I was trying to write the introduction part of this blog, to fill out the little sidebar and put something at least slightly useful on my profile page. The trouble was, I kept stumbling when it came to identifying my kinky practices.
Switchy? Check.
Bondage enthusiast? Check.
Poly? Yup.
Dominant? Well, kind of. Ish. In that, I'm in a d/s relationship with a submissive.
But I'm not sure I want to identify as dominant as such. Partly because I am quite switchy, and also because in some places it seems to be analogous to identifying as 'asshat'. Because I am my girlfriend's dominant, but that doesn't mean that I have any interest in dominating others, or claiming some mystical authority. I am not the Uberdom.
Possibly I've just been jaded by the millions of threads on Fet in which somebody asks, "So, Doms, what made you choose this style of relationship? How did you know what you wanted out of life was to be in control of your partner(s)?"
A very frequent, and depressing, response to that type of question is the "I just knew" answer. Apparently there are a lot of people out there on the internet who are just so inherently dominant that they could not be any other way. This often comes coupled with unsettling tales of how they are just dominant in every aspect of their life, outside of consensual power relationships. Well, that sounds rather unpleasant.
While I'm sure that there are people who are inherently dominant, I'm really not. I kink on power dynamics no matter which side of them I am on, and while I am Kadi's dom, I don't think of myself AS a dom as such (which I may have to re-evaluate if I keep flirting with self-identified subs so much, but that's a story for another time).
I was considering this, and wondering if it was fairer to describe myself as 'kinky and toppy' (and ignore the way that I switch down on a regular basis to satisfy the more submissive and masochistic side of my head*). Then I remembered a few years back, when I was just getting into the d/s-y style of sex and relationships, and trying to figure out if I could bring myself to identify as submissive, with all the baggage and connotations that word can bring along with it. I've seen other self-identified submissive people have trouble with this, but very rarely do I see similar posts from dominant self-identified people - because, of course, there couldn't be any reason to feel conflicted about being in the dominant position in a relationship.
Oh yay. More domism in action.
* I am aware that masochism and submissiveness are not necessarily linked, and I can experience them separately. I do that sometimes, but it's fun to have them together.
