The fine line between domination and abuse

One area that a Domme has to be very careful about is keeping all D&S play and femdom lifestyle interactions with her subby properly grounded. This isn’t always easy, especially if your sub encourages you to be cruel. For him it is all a part of his fantasy, it is some kind of dark hidden desire within him that wants to be treated harshly by a woman. I don’t mind playing the “Cruel Bitch” from time to time but the key word there is “playing”. That’s not who I am as a person, although a part of me enjoys being a little sadistic with my hubby occasionally. But I am not by nature an abusive person. I love my husband and even when I treat him harshly, I mostly do it for him. It satisfies some unusual need. It brings him pleasure in a perverse way. I’d be lying if I said I understood it all. I do not but that is who he is and what he needs to achieve sexual arousal. And the flip side to this is it provides the woman numerous benefits and perks. It can be a wonderfully satisfying lifestyle for all involved but there must be give and take.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself when I look at my marriage. I have lots of vanilla friends and family members who have rotten marriages and relationships. Some have ended in divorce and others are headed there. These women call me up and tell me of their problems and how lucky I am to have such a good marriage. If only they knew the half of it. After all, I not only have a husband who worships and adores me but he does the majority of the household chores, he submits to me making the decisions, he surrenders his paychecks to me, and he allows me to see other men socially, including having sexual relations with them if I so choose. It really is almost too good to be true.

But as with anything in life, nothing comes free or easy. A man like my husband has special needs. You don’t get the submission without the domination. If I have learned anything it’s that if I neglect dominating him, his enthusiasm for submission wanes. Some women say “Well then he is not a true submissive because a true submissive would submit to you no matter what.” Perhaps in theory but it doesn’t work that way, at least not for us. My husband is a great submissive, very obedient and eager to please. But he is not a robot. He has a soul, a very sweet soul, and he needs to be dominated in order for him to achieve fulfillment in being submissive. If I didn’t “play” with him, meaning if I didn’t dominate him in ways that arouse him sexually, then it wouldn’t be give and take. And if it’s not give and take then what is it? It would be abuse, would it not?

I don’t mean to ramble on here but I think about this from time to time. I’ve met women in this lifestyle who were very abusive to their husbands. It’s not for me to judge because I am sure the husband probably encouraged his wife to be that way but over time the D&S play more or less ceased and it became an abusive lifestyle. I witnessed women treating their hubbies very harshly, slapping them around, kicking them, locking them up in small cramp spaces when they were not needed, and cuckolding them without including them in on the fun. I question whether these women had any feelings at all for their husbands. Perhaps at one time they did but the love seemed to wax cold and all that was left is pure contempt. This one couple we met I could tell the wife disdained her husband. And it wasn’t some public humiliation scene they were engaged in that I misread. It is how their marriage evolved. She talked to him like he was dirt. She had stripped him all of human dignity and he basically existed to make her money and clean her house. If that’s what he wanted, more power to them, but it’s uncomfortable to watch.

He was feminized but she didn’t even bother to make that fun for him. She never dressed him up. He had to do that on his own. The poor guy was trying to make his lot in life exciting, dressing like her maid, wearing a self-installed chastity device, calling his wife names of endearment like “Princess” and “Goddess”. He thought he was being a good submissive, and he was, he was an excellent submissive. However, the poor guy was abused and he had the unhealthy looking whip marks and cigarette burns on his skin to prove it. But more than the physical abuse, he was carrying around the emotional scars. He wasn’t even allowed to look at his wife in her face. She forbade him to even look upon her … ever. If she caught him, she would slap him hard across his face. He always had his head downward and he didn’t look happy. Yet he was the one who contacted us. They wanted to meet other couples so she could show others how she had emasculated and degraded her husband. She thought they had a great femdom marriage. She didn’t like me at all because I refused to treat James that way. She said I was too nice to be a Domme.

I think about this couple, and others like them that I’ve met over the past 16 years, when I am being “cruel” to my hubby and it helps me keep things in balance. James needs this (domination) but he doesn’t need that (abuse) and it takes a wise woman to know the difference. And like I said, that isn’t always easy. It comes with trial and error but above all it comes with maintaining the love within the relationship. If I ever felt disdain for my hubby, I would end the relationship out of fear that it could turn into abuse.

Take the other night for example. I had placed James in the confinement room, bound and all alone in the dark, being punished for neglecting something I had asked him to do for me. He had an excuse but I wanted to teach him (and that is the purpose of punishment, to teach a man) that when life throws up a barrier, the dedicated submissive will still find a way. He will seek to please his Mistress even if the task proves to be difficult. I felt James gave up too easily on the task.

Therefore, he was being punished. After his confinement for several hours in restrictive bondage in an uncomfortable position, I released him and took him to my bedroom. There I administered 90 strikes of corporal punishment with my cane collection, 10 each from each cane, 2 wooden canes and 7 Delrin canes.

 

 

When I was done, James’ buttocks were bright red and striped and he was most repentant. Was I being abusive? Perhaps, if you didn’t understand the dynamics of our marriage you would probably come to that conclusion. But I didn’t stop there. I could have put him back in the confinement room for the rest of the night for him to dwell further on his punishment. Instead, I allowed James to worship my body.

When I administered his corporal punishment I was wearing only a silk bathrobe, nothing underneath. I dressed like this because I knew punishing him would more than likely get me aroused (yes, I have come to enjoy dominating my hubby almost as much as he enjoys being dominated, a wonderful byproduct of this lifestyle). After his punishment, I soothed his sore bottom with cool aloe then I had him kneel before me. I disrobed and took his head and placed it against my wet pussy. I sat on the edge of the bed, reclined back on my elbows and allowed him to worship me to orgasm. I could tell James was very excited. I could tell James was in that special place, a place he goes after he has been dominated or humiliated. It is a place where he is at peace and all is right with his world. How could I ever deny him this place? How could I not take him there?

Yes, it is a fine line between domination and abuse. And I would be lying if I said I always stayed on the proper side of that line. I try but there have been times when I have crossed that line but I have recognized it and was quick to get things back in balance. I can play rough at times and he likes that, he needs that, but what matters most is the heart. My heart is in the right place and as long as there is love, a.k.a. loving female authority, I am free to explore the deep, dark caverns of his submissive heart. I am still learning of him, and learning about me. There is a spiritual component to this lifestyle that I do not understand but when we experience it, like the other night, it transcends sex.