The (New and Improved) Loving Dominant

By John and Libby Warren

Previous editions of The Loving Dominant taught more than 40,000 people the fundamentals of safe, affectionate dominance and submisison. Now John and Libby Warren, two of the scene's most respected educators, have updated this seminal work for a new generation of pratitioners. Includes an all-new chapter on partner-finding, plus new information on electricity play, ethical play with multiple partners, watersports, kinky digital photography, and more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greenery Press
• Release date: Mar 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9780937609408

Book preview

herein.

Foreword to the Third Edition

Those of you who have read the edition of The Loving Dominant that was published by Masquerade Books or its second edition from Greenery Press won’t find many surprises in these pages, although I do appreciate the additional royalties.

There are several new sections and I’ve greatly expanded a few existing ones. For example, the section on electricity is much much larger than it was in either of the previous versions.

The biggest change is on how to find partners. The original Loving Dominant was written at a time when the Internet was largely a thing of corporations, governments and universities. BDSM, when it was mentioned, was a thing of whispers and giggles. Today, we can be much more open and the Internet has changed the world almost beyond imagination.

References to S&M or Domination and Submission have been largely replaced by BDSM, an umbrella term combining the words Bondage, Discipline, Domination, Submission, Sadism and Masochism. While I have some discomfort with sadism, I feel it is a more inclusive umbrella and a more accurate representation than simply domination and submission. The shift in terminology has created a bit of a problem in language. To avoid labored constructions, I’ve retained dominant or submissive where it was appropriate even though the reference could apply equally to a top or a bottom. I attempted various semantic tricks like dominant/top, dominant or top and even the generic player. All of them did more violence to the flow than I was comfortable with.

I’ll also be spending more time talking about pure sensation players since I admit giving their interests an undeserved short shrift in the original version.

The happiest change from the original volume is that the DSM III, the learned tome that branded what we do as pathologically nuts, has been supplanted by the DSM IV, which takes a lot more understanding view of us whip- swinging perverts.

Aside from those modifications, most of the changes are either fine tuning on my part or a recognition that time has marched on, leaving some parts of the old book more useful as a historical archive than as a guide to what is happening currently.

Foreword to the First Edition

What is domination and submission? It is a form of erotic play that takes place when one voluntarily gives up some or all of his or her power and freedom to another for the purpose of sensual excitement. For most practitioners, it is a kind of chocolate frosting on the conventional sexuality cake, an enhancement and expansion rather than a substitute for the genital sex.

To many who indulge in its pleasures, it is a cathartic sexual game based on fantasy, a sensual psychodrama. Moreover, the term describes both activities and relationships. People, who take part in BDSM games at anything more than the most surface level usually discover that these activities intensify the emotional connections between themselves and their partners.

There are only two universals in the practice of BDSM. First, there must be a power transfer between or among the parties in the relationship. Second, all activities must be consensual.

In the transfer, one person gives up a certain amount of power, and another person or persons accept it. The individual who gives up power is the submissive, and the one who accepts it is the dominant. The amount of power given up by the submissive varies widely among couples and may be different at different times for the same couple. At one end of the spectrum, the submissive can agree to remain absolutely still and passive while the other reads a story or describes a fantasy. At the other end, the submissive can display rigorous restraint while enduring (and enjoying) the application of intense and varied stimuli.

This transfer of power doesn’t have to be at the physical level of, You must do this, and, You can’t do that. It can be on a much deeper spiritual level. A casual play partner showed me an ancient Hindu drawing of a couple making love with curved and straight lines, called chakras, that led from various parts of one body to the comparable parts of the other’s. She explained that they represented energy transfers the Hindus believed took place during sex. As I looked at the picture, I realized that during the scene I felt this energy transfer, but I hadn’t considered visualizing it in such a way. My partner, in some kind of metaphysical way, seemed to be sending me a force that I returned to her through my actions in the scene.

Consensuality means that not only has the submissive partner consent to the activities, but that the dominant or top also consents. The latter point is often overlooked, but it is very important to understanding the true dynamics of the relationship that underlies the activities.

Other terms that have been applied to these games are B&D (bondage and discipline) and S&M (sadism and masochism). The former is an accurate description of the activities of some members of the greater BDSM community. However, there are many who revel in forms of BDSM with neither a rope or a whip. Although the term S&M is very popular with many BDSM dominants, I feel that we would be better off cutting our ties with it.

My reasoning is that while masochists make up a significant part of the BDSM community, far from all submissives are masochists and some masochists are far from submissive. Some masochists can be most emphatic about demanding and getting a proper dose of pain during any given session, while others aren’t as vocal.

However, what bothers me about the phrase S&M is the S. The Marquis de Sade, as anyone who has read his writings knows, favored unwilling victims for his cruel activities, which were entirely concerned with his own pleasure and not at all concerned with consent. To me, this is a true description of a sadist. Nothing could be farther from the spirit of the typical dominant/top who engages in an erotic dance of power with the submissive. While some dominants choose to proclaim that they are sadists, I have noticed that even they will generally distance themselves from nonconsensual practices.

Since there are pathological sadists in the world, I prefer to leave this term to them and describe us as dominants or tops because the terms are more neutral and less limited. After all, people are confused enough by BDSM play. We don’t need to make the distinction more difficult.

Do not be fooled by my choice of the word play for what goes on is BDSM. As any mother knows, play is inherently dangerous. Who among us survived through childhood without a cut or painful scrape? For this reason, I will never describe any BDSM activity as safe. I recently heard of a submissive who suffered a fatal heart attack while cleaning his mistress’ toilet, an activity which would have normally been quite safe but was rendered fatal by the intense excitement he felt fulfilling his fantasy. A lady of my acquaintance suffered a dislocated shoulder while combining bondage with a truly mind-blowing orgasm.

Some BDSM undertakings are riskier than others. In this book, I will be taking care to differentiate the risky from the not-so-risky and to explain ways to minimize the risk inherent in any of them.

The truth about most BDSM movies and books is that many things that are shown or talked about are extremely dangerous. True, many movies and a few books have a short legalistic warning against trying to duplicate what is shown, but such a generic warning is little help for someone trying to find out how to do it right.

Previously, I mentioned the terms dominant and top. These are terms to describe two overlapping kinds of play. A dominant may use both physical and psychological components to play with his or her partner. A top applies physical stimulation to the bottom without requiring a complementary submission on the bottom’s part.

The best illustration I can provide of a top/bottom scene took place several years ago. I was watching a novice top whipping a bottom I had played with several times. After a few minutes, she pushed herself back from the wall she had been leaning against, turned around and took the whip out of the surprised top’s hand, handed it to me and said, John, show him how I like to be whipped. There was no submission here. It was simply one person applying stimulation to another, a top and a bottom.

I write from my own point of view, that of a male heterosexual dominant. However, I sought assistance from several of my sister dominants and tops and have tried to provide the information women who work with men need. In addition, a number of male and female submissives have provided valuable and, sometimes, vital insights which, I have included.

A good motto for any dominant: NO UNINTENTIONAL PAIN. I hope this book will help you and your partner find exciting and creative things that you can do in an atmosphere of relative safety and complete consensuality. I’ve been playing BDSM games for almost thirty years and seriously studying the art for more than a decade. This book is the distilled essence of that study and experience.

You will find the vertical pronoun I scattered throughout the book. Although an overweening ego may be in some way responsible, my primary intent is to emphasize that many of the comments in this book are my opinion and are fit subject for debate or refutation. I hope others will carry this orderly and ethical approach to the art of BDSM to greater heights than I can manage.

The Loving Dominant is intended for a wide audience. My primary goal is to reach novice dominants, or those who feel they are dominants, and help them overcome the psychological barriers to undertaking such a politically incorrect activity. I also want to show them techniques that can be used to bring pleasure to their submissives and themselves. While some of the activities I write about may not interest tops, much of the technique sections should prove valuable.

Experienced dominants may have largely overcome the discomfort of violating conventional sexual rules and will be familiar with many of the techniques I describe. However, the most experienced of us gets in an occasional rut. Most experienced dominants will find some new ideas here, and reading about what others do in the field may get the old excitement back and inspire new heights.

While I have written this book for dominants, I sincerely hope that submissives and those who feel they might enjoy being submissive read it. They can gain an insight into how the other half lives, and it may give submissives the courage to act on their needs and desires.

Other individuals may have had the desire to experience BDSM, but lacking the proper words, may have been unable to verbalize or visualize their yearnings.

In addition, I hope that some copies of this book fall into the hands of the general public. Too often their perceptions of BDSM people are shaped by sensationalized media stories and pornography. The truth may not be as shocking, but I hope it is still interesting. To those readers, I am defending my perversion. In fact, you may feel that some of the anti- BDSM positions I try to refute are extreme, but I assure you they are not straw men set up by me to be knocked down. Every one of them represents a real point of view, often with a vociferous group behind it.

Although I have included a highly personal and opinionated glossary at the end of this book, I feel this is an appropriate place to go over some confusing terms. For example, throughout the book, I use the word scene to mean two different, related things. The scene is an umbrella term for all BDSM activities and the people who take part in them. On the other hand, A scene is what takes place when a dominant or a top and a submissive or a bottom (or any combination) get together and play. Thus, I might write, In the scene, it is considered unconscionable to ignore a safeword, referring to the umbrella term, or, When you are doing a scene, safety is of primary importance, referring to a specific activity. People may also refer to living the scene. This usually means that they attempt to maintain their BDSM persona on a 24-hour-a-day basis, but it can also mean simply that the person is serious about his or her participation in BDSM.

The most important word in the BDSM vocabulary is safe-word. This is a word or phrase that serves as a signal that things have become unbearable. Common safewords are red light and mercy. In general, we do not use words like stop or no because many submissives increase their enjoyment by play acting that they are not in a voluntary situation. Screaming and begging turns them on. However, in a top/bottom scene, stop is a perfectly valid safeword. One can even use Lady Green’s, If you don’t stop right now, when I get loose I’m going to rip your balls off. In short any sufficiently unequivocal signal is an acceptable safeword.

All The Colors of Kinkiness

People often talk about BDSM as if it were some sort of monolithic activity, like accounting or poker. (My apologies to accountants or poker players. I know better, but the line was too good to pass up.) In fact, the umbrella of consensual transfer of power covers an astonishing variety of acts, attitudes, degrees of commitment and extremes of kinkiness. BDSM or The Scene is like a very liberal Chinese restaurant. You can take as many, or as few, items as you want from Column A, B, and so on.

Each couple can decide which activities bring them the most pleasure. Some couples savor a highly intellectual BDSM that can be so subtle that even someone observing their scenes would be unaware that anything kinky is going on. Others enjoy a level of stimulation sufficient to horrify many observers. Still others appreciate elaborate psychodrama that may or may not include stimulation. The only people who can determine what is right for you and your partner are the two of you. There is no right or wrong way to do BDSM. It is also important to recognize that intense is not the same as good. The two spectrums are unrelated. Two people sitting together and whispering can be having just as satisfying a scene as two others amid slashing whips and full-throated screams. It is what that particular couple wants and needs that determines the appropriateness of a scene.

Individual styles can also vary widely. Some dominants like to project a harsh, stern demeanor and keep the caring sensitivity carefully hidden. Others cherish the role of loving guide and protector. A scene can be as serious as a religious ritual, or it can be a laughing, giggling frolic.

Submissives, too, project a broad range of images to the world. Some, particularly men, like to maintain a passive, stoic image that can be frustrating to a dominant or a top looking for guidance. One female dominant complained in frustration, How in the hell can I have any fun if I can’t tell if he is? Of course, others value and encourage that sort of a show of unruffled endurance.

Some submissives say they can only really let go when they have intentionally adopted a role. In effect, they create an internal psychodrama in which they are a captured secret agent, molested peasant maid or blackmailed debutante.

Ann, an Atlanta submissive, makes a point of distinguishing her uppity submissive from what people in the scene call a SAM (Smart Assed Masochist). While the SAM tries to top from the bottom, that is, to control all aspects of the scene, Ann’s uppity submissive is more likely to signal her eagerness for stimulation by pinching the dominant’s bottom in passing or looking up with innocent eyes and asking, Is that as hard as you can hit?

Of course, bottoms don’t have to make any such distinction. The essence of a top/bottom scene is giving and receiving pain and no pretense of unwillingness or reluctance is necessary.

There have been numerous attempts to examine the various approaches to BDSM. One of the most successful of these was detailed by Diana Vera, writing in The Lesbian S/M Safety Manual. Based on her experience and observations she described nine levels of submission. These range from a kinky sensualism in which everything revolves around the submissive’s needs, through play submission where the submissive gives up control but the stimulation is erotic and pleasing to both. All the way at the other end of the spectrum is consensual slavery where the slave exists solely for the dominant’s pleasure. This short piece is intriguing reading for anyone who is interested in thinking about submission as well as actively submitting. However, I caution that while it may look like a hierarchy, it is simply a description of various play styles. One may try several, but one should not think that there is any progression involved. A better way of looking at it would be as little boxes arranged on a tabletop. One can fit in one box or another, but none of the boxes are better than any other.

Another way of looking at conceptualizing the scene comes from my own dear Libby. Instead of considering the severity of the activities or the portion of the day they take up, her approach examines the emotional intensity of the submission and the degree of trust put forward by the submissive. In her section, A Submissive Looks At Submission, later in this book, she goes into detail about her three levels of submission: fantasy, clarity and transparency.

Inspired by Libby’s format, another submissive woman offered her three categories. Unlike Libby’s, these are not in a hierarchical structure but, instead, are based on the needs of the submissive. The first is stimulus driven. Here, the submissive is taking part because he or she is seeking out a specific stimulus, like the pain of whipping or the confinement of bondage.

The second category is relationship driven. In this, the main desire is for a relationship, often with a particular person. Individuals in this kind of relationship take glory in the multichannel communication between the submissive and the dominant and enjoy the richness of the information flow.

The final category is fantasy driven where the submissive seeks to make a fantasy or fantasies real. Sometimes, this is accomplished by living through the fantasy; however, others find satisfaction in finding an individual who shares his or her fantasy and no specific action needs to take place.

However you choose to play, welcome to a land of fantasy in the midst of reality. Here, perhaps more than in any other aspect of your life, you are free to choose your own route to ecstasy.

Are You a Loving Dominant?

Well, are you? It may seem like an easy question to answer, but it can be more difficult than you realize. Sadly, in our society, domination, sadism, cruelty and brutality have become confused and intertwined.

Crude, unrealistic fiction has made the situation worse. Publishers have found that to reach the broadest possible audience, they must include themes that are repugnant to many. Because consensual, loving BDSM in fiction is so rare, those who are interested in these themes must pick through thousands of pages, like looking for jewels in a dungheap, to find sections they find provocative, while other readers wallow in the nonconsensual brutality.

The following is a series of questions that you need only to answer in your own soul. Be honest with yourself and look deeply into those answers to see if this scene is really for you.

Do you get as much pleasure or more from erotically exciting your partner as from your own enjoyment of the sexual act?

If this is true, you are likely to be a good dominant. The essence of this kind of play is to take another’s power and then use it for mutual pleasure. If you already seek to maximize your partner’s gratification, you have a mindset that will adapt well to BDSM.

Do you want an easy relationship with you as the unquestioned boss?

If yes, then BDSM is unlikely to be for you. A BDSM relationship is more, not less, complex than one that is purely vanilla. This is because BDSM relationships generally have all the components of a vanilla relationship, plus those that are unique to BDSM.

It is common to hear dominants talk about how hard they have to work. This is because in exchange for the power that is given us, we must find ways of using that power for the benefit and pleasure of both participants. At the same time, because of the trust given us, we must be very sure that nothing we do is harmful to anyone in the relationship. This kind of careful balancing act certainly isn’t attractive to someone looking for an easy ride.

Have you been in an abusive relationship and would like to turn the tables on someone like the person who abused you?

This is another rough start. A significant number of people in BDSM have been in abusive relationships, and some of them consciously use BDSM psychodramas to help them work through the negative feelings that resulted from these experiences.

However, revenge is a poor motivation for such an intimate relationship, and it is likely to result in further damage to your self-esteem.

Why do you want to control another person?

This is a sticky one. Film star Vanessa del Rio once told me one of her earliest fantasies was of having a group of tiny people in the palm of her hand. She loved to imagine that she had complete control of them, but, to me, the key was that she imagined that she would use this power to make them happy.

The desire to help, to enhance or to make others happy is common among dominants. This may be why so many dominants are in the teaching and helping professions: medicine, social work, religion. Other-centered people make good dominants. Self-centered people often find that the strain of the responsibilities inherent in a BDSM relationship is overwhelming.

In a consensual relationship, control applied purely to self-gratification is a self-limiting proposition. Submissives who do not get what they are looking for are unlikely to remain in a relationship for very long.

Do you have fantasies involving nonconsensual activities or harm to another?

This isn’t as serious as you may believe. The trick is being able to keep the fantasies inside your head and separate from the scene you are playing with another person. Most of us have large, hairy monsters in the dark corners of our mind. What separates the civilized from the uncivilized is how tight a leash we keep on them.

Having fantasies is all right; acting on them isn’t. Aside from being totally against the ethical principles of the scene, such play can get you locked up with other people who believe in nonconsensual play, and they may be bigger than you are.

Dig All Those Crazy People

Why? Why do people do this? Why do people love this? Some of us are fascinated with the genesis of these feelings and enjoy searching for the root cause of our desires. Others, myself included, hold with Alexander Pope that, Like following life though creatures you dissect, you lose it in the moment you detect it.

Sometimes, I suspect that too close an examination can actually destroy the feelings being studied, and I recognize that an understanding of causes is not necessary for enjoyment. I have only the vaguest idea of why chocolate ice cream tastes good, but that ignorance decreases neither my enjoyment nor my consumption.

I’ll admit my sexual tastes are more unusual than love for chocolate ice cream. Still, no one has done deep analyses of why some people like chocolate sauce on their pizza. People who love it pack the Hershey’s syrup on trips to Pizza Hut, and the rest of us avert our eyes and shudder a bit or maybe borrow a dollop and see how it tastes on the pepperoni. They are simply classified as weird or, if they are rich enough, eccentric.

Psychologists, psychiatrists, social science theorists, theologians and feminists haven’t lined up to find answers for this chocolate perversion, for people carrying handkerchiefs they never use in their coat pockets or for voting Republican. These are simply trite eccentricities unworthy of study.

To make the question even more complex, the language of experience is not the same as the language of classification. Race car drivers don’t study physics, although they may pick up a good bit of it in passing. They drive. They experience. They don’t think about the underlying mechanics but about the feel of the car and the track.

People have studied poems since before Aristotle wrote Poetics. Their reactions still come down to This poem speaks to me.

However, some enjoy sharpening their Aristotelian knives and having at the search for why. If you tend toward this approach, I dedicate this search for causes to you.

Some give a simple answer to Why? It is fun, enjoyable. We like to do it. Unfortunately, this kind of simplicity isn’t looked upon kindly by the members of the Ivory-Tower Brigade, who glory in philosophical head- knocking and counting dancing-angels.

Unfortunately, all too many of these deep thinkers have largely fixated on sadistic monsters and masochistic victims. Like Shakespeare’s Horatio, they have failed to realize that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their philosophy. Neither loving domination or sensual submission is part of the paradigms they develop. To admit that these exist might knock their carefully constructed houses of cards askew. To make matters worse, the competing theories are all different, and most of them, are mutually exclusive.

I was strongly tempted to exclude much of the psychological theory on the grounds that it is inconsequential to the people most actively involved. Unfortunately, I have been repeatedly and forcefully reminded that anyone attempting to discuss BDSM with a learned audience or with doctors is going get presented with these spurious explanations.

I suppose that it is better you encounter them here, amid interpretation and exegesis, than to have them flung into your face with an implication that they are, somehow, revealed truth. Just take a firm grip on your temper and read on.

Theories of sadism and masochism

In the labeling craze of the 19th century, when scientists still clung to the mystical concept that to label something was to control it, D.R. von Krafft-Ebing came up the terms sadism and masochism in his book Psychopathia Sexualis. This learned tome was a sort of Sears and Roebuck catalog of perversion, listing just about everything that two or more people could do together to get their individual or collective rocks off. Krafft-Ebing must have had a good laugh on thrill-seekers perusing his volume; he put the boring stuff in English and the good parts in Latin.

As most people in the scene know, the term sadism came from the writings of the Marquis Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade and masochism from those of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Both de Sade’s writings (including Philosophy in the Bedroom, Justine, Juliet, Twenty Days at Sodom) and Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs are still hot-selling items today. A quick glance at any of de Sade’s work will show you why many dominants are infuriated when they are accused of being sadists. Nonconsensuality was the order of the day for the Marquis.

Krafft-Ebing got it almost right with submission when he defined masochism as:

A peculiar perversion of the psychical sexual life in which the person affected, in sexual feeling and thought, is controlled by the idea of being completely and unconditionally subject to the will of a person of the opposite sex; of being treated by this person as by a master…

Aside from the near miss of failing to recognize that submission is independent of hetero- or homo-erotic orientation and throwing in the term perversion, he came fairly close to how many submissives would describe themselves. However, after that good start, he ruined it by adding three words, humiliated and abused, at the end. With just three words, he narrowed the definition to include only the small percentage of submissives who do enjoy humiliation, and convicted the master, a person who is doing what the submissive wants

Reviews for The (New and Improved) Loving Dominant

[jadepichette · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Overall a good 102 type of book to dominance and submission. However, it does very much read like it is by a White Cis Hetero author which it is. At times he uses language I consider casually (so not intentionally) cissexist and heterosexist.

[heather19_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While technically geared towards the Dominant, this book can be helpful to anyone interested in learning more about this lifestyle.