to your action other than following the rules and avoiding punishment, then you might seek out the former style of submission. It’s very often what professional (paid) relationships look like, but some people (on both sides of the slash) enjoy it as a complete lifestyle.
If you’re looking for a partner-in-crime, you would probably go for the latter. It tends to have more flexibility built into it to incorporate the myriad other complex roles we play in our relationship, as partner, confident and support-network.
Both of these things are D/s, but depending on which direction you are coming at them from, they play out differently.
TOUCHING THE DYNAMIC
The obvious difference between D/s and vanilla relationships is that we’ve negotiated some kind of hierarchy. Something that many people learn quickly is that it’s necessary to keep that fire stoked. If you say that’s what you want, and you negotiate for it and agree to it, then you can’t keep on with your life as if it’s not there… because if you do then it’s actually not.
So, different people find different ways to touch the dynamic. It could be protocol and rituals, it could be boundaries and rules, it could be ways that things fluidly slide from one kind of relationship-state to another.
This is often where new Dominants default to imposing their will. It’s fairly easy to see why. The Dominant thinks “if I create a situation where my partner needs to do something specific, they will feel our D/s… which is what they want and what I want”.
It does work, but it comes embedded with potential conflict.
It works to the extent that the other person wants to have their behaviour moderated. So, it works particularly well for BDSM relationships, but in D/s relationships it needs to be the correct action at the correct time.
It also works best when both partners understand what is happening and why. Again, for relationships built on that kind of control/controlled dynamic it works much better, but even then random control can be a little like junk food. What’s the purpose, and if there is no purpose other than one partner feeling subby and the other feeling Dommy, how often is that going to work before it doesn’t anymore?
And, how are conflicts resolved when things go wrong? What happens when the order comes at the wrong time and can’t be complied with or has to be ignored?
WHAT IS IT WE CONTROL?
In the West, we have an odd habit of categorising actions. I wrote some time ago about how shyness is often equated with submissiveness, when actually they’re not the same thing at all.
Another popular misconception is viewing non-action as passivity. We overvalue aggression and self-assertion, so we see “doing” as a form of Dominance and the absence of that as some kind of submission.
That association has developed over decades, centuries even, but it’s a relatively modern myth. Non-action has its analogues in Stoicism’s amor fati, Zen’s “backward step,” and Henri Bergson’s élan vital.
The Chinese Tao has a concept called “wu wei”, which is sometimes translated as “effortless action” or the “action of non-action”. You’ll see it if you ever watch someone practice tai chi, and it is most commonly explained using the concept of water against stone, which one writer described as a graceful organic movement that “overcomes the hardest substances” and “can enter where there is no space.”
The Tao Te Ching describes non-action as a paradox in which dualistic tensions like passivity and aggression resolve.
That which offers no resistance,
Lao Zi
Overcomes the hardest substances.
That which offers no resistance
Can enter where there is no space.
Few in the world can comprehend
The teaching without words, or
Understand the value of non-action.
THE TAO OF DOMINANCE AND SUBMISSION
I think Dominants and submissives can learn something from wu wei.
Often Dominants feel that they need to express their role by controlling the water rather than flowing with it. It might even be possible to do that, at least some of the time, but you can imagine how exhausting it can be.
Another way to look at Dominance is as an understanding of the water itself. If you can look at it, understand it and work with it, then you can achieve what you want by being in harmony with it.
There is nothing submissive about non-action. It’s a conscious, active, choice.
The same goes for submissives. Being subsumed in somebody else’s flow can be a heady experience, perhaps scary and perhaps overwhelming. That’s why it’s so important to know you can trust your partner.
When you do have trust, then there are always an ongoing series of decisions to make about how much you’ll navigate or allow yourself to be navigated.
I think commonly it comes down to that old expression “you can’t control what happens, but your power is in being able to control how you react to what happens”.
Quite often we make the mistake of focussing on the wrong thing. We seek a sense of control by controlling the world around us, when actually that’s the equivalent of pushing the boulder up a hill. What is possible, and achievable, is to understand the world around us and to control how we react to it.
Feature Image: Salvador Dali, “The Avarious and the Prodigal”, illustration for Dante’s Inferno