Repeatedly treating my stated boundaries as an opening point for negotiations. Emotional manipulation. Lies. Frequent demands of my time and energy claiming it was an emergency and harm would come to her without assistance. Making every hard no an opportunity to beat herself up and every soft no a drawn out negotiation.
The fact is she’s very good at all that and I wasn’t the last person in the community to be victimized by her (I was one of the first, and I was very open about it afterwards).
I accept that I didn’t maintain my boundaries nearly as well as I should have, it’s something I’ve always struggled with, and I have a hard time saying no to a person requesting help from me. I still have occasional nightmares of running into her. I still feel ridiculous being victimized like that.
I think it’s better to frame it as the submissive role attracts a certain type of insecure person, some of whom are well into the personality disorder or abusive range, and whose abusive tendencies can be less easy to see.
There are dominant equivalents, but it’s very much the narcissism to the submissive borderline. Those dominants refuse to take no for an answer and punish it not through fear of hurting them or of being seen as the villain, but instead with fear of being a bad sub or fear of disappointing them. Both make you fear their anger.
And the other big difference is the community has long been talking about abusive dominants, whereas we’re still in the process of starting the conversation about abusive submissives. Partly due to preconceived bias, but also partly due to severity of damage. Abusive subs are more likely to only really traumatize you, while abusive doms can enter into grievous bodily harm. It’s also that dominant style abuse is more visible at events. We’re starting to see consent conversions and warnings about abusive partners specifically talk about this though.
punish … instead with fear of being a bad sub or fear of disappointing them.
Just to clarify, that’s abusive doms?
Whereas abusive subs are the ones who influence their doms with
fear of hurting them or of being seen as the villain, ?
If you don’t mind the question, why would a dom fear the anger of a sub? isn’t there always suppressed anger if the sub is forced to act against their will? If they want everything they have to do I would call that caring and animating but not dominating.
Sorry, I used punishment in the meaning it takes when discussing abuse. Kinky punishment is consensual, including the ability to stop it at any time and to go back to just acting as equals. Kink as a whole is a form of play. Punishment in the abusive context is something either party can do, and in this specific context is referring to anything to make the other party less likely to say no the next time.
It can be something like self harming, or a long drawn out negotiation of the boundaries you tried to set or enforce. The woman who abused me routinely would talk about her history of suicidality and mental health crises, and also whenever I tried to get her to not pursue me she explicitly said she was unwilling to do so. And for the fear of being a bad sub an example might be the sub saying that anal is off limits for them, then the dom may respond with something like “I thought you were submissive, what kind of sub doesn’t even do anal”. With enough challenges to boundaries such as that they may stop voicing them or preemptively weakening them.
There isn’t suppressed anger because you set up what you’re ok with and what you want in advance. It’s ultimately play where either party can stop it at any time. Do I necessarily want to do each thing my domme says? No, but I do want to do whatever she says, and I trust her to take my needs into account and to listen when I voice issues. A D/s dynamic with suppressed anger in it is not a healthy one.
Repeatedly treating my stated boundaries as an opening point for negotiations. Emotional manipulation. Lies. Frequent demands of my time and energy claiming it was an emergency and harm would come to her without assistance. Making every hard no an opportunity to beat herself up and every soft no a drawn out negotiation.
The fact is she’s very good at all that and I wasn’t the last person in the community to be victimized by her (I was one of the first, and I was very open about it afterwards).
I accept that I didn’t maintain my boundaries nearly as well as I should have, it’s something I’ve always struggled with, and I have a hard time saying no to a person requesting help from me. I still have occasional nightmares of running into her. I still feel ridiculous being victimized like that.
Thanks for sharing. Sounds like the submissive role had a twist. I think there is no shame in feeling compelled to help.
I think it’s better to frame it as the submissive role attracts a certain type of insecure person, some of whom are well into the personality disorder or abusive range, and whose abusive tendencies can be less easy to see.
There are dominant equivalents, but it’s very much the narcissism to the submissive borderline. Those dominants refuse to take no for an answer and punish it not through fear of hurting them or of being seen as the villain, but instead with fear of being a bad sub or fear of disappointing them. Both make you fear their anger.
And the other big difference is the community has long been talking about abusive dominants, whereas we’re still in the process of starting the conversation about abusive submissives. Partly due to preconceived bias, but also partly due to severity of damage. Abusive subs are more likely to only really traumatize you, while abusive doms can enter into grievous bodily harm. It’s also that dominant style abuse is more visible at events. We’re starting to see consent conversions and warnings about abusive partners specifically talk about this though.
Just to clarify, that’s abusive doms?
Whereas abusive subs are the ones who influence their doms with
If you don’t mind the question, why would a dom fear the anger of a sub? isn’t there always suppressed anger if the sub is forced to act against their will? If they want everything they have to do I would call that caring and animating but not dominating.
Sorry, I used punishment in the meaning it takes when discussing abuse. Kinky punishment is consensual, including the ability to stop it at any time and to go back to just acting as equals. Kink as a whole is a form of play. Punishment in the abusive context is something either party can do, and in this specific context is referring to anything to make the other party less likely to say no the next time.
It can be something like self harming, or a long drawn out negotiation of the boundaries you tried to set or enforce. The woman who abused me routinely would talk about her history of suicidality and mental health crises, and also whenever I tried to get her to not pursue me she explicitly said she was unwilling to do so. And for the fear of being a bad sub an example might be the sub saying that anal is off limits for them, then the dom may respond with something like “I thought you were submissive, what kind of sub doesn’t even do anal”. With enough challenges to boundaries such as that they may stop voicing them or preemptively weakening them.
There isn’t suppressed anger because you set up what you’re ok with and what you want in advance. It’s ultimately play where either party can stop it at any time. Do I necessarily want to do each thing my domme says? No, but I do want to do whatever she says, and I trust her to take my needs into account and to listen when I voice issues. A D/s dynamic with suppressed anger in it is not a healthy one.