Kai Standing Under

Something that’s been on my mind the last couple of days: What happens when a submissive loses their dominant? This is an issue I’ve never had much cause to think about, since up until my involvement with DW my play partners were casual and not linked to me in any sort of relationship context.

For the sake of transparency, we can say that one partner was a friend with a fair amount of experience who served as a low-key point of introduction to scene-ing; one was a friend who I loved who I knew (after a point) wouldn’t be staying around for me; one was a friend who I had an interminable, nigh-on unbreakable crush on who I likewise knew I wouldn’t be keeping; and one was a friend with a lot of experience who made me comfortable without expecting anything of me. This is the shortest way to describe what they were to me. In any event, I knew I wasn’t in it for the long-haul with any of them, and even the two I felt very strong feelings towards faded out eventually. I suppose what I mean to say is that, while in those two particular cases I felt a loss, I wasn’t feeling the loss of a dominant. I wasn’t even feeling the loss of a boyfriend, girlfriend, or lover… though it was closer to those. When we talk now, we’re still friends. I haven’t talked kink with either of them in years, but if we did I don’t think I would feel a residual tie there. It would be a conversation—maybe even a “remember when…?”—but really no more than that. I think this is what keeping BDSM play outside of sexual relationships does: it lessens the chances of building a difficult-to-break dependency.

So now, DW and I are a couple. It is a solid, loving, trusting arrangement. We don’t have a long history of scene-ing yet, but the fact that we scene within a relationship and incorporate D/s even outside of the play-space to some extent (with some desire to incorporate more) makes me realize that, if this is not the last relationship I am ever in, I stand to lose both a boyfriend and a dominant when we come out the other side.

Why am I thinking about this? I am thinking about this because recently I learned that a former submissive of his still has very deep feelings for him and didn’t really let go after they ended their relationship. As far as I understand it, it was a D/s tie—i.e. they were lovers, but not boyfriend and girlfriend. And, as I learned, she loved him. Loves him. I hate seeing people with their hearts broken. I know that mine has been broken… more than once. I hope that I won’t have to go through that again. But it made me think… what does it really mean to lose a dominant? To lose someone who you tie yourself to? To lose someone who makes you feel safe and secure? I do not want to go through this. I don’t want to lose someone who I have learned to trust this much. Who has become my safe place. But at the same time, I feel like this is something anyone who breaks up with a boyfriend or girlfriend goes through. I just can’t get my head around what it would be like to have a dominant who is not my significant other, who I sleep with, who I come to love… who eventually decides to go their own way. Find a new submissive, start a relationship, take a break from the lifestyle, whatever. I can only partially appreciate what it is to give yourself to a person who will never care about you the same way you care about them.

The more I try to make this train of thought comprehensible, the more I feel I lose the thread. So I will pare it down and try to say what I mean that way: I am glad that until now I have not tied BDSM play to sex, and that the sex this time is tied to a significant other.

Otherwise, moving on from my former play partners would have been much, much harder.