AboutMistress Violette Expertise I can answer questions related to the practice of BDSM, especially involving relationship issues and personal interactions. My expertise is in helping people sort out thoughts and feelings, define problems and find solutions. I'm happy to apply my BDSM knowledge and experience to this. I'm not the best person for questions dealing with mechanical contraptions, the physics of BDSM or Gor related matters.
Experience Seventeen years of real time, face to face practice of BDSM in my own personal relationships, 4 years of professional experience in distance training.
Education/Credentials My traditional education includes both a bachelor's and master's degree. I have no formal education in BDSM. I know what I know from interacting with experienced players, reading, and hands on experience.
Question I am a sub in a B & D relationship. Not S & M, just the B & D part. My question is about subspace and aftercare.
When I realized my need to be submissive I expressed it to my husband of 25 years who listened to me and indicated that would be nothing he’d be able to get into. He then acted like he’d take care of me and allow me to be submissive to him sexually from time to time including binding me and using objects to strike my flesh, not any harder than he ever did with his hand during spanking while having vanilla sex, but using objects and being Toppy with me. After he got my hopes up, he then dashed them when he came right out and told me ‘No,’ that he wouldn’t do it.
I was miserable for months. Crying and despondent. A large part of that was that I felt that I had bared my soul to tell him what I needed, that it was a need, not just a passing fancy and he said he’d take care of me and then he pulled the rug out from under me. He violated my trust and nothing has ever been the same between us.
I was not looking for any other relationship, having been monogamous in my marriage for 25 years. A few months after this happened, I met a man on-line. We became friends and the thing that impressed me was that the first time that we decided that we might have on-line sexual activity he asked me what my sexual fantasies were and what would be my biggest desire sexually if I could have anything that I wanted.
Out of the blue I told him what I had described to my husband and this man, who had never been in a BDSM relationship before stepped it up, right there, first time, and delivered the goods. What I felt that night was the first of many experiences that we have shared. It has been about 10 months now. We live 3,000 miles apart and see each other in person for about a week every other month.
We have a BD relationship. He is Toppy when I need him to be, when I need to be a bottom girl. He knows when I need to submit and give it all over to him. The thing is that we are making it up as we go. We try to define our relationship ourselves without doing too much reading because we want our relationship to work in ways that work for us.
For instance, we do not participate in any of the following: orgasm denial or assignments and tasks for me to do when he is not around.
When we have been in person together and he has bound me to the bed and then disciplines me in a variety of ways using different implements and using his voice and his words to get me to submit I have entered subspace and he keeps an eye on me and takes care of me when we are done, holding me, soothing me, feeding me, bringing me something to drink. Just slowly bringing me back.
The problem is two-fold. My fragility lasts longer than just that few hours after a scene, or even the next day. When I submit and give everything over to him I become very dependent on him in ways that I have never experienced before. It makes me incapable of functioning sometimes in my activities of daily living. Sometimes this happens once he has flown the 3,000 miles home and then I am alone and dealing with it on my own. The other times that it has happened is a few times we were engaged in phone sex, and the words he used triggered me to go into a completely submissive place and where he got me into a state that I never would have believed I could go just listening to this man’s voice and words over the phone.
The result is the same as the in person scenes. I am in subspace and alone and without him physically there to take care of me it is really hard to come out of it and it may linger for a couple of weeks.
This is really difficult for me as I have to function professionally at my job, and I still live with my husband and trying to keep this part of myself hidden is increasingly difficult when I feel adrift and alone. Sometimes I cry at the drop of a hat several times a day, and I never did that before.
I love being submissive to him, but I need to protect myself and we have both looked and tried to find information about aftercare and everything that we have found relates to aftercare for situations where both partners are in the same place physically.
I do not know if it is relevant, but we enjoy more of a relationship than just the B & D one. We have fun together laughing and joking, having vanilla sex, or engaging in role plays and wearing costumes. Just enjoying life and the sex and the connection that we have.
We have both been trying to research ways of preserving my emotional state while still being able to enjoy our Top/bottom relationship. I love it. I live for it. But I think it is causing me harm and neither of us wants that. We just know there must be answers out there some where. We just don’t know where to look.
In a nutshell my question is this: Please help with information on aftercare of a submissive who is not physically in the same location as the Top or Dominant partner. What can he do to continue our time that involves the power exchange where I am in an okay mental place when we are done? So that I do not feel so adrift and incapable of decision-making. Because my job really requires that I am able to function at 100% but after we engage in these activities together I am definitely not able to function as highly as I need to in any aspect of my life. And lately when I give everything over to him when I am submissive I do not make ANY decisions of any kind whatsoever. That is the beauty of it.
In fact, that whole I don’t make any decisions of any kind is one of the reasons we don’t do tasks and assignments. That would involve me having to think to execute and that to us misses the whole point. Unless there is something about doing tasks and assignments that somehow focuses the submissive to regain a higher level of functioning or ability to make decisions. I’ve never read anything about WHY Dominants make their submissives to do tasks or assignments, I wonder if it has anything to do with regaining the emotional and mental state???
See, I told you we were making this stuff up as we go along. We just need a little guidance, please…
Answer Hello, Annie,
I know you feel hurt by your husband's response and, before we go any further, I want to give you some food for thought about that. That's all it is, since I don't have all the facts. Your desire to submit is intense and important to you. That's what makes it seem like a need, although it really isn't. It's a want, albeit a big one, and many people do live without satisfying it. It would be great if all our partners would be willing to help us explore this interest but sometimes that just can't happen. Some people are afraid of BDSM, some don't understand it and some just plain aren't interested. If your husband had reacted with disgust, that would be one thing. He didn't, though. He tried. He deserves some credit for that. Many partners wouldn't have done that much and many that try don't succeed, just as he didn't. That shouldn't take away from the fact that he made the effort.
I'm thinking the reason you're not finding much information on aftercare when people aren't together is that only the situations are different, the aftercare is not. If your partner is doing everything he can, and it sounds like he is, there's nothing he can change, or do in addition, that will remedy your problem. Sometimes it's just not possible to provide everything a submissive needs when a dominant can't be with him/her continuously. In your situation, rather than changing the aftercare, you have to consider changing the play.
Although the two of you are defining your BDSM relationship on your own (which isn't a bad thing at all) it sounds like you've done at least a little research. You've probably run into the phrase "safe, sane and consensual." Evaluate the situation in terms of that. Your partner is already doing everything possible in terms of aftercare. That means you need to ask yourselves if the way you're playing is safe and sane. I had a submissive who did freelance work that he had to pitch to buyers. We found that telephone sessions affected his functioning to the point he wasn't able to do this for hours afterward. The only way to make things safe and sane was to change the timing of the telephone sessions.
It may not be that simple for you but you're part way there because you've defined the problem. Now you have to figure out how to change your play so that your functioning isn't compromised. When you're together, maybe you can only do intense scenes at the beginning of the visit or maybe you'll need to lessen the intensity overall. Maybe your dominant could expand his repertoire to include things that don't have an extreme effect on you. Remember that this is a psychological effect compounded by physiological ones. If your partner can design play that doesn't release endorphins and adrenaline to the extent your current play does, you might not be effected as much. That may be where assignments and tasks could work for you, for instance. Also, no matter how not in control you feel, it's probably not as much as it seems. Submissives who lived with their dominants and had learned not to make decisions have stepped up and handled emergencies when their dominants weren't around or were unable. That means you may be able to effect your own state of mind somewhat. This is a little more control than you want to have but it might be worth it, for the control it does allow you to give up.
I know you were hoping for a different solution, Annie. Sometimes it's necessary to sacrifice some satisfaction, for safety's sake.
