For most of the time I have been happily swimming in the mysterious waters of BDSM, when a subby friend would tell me that they considered themselves to be to “brat,” I would only shrug in a “whatever” way. I would also add something like, “You do you, baby.”
I didn’t get it. And, frankly, I wasn’t all that curious about it. A submissive who purposely defies his/her Dom, or at least pushes the line, in the hope of being spanked or otherwise forced to obey? I waved a dismissive hand at the idea. As a submissive for nine years, I worked hard to be the “good girl” who obeyed without hesitation. Even when I became a Dominant, a lack of immediate obedience or other hint of “brattiness” from my sub hugely annoyed me and sometimes knocked me off my stride.
Then, not long ago, someone dear to me I will call Marie read me a journal entry she’d written about why she felt she needed to brat. Listening to her words was like having a light turned on in a dark room and I could suddenly see it clearly.
Why do I brat? Because I know exactly what I want. And I like to test the ones who say they can handle me. This isn’t a call for attention. It’s a call to meet me where it burns.
Bratting to me is a tool. A game. A ritual of flirtation and tension. It’s how I build polarity. It’s how I create the fire. This is chosen play. And I play because I want to.
Some of us have strong boundaries, bold desires and emotionally complex inner worlds. And sometimes, the only way to meet someone deeply is to push. To provoke. To see who can hold the heat without flinching.
Who caves first? Who cracks under the pressure? Who holds steady and earns the most sacred parts of me? How long can he resist the fire? When does he stop holding back and start moving toward me with filthy intent and even filthier words?
Does he growl when I do this? Or smirk when I threaten something ill-advised? Will he wait until I’m not expecting him … or look me dead in the eye and give me one warning? And gods help me when he threatens me with consequences. That’s when I know the game is real.
This isn’t chaos for chaos’ sake. It’s precision. It’s tension. It’s a hunger for someone who sees me, holds their ground and meets me right at the edge.
As Marie read her words to me, I found myself nodding, yes, yes, yes. “The only way to meet someone deeply is to push.” The desire to brat finally made sense: To test the mettle of one’s Dom. To find out where safety lies. And most of all, to build fiery energy.
I then got curious and went looking for other perspectives on being a brat. I found plenty online.
A brat’s path to submissive satisfaction
“The brat occupies a peculiar and frequently misunderstood position in BDSM,” writes the author of the insightful essay, The Brat: Resistance as Love Language, at the BDSM educational site, sak.red. “Neither a pure submissive nor a switch, the brat uses resistance, defiance, and provocation as a mode of connection rather than a rejection of it. The dynamic is not about disobedience for its own sake but about a specific relational need: to feel the authority bearing down, to test it and find it solid, to be genuinely caught rather than merely permitted to fall.”
From a psychology standpoint, the brat can be considered an archetype in which resistance communicates a genuine need. “Where a service submissive expresses devotion through compliance, the brat expresses it through friction. The back-talk, the rolled eyes, the deliberate rule-breaking, these are not signs of indifference. They are bids for engagement … The mischief is not aggression toward the dominant, it is a kind of courtship. ‘Come and get me’ is an invitation, not a challenge.”
When visiting the sub-Reddit, Brat Life, one can find plenty of bratty submissives who agree. As one poster put it, “When we give up control, when we let someone else be in charge, we have to know that person will keep us safe and not go beyond our boundaries. That’s not something I’ll give to just anyone, nor do I ask it from just anyone … I am a lot to handle, and not everyone can or wants to. And I need to know who can handle it when I let go.”
Another points out that, despite how it looks on the surface, brats are usually deeply submissive at their core. “They WANT to submit, they WANT to lose the game, they just want to be MADE to. Their disobedience is not because they don’t respect your position as the Dominant, it is actually because they fucking love it when you remind them of that position.”
The poster goes on to ask, “Why are brats like this? The answer depends on the brat … Sometimes they are fiercely independent and have a hard time accessing and reckoning with their submissive brain without someone forcibly putting them into that submissive headspace. Sometimes being forced to do something frees them from the shame of having to admit how much they want to do it in the first place. Maybe it makes them feel loved when a Daddy Dom “forcibly” takes care of them.”
Another theorized that bratting can give a submissive a way to work around anxieties triggered by intimacy; or, to plow through a fearful or avoidant attachment style. “Bratting is a highly sophisticated tool for managing attachment wounds.” In other words, those who have experienced a difficult childhood that made it difficult for them to trust others—or causes them to reflexively push others away—might find it easier to surrender after first pushing into the other and feeling a solid push in return. “Instead of creating a ‘play/don’t play’ binary, bratting is a series of bids for attention/enticements to play … Consensual bratting is a beautiful thing that results in secure attachment, in my opinion. It’s so much easier for me to trust that I am safely and securely loved when someone actively delights in my ‘annoying’ antics.”
Of course, there is simply nothing more gratifying to a submissive, brat or not, than to be assertively “put in their place” by their Dominant. But the brat seems to have a particularly strong need for this kind of engagement. “Psychologically, the brat tends to be someone for whom pure compliance feels hollow,” wrote the author at sak.red. “Simply doing what they are told does not produce the feeling of connection they are seeking because it requires nothing of the dominant. A dominant who accepts perfect obedience without effort has not demonstrated anything. The brat needs to feel the dominant’s attention, investment, and willingness to meet them where they are, at full friction.”
The Brat Tamer
Men’s Health magazine recently featured a fun article on brats in BDSM that first reminds us that, in the Summer of 2024, the term “brat” had suddenly become a compliment when Charlie XCX’s song, “Brat Summer,” was blasting all over the place. Brats were suddenly cool, which meant that their Dominants, or their “tamers,” were cool, too.
“One of the things that makes BDSM play so much fun is the ability to take on roles or personalities that might be opposite or exaggerated versions of who you are in real life.” Brats will often say that they play the exaggerated role of unruly submissive because it feels natural to who they are, and they need a like-minded partner to exaggerate their own preference for control. “Brats love ‘poking the bear,’ or provoking their Dom,” the author added, explaining that “it’s less about being a complete jerk; it’s more about being playful.”
Confident brat tamers appreciate a sassy, mischievous sub who offers them a challenge. “Some like the creativity and quick thinking that taming requires,” observed another poster. “Some love dishing out punishment, but don’t feel right doing it solely for the sake of their own sadism … Brats help me lean into my sadist side and feel justified in being harsh, when they are quite literally asking for it. There is nothing that feeds my soul more than watching a smart, cocky, defiant brat feel smug or clever about their antics. I let them feel smug, right up until the moment I decide to flip the switch on them, and suddenly they are putty in my hands and can no longer deny how much of a total fucking sub they really are. Being able to shift the power dynamic dramatically in an instant makes me feel more powerful than having a significant power exchange steadily in place.”
Another concurs: “I fully admit brats are my soft spot (don’t tell them I said that), and I have had the pleasure of taming a few myself (but they would never tell YOU that). A brat/Brat Tamer dynamic might have what could look like disobedience or disrespect on the surface, but underneath is still a recognized and respected Dominant/submissive dynamic with pre-negotiated boundaries.”
Still another had this to say: “I’ve been seeing a woman the past year who identifies as “brat-adjacent” and it’s a challenge, a laugh, and a really good time. She wants me to set the rules and expectations and lead, and then she’ll tiptoe along the line of breaking those rules specifically to get me to react. I find the best thing is when I don’t react, I just frown at her and shake my head. She’ll laugh and keep doing what she’s doing. And I’ll snatch her up so quick, grab her wrist or her arm, and we go from there.”
Dominants who find themselves attracted to playing the role of brat tamer often say that they enjoy a brat’s feisty personality. “The best brats are the ones you find endearing, funny, and you almost look forward to their ridiculous antics.”
Not every Dom wants to tame a brat
“Why would any Dom want a handful of a brat over a well-behaved obedient sub?” asked another Reddit poster. Many, if not most, Dominants like their power exchange relationships more straightforward. “It has nothing to do with not being able to ‘handle’ one,” the poster continued. “As in everything, it comes down to personal preference.”
Taming a brat can be a fun challenge, yes, but it also, as the poster put it, “can easily wear you out.” Depending on how hard the brat decides to push, it can be exhausting to continually have to check their behavior and “force” them to obey. Many a Dominant chooses a power exchange relationship precisely because they don’t want to struggle with a partner to get what they want. The high for them is in exercising the power willingly given to them, surrendered to them, and not taken by force, however energizing the skirmish.
It can also create some cognitive dissonance to have a submissive who says they truly want to submit to the Dom but then act in ways that make it seem it’s the last thing the sub really wants. “I’ve never been much for the brat thing,” reads a comment on Reddit, “in part because I struggle not to take things literally, especially when my brain is in an otherwise focused state like intense sexual arousal and connection. Someone acting like they don’t want me to keep going to do this or that makes me instinctively react and stop, rather than being able to stay in the fantasy that is the ‘bratty’ scenario.”
Another traditional Dom who refuses to deal with brats agreed that it was too “tiresome” to be constantly wrangling with a brat. “In my mind, the dictionary has it right. A brat is by definition an ill-mannered child. Too often a brat tries to manipulate with her behavior. Clever repartee and sharp banter and funny teasing of the Dom is acceptable and encouraged—I don’t want a doormat. But insolence and disrespect (which is the Brat coat of arms) is not. The attitude seems to be ‘If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.’ I don’t think a sub should lead with their worst.”
Personal preferences aside, whether a Dominant is willing to take on the job of “taming” a brat or not, experts point out that it would be a disserve to the brat to consider him or her a “failed” submissive, or one that has yet to learn to be properly deferential. “This framing misses the point entirely,” say the authors at sak.red. “The brat dynamic is not a steppingstone to ‘proper’ submission, it is a distinct and complete relationship style with its own internal logic. Attempting to ‘correct’ a brat into pure compliance typically produces one of two outcomes: a brat who leaves the dynamic or a brat who complies outwardly while the actual connection atrophies.”
Context Is Everything
From my internet wanderings, I came across a number of brats who contend that context matters and the events going on in their life, or even the style and personality of the Dominant, can dictate whether they feel the need to allow their inner brat out or not. One intermittent brat confessed, “I had a dynamic in which I didn’t have a single urge to brat. I’ve had others where my bratting was intense. It varies, person to person.”
Even within the same relationship, if life is going smoothly, a submissive might not feel an urge to brat, but when feeling anxious about something, their inner brat suddenly wants to emerge in semi-rebellion. For some, it might work in reverse and a feeling of security might make them feel safe and playful enough to brat, while more difficult times bring out a more disciplined form of submission. As in all things BDSM, each of us has different ways of expressing who we are and what we want from a power exchange relationship.
Of course, there are all manner of expressions of the brat/Tamer dynamic. One of the best sources of information and advice on how to develop this interesting version of a D/s relationship can be found at Bad Girl’s Bible in their excellent article, “Brat BDSM: What It Means To Be A Brat And How To Explore It Safely.” .
