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!

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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.