Domination and Submission Woes
Dr. Dick Gives Advice to a Friend of a Dominatrix
Dear Dr. Dick,
My best friend, someone I truly love, has been really getting into S&M lately. Some weeks ago, she told me she now has a full-time slave. She says it’s a lifestyle thing, but I still don’t get it. The problem I have is that this isn’t a private thing between her and this guy. She parades it around and treats him like a slave 24 hours a day. I find this really disturbing and it’s like she does this just to annoy me. My husband and I are complete equals in every way. I can’t get comfortable watching my friend humiliate and degrade someone like this. My friend says I should just quit being so uptight. Is this really just a question of me being closed-minded? Or is there something radically wrong with someone wanting to humiliate and degrade someone else?
- Laurel, 42, San Francisco
Laurel,
How did your best friend’s lifestyle choices, whatever they might be, suddenly become all about you? If you really cared for this person as much as you say you do, or better yet, as much as you care for yourself and your delicate sensitivities, you’d try to look beyond your superficial appreciation of what’s going on with your friend and her slave.
You say your problem with your friend is that she doesn’t keep her perversion private; rather she and her man slave “parade around” 24hr a day. What, you’d prefer she be a dilettante kinkster? Hell, I give her credit for taking this thing seriously. So many others compartmentalize their lives — this is me for my family and friends — this is me for playmates — and this over here is my secret me.
As to your friend, I doubt that she gives a flying fuck if her public antics annoy you. In fact, that may very well be why she does it. Let’s try and look at this as dispassionately as possible. Your friend, by being so public with her kink, has entered the realm of political and sexual theater. That is not in any way meant to diminish her commitment to her lifestyle. On the contrary, only someone who is totally into this would have the fortitude to constantly poke a finger in the eye of polite society. She has a message for you and us. And I suspect that it has something to do with the unfortunate sex-role stereotyping and stultifying gender conventions that plague our buttoned down society. But best you get that directly from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
I have no way of knowing why your friend does what she does, but she belongs to a very long and venerable tradition of flying in the face of the popular culture. Sure she risks being cut off by you and ostracized by others. And that has to hurt on some level even for those way out on the fringe. Like all political theatrics she draws you into her world, albeit as an unwilling participant. Humiliating her slave in front of squeamish folks, like you, who don’t share her kink is asking for more than tolerance that’s for sure. One could make the case that her behavior is foolhardy and counterproductive. What’s for certain is she’s walking a fine line between performance art and alienation. In the end, Laurel, you may find that it is you who will need to set the boundaries.
And I don’t think this is simply a question of you being too up tight. But I fear that you are using a conventional mindset to try and decipher these very interesting goings on. That’s simply not gonna work. Like I said earlier, she’s being this public about what most people, including yourself, think should be private because she wants to make a statement. I suspect your conventional mindset doesn’t know what to make of consensual power-play, which is precisely what this is.
You point out that you would never humiliate your husband like this. No kidding? Of course you and hubby aren’t engaged in consensual power-play, are you? Because if you were, you’d understand your friend a whole lot better, even if you still disapproved of her public performances.
If you find your friend’s lifestyle so disturbing, you could simply ask her to chill the scene when you’re around. She may or may not comply. Another solution might be that you ask her for some alone time, just she and you, without her slave. Hell, even a slave get a day off from time to time. Again she may or may not comply. If no arrangement can be made, then perhaps it’s time to part ways. Hopefully you guys could do that with as little acrimony as possible. There’s no need to burn bridges over this. Who knows this might be a phase she’s going through…ya know trying to show everyone how edgy she is. In time she might very well find that the fringe is not all that comfortable and decide to keep her kink more to herself.
Originally published October 2009