essays, kink

Get a Dominant to Dominate

About a year ago, Axe & I had a conversation for his Masocast podcast and it sparked the question, How do you get a dominant to dominate?

I wrote about it, thought about it, and the question has been bugging me a little bit ever since.

About a month ago, Axe and I decided to meet up again and have another go at this question. He’s since in a long-term relationship with the lovely mistress/dom Sade, and I’m since another year into my relationship with Kristen, so I figured that he and I would have some different takes on the conversation and the question now that we’re not swinging single anymore, but involved in relationships. Still, the question still applies: as a submissive, how do you encourage your lover to be more dominant? How do you ask for sex? Is asking for sex outside of the “role” of the submissive? How do you make yourself available? And as a dominant, how do you allow yourself to be seduced? What works to get you to be more dominant in bed? What encourages you to allow a little more grrr to come out of your body during play?

All these questions & more are in this conversation with Sade, Kristen, Axe, & me. Got thoughts about this subject? I’m very curious to hear other people’s take on this.

Published by Sinclair Sexsmith

Sinclair Sexsmith (they/them) is "the best-known butch erotica writer whose kinky, groundbreaking stories have turned on countless queers" (AfterEllen), who "is in all the books, wins all the awards, speaks at all the panels and readings, knows all the stuff, and writes for all the places" (Autostraddle). ​Their short story collection, Sweet & Rough: Queer Kink Erotica, was a 2016 finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, and they are the current editor of the Best Lesbian Erotica series. They identify as a white non-binary butch dominant, a survivor, and an introvert, and they live outside Seattle as an uninvited settler on traditional, ancestral, & unceded Snoqualmie land.

3 thoughts on “Get a Dominant to Dominate”

  1. I would suggest that it would be helpful to have a signal to indicate the submissive's desire for domination. I suggested a piece of jewelry or clothing that is reserved only for those moments. It's low pressure because the sub isn't asking directly and the Dominant can choose to acknowledge the submissive's desire or not. Another suggestion for people in a more "old guard" situation might be a particular kneeling posture. I definitely like the idea of the submissive addressing the Dominant's stress, needs and frustrations before bringing up the things they want. That seems more like a proper behavior for a submissive. It's important to mention that for all the suggestions noted in the podcast will be useless if the relationship does not have a firm foundation where both parties feel safe and free to communicate fears and desires… in fact any relationship should include lots of check-ins and negotiation.

  2. randy says:

    Ums, the same things that get a partner in a vanilla relationship to portray their behaviors?

    Not to be trite, but a Dr. Philism is "people respond to your actions".

    As many ways as there are of performing vanilla seduction, with some things working better for certain individuals than others, so it goes with D/s interactions.

    Heck, I was once involved with a switch, so imagine how to get one to feel more dominant while at the same time getting the other to feel more submissive, or vice-versa depending on moods.

    You know what? It was never tricky at all! Some things just come naturally.

    Which is why, IMO, it's hard to answer, because it totally depends on the personal relationship and there are no hard fast answers to that question.

    Sure there are stereotypes, but practicing them might not elicit the result you were expecting, but then, if you always received expected results, it would be pretty boring now wouldn't it? ;-)

  3. randy says:

    This was poking in my head today or last night, as there's a pose in Second Life for women, standing, with arms held behind the person's (avatar's) back and legs crossed I think.

    It looks totally vanilla, but you could slip up behind them and grab their wrists, slip on cuffs without moving them out of position.

    Body language.

    So to answer the question, simply accentuate that body language… ;-)

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