"Mastergate" and navigating unfiltered BDSM dynamics

Consent and harm reduction when you let the D/s dynamic out of containment

Photo by Peyman Shojaei on Unsplash

Regarding Mastergate — you know what I’m talking about — let me tell you a story.

My first girlfriend was abusive.

She had various things going on in her life, and maybe underlying mental health issues. Sometimes she lashed out at random, thumped me, then kicked me off the bed.

I’d lie on the floor sobbing, with an erection, thinking, “Shit. Is this who I am?”

Because I’d had masochistic fantasies for as long as I could remember.

I was young — think “gap year” — and an idiot, but also, back in 80s Britain, there was very little information about consent, and none about kink… perhaps a good thing because had we discovered BDSM, she’d have eaten a chunk of my life.

Not so long ago, my wife Xena beat me then consigned me to my “cell”. I think her motivation was partly sadism, partly cumulative irritation, and the cheerful desire to have the bed for herself for the night. So, I lay on the floor in my cell, sobbing, with an erection — or as much as I could manage in my permanent chastity cage — and thinking, “Hurrah! This is who I am!”

The thing is, that abusive ex girlfriend’s abuse really did turn me on, and I found being bossed around strangely hard to resist. However, she made me miserable. It’s no good to say that the dynamic with my wife is consensual and the one with my ex girlfriend was not, because — in a different decade — my girlfriend could have easily dressed up the abuse as BDSM and I would have consented and still been miserable. Conversely, Xena has all the leverage in our relationship and she makes me happy.

Thankfully, the relationship with my wife is quite different from the one I had with the ex girlfriend of my youth. However, what both relationships have in common is a power dynamic unfiltered by negotiations or scripts. Nothing either woman did during those two experiences was role play, nor was it about putting me through any particular curated or transformative experience.

This sort of unfiltered dynamic is common in “born vanilla” dynamics outside the Scene. It’s pretty much the opposite of the equally valid classic “contained” BDSM style described by the Stay Slick and really muddies the waters of not just consent but also free will, not least because we deep submissives want to be pushed down the slippery slope.

Worse, treating a power relationship as real, tends make it functionally real — I’ve written a series on this. Even worse, deep submissive looks awfully like a personality type. The end result is that — in the heat of the moment — we may consent to things that we will subsequently really regret and we may also have a general issue with escaping toxic dynamics.

So, especially in the light of Mastergate, it would be good to have a way of thinking about unfiltered dynamics that helped dominants stay ethical and submissives stay happy.

More hurrah!

Less shit!

What do we do about unfiltered dynamics?

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The easy response is; don’t engage in an unfiltered dynamic.

Unfortunately, that’s not very useful. Vanilla partners with a dominant streak tend not to have much patience with being in charge but not really being in charge but acting as if they’re in charge… Meanwhile, for deep submissives, that kind of hard power exchange is a feature not a bug, and we’re drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

It gets even muddier in a 50 Shades scenario when a dominant is actively seducing a submissive and leading them into deeper, darker places… an adventure that pushes our buttons even though it may be a bad idea.

And yet, if we can’t consent to bad things and bad ideas, then not only can we not do BDSM, but we also don’t have personal agency. Bad enough for malesubs, but horribly retrograde for femsubs — I mean; What else would women need protecting from for their own good?

It’s also not very realistic, because we submissives — of all genders and orientations — will continue to submit. (Go look on Reddit! Sometimes it seems half the world is trying to nudge his/her/their partner to be more dominant.)

A better approach is to stipulate that normal relationship rules apply, and beyond that treat the kink as an the adventure.

Normal rules means that dominants should not exploit real world power differentials and vulnerabilities for any kind of sex, let alone the intense intimacy of kinky sex, and subs should treat them doing so as a red flag no matter how hot.

Much of Mastergate as reported would cross this line even if the sex were entirely vanilla. The kink just makes it worse. Likewise, my mean ex girlfriend was just not a very pleasant romantic partner. She was controlling in capricious ways that disrupted my life, and she wasn’t fun to be around. Xena in contrast leads as much as she controls and wields her authority rationally and mostly fairly. She’s also good company… the R part of our FLR is great, the L is comfortable and sometimes thrilling, and the F is somebody I love deeply.

The slippery slope and the piste

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In the absence of exploitation, unfiltered BDSM is an adventure much like skiing; there’s a thrilling downhill momentum on a slippery slope, but the aim is to stay on piste so as to avoid the hazards on each side.

If you — the dominant — push us too hard or fast and we take a (notional) tumble, then it’s just one of those things — Jesus you broke the skin! Not so hard next time!

However, if you take advantage of our velocity to nudge us off-piste into the rocks and trees, we will object — Oh my god! Ew. Never again. (Throws up.) Likewise, if you give us too hard a shove, since the piste is curved — oh, this is a good metaphor — we again end up in the rocks — RED! RED! WAYYY TOO HARD TOO MUCH.

What defines the piste is the submissive’s self-image, specifically how we see our submissive self. Off-piste kink activities that violate that can cause psychological harm, and also tend to bump the submissive out of the dynamic and destroy trust.

There’s a whole culture of in effect defining the submissive self through checklists and limits. However, I think we all carry around our own archetype.

I am a Stoic slave who serves and suffers whips and chains.

You are a naughty brat who needs to be punished.

And so on.

Staying on the piste

So, we subs consent to the piste, not the off-piste rocks and trees.

Though it’s hard to call it assault when we comply at the time, dominants should never deliberately flip us into those rocks where the psychological damage awaits. Nor should they rush an inexperienced sub who doesn’t know the slope — even if there aren’t negotiated limits, there are limits implicit in the style of BDSM you embark on together; any given piste comes with reasonable expectations.

And submissives, in turn, should also be aware of the contours of our slippery slope so as to avoid being steered off piste. If we have no experience, we should at least think realistically about who we’d like our submissive self to become, where we’d like the adventure to take us.

This is where the “BDSM” of Mastergate seems to go very awry. It’s a big leap from rough sex to… well very very rough sex and some of the gross or injurious activities described. Similarly, I’m my wife’s slave, not the battered boyfriend my ex girlfriend made me. The physical domination turned me on, but it wasn’t who I was.

The piste concept even gives us some rules.

Rules for Unfiltered Power Exchange Dynamics

1. Don’t be a rules lawyer. Breaking the spirit of the rule is worse than breaking the rule. There are no clever workarounds. Rules lawyers are untrustworthy.

2. Don’t be sleazy or predatory. Ethical and local cultural norms for hookups, dating, courtship and relationships still apply to both parties, especially those norms relating to real-world power relationships and appropriate choice of partner.

3. Only consent is consent. There must be an effective way for the submissive to veto activities and revoke consent, not just for any given act, but also for the entire dynamic.

4. Gloat first. A dominant should bring up new activities and step changes in intensity in good time for the submissive to veto them, and never during intense “play”. Negotiation by audition is still negotiation.

5. Don’t predate. A dominant should take care with and certainly not exploit an inexperienced submissive who may be out of their depth.

6. A safe word is not a remote control. A submissive should never use their veto manipulatively.

7. A submissive can facilitate. Sometimes the submissive knows what’s possible and can suggest things the dominant might realistically enjoy.

8. This isn’t RP. A submissive should otherwise treat the power relationship as real within its scope.

These aren’t exhaustive, but they are a good place to start, and maybe you can suggest some better ones?

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For a specific kind of unfiltered dynamic, try my Chaste Manifestio...