D/s

Long-Time Listener, First-Time Collar

Kate Sloan

I didn’t want to buy my own collar. I was a single submissive, unowned, unneeded, and unmoored. As much as I might want a band of evocative leather around my throat, buying one seemed as gauche as buying one’s own engagement ring before even meeting a person one would like to marry. But I wanted one nonetheless. (A collar, that is; not an engagement ring. Although, for some kinksters, that’s a distinction without a difference.)

My best friend Bex bought me my first collar. They presented it to me on my 24th birthday, in the front seat of their car, while we zoomed from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin on the middle leg of a road trip. It was exactly perfect: the Aslan Leather Nicki collar, made of berry-pink leather banded with black.

I gasped. I cried. “I can be my own daddy,” I mused, clutching the leather to my chest.

“Exactly,” Bex said, and I knew they understood me more deeply than any best friend I’d ever had.

Later that day, somewhere in Cleveland, we pulled over on a side street and got out to go scavenge for lunch. “Do I have to take my collar off because we’re going to be around vanilla people?” I asked, tugging self-consciously on the metal ring at my throat.

“No,” Bex said.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive, little one.”

We strolled along that sunny side street and our glamorous friend C. added, “If anybody catcalls you or says anything about your collar, I’ll hit them with my parasol.” Thankfully, they didn’t have to.

Sometimes you don’t know how badly you want something until you almost-but-don’t-quite get it.

My first daddy dom told me five days after we met that he was available to be the primary partner I wanted, then told me weeks later, by which time he was juggling three partners, “I don’t remember saying that, and I don’t think I would have said that.” He promised to turn an old telephone table into a spanking bench painted my favorite colors, but only got as far as sanding before giving up on the project and on me. His idea of love and care was “I thought about bringing you chocolate, but I ran out of time.” “I almost texted you, but then I got distracted.” “Really? Did I say that? That doesn’t sound like something I would say.”

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when he promised to make me a collar and that never happened either.

I was so excited when he made this offhand vow. I went home and started Googling collar pictures: collars with chainmail, collars with filigree, collars with hearts. I wanted one with a heart, I knew. There was never any question in my mind.

There was never any question, either, about whether he was the right person to put my first capital-C Collar on me, the first person to have that degree of power over me. “Fuuuck,” I wrote in my journal. “How have I known this person less than two weeks and already I want him to own me?” He wasn’t even “boyfriend” yet and already I wanted him to be Daddy, Sir, owner. How like me, to give my heart away with the force and velocity of a six-year-old playing a game of Hot Potato.

One hot July night, he cancelled our plans to go to Tell Me Something Good together at the last minute, playing the “tired” card – another broken promise – so I went with a gaggle of pals instead. I got up and told the crowd a story about a spanking gone awry, and garnered scores high enough to win a prize at the end of the night. My eyes swept across the prize table, trying to select my reward, when I saw it: a silver heart-shaped padlock, glittering with rhinestones. I seized it in my eager paws, daydreaming already of the chain he would thread it onto, the words he would say as he clasped it around my neck.

The next time I saw him, I intoned modestly, “I’ve got something to show you,” and produced the lock from a drawer. I thought he’d know immediately what it was for, but instead he just looked at me quizzically. “It’s pretty,” I think he said, unsure what I was getting at.

“I thought you could use it when you make my collar!” I finally explained – and even then, his eyes did not light up. I wonder now if he’d changed his mind about wanting to own me; if perhaps I had already lost my lustre, the way shiny new possessions inevitably, eventually do.

He ended our relationship two weeks later. For months, I couldn’t look at that heart-shaped lock without comparing it to my own heart: given unreservedly but unwanted; relegated to a sad, dusty drawer.

In December of that year, I met a boy in New York. Nine days later, I was calling him “Sir” and asking him which collar I should wear to the theatre. What can I say; when I fall, I fall fast. It’s a character flaw. Or maybe a superpower.

I texted him a selfie from my seat in the Young Centre, my hair tumbling over the turquoise suede he’d told me to wear. “Hiding your collar!” he replied immediately, to which I retorted – drunk on one beer and new-relationship adrenaline – “It’s there, I promise. Reminding me of whose I am.”

Alarm bells sounded in my head even as I typed the words. Too fast too soon too much. Remember last time? But I wanted the risk, the rush. I wanted to believe.

“Fuckkkk. That ownership language makes me feel very fucking special,” he thumbed back in a blur, and I felt the internal stirring and whirring of a hope blossoming into a wish.

He asked me to wear the turquoise choker again the following day. I did, to a nearby café, pulling nervously at it the whole block-long walk. “Maybe next time I see you in person, we should go buy a collar together,” I suggested. A test. A dare. I didn’t want us to keep using collars I already owned as symbols of our burgeoning power dynamic; they made me feel dirty with past associations, like going on a first date wearing an ex’s sweater that still smells of heartbreak.

“What makes you think I won’t have one in my hand?” he replied. I nearly dropped my phone on the icy sidewalk. Too fast too soon too much, I thought again. And also: I want more.

Sex nerds, kink nerds, and psychology nerds all like to talk about their intentions and motivations. Both of us are all three. We talked a lot.

“What does a collar mean to you?” one of us asked the other, and we each threw out phrase after phrase, “yes” after “yes,” ascending a tower of assent. It’s an intensifier. A motivator. Ownership. Affection. Pride. A solidification, a sign of safety, of commitment. (We weren’t even ready to call each other “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” – and yet. Love is absurd.)

I listened to him over the phone while he made the purchase: a royal blue suede collar we’d chosen together. We giggled resolutely, and then I heard nervousness creep into his voice. “I want to make explicit,” he began, wavering, “that I don’t want you to wear it with anyone else.”

It had never occurred to me to wear it with anyone else. It was his collar. His gift to me, and mine to him. His symbolic hand wrapped around my throat. I’m staunchly non-monogamous, so there are times when my lips and my cunt and my submission are for other people. But that collar was not for other people. Only for him.

We wrote the rules of the collar together, in our shared note of protocols entitled “Sir and little one.” There are only a few rules, but each is important.

  1. Whenever Sir and little one are together, he will collar her. She will not use their collar with anyone else, put it on without being ordered to by Sir, or allow anyone else to touch it.
  2. When ordered to wear her collar, little one must continue wearing it until she completes any assigned tasks or work and receives permission to remove it.
  3. Little one may temporarily remove her collar without permission if necessary to protect herself or the collar.

I swooned as he drafted the phrasing for each decree. The care and love he poured into this exercise – even before we were calling this thing between us “love” – was so evident, so huge. No romantic symbol can really mean anything unless you’re certain it means the same thing to both of you – and I knew that this one did. It was as clear as the words in our respective Notes apps, black text on a backlit screen.

He put it around my neck on a February night – the same night he kissed me in the lineup outside Brooklyn Steel, and danced with me to my favorite band, and told me he loved me for the first time. Every time he looked at me, all night, his eyes dipped to the collar around my neck, then narrowed as his expression hardened into what I can only call “the dom face.” Every dom has one. His makes me shiver and bite my lip.

He would get distracted and trail off mid-sentence when his eyes caught on the collar. “Sorry, it just… looks really good on you,” he attempted to explain each time. He meant, I knew, not so much that the collar looked good on me but that submission did. Being small and compliant looked good on me. Being his looked good on me.

We’ve talked a lot about our collar since before we even picked it out, and we still talk about it. What it means. When I should and shouldn’t wear it. What we would do if I dropped it down a subway grate by accident. What we would do if we broke up.

There’s a lot in this world of which I’m uncertain, and a lot that frightens me in its uncertainty. But this collar – for all the time I spent hoping for it and wishing for it – feels certain to me, fixed, decided. I know what it means; my love and I swing this shared meaning between us like a tether.

If I can’t know anything else for sure in this world, at least I can know that I’m owned by someone who loves me; that he loves me enough to have put a piece of sacred suede around my neck; that he loves me enough to go all dark-eyed and dom-faced whenever he looks at the collar that means I’m his.

Review: Neon Wand

Kate Sloan

How to describe the sensation of electrostimulation? It’s like a hot tattoo needle pummelling your skin. It’s like a highly concentrated, strobing sunburn. It’s like the snap of a razor-sharp, sun-heated whip.

It’s like trust, like vulnerability, like catharsis. It’s like letting your partner usurp your will. It’s like floating in a subspacey haze, vaguely wondering from afar how long this has been going on and how long it will go on. It’s like that.

But let me back up. First we need to talk about the Neon Wand.

The sweethearts at SheVibe were kind enough to send me a KinkLab Neon Wand electrosex kit after I wrote, in January, about wanting to try E-stim. I opened the box reverently when it arrived, and carefully turned over each piece in my hands: the rubber-handled base unit, the four sturdy-feeling glass attachments, the AC cable, and the little booklet of instructions. The toy looked like something from a science lab, and though it stirred my recurrent medical-play fantasies immediately, it took me weeks to work up the courage to actually try it.

When I did finally affix one of the Wand’s attachments to its base and plug it in, I went easy on myself. I barely turned the dial up, and held the glass close to my inner forearm to test the sensation. Jagged red light shot out the tip and seemed to singe my skin, though it left no marks. The pain, mild enough to barely register, was nonetheless unlike anything I’d ever felt before – except the hot sharpness of a tattoo needle.

I’m glad I tried the Neon Wand on my own first, to get a sense for it, but it became clear that wouldn’t be enough for me. Like most types of kinky pain, I like electrostim best when exploring it with a partner. Alone, I just won’t press myself to the painful edges a dominant will. And – vitally – it’s difficult, if not impossible, for me to access subspace without someone there to push me into it.

Subspace, if you’re unaware, is the psychological state often cited by submissives, bottoms, and masochists as a key motivating factor in their pursual of these activities. Athletes chase a “runner’s high,” artists flourish “in the zone,” and submissives hunger for subspace. There’s some evidence that all these states are psychologically and physiologically similar – along with topspace, trance, and “flow.” For me, subspace is euphoric, like being pleasantly high; mind-emptying, like a hypnotic daze; disinhibiting, like a midnight wine buzz. In the right context and with the right type of dom, subspace can feel to me like the safest place in the world – because I have no decisions to make and nothing really to fear, knowing my partner will take care of everything.

The first time I used my Neon Wand with a partner, I think we expected a high-energy power-play scene, but what actually emerged was a slow, blissful exploration of subspace. My boyfriend cuffed me to my bed using my Sportsheets restraints, so I couldn’t move; all I could do was watch him. And watch, I did, as he first read the Neon Wand’s instructions and then began setting it up. This entire process took probably five minutes, but the wait felt interminable, because I wanted this cute and conscientious nerd to start zapping me already.

But first, he tested it on himself. I watched him hold the glass-tipped Wand to his arm, pausing in between each contact to adjust the dial on the bottom. I would highly recommend the top in an electrosex scene test their toy on themselves like this, especially if either partner is inexperienced with E-stim; you need to know what you are doling out in order to do so safely. And the person you’ll be zapping will also benefit from watching you do this, as I did that day. Trusting a top – knowing that they understand what they are doing, the intensity of it, the gravity of it – is a crucial component of the recipe for subspace.

Once my boyfriend knew his way around the Neon Wand, he began using it on me. He grazed it across my arms, my thighs, my belly. He touched upon known erogenous zones of mine: my nipples, my upper trapezius, my heart tattoo. He kept the intensity level low enough, at first, that I barely flinched. And then he began to increase it, muttering all the while his usual monologue of “You like that, babygirl? You want more? Can you take a little more for me? I need you to take a little more for me, baby…”

Endorphins kicked in, as they’re wont to do in sadomasochistic kink scenes. The pain got objectively worse but felt subjectively better. My yelps of pain melted into purrs of pleasure. I floated away to that place where subs go. I no longer cared what weird things my face or body might do. I was blank, buzzy, buoyant in my own brain.

Imagine if you could extend the length of an orgasm almost indefinitely, in a way that was fun and easy for both partners. Subspace, in a power-exchange relationship, can be like that. The deeper I fell into subspace, the more my boyfriend enjoyed pushing me down into it. The louder my gasps and shrieks got, the harder he tried to pull them from me. The higher he cranked the dial on the Neon Wand, the higher I felt on neurotransmitters trying to separate me from my pain. We luxuriated in this interaction for… I have no idea how long. One of the key characteristics of subspace is time dilation. Topspace, too. Time means nothing.

Some kink activities induce an altered state as a means to an end – like spanking someone to get them wet and ready for a fuck. But some kink activities induce an altered state for that altered state’s own sake – like hypnotizing someone just because they like the sensation of trance. Electrostimulation can be either or both of these things for me: pain and subspace turn me on, so we can move on to other sexy things once the Neon Wand is unplugged and put away – but I can also enjoy pain-induced subspace on its own merits. It doesn’t have to be sexual; it can be positively meditative. And sometimes it’s both.

Having used the Neon Wand on me a few times now, my boyfriend has only two complaints about it. One is that there are no markings on the toy’s dial, so you can’t find your way back to a beloved intensity level with any precision; adjusting the dial is always a matter of eyeballing it and hoping for the best. His other issue with this Wand is that we topped out its abilities and he’d prefer something with more power, though, as the bottom in these scenes, I don’t think the Neon Wand’s power is insufficient; I think my boyfriend is just an insatiable sadist. (It’s okay, I can say that; I love him.) The good news is, there are lots of other E-stim toys we could try – and endorphins don’t last forever, so if he keeps hurting me during the floatiest interludes of subspace, eventually my body will circle back to interpreting the pain it’s feeling as pain. And then the squeals and grimaces will return, and my boyfriend the sadist will be sated.

I’m overall delighted with the Neon Wand. It’s an easy-to-use, low-maintenance, well-constructed introduction to the world of E-stim. Beyond the physical sensations it provides, the real gift it’s given me is another intimate way to connect with my partner through consensual pain and altered psychological states. Before dipping my toe into electro, I never would’ve guessed that getting zapped could feel so zen – but here I am, an electrostim evangelist, sighing contentedly at the memory of my stinging skin.

 

Thanks so much to SheVibe for sending me the Neon Wand to review!

Prostate Play & Protocol: Recommending Men’s Sex Toys

Kate Sloan

I love nerding out about D/s with my boyfriend, and one way we do that is by experimenting with protocols together.

I’ve told you before about protocols: recurring action-based rules you can negotiate and establish in a kink dynamic. They’re usually structured as “When x, then y.” Some my partner and I have established in our relationship include: “When little one takes her daily iron supplement, she’ll text Sir and he’ll send her a selfie as a reward.” “When little one gets a drink other than water while she and Sir are out together, Sir gets the first taste.” “When ordered to wear her collar, little one must continue wearing it until she completes any assigned tasks or work and receives permission to remove it.”

A few months ago, while pondering the truism that protocol should ideally enhance and enrich both partners’ lives, my Sir had an idea for a new one. Seeking to harness my sex toy knowledge for his benefit, he assigned me the task of coming up with one toy recommendation for him each month. I’m allowed to gather intel by asking him questions (e.g. “What kinds of toys do you feel are missing from your collection?” “What’s the biggest toy you’ve taken anally, and did you like it?” “Can you have prostate orgasms without external stimulation?”) and then I have to write 500-700 words about the toy I’ve chosen that month, why I chose it, and how I foresee us using it together. He doesn’t have to buy the toy I recommend, but if I make a good case for it, he usually does.

This protocol helps my partner expand his sex toy collection and therefore his pleasure possibilities, and it also helps me feel useful. I’ve loved recommending men’s sex toys in past relationships, because it felt like I was serving my partner by concretely improving his life – so it feels good that this recommendation process is actually structured into my current relationship. I love being of use to my Sir!

So far, I’ve written four of these recs – always due on the 5th of the month, a date we chose together because it doesn’t typically conflict with other writing deadlines of mine. I’ve suggested two anal toys (one vibrating and one not), one stroker, and one vibrator for penises. His two favorites thus far have been the Njoy Pfun and the Hot Octopuss Pulse Solo III (both pictured). In fact, he loves the Pfun so much that he told me he thinks one should be issued for free to everyone who has a prostate!

One of my favorite things about this protocol is that I always submit my recommendation via Google Docs and my partner makes edits, notes, and suggestions using the interface’s built-in editing tools. I’ve always been a teacher’s pet, and I have definite kink feelings about receiving feedback and a grade on my writing (when I’ve consented to that type of scrutiny!). For example, it made me feel smart and accomplished when he complimented me for researching the width allowances of a particular Fleshlight on the /r/BigDickProblems subreddit to make sure it would fit my Sir’s cock. And when I recommended a butt plug because he’d mentioned to me that he didn’t own any, he commented, “I love how closely you listen and pay attention, little one.” Swoon.

Another fave thing about this protocol: getting to use the toys with him. I mean, duh. It’s always fun to use sex toys with someone you’re super into, but doubly so when you picked the toy yourself, for this specific person, for well-researched reasons, and they trusted you enough to buy it on your endorsement alone. Good D/s is all about trust, and I feel that even moreso than usual when I’m blowing my Sir while fucking him with a prostate toy I chose for his particular ass.

I have a lot of romantic feelings about the whole idea of making recommendations. I think, when done well, they’re a way to show your partner (or friend, or family member) you really know them. In the past, I’ve dated game developers who could sleuth out the perfect iPhone game for my particular tastes, music nerds who made me mix CDs of new-to-me gems I instantly loved, and comedy geeks who could say with full confidence, “You’d love this longform improv troupe,” and be right. Knowing someone that well is a talent, and being known that well is a gift. So I’m happy to have yet another way to demonstrate to my partner how much I adore him and want to make him happy!

What about you? Got any cool protocols you’ve been trying out lately? What’s the last sex toy you recommended to someone or had recommended to you? How did that go?

 

Heads up: this post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own!

10 Thoughts From Really, Really Good Phone Sex

Kate Sloan

1. I can never quite identify when our casual catch-up conversations end and our phone sex begins. It’s not like in-person sex where beginnings are delineated by a particularly passionate kiss or a deliberately incendiary touch; it’s subtler than that. Sometimes I muse aloud from my bed, almost absentmindedly, “My skin is so soft tonight,” and his voice drops half an octave as he counters, “Oh yeah?” Sometimes we’re talking about Sex Things we’d like to do and they suddenly become Sex Things we are doing right now. Sometimes his voice just hits me the right way, renders me all melty-hot and small, and I make a squeaky submissive sound he recognizes, and we’re off to the races. I never remember quite how it began. It’s the least important detail of all, anyway.

2. I thought I didn’t like phone sex. I was resistant to those whispered words and breathy moans, paltry stand-ins for the embodied touches I craved. But I guess I just never knew anybody who could talk like this boy does.

It’s not like he’s really touching me; it’s not like he’s in the room with me. That would be an oversimplification of what this interaction feels like, what it means. “I can’t be there to fuck you physically,” he tells me one night, “but I try to take care of the psychological side of things.” That’s exactly what it is: he is fucking my brain, while I fuck my own body.

3. Identifying and understanding someone’s kinks is an underrated skillset. It’s one thing to know how someone likes to be fucked or choked or slapped; it’s quite another to know why they like these things, how these things make them feel, the words and phrases and images that flash through their mind when they’re getting off. It’s shockingly intimate to know a person that well.

And know me, he does. He keeps a “mental model” of me, he says, and updates it each time he learns something new about what gets me panting and dripping. He also keeps literal notes on me, in an app on his phone, because he is a nerd – but I think he barely refers to them anymore; he doesn’t need to. When you’ve fucked someone over the phone as many times as he has fucked me over the phone, and you really listen, you learn which phrases make them purr. You memorize when each particular moan will happen and what it denotes. You develop strategies for pushing them over the edge, and you sharpen your approach until it glimmers. Shockingly intimate, indeed.

4. But it’s not just his words. It’s his voice. So boyish and goofy when we’re joking around. So helpless and smitten when we’re confessing our love. So dark and oaky when he’s dominating me from afar. I could melt into it. I could dissolve in it. I often do.

5. “There is no one else I’d rather be in a long-distance relationship with,” I told him once. What I meant was: we are both verbal, and auditory, and kink-nerdy, and digitally savvy, and all those things combine to make a connection that can thrive through texting and phone calls and giggly FaceTime convos. Only a certain type of person could carry on this type of relationship in this electrically connective manner, and I’m so glad I found one in this world. Phone sex with him is not a stand-in for what I want. It is what I want. Or part of what I want, anyway.

6. The first time he wanted to slap me through the phone, I balked a little. Hurting myself, even at his behest, felt off somehow – a farcical facsimile of the thing we both really wanted: his hand arcing through the air again and again to redden my cheek. But I had trusted him with so much already and it made sense to trust him on this, too.

We experimented with different approaches, and, as two communication nerds are wont to do, eventually found what works best for us. He tells me to place my hand on my face. He tells me what intensity he wants these next impacts to be, on a scale from 1 to 10. And then, when we’re ready, he says: “Now.”

It always surprises me how readily my hand responds to him, as though possessed by his dark dominance from hundreds of miles away. Rationally, I know I could decide not to hit myself, if I didn’t want to do it. But I want to do it. So I always do. And it tugs me down into subspace almost as fast as his slaps do when he is there to give them.

7. We sometimes use the word “snowglobey” to describe time we spend together. It’s that feeling when you and your sweetheart are locked in a close moment, fleetingly frozen, and nothing outside your connection seems to exist. Time stretches endlessly, and it’s also over before you know it. You’re insulated. Embroiled. Snowglobey.

I have a bad habit of checking my phone when I’m supposed to be focusing on other things (these days, don’t we all?) but my mind doesn’t wander when his voice is fucking me. I forget that Twitter and Facebook and Slack exist. You only know what a big deal that is if you, too, live a phone-focused life. If you do, then you know it is a huge deal.

What a gift to give someone: some distraction-free minutes of pleasure, riveting and riveted. What a beautiful gift my love gives to me when he weaves stories so absorbing, I forget my body ever knew anything but bliss.

8. He murmurs filthy things about what he would do to me if he was here, but – vitally – he also tells me what to do to myself, right now.

He chooses my sex toys for me, and decides when each can come into play. He tells me how to use them: “Harder.” “Faster.” “Deeper.” He can tell how well I’m following his directions by the sounds I make. “Deeper than that. Almost. There you go.” It’s his mastery of me, as much as his dominant directives, that renders me a submissive puddle for him. I always do what he says, because if I don’t, he will know – and if I do, I will come. He will make sure that I do.

9. You would think that the orgasms would feel the way they do when I jerk off: quick, easy, small, predictable, perfunctory.

They don’t. They feel the way they do when he fucks me IRL: momentous and monumental, never quite expected, knocking me over like a wave. Afterwards, I lie there, cunt pulsing, breath slowing, all the energy and stress drained out of me. I listen to the rhythms of his voice and his breath, syncing with mine, floating back to earth, and I feel a peace and a connection I only ever previously knew while curled up against someone’s chest after they fucked the life out of me. I never knew I could get here without touching him at all. But here we are.

10. We learned pretty quickly that aftercare matters, even for phone sex. Saying good night just after orgasm left me as cold and alone as I’d be if one of us rolled over after sex, said “See ya,” and took off. My logical brain posited, “It’s just phone sex; it can’t need as much aftercare as an in-person kink scene does, because it can’t be as intense!” But it can be, and it often is, and aftercare is as important as ever.

We catch our breaths. We whisper I-love-you’s. We lie in bed sighing contentedly and giggling like goons. We describe how we would touch each other if we were together, and it feels almost real: fingertips brushing along heated skin. We find our way back to the world outside our little snowglobe. That world is just as harsh and unpredictable as ever, but I feel strengthened by the love I’ve given and received. Like a hot cup of coffee, my love emboldens me, refuels me, warms me right through.

There was a time when I thought I didn’t like phone sex. I wish I could lean back through time to that past version of me and tell her: “Just you wait.”

3 D/s Protocols I’m Loving Lately

Kate Sloan
Suz at the Ritual Chamber, photographed by Taylor J Mace

There are many elements of my submission that only come out when a dominant brings them out of me. I only like calling people “Daddy” when there’s someone in my life who has earned that title, for example, and I only fantasize about kneeling to lick the boots of a select few. Dominance and submission are very context-dependent!

That’s why it took me so long to become interested in protocol, I think. I’m defining “protocol” here as a specific set of rules and routines agreed upon by a dominant and a submissive, usually with a particular trigger and outcome: “When [x] happens, you will [y].” I had read about protocol in Sinclair Sexsmith essays and elsewhere, but wasn’t sure it was for me. But when my current dominant partner started discussing it with me, I realized I felt very positively about it – with him, anyway!

Part of the difference, I think, is that we’re long-distance. Protocol is a way for us to feel closer to each other throughout our day-to-day, even though we only get to see each other in-person once every month or two. It’s a way for both of us to confirm to the other that we think about each other often, consider each other in our decision-making, and respect and value the relationship and D/s dynamic we have co-created. Isn’t kink romantic?!

We have several different protocols, all lovingly enumerated in a shared note called “Sir and little one” that syncs to all our various devices, because we’re nerds. Here are three I’m particularly loving lately.

Little one must prepare 3 “interview questions” to ask Sir for every pre-planned (i.e. 3+ hours’ notice) phone call.

This arose from the early days of our relationship, when we learned about each other with ravenous curiosity. He would sometimes teasingly call me out for asking probing follow-up questions aplenty during our conversations. What can I say – I’m a curious weirdo with a J-school education, and when faced with an interesting person, sometimes I go into “reporter mode”!

Asking him questions serves a number of different purposes that make both of us feel good. It makes me feel smart, incisive, and useful. It reinforces our DD/lg dynamic, by making him feel older/wiser and making me feel small/naive. I get to learn more about this person I love, and when he turns the question around on me (which he always does), he gets to learn more about me, too. It deepens our connection in a way that feels really satisfying, which is (IMO) exactly what protocol should do.

The questions are whatever I’m curious about: they’ve been anything from big philosophical queries to small specific ones to sexy ones. I keep an ongoing list of these questions stored up in a Google Doc and move them to an “already asked” list once they’ve been used. Here are some examples, so you can get a sense of what kinds of things I like to ask:

  • “What’s the last thing you did that was really out of character?”
  • “Which friend of yours is the most different from you, and how does that affect your friendship?”
  • “What do you think distinguishes a kinky person from a vanilla person?”
  • “Have you ever stolen anything?”
  • “What are some of your hidden talents?”
  • “Where and when do you get your best ideas?”
  • “What’s your favorite font?”

Sir gets the first taste of all little one’s drinks (excluding water) while they’re together.

My Sir is a cocktail nerd, so when we’re out together, he always chooses my drink and orders it for me. This protocol seemed like a natural extension of that. When he brought it up, he said he wanted to set this rule because a) he always wants to try my drinks anyway, to see what they’re like, and b) he wants to make sure the drinks are good enough for his little girl. Aww.

I like how deferential I feel when this protocol comes into play. Sliding my just-delivered cocktail across the table to Sir for his approval, before I even taste it myself, makes me feel small and powerless compared to him in a way I enjoy.

Protocols involving the control of food or drinks could be triggering for some folks who have struggled with eating disorders, alcoholism, etc. in the past or present, so tread carefully and communicate impeccably if you’re thinking about implementing a protocol in this category. I’m very into ours, though.

Little one must ask Sir permission to come if she’s thinking about or having sex with him, unless he’s going down on her.

Orgasm control is a big kink of my Sir’s, so from our very first sexting and phone-sex sessions, he always wanted me to ask permission before coming. When we wrote up our protocols, we made this rule official.

I was initially very hesitant about this one. My orgasms are sometimes elusive, so when one suddenly felt within reach, I didn’t want to derail it by taking a moment to ask, “May I come, please, Sir?” I worried that if I backed off for even that one moment, I’d screw up my orgasm trajectory and maybe miss out on one altogether. That seemed frustrating and pointless to me.

However, like anything, it’s gotten easier with practice. Now I’m usually able to squeak out my request without losing any headway on the path to orgasm – and I’ve developed enough trust with my Sir to know that he almost always grants me permission pretty quickly. In some ways, this protocol even lessens my preexisting anxieties about taking “too long” to come, because I know I’m not allowed to come without permission and that means my Sir wants to enjoy me wherever I am on the journey to orgasm.

We added the “unless he’s going down on her” caveat recently because my orgasms from oral sex are much more elusive and easily lost than ones I have through other means, so I’d rather focus completely on those without the distraction of having to ask first. There is something hot, too, about oral sex being a “loophole” through which I get to have “freebie” orgasms. It makes me feel even more motivated to relax into those sensations and get off that way.

Bonus: Here’s a protocol we tried that we ended up nixing because it wasn’t working for us:

Little one must show Sir any selfies that she plans to tweet before she tweets them. If she forgets, she must take another photo just for Sir that matches his specifications.

We thought this would be cute because it would make my Sir feel special to get a “preview” of my selfies before the whole internet saw them. I was a little wary, going into this one, that it might make me feel too owned – it felt uncomfortably close to how a monogamous ex of mine demanded I refrain from posting nudes online, even though I wanted to, because he considered that a violation of our monogamy. (That’s a totally fair boundary to set if you both feel great about it. I didn’t.)

However, as it turns out, the owned-ness of this protocol wasn’t what made it hard for me. I have a lot of anxiety about “bugging” my partners by texting them “too much” or at times when they might be busy (say, with another partner), so I found that sometimes, when I wanted to tweet a selfie, the thought of texting my Sir first was too challenging so I just… didn’t. And that meant I was posting fewer selfies and feeling kinda sad about that.

We implemented this protocol for a trial period of 10 days, at the end of which we talked about it to decide whether we wanted to keep it. I was willing to continue with it, but Sir didn’t like that it had become a deterrent to my selfie-posting, so we opted to eliminate it. It served as a good reminder for me (and maybe for you, too) that it’s okay to try protocols out, adapt and shift them as necessary, and sometimes get rid of them altogether. They are never set in stone, and that’s a good thing!

What are your favorite protocols you’ve tried, or wanted to try?

Additional resources on protocol (mostly Sinclair Sexsmith, ’cause I love them):