Expert: Mistress Violette - 12/28/2007

Question
I'm a new Dom and in a long distance relationship with a submissive woman.  She is not a slave but does enjoy some pain.  Could you list some practical punishments I can use on her that would be effective?  Since she is in another country it is not easy to phone her all the time.  Our primary communication is through email, IM's or Skype when I have a good connection.

Answer
Hello, Jeff,

Since you're new to this I'm wondering if you mean play when you say punishments. If you have a submissive who is misbehaving, you might want to punish her in an effort to obtain better behavior. If she's submitting willingly and behaving appropriately, you want to play with her and, at times, reward her. To be sure I cover all the bases, I'm going to talk about both punishment and play.

If it's misbehavior you're dealing with I'm going to suggest that rather than punish, you find out the reason for the misbehavior. That's usually a better way to keep it from happening again because often the reason can be fixed. Sometimes misbehavior isn't a BDSM problem at all but you don't know if you don't ask.

On the other hand, if you do need to correct willful and deliberate obedience, it requires handling with something other than discussion. There are all sorts of things you can do that your sub won't like, simply because you're doing it as discipline. You will know what these are better than anyone but, in general, restrictions, rituals and discomfort, either physical or psychological, are effective. You can forbid your sub certain pleasures and past times or have her engage in activities she doesn't like or eat certain (healthful) foods that don't appeal to her, for instance. It's important to let your submissive know that you're disappointed in her and that's what's causing you to do whatever it is you opt to do. The point with correction is to make it so uncomfortable not behaving badly is preferable to the discipline, but not to make it so severe it's damaging.

When it comes to play, there's a wide variety of activities. What you do will depend on what interests you and the reactions it gets from your submissive. You'll want to find things you can do real time when you're on the phone or instant messaging. You'll also probably want to deliver some instructions by e-mail and possibly get reports back that way. Requiring written reports is good discipline for her and interesting for you.

It's hard to make play suggestions for someone without knowing her interests and abilities. You said you're new and you seem to be interested in learning, which is one of the qualities of a competent dom. Once you've done some exploring and looked at what other people do, it will be easier for you to come up with effective  play ideas. I'm going to list some resources, both for play ideas and for information. With BDSM it's safer and more effective to study first, rather than learning on the job. :)

The first site is: http://www.xeromag.com/fvbdsm.html
Here you'll find lots of general information on BDSM, advice for the beginning dom and a page of BDSM activities, many of which can be used in a long distance relationship.

A site with excellent ideas for play in long distance relationships is: http://www.soulshaven.f2s.com/net_long_main.php3

This thread was aimed at play with male subs but some of the ideas would work fine for female subs: http://www.informedconsent.co.uk/boards/generalbdsm/147015/0/

Once you've checked out these suggestions, I'm sure you'll find some you can use. You can customize some of the ideas to the interests of you and your submissive. After some learning and practice, I'm sure you'll be getting ideas of your own, too. Good luck and have fun!

Mistress Violette