"My dominant didn't read my mind" - how to avoid accidental consent violations (no collar, no kink)

I keep seeing posts from inexperienced female subs, along the lines of:

"We were doing Consensual Non-Consent, but it got uncomfortable. I didn't safeword because I froze up. Now I feel traumatised. Was this abuse?"

If I were a maledom, I would find such posts mildly terrifying.

Yes, of course, feelings are real, trauma is real. Freezing up is a real thing.

But.

Unscripted BDSM is an adult extreme sport, thrilling but hazardous. Things are bound to go wrong.

The only certainty is that you will at some point get emotionally or physically hurt. Safe words are vital, but one of the hazards of BDSM is that you might discover you can't use yours. (Another hazard is the slippery slope.)

The only way a dominant can 100% avoid creating a distressing experience is if they are are always performing dominance, crafting an experience for the sub, never just being dominant.

It's unrealistic to expect a partner to break the taboo of being dominant and also reliably read non verbal cues that contradict the agreed context, and do so during an actual sexual act.

It's also unfair.

Why would a normal person want to enter a situation where they only find out whether or not they are an abuser after the event?

I think most of these couples set themselves up for the situation by wanting to move smoothly between vanilla and kink in the moment. Some of it is "not owning your kink", and some of it - I think - is a gendered problem; for whatever reasons, women tend to appreciate subtlety and nuance in communication, and men with a dominant streak like the idea of being able to grab what they want.

Unfortunately, there's not much room for nuance in BDSM, which is one of its main selling points. So, unless you are very robust indeed, you need some way of signalling which mode you are in.

Buy a collar that doesn't lock and have a rule: no collar, no kink.

This will enable each of you to ask for kink indirectly - you can just put the collar on, or he can ask you if you want to wear it, or one or the other of you can leave it out as a hint - and also signal when kink is over. It will also have the added benefit of affirming that you are being submissive, and not  a doormat.

Or don't, but then don't complain of there are tears before, during or after bedtime.

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If the kink is for real, so are the ethical problems of submission: The Multiple Orgasmic Virgin

A British Catholic girl - still a very particular sexual type -
she had a simmering intensity that
promised fire behind the icy exterior.

A well-groomed British Catholic girl - still a very particular sexual type - she had a simmering intensity that promised fire behind the icy exterior of her conservative blouse and skirt.

She even wore a little silver crucifix.

Think Vanessa from Penny Dreadful, but a virginal Vanessa brimming with a rage directed against the patriarchy of the sub culture to which she belonged but could not bring herself to reject.

The promise of erotic fire coiled with anger! She only had to sweep into the room to ping all my 20-something Femdom fantasies.

For just the same reason, she seemed so utterly out my league that I relaxed around her enough to make a connection. It turned out we had lots of shared interests and passions.

And so we fell into a relationship and thus in love.

There really was fire behind the ice.

There really was fire behind the ice. 

Behind the layers, she was wildly sensual, multiple orgasmic, and addicted to my tongue. The only snag - from the point of view of trying-to-be-normal-young-Giles - was that penetrative sex did nothing for her other than scare her and threaten her identity.

She came to me a virgin - "deflowering" is overrated as a sexual experience - and always felt that on some level she was letting the side down to "surrender" not just to a non-Catholic, but to a man. She was also - I think - terrified of getting pregnant, and thus penetrative sex made her tense. There could be no relaxing with experience, no slow seduction into the pleasures of the penis.

And, there was so much wrong with the relationship!

She was naturally dominant, but I was cast in the roll of bedroom educator, and also felt the need to push back. I introduced her to BDSM - naturally - but to the wrong BDSM: bondage with me tied up when she was never going to be much of a service top! I got her off so easily with my tongue, but was obsessed with doing it "properly" with my dick (and of course most women can't come by vaginal stimulation alone).

And so it was messy and stormy, and we were young and I was crap, and we broke up. I imagine - hope - she has forgotten me, or has vague memories of the intense but immature young man who was her first lover.  

Looking back up at what I've written I feel like an idiot and a pig. But this was a long long time ago.

So ethics.

...her fantasies of being served orally
by a young man trained for
just that purpose.

What would have happened if (a) I had truly listened to her, and (b) male chastity devices had been readily available?

Had I listened properly, I would have taken note when she shared her fantasies of being served orally by a young man trained for just that purpose. I would also have understood that my penis wasn't going to get her off any time soon, and that the more she loved me the more I irritated her.

At first, at least, she was happy to experiment with Femdom.

I could have put on a collar and served her as a slave, told her I was fine with jerking off as a finale and that was how I wanted it. I could even have invited her to discipline me for the real things I did that annoyed her - which would have made much more sense than the fantasy context I wrapped around it.

I wouldn't actually have needed a device, but suppose I'd had one? Something practical like the one I'm wearing right now.

....a really unambiguous way of
taking the penis out of play. 

Male chastity devices are a really unambiguous way of taking the penis out of play.

"Just ignore my dick," is all very well, but it's still there, standing to attention, both mutely demanding sex and acting as visible a performance indicator. A chastity device hides the intrusive member and demonstrates seriousness about penis-free sex. And, if you leave the key elsewhere, then the penis really is out of play, at least when hard....

So, I think she would have loved that: Me acting mostly normal, an ardent lover, but no penis, just a tongue. From time to time, I would have gone into deeper submission so she could be pampered and vent her anger on me.

She would have been magnificent.

Now the ethics.

Attracted to men, but angry with them.

In need of a relationship, but defensive of her autonomy.

Would my submission have offered her
the only possible true homecoming? 

Sensual, but nervous of sex.

She dated before me, and after me. I think she was on a heroic journey to shed her baggage and be herself; to lose her hostility to men, to trade autonomy for intimacy, to unravel her inhibitions and learn to like sexual intercourse.

And there I would have been saying, "Don't bother with all that personal growth. Your baggage turns me on."

Her issues were real issues, and my flavour of Femdom would have let her really square the circle without resolving them: she was free to vent her hostility with a whip; she could be in charge of the relationship and therefor autonomous; she didn't need to have actual sex, ever, but could have as much oral as she could take.

What if that had worked and we'd settled down into a stable Female Led Relationship involving a lot of male chastity? Would it have been a good thing?

Would my submission have offered her the only possible true homecoming? Or would it have derailed her journey, stopped her from reaching her full potential?

How much should a sub consider the effect of offering their submission?

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When is it OK to wear my male chastity device? (The Ethics of 24/7 Wear Part 1)

When it is OK to wear your 

chastity device?(source)

Male chastity is in the mainstream media, but not in the way we'd want...

"Surgeon sent naked pictures of himself to dominatrix from work and boasted of wearing chastity belt as he operated on patients"
Daily MailD

I take the story with a pinch of salt.

He seems to have taken chastity selfies at work, but not necessarily in the operating theatre. He was obviously enjoying the services of an internet dominatrix, but just because he seems to have said the device was distracting to her, doesn't mean it was in reality. We simply don't know the truth.

However, I do often wear my chastity device 24/7 and this case has set me thinking about the ethics of it.

When it is OK to wear your chastity device?

What people know doesn't hurt them... unless it actually hurts them. So can I suggest three cast iron rules:

Iron Rule #1: Do not wear your chastity device when it has a high chance of upseting the innocent.

No our fetish - or is it an orientation? - isn't radioactive, but it is like an erection: personal and sexual, and people have the right not to have their faces rubbed in it. Don't wear your device to a family nude beach. Don't flaunt it in the gym locker rooms - unless it's that kind of gym. Don't... And so on.

(Yes, there is an argument that chastity is an orientation and that we have a right to be ourselves, but in the absence of a Male Chastity Liberation movement to educate the public, it seems needless and counter-productive to flaunt the tackle around our tackle.)

Iron Rule #2: Do not wear your chastity device if it will distract you in ways that are dangerous for you and others.

If wearing a chastity device is like wearing a vibrator would, then the rules are similar. You wouldn't drive with a vibrator attached to your dick, would you? So don't drive while chaste if the device is stimulating you in some way. And if you are a surgeon, please don't operate on anybody in that state.

(Yes, OK, vanilla folk get distracted too - by a nice pair of legs, for example. However they don't set out to be distracted right out of the box, and nor should you. And yes, quite often wearing a chastity device is more like having a secret piercing, in which case this rule does not apply.)

Iron Rule #3: Do not wear your chastity device it it stops you being yourself.

If you can't routinely do something you should be doing while wearing the device, routinely remove the device for that activity.

I won't give the obvious examples of social and family obligations incompatible with chastity wear because I don't want to invite the wrong sort of search engine traffic. However, if - say - wrestling is part of your life, and you can't wrestle in your device, then remove the device for wrestling.

(Sure, it's OK to avoid an activity while enjoying an occasional chastity marathon, but we should hold onto the fact that chastity isn't the only or most important aspect of our authentic self.)

I think there's more to it than that because there's also the knotty problem of how we feel about how we treat other people, even when they don't know what we are doing. That's for another article... 

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Learn how to how to walk the same Femdom path with your partner! 

GET THE "FOR HIM" MANUAL RIGHT NOW!
GET THE "FOR HER" MANUAL RIGHT NOW!

CLICK HERE to download my Femdom Erotica (all written while chaste!)

(For ebook format, 

Lulu or iTunes.)