(NSFW) As a submissive, do you ever take the abuse personally?

This would be a good question for a fetish site, like Fetlife.

That’s interesting. If the bottom really enjoys the bottom, they want you to go all out. It’s no fun if you go at it half assed. I wouldn’t worry about it.

Yeah, definitely go all assed.

If you’re doing healthy BDSM—and not the fake Fifty Shades of Grey shit—then you should already know what your partner finds acceptable. Even people who do BDSM as a lifestyle, and not just in the bedroom, have frank out-of-character conversations about it from time to time in order to make sure that things are still on track. So assuming you know your partner’s limits, you can use your own experience as your guide. If you’re not feeling secretly resentful and you’re being just as good a top to them as they are to you, then why would they be feeling secretly resentful?

I agree with @Uberwench if the understanding is solid and the homework done before hand it is OK.

From what I’ve read, abuse is a big problem in the BDSM community– tops taking things too far or just exposing their evil sides, and bottoms who don’t or can’t speak up. Abuse isn’t BDSM, so if you feel abused, then you should make yourself safe. If you’re unhappy in any type of relationship, you should change your situation.

@Facade, not just abuse in terms of breaking hard limits, but also rape and rape apology. There are mad conversations about that shit on Fet Life all the time throws up

@Deklandb : I’ve never taken it personally. I take it gratefully ;)

I think it’s a pretty tricky thing. You want to make sure your partner is totally ok with what you do, but you want to leave a little room for surprises, and some latitude to carry things farther than you discussed in order to really ramp up the emotions—and maybe use a bit of real fear. Has my partner gotten too far into the role? Is this real? If I use our safe word, will he or she stop?

That is terribly delicious when you don’t know that for sure and then you wonder if you can tough it out, or what happens if you use the safe word? And that is what the safe word is for, theoretically. Except that you might start playing macho games. How much can you take? How far can you go? And it might really hurt but you convince yourself you are doing it for love; for your partner; for their happiness and also for your own. It can get complicated.

For some people, dominance and submission is mostly a mental thing. Maybe neither of us is really into pain. But we like the idea of doing anything for our lover and of knowing they love you so much they’ll let you do anything to them. But you don’t really want to hurt them. Yet you want to play the game. You want to give yourself over entirely. You want them to hurt you so you can prove yourself. You want to be out of your mind, and giving yourself up and taking anything and everything can do that to you.

I’m not sure it’s something to play at. A lot can happen. I suspect people do it without really understanding what they are messing with, and then it turns into a kind of dramatic scene, which can be fun—passions are definitely inflamed—but misses the point, as far as I’m concerned. For me, this is a metaphor for how I feel. How deeply I feel. How impossibly in love I am.

Fuck it! I’m a nut.

@bookish1 @Facade why I refuse to be part of fetlife.

@wundayatta: Well, D/s doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with pain. That’s where the SM comes in ;)

@Aethelflaed : Yeah, I’ve been pretty disappointed with it as well. RAMPANT immaturity on top of everything else. I mostly just stay on there now to keep in touch with a few far-flung friends.

@Aethelflaed: That’s not the only thing Fetlife is about.

@jca I’m not sure what you’re alluding to here.

@Aethelflaed: You said that’s why you refuse to be part of FL. I assume you mean that this issue is why you refuse to be part of FL, so I’m saying there’s more to FL than this issue. There are other fetishes on it, and other things going on there (all kinds of groups, for example, on non-fetish stuff, too).

Great answers, thank you all! Especially @wundayatta, that is pretty much exactly what my fear is. We have rules, but even if we had a million rules they still wouldn’t cover every senario because what we like about doing all our crazy shit is that it’s improvised. I’ve also been with girls who like me to leave bruises and marks, which is hot but I definitely don’t want them feeling like I took it to far. I just hope they’re not holding back on using the safeword just to please me. I always try to make it clear, I only like it if you do.

@jca Yeah, I know. And I wasn’t trying to say that everyone on Fetlife is all rape culture, all the time; there’s some other stuff, and some people that are great about calling out rape culture. But there’s a lot of it, it often comes up without warning, it’s backed by TPTB, and it’s often so traumatizing that it ruins my day. (I have been on Fetlife, I just stopped visiting several months ago). I’d rather just go comment on the Pervocracy and Yes Means Yes and Kitty Stryker, and be both kinky and in a safe environment.

this is something the top and bottom talk about before entering their relationship. I have slaves that enjoy it, and some that don’t. As their master I give them what they want and never violate their limits.

What @DrBill notes it quite true. But BDSM sessions that seem too scripted tend to fall short of expectations. I’d add this.

Good BDSM calls for the top to be super sensitive, able to read body language signs as adeptly as the con artists such as fortune tellers and tarot readers are. If you aren’t up to that challenge, I say topping is an activity you had best avoid.

@DrBill and @ETpro I’m sure make sublime masters:)