There is no quick and easy way to arrive at mutual trust. Trust like respect cannot be demanded, it cannot be forced, it must be earned. It’s probably apparent to most people who’ve ever experienced BDSM, or even those considering playing for the first time that trust, domination and submission are inextricably linked. One must trust in order to submit, and one must also trust oneself and the submissive in order to dominate.
Most people understand that trust is an essential aspect of BDSM, but it seems to me that too few people understand that trust is built or undermined from the first contact, from the first email, or phone call onwards. How you present yourself, how you behave, the impression you make matters to your Mistress, just as it does in a job interview. Mistresses are very experienced at reading peoples behaviour, at analysing their choice of words and filtering out people who are going to be annoying or just not up to the mark. What that standard is will vary from Mistress to Mistress because we are all individuals with different backgrounds, interests and preferences, but I think it’s fair to say that universally if you don’t make a good impression with your Mistress it’s unlikely you’ll get a second chance, and you are most definitely the one missing out.
It seems to me that subs sometimes don’t realise that they themselves have to take responsibility for the process of arriving at trust with their Mistress and not regard themselves as passive or without agency in building a positive relationship. This is largely about understanding that you are an adult who is responsible for making your own way in the world and behaving accordingly. If you are able to give consent then you are presumably able to take responsibility for yourself. You should understand that generally there are established ways to show respect in writing and in person and that these are important to establishing trust. You should ask yourself why would any beautiful powerful woman be interested in being in the presence of someone who can not take responsibility for themselves, who does not have manners, who is not polite, and who appears to be socially ignorant. Your Mistress is not your mother, social worker, therapist or your girlfirend and being put in the role of teaching boys and girls the basics of how to behave is to be honest a serious turn off. There can be no reciprocation or exchange, no erotic D/S dynamic when an applicant is so clearly immature and needy in terms of basic socialisation.
When interacting with a Mistress you should remember you are just one of many people who want her time and attention and you must distinguish yourself from the rest in order for her to look upon your application to serve her favourably. If a submissive is unclear, erratic, unruly and fails to listen and learn, fails to adhere to what the Mistress wants and needs she will simply become bored and/or frustrated and cut communications. Mistresses get fed up with being part of someone else’s unacknowledged learning curve.
Its so much more interesting to meet a socially well adjusted capable person who is specifically asking you to accept their submission, worship and service, than to be subjected to someone selfishly and unconsciously playing out their inadequacies. Please don’t, misunderstand what I’m saying, its fine to be a novice, to not know things and to need help, but you should a least acknowledge that you are asking to be taught, you are asking for your Mistress not only to teach you about BDSM but to do emotional work to develop you. Do not be foolish enough to think you’re entitled to that time and energy, make it your business to show that you value your education, be grateful, be loyal and do your best to make her proud.
For a Mistress the emotional landscape surrounding kink is as important to building trust and a strong D/S dynamic as the play is. In reality this is also true for the submissive but they may not know it. Trust is definitely a two way street and subs should bear it in mind that Pro Dommes are used to lots of interactions with selfish fetishists and fantasists who promise the earth and deliver nothing but confusion, chaos and disappointment and obviously this makes them weary. Don’t be surprised if you have to earn your place by your Mistresses side and work for her trust. She knows, based on years of experience that you will not value what she gives you in terms of intimacy, attention and care unless you have worked for it.
Many subs live their lives in quiet desperation and repression trying to deny their sexuality only letting it out occasionally, possibly when drunk and when their arousal is the driving force behind the decision. They fail to take responsibility for themselves and their needs. This is simply not the best way to live your life and not a good space to approach a Dominatrix from and it is often the primary mistake that leads to an unfulfilling experience, and sadly to a loss of trust or faith in it being possible to have a good experience. The first faltering steps taken without clarity can set an aspiring sub on the wrong path.
By approaching a Mistress without due care, without expressing respect, by not taking heed of how she wishes to be addressed, by not writing to her in a clear and concise way, by not being clear about what you’re requesting you will most likely ruin your chances of ever establishing a good dialogue with her. You have undermined her ability to trust you from the off. If as a sub you recognize this behaviour you should ask yourself if your own self -doubt or low self-esteem has played a role in leading you to sabotage yourself rather than actually risk rejection.
In all areas of your life you can reach for a quick cheap temporary fix, make a decision whilst desperate, or take time and consider your options, make an informed decision and then invest in a sensible longer-term solution. It all depends on how seriously you want the real thing, how able you are to acknowledge your own needs, and how able to not shoot yourself in the foot you are. Subs who would like to find a Mistress to have quality experiences with, who have the sense to want to develop a connection and an emotional context for their kink to sit within need to understand that they should approach the situation in a grounded way. They should do research as necessary groundwork, just as they would if they were looking for any other expensive professional or luxury service. A Mistress will respond far more favourably to someone who knows why they specifically want to serve her over another Mistress. Lets face it we all like to feel special. Being a slut sniffing around multiple Mistresses is another way in which you will undermine a Dommes ability to trust you and value you. No Mistress wants another Dommes cast off, a sub who has proven they don’t hang around, that they can’t behave or be trusted, and that they don’t bond with their Mistress. Being a slut means that you just want kink without any commitment, without submission. Mistresses’ talk, and all of your crimes, lies and failings will be widely reported and generally known. Us ladies stick together because we would be foolish not to. All subs should consider that they need to have a good reputation and that they may require references to serve, session or film. How they behave over time will affect how they are received. As I said you earn trust with your Mistress and through her on the wider FemDom scene.
Trust for a Mistress is linked to her ability to see that you understand women as people, not as objects upon which you project your desires. Whilst there is no doubt that beauty is part of attraction and part of what drives a power exchange, please try to look through less of a horribly predictable, limiting, most likely misogynist, ageist, racist vanilla lens. We are after all supposed to be perverts who enjoy power exchange, not simply what society tells us is conventionally beautiful, so let us diversify the notion of beauty and attraction. Attraction is about so much more than visual consumption. A dominant woman’s power should be like a beacon to a submissive, she is the flame that draws the moth ever closer, and a flame burns from within, it is a release of energy, it is dynamic not merely an appearance. Dominance is a rich vein that runs through the middle of a Mistresses soul like a volatile fault line charged with volcanic transformative potential, its an energetic immensity within which you will want to be lost, a dangerous rich continent full of mysteries you could never fully explore or map, its a power that speaks of life and death and emanates from within her being, its also the stillness of the nurturing earth and a safe port in a storm. When considering a Mistress a sub should not only consider beauty, they should ask themselves practical mundane questions about location, interests and tributes, but also most importantly they should ask themselves if her mind and her soul speak to theirs and if she inspires them, if her energy and power overwhelms them and if she moves them? If they don’t know they should seek to meet her, request an audience and be prepared to wait for a reply and to pay for her time. They need to understand that every step along the way will inform the outcome. Every step must be executed correctly with attention and care if this exquisite force of nature, this Goddess is to accept an invitation to dance with a mere mortal.
Subs need to respect themselves enough to invest time in the first stages and to understand and appreciate what makes their chosen Mistress special and worth serving, and how important their conduct is to establishing trust with her, and then approach informed and willing to invest time, money, resources, and energy in developing a D/S relationship. My advice to subs making an approach is to always be as polite, honest and clear in yourself as you can about what you want, your experience, your interests and limits, your health and what you can offer, to be courteous and concise in your communications, and consistent in your actions, and be obedient and patiently wait for a reply. It’s a question of booking as instructed and allowing a rapport to naturally develop over numerous meetings. Reliability, obedience, helpfulness, trustworthiness and honesty are key qualities that will quickly endear you to your Mistress and encourage her to invest more energy in training you, shaping you, in drawing you closer to her. If she knows that you are committed to her in real tangible material and emotional ways this will hugely enhance your connection, grow the trust between you and so enrich your play together. The most complex and intense D/S relationships are built on essentially simple but firm foundations of shared expectations, boundaries, and communication and mutual respect.
Trust is established by a sub essentially being submissive, by being easy to deal with, by being reliable, by being obedient, by consistently serving, and by expressing care. Similarly a Mistress must be clear, consistent and provide boundaries, a framework and enforce the rules, she must also be skilled and caring and take responsibility for her submissives’ wellbeing and importantly she must enjoy this taking of control and responsibility. Reasons to trust can sometimes be easily physically quantifiable for a submissive, in that there are things such as cleanliness and hygiene, knowledge, skill and experience that should encourage you to trust a Mistress. But there are also more abstract psychological and emotional factors to consider and that relate to how you are treated. As a sub you should feel that you are heard, that you are physically, psychologically and emotionally safe and that your Mistress cares about your welfare, and that however hard you play you know that that play is coming from a fun place, an erotic place or a loving place, and that as edgy as it gets it is never actually abusive. No sub should ever feel unable to express fear or concern and a Domme should respond constructively to that concern.
A skilled perceptive Dominatrix builds on her subs previous good experiences and creates new positive experiences that teach and develop her sub so that they can steadily grow, build stamina, confidence, and experience and learn exactly how to please her. An experienced Mistress will often sense an approaching limit without any need for verbalisation from the submissive just from their breathing, perspiration, posture, little sounds of pleasure and pain, and from their gaze and slow down as she approaches that limit. She must use her skill and sensitivity to judge this grey area, but again the sub has to trust and submit to allow the Domme to teach them, to stretch them and to challenge them. This kind of tacit communication and trust can only be built over time.
Time is necessary to building trust and paying for that time is part of the necessary commitment a sub must make to their Mistress and to their own process. It’s also essential to the development of trust that the submissive knows that all their work, their sacrifice, their submission and suffering pleases and arouses their Mistress, and that it really matters to her that they’ve done as she bid them to do. Punishment is the other side of praise and both should be fourth coming to promote a powerful erotic D/S dynamic that the sub has faith in. Both praise and discipline will make a submissive feel valued, understood, loved and safe because punishment as the manifestation of discipline is preferable to the specter of disappointment and rejection and represents an aspect of Dominas care and love for her sub. It should be understood that submission is a beautiful precious gift and domination is a response to and meeting of that gift, it’s a reciprocation. A Mistress and sub should balance and reassure one another and be bathed in the lovely warmth of mutual regard and shared erotic pleasure. This is the emotional reality of BDSM that sadly is not discussed or understood widely enough and therefore not aspired to often enough. This warmth and intimacy is dependent on mutual trust.
New, inexperienced subs and those who are left untrained because they foolishly do not commit to serving a Mistress are often unaware of what they are missing out on. They remain unsure of how to express their wishes, anxieties, needs or limits to those they play with because of a lack of an emotional context for their kink, and so a lack of trust. They may not have the kink and/or emotional/life experience to understand this, or even to know what their likes, dislikes or limits really are. They may be afraid of things, which in reality if they were gradually and carefully introduced to they would be fine with. They may over rate their experience. They may be used to not really surrendering control and topping from the bottom and not even know that this is what they’ve been doing. All of their previous experience may have been with a top, not a Dominant, and it may have been easier for that top to take their money than to train them because they do not care enough about, or understand enough about FemDom themselves. Others may simply find it harder to trust than others do. Or they may not actually be submissive, they might be a masochist or a fetishist, but not know themselves well enough to be clear about it. Through longer term interaction with an experienced Mistress all of these things can be identified and discussed and the person will learn much more about themselves whether they remain in her service or not.
To trust is not easy. We’ve all been hurt, we’ve all been let down, and too many people have been abused. It takes strength, courage and love to truly submit. To have the faith in your body mind and spirit to give yourself into another’s care is a very brave, or possibly foolish thing to do. I can’t stress the importance to new subs of doing research and finding the right Mistress. As a minimum do the work to find someone with a good reputation and skills that you can trust to at least physically take care of you. Look beyond her surface beauty and find a Mistress who you also really connect with as a person and be loyal to her. Don’t slut yourself about, it’s unattractive and also a way to avoid the emotional closeness required to really learn and grow as a sub. An experienced caring Mistress may well nurture and challenge her submissive or slave in order to train and shape them so that their limits and tolerances change over time, but she will not harm them. This is her skill. She will always listen carefully and watch for signs that she needs to ease off, or escalate, offer encouragement or humiliate, deride or comfort her toy to move them forwards. Ultimately play can only happen if the Submissive is willing and gives consent. In this sense they retain the power of veto, but many would never want to use it. A dedicated experienced submissive will try to go as far as their Mistress wants them to. This kind of play is only possible for experienced kinksters and requires a deep connection and commitment on sides as well as a careful weighing of and management of the potential consequences.
Over time an incredibly strong emotional bond is formed between a Domme and her submissive, where the submission and domination are given as expressions of care, and in some cases love. This bonding process is also one of the internalisation of the rules or expectations the Mistress clearly lays out for the sub or slave so that she can train them to please her and serve her without needing her constant instruction. These rules and tasks become second nature to the submissive. This clarity about what is expected on an ongoing basis gives both mistress and slave emotional and psychological peace and happiness. The transformation of sexual attraction and emotional intimacy to submission and servitude is a Dommes true art and this process is central to how she draws her sub close to her and creates the context for mutual trust to flourish. Trust is required as the starting point on a never ending journey of mutual enjoyment, learning, fun, passion, spontaneity and experimentation. A submissive will love their Mistress for giving them structure, direction, focus and for feeling her control everyday and a Mistress may well love her submissive, or slave for giving her their precious trust, for their submission, for their service, for loving and needing her control and for being moulded by her, for giving themselves to her with few reservations. I know I do. But remember you will never even begin this journey unless you understand that everything you do from the first moment of contact with your Mistress onwards will build or undermine her trust in you. She holds the power to transform you and open a new sexual, emotional and psychological reality to you but you must trust in her and this process and willingly submit at every stage for her to work her magic.
Lakshminarayanan
Goddess your awesome
melody
Finally got around to reading this properly.
It’s a great perspective on trust from someone who deals in it daily with different people. I suspect that the general submissive reader will easily recognise the aspects of learning to trust the domme and there’s some great tips here for how a sub can start that process off in their initial approach and demeanour.
What may have passed some by is your discussion on the domme trusting the sub. You’re right in that it’s very easy for a sub to assume a passive stance, that the domme can somehow work it out for herself. How can a domme trust someone who can’t provide proper feedback ?
A domme’s skills in reading body language are extraordinary, but for a domme to know the whole picture with a sub there’s a lot more communication necessary and it’s the sub’s responsibility. I was initially amazed at my domme’s ability to read my body language and know within a stroke of the cane when I’d had enough. With the proper communication added to the mix, the mutual trust in abilities sees my limits extended beyond belief. I also realised that because she takes me so much further than my previous experiences that the onus is on me to ensure my own safety with proper communication to maintain the trust.
It’s a long article and understandably stays on topic.
What I’d be interested in is your views of trust on your speciality of hypnosis. I’ve had the aspect of hypnosis with my domme for several years and I regularly think on the requirements for trust. Pushing boundaries with hypnosis does not have the body language aspects to indicate stress and limits. It may even take time to realise that limits have been broken, by which time it’s too late.
I think that it was particularly this aspect that made me realise just how much she has to trust me to be fully open and honest. The duty of care is paramount in both directions and is a level of trust I’d not experienced before. It dwarfs the trust required to submit to a CP session and becomes a very intense bond.
Bit of a long comment, but I find the concepts of trust and faith in D/s fascinating.
I do hope your recovery is going well and you’ll be back soon.
melody x
Mistress Clarissa
Dear Melody
Thank you for your response and for your well wishing. I’m making a good recovery.
I felt moved to write about trust largely because of the issue you’ve picked up on, which is the Mistress needing to trust the submissive to communicate and to be honest in order to progress. In order to go deeper into the dynamic.
It’s true many Dommes are amazingly perceptive, reading micro movements, unspoken truths, and intuiting how to play things. They are expert manipulators, seducers, facilitators, mentors, confessors, initiators and healers. But this can only take things so far. The submissive can not remain like clay, an utterly innate material to be moulded. Too often the submissive withholds the truth about their fears or concerns or difficulties as a limit is approached and then panics. They fear failure and rejection or irreversible transformation, or simply how powerful their Mistress truly is. They’re so aroused when in their Goddesses presence, whilst bound in a body bag and listening to her whispering in their ear that their anxiety becomes secondary, and they feel that they would do anything she told them to, but then that anxiety, that fear returns as their ego reasserts itself in the cold light of day. This is why trust over arousal is essential to continuing the journey.
The panicky sub perhaps doesn’t trust the Domme to hear what they will say and so instead they explode the dynamic by doing something crazy like hack sawing their chastity device off or just running away suddenly, shutting down their email address and chucking their kinky mobile in the Thames. This is often little to do with their Mistress and much more to do with their own history and lack of maturity as a person and pervert. They only think about themselves in that moment, they don’t consider their emotional rejection of the Mistress, who after all has only sought to do her job to the best of her abilities. It’s simply very selfish of them to be so dishonest and emotionally withholding with someone doing their best to control and care for them.
I think sometimes clients think that paying for someone’s time and skills excuses them of normal emotional, social requirements and niceties. It doesn’t, and whilst it’s frustrating for their Mistress as their teacher, it’s really themselves they are cheating of the opportunity to grow and develop, because she already understands the terrain and the factors at play.
To voice your fears, desires and needs is one of the most intimate acts. To voice your fears to someone who has so much power in your psyche, and over your body, and who you are maybe a little overwhelmed by is daunting. But the risk is insignificant compared to the reward of being heard and understood and appreciated for being honest. Any experienced Mistress recognises a genuine attempt to talk about and renegotiate limits as old limits fade into the distance as a very positive development. Moving through this moment of disclosure is a necessary and a very bonding experience for both parties. The Mistress feels appreciated and recognises that the submissive is doing the work inside themselves to open the way for deeper trust and further exploration. It’s an invitation for her to draw closer.
A discussion of Hypnosis specifically in relation to trust really highlights the importance of honesty and transparency. I think listening to files is different than the experience of hypnosis as part of an ongoing D/S relationship. A sub can listen to a file and never visit it again and it’s affects will fade in time. If they listen to it on loop 24/7 for six months it will be embedded in their mind but it remains a little further away than the reality of experiencing the consequences of that file in person with her. It’s complex, many things that excite a hypno toy may also be utterly impractical and unsustainable in every day life, and yet that difficulty, humiliation and sense of being triggered, compromised and controlled is exactly the drug that they crave and the thing that makes them scared. They may also be a fetishist as opposed to submissive in which case they will struggle to give the Domme what she needs from them to invest in them. An actual relationship with the Hypno Domme can give someone the courage to go further, passed what they thought their hypnotic limits were. The Mistresses voice and actions will become so comforting and compelling, so affective at relaxing and dropping the subject quickly, that deeper trance and deeper submission become easier and easier. It becomes easier for the subject to trust and to consent because the feeling of relaxation pleasure and intimacy in response to the Dommes presence, movements, and voice is greater and greater. The Mistress needs to bear this in mind, she needs to consider that it’s now very hard for the submissive to put up any barriers and she must err on the side of caution rather than risk breaching trust.
As you say the duty of care in both directions is paramount. Subs should also bear in mind that even the most diligent mistresses are also only human. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Once trust and a deeper connection is established I think a degree of elasticity and generosity is required on both sides of what becomes an experimental pact. At times the lines may shift. Sometimes we need to play harder and sometimes softer. Mistress and sub must remain open and sensitive to each other at all times, and due to the nature of hypnosis this should involve conversations outside of sessions. Discussing the experience can help both parties to process what happened and to reinforce a sense of mutual enjoyment as well as offer ways forward.
Trust and faith in ourselves and each other are really essential aspects of what drives us to Dominate and submit.
It’s a pleasure to share these thoughts with you.
melody
What a wonderfully detailed reply. Thank you.
A sub’s fears and doubts can run very deep and the urge to shutdown and run can be very strong. Quite similar to many cross dressers I used to know who had regular purges.
Only once was I a gnat’s whisker from shutting down and running away. Only some time later did I discover how deliberate her actions were at that time, they broke me out of having largely online values to start the reality of one to one D/s. A sub has to discover that he has just enough strength to keep going despite all the fears and doubts. She gave me that, though I didn’t know or appreciate it at the time. Although it’s an internal strength, it is reliant on the trust developing with the domme. I’m not sure it gets easier with time, just different.
I do think on arousal as a very powerful lever. Undoubtedly, my first experience, as used above, was to become a chastity sub. You know the stages of chastity better than most, in early stages it’s a T&D game where arousal is everything to the sub. It’s all about him and does he have the fortitude to keep hearing “No”. Having been involved many years ago with helping that Mistress administer chastity courses, I know how high the failure rate due to tantrum can be. The hacksaw is not a myth 🤣 (Actually, I used one myself once. Not frustration and running away, instead the lock had been in place so long that it had seized – as discovered when the key broke inside it.)
A domme’s skill and reward is in helping a sub start to go beyond that egocentric thinking. I am indebted to that former Mistress for the years in D/s together and learning trust in two-way communication.
On a personal note, our relationship became one of permanent chastity and by the time the D/s relationship had to end, I had no arousal triggers. Which leads me to your great discussion on hypnosis.
As far as I can tell, encouraging arousal with hypnosis, especially MP3’s, is the major hook. Training the subject to triggers and responses is easier if they are rewarded with arousal and associate new behaviour with being aroused.
Since I largely filter that out it’s meant that the exploration with my domme is one that concentrates more specifically on D/s. It’s generated a lot of thought and discussion by both of us. Whilst there’s no easy fall back to arousal triggers, it has all the elements you list regarding lowering of barriers, intimacy and very deep trust.
Caution has indeed been a mutual concern. These day I have strong session amnesia, which is another indication of deep trust. My internal perception is that under hypnosis the conscious mind is shunted to one side whilst she strokes the subconscious. What we have learned is that if my subconscious decides a suggestion is wrong, it leaves a marker in the conscious. On coming out of hypnosis the fact there’s a flag in the conscious means we need to discuss it.
I must admit to loving this aspect of her trust in me and how it’s grown over time. She’s even tested this mechanism by trying suggestions she knows I should reject.
Apologies for yet another long reply, it’s the fact that you posted on something that I find fascinating as I explore how deep I can possibly go in D/s. And so long as there is full mutual trust I/m not sure there is an end point. For me this is all the more fascinating because the gonads don’t intrude on the emotions or motivations 😜
regards,
melody xx
Mistress Clarissa
Thank you for your thoughts.
I’ve had a lot of dealings with subs exploring cross dressing, feminisation, slut training and they do seem particularly prone to panic, purging and running. I think that a lack of a more grounded emotional context for their kink was the common factor.
How funny that you too have had the hacksaw experience 😂
Part of how we arrive at trust is to take a risk, to arrive in new territory and negotiate it together and have a positive experience as a result. Chastity is a great example of this. It’s often not sexual frustration that breaks a subs resolve, its being flooded with lots of emotions which having regular orgasms help to mediate, including fear of failure. Many subs don’t understand just how much they will need communication and emotional intimacy with their Mistress once orgasms are taken away. And to be fair not all Dommes appreciate this either. This emotional shift within subs often scares them, because men are conditioned not to express vulnerability, but actually it’s a necessary and normal part of submission and it’s what they need to do to make it through their hacksaw moment.
This experience of vulnerability very much relates to what you’re describing in terms of the removal of arousal and it’s replacement with a deep desire to be submissive and to serve. Over time with a genuinely submissive person the desire to help and support and please can replace lust or desire as a driver. Submission beyond arousal is a much purer expression of submission and devotion that comes from the heart and mind rather than the groin.
Hypnosis is interesting in relation to these psychological challenges and transitions because they can be directly addressed whilst the subject is in trance. A Dominatrix can for example encourage her toy to stay soft, to be impotent no matter how aroused they are, and to understand that all of their pleasure comes from being chaste, from being submissive, from serving, from being caring and considerate, and pleasing. All their desire can be refocused. Although this also inversely speaks to arousal, over time the subs behaviour and sexuality is changed possibly primarily because it’s a relief rather than an additional pressure.
As you say this process of modification flows seamlessly until a limit of some kind is reached, often because something described is simply impossible, off limits, or at odds with others needs, or in the worst case possibly unethical, in which case the subs mind would simply reject the problematic aspect. It would automatically detect it as an anomaly and reject it and they would need to resolve it before moving forwards, which is exactly the process you have described.
It is as you say fascinating and a journey without a specified end point, and it’s interesting to compare notes from our different perspectives.
MC
melody
Thank you for such and in depth discussion. I really do appreciate the time and thought you’ve given to it.
Now you’re back to work I’ll leave it here 😊
melody xx