While there are many, undoubtedly more complete and informed works on the subject of BDSM I am hoping that readers will enjoy this one for two reasons. First, I have what seems to be an unique perspective on the subject; and secondly I have included the words “Don’t Panic” in large friendly letters here at the top.
The Virgins Guide to Dominance and Submission, is my attempt to provide a less than intimidating introduction to the topic of BDSM
As a virgin myself, I can only give so much advice. I must admit that a great deal of my motivation in compiling this guide is to provide a resource to potentially dominant women that does not treat D/s like a vaguely disgusting way to get your man to clean the gutters or an scene-centric lifestyle that requires one go “all in” if you want to be authentic. I do hope what I write here is useful for everybody who reads it, but I am a submissive man and my interest and insight pertains mainly to a monogamous female dominant/male submissive pairing.
Let’s Jump in.
The Basics:
BDSM, for the uninitiated is a compound acronym for Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, and Sadism and Masochism. The Common abbreviations for these are B&D, D/s and S&m, respectively.
There are a number of terms for the roles which a person may inhabit during the practice of BDSM and while so many of these have been used interchangeably to the point of uselessness I should define a few here.
A Top is someone who gives sensations and a Bottom is someone who receives them. A dominant is someone who exercises control over a submissive who cedes control to the dominant.
Here is a top giving sensation to a bottom’s bottom. In this case however, I beleive the top is also a domme, see how that works?
Other terms for dominant include: Dom, (often, but not exclusively male) Domme, (always female) Master, Mistress, Sir, Ma’am, Owner, and many more.
For submissives some common terms are: sub, (sometimes specifically Malesub or Femsub) slave, pet or toy.
Be aware that if you start using a term, there are people for whom it probably denotes a specific status that they will want to argue about, other people are happy to let anyone use any title willy-nilly. I personally will describe myself as submissive, though I’m not always thrilled with it’s connotations.
Play may refer to BDSM activities, can be more specific (impact play, rope play, ect.)
A scene, is either a private bit of “play” or a semi-public demonstration/performance of the same.
“The Scene” refers to The BDSM community at large
Vanilla refers to a person who is not into BDSM, or any related scenes
Still curious? Wikipedia has a handy glossary of BDSM terms here.
What is Dominance and Submission? and what is it not?
Dominance and submission specifically is about power exchange, willingly giving one partner authority over the other. Often however, you will see this expressed through the use of the other elements of BDSM.
Here’s my nightmare: I tell my future wife that I’d like her to dominate me, and then in a stunning and uncharacteristic lack of communication I give her nothing else to go on. The next day I come home to find her in head to toe black latex, wearing a scowl, and telling me that I am a worthless worm who doesn’t deserve her if I don’t lick her overpriced footwear while she hits me with a riding crop.
Though, as far as nightmares go…
See, D/s doesn’t have to look like a porn flick, it doesn’t have to have any of the other elements of BDSM if you don’t want it to.
D/s is simply the submissive partner giving control to their dominant partner, and the dominant partner accepting that control. You can then add elements of bondage, discipline sadism and masochism as desired. Understand that if both partners are happy (and safe) there is no “doing it wrong.”
There is nothing wrong with wanting to be topped by your partner either, if you are perhaps (and I’m just throwing this out there) a submissive man who wants to come home to a latex-clad pain-dispensary, it’s OK to want your fantasies fulfilled, but but understand that B&D and S&M don’t automatically include D/s. Asking your partner to bend over backwards to fulfill the requirements of the other’s fantasy is not the same thing as asking them to dominate you.
D/s doesn’t have to be all the time. You can do it in the bedroom, in the home, on weekends, with limits, without limits, whatever fits you as a couple the best is totally OK. If you take control of your partner when you’re having sex, and engage the rest of your life as equals you don’t have to feel bad for not being as “hardcore” as the Johnson’s with their 24/7 “trueslave” lifestyle.
Ideally, if I expressed my interest in D/s to a vanilla partner, we could then have a discussion, about what that means. What control I would like to give to her, what control she might enjoy having. Maybe go through a BDSM Checklist together and figure out what kind of play we are each interested in. Personally, I don’t just want a fantasy, I want a reality.
How do I find a compatible partner?
Here’s where most people are going to tell you that you have to get involved in “the scene”. Currently I am not a part of the scene, I have no intention of joining the scene anytime soon. But that’s my decision.
I do have a Fetlife account and I think that is a solid place to start, get your questions answered, hear from and about other kinky people and if you so desire find local groups of kinksters. Do remember that this is the internet, which means that there are a lot of idiots making a lot of noise, try not to let it get to you.
There are some Kink specific dating sites, such as Collarme and Alt.com you could give those a peek as well.
Maybe the whole reason you’re reading this is because you are intentionally remaining a virgin and wonder if you can find a similarly inclined partner. That’s why I’m here, to see if it can be done. You can try the sites I mentioned (Fetlife can be pretty neat.) but, mostly I think it’s going to come down to either finding a perfectly compatible partner by luck or finding a partner who is GGG so when you say you want to experiment with D/s they are happy to give it a whirl.
That’s it? That’s all you can tell me?
Pretty much, If I get anything else figured out, I’ll update the Guide and of course I do have the whole rest of my blog.
Oh, and hey! Here are some Kinky resources
Dishevelled Domina’s How to approach Dominant women And Here’s the overview for her awesome series of Interviews with Dominant Women.
Clarise Thorne’s List of BDSM resources
Ferns over at Domme Chronicles has advice for Dommes and advice for Male subs
Cool post for Vanilla partners adapting to kinky ones By Hedonist Philosopher, It has some excellent advice if you’re partner is interested in BDSM/fetish stuff and you’re not.
If someone is on my Blogroll it means I think they’re pretty neat, so you can pop over to any of those for more information and perhaps a different perspective.
Hi!
I just stumbled across your blog and find it interesting and well written. Not much is on this particular page that I was unaware of, but it was very nicely laid out and led me to the rest of your blog (which is quite nice). After what feels like years of becoming further and further involved in various fictional sources of BDSM stories, I have lifted my head and am making an attempt at figuring out what I REALLY want out of a relationship. One of the common things I do come across though is the lack of support for the idea that someone who is a Virgin (or someone with little experience of any kind) could say that they are interested in having a BDSM relationship. That might just be me not finding the right places at first though….
I imagine that the first reaction in such a situation though might be to tell such a virgin to concentrate on having vanilla sex first and then deciding whether or not they still want more, but the idea of creating a connection with someone only for the purpose of ‘devirginization’ seems heartbreakingly sad and incredibly wrong to me. But then so too does the idea of becoming involved in a serious relationship with someone only to find yourself rejected for having submissive or dominant inclinations. I’d like to think that if the relationship is serious enough and they know me enough that they’d accept whatever feelings I have…wishful thinking?
I’m am probably wrong about such lack of support or reactions (hope I am!). I don’t understand why it isn’t possible to still understand the feelings and thoughts behind an experience. To still feel drawn to it in some capacity..
Anyways, I digress…I didn’t mean for that to be long…
Hey thanks for reading. One of the reasons I write this blog is because there are no other resources directly addressing my situation. It’s discouraging to think that you might be the only person on the planet dealing with a issue.
I think there are a lot of people who will criticize a virgin for having an interest in BDSM. This stems, I believe from the idea that BDSM is something extra that you add to sex to spice it up once it becomes boring. For some people that may be fine, but in others the drive to dominate or submit is as innate as the drive to couple in the first place.
Furthermore, there are many pre-sexual activities that BDSM encompasses that mean that it can be something fun and intimate that doesn’t involve sex.
The cultural atmosphere surrounding sexuality is so toxic, that sometimes it seems just finding anyone who is open and willing to experiment is wishful thinking. Which is why I’m thinking about this now instead of leaving the issue of BDSM to explored at a later date.
I’ve always felt that simply being human should allow you to empathize with another human, in that I am puzzled by anecdotes of people breaking up over “incompatible” desires. Maybe it is just a reflection on my submissive nature, but I would try just about anything to please a SO, and I hope there are more people out there that feel the same.
I admire your honesty. I’ve given some thought to starting one. It must help a lot as well to be able to get your thoughts out in writing. I’ve been trying to find somewhere to comment where I wouldn’t have to feel out of place for feeling or being the way I am. So thank you.
I agree with the sentiment that people tend to criticize virgins. I was trying to hold out on some hope that perhaps I was simply missing something, but my search is not quite a fruitful as I would hope. It does leave a bit of a gap between wanting to socialize and connect with people but not wanting to give out the wrong impression.
It makes a lot of sense to think about it now. It had never really occurred to me before to be truthful. I had just assumed that I would eventually find someone who I could trust to be open to experiment and grow with in a slow natural way…
I couldn’t imagine breaking up with someone over something such as different desires. I’ve always thought that wanting your SO to be happen would be part of any relationship from any side of it. But maybe that’s also because it is difficult for me to reconcile the ‘light switch’ interpretation of BDSM with my own. The little things like that are just as, or more important. They are what makes up the foundations of any relationship – TRUST, communication, belonging, sharing…
One thing you might try to get a low pressure taste of blogging is Tumblr. It’s quick easy, there are lots of pretty pictures, and it lends itself to blogging pretty well. Plus when you’re having trouble writing you can just reblog someone else’s stuff you like.
It really is discouraging to be a virgin sometimes, it feels like you’re getting it from all sides, and even sex-positive people may undermine your decision to treat your virginity as something special.
I’m honest here, but I don’t talk much about my kink in real life, I’m trying out being forward about it while dating, but so far it’s been a bit shaky.
I’m glad you’re reading, e-mail me if you start writing something of your own.
That might be something good to start with. I had originally stayed away from it when it was the trend because I didn’t want to follow the crowd, but i think its died down a bit.
I’ve always been a stong believer in that things will happen in their own time in their own way.. But yes, its different when practicing honesty. Most people who don’t know much will take the wrong impression from it.
Absolutely. I will have more time coming up and I have been hoping to get an opportunity to focus on a few things I usually don’t have much time for i.e.writing, reading,…
I read your post on pre-sexual activities and it prompted me to think a bit more about what I would want. I am trying to reconcile myself between what I might read or fantasize about and what I know that I would actually want or have had from a real relationship. They seem like different things – reading about the big muscle Dom versus being the one to do the initiation and leading in a dance. I don’t necessarily think so. I believe that the draw to some sort of a power exchange is there in everyone and the attraction manifests itself in many different ways when there is no sort of outlet for it…I should really start writing again…
Hey Peroxide. Life takes you strange places, because about an hour ago I started with Googling something like “A male virgin’s guide to BDSM”, stumbled about for a bit, and found your old post “Kinky-Two Shoes: On Searching for BDSM as a Virgin.”
“Holy shit.” I thought. “There aren’t that many answers but at least I’m not alone.”
You and I share the same Higher Power, though I don’t have a church, and I am a 23 year old straight male that wants a monogamous BDSM relationship. Obviously we aren’t perfectly identical. Namely I’m a Dominant, though like you I dislike the connotations it implies (i wouldn’t have a problem with my partner pushing me onto the bed once in a while).
I used to think BDSM was a silly thing, and that my fantasies were only a passing thought. It’s only within the last year or so I’ve come to accept that being Dominant is an intrinsic part of who I am and probably always has been.
probable- improbability drive, ha, I love the Douglas Adams reference by the way.
Anyway, I felt idiotic and hopelessly naive until I found your post on DD’s blog which led me to Submissive in Seattle. So it does help, it really all does help. Your cheery pessimism does an entire world of good. Thanks a million and congrats on being the #50 sex blogger! That’s fucking awesome dude!
I’m curious if you’ve ever heard of Shiniez’s BDSM Graphic Novel “Sunstone” on Deviant Art? that graphic novel clarified vital truths about BDSM for me. plus it kicks all sorts of ass.
Peroxide, I’m gonna go a little batshit with the questions so forgive me.
Are there any Dominant Males you know of that want the same type of relationship as you? If so do they write blogs or have resources available on the web? Does the Dominant Male Virgin corner of the internet exist?
K, I’m done. Much obliged for humoring me. Thanks again and happy holidays!
Keep moving.
Thisiswater,
Hey, thanks for your kind words and enthusiasm. I hope you continue to find my ramblings helpful.
I’m curious if you’ve ever heard of Shiniez’s BDSM Graphic Novel “Sunstone” on Deviant Art?
I haven’t read *that* one, but I have read at least one thing by Shiniez, which was pretty good. I’ll give “Sunstone” a gander.
Are there any Dominant Males you know of that want the same type of relationship as you? If so do they write blogs or have resources available on the web?
It sounds like you do, and I’m sure there are others out there that do. But I don’t go looking for Maledom resources, and when I stumble upon them I tend not to read them. A ton of what gets written about BDSM is masturbatory fantasy, and masturbatory fantasy posing as serious guides. Beyond that, there is a bit of a tone I’ve read in Maledom stuff that basically treats Male dominant/femal submissive as The natural/normal/true way to do BDSM and even if the rest of the information is good, I still don’t care to read that sort of thing.
So I don’t know personally any Virginal Christian Maledoms or of any Maledom bloggers. I notice a lot more female bloggers, so you might be able to find a Femsub blog that’s coming from this angle. It seems that the Christian BDSM groups on Fet seem to be mostly M/f orientated. Additionally you may find something useful on Tom Allen’s Blogroll, which is massive
Does the Dominant Male Virgin corner of the internet exist?
Intentionally Virgin? I’m willing to bet there are plenty people calling themselves Male Dominants who have never had sex, or a submissive or even a girlfriend. honestly I think the best thing to do is find good information and make it work for you. There is plenty you can learn from Female Dominants or submissive that you can apply to you life when the time comes.
If you have more questions, or just want to talk, Feel free to shoot me an Email (captnperoxide@gmail.com)
– Peroxide
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Hey! I found this blog via your reddit. I know this is very old, so I’m not sure if you’ll see this, but thanks for putting all of these resources together! This blog is interesting and well written. It seems like you and your partner have moved, but I am also in the Seattle area, hello from the PNW :).
Hey there, Thank you so much. I am glad you find it interesting! Always nice to hear from the PNW!