Yes, My Lady: Domestic Discipline: a Lady's Choice

This past October 19th, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet some of My column enthusiasts when I taught a BDSM Workshop on Domestic-style Discipline. The Society of Janus (www.soj.org), the Bay Area's pansexual BDSM organization, sponsored this public event open to BDSM folks outside of Janus at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. Elated to learn from Me in the flesh, I honored the workshop participants with the knowledge and experience of My favorite type of SM play.



Domestic Discipline is a mutually consensual scene or living arrangement in which one partner assumes the role of authority and disciplinarian over the other partner. It is the kind of control exerted by a Traditional Authority Figure. Being controlled is what the bottom needs, and controlling is what the Top needs. The discipline involves all things domestic: roles, toys, clothing, terms, language, roleplay, scenario, and location. It is the classic image of home, school, kitchen, office, or bedroom. It's Mommy's wooden hairbrush or wooden spoon. It's Daddy's black belt. The beatings, the birch, the cane, the paddle, the lash, or strap. The key to Domestic Discipline is that the bottom is afraid to admit that they want the Top in control. A bottom seeking discipline would normally expect their behavior to be carefully controlled; that there will be regular opportunities for some form of physical punishment, even if mild, for infractions.



The tenants of discipline, punishment, responsibility, and consequence that we first learn from our parents comprise the core of Domestic Discipline. It is the first lessons that will form our desire as adults to experience the same emotions, spirit, and play. When I was an adolescent, My brother and I used to run around the plant room against My mother's wishes. The story is always the same, and eventually, one of us would knock a plant over, spilling black, rich soil onto My mother's white, fluffy carpet. Mother would hear the falling of the plant, of course, and slowly approach upon the scene. She would chant, "Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman." My brother and I would look at each other in great fear and anguish. We knew what was coming next. Mother would demand that we lower our panties, and then, she would make us hold that position for a minute, or two. She would then wail on our bottoms with a homemade wooden paddle, last name engraved, and all. Today, I crave for the exhilaration that My brother chasing Me brought. Nothing quite like it except for maybe a lover chasing us around the house. I yearn to be mischievous…to make a mistake, and to be held accountable. I desire to scare My bottom: to make Her feel the fear of the consequence is greater than the consequence itself. I need order, stability, and object constancy in My life. Domestic Discipline provides such direction.



I categorize Domestic Discipline into two types of play: Lifestyle and Scene. Both are unique and demanding of their own set of rules. In a Scene, there is a beginning, middle, and end. Players negotiate the limits of the scene, and respect safewords. There are agreed upon roles, and from there the Top usually controls and/or makes up the scenario. The bottom's only way to end the scene is with the safeword. However, the bottom has just as much power as the Top. When bottom consents, do trust it. Overall, the Top must trust her/himself, and have confidence. The Top must also trust that the bottom will use the safeword, if needed. The bottom must trust that the Top is in control, and will not lose it. To make the scene safe and sane, pay attention to your partner's reactions, cues, respect limits, earn trust by acting trustworthy, stop at the use of the safeword, and push one another when you can take it.



As for Lifestyle Domestic Discipline, it is a long-term commitment to a certain agreed-upon relationship that follows certain domestic-discipline tenants. The Top establishes rules, which both parties negotiate, and the bottom agrees to obey the rules. The key is that the bottom may verbally agree to obey the rules, but s/he may defy them. The bottom must break the rules in order to require punishment. Disobeying rules carries consequence, such as corporal punishment or loss of privileges. As the authority, the Top sets example by living an orderly life and following the rules. This lifestyle demands good behavior from both parties. Overall, the bottom desires order, discipline, and control, and seeks the Top to contain them and guide them through this process. The bottom feels worthy and loved by the attention, boundaries, and knowledge of what is expected. The Top feels loved and respected by the bottom who takes punishment well and begins to perform better due to the discipline. Both parties are pleased when they have accomplished something: something that seems to produce a new way of relating. The objective of this lifestyle -- and the appeal -- for many couples is a smoother running household where power roles are defined, boundaries clear, and harmony prevails.



Domestic Discipline tends to be more accessible than other types of BDSM play. Most players can simply use their imagination, theatrical skills, past knowledge, and emotions. With Domestic Discipline, one doesn't have to buy new and expensive fetish wear, toys, and equipment. One can simply use what is in the home. It is an equalizer: both players may feel equal when they come to the drawing board, especially when it comes to class privilege. Both players have only to offer themselves, a true test of self-worth, confidence, and trust.



Domestic Discipline can take you and your partner on a sadistic, mind-probing, emotional interrogation that you will not soon forget. It pushes that edge between SM and real life, releases endorphins, and can bring great atonement. Using the best techniques to push both Top and bottom, Domestic Discipline fosters tuning into your partner's energy and role-playing cues. Domestic Discipline is special because it expands the boundaries of both Top and bottom and integrates fantasy and reality in a safe, contained manner.

Yes, My Lady: Sex & Bondage Go Together Like Love & Marriage...?

My most vivid memories of childhood are when I was bound, unwillingly and nonconsensually: bound to an abusive family, a sexist, racist nation-state, and my own low self-worth. As an adult, I will struggle with the confinement of the institution of marriage and the capitalist production of love. I will feel bound by tradition and familial and societal pressure to wed. Struggle to rid these chains that bind is a common theme in my life, and that in the lives of many Dominant women. However, being placed in bondage will serve as the only method to a sexuality for me as a young adult. How is it years later that bondage will serve as the only form of play in which I feel totally safe?



Like love and marriage, "sex and bondage" is an exercise teeming with convoluted practices and messages. The media often portrays women who are tied down as a victim. If she is shown enjoying bondage, then the character is assumed some sort of freak. Children learn at a young age that you tie someone down so that you may do what you wish to them -- so that you may keep them. Yet, the images that strike me most are the ones of men being tied down by women. Movies like Basic Instinct depict a manic, dominant man who both seeks and fears being restrained by a woman. The face of Michael Douglas's character portrays a struggle with submission as Sharon Stone's character forcibly wraps the silk scarf around his wrists. His bodily movements and facial expressions show a man that does not want to be bound by this woman, but he does not verbally resist. What remains is the silent omission that screams consent. Pure passivity.



Only bondage produces and maintains this type of passivity. By passivity, I do not mean submission. Submission signifies that you have power, which you choose to resign to another. By passivity, I mean you have no will to hand over to the Top. By passivity, I mean that you do not relinquish power. Rather, you act as if you have no power. As the rope, leather, and chains begin to sink into your skin, you don't care who enters you, when, or how.



For some novices of BDSM, bondage is the means to play...in fact; it is the only way that some can submit. Being bound allows a certain freedom to act as if one cannot escape, so one must submit. Bondage allows for a certain insidious negation of responsibility and blatant consent. The bottom can fool her/himself into accepting submission and the dominance of the Top. (The Top is only getting away with this because I am bound...) The bottom can enforce a private, internal illusion that the Top is making them do this. The bondage maintains the illusion and allows the bottom to act out as if they do not truly want what the Tops gives, but is forced to accept. Without the bondage, the bottom wouldn't be able to submit. Thus, for some novices, bondage is the only means to playing...a sort of forced submission.



For many novices of sex, let alone BDSM, we learn to feel sex as a dirty, bad thing. We cannot proudly covet or request sex. It usually requires someone else to "force" us to enjoy sex, to force us to become someone else for a little while, which allows a bound freedom. To inhibit the inhibited frees. This is where bondage enters. Bondage acts as a mediator between an abjected sense of self and sex; that is to say, it allows a person to let go of control over sex, the situation, fluids, etc., just enough to have sex. As My submissive friend Kaylynne says, "I couldn't let go enough to have sex, or to act that way [submissively], unless I was bound -- I needed bondage."



Bondage is a means to receive domination, attention, and/or sex. Many novices see bondage as a form of domination. They believe that they must be bound to be truly dominated. Many novices go through the ropes, actually not enjoying bondage, in order to get what they truly want from the Top: dominance. They learn to associate the two. Bondage and dominance are not the same thing. You can bind a body, but not the spirit. A dominant person will not suddenly submit simply because s/he is placed in bondage. Similarly, a submissive person can submit willingly without a single piece of rope restraining them. It usually takes a novice some time to learn that they need not be placed in bondage in order to be dominated. Similarly, many novice Tops believe they must bind someone in order to control them. How untrue!



As for experienced and cultivated players, many of us no longer mix sex and bondage. Why, you might ask? Well, it's something that only novices do seem to do; moreover, it's something that I no longer need to do. Bondage with sex, or sex with bondage was often our first act of SM. You tie your lover up and have sex. However, time passes, we gain experiences and try many different forms of SM, and suddenly, one finds her/himself not interested in traditional sex anymore. Bondage has replaced sex. Moreover, bondage becomes a new form of sex. One that is just as intimate, trust producing, and sexy as 69, intercourse, or any other form of "vanilla" sex.



Bondage takes on a life of its own. One suddenly begins to crave it like when one hasn't masturbated for a long time. The body aches for it. The loins desired to be pushed, knotted, and covered with delicate, yet strong, beautiful fabric. One longs for the feel of the ropes sliding up and down the body. 'Til finally, nothing is left but rope, leather, chains and bones. Like a good fuck, you continue to feel where the ropes once laid. Sex and bondage. Love and marriage. You can have one without the other.