“Harder,” I whispered in the dark.
He tried to oblige and picked up the pace a bit.
“Harder!” I asked again. I needed it rough.
With that he stopped mid-thrust and it was game over for the night.
“I can’t treat you like that,” he said with disgust. I felt like a freak.
This was sex with my ex-husband.
Later, I had a relationship with another man, and I got him trained pretty well in the bedroom to do the things I liked, but out of the bedroom he constantly criticized me, complained that I needed to be more assertive and outgoing.
Fast forward through a handful of other brief failed relationships…
These days, I have a wonderful, loving, strong man who can give me a nice hard spanking or tie me up nice and snug. I finally found my dom – someone who can give me what I want in and out of the bedroom.
What is dom and sub?
A dominant person is a leader, likes to be in charge, is the person on top or does the tying. A submissive person is passive, a follower, is often the person being penetrated, and likes to be tied up.
A parallel to the dom/sub dichotomy is extroverted/introverted. For the most part, dom types are extroverts, and the subs are introverted. All you introverts out there know what a relief it is to have an outgoing partner who does well at parties. They take the pressure off of you.
A dom is often a boss, a politician, a lawyer. A sub is often a secretary, a jewelry maker, a massage therapist. But there’s always more than meets the eye! We’ve all heard of the high power businessman who pays a dominatrix to give him a good paddling.
So, dom or sub…which one are you?
Breaking a Pattern
I didn’t realize it, but I was habitually going for the wrong type. I have a thing for sensitive, intellectual academic types, and the men I kept ending up with had submissive personalities.
Turns out they wanted a woman who would lead the way, be in charge, wear the pants. I didn’t have that personality at all. I’m a skirt-wearing wimp. And the fact that I wanted it rough (oh fine – and that I had rape fantasies) made them nervous.
The guy who criticized me – we were one of those annoying bickering couples. And now I know that he resented me putting him in a dom role. It wasn’t comfortable for him.
Look at Your Own Relationship
Take a moment and think about your current relationship. If it’s good, it’s probably because you two match up well – one of you is predominately dom, and the other is predominately sub. If your relationship is tense or otherwise not ideal, it could be that you inadvertently ended up with a person who is the same type as you.
Two doms together are no good. Two subs together are also not good. If you’re matched up with the wrong partner, your sex life will be out of sync. Neither of you will be able to fulfill the other person if you both want to be tied up.
What to do? If you’re already paired up, explore the possibility of one of you switching roles and see how that feels. Some people find pleasure in both the dom and sub roles, depending on their mood.
If you are currently looking for a partner, keep this concept in mind while searching. Look for clues in other people that will indicate if you would be a good match or not. It’ll save you a lot of time and heartache.
Look at Others
Now take a moment to think about other relationships you know. How about your parents – is one of them the dominant type? Are they still together?
Think about the unhappy couples you know. What’s the source of their friction and frustration? What about the happy couples you know? Chances are, they are a good match because one is dom and one is sub.
I have a good rule of thumb for figuring out who wears the pants in a relationship – it’s the person who does most of the driving and whose voice is used as the message for the home answering machine.
But it’s not always so cut and dried. I thought long enough about one content couple I knew and figured out that the woman is a dom type who plays the submissive role.
Meanwhile, her husband is the sub type who is playing the dom role, and for some reason, this works for them. If one of them didn’t assume this role, then the whole thing would be off balance and they would run into problems.
Why do I think I’m such an authority on this? Well, I’m a self-proclaimed slut – I’ve had lots of sexual partners, LOTS of hands on research, and all that experience has given me insight on sexual compatibility in a way that someone who has only had sex with a handful of people can’t know.
I only wish I had this figured out ten years ago.