Finding your Dominant

Finding your Dominant

So you have finally come to the realization that you are either Dominant or submissive, or at least that you are interested enough in either of these that you want to explore the possibilities they offer further.  The question is, how do you find someone, either dominant or submissive with whom to explore them, without jeopardizing your safety or discretion? 

 

In this wired world, many people get their first introduction into BDSM online. While chat rooms are a great place to meet and talk to people about the lifestyle, only rarely do such online connections lead to successful, long lasting real relationships.  In fact, when it comes to finding a real life partner online  relationships can be a hindrance rather than a help.  Why? Because once you are involved in an online relationship you will almost certainly focus on that rather  than on finding a real life partner.  Time and time again I have people tell me  about this wonderful long distance relationship they have, and time and time  again those relationships fall apart.  Relationships need contact, they need smiles  and hugs and togetherness. They need sex. Without these things they are almost bound to fail. 

 

In this Master's opinion, people all too often fall into the trap of thinking that they can  convert  their  online  relationship  into  real  life  without  considering  the practicalities of a) moving hundreds of miles away from friends and family to be with a partner they hardly know and b) making the relationship work once they get  there.   I  know  some  people  do  manage  it,  but  the  fact  is  chat  room relationships rarely turn into successful real life ones.  If you're serious about finding a real life partner concentrate on that rather than on cyber sex.  I personally know a submissive who dedicated a year to an online relationship and when she and her prospective Master finally met, they lasted less than a week. A year is an awful amount of time to waste.

 

A better way to find that perfect Dominant or submissive, is to hook into the local 'scene' (there's  bound  to  be  one) and  to  attend  various  club events,  play  parties, munches and so forth. However, before you dash off to look up BDSM Clubs in the yellow pages, be aware  that many  of  the  folk  who attend such events are pretty  much 'out  there' as  far  as  their  sexual  proclivities are concerned, and consequently their sense of discretion may not be what you would hope it to be.  If you're not reasonably comfortable with being asked "who were those leather clad  weirdo's  I  saw  you with Saturday?" you're better off giving  them a wide berth.

 

To my mind, one of the most effective ways to meet a partner is to advertise on line.  Effective that is, if you approach it with a healthy degree of caution, and just a little common sense. On line services like these are discrete and reliable, allow you to be very specific about what you want and are cost effective, but (there's always a but right?) to make the most of them you do have to use them properly.  

 

Step 1 - Prepare

 

You need to determine for yourself (as best you can) who you are and what you  are looking for in a partner.  I know this can be difficult if you're totally new to the lifestyle, but do your best. Are you looking for a long-term relationship or a  one-off /casual play partner? What sort of activities appeal to you? What are you really looking for in a partner? What do you have to offer? Use your imagination and put yourself into  a 'virtual'  Dominant submissive  relationship.  What is  the  relationship like?  How  does  your  partner treat you?  What are the relationships governing rules?  What happens when  the  rules  are  broken?   Spend  some  time thinking about these questions and build a picture in your mind of the relationship that you want. When the picture is reasonably clear, write it down.

 

Once you have a pretty good idea of what sort of relationship you're looking for, you can start  to  prepare  yourself  for  it.   You  may  want  to read some of the articles  on  this and other  sites  and  look  at  some of  the lifestyle books,such as Different Loving by Gloria Brame).that are so readily available.

 

As a  rule  of  thumb  Dominants  can best prepare by understanding as best they can what makes a submissive  tick  and  submissives  can  best  prepare  by learning the attitude and some of the skills a typical Master or Dominant may demand of them.

 

By the way - you may feel  that preparing for a relationship is a little clinical and takes some  of the romance  out of it,  but I  beg  to  differ.   Our upbringing and  day-to-day  vanilla experiences  go a long way towards preparing us for a vanilla relationship - so why should a dominant submissive relationship be any different?

 

Step 2 - Advertise

 

Take care in creating your advertisement (also known as a profile) - it's worth spending a bit of time  on  it and  getting right, and a well crafted ad that's free of spelling mistakes and  grammatical  errors  is much  more attractive than one that looks as though it's been thrown together in 5 seconds. Use that mental image of your ideal relationship as your guide, but be honest.  Don't make the mistake of overstating your experience, and be clear about any practical limitations you may have.

 

You want to reach as  wide and audience  as  possible, so join and create a free profile on at least two specifically kink related personal ad sites  (adultfriendfinder.com and alt.com are probably amongst the best known) and  one  vanilla site (try friendfinder.com -  if you  word  your  ad properly  you'll  be  surprised at how effective  a  vanilla  site can be).  Once you have completed  your profile,  browse  through some  of the other advertisements specific to your area to  get  a  feel for who's out there and what they are looking for.  Free  membership to most of these site limits the number of ads you can look at and / or respond to in  a  given  period  so  it's  certainly  worth thinking about paying for membership to  at  least  one  of  them.   In  most  cases a three month membership (which  should  be  plenty) costs less  than $30 - pretty cheap when you consider the impact it might have on the rest of your life.

 

Step 3 - Taking it further

 

Okay, so your profile is complete and you just have to sit back and wait for the replies to roll in right? Wrong! You must also reply to other people's ads - submissives in particular seem to feel that they ought not 'make the first move', but if the Dominants didn't want replies they wouldn't have placed the ad in the first  place.  Someone has to get this thing going, and by responding to ads as well as waiting for others to reply to yours, you double your chances of connecting with the right person.

 

(A  note  for submisives  -  it's  not  uncommon  for personals sites to allow free female members to  reply to ads but  not to allow free male advertisers to do so - all the  more reason  for  you  to  reply  to  ads,  and  all the  more reason for the men to stump up with the cash to become a paid up member.)

 

A few Do's and don'ts:

 

DO:

• Tell the advertiser what attracted you to their ad, and a little bit about yourself

• Be open and honest about your personal circumstances, what you are looking for and what you look like

• Be polite and avoid crudity

• Take your time to get the reply right

• Include an anonymous email address (one you have set up on hotmail.com specifically for the purpose)

DON'T

• Include your phone number or anything that might identify you

• Be tempted to respond to more that 4 or 5 ads at a time

• Be impolite 

• Overstate your interests or experience

• Reply to ads that clearly don't fit your requirements, or where you don't fit theirs

• Reply to ads where the advertiser lives way outside your local geographic area.

 

Once you start getting replies, it's important that you reply to every single one of them, even if it's just to say thanks but no thanks.  Remember, by placing an advertisement you're asking people to respond.  Not bothering to reply to them when they have taken the trouble to do as you've asked is downright rude.

 

Step 4 - Meeting

 

So, it's finally happened. You've received a load of replies to you ad, responded to one or two and you think you've found 'the one'. What next? Well that's really up to you, but I suggest a number of emails back and forth about what each of you are  looking for,  followed  by  some  very  long 'getting to know you' phone calls.  Don't be  in too  much  of a  hurry - if they really are 'the one', they'll wait.  Just before I go though, a few points about  first time meeting safety - particularly for the ladies:

 

 

• Meet in a public place, and stay there for the duration of the first meeting.

• Have a safety net in place - tell someone where you are going, who you are meeting and when you will be back. Set up a system whereby they will call in the cavalry if you don't call them at a pre-determined time.

• Don't 'play' with the person you are meeting on the first date.

• Be wary of giving out your home address to anyone until you know them well.

• Take a cell phone with you.

• Trust your instincts - if it feels wrong - get out.

 

Finally good luck! I hope you find that perfect partner and it all works out well for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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