Don’t Be That Kinkster 3

Periodically I wind up in a chat exchange with a boy that goes sort of like this:

Sub: You look really hot in your leathers, Sir!

Me: Thank you, boy!

Sub: Could you spank me while I suck my boyfriend?

Me: What do you think would excite me about that, boy?

Sub: Well, you get to spank me while I’m sucking my boyfriend.

Me: Why would I enjoy that?

Sub:…

The mistake this boy made is one a lot of subs make. He had a fantasy in his head–a variation on the standard Two Dom fantasy– and had decided to give me the honor of being one of the doms who got to work on him. But he hadn’t stopped to think about why I might want to play that scene with him. He wasn’t looking at me as human being with sexual desires and motivations of my own. He wasn’t interested in figuring out why I like torturing guys and how he could make the scene exciting for me, because none of that had anything to do with his fantasy or what he wanted. He didn’t need me. He just needed some guy, maybe wearing some leather, to stand behind him and spank him.

This is a pretty common problem, especially with less experienced subs. They know what they like about a particular fantasy, and can be very detailed and imaginative about what they want to happen to them. But they don’t spend much energy on why a dominant would want to do whatever it is they fantasize about doing. The dom isn’t a person to them; he’s just a character in the little play they’ve written for themselves. It’s very Cat Sub behavior.

A lot of the erotica that gets written and much of the porn that gets made encourages this sort of problem, because it’s so heavily sub-centric. The vast majority of erotica and porn is centered on the bottom or sub’s pleasure, which normalizes the idea that power exchange sex is all about the sub’s desires. The dom’s desires are simply to demand whatever the sub would like done. In other words, in erotica and porn, we don’t actually see a lot of doms. What we mostly see are service tops. With doms being presented as service tops, it’s no wonder that so many novice subs think that’s what a dom is.

What should this boy have done? He should have given some thought to what I as his scene partner might want. He should have recognized that I’m a human being with my own autonomous desires and then tried to imagine what I might want that he could offer to me. Or he could simply have asked me what I like to do before trying to cast me in his script. Or he could have said that the scene could be more than just me spanking him. He could have said that he would take turns blowing me and the other guy so at least I’d get a blow job out of it.

And I don’t want to suggest that subs are the only ones who make that mistake. There are certainly a lot of doms out there who haven’t given much thought to why a sub might enjoy being tortured or humiliated, or who simply remove the sub’s enjoyment altogether and just assume that subs do as they’re told because they’re just living sex toys.

Basically, whether you are a dom or a sub, don’t approach another kinkster with your script in hand and offer them the honor of being cast in that play. Have a conversation with them about their desires and needs and then suggest a scene that promises mutual pleasure,