Sabbatical in Slave Land Debrief - Making Femdom work beyond the bedroom

PictureLoKIT - awesome for timelock chastity

(There's actually one more actual sabbatical story to come - last night was punishment night, but I need Xena's permission about how much of that I can share.)

Well, I'm sitting here looking at my PictureLoKIT encryption software and I see we're almost at the end of our FLR/Femdom adventure. It's a hell of an achievement getting this far.

Xena is still  her vanilla self. I haven't turned her into a fetishist. However, like her Roman predecessors, she enjoys the vanilla benefits of having a slave and is happy to go to the trouble of having one.

Looking back at the last two weeks, I can see that it was all much harder than our usual "bedroom Femdom". We only do that if we are both feeling horny: there's always a reasonable expectation of BDSM activities, the roles are always clear and the end is always in sight.

Femdom outside the bedroom makes everything more complicated and raises all sorts of challenges familiar from previous much shorter sabbaticals, and from my research for my two Femdom how-to manuals. Some of them were much much harder to cope with than I expected.

So, here they are and how we dealt with them (some of this may go in a second edition of my books).

Asymmetric Femdom Experience (Resolution: shut up, cover up, mediate)

 "...neither of you are feeling
the... same kind of thing..." 

Outside the bedroom, the Femdom experience quickly becomes asymmetric, especially if your dominatrix is vanilla - like my Xena - and doesn't get off on the power itself. By asymmetric, I mean that at any one time, neither of you are feeling the same thing - or same kind of thing - with the same intensity.

To Xena, a cup of tea is a cup of tea, and a tidied kitchen is a chore out of the way. To me... well sometimes I'm aware of my enslaved state and hopelessly hard inside my chastity belt, and sometimes I'm contemplating the next erotic episode and when it might be.

When this happens, Xena, of course, doesn't want to know. She's not in an erotic headspace. Talking about erotic plans or expressing kinky feelings is like bringing out my genitals at the breakfast table - wrong context! Alas, when in the subtle dynamic of "compliant husband",  it's very hard to hang on to the fact of the asymmetry and I irritated the hell out of Xena until she finally told me to stop oversharing.

So, here's how we dealt with the asymmetry:

Shut up: As general rule, I just didn't talk about my experience unless asked.

Cover up: In non-erotic situations, I hid the erotic kink. I kept my chastity device out of sight at sleep time and in the morning, and kept all equipment discretely stashed until needed - which it was.. :)

Obfuscate: If something connected the mundane with the erotic, I kept that connection off stage. A simple vanilla wristband symbolized my state. I asked for chores in a plain, matter of fact way. As previously agreed, we used a clicker counter to tally demerits; at the touch of a button, Xena could condemn me to a painful whipping, but without having to think about it.

Her vanilla needs  (Real world submission, Practical bondage, Agreed boundaries)

Femdom with a vanilla dominatrix has to be about her. That means you can't expect her to barricade herself in the house for two weeks devoted to making your life hell. If you have the time and space for a Femdom sabbatical, it may well be that your partner has other things she wants to do as well. The test is, if this were real, what would she do with her time?

"...if this were real, what would she do?"

Xena still wanted my companionship from time to time, she read, watched TV, saw her friends, and wanted to go out as a couple... she also needed uninterrupted sleep. All this raised issues to do with my chastity device, appropriate behavior inside and outside the home, and some ethical considerations.

Real World Submission: It's fun, and comfortable, to wrap up our submission in fantasy worlds - "This isn't me/us, this is two Romans/Goreans/etc" - or props and costumes - French maid's uniforms, fetish collars and dramatic protocol. Not much of this can survive contact with doing the lawn and shopping, going to the cinema, working the email, or meeting up with friends.

My "complaint husband" persona worked a treat. Inside the house, I mostly behaved as normal, but asked for and accepted orders for chores, and let her control our interactions. Most of the time, from Xena's point-of-view I was "maid" (not the kinky kind!), masseuse, PA, and companion. Outside the house, I just seemed to be an attentive husband.

Practical bondage: I'm not happy submitting without being locked into some item of bondage: it's wrong to "give it away for free"; a continual reminder is good for maintain submission (see below); and an unambiguous fetish item makes it clear when I am submitting and when I am not- when I take it off, back to normal.

In my case that item is a chastity device. My old DIY device, though it looked good, was not practical. It inhibited my movements, made it hard to sleep, and was useless outside the house except for short trips to the shops. The new Chinese chastity cage, however is terrifyingly comfortable, discrete and easy to sleep in. I can go anywhere with Xena and do almost anything in the home or outside, as long as there are no metal detectors. (More on this in a later post.)

Appropriate boundaries: What I said about asymmetry (above) holds doubly true for Femdom outside the house. You have to have a shared idea of what's ethical and appropriate.

We would be uncomfortable drawing unconsenting people into the erotic side of our Femdom dynamic, using strangers to create humiliating situations for example. However, outside the house our Femdom isn't really erotic and the chastity device is so comfortable I forget it from time to time - it's more body jewelry than sex toy. So, there seems no problem being out and socializing.  I think I might feel uncomfortable inside somebody's home, or with my male buddies.

Femdom fade (Mark of slavery, Stick to the program, Retreat down, Curtain)

All this normality risks washing away the Femdom; either she starts treating you as normal, or you start topping from the bottom.

To be honest, the "compliant husband" role made this very hard. I had difficulty knowing when I could or could not express opinions. Worse, sometimes Xena would ask me what I wanted to do, and get cross when I gave an erotic answer. Eventually Xena got cross, and I pointed out that she just needed to tell me what she wanted. After that it became easier.

"Mark of slavery"

Mark of slavery: Some kind of always-visible symbol can act as a constant reminder of your relative places. In our cases it was the wrist band and - for me at least - the chastity device.

Stick to the program: Even if she seems to have forgotten, stay in role. Things won't get better if you try to manage events, and the Femdom might go away forever.

In our case, I started parrying her questions with; "You choose, that's the point of having  a compliant husband". When several nights running she hit the sack without erotic activity I gritted my teeth and made no comment. (It was worth it in the end...) When she got cross, I reminded her to give me a demerit.

Retreat down:  When things do go wrong, it's best to avoid breaking role by retreating down the levels of submission.

When - after asking "what now?" and I went all pushy sub - Xena lost her temper, I apologized, asked her to just tell me in future, then said that a slave not a husband was required right now and went and knelt on the floor out of her site. Eventually she asked me back to bed and we were fine. (I asked for and got a demerit because - as submissive - everything is automatically my fault.)

Curtain: It helps to have a clear understanding of when the curtain goes down on the drama - a known endpoint. This counters the tendency to keep revisiting the decision to continue the sabbatical, reduces insecurity, and promises an end to any dissatisfaction - "Oh well, it's only until 6pm tomorrow."

We had agreed a curtain, and enforced it using a time lock for my chastity device. When I was frustrated and cross and felt Xena wasn't ever going to use me erotically - she had  a hard week at work so wasn't in the mood much - I told myself, "To hell with it, I'll stick this out until Friday to show her I can. That way she'll trust me." Meanwhile, Xena was never in any worry that I might try to segue our sabbatical into a lifestyle.

* * *

All this is hard work for the sub, but my god it's worth it! In the final analysis, it all comes down to:

• Really submit to the real person
• Plan ahead, plan around her
• Act as if the power were real

For enjoying some of this in your relationship, see my Female Centered Femdom self-help guides....