The One Thing Every Good Dom Does

Don’t submit to him unless he does this

Around the time that I started discovering my kinky side, I developed a really strong crush.

It was like the stars aligning. I wanted to be dominated, and this guy had a way of making me feel submissive.

I get turned on when I feel safe, so my kinky little heart would melt every time he brought up my boundaries.

He would tell me things like “I really want to go over your boundaries with you sometime” and “I want to make this really good for you — I want to know what you like and what you don’t.”

That made it feel real. I wasn’t just fantasizing about submitting to him anymore — he was really going to take charge and give me the experience I wanted.

I was preoccupied with the thought of giving myself to him. I fantasized about feeling his firm hands on me, getting bound and fucked, and pleasing him so I could earn his praise.

He had already given me a taste of the euphoria of subspace just by being dominant over text. I couldn’t stop thinking about how deep I could go into it if I was there in person.

But that fantasy started crumbling when I realized all his talk about my boundaries was just lip service.

He said he really wanted to know what they were, but whenever I brought them up, he had no interest in discussing them.

I told him one of my biggest boundaries — I can’t handle being asked for a blowjob. It’s emotionally triggering for me.

Instead of being understanding or reassuring, he seemed insulted. It’s like he took me laying out that limit as an accusation that he would violate it.

He seemed way more concerned about preserving his good guy image than showing any kind of care. He didn’t even bother faking sympathy for the fact that I was opening up to him about the sexual abuse that created that trigger in the first place.

That was a red flag and I knew it right away. The way he talked about my boundaries at first had made me feel cared for. The way he was treating them now worried me. It made me feel a little unsafe.

That taught me something about boundaries.

It’s not enough to mention them. It’s not enough to assume they’ll be respected. If you’re going to give yourself over and submit to your partner, they need to show genuine care for your personal limits.

They can’t just say they’ll respect them. Unless they’re excited to hear them, eager to go over them with you, and curious to learn how you feel about them, they’re not ready to dominate you.

Before You Give Up Control

Someone who’s ready to dominate you will be able to talk about your boundaries. They’ll genuinely want to learn what your limits are, not just what they have permission to do to you.

Communication matters a lot in sex. When sex sucks, it’s usually because there’s not enough of it. But it matters even more when you’re exploring BDSM.

There are at least three reasons you should never give control to someone who isn’t as eager to talk about your boundaries as you are.

You Need the Right Kind of Domination

If you tell your partner you want them to dominate you, they’ll need a lot more information than that.

They’ll need to know exactly what kind of domination you want from them. There are lots of different types of doms out there — masters, riggers, daddy doms, sadists, and more than I can even name off the top of my head. They each give their subs a very specific kind of experience.

If they’re not willing to explicitly and extensively go over your preferences and boundaries, there’s a good chance you won’t be on the same page. You might be hoping for a daddy dom to lead you through a sexual experience in a nurturing way, but your partner’s idea of domination is to choke you while calling you a whore.

There’s a lot of variety within types of domination, too. I’m partial to daddy doms myself, but only certain types. I’ve seen videos of daddy doms in action that light my fire. But I’ve also seen some do things that would take me right out of my comfort zone, like baby talking their little through sex.

If you submit to someone who doesn’t care to get a very clear picture of your limits, there are two likely outcomes. Either they’re going to go too far and do something that upsets you, freaks you out, or fully triggers you. Or they’re not going to go far enough and give you a really disappointing experience.

When someone treats your boundaries as secondary, you’re probably dealing with a fuckboi dom. Those are the guys who want to claim the dom title when all they really care about is having their way with your body without worrying about pesky things like safewords and consent.

Sadly, there are plenty of them out there. They usually have a really superficial idea of BDSM and are more turned on by the idea of doing whatever they please to you, not of giving you the punishments and rewards you want.

Submission and domination is an exchange. It’s not just taking something from someone and assuming they’ll be into it. That’s why communication is so incredibly important — it’s the only way to create that dynamic.

You Need Someone Willing to Learn

Domination involves a certain amount of education and skill. But if your partner isn’t willing or able to communicate, it also means they won’t be willing to learn.

Depending on the kind of domination you want, that can be a real problem. You don’t want to get your hair pulled by someone who didn’t take the time to learn how to do it without causing too much pain, damaging your scalp, or hurting your neck.

If you want to be tied up with rope, it should be with someone who can be mindful of your circulation and knows how to avoid causing any damage. It shouldn’t be with someone who’d rather wing it by randomly winding and tightening the rope around different parts of your body and doesn’t know they should have medical safety shears on hand.

And if you’re going to explore breath play, you absolutely need to do it with someone who is willing to do it right.

When I started warming up to the idea of being choked, my husband took the time to study up on how to do it, the different types of chokes you can perform, and all the things you should know to perform it safely. When I pulled his hand up and put it around my throat, it felt more thrilling than frightening because I trusted him to have the right technique.

I would never feel safe or comfortable being choked by someone who assumes they know how to do it because they saw it in porn.

In those kinds of cases, submitting to someone who won’t communicate puts you at an unnecessary risk and just isn’t worth it.

But even when safety isn’t as much of an issue, you still don’t want it to suck.

You’ll want to submit to someone who knows ways to project a little confidence. You want them to dirty talk to you in just the right way. And if you want them to get rough, you want them to know exactly when and how to slap you across the face.

All of those things can be learned — as long as your partner takes the time to do it.

You Need to Feel Safe

When you explore BDSM and take on a submissive role, you’re going to be doing things that can feel inherently unsafe.

That might even be part of the appeal. You might want to feel a little bit scared or have your partner do things that give you goosebumps. But you’ll only be able to fully enjoy it if you know deep down that you’ll be okay.

You need to have a safeword in place and be certain that it will be respected. Your limits need to be clearly spelled out and reiterated. You need to be able to trust your partner not to cross the line, even when you’re letting them get close to it.

My husband pushed things too far once, but only because I wanted him to.

Our sex life had been so much more satisfying since he started being more dominant with me. I wanted to see if increasing the intensity would make our control play even more arousing.

We decided to try it out. He was more forceful and took on a very commanding tone. It didn’t go as well as I hoped. It felt dark and unloving. It made me really uncomfortable.

But it never made me feel like I was in any kind of risk because it was something we had negotiated explicitly and I trusted him to take my boundaries very seriously.

I knew he would never push too far on a whim, and he knew to take small, tentative steps because we were playing outside my comfort zone.

That night wasn’t pleasant. It was weird and it helped me draw my boundaries more clearly. But because we had communicated extensively and he demonstrated a respect for my limits, it never felt unsafe or traumatizing.

Not Everyone Is Ready

The first time I had sex, I wasn’t ready to have it. And the twentieth time I had sex, I still wasn’t.

I wasn’t ready to have sex because I couldn’t talk openly about my preferences, what made me uncomfortable, or much of anything really.

I eventually got there. I opened up, learned how to state my needs, and came to understand that being shy is not an excuse to jump into sex without talking things over.

Years later, I started exploring new kinks, and that kind of communication felt urgent again.

I wanted to be spanked, manhandled, and pinned down, but only to a certain point. I wanted to be tied up, but that would put me in a compromised position. I wanted to try some light breath play, too. That put me at even more risk.

I’m really fucking happy I got to explore those desires, but only because I got to do it with someone who genuinely cares about my boundaries and never treats them like an inconvenience or an obstacle.

Realizing that you’re kinkier than you thought feels like unlocking a whole new part of yourself that you never knew existed.

That’s an amazing discovery, and you should never spoil it by giving yourself over to someone who can’t communicate enough to make the experience hot, beautiful, and safe for you.

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