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.