The New Topping Book (22 page)

We also like the challenge of play parties. When we prepare a scene for a play party, we often put in extra effort to make something that will be powerful for us and attract an appreciative audience, and playing in public gives an edge to a scene that can help it go further, or higher, or wherever you want it to go.

14

F
ULL
-T
IME
D/S

S
ome players live in their scene roles all the time: Master or Mistress and slave, or Daddy and boy, Mommy and girl, Mistress and dog, houseboy or french maid. In some people’s eyes, living full-time is the ultimate expression of kink, complete immersion in the fantasy, making the fantasy their total reality.

Sometimes elaborate families are formed, where a senior top’s girl might have a slave of her own, and another human may be functioning as the dog. Players form these families according to their needs, and demonstrate a startling facility to adapt to changing conditions – there’s no rule that says you can’t make agreements to change roles in whatever way suits you. And for those who are successful, wonderfully fulfilling and creative lives can follow.

We would like to point out that living full-time in role is not the “gold standard” of BDSM. We see far too many players who feel that if they’re not “24/7,” they’re somehow wrong, or not “real” dominants. If this doesn’t sound like the way you want to live, if BDSM is a more comfortable fit in your life when you keep it in scene and drop roles the rest of the time, don’t let anybody tell you that you’re in any way inferior. However, if full-time BDSM does feel like a good fit for you, we encourage you to try it – starting slowly with one or two types of relatively easy power exchange, and adding new aspects of the power relationship as the old ones become habitual.

If people owning slaves or otherwise involved in relationships with a declared power inequity push your buttons, please remember that these lifestyles were consciously chosen, which may put them a step ahead of traditional marriages and the power dynamics of traditional sex roles that most people don’t even think about. And role-bound relationships work well for a lot of people. Many people are relieved to have a clear idea about who is empowered to do, say or decide what, and many bottoms are quite content to let their masters or mistresses run the show.

F
LUIDITY
. We’ve been friends with many people in full-time dominant/submissive relationships. Our observation is that when we spend time with such people as friends, we rarely see them behaving in ways much different than any other couple: the day-to-day demands of running a life remain the same, and must be addressed by someone or other. And almost nobody can be in full control of everything at every waking moment – or would like to be. While the dominants in novels (and sometimes chatrooms) express their dominance nonstop, in reality this approach doesn’t often work out very well.

However, what we do see in successful D/S couples is a very strong ability to read each other’s signals and a very fluid approach to moving in and out of their dominant or submissive mindsets – so the couple who at one moment is discussing someone’s problems at work may at the next moment be in full dominant/submissive mode, with the dominant in complete control and the submissive completely pliable to her will.

What kinds of signals do these people give each other to make such extraordinary transitions possible? Some might be consciously chosen, like using a particular name (“boy” or “girl,” for example) or a particular behavior (a submissive kneeling, a dominant placing her hand on the back of the submissive’s neck). Others are less conscious, more intuitive – a tone of voice, a shift in body language. Longtime D/S couples grow extremely skilled in reading such signals and responding to each other’s shifting needs and desires as the moment dictates.

A
CTIVITIES
AND
B
EHAVIORS
. What kinds of things do full-time D/S couples do to manifest their way of being together? The list can vary from one couple to the next, of course. Some dominants like to control their submissive’s behaviors with a goal towards improving his life – making sure that he quits smoking or does the work he brought home for the night or gets his daily exercise. Others require that their submissive give them valuable service of some kind – maintaining the household, caring for the dominant’s body or possessions, or even managing or training other submissives. Still others enjoy training their submissives in postures, vocal mannerisms, forms of address or types of service that are particularly appealing to the dominant – for example, kneeling with the knees 14” apart, eyes down, back straight, while proffering a cup of coffee that’s exactly the right strength and temperature and contains the perfect amount of cream and sugar.

Lifestyle D/S-ers have generated many clever devices to keep the submissive enslaved when the dominant is not present. The submissive may wear a collar or other symbol. You can padlock a chain around her waist, or give him instructions to go into the bathroom at work at two o’clock every day and masturbate for five minutes without coming, and so on…

W
HAT’S
I
N
I
T FOR THE
S
UBMISSIVE
?
One submissive we know, who drove twice a week from her work as a housewife and mother to take care of her master’s household, told us, “At home, I do the same things, and nobody notices. When I do them for my master, he notices them and appreciates them and gives me lots of positive feedback for doing them.” So for at least some submissives, part of their pleasure comes from being noticed and appreciated for what they have to offer. The owner of such a slave told us, “She is the most precious thing I could possibly own, and I never forget that.”

For others, the charge is just the opposite – being faceless, dehumanized, as much the dominant’s possession as her furniture or toothbrush and hence unworthy of comment. For these, the ability to “turn off their brain” by becoming a pure instrument of the dominant’s will can be both rewarding and sexy.

The fantasy may be that the dominant’s will is paramout and that the submissive’s needs don’t matter – but in reality, a submissive whose basic needs aren’t being met won’t feel submissive for very long, and a dominant who’s exerting her will over an unhappy submissive will find the experience hollow and frustrating. Thus, it’s important that there be a good match between the dominant’s style and the submissive’s desires. Some dominants prefer to manage their submissive’s behaviors very closely, giving orders for each behavior they want; these dominants may do best with submissives who prefer to be pliable and will-less while in their submissive space. Others want submissives who can anticipate and meet their needs, and these may do best with submissives whose charge comes from caretaking and appreciation.

C
ONTRACTS
AND
S
YMBOLS
. There are many ways to do full-time BDSM relationships, and one way that people get clear about what they are doing is to write a contract, often called a slave or ownership contract, in which the rights and responsibilities of both parties are spelled out.

Why a contract? You might think that when you own someone they just do what you want all the time. Well, there are always limits, and if your bottom’s limits offend you, remember that you probably have limits of your own. For instance, when you own a slave, does that mean you have to be lean and mean and in top role twenty-four hours a day, or do you get to relax now and then? If you have a little boy or girl, do you have to get up in the middle of the night when your “baby” has bad dreams? Are you contracting to provide income for both of you, or who goes to work and how do they do it? Contracts also normally cover agreements about monogamy and nonmonogamy: are both parties monogamous? If not, what are their responsibilities to each other? Can the top give the slave away to someone else? Can the slave ask to be given to someone else?

Many “contracts” are simply props, documents designed to turn people on but not to convey much real information. The contracts we’ve seen that actually worked well as relationship blueprints are fairly detailed documents that spell out both the submissive’s and the dominant’s responsibilities toward the relationship. The contract may include any or all of the following:

•  
The duration of the contract.
Many couples start with a relatively short contract – a few weeks or a month – then, as they learn more about one another’s needs and limits, may adjust and extend the contract for longer periods of time.

•  
Symbols.
If the relationship includes the use of symbols such as collars or rings, the contract may dictate when and how these are to be worn.

•  
Obligations.
What kinds of service must the submissive agree to provide, and under what circumstances? In what ways does the dominant agree to take care of the submissive – financially, emotionally, physically? In what ways is the submissive expected to take care of himself? Is S/M play expected or optional? How about sex?

•  
Ways to communicate.
If one or the other partner has something to say that cannot be said within the confines of their role, how and when can they communicate that? Will the partners set aside a certain time, place or medium in which “amnesty” applies and they can communicate clearly without reprisal? There are many creative ways to accomplish communication in role without resorting to manipulation. One Mistress of our acquaintance has her slave write a journal entry onto the computer every morning, with orders to include information about his state of well-being, his emotional reality and any problems he might be experiencing. She can then read what he wrote, and decide on her response, without breaking role unless she chooses to.

This is also the area in which you will discuss code words and safewords. While long-time D/S couples often find that they have come to read each other well enough that they no longer need safewords very often, we suggest keeping at least one safeword in place in case of genuine emergency – if you’ve never seen your submissive have a heart attack before, you may have trouble figuring out that her gasps for breath aren’t issuing from unbridled lust.

•  
Agreements about sex and play with others.
The contract may include agreements about what kinds of activities may and may not take place outside the relationship, and under what circumstances – both for the dominant and for the submissive. One contract we’ve seen does not allow the submissive the freedom to come without the dominant’s permission, but gives the submissive five “get out of jail free” cards each month, in which she has sexual liberty for a brief period of time. Contracts should also include clearly stated agreements about safer sex standards.

•  
Disagreements.
If there’s a serious and real problem between the dominant and the submissive, how will this be handled? Is there an outside person who both parties trust who can help listen and mediate any problems?

A
BOUT
C
OLLARS
.
For some people, a collar is at least as meaningful as a wedding ring; for others, it’s simple decoration, no more meaningful than a necklace. We think it’s safe to say that for most people in D/S relationships, the collar is a potent and meaningful symbol.

But what does it mean? That depends on your own desires and those of your submissive. Some dominants like to keep one or two “training collars” around to use during casual or short-term play, then buy a personal collar for a submissive when their relationship deepens and lengthens – it’s not uncommon for a couple to celebrate the initiation of their contract with a collaring ceremony.

If you are contemplating giving someone a collar, we suggest the two of you have a long talk about what it signifies to each of you – this isn’t an area in which disagreements typically work out very well. Other good things to discuss are when the collar is and is not to be worn: some people who work in straight jobs have special collars which look like ordinary jewelry but have special significance to them and their dominants, and which can be worn to the office or to dinner at Mom’s.

It’s also a good idea to get clear on who owns the collar. While in ordinary vanilla etiquette, a gift belongs to the recipient, many dominants feel strongly that they own their submisive’s collar, and that it should be returned when and if it is no longer in use. This won’t typically be an issue as long as the two of you are together, but if the relationship ends, a misunderstanding on this subject can cause unnecessary hard feelings.

H
OW
D
O
Y
OU
K
EEP
I
T
F
RESH
?

Both of us have seen more than a few lifestyle couples come to painful disgreements, sometimes even a complete parting of the ways, when the dominant loses interest in play or sex, and the submissive begins to feel burned out or exploited. This is a common enough pattern that we suggest you take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen to you.