Can We Learn How to Be More Dominant or Submissive in Bed?

Are our kinks and sexual roles inherent, or can they be adopted?

I’ve been thinking about this question, and this article, multiple times over the last months, and for a while, my answer was leaning in a negative direction:

—No, you can’t! Our sexualities are inborn, and much like our sexual orientations, they don’t change much.

I’ve written about how to be a good Dominant or a submissive myself, but always with the assumption that the person already identified as such. When I’ve come across articles by fellow sex writers with titles like: “How to be more dominant in bed”, I’d silently shake my head:

—Not possible! You either are or you aren’t.

Recent developments among friends, mixed with some personal epiphanies, have led me to reevaluate my stance.

I always assumed that our kinks and fetishes—the sexual personas and roles that often surface in us when we start playing with BDSM dynamics—to be rooted in natural leanings that spring from a mixture of factors influenced by both nature and nurture.

I believed that once we pulled back that curtain, it was all, more or less, out in the open for us to discover.

Now, I question these views. While I still believe that the seeds have to be in there somewhere and that we can’t simply study our ways to certain kinks or aspects of sexuality, I’m starting to view the road to uncovering these as less straightforward than I had assumed.

I’m therefore putting my own prejudice on trial in an attempt to settle the following claims:

Our kinks, fetishes, and sexualities overall are fluid and ever-changing throughout our lives. And, it’s more than possible to discover parts of our sexual selves that we never imagined were there.

Exhibit 1:

My submissive, princess/babygirl bestie is turning into a mean-ass degrading Domme!

No one, including herself, would ever have believed this if someone said six months ago that soon, she’d be going on dates with submissive guys pleading to worship at her feet and be degraded as her cuckold. But, alas, so the story goes.

The woman who ones said “I won’t yuck anyone’s yum, but I simply find submissive men a turn-off”, now writes steamy erotica with opening lines like, “I will use you as my mattress; blindfolded, restrained and in chastity, on your back…”.

Aaaalright!

It’s astonishing what splitting up with both a long-term lover and simultaneously finalizing a divorce can do, especially when it prompts us to spend ample time with our own thoughts and an open mind. This is exactly what my friend did, and through it, she discovered facets of herself that ‘shocks’ even her.

A few events led her to understand the psychology behind male-submission, and something clicked. A previously buried seed was uncovered.

Exhibit 2:

A girlfriend’s ex-Dom is now her ‘slave’ and is polishing her nails in preparation to meet her Sir.

Submissive woman meets Dominant man. The two have a good run but realize they’re not meant to be. Until, one day, Dominant man realizes he has a submissive side that he wants to explore with his previous lover, whom he always viewed as an utter Goddess. (I second this notion.)

The Dom is now the sub and vice versa: The man who used to restrain and spank her is now kneeling at her feet, wearing lace-lingerie while providing pedicures and glasses of bubbly in preparation to meet her lover.

Together, the pair brought out each other’s opposites, and they now both switch—just not with each other.

Exhibit 3:

A previously assumed straight girlfriend has her first FFM threesome at 32 and realizes that she definitely has ‘the hots’ for women as well.

Catching up with a friend recently, she could barely contain herself, bubbling over with excitement over her recent threesome.

— I just had the most amazing sexual experience!

It was her first, and also the first time she was intimate with someone of the same sex.

—I didn’t know I could have that kind of tender and deep physical connection with a woman. Everything felt so beautiful and natural. I can’t wait to see them again, she continued. I can’t believe I’m discovering this in my thirties. I thought I had myself figured out by now.

Statistically, only 8% of the LGBTQI population discover that we have a different sexual orientation after we turn thirty and the majority (59%) know between ages 10 and 19.

I didn’t call myself bisexual before I was in my thirties either—as opposed to just ‘occasionally attracted to the same sex, but never acting on it’—not until after I had a relationship with a woman that truly changed my life.

Women are generally seen as more fluid than men, and sometimes our plasticity is situational or temporal. Other times it takes a change of perspective to uncover something that was always there, that we perhaps never dared or had an opportunity to look at.

Exhibit 4:

My partner just ‘stepped it up’ multiple notches and is embracing the role of the strict disciplinarian, yet caring Daddy-Dom.

My boyfriend of the last year and I just broke up—and then got back together. And, it did wonders for our relationship, as well as our sexual dynamic.

There was obviously more to it than a bit of sexual asymmetry, but that’s for another article. The truth is that issues are often intertwined, and the vacancy from the loss of a significant part of my sexual identity was becoming increasingly apparent.

While my partner had taken a more dominant role with past lovers, he was fairly new to power-play when we met, and though he was curious, he’d never gone deep into the psychology and mind-games involved. Our connection and personal circumstances, his reverence, and care for me and my boundaries—all of which I appreciate immensely—further blocked him from flipping that switch, even with the knowledge that it was what I wanted.

I started doubting the switch was even there and lost hope. I felt stuck and didn’t see any other way than out.

Apparently, a clean slate was just what we needed. Besides, nothing makes you dig deep and jump, all in, quite like the feeling that you’ve got nothing to lose.

When we realized that we’d lost more than we’d gained when we parted ways, we decided to dive back in. Out emerged a side of him I never saw before, and I wondered why the heck he’d been hiding it for so long.

—Oh, hi there, Sir!

Equally thrilled to have brought out the complimentary side in me, he and I are now, after a whole year of exploring openly in other ways, venturing onto vast and wonderous uncharted territory—and loving every minute.

Exhibit 5:

I’m calling my partner ‘Daddy’ now, which I previously swore on my mother’s name I’d never do. (WTF?!)

Yes, this is happening, and I’m as baffled as anyone. I used to cringe at the whole Daddy/little girl thing, and, much like with rape fantasies, it just felt wrong on so many levels. But, so is kink; it often springs from the most uncomfortable and tabooed corners of our psyche.

For us, this ‘game’ has nothing to do with age play in the sense that we pretend to be an age that we’re not. Instead, it’s an expression of caring compassion mixed with dominance and discipline—and it’s strictly separated from our ‘normal’ interactions.

This newest development shows me that I, too, am far from done evolving; on an ongoing journey, I hope I have the privilege to keep flowing and exploring myself and others for a long time to come.

Verdict:

Yes, we can ‘learn’ power dynamics (to an extent) and our sexual preferences can continue to change fluidly throughout our lives.

I’m still neither saying that anyone can become dominant or submissive, nor that it’s everybody’s thing.

I do think that we either have it or we don’t; that we’re predisposed to move in certain directions. The seed has to have been planted.

Through these recent happenings, it’s become obvious to me that many of us have sides that are far more disguised than I previously assumed. We may have many different types of seeds, buried deep in the layers of our carnal makeup, just waiting for the ideal conditions to sprout and grow.

We might sense many of these seeds just under the surface, while others could shoot up and catch us by complete surprise, and some might never even germinate at all.

Oftentimes, we could be holding ourselves back as a result of fears, shame, or guilt. It could also be that an already established dynamic with a partner is inhibiting us from letting that part of ourselves come forth.

In the end, I believe and have witnessed, that most of us are far more fluid than we might believe ourselves to be. So, if you feel a strong Dominant, a bratty submissive, or any other wanton character stirring on the inside, you might want to let them out to play.

If my ‘subby’ princess girlfriend can turn Dominant ‘degrader’, and the macho Dom, a faithful servant in red lace, then, trust me, almost anything is possible.