The opinions expressed here are simply my own -- and are not meant to upset those who might disagree!
My fantasies, ever since I was growing up, have all been pretty much about female captives -- but in my bondage play and work, I’ve been switching since day one.
The videos I've directed (such as the KISS series at Close-Up) usually require my tying people up. And sometimes when a model doesn’t show up, I direct other people to tie me up! (What a nice perk!) When I go to club parties, my boyfriend spends much of the night roping and taping me all over the place, but we also do scenes where I tie and fondle a ladyfriend -- sometimes with my partner joining in, sometimes not. At private parties, I went from a scene where I bound a gal and played a vibrator over her to later sprawling over her husband’s knee for a spanking. So I view the whole Dom/sub identity stuff as fairly flexible.
The terms "Dom" and "sub" are a little odd for me personally. Though most people that I meet in the Scene are into the Master/slave type roles, I’m not. I’m happiest when I’m resisting subjugation, and my partner is forcing me into that hogtie. :) So the Scene term "submissive" doesn’t exactly describe me.
Some people prefer to use the terms "Top" and "bottom" -- verbwise, "topping" and "bottoming." I avoid those labels because I’ve noticed some people are already too keen to assign a value system to certain roles. (No, a male bottom is not less "valuable" than a male top or female bottom -- unbelievably, some people do think like that!)
Another description of D/s’s opposing roles is that of "active" and "passive" partners . . . but I’m not keen to lie passively -- unless I happen to be in the midst of a particularly marvelous sensory overload. :)
One guy I knew some time ago, on our first date, worded it differently . . . he said, "Do you like to do, or do you like to be done to?" I thought his terms described my proclivities much better.
And thankfully, if you’re a serious bondage fetishist like me, there are more specific terms for our common fantasy scenes -- such as burglar, captive, abductor, hostage . . . (I’m smiling just visualizing these.)
There are countless orientations and roles. There are so few terms to describe them. And often the terms are inaccurate or incomplete. A shame. So try not to let generalizations get in the way of new ideas when you play.
I knew a Domme who was into bondage and discipline. She’d go to Hollywood events and see people dressed in marvelous leather get-ups . . . people who weren’t the least interested in bondage, S/M, D/s, or the rest of it. For some reason this galled her. She felt they were "pretending" to be into S/M. She referred to herself as a real Player, and sneered as she called them Posers.
This is just crazy. If you’re standing around in leather, all you’re trying to say is that you are wearing leather! -- and hopefully you’re enjoying wearing it. Even holding a whip in your hand is perfectly acceptable as an accessory to an outfit, if you like how it looks. You don’t have to do anything.
Okay, I’ve gone on about Doms, subs, Tops, bottoms, active, passive, Players and Posers. Now that I’m on a roll with terminology, I’d like to dig in a little bit about how I view Dominants (or whatever you like to call them).
When I’m domming, in some ways I’m in a truly submissive headspace. I simply want the captive to be happy. I’ll ask her if she likes what I’m doing. If I spank her, I ask her if she wants it harder. If she’s enjoying herself, I am. If she gets excited, I do.
However, I don’t think of myself as a particularly good Domme, because I’m not intuitive when I work with someone. I have to check in with my captive frequently to make sure I’m reading her correctly.
The dominants I respect and admire are those who are able to cue in to what their subject is feeling, and manipulate those feelings, to the point that they are conducting the body and the mind like a private symphony.
There is no finesse, no mastery, in mechanical physical control. It takes no knowledge and no brains to inflict pain willy-nilly, or dominate someone physically. Anybody can tie so tight that the arms turn blue.
And yet, for those whose primary goal is the feeling of power, it’s enough.
A Power Dom gets off on power and control, and it's not going to matter to him how the lady feels. All that he cares about is that he's got control of her body. If he's into S/M, he inflicts pain for the sake of pain, not to mix it with pleasure. If he’s into bondage, it won’t matter to him if the ropes are done wrong and they pull too tight for her to enjoy the scene any more.
What takes real finesse is being a Pleasure Dom. It entails intelligence, attentiveness, sensitivity to others, and patience.
A Pleasure Dom gets off on control of the captive’s mind (whether through the body or through acts and words). This control can be achieved through manipulation of pleasure, or the intoxicating mix of pain-pleasure. A Pleasure Dom’s trip is that he has a real, actual effect on this woman -- on the inside. Not just her body.
The reason I wanted to talk about Pleasure Doms today is, I hear from a lot of people who are impressed by tight tying. But that’s not hard to do! Tying tight is easy; tying right is hard. Too tight can injure someone; too loose can frustrate them. If your bondage succeeds at walking the tightrope between reasonable circulation and impressive restriction, then you can make love to them for hours, do amazing things to them and with them, and have them begging for more in the morning. But if you tie too tightly, you just have control of a body . . . the mind will at that point simply be tolerating your boorish presence.
Still, even years of practice will not give you the magic power to tie perfectly every time. (I still sometimes have a lady ask me to re-do her wrists.) The important thing is to work on it together . . . Share the road to pleasure. :)