A Dom/sub conversation about negotiating power exchange with the most traditional Dom I know ... the sub: When I first came up with the idea of writing a blog post I wanted to call, “How to Train Your Dominant,” I thought it was a cute tongue-in-cheek way to get attention and a click. After all, [...]
Back in the 1960s and ‘70s, when the Leather community anchored in San Francisco was pretty much inventing modern BDSM, it was taken for granted that a would-be Dominant would begin training for power exchange by first serving as a submissive to a mentor Dom. After all, how could Dominants learn to control the submissive [...]
How did you first get into BDSM? I was hanging out with a friend of the family, and after having a bit to drink, I went with my gut instinct, and put on music from the The Full Monty and stripped for her. She said, “If this were any other day, I’d slap you so [...]
A Dom and sub walk into a bar ... and have a conversation. Well, okay, we weren’t in a bar, Robert (the Dom) and I (the sub) were in separate cities emailing each other. It is always interesting to look at a power exchange issue from both sides of the D/s slash. Such as a [...]
DomCon is one of the biggest and longest-running BDSM conferences in the country. Hosted by the legendary Mistress Cyan, this con focuses primarily but not exclusively on female domination and hits two cities every year: Los Angeles in May, and New Orleans in October. In 2021, my husband and I tagged along with friends to [...]
First seen at the Toronto Film Festival in 2022, this riveting two-hander takes place over a single night in a high-end hotel room, and I was hooked from the first scene. The very rich but very tortured Hal (Christopher Abbott with his soulful brown eyes) opens the door to his longtime dominatrix Rebecca (a luminous [...]
When and how did you get into BDSM? I was 26 years old, living in LA, and a friend invited me to a birthday party at a BDSM club near my house. I walked in and the first thing I saw was a stage where two women were tied up together. There was this man [...]
In weighing the frequently-asked question whether a Dominant can be considered “good” or “bad,” a submissive can easily find articles all over the Internet will list the different characteristics and qualities of a good Dom, such as confidence, creativity, consistency, self-awareness, etc. Certainly, naturally dominant characteristics are advantages when assessing the quality of a Dominant. [...]
After four years of enjoying a “secret” BDSM life that no one knew about, just my husband and I making up our own rules as we went along, we joined our local kink community. It was a great decision for many reasons — the awesome people! — but it was quickly made clear we’d be [...]
The South Korean rom-com, Love and Leashes, hit Netflix in early February and I was equally keen and reluctant to view it. The chance to watch a movie explicitly about BDSM is a rare thing; we don’t often get to see our bedroom predilection depicted onscreen, but when BDSM does pop up, it is more [...]
