Advice to a 19-Year Old Sub

Last night, I wound up chatting online with a 19-year old who identifies as a faggot and wanted to know how he could find a master to use and own him. I get variations on that question from guys around his age pretty regularly, so I figured I’d put my advice in one place.

Ok, boy, I get it. You’re young and horny and you know you’re submissive and that means you’re desperate to get used and fucked. You think about that idea approximately every waking moment and your body is telling you that you need sex non-stop. I know how hard managing that urge can be. When was in my 20s I had a very high libido (still do), and I couldn’t get laid to save my life and sometimes the horny would hit me so hard I would literally pound my head against a wall to distract myself. I know how bad you want it. You’re of legal age to fuck, so you want to fuck NOW.

I’m going to give you my best advice, but you’re not going to like it. Here it is: Wait a couple years. Hold off on pursuing your dream of becoming someone’s sex-slave for a few years. I say this for a number of reasons.

First, your age and desperation mean that you’re really vulnerable. The gay community has a term for inexperienced young guys (especially submissive ones), ‘chicken’, and a term for older gay men who target guys like you, ‘chickenhawks’. Chickenhawks are unscrupulous guys who seek out vulnerable young gay men and try to use you precisely because you’re naive, inexperienced, and easy to manipulate. Some chickens are homeless because they ran away or got thrown out for being gay, and that means they’re often desperate to trade sex for things like shelter and food. Chickenhawks know how to manipulate chickens by being superficially accepting of them, telling them how handsome they are, and by offering to buy them clothing, food, and so on. Then they pressure the chickens for sex (or seduce them into thinking the chickenhawk loves the chicken). Maybe it even works out for a while before the chickenhawk starts to abuse the chicken, or just throws him over for a new chicken. And some chickens wind up drug-addicted or HIV+ or conditioned to accept domestic violence.

These concerns apply to submissive guys as well as chickens. There are definitely bad or unscrupulous doms out there who seek out young inexperienced subs because they are temperamentally inclined to obedience and therefore easy to manipulate and abuse. It can be hard for the novice sub to spot the warning signs of an abusive dom, especially when their bodies are screaming to get laid.

The remedy for this is experience. If you wait a few years, you’re more likely to be able to spot signs that a predator is just looking for his next victim or is just seeking someone to fuck. There’s a huge difference in the brain of a 19-year old and the brain of, say, a 22 or 23-year old, and one of those differences is improved ability to think about the consequences of actions. A few years of life experience can do wonders for your ability to recognize bad doms.

Also, think about having a vanilla relationship first. Knowing what love feels like (and how that’s different from simple lust), what being with a partner who cares about you feels like, what good sex feels like, these are all things that make navigating a kinky relationship much easier. Kink tends to turn the normal rules of relationships upside-down (pain is pleasure, cruel is kind), and getting safely oriented to the upside-down logic of kink is easier if you understand what the baseline of a good relationship is supposed to be. None of that is to say that you don’t know you’re submissive or that vanilla sex will completely satisfy you. But learning how to navigate a relationship as a sub is easier if you already know some of the basic things about navigating any relationship.

Also, at 19 you’re not likely to have the qualities that make you a good candidate for a truly long-term relationship. So instead of getting collared today, focus on making yourself someone that a master will want to collar when you’re in your mid-20s. Contrary to what you’re probably thinking, a kinky relationship is still a relationship, and you need to have all the qualities that would make you a good life-partner as well as the qualities that would make you a good sub or slave.

What qualities will your future dom/master want in a sub/slave? Obviously every dominant is different, but he’ll probably want you to be self-supporting, and that means holding down a job. Yes, every sub fantasizes about the dom who is rich enough to be able to keep his sub at home 24/7, but the reality is (especially with the shitty economy) that the number of doms who can actually do that is fairly low. So you’re probably going to have to work a job as well as be a sub. If your plan is to find a rich daddy, you’re cutting out a lot of good candidates who just don’t happen to be rich. So get yourself some job skills and then get a job. That probably means getting yourself an education, either at a university or a technical college. Additionally, if the relationship ends, you will have skills to fall back on to support yourself.

Develop the kinds of domestic skills that allow you to make your dom’s life better when he’s not fucking you. So learn how to clean, do laundry, and other basic chores. Learn how to cook at a level above making Hamburger Helper. Learn how to give a massage. Learn how to do basic maintenance on cars or learn how to garden to make the house look nicer. In other words, learn skills that would make a dom notice you and think that you would make a better sub than some other boy he might be looking at.

Develop the things that will make you an interesting companion when you’re not having sex. While the fantasy of being a brainless sex slave is fun, the number of doms who are actually looking for that is much, much smaller than the number of doms who want a companion who has interesting things to say, engaging hobbies, and so on. So become that kind of boy. Read books, see some good movies or plays, follow the news and develop your political opinions, travel if you can afford it. Have things to say. Find a hobby or take up a sport. Make interesting friends who can open your life up to new experiences and ideas; as a sub, you’ll need social support and that starts with a good friendship network. Being a good conversationalist who has life experiences and intellectual interests and a life beyond being a sub is going to attract a lot more doms than it will alienate. In other words, become an interesting person that a dom will want to spend time with or go to dinner with.

In a related vein, work on your appearance and body. Develop your grooming skills so that you know how to look good. Figure out how to do your hair, trim or shave your facial hair, manscape, or whatever else is going to make you look good in a literal sense. Learn how to use fragrance. That means no Axe products (which scream “fuck someone else!”). That means not drenching yourself in cologne (look up ‘spray, delay, walk away’ and practice it). That might mean learning to use a skin cleanser if you have issues with acne. Learn how to dress well for your body type; figure out what fits and which colors look good on you, and what sorts of styles capture your particular personality and submissiveness (there’s a big difference between the butch farm-hand sub and the femme boiwife).

Also, think about fitness. Get yourself into the best shape you reasonably can get into. That means thinking about your general health, your diet, your exercise routine, your understanding of fitness, and so on. The gay community is notorious obsessed with fit young men, and guys who are fit to athletic will generally attract more attention and therefore have a better range of potential doms to choose from. However, that doesn’t automatically mean you have to turn yourself into a gym rat. There are many doms out there who prefer twinks, and chubby boys (cubs) have their fans too. And of course if you have a serious medical condition or handicap, you need to set realistic goals. So reflect on your body type, how much time you have for fitness, and what level of fitness is sustainable for you. Think about your own feelings about your body. If you’ve always wanted to lose weight or put some muscle on, use this as an incentive to do so. But if trying to get buff is going to make you feel insecure about your body, just focus on finding a healthy body weight that you can sustain and do that. Become comfortable in your body and trust that if you look healthy, the right doms will be interested in you. In general, spend a few years making yourself attractive, because good-looking, well-dressed, well-groomed guys are going to get more offers.

There is a general sense among kinksters that there are more subs than doms, by a rough margin of 10 to 1. Perhaps that’s exaggerated, but it has generally been my experience that subs are a more common commodity than doms. And that gives doms a lot of room to be picky about whom they play with and whom they partner with. That means that in some sense, you’re going to be in competition with other subs for the small pool of quality doms/masters. So as a novice sub, you want to do the things that will maximize the odds of a quality master looking at you and thinking ‘I want to own that boy’ (which is a much higher standard than ‘I’d hit that’). Many doms and subs play around with the idea that the boy is worthless trash. It can be hot for a scene, but a boy who genuinely has nothing to offer beyond his submission is a boy who will probably get passed over when it comes to collaring in favor of a boy who who has a good appearance and body, useful skills, an interesting personality, and an ability to support himself.

At 19, you’re not likely to have the qualities that will make someone want to collar you right now, or at least not collar you for the long run. So instead of worrying about becoming someone’s sub today, set yourself a plan to become someone’s sub in 5-6 years and spend the intervening time becoming the kind of sub a dom will want to claim.

Finally, develop the self-respect to be able to stand up for yourself, articulate your needs, and keep yourself safe. You may think that a dom wants a boy who just does as told, but there’s a difference between being a sub or slave and being a doormat. Until you understand what I mean by that, you’re probably not ready to pursue long-term ownership. I respect a boy who has the courage to tell me “That’s a hard limit for me and if that’s what you want, I’m not the boy for you” far more than a boy who tells me “I have no limits, Sir.” The former boy knows himself and what he’s worth and will only offer himself to a man worthy of his service, whereas the latter is usually a naive, inexperienced sub who hasn’t learned who he is and what he’s worth.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t explore kink until then. By all means do so. Read about kink, especially to learn what you do and don’t like and to learn how to recognize good doms from bad ones. Find guys to play with and learn some of the basic skills subs need to learn. Maybe you’ll met your long-term dom along the way. But don’t expect to, and probably don’t try to. Statistically, the relationships we get into before our mid-20s are likely to end quickly or result in marriages that eventually turn into divorces. Inexperience tends to lead us into bad relationships before we understand ourselves and our needs enough to find the good relationship that can last us a lifetime.

Don’t confuse needing to get laid with being ready to become a long-term slave. At 19, you may know you are destined to be a slave, but that doesn’t mean you’re actually ready for it yet.