Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission (21 page)

Roleplaying is another way of stepping outside oneself and into the realm of fantasy and imagination. It can help individuals to experiment with transformation and the perceptions of reality, and it may deepen partners’ emotional bond, as they perceive each other in a spectrum of different personae.

The term
humiliation
causes confusion even in the D&S communities, although many practitioners do engage in some form of this head trip. Some distinguish between humiliation and embarrassment; others between humiliation and degradation.

To many submissives, situational embarrassment—where the submissive is teased about his or her actual erotic vulnerability—is sexually arousing. It can reinforce feelings of helplessness and heighten awareness of the bottom’s vulnerability.

Situational embarrassment is always distinguished from personal embarrassment, where the individual is criticized for genuine flaws or failures. For situational embarrassment to work, of course, it must involve activities that the submissive perceives as embarrassing.

Similarly, there are those who may find it extremely erotic to shave a partner’s pubic hair as an aspect of foreplay, without any suggestion of humiliation. But in a power context, it may be scintillatingly exciting for the dominant to shave a submissive or to require that the submissive remain smooth skinned at all times. Some dominants may shave not only pubic hair but, in the case of male submissives, hair on the torso, legs, or buttocks. The submissive may feel pleasantly embarrassed at having a childlike appearance when naked; or may be embarrassed by the tangible evidence of the dominant’s power over even the most intimate types of grooming.

Another aspect of humiliation comes into play when the dominant embarrasses the submissive by accentuating his helplessness. If the submissive really enjoys being helpless, it might seem logical that he shouldn’t feel embarrassed about it; but, in fact, here is an area in which cultural conditioning conflicts with sexual desire. We—men particularly—are taught to feel ashamed of helplessness and vulnerability, and although a submissive may well crave to be in a helpless position, he may also feel that he shouldn’t have that craving or that experience—thus, he feels humiliated.

D&S head trips can be highly complex mechanisms with subtle gradations. For example, some submissives wish to be scolded or taunted for being wanton. They may not be wanton (in fact, they may be anything but), yet they may enjoy being chastised for this putative defect. Both partners understand that the bottom is aroused both by the idea of being slutty and by being rebuked and corrected. This can be erotic for both partners. But in nearly all cases, the eroticism would disappear if the dominant scolds the submissive for a genuine character flaw.

Overall, humiliation and embarrassment scenarios depend on the dominant’s ability to accentuate the submissive’s feeling of defenselessness and exposure—with the purpose of enhancing the power dynamic—while avoiding making the submissive feel that he or she is any less worthwhile as a human being. Exposure and exhibition, in particular, may be an exhilarating experience for a submissive.

Many D&Sers enjoy acts that fall outside the regular scope of intimacy, and the more outrageous the better. In this way the partners may both feel that they have entered a private universe where very different rules apply.

Obviously such scenarios work best when partners know each other and when there is a profound level of trust. All such psychological games can have enormous risks for both partners if an underlying sense of respect and compassion does not prevail.

Among other possibilities, head trips may trigger memories of former abuse, and emotional trauma could result from casual or unthinking experimentation.

Elements of head trips are described throughout this book. The final one worth separate discussion in this chapter, however, is the concept of sexual denial.

As we discuss in
Chapter 10
, numerous ploys can be used to ensure a submissive’s chastity, the most obvious being, of course, the chastity belt. There is a fairly vigorous market for chastity devices in the D&S community. But many D&Sers incorporate psychological play on this theme without the assistance of equipment. Instead of having the submissive wear a belt, some dominants may verbally deny the submissive permission to climax. This order may be given either during an actual encounter or may pertain to an extended period of time when the partners are to be separated.

Usually denial is a means of protracting the submissive’s excitement. (In a reverse behavior the submissive is sometimes ordered to climax repeatedly—either autoerotically or with the dominant lending a hand and possibly a vibrator; this activity is sometimes called
milking
when it refers to men, in reference to the obvious similarity in draining a cow’s udder.) A submissive may be denied orgasm either as a method of psychological control or, sometimes, as a form of punishment. For some submissives being forced to contain sexual impulses for hours, days, or longer can in itself be a delicious exercise in anticipation; for others, it’s simply punishment.

Although we have not spoken with anyone who regularly engages in denial scenarios, some professional dominatrices advertise that they require their submissives to have all their orgasms controlled in this way.

Some control over orgasms is common among D&Sers, though most dominants seem not only to be lenient with permission but may perceive it
as a point of pride to be able to excite the submissive to transcendent, earth-shattering orgasms. Still, most dominants do claim the prerogative of determining when and under what circumstances the submissive may climax.

Some couples practice other types of denial. Privileges, for example, may be revoked in the case where a submissive has engaged in willful disobedience, and some dominants, while training a submissive, may keep rewards of all sorts—including pain or bondage—to a minimum until the submissive seems appropriately humble.

Denial, like all other D&S scenarios, demands clear communication and a certainty that both partners agree that they are getting what they want out of the experience. One submissive whom we interviewed reported that her dominant tried to train her by consistently denying her permission to visit with him, claiming that her reward for remaining passive would ultimately be to earn the privilege of spending more time with him. She had never expressed any interest in this denial scenario and was instead distressed by what she perceived as cat-and-mouse play. Finally, she decided that spending any time with someone so insensitive to her needs would be no privilege.

I
NTERVIEWS

I’m both dominant and submissive, but predominantly dominant—that’s what I fall back to more often than not. I’m dominant both outside my sex life and certainly in my sex life. I’m not a particularly aggressive personality, but control may be an issue for me. When I’m being dominant, all of the attributes that I need to be successful at being dominant and making the whole thing work enter into play, like listening more intently than you would in a normal relationship and making sure that you’re taking care not just of your own needs but of the needs of the submissive. That kind of attitude has carried over into my daily life. For example, when I’m working with an employee of mine, I see not just what I need but what the employee needs. It carries over to the way I behave in other relationships. Not that I have to be aggressive or in control, but I extend myself in much the same way that I do while dominant.

I’ve had several relationships outside of my marriage which have been strictly D&S in nature. It’s something that interests me a lot and something that I enjoyed before my marriage and something that is still very much of interest to me. For the [few] times that I have gone outside of my marriage, it has been uniquely for that kind of relationship. My wife knows which way I lean. She just doesn’t know that I’ve gone outside of our relationship to act out. One or two of these relationships have been long, and a couple were short-term.

From time to time I’ll switch-hit and play the submissive, which can be fun. My wife enjoys being submissive from time to time, but we don’t have a master-slave relationship. It doesn’t play a full-time part in my marriage, although I’m a dominant personality generally. I like being in control. I’ve been this way since I was a kid. My parents never spanked us, aside from a single smack across the seat to have us wake up or something. Corporal punishment was not part of our family. But you know how when you’re prepubescent and start playing doctor around the age of 10 or so? When I started playing doctor, it was all tied up in having someone turned over my knee and getting spanked. Or I’d be the doctor and they’d be the patient.

The thing that turns me on most about this whole experience is the anticipation of the moment. I don’t have a particular urge to make someone wear a blindfold or any particular garment. But when a girl puts on a blindfold, or even when I’m being submissive and I put on a blindfold, it’s
like all of one’s senses heighten about 2000 percent. And the tension rises about 100 percent.