Dear Dom: Miss-Match!

Dear BaadMaster: I am a male submissive who has been given a training collar by my Mistress. I love serving her sexually, as a pain slut and as a house slave. But lately, she has gotten into diapering me, treating me like a baby and using me as furniture. Although there I liked the experimentation, I have now grown to dread these activities. I have told Mistress my feelings, but she takes it as a challenge and insists on doing these activities even more than before. What should I do?

In all aspects of life, be it vanilla, unvanilla or anything in between, the operational word is compromise. Unless you are the one-in-a-million person where everything dovetails perfectly with your partner, there are areas where you will have to give and take. To a casual observer of the world of submission, compromise is not apparent since the sub appears to gladly do all things required of him/her. On closer examination, however, the sub is usually compromising – even if this concession is unconscious or instinctual. There is a line I often use in my live presentations where I say that submissives often think to themselves, “Get your own fucking cup of coffee” when they are required to get up and get their Master some java on a cold winter’s morning. Usually this is just a passing semi-rebellious thought that is quickly dismissed. After all, to express it verbally would jeopardize the relationship. But, that does not mean the compromising aspect of the early morning coffee run is illusory. It is real. It is in the execution of the task and the acknowledgment of the compromise and sacrifice that separates the real life interaction of a D/s couple and the fictional “never having to compromise” basis of an idealized, imaginary Master/slave construct.

Thus, the fact that you are having service conflicts is proof that your relationship is grounded in reality. Pushing limits and exploring new territories is part of your Domme’s task. If she only asked for things that you will readily do anyway, she is not really being Dominant. This is what I call “Coca-Cola” Dominance.” Demanding that your submissive only drink Coke when she already likes it is not Dominance. Thus, you must expect your limits to be pushed and tested if you are in a true D/s partnership. Submission without compromise is not submission at all.

That compromise is the currency of all relationships does not mean that it cannot have deleterious effects on the union. Clearly, when compromise becomes painful and is required so often that is destroys the joy of serving, the relationship is put into peril. This is where the Domme must be experienced. You state, “…I have now grown to dread these activities. I have told Mistress my feelings…” You have done your best. In essence, there is nothing more that you can do. The ball is now in your Mistress’ court.

Think of your Mistress as the Captain of the ship. You must put your faith in your Captain until such time as you cannot serve anymore. As opposed to being on a ship, where you cannot just up and leave, your service is voluntary. A good Mistress knows this and listens to her slave, weighs in all the factors and then decides upon the course she would plot. It comes down to her, not to you. If she pushes you to the point where the overall arc of your service is moving into the area of unhappiness, you have the right to ask for your release.

I would make your concerns doubly clear to your Domme. Do not soft-pedal your dread of certain activities. This is not topping from the bottom. It is communication – the bedrock of all human activities. If your Domme continues to push you way past your compromise limit, you can leave.

Hopefully, she will throttle back on demands that jeopardize your service, After all, a sexual slave, a pain slut and a house slave all rolled into one is hard to find. Hopefully, she will realize that and not risk the relationship. On the other hand, you will probably have little trouble finding a new Mistress if you ask for your release. After all, you do have a lot to offer any Domme!

Play hard, play safe

BaadMaster

Dear Mistress Naia: I am a male submissive who has been given a training collar by my Mistress. I love serving her sexually, as a pain slut and as a house slave. But lately, she has gotten into diapering me, treating me like a baby and using me as furniture. Although there I liked the experimentation, I have now grown to dread these activities. I have told Mistress my feelings, but she takes it as a challenge and insists on doing these activities even more than before. What should I do?

Only you know how much you have actually put into trying to expand your boundaries and truly accept these new activities. You say that at first you appreciated the idea that your Domme was experimenting with you, that you enjoyed trying these new things primarily for their newness, for the novelty factor even. But perhaps in quickly accepting these new experiences for their experimental qualities alone, you actually shut the door on finding other ways to appreciate them as well.

For example: Someone offered you some bacon-flavored ice cream. Your immediate reaction was, “Holy shit, who knew such a thing existed. That’s cool!” That reaction was dominant in your mind as you tasted the ice cream, and then set it aside without much more thought. In that mindset, you’d tried something different, and that was that. Mission accomplished. But if you were already used to the idea of bacon-flavored ice cream, if it no longer seemed strange and exotic to you, perhaps you would have tasted it with a new set of expectations and a fresh openness to really finding out if you enjoyed it or not. How did the flavor sit on your tongue? What about the after taste? Dinner or dessert?

My suggestion is to take yourself by the scruff of the neck and have a serious sit-down with yourself about whether you automatically slipped into bacon-mode when your Mistress introduced objectification play into your life. As BaadMaster has said, it’s part of your Domme’s responsibility, mission and goal to challenge you, and in doing so challenge herself. The more you both mindlessly fall into your flexibility and rely on doing the things you feel most comfortable with, the more you threaten your relationship with each other, and your love for BDSM!

After you’ve done some self-analysis and have discovered whether you really gave it your all or not… really pushed yourself in the way that your Domme has been trying to push you… I recommend giving this another shot. Start over with a new perspective. Refuse to dread these new activities, and instead approach them with a lust for reaching new depths within yourself. I’m not suggesting that these will suddenly become your new favorite thing. But I am suggesting that if your Domme is smart and intuitive, she may have sensed that you have not given these activities your all. That, in and of itself, would be a great justification for her to refuse to stop challenging you with them.

So make your Domme, and yourself, proud. Rise to the occasion. Use the passionate negative emotions you’ve been feeling about these things and turn them around. Harness that energy to achieve something new — acceptance and dedication to really finding out how objectification play makes you feel, and feel that way for a while!

Don’t dial this in. She’ll know. You’ll know. You will have accomplished nothing. If you are generally up for a challenge, and care about continuing in this relationship with your Mistress, then you will do this to the best of your abilities.

In the end if you simply cannot put more of yourself into this type of play, if it is truly making your life miserable and hurting you physically or emotionally, and given all of that if she still refuses to modify your training, then you will need to ask for your release. But my expectation is that once you face facts about yourself, toughen up and meet this challenge, you will then have proven to both of you that you can be trained, that you can achieve more than you think, and that you can set aside your own preferences to serve your Mistress.

Then, and only then, will the two of you be able to have a productive conversation about ongoing lifestyle and play choices. Your opinions do matter, and they should matter to your Domme. So, if this remains something you don’t prefer, and if it goes beyond testing your flexibility and obedience, then the match will not be a good one in the long run.

Be good.

-Naia