The Dominance Playbook: Ways to Play With Power in Scenes and Relationships

By Anton Fulmen

In The Dominance Playbook, kink educator and lifelong power exchange fanatic Anton Fulmen builds on the fundamentals he established in The Heart of Dominance to explore beyond the basics of dominance and submission in both scenes and relationships.


The Playbook includes inspiration and practical advice for a wide range of power exchange practices: administering effective punishments, providing useful service, navigating the delicate territory of sexual objectification, and other fulfilling but sometimes tricky areas of kink. You’ll find invaluable guidance for creating an intense evening of power exchange play, and also for weaving power exchange into the fabric of a long term relationship - in ways that are exciting, fulfilling and sustainable for everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greenery Press
• Release date: May 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9780937609910

Book preview

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

MANY WAYS TO PLAY WITH POWER

My date is late.

She knew there would be consequences. We’d agreed that I would set and enforce rules for her behavior. I’d told her that, now that she was submitting to me, her habitual tardiness was not acceptable.

So, while I wait, I go to the cabinet and bring back a long, thin rod. It isn’t like the floggers and crops we use for playful beatings—made to create gentler kinds of pain, more easily processed into pleasure. The rod’s length means the tip moves fast, whipping through the air with the flick of a wrist. Its thinness concentrates the force of a strike into a tiny area. Swung with any force, it will etch lines of fire into flesh. I set it out on the coffee table, where she won’t be able to miss it when she walks in.

She arrives flustered: anxious and oddly excited all at once. She dreads the punishment, while also delighting in being in the kind of relationship wherein her failures are punished.

The sooner her punishment is taken care of the better, so I don’t waste time. I say hello and give her a hug, to let her know that I’m not upset and that I’m happy to see her. Then I tell her that she needs to take one strike from the rod for every minute she was late. Her eyes go wide at the sight of the rod, but she bends over obediently. I deliver the strokes in a steady rhythm, with no warm-up or reprieve, holding her in place and ignoring her shrieks.

It’s over quickly, and I take her into my lap. She apologizes, we talk about how she’s going to do better in the future, and we get on with our date.

I’m at an organizing meeting for a kink club—one of the first I’ve ever been to. I’m still new to this, and figuring out how it all works. The meeting is at the home of the club’s leader, and a beautiful young man opens the door when I knock. He shows me to the meeting room, points out the restroom, offers me some water—the soul of courtesy—then excuses himself to welcome other guests. He quietly arranges the chairs and sets out the agendas while we all mingle and settle in.

When it’s time for the meeting to begin, the group’s leader runs her gaze over the room, confirming that everything is prepared to her satisfaction, then looks his way and nods. It’s the only direct attention she’s given him in the time I’ve been there. He bows and walks out of the room—going back to working in the yard, I believe—as she begins the meeting.

I’m nearing the climax of a scene with a new submissive play partner. I’ve spent the evening teaching her protocol and getting her used to obedience. She’s stripped down to her scanty underthings—exposed and eroticized while she learns to kneel and serve and speak in the ways that I prefer. Her husband has come along to watch, and my girl—my own long-term primary partner—is there as well. So it’s a good thing she’s an exhibitionist, and thrilled to parade her submission in front of an audience.

When we were planning this evening, she let me know that she was eager to introduce sex into our dynamic: excited to experience being taken by a partner who is in control of her. But I’m not ready for that. She’s still new to me, and I haven’t yet built the depth of trust and knowledge of her reactions to be able to feel confidently in control of her experience during something as delicate as sex. Besides which, I have a better idea.

I tell her I’ll have sex with her when I’m ready, but tonight she’s going to watch.

I take her to a bed and direct her into a position that screams sexual availability, and is also a bit of a challenge to maintain. I tell her she can’t move until I say otherwise. Then I order my girl up onto the other side of the bed, and into a similar pose.

My girl knew this was coming. I’d talked it through with her before the date. Do you care whether I want to fuck, or should I just go along with it? she’d asked.

While my new play partner is excited by protocol, crisp obedience and exhibitionism, my girl’s kinks revolve around objectification and being made to feel less-than. She wouldn’t be excited about learning positions or following speech protocols, but being made to perform as a sex object whether she likes it or not pushes all the right buttons.

I told her that she was nothing more than a prop in my scene with my new play partner. She should act like she was turned on and enjoying herself, to be polite to our guests, but her actual desire and enjoyment were irrelevant. She’d blushed and said Yes, Daddy.

Back in the present, I take my time fucking my girl, while paying attention to my date. I keep my eyes on her, correct her posture and reach out to touch her now and again, to make sure she knows she’s still the center of attention. She makes a gratifying show out of how much she wishes she were being touched herself, whimpering and writhing within the limits of the position she isn’t allowed to break, turned on by the restraint and the opportunity to demonstrate her obedience.

My girl may be enjoying the use I’m making of her, or she may be doing a good job of acting. Either way, I’m certain she’ll enjoy the memory later on.

Consensual power exchange is any kind of intentional, mutually desired, mutually fulfilling exercise of power and control between partners, but within that definition is a whole universe of flavors, motivations, roles and practices. Power exchange can manifest as a savage whipping for breaking a rule, as unobtrusively refilling everyone’s water glasses at a meeting, as learning formal positions and holding them with all the precision you can muster, as objectifying sexual use, or in a multitude of other ways. It happens in one-night stands, in lifelong relationships, between playful friends or with professional providers.

This book is an exploration of the breadth of those practices. It gives guidance on making power dynamics run smoothly and deeply—in intense short-term play, in consistent long-running power relationships, and everything in between. Then it discusses a wide range of power exchange practices—specific activities you might do within a power dynamic once it’s established, such as training, sexual objectification, punishment or body service.

It’s intended to give you inspiration for kinds of power play that you haven’t thought of yet, and tips for improving your enjoyment of the practices you already enjoy.

WHO THIS BOOK IS FROM AND WHO IT’S FOR

This book is a 201-level guide to consensual power exchange.

Many books on power exchange introduce essential concepts like affirmative consent, negotiation, and basic safety strategies. If you are new to power exchange, or want to strengthen your grasp of the fundamentals, I strongly recommend that you begin with one of those. My own contribution is The Heart of Dominance: a guide to practicing consensual dominance.

Having covered the foundation elsewhere means that in this book I can get straight to the juicy details of ways to play with power once those fundamentals are in place.

Some of us take issue with using the phrase power exchange to describe what we do. Some argue that there isn’t really an exchange of power so much as a transfer from one partner to the other. Others would say that the submitting partner’s power isn’t transferred or exchanged, but that they allow their dominant to direct their power. Some of us prefer the word authority rather than power, and some would rather talk about control. But power exchange is the term most commonly used, so I’m sticking with it here.

We who practice power exchange love to divide ourselves into factions, which can make it difficult to write for all of us. Some of you picked up this book and the first thing you looked for was whether it was a female-dominant book or a male-dominant book. Some are trying to figure out whether it’s a D/s book or an M/s book, whether it’s for people on the controlling side of playing with power or for people on the being-controlled side, or whether it’s for straights or queers.

Your author is a white cis man, largely straight, and in my early forties. I lean toward taking control in my intimate relationships, but have also enjoyed being on the surrendering side.

I believe that there are differences to playing with power depending on gender, differences between taking the controlling side versus the controlled side, differences between straight kink culture and queer kink culture, and so on. I also believe that we have a lot in common, and a lot to learn from one another.

I’ve done my best to write this book to be useful for anyone who wishes to play with power. It speaks to skills and perspectives that are valuable both for submitting and for dominating. It does not assume that dominance naturally belongs to any one kind of person, and submission to another. It does not assume what kind of relationship exists between the people who are engaging in power exchange. It does not assume that you practice any one particular style of power exchange, or identify with any particular labels.

I avoid gendering language or concepts except when discussing practices where gender is part of the kink. When I write about my own experience, I use the actual genders of the people involved. In the bits of fiction scattered through the book I’ve opted to mix up the genders and pronouns of the characters. If sie and hir are unfamiliar to you, those are gender-neutral alternatives to she and he, and him and her, respectively.

I’ll also tell you, right up front, that this book is dirty. It will go into some power exchange practices that many people find gross, some that carry significant risks, and some that tread into ethical grey areas or push the edges of consent. I’ll point out ethical edges where I see them and I’ll provide ideas for reducing risk and harm, but know that the book does venture into some of power exchange’s dark places.

Whether you practice power exchange as an occasional erotic adventure or as an everyday organizing principle of your most important relationships, whether your desire is to take control or be controlled, whether you’re into elegant formal service or down and

dirty humiliation, this book is meant for you.

THE RULES

This book takes a descriptive approach. I have tried to be light with the shoulds, providing ideas and options and pointing out pitfalls but rarely trying to tell you what is right and wrong, or what you must or mustn’t do.

I also reject hierarchies of which kinds of power exchange are better or purer or deeper. If any styles in the following chapters seem to be described in more glowing terms, then your author’s own preferences may have leaked through. But that’s all it is: one pervert’s personal preferences.

There are, however, three overarching rules that I’m going to say are always necessary for doing power exchange right.

The first rule is consent. I trust you’ve heard this one already. Everything you do with your partners needs to be happening with the freely given, affirmative, informed, ongoing agreement of all involved.

The second rule, above and beyond consent, is caring for your partner. It isn’t enough to get your partner to agree to doing what you want. You need to genuinely care about what’s good for them. You need to prioritize their desire, safety and fulfillment as highly as you do your own.

Communicate enough to understand their wants and needs, and build a dynamic out of the overlap between theirs and yours. Think about whether what you’re doing together is good for them. If you aren’t confident that it is, don’t do it—even if they are consenting. Never try to make someone into something they aren’t, just to match your ideal of a power exchange partner.

If you have a history of taking the lead with other people and driving your own agenda, if you’re the kind of person who’s always talking your friends into crazy adventures, then make a conscious effort to create more space for your partner’s desires. Encourage your partner to share their ideas and needs and hesitations. Notice how strongly this issue tends to be gendered. If you were raised as a man, and you think the balance of attention given to your and your partner’s desires in your relationship has been pretty even, double-check that with a critical eye.

If you play with power without caring for your partners, or with partners who don’t care for you, it’s only a matter of time before you will end up mired in hurts, resentments and regret.

The third rule is to be authentic to your own desires.

Put both introspection and exploration into figuring out what does and doesn’t work for you. Start with your fantasies. Read other people’s stories, and books like this one, to get ideas, but don’t take anyone else’s way of doing power exchange as the One True Way into which you must try to mold yourself. Instead, strip them all down for parts and reassemble the parts you like into your own personal styles.

Try things out to see if you like the reality of them as much as you liked the idea of them, and don’t be reluctant to tweak what you’re doing or return it to fantasy if doing it in the flesh doesn’t feel like you’d imagined it would.

Be slow to attach yourself to an identity, and remain willing to allow that identity to change as you grow and evolve over time. The idea that you must fundamentally, naturally, immutably be a Dominant or a submissive or a Daddy or any other label is a misconception, and a harmful one. It pulls people away from authenticity—as they strive to fit the mold of what they’ve been told a slave should be like, and then become convinced that they have to stay in that mold forever.

If you have a history of accommodating other people’s desires, if it’s easier for you to follow someone else’s passion than to connect with your own, notice that. Look for partners who help you find your voice and your authentic desire, rather than ones who try to remake you in their image.

Even if what you’re wanting to do is submit, I promise that it’ll be deeper, healthier submission if it includes as much of your desires as your partner’s. I don’t mean desires like what you want to have for dinner tonight, but what inspires you to submit, what ways you need to be used, the things that make you feel safe and cared for.

Those are the rules. Everything that follows is optional.

PART I

POWER EXCHANGE IN SCENES

INTRODUCTION: ON SCENES

A Fantasy: The Door

No matter how many times sie’d done it before, sie still had the same moment of trepidation as sie raised hir hand to knock on the door. It wasn’t fear about what would happen when the door opened, but an anxious worry that it wouldn’t. What happened in the space behind the door felt so far away from hir harried, complicated, challenging life that—from this side of the door—sie could never entirely believe it could be real.

Reality was bills and kids’ birthday parties and arguing with hir mother. The space behind the door was a dreamworld where everything was simple and perfect and everything made sense. Even the person who sie was on the other side of the door was different: focused, calm, erotic—pure in a way that the imperfect human standing on the doorstep couldn’t possibly be.

But the door did open, as it always did, and sie was ushered inside, as sie always was.

The One who would own hir while sie was behind the door walked wordlessly away to continue whatever it was they’d been doing before sie knocked, as they always did. There was no need for them to speak; sie already knew exactly what to do.

As the door closed behind hir, sie automatically fell into the ingrained habits of the ritual. First hir coat and scarf, hung on the rack beside the door. Then hir shoes, tucked into the waiting cubby. Sie shed hir cares and worries along with hir clothing, taking off all of the concerns of daily life, folding and piling them neatly on the floor. When sie left here sie’d have to pick them back up, but for the next few hours sie could leave all that by the door.

Sie moved deliberately. Efficient without being hurried. Investing the turn of each button with careful attention. Bringing hir attention fully into the present moment. Sie rehearsed the rules that governed hir existence behind the door, repeating them in hir mind as hir hands folded hir slacks, and tugged off hir underwear. The world outside the door faded into irrelevance. Reality here was knowing the correct way to kneel, the right way to address hir Owner or to respond to a question.

Naked, sie padded on bare feet to find the cushion waiting where it always did at hir Owner’s feet. Sie lowered hirself smoothly to hir knees, exactly where sie belonged, the world outside the door forgotten.

WHAT’S A SCENE?

A scene is kink jargon for one single, complete kinky encounter. (It can also be used to mean the whole world of kink, so that a person may be referred to as in the scene. To avoid confusion, I will not use the word that way in this book.) It’s any stretch of time where we’re intensely focused on some kind of kinky connection with a partner, and not on emails from work or getting the kids to school or the latest crisis in the news. Scenes are most often measured in minutes or hours. Maintaining the focused attention of a scene for much more than a day is pretty challenging; other priorities and other pieces of our lives tend to start crying for attention. Longer scenes that last all day or even a whole weekend certainly happen, but are the exception rather than the rule.

A power exchange scene in particular is any time when we’re giving focused attention to the consensual power dynamic between ourselves and another. That might or might not be combined with other types and trappings of kink—whips and ropes and leather and whatnot—but, as with the rest of this book, what I’m going to focus on is the aspect of power and control.

The word scene was borrowed from the world of theater, and some kink scenes do look very much like scenes in a play or a movie: precisely scripted, with imaginary roles, defined beginning and ending times, props and costumes. Kink scenes don’t have to be either scripted or theatrical, though. As I’m using the word, Get over here so I can fuck you can be a scene. So if your practice of power exchange doesn’t look at all like acting, don’t worry; this section is still for you.

NOT AN INFERIOR ART FORM

In college I took a creative writing class that was supposed to be evenly split between prose and poetry, but every time the professor mentioned poetry he’d make a significant pause and then say Poetry... the superior art form, with a smug little smile that sets my teeth on edge just remembering it. He never explicitly said that prose was inferior; he just let it be implied.

I’m reminded of that whenever I hear the patronizing way that some of us talk about how long term, full time, relationship-based power exchange is so amazing and deep and powerful and transcendent and just, y’know, real... but if all you want to do is scenes then that’s totally okay for you!

I’ve been in long term power exchange relationships for the majority of my adult life. And those have been deep and powerful experiences. But it’s also true that some of the most intense, transformative power exchange interactions I have ever had have been just scenes with people who were only play partners, or were long-term partners with whom I had a power relationship only in the bedroom.

Scene-based power exchange is not an inferior art form. People who prefer to keep their practice of power exchange contained within scenes are not less real or less legitimate in their dominance, their submission or their passion in general.

The extra status that many of our communities convey on those who are in full-time, long-term power relationships can pressure you into taking on a kind of power dynamic that doesn’t feed you or your partner. If you’re in a full-time power relationship, and it feels like more of a chore than a blessing, you have my wholehearted support in changing your relationship to something that feels good for you. Whether that’s practicing power exchange on weekends, or in one evening each month that you’re both avidly looking forward to for weeks, the truly superior form of kink is to do exactly what works best for the people involved.

Even those of us who are in long-term, full-time power exchange relationships tend to have scenes within those relationships. As I’ll go into more in the Power Exchange in Relationships section, having a long-term power dynamic doesn’t mean wearing thigh-high PVC boots every minute of every day, or spending your entire life literally on a leash. All the usual mundanities of jobs and family and hobbies and daily life still occupy our attention most of the time, and we have to carve out precious moments when we can put all that on the back burner and focus on one another as dominant and submissive. Whether it’s a weekend adventure at a kink convention or a fifteen-minute quickie before bedtime, those moments are essentially scenes, and it’s the skills of scene-based power exchange that help to make them shine.

CHAPTER 1

SCENES AS STORIES

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.— Muriel Rukeyser

Something to know about your author is that I am obsessed with reality.

Many of us who love power exchange like to roleplay fantasy scenarios, pretending to be kidnapping victims or incestuous daddy’s boys or CIA interrogators or werewolves. Or we love to talk about doing things during our scenes that both we and our partners know full well we have no intention of actually doing—like telling our partner how we’re going to keep them caged like a dog for the rest of their lives, even though we both know that in the morning they’re going to get up and go to work like always.

That kind of fantastical scene is a wonderful thing. It can allow you to experience the impossible, the infeasible and the unethical in a safe and satisfying way.

But my own ability to enjoy fantastical scenes has always been pretty limited. What I crave from power exchange is real, unexaggerated power. If I’m dominating, I don’t want my partner to pretend to be someone they’re not and have that imaginary person submit to me; I want them to submit as their actual self. If I’m submitting, I’m turned off by hearing my partner make threats and promises that they don’t plan to follow through on.

One of the things I find most compellingly attractive about power exchange is that it provides opportunities to demonstrate the reality of devotion. Romantic stories are full of passionate declarations like I’d do anything for you! and Your happiness is the most important thing in the world to me! and I would bleed for you! With power exchange, we get to pull out a knife and say Show me.

I’m telling you all this because I’m about to argue that the best way to understand the nature of scenes—and to create more intense, more reliably successful scenes—is to think of scenes as stories, and I’m afraid you’re going to think I’m saying that all scenes are all about playing make-believe. That isn’t what I mean at all.

THE POWER OF STORY

Great scenes have a power to them that is greater than the sum of their parts. It isn’t just the implements we use, or the clothes we wear. It isn’t just the technical skills, or the orgasms, or even the depth of our desire to command and to obey. Those of us who’ve been doing power exchange for more than a little while can probably think of scenes that were pretty much the same in all those ways, but one fell flat while another soared. The secret ingredient is story.

Humans are storytelling animals. We remember narratives much better than we remember bare facts. Politicians and other professional persuaders know that we are much more easily convinced by one well-told story about a poor, ailing grandmother losing her farm to a greedy tax collector than by any amount of irrefutable statistical evidence. Our minds naturally latch on to characters, motivations, dramatic tension and resolution.

The story of a power exchange scene organizes all of its concrete elements—the rules and rituals, the begging or resisting, the demands and the surrender—into a narrative journey that imbues those pieces with meaning and gives us the experience of going on a journey together with our partners. Truly epic scenes, like all epic stories, leave us changed by that journey.

Sometimes the story is literally a planned-out, scripted scenario—like if we’re playing out a specific fantasy about a naughty schoolboy being spanked, and we and our partners have negotiated exactly the right outfits and the right words to use and a sequence of actions to bring that fantasy to life.

Often the story of a scene is more thematic and improvisational. There’s no script and no imaginary scenario—there might not even be any words at all—but it’s still a story. Our actions together during the scene create a story about how powerful or powerless we are, about how much we can take or how little we deserve, about how degraded or cherished or stern or desirable we are, about who we are to one another.

Sometimes it’s a pretend story, where we and our partners play roles that we step out of when the scene ends. Sometimes it’s a true story, where we get to take off masks that we wear in daily life and show one another our more authentic selves. Sometimes, in a strange way, it’s both.

It’s that emotional journey we take together that gives a scene much of its impact and its meaning.

CHARACTERS

Good stories begin with good characters. In a scene, characters can be metaphorical masks that we put on—playing at feelings that we don’t really feel and beliefs that we don’t really hold, or literally pretending to be someone or something we aren’t. They can also be masks that we take off—aspects of our selves that we get to expose or to bring into special focus for the duration of the scene. For some of us, playing an imaginary role can be a way to access real parts of ourselves more fully than we normally can. Pretending to be a vampire might let us bring out our genuine capacity for sensual cruelty. Imagining that we are a baby might let us relax our inhibitions and express our need to accept nurturing control.

Either way, we can create better scenes if we think about and understand the roles that both we and our partners want to play. Too often we think about our scenes only in terms of what things are going to happen—the plot of the scene, to continue the storytelling metaphor. We might think, Okay, first I’ll have them kneel and kiss my feet. Then I’ll put their butt plug in. Then they’ll do some housework, and if they do a good job they’ll get a spanking. Then...

A character-driven approach would leave those plot points for second, and instead start with figuring out who you wanted to be in the scene, and who you wanted your partner to be in relation to you. What’s your motivation? How do you want to feel? How do you want to change? It might look more like Tonight I want to feel like a queen being served hand and foot. I want to get to be imperious and impulsively demand whatever whims strike my fancy. I want them to be an obsequious servant who’s desperate for my approval: fawning over me and complimenting me and striving to anticipate my every need.

Compare that to, Tonight I want to be an exacting taskmaster. I want to meticulously oversee every detail of my partner’s service and hold them to an impossibly high standard. I want them to be obedient, but I’ll be disappointed if they act too happy about it. I want them to be sulky and a little resistant, to give me something to push against and criticize.

A description of the series of events in those two scenes might sound the same. They could both start with kneeling and foot-kissing and plugging, both move on to housework, etc. But the two experiences would be quite different.

Having an understanding of who you want to be and how you want to feel—and sharing it with your partner—gives meaning to the concrete details of what you do during your scene and improves your ability to connect with one another. It guides you on the difference between kneeling to kiss your partner’s feet with dignified grace, sultry sensuality, sulky reluctance, or slobbery enthusiasm. It helps the scene to flow naturally: when we know who we are and who our partner is, then the best ideas and responses for building