In part 1 of this series of articles, we examined the initial approach for discussing your submissive desires with your vanilla partner. In part 2 we examined how to address the issue if your partner does not respond positively to the initial approach. In this final part 3, we examine how to proceed if your vanilla partner reacts positively from either the approach in part 1 or part 2.

Your partner has reacted to the revelation of your BDSM desires in a positive way or at least is willing to participate. Congratulations! This is a huge first step. It may seem to you and me that most anyone should appreciate the submission we have to offer but that is not always the case and there is no guarantee that a partner – even one who is cherished for life – would react positively. So be encouraged that you have gone this far with your partner because it may still not be smooth sailing and you may need that feeling of encouragement when practicing perhaps more patience than you may initially expect.

A couple of words of advice: safety and service. Your partner will probably not be aware of safety issues related to the activities you will be sharing so discuss common safety concerns. Your partner may become concerned or even alarmed but reassure your partner that the activities you are discussing are practiced safely by likely hundreds of thousands of people and with an eye on safety there is no significant risk of a problem.

Service is a good way to help your partner enjoy the BDSM journey you embark on together. Even if you are not a submissive who enjoys providing service, try to find ways in which you can be of service such as offering to wash the dishes, clean the bathroom, wash your partner’s car, or more intimate service such as sexual activities your partner particularly enjoys (or all of the above!). This is not negotiation or quid-pro-quo, it is simply you being a more affectionate partner and perhaps adding submission to your motivation. Push yourself to a certain extent to do this even if there is a time when things aren’t going very well.

A great service to provide for your partner is a long massage during which you can talk about BDSM or other topics. This not only pleases your partner who may associate your better attitude with the BDSM experiences you two are sharing but it also helps keep the lines of communication open to discuss your mutual enjoyment or any issues. Be clear that the service you are providing does not have strings attached so that your partner does not feel pressured to reciprocate in any way.

Even after your partner has accepted your BDSM desires without a negative judgment and perhaps even participated in some light activities as discussed in part 1, your partner will likely have some reservations and may or may not be ready for more detailed information about your desires. How much to discuss in detail is highly dependent upon how extreme your desires would likely be viewed by your partner, your partner’s general openness to new and potentially uncomfortable ideas, how important it is to you to reveal more details, and the overall communication level in your relationship.

In your initial discussions, you may have a sense of this already. When you initially discussed your desires with your partner, did your partner seem uncomfortable and did it take some time for your partner to get used to the idea? Or did your partner smile without a hint of negativity and seem glad that you opened up about your desires? It will be up to you to judge when you think your partner is ready for more information.

You should not avoid discussing your desires for too long or else it may become a source of stress for you. For example, if you have already revealed that you enjoy being tied to the bed and spanked lightly (relatively mild activities) and you are considering whether or not to reveal that you would enjoy being whipped hard in the back until you are screaming and crying in pain (something a bit more extreme than just light spanking), how important is it to you and how do you think your partner would react to this situation? Your partner may need some time to get used to BDSM in your lives or your partner may be ready to learn more about you. There is no guideline to the time needed, it depends on the individuals.

Here is an even more important factor: do not push your partner into doing anything they do not want to do. It is not pushing to reveal your desires as long as that is the focus of your conversation. On the other hand, if you say something like “I want you to whip me very hard for 15 minutes” that puts a burden on your partner which could be a form of pushing. A statement such as “I would love to be whipped very hard for 15 minutes” might also be viewed as pushing but it is simply stating your desires and if mentioned as part of a discussion it would likely not be seen as pushing.

On the one hand you don’t want to bottle up your desires but on the other hand, you don’t want to push. The middle ground approach is to wait until your partner seems ready for the information and then reveal it as your desire.

That brings us to patience. Your partner may take the ball and run with it once you reveal your desires. Your partner may read books, scour the internet, go to BDSM forums for advice, and have discussions with you in which your partner attempts to learn how to best dominate you. In that case, you are in a best case scenario. Be open and honest and help your partner with detailed information or links to websites if your partner is open to that. For example, if you enjoy bastinado, find a good bastinado step-by-step description. Your partner is new to BDSM and it is not likely that your partner will become more than a novice in a short period of time.

However, the scenario I describe in which your partner will jump in with both feet will often not be the case and you should expect that the process will be much slower. You may go for weeks or months without experiencing nearly as much BDSM as you would like.

You need to be patient. And patience may be very difficult because you want to submit. Your partner will likely need time to overcome a lifetime of natural and learned instinct not to hurt or otherwise dominate you. Also, even if your partner overcomes that, your partner may take the time to truly enjoy dominating you. You may find that at times the level of BDSM in your relationship ebbs and flows and you may become discouraged in the seeming lack of progress.

If you become discouraged then try to remain patient if you can. Think rationally about your partner’s actions. Does it appear that your partner is losing interest in BDSM? Or are you just presently unfulfilled because you are not experiencing as much BDSM as you want? If only the latter applies, then try to hold on and focus on your partner’s apparent interest level because that is your potential light at the end of the tunnel.

If your partner is, in your rational view, appearing to lose interest then discuss this in calm detail when not distracted, similar to your initial discussions of your BDSM desires. Try to focus the discussion on how much your partner is or is not enjoying dominating you and on which activities or mindsets your partner finds most enjoyable about it.

Maybe your partner just doesn’t enjoy bastinado but does enjoy tying you up. Maybe your partner needs some time to work up to rough sex or whipping hard. If the issue is just a matter of specific activities, compromise so that both you and your partner may enjoy the experience. There is no rush. At a later date your partner may decide that more activities are worth trying so hopefully, you can enjoy for now BDSM without some of the activities you enjoy.

Ask “On a scale of 1-10 what would you say is your enjoyment level?” Avoid asking yes or no questions such as “Are you enjoying this?” because that backs your partner into a corner. It is good to ask this 1-10 scale question from time to time (perhaps once a week or more for the first couple of months) even if things seem to be going well because it will give you either encouragement or an indication that more discussion would be helpful, and in general it may open up more communication which is good for any relationship.

If your partner’s overall desire for BDSM seems to be truly decreasing, then gently try to understand what may be causing that. If the issue is the specific activities then that may be addressed through compromise and tweaking of the activities you participate in. If the issue is just that your partner is not enjoying it much, then be supportive and indicate that you are patient in case your partner needs more time to get used to it. Be willing to tone down or go without BDSM for a period of time (such as a week) and check in with your partner from time to time to see if feelings (1-10 scale) have changed.

Your BDSM submissive desires are important to you. Unless your partner just says no way anyhow, give your partner time and patience and check in with your partner from time to time to let your partner know how important it is to you, similar to the approach discussed in part 1. Do not push, asking for your partner’s views and feelings is not pushing.

At some point what you likely hope is for your newly dominant partner to find creative ways to dominate you, within the guidelines you have provided to your partner. Unless you have only a very specific and limited list of activities you want, the ideal situation is for your newly dominant partner to take active control of not only a scene but even deciding exactly which activities will occur. But that, too, may take time even if your partner is willing. You cannot will it to occur and pushing would not help.

Positive reinforcement is the best way to encourage your partner. Did you enjoy when your partner told you to crawl on the floor as a puppy? Tell your partner how wonderful it was, later after the scene is over. Your partner may already know this from your actions during the scene as you wagged your tail and barked happily but it is extremely helpful to hear it in your own (human) words later just to be sure. Praise your partner for as much as you reasonably can, including individual parts of a scene. Some examples are “I loved the look on your face when you were scolding me,” “You were giggling in joy while whipping me, I loved that!” and “Your finger placed right there really drove me wild.”

Try to avoid negative comments as much as you can. Did your partner not hit you hard enough with the belt on your back? Don’t say that. Do keep an eye on the issue and if your partner is repeating this sort of issue then, by all means, discuss it together, such as “It’s up to you but you can whip me harder with the belt if you want” after two or three scenes. That is a much more effective statement than the accusatory statement “You didn’t hit me hard enough with the belt the past few times.”

In contrast, bring up safety issues as soon as you can. Is your partner whacking you with a crop over and over on your lower back? Call the safe word if you need to (yellow, for example) and calmly explain that this particular activity could cause damage to the kidneys. Hopefully, you will have already discussed safety issues ahead of time but it’s difficult to cover every angle ahead of time and it is worth stopping a scene for safety.

In these articles, I have focused several times on the importance of timing for communications such as when to reveal more extreme desires and when to bring up issues but this is not meant to imply that you should bottle up your feelings. Feelings and most everything else should be discussed with your partner. If your feelings are strong enough to override the timing concerns I have mentioned, then, by all means, discuss the issue with your partner when you need to. There is a balance between not pushing your partner or making your partner uncomfortable, with not bottling up your feelings and opinions and this balance is something which you will probably need to navigate through on your BDSM journey.

One other issue which may come up is that your partner may feel the need to do or be something which your partner is not comfortable with. For example, your partner may read an article which states “A Dominant must portray confidence at all times or else the scene will be ruined” and this may make your partner feel uncomfortable. Assure your partner that everyone has their own views on BDSM and there is no right or true way. The best way to experience BDSM is however you two want to experience it, as long as it is safe, sane, and consensual.

A question you may be asking is “What on earth makes me think that my partner would be interested in dominating me at all?” This is very valid as many people would not be interested in dominating whatsoever and the initial discussion may not get past part 1 of this series of articles. However, your partner has something which very few vanilla people have: a submissive who is willing to help with caring advice and patience. Your partner may learn to enjoy dominating you initially just to please you, then grow to truly enjoy the effect it has on you, and even possibly enjoy the activities in themselves with the effect heightened by your mutual enjoyment. If your partner grows to truly enjoy the effects on you from your partner’s domination and looks forward to dominating you, that is a win-win and it is a realistic goal for any submissive with a vanilla partner.

There are many more topics which may come up on your BDSM journey as these articles are only the tip of the iceberg. It is very difficult to anticipate which issues will come up ahead of time but www.FetLife.com is a very good community with groups in which you will see others who are going through a version of your same journey, with many of the concerns you and your partner may have. I encourage you and your partner if your partner is interested (remember not to push), to join FetLife and take advantage of the advice provided in addition to learning about different BDSM mindsets and activities.

As a summary of this article:

1. Be patient with your partner who may be slow in progressing with dominant desires, do not push your partner; 2. Discuss basic safety issues since your partner is new to BDSM; 3. Provide extra services such as chores or massage; 4. Praise your partner for positive experiences, do not criticize; 5. Reveal your more extreme BDSM desires slowly, when your partner seems ready; 6. Ask your partner’s opinions on the overall enjoyment on a 1-10 scale and whether or not there are specific activities your partner would want more or less of; and 7. Join FetLife for advice and information.

Most of all relax and have fun. It may take time for your partner to warm up to BDSM as much as you may need, be patient and keep the lines of communication open. There is no right way to approach this topic and these are only guidelines to help past some of the potential difficulties.

If you have any questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact me at nrjb2@yahoo.com or on FetLife with my username Ted_Subby. Happy submitting!