Or, for fucks sake your coworkers obviously do not need to know that you’re kinky.

Sometimes I binge-read Ask A Manager, an advice blog by, you guessed it, a manager. Alison (author of Ask A Manager and multiple books) gets some weird questions, but I think this is one of the weirdest: my coworker wants us to call her boyfriend her “master” (there’s also a followup post where, shockingly enough, the coworker leaves that job).

To quickly summarize, some asshole with either no boundaries or a thoroughly juvenile interest “freaking the mundanes” decided that it was totally fine and definitely not extremely weird to call her boyfriend “master” at work related social events. Even as a kinky person myself I have no desire to know whether my coworkers are kinky at all and I certainly don’t want to know what side of the slash they’re on. Then because her coworkers clearly weren’t uncomfortable enough, she started demanding that they not call her partner her boyfriend, partner, SO, or any other work-appropriate term for a person’s partner, but only call him her master because doing otherwise was apparently erasing her relationship on the same level as making up a new other gender name for a same gender partner.

First of all, oh my fuck that is not even slightly the same thing you creepy fuck. Not being able to tell people your partner’s actual gender because you’re afraid of getting fired is in no way, shape, or form the same thing as not being able to give people FAR FAR FAR more information than they ever wanted to know about your relationship because it’s fucking creepy. One of the commentors made a very good point about relationship labels like friend, roomate, or partner actually being useful in social settings. You might politely ask how your coworker’s roomate is doing, but you would probably reserve invitations to the company picnic for their romantic partner. Telling coworkers that someone is your slaveboy or sub or master or daddy, on the other hand, is totally irrelevant to them and also TMI dear god far too much information.

I’m honestly really pissed about that because it’s so gross and appropriative. Straight kinky people are not oppressed and it’s profoundly insulting to queer people to pretend that we are. When was the last time you heard of someone getting beaten because they were kinky? Gay bashing still happens, people can still legally be fired for being gay in lots of states, and people are scared right now today that their marriages may not be safe or they may not be able to marry their partner in the future. So no, don’t fucking tell me that experiencing consequences for trying to drag your coworkers into your scene is the same thing as being afraid that you could be barred from your partner’s bedside if they have to go to the hospital.

Not only is giving your coworkers way too much information about your relationship thoroughly inappropriate, but it seriously calls that coworker’s judgement into question. If they think it’s okay to tell coworkers how they like to have sex (whether or not kink is about sex for you, it’s that inappropriate to tell coworkers about), then what else do they think might be reasonable to tell people? You definitely can’t trust them around the public without constant supervision, and if you have to supervise someone that closely you might as well just do their job yourself. Even if they don’t communicate with people outside the company as part of their work, you still get to worry that they’re running around making other employees so uncomfortable that it’s affecting their work. If I worked with that woman I would definitely not talk to her directly if I could possibly avoid it (as it happens, one of the things Ms No Boundaries was unhappy about is that people didn’t talk to her anymore unless they absolutely had to), which really is not ideal when you have to communicate with people in a timely fashion to get your job done. And what if she outright sexually harasses people by, for example, telling her boss to spank her if she makes a mistake?

While I’m at it, I’m also side-eyeing the hell out of Ms No Boundaries’ dom. Does he have no idea how to behave like a grownup in public either? Because if he doesn’t, he certainly shouldn’t be giving anyone orders. Seriously, if buddy doesn’t realize that it’s both inappropriate and terrible for Ms No Boundaries’ career to refer to her boyfriend as her master at a work function and ask her coworkers to call him her master too, I’ve got to wonder if he also has no idea what nerve damage or safewords are. If someone is that lacking in common sense, for fucks sake don’t let them tie you up. And if he doesn’t realize you need people’s consent to involve them in your scene, don’t play with him at all.

I’m sure somebody out there is whining and crying about how if only society weren’t so sexually repressed people could talk about what great sex they had last night and introduce their boyfriend as their master but I just don’t care. Being open about sex is great and all but that doesn’t mean anybody wants to know what their coworkers’ favourite positions are. Topics don’t have to be taboo to be inappropriate for work – just like I don’t want to hear about your sex life, I don’t want to hear the details of the fight you had with your partner last night or how your quest to find just the right anti-depressant is going. You are not the only one who gets to decide how intimate your relationships with your coworkers are, they get a say too. Personally, I don’t want to hear that much about my coworker’s lives – I’m at work to work, not to hold my coworker’s hand through their messy divorce.

tl;dr don’t be a creeper, most people don’t want to know about the intimate details of your relationship.

 

 

I’ve been watching a lot of TED talks lately while lying on the couch and whining about being sick, so in lieu of a real post here’s one of my favourites:

See if you can guess why I like this talk so much 😉

I don’t know what it is but something about kink seems to make people immediately switch off their brains and then unplug them and then lock them in a box and then set the box on fire for good measure. Specifically, some submissive guys seem to not have the slightest fucking idea how to ask their doms if they’re willing to try a certain kind of play without being total douchebags about it and destroying their chances that she will ever be willing to discuss it.

First, a quick reminder: it is absolutely okay to ask for things in a respectful way at a reasonable time. Being submissive does not mean that you’re not allowed to have wants or needs or to leave a relationship because you’re unhappy.

With the understanding that you’re allowed to ask for things, let’s talk about how to do it without irritating the shit out of your wife/girl friend/female partner of some sort. Guys, it is really and truly not that complicated. Kink does not make relationship questions that different. Just imagine that you’re asking for something totally vanilla and it’s obvious what you should do, right?

Seriously, just do a mental find and replace. When you think “I want to try chastity” (just a convenient example that idiots commonly nag their wives about) replace that with  “I want you to come to the pickle festival with me.” You would simply ask if she’d like to come with you at a nice calm time when she wasn’t otherwise busy, right? If she’s running around packing for a trip, don’t bug her! If she had a terrible day, don’t bug her! If she just got some sad news, don’t bug her!

And if she said “No” or “Not now”, or “I’m not sure” or “Maybe later” you would stop fucking nagging her, right? Even if you desperately wanted to go the pickle festival with her? Because no means no, right? And it’s obvious that nagging someone relentlessly will just make them angry with you and guarantee that she will never go to that festival with you, right? And that really really really wanting to go with her is still not a good enough reason to keep fucking nagging?

The mental gymnastics some people go through to convince themselves a no isn’t really a no because it’s not the answer they wanted blow my mind. Even if you don’t respect her, and you clearly don’t if you’re whining at her to try something as if you’re a bratty five year old, it’s pretty fucking obvious that nagging someone makes them *less* likely to do a thing or ever enjoy it, not more. Seriously, are you fucking stupid? If you want to make sure that the idea of pickle festivals is forever tainted in her mind with the stench of your incessant whining, by all means, keep nagging. If, on the other hand, you would like to ever actually go to a pickle festival with her, ask if she minds explaining why she doesn’t want to go to the pickle festival. And again, if she says no, then for fuck’s sake drop the subject fod a good long time. Hint: a good long time is measured in months, not days.

If she explains her reasons, then a) that’s a fucking gift you are not owed (yes, it’s important to be able to discuss things in a relationship and it’s not a great sign if that’s not happening in yours, but you are not owed an explanation) and b) shut the fuck up and listen. No, actually listen. Don’t just wait your turn to start whining again, make sure you understand what she’s actually saying. And then think about her objections. Like, actually think about whether or not there’s any chance she will ever enjoy pickle festivals, don’t just think about how you might be able to talk her into it. If there’s any chance she might actually enjoy going to a pickle festival, then you can talk about compromises.

To be clear, I mean actual compromise, not “she does what I want so I’ll shut up and give her five goddamn minutes of peace.” For example, maybe she only comes to the pickle festival for an hour. Maybe she comes to keep you company but doesn’t eat any pickles. Maybe she shares one sweet pickled beet with you and doesn’t eat any other pickles. Maybe she tries it out with the strict understanding that you leave the minute she says she’s done. Maybe she gives you her blessing to the pickle festival with someone who actually likes pickles.

Do you see where I’m going with this? It’s not that fucking different if you want her to do something to or for your penis. Nagging does not work, do not nag. Technically nagging can be used to coerce someone into grudgingly doing the thing for about five minutes so you’ll shut up about it, but obviously that’s not fun for anyone. And honestly, if you enjoy making your partner miserable you can just fuck off.

The one area I think is a little bit grey is how often it’s okay to bring it up and ask if her feelings have changed. I think a good first step is to straight out ask if it’s okay to bring it up again after a good long time has passed. If she says she never wants to talk about it again, then you respect that and make your decisions about staying in that relationship accordingly. If it’s really important to you, for fuck’s sake say so. That’s information that’s really useful for your partner to have.

As intensely as anything that could possibly be perceived as nagging annoys me, I will grudgingly admit that it’s not realistic to tell people that you can ask for a particular kink once and only once and never bring it up again. People forget things, or mean to read up on them and don’t get around to it, or avoid the subject, or assume it’s not that important because you never brought it up again. Avoiding the subject is definitely a clear “No” if it goes on long enough, but I think it’s fairer to your partner to just tell them no if that’s what you really mean. If you’ve got to crush their dreams, don’t drag it out 😉

Don’t forget, you always have the right to leave a relationship. If you aren’t getting your needs met, leave already. That does lead me to an especially grey part of the grey area, though. While I think you should be clear about your relationship dealbreakers, is there really that much difference between telling someone “come to the pickle festival with me or I’ll leave you?” and “I don’t know if I can stay in a relationship with someone who won’t go to the pickle festival with me?” I mean, the end result is pretty similar, right?

For me personally there’s a difference between being told I have to do something and being told what the consequences are if I don’t and being allowed to make my own choices but I can definitely see the argument that that’s so much semantic hairsplitting. I recommend dodging the whole ultimatum subject altogether and just tell your partner clearly that it’s really, seriously important to you to be able to go to the pickle festival with her. If she doesn’t want to even discuss it when you make it clear how important it is to you, what difference is telling her that you’re going to have to leave if you can’t come to some kind of agreement that at least partially meets you needs going to make?

Okay, that was really long so I’ll summarize it quickly:

• For fuck’s sake think about how you would ask for something totally unrelated to kink
• Ask at a neutral place and time (not during or just before sex!) when she’s in a good mood
• DO NOT NAG DO NOT NAG DO NOT NAG
• Remember that no means no. You don’t have to like it but you do have to respect it.

And that’s how to ask your partner to try a particular kink without being a total douchebag about it.

Another one from the search terms!

Here’s an interesting little tidbit: my very first thought was “you can’t”. Funny how we take men’s interests seriously in a way we just don’t for women. I can’t even tell you how happy I am to see this as a search term – I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve seen this question, where I’ve seen “how do I make my wife act out my desires like a puppet?” about a zillion fucking times.

The biggest difference is that I think it would be easier for a woman to ask her male partner to try femdom than the other way around. Asking someone to participate in a scene where you’re probably going to be telling them what to do anyway is much less scary for them than asking them to run a scene when they don’t know what they’re doing. To make a terribly nerdy analogy, it’s like asking someone to come play a roleplaying game with you versus asking them to be the dungeon master and run the game. One of these things is just less intimidating than the other.

I think the stereotype that men will do anything to get sex would be a bit of a wash in this case. Sure, many vanilla men’s idea of femdom is “having sex with a woman in a sexy leather outfit but with her on top” and that’s not exactly a hard sell, but let’s not forget there’s a reason so many submissive men have a terrible time accepting themselves. Letting someone else take charge is pretty fucking scary when you’ve had it beaten into you since birth that you’re not a man if you submit to anyone, especially a woman. Given the trouble so many women have getting even self-described submissive men to actually give up control, I feel pretty safe assuming it’s just as hard to get a vanilla man to submit as it is to get a vanilla woman to dominate.

All that said, if you’ve already read my post about how to introduce your partner to femdom, the rest of this post is going to be suspiciously familiar 🙂

Before you try to get someone else interested in femdom, you need to know what exactly you’re asking for. Do you want to keep it in the bedroom? Do you want to have some control of some things outside of the bedroom? Do you eventually want total control of everything? (spoiler: that one’s going to be a tough sell).

Even if you just want to have a little kinky sex now and then, you still need to be able to explain, in regular words, not kink jargon, exactly what you’re asking for. Are you interested in bondage? Impact play? Strictly interested in sensual play with no pain? Giving orders? Mind games? Humiliation? Chastity? Pet play? Even when both people are already kinky and theoretically already know all the jargon, there are still tons of opportunities for misunderstandings. It’s only going to be harder to explain yourself to someone who doesn’t have any idea what the difference between submitting and bottoming is, so for fucks sake use normal words. Making someone learn a whole glossary is not the way to sell them on kink 🙂

You’ve also got to be able to explain what’s in this for him. This is one of my biggest pet peeves with all the shitty advice submissive men get about trying to get their wives into femdom, practically none of it has a goddamn word to say about what could possibly be fun about dominating someone. It’s totally fine if one of the reasons submitting to you could possibly be fun for your partner is because it really turns you on and he likes turning you on, you’ve just got to have something to say about why he would ever want to do this.

Also, you’ve got to be prepared to compromise. Actually, what you really need to do first is accept that your husband may never be willing to even try doing anything kinky with you and that even if he does try, he might hate it and never want to do it again. What you should do about it if you need kink in your life and your husband isn’t interested in kink at all is a question I can’t answer for you, but I can say with certainty that you’ve got to be able to accept a no and not nag your husband relentlessly. Not only is that a dick move, it’s just not going to work so don’t waste your time.

But even if your husband does get into kink, there’s no guarantee he’ll like all the same things you do. If you’re lucky he’ll be willing to do things he’s not wild about occasionally to make you happy, but that’s not something you should count on. I recommend finding things that both of you actually like, if only because the more he likes kink, the more willing he’ll be to keep doing kinky things with you. I don’t know how that idea escapes so many submissive men but there’s a pretty clear precedent for kinky people just not getting that you have to make it fun for the vanilla person you’re trying to convert if you want them ever to show the slightest interest in kink.

And finally, you want to present this as a fun thing that might be fun to do together, not as some terrible personality flaw of yours. People take their cues from the people around them – if you act like being kinky is terrible, they’ll think it’s terrible. I’m not saying it’s not scary to tell your partner something so important about you, but it’ll go a lot better if you’ve accepted yourself as a perv and know that it’s pretty normal and definitely not a horrible secret.

Readers, do you have any advice for a dominant woman trying to get her husband into femdom?