Some people may wonder what BDSM means in a relationship. BDSM relationships function on dominance, submission, and, more importantly, control. In detail, the word BDSM stands for Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, and Sadochism and Masochism. The dominant partner rules and controls the submissive partner and remains the dominant partner.
So, what is Dominance?
Dominance in BDSM refers to the act of a dominant partner setting up behaviors, rituals, and customs that the submissive follows in an erotic relationship. Dominance doesn’t mean that the dominant partner only relays commands that have to be followed by the submissive. No, and on the contrary, the dominant acts like a leader with qualities that command respect.
A BDSM relationship gets guided by set rules in a BDSM contract where the involved parties create plays and hard and soft limits. As a Dom (dominant partner), therefore, as you dictate the direction of the relationship, these play rules guide you and help maintain a safe interaction.
What is the relationship between dominance and submission?
Submission in BDSM goes hand in hand with dominance. The dominant dictates how the relationship goes, while the submissive obeys and respects. The Dom gains control over the sub, and they enjoy BDSM plays that make the relationship more erotic. Sometimes the relationship involves punishments and funishments from the Dom to the sub. All the BDSM plays gear at causing sexual arousal that triggers sexual pleasure in the Dom, sub, or both.
The success of a BDSM relationship highly depends on the qualities of the Dom. As the Dom, you must gain respect and control over your sub. While at it, the relationship should remain fun and enjoyable to the sub.
You want to maintain your leadership skills and avoid causing distrust with your sub. However, if you wish to know more about dominance, keep reading on.
So, can dominance be a turn-on?
Research shows that dominance brings attractive traits to some people, including authoritativeness, leadership, and control. In essence, dominance is a turn-on to people who enjoy having new sexual experiences and might be bored quickly with common traits.
If you need to explore more in your sexual life and don’t find authoritative people irritating, you might get attracted to dominant partners.
These dominance traits attract most submissive partners
- Authoritative
Most people entering dominant relationships crave authoritative traits from their Dom. Some people feel that an authoritative character has superior genes over their counterparts. So, it might be a turn-on for subs to find authoritative partners.
- Control
Most subs find the controlling character of their Doms a turn-on. This character helps the subs stay in line and show utmost discipline. In some instances, the Dom controls even when the subs have to orgasm. The control trait doubles as an arousing factor, and all Doms strive to keep their controlling nature reign supreme.
- Leadership
To succeed in exerting dominance in a BDSM relationship, you must have leadership qualities. Any authoritative or controlling rule you make must show leadership qualities. The sub looks up to you in almost every aspect at your leadership skills should remain top-notch. This way, you earn respect from your sub, and the BDSM plays get more enjoyable and arousing.
Top 6 Rules of Dominance and Submission
It’s one thing to be a Dom, but it’s an entirely different thing to be a good Dom. Dominance comes with rules to guarantee a successful dominance-submission relationship. You have to abide by the following rules of dominance to see your D/s relationship thrive.
- Keep an open mind
Like in any other relationship, for a D/s relationship to thrive, the partners must keep an open mind. As a Dom, you must show an exemplary trait in this rule. The Dom serves as the teacher in this relationship.
However, with an open mind, they may also learn from their subs. Discovery and wonderment prove the most excellent tools to unlock your brain’s potential. With an open mind in dominance, you also learn from other Doms’ experiences.
The submissive needs to keep an open mind too. This way, they learn more about BDSM and become better subs.
- Perfect on your patience skills
In dominance, you need to become gentle as your strength grows. Being a Dom doesn’t mean you start ordering your sub around. With patience, the sub gets to know and understand you. This behavior builds a trusting relationship, and the sub will enjoy taking commands from you.
Also, it calls for patience from the sub for the relationship to prosper. In dominance, the sub satisfies their masters without putting their personal needs firstDom’s voluntary acceptance of Dom’s treatments to satisfy them calls for the highest level of patience.
- Stay humble
As a dominant, you must stay humble and focused on providing for the sub. Remember, a sexual scene involving BDSM plays will show your character. What this means, you have to be the real you by staying humble in your dominance.
With humility, you also learn from other Doms the plays and kinky stuff that you didn’t know. Don’t set up goals you might not achieve if the sub doesn’t yield. Also, as a sub in a D/s relationship, staying humble prevents you from developing expectations your Dom might not fulfill.
- Honesty
Honesty goes a long way in all relationships. BDSM plays might involve some risky games. As a dominant, you must remain honest abouDon’tt you have control over. Don’t lie to be an expert in a particular game your sub wants to explore. Being honest keeps you and your sub safe in whatever kinky stuff you need to explore.
In dominance, the sub’s honesty remains essential in realizing the heights the relationship might sustain. As a sub, you have fantasies you wish to explore with your Dom. Be open about it and let the Dom understand you. With an honest spirit, you also find it easy to express your wants, concerns, and turn-offs to the Dom. Honesty when developing BDSM limits also serves as the pathway you need your relationship to follow.
- You must be sensitive.
Sensitivity sets the standards and prevents feelings of being all-righteous or all-knowing. If you come out sensitive in your BDSM endeavors, you bring out the caring nature that any dominant relationship needs. The rule of dominance requires the scenes in a BDSM to involve fantasies and needs of the sub and Dom, but only one of you.
As the sub waits for the Dom to take them to sexual fantasies and places they haven’t gone before, they should communicate their feelings. Trusting the Dom in BDSM plays sets the pace to discovering new arousal heights. So, as a Dom, let your sensitivity be the riding factor in your D/s relationship.
- Communicate always
To wrap up the above rules, you must create a communicative BDSM relationship. Through communication, the Dom and sub operate in a transparent environment. Communication opens up the room for genuine conversations allowing you to set up all your needs and fantasies correctly.
It is essential to communicate your BDSM experiences, limits, wants, needs, dislikes and likes. Communication will be the cornerstone to a lasting BDSM relationship where your fantasies and sexual expectations get dealt with. You align the rules and contract through a good communication channel to reach an agreement.
Through communication, the Dom will respect all safe words and signals the sub may make. While in the relationship, create a time for free talk where you sit and talk freely without judgment or persecution.
How to be a Better Dominant (Dom)
As a Dom, being better defines the success and thrill of your BDSM relationship. You may end up boring your sub if you don’t become more than ordinary partners. You don’t want that since it may threaten your relationship. So, how will you become a better Dom?
- Be ready to learn.
As a Dom, you know only some things. If you pretend to know everything, you may end up messing up. Be ready to learn from other Dom experiences, and when talking to your sub, listen and learn what expectations and fantasies they have. So, instead of being a super mind reader, be a listener with attention to detail.
- Don’t just bark orders.
As a dominant, don’t let pride control you. As much as you serve as the authority, please use it sparingly. If you behave badly, you might tear down the respect your sub needs to build in you. Before making an order, please sit down and evaluate the outcome you need to receive from it. Let your orders be geared toward building your relationship and not tearing it apart.
Be creative while doing so. For instance, you may give an order when your sub makes a mistake. Order the sub to do something you know the sub doesn’t want to do and devise a punishment if the sub doesn’t do it right. Don’t just make reckless orders.
- Be led by something other than your social or financial status.
Being dominant often rotates on the sexual fantasies of the Dom and sub. Your social or financial status might be a plus in bringing out superiority but don’t make them a key focus. Dominant traits don’t get defined by your status. You must keep learning and getting the leadership skills you need to become a better dominant.
- Be a good example by following the dominance rules
If you want to become a better dominant, follow the dominance rules before your sub does. Show good leadership skills with humility, care, sensitivity, and honesty. Also, communicate often with the sub to ensure that your rules, limits, and contract terms get your utmost attention.
- Be a team player
Like other relationships, BDSM relationships require more than one person to work. Being a team player in a D/s relationship requires communication between the participating individuals. If you work alone without considering your partner’s feelings and wants, your relationship might go down the drain.
As a team leader, you must accept what you don’t do and do what you find in your control. Also, remember not to overstep your sub’s social and financial life just because you feel superior and the leader.
How do you Show Dominance in Bed?
Now that you have learned the rules of dominance and how to be a better Dom, you should understand how to show dominance in bed. Dominance covers a broad aspect of the lives of those in a D/s relationship, and it all begins in bed.
Before you show leadership qualities in the daily lifestyle, you should establish control and dominance in bed. By following through the following steps, you bring out dominance in bed and your love life.
- Bring out the controlling nature. Once your contract and limits are set, don’t return to that when in bed. Master what your sub wants and bring an explorative yet suspenseful nature of play in bed. Keep them on their toes, not knowing what’s coming next in a good fearful way.
- Make funishments and punishments part of the bedroom experiences. Punishments and funishments give control to the Dom.
- Remember to seek consent or assurance when trying something new. As much as you have the power, consent makes it inclusive.
- Let your actions come from a place of love. Dominance should show love and not provoke negative feelings in the sub. Even as you punish or explore soft limits, consider its impact on the sub. BDSM plays resonating from love, sexual adventure, and fantasy fulfillment guarantee sexual arousal.
- Tease to gain control. Before any sexual act, tease your sub to make the sub want and beg for you to be intimate with them. Even so, keep teasing using various BDSM plays before the actual penetration.
- Have a say on when your sub should orgasm. When performing plays, teasing, and kinky adventures, ensure you always retain control. Let them orgasm at your wish. You will achieve this by withholding any pleasurable activity when they come close to orgasm.
- Make use of remotely controlled toys. As the Dom, have some toys controllable via your phone or an external remote. Use them by letting the sub wear them and control them at will.
- Command your way through their sexual pleasure using words. When they reach the limit and might explode at any time, you command them to stop. Such control in bed brings dominance.
- You may also gain dominant control in bed by the use of restraints. If your sub has no issue with restraining, tying them up gives you access to their most vulnerable places. As you explore, you get all the dominant power at the time.
- Play spit games. As a Dom, spitting in your subs mouth and other parts gives you all the control you need.
- Spanking also brings a dominant vibe to the bed. While at it, the sub does whatever you need to avoid getting spanked harder. You may also do some slapping on the face. Since you need to get all dominant, slapping your sub goes a long way to gaining control in bed while penetrating them.
- The mouth plays dictate dominance sub’sYou may bite, kiss, suck or lick wherever you wish on the sub’s body. The fact that you do it anywhere and without limitation shows dominance at the time.
Related Questions
What does a dominant person do in bed?
The dominant person will pursue their pleasure in bed in all manners to show control and superiority over their sub. Although they operate on agreed terms, they call the shots in whatever pleasuring path they find fit to cause sexual arousal and satisfaction.
Why do people get turned on by dominance?
Hierarchical disparity causes arousal in people seeking to find partners displaying such. Anyone who enjoys power and dominance, even in love and sexual aspects, makes a good Dom. Those enjoying being on the receiving end of a relationship make great subs. So, dominance will turn on, based on this data, those looking for relationships, like in BDSM.
Conclusion
Dominance in BDSM dictates the action of the Doms and the way the subs receive those actions. As much as the Dom calls the shots, they must be considerate to the sub. Without a good interaction, the D/s relationship doesn’t work as expected. As a Dom, you must learn and improve often on being a better Dom. Dominance serves as the wheel that drives the BDSM vehicle.