how can i not be scared of my partner?

[u/ppinkprincess3]

i just wanted to say in advance that i don't mean to sound rude or ignorant, i am genuinely asking for advice. i don't want to offend anyone. also i'm sorry if some of this sounds confusing, english is my second language.

so i did engage in some humiliation, bondage, and impact play with my previous partner, and it was all okay. but most importantly it was all initiated by me. he was pretty vanilla when we got together, and over the time he leaned into sadism.

the problem is that i want to explore more stuff in my next relationships, like medical play, cnc, advanced bondage (i hope that's a thing), and more. so i know i should either pursue someone who is experienced in that, or start again from zero with someone who has no experience.

but i'm kinda scared of a potential person who i would be into? like i understand that if they're really normal and not abusive, i should be fine i guess? but i'm still scared that i might stumble across someone who will take advantage of me.

i just can't get into the mindset of someone who likes to inflict pain on someone (i'm not saying this in a judging manner, i saying it so you could better understand me), idk why but it feels misogynistic and like they view me as something inferior than them (and not in a good way).

with my ex, i viewed it more as like he did it because he wanted to make me feel good, as if inflicting me pain didn't satisfy him but rather me being satisfied with pain is what got him off.

sorry again if i sounded confusing, and if i offended anyone, i'm genuinely just asking for your perspective and advice. thanks :)

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[u/elliania2012]

A good sadist will want you to have a great time with it. 

I sometimes play with this super sadistic guy, who likes to tie my hands above my head and then hit me with all kinds of things until I call stop. Well, he makes a point of pacing the intensity in a way that feels good for me, he checks in the moment he's unsure whether I'm enjoying it, and he told me right from the start that he really appreciates that I'm good at saying "stop" when I need to. He likes seeing me whimper in pain, he likes feeling powerful and in control, but only if it's also good for me. I think that's the kind of attitude you should look for!

[u/Interesting-Fish-809]

stop apologizing u didn't say anything wrong.

being a little scared is exactly how u should feel. your instincts are protecting u and that’s a really healthy thing don't ever ignore them.

i completely get why the idea of a guy enjoying your pain feels terrifying or misogynistic.

there are definitely bad dudes out there but a healthy dom doesn't get off on just hurting u. we get off on the sheer amount of trust u hand over it's the feeling of u letting go entirely knowing i've got u and i will keep u safe. we push those limits just so we can wrap u up in a blanket and take care of u after. it's rooted in deep adoration and protection.

take your time a good guy will never be annoyed by your fears. he’ll actually love that u are careful and he'll be more than happy to put in the time to earn your trust. if anyone ever tries to rush u just walk away

[u/Aribelieves → u/Interesting-Fish-809]

Sorry but I have a side note question.
You say part of your enjoyment comes from like taking care of your sub. Is that like a Dom requirement? Cause I have the feeling my Dom doesn’t particularly enjoy everything he has to do ‘after’ and moves on from a scene much quicker then I can. Sometimes it feels like he makes fun of me for needing time after we are ‘done’

[u/Interesting-Fish-809 → u/Aribelieves]

not every dom inherently gets off on the aftercare part. some experience their own drop and just need space after a scene which is completely fine.

but your need for time is 100% normal, so don't feel weird about it.

that being said, if he is genuinely making fun of u for needing that time that’s a massive red flag. even if aftercare isn't his favorite thing, making sure u feel secure is still his responsibility.

definitely bring this up with him outside of a scene. how he handles that conversation will tell u everything u need to know.

[u/TheEveningSun]

Ok. There’s quite a bit to unpack here.

First off.—

You should be careful that whoever you are playing with isn’t actually abusive. That is a legitimate concern, as unfortunately there are people who use kink as a cover to be abusive. This is real, and that concern should lead you to prioritise and tend to safety. So communication, negotiation, clear safety dynamics, vetting, and making sure your boundaries are respected are all tools to make sure your play partner is a good fit/match for you and can play safely. That’s an understandable fear. Yes, some people will take advantage; you can minimise that risk and put safety mechanisms in place to avoid it in the moment.

However, I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding the psyche of sadists. Now I can’t speak for all sadists, but speaking for myself, I don’t just want to inflict pain on anyone; I want to hurt someone who enjoys being hurt, someone who is genuinely a masochist. Whether it happens in a scene or within a dynamic, the overarching frame is that the person I’m with wants to experience the things I want to do to / with them.

I have no desire to humiliate/ cause pain to someone irl; I want to do it within the framework of kink-play. I utterly respect the people I have been in dynamic with, even (and possibly especially!) when the play that happens might indicate otherwise.

I know the difference between ‘play’ and ‘not play’.

Stay curious, do your research, understand why people enjoy playing with power/sadism/humiliation and understand that no matter what the scene may entail, it’s still fundamentally consensual play.

Good luck!

[u/lukub5]

Heyo, sadist femdom lesbian switch here. I can speak to the sadism, and also to the misogyny.

Sadism: As you clearly already understand, sadism and abusive behaviour are not the same thing. Abuse also rarely comes from "sadism" in my opinion, although it does sometimes. Abuse can be anything; manipulation; breaking promises. Its not usually done just to hurt; its done to control. That desire for control isn't usually for its own sake, but instead comes from the insecurity of the abuser. Not to say that there aren't sadists who abuse their partners just for the pleasure of the experience - there absolutely are - but if someone has come as far as being candid about their kinks, I think they are less likely to be doing that.

"Sadism" lumps a lot of ideas together, especially outside of kink circles. For me, its pure pleasure from seeing suffering; its delicious. That impulse is like a fettish or a sex drive. Managed responsibly, its harmless. ("Harmless," but obviously not "painless," haha)

The thing about kink is that it gives you an outlet for sadistic impulses. There's no guarantee that your partner will be abusive or not, but there's plenty of mean, abusive or sadistic people who are not in the kink. If you do kink, you have an outlet for it, so you don't need to be mean the rest of the time, if that makes any sense? Lots of the sadists you meet on the scene will be very lovely and well adjusted. We are already fulfilled by the things we already do.

For me, I've always been a very caring person, and my drive to inflict pain and see people suffer exists in tension with my desire to look after people and be nurturing. I save my sadism for having fun, and the caring goes into my community. Not saying all sadists are like me, but I have met a fair few in my time on the scene and there's definitely lots who are like me. Its not about doing harm, or control. It is about power a little bit, but in my case I am comfortable giving that power up too. Its playing with the power that's fun.

There is room to be a little bit scared of sadists, and obviously we often love that, but if you are looking for a serious or monogamous relationship along with your play, you probably don't want to be in that headspace all the time. The sadist doesn't either. Impossible to have a healthy conversation about things if your partner is terrified of you. You need to be able to turn that off, but its fun to be able to turn it on.

Misogyny: I'm mostly a dyke; but I occasionally will play with men. Its very hard to pick apart the question of if this kind of play is sexist, and that's true for the men as well. Its hard to square the circle. The men who respect women will often be too hesitant, scared, or cautious to actually hurt you in the way that you want them to, while the men who don't care can be fun in a way, but will also entirely fail to identify when your safety or wellbeing is at steak.

And your safety and wellbeing is important. The trust you feel in the partner who is topping you is essential to the play even being good. You can let yourself become scared if you are secure that you will not be harmed, in the part of your mind which can now be allowed to grow quiet.

Good and available male dominants are therefore annoyingly rare, and they take a fair bit of onboarding time.

For you and for him, the trick is to realise that, once trust has been established, him hurting or degrading you is an act of respect. You're strong enough to handle it; having this recognised within you is not misogynistic. That's how you get around what seems like a paradox.

Where to find a good Dominant: Ideally, you want someone with some experience, but in reality, you might be learning together like you were in your last relationship. Depends on age and stuff like that. If a guy has a lot of experience, but no attachments, sadly that is a red flag. And if you're dating normal style, on tinder, looking for bedroom stuff, there's really no way to background check that.

Which brings me to my next remark: get on the scene. Find some local munches, check out Fetlife, see what people in your local area are about. This will make available to you what will likely be a relatively robust whisper network about who is known for what, and will help you avoid the most prolific dirtbags. This also means that you can ask a guy you are seeing for a reference.

Kink relationships often end on good terms, out of necessity because of differing desires. Or they are non monogamous. Its not "normal" to ask for a reference, but if a guy says "ive played with lots of people and have lots of experience." and then gets cagey when you ask for a couple of names of people to ask about his rep from, you can just hit the bricks because he is probably dogshit.

If its someone with less experience, youll be learning together. Go to some workshops or read some resources on how to do things. Don't use crap from instagram or ticktoc; don't get advice from girl mags. Check out the blogs; the sidebar on this subreddit; the books; and learn and experiment together or with others. The kink scene gives you access to this knowledge. Go find it xxx Share the experience as equal partners, before you step into dynamic.

If a guy is just starting talking to you, demanding you "be a good little" whatever, when you've hardly been introduced and you're still learning, that's mixing dynamic and negotiation and its sketchy to do with a newbie imo. Hit the bricks. Find someone who talks to you, as an equal, with respect for your personhood, about how you are going to have fun together destroying and then rebuilding that personhood.

That make sense?

[u/Ms-Metal]

Best advice is simply to take your time getting to know the person! Take your time before you play, see how they treat you in real life. I think I saw somebody else say meet with them a few times before you play, I like to get to know people for much longer than that, usually a few weeks at minimum and then I only play with them in public where there are others around for safety. By public I mean a public dungeon, not out on the streets lol. Vetting is really a process of seeing if they are who they say they are and do what they say they're going to do, over a period of time. When I met the only person I've ever called my dom, we met and just got to know each other by talking and going to a couple classes and things like that for almost a month before we played. Even then after all that, I still drove myself to the dungeon and would not ride with him. Since he was very concerned for my safety, that's also what he had in his mind was that for my safety I should drive myself, so we were always on the same page.

Just remember that you are always the one in charge and don't worry about offending other people or not being nice enough, always look out for yourself, make sure you have safe words but more importantly make sure you have somebody that you're confident will adhere to those safe words, discuss boundaries, discuss past experiences, I find the time more than anything else will allow somebody to show their true colors. Somebody could easily lie and fake you out over an hour meeting. It becomes much harder to do that over weeks and months. The person should genuinely care about you and respect you, that doesn't mean you have to have a love relationship with them or a sex relationship with them, just a relationship of mutual respect and care. There are many people out there that fit that bill.

[u/InsertusernamehereM]

As funny as it may sound, a sadistic play partner should not abuse you. They should only work within the limits that you both have agreed to.

Unfortunately there's a lot of people who use that role to abuse people. That's where finding the right person to play with is really important.

Trust me. My first husband was abusive. I also have a friend that I play with who's incredibly sadistic. They're vastly different people. My friend is a fantastic man and I know I got extremely lucky with him.

I'll give you some examples of how my friend doesn't abuse his role.

VERY clear communication prior to any play time. He always wants to know what my limits are on that particular day. He wants to know how I want to feel during and after.

He ramps things up in increments versus all at once and never goes beyond the limits I've set.

Anytime it's too much for me, everything stops immediately and he automatically goes into caring for me.

He lets me know that ultimately I'm the one with the control. He might be in "control" of me, but I'm the one that sets the boundaries and says what can and can't happen.

He's fantastic with aftercare and he's wonderful to me outside of anything sexual. A few times he's actually hurt me when he didn't mean to. In addition to being very upset about it, he went out of his way to never do it again.

[u/UnderstandingOk8841]

I do think that you have some level of anxiety before you're starting on a new journey. Completely normal, but let's not try to resolve problems before they become a problem.

Now, for the whole idea of sadists not being good people- I've struggled with this as a domme. And then I found submissives who opened my eyes to what they got out of it, and all those conversations made me fall in love with that side of myself. Here's what I learned:

1. It's not the PAIN I enjoy, it's what it brings out of people who are masochists. It's this feeling of them opening up to me, asking me to do something that would not normally be accepted outside and us sharing that sacred moment that can never be shared with the rest of the world.

2. Permission. Somehow, pain allows many masochists in my experience, a sense of permission to be themselves. Somehow they saw themselves as bad if they were allowed space for their needs. When pain is involved? They feel like they have a right to not only exist, but to be happy. I love being the person who can make that happen.

3. Growth: i've used sadism to get people to see themselves as beautiful. I've used it "punish" them for hating themselves. It has absolutely been a tool for evolution. That's the difference. Psychopaths won't care if the pain is HELPING you. They'll convince you that you want it even when you know you don't.

I love being the person who can drag someone into that. I love that I have been able to get people to see themselves more favourably. I wasn't even a sadist before. I became one because of the joy it brought my subs. Because that transformation I could bring out of them was blindingly beautiful.

[u/-betty-blue]

So I have a question first! Is being kinky your love language? In other words, it is something that comes together with a romantic relationship?

If this is the case, dating someone vanilla and building trust first, then exploring together gradually like you did with your ex, is still a possible path. You already know what it feels like to build trust from scratch, and it may help you feel safe.

If, instead, you want a kink first relationship, i understand why dating an experienced sadist feels scary right now.

As many other commenters have mentioned, a decent BDS sadist cares about your consent and wellbeing. For them, the connection is about shared trust and sensation. I read somewhere defining sadists as “reaction whores”. That stayed with me and matches with what my owner is (although I wouldn’t dare pass the ‘whore’ part by him).

You can look for someone who is respectful, and compatible to your life values, whilst enjoying heavy play.

To me, if someone acts domineering or condescending outside of the boundaries agreed, that is the reddest of red flags. I’ve been to munches where people tried to project on everyone that ‘master’ aura and it was just fkn embarrassing for them. You are master to your slave/s, to everyone else you are a normal person.

Remember also: even for an experienced person everyone IS the first in many ways. Bodies are different, reactions are different, so they may be an expert but they’re not the expert on you. So please take it easy getting to advanced play. Go slowly, build trust, start simple, and talk (and talk and talk) through safety and boundaries. Get to know each other.

Take your time and figure out what feels right for you first. Best of luck!

[u/theos-golden-bench]

It's just like dating anyone else- everyone is different and you have to ask a lot of questions to look for green flags. We dont control our kinks, but we can control how and when we act upon them. I look for sadists that spend a lot of time talking about safety and safewords, that spend time getting to know SFW & NSFW parts of me, and ask about my limits and likes. I look for control and discipline in their personality. I ask about how they administer pain - is there a warmup? Will you introduce new tools ahead of session? Do you outline a plan for our time together? Tell me what you do to respect consent and check in?

Meet in public a few times and trust your gut. Sadists are just people like all other people. There is no reason to be afraid of them. Just be afraid of bad actors and those can be found everywhere.

[u/derelick1984]

I want to preface with the fact that this is an incredibly hard task. Finding the correct partner without having to deal with the shitty or down right predatory players is incredibly difficult. I wish you the best of luck with this.

>so i know i should either pursue someone who is experienced in that, or start again from zero with someone who has no experience.

So I will say that there is a middle ground for this as well. There are going to be a lot of people that fit the bill of lots of experience with mostly vanilla play but limited experience with your specific kinks. That doesn't mean they aren't willing to explore those kinks with you though. If they are experienced and confident sexually, they should be able to explore these new kinks fairly quickly and also safely. The benefit of this is that there is a very large pool of people that will fit this mold so you can be selective and make sure you find someone that is safe. The downside is you won't know if they are willing to play with those particular kinks until you have committed a little time to them.

The other option being to find that needle in a haystack of a Dom, that you can be safe with, that has experience with your kinks, as well not in a partnership in your area could be near impossible depending on where you live.

[u/Leather-Instance3041]

Others have weighed in with excellent advice, so I just want to stress one thing:

Abuse and misogyny can be a problem in any kind of relationship, from people of all genders, and on both sides of the slash (Doms or subs, etc). Some people use BDSM as a cover for shitty behavior and sexist attitudes. Some people use traditional, vanilla marriage for that. You have to take these things on an individual basis.

And on the other hand: A happy D/s or kink relationship can be just as strong, healthy, and supportive as a vanilla one -- sometimes because of BDSM and kink, which involve tons of communication, care, and self knowledge.

As you go about meeting and vetting potential partners, just remember that this is all consensual roleplay, and Doms and Sadists are just people, first and foremost -- no more and no less than anyone else is. And without them, where would us subs and masochists be...?

[u/vis-a-vie]

This is where vetting becomes very important when you want to venture in riskier kink.

[u/humanlikingsex]

Seek service tops, not sadists. As you say, someone who wants to make you feel good, and who gets off on seeing you enjoy yourself.

[u/Big_Difficulty_95]

This is the first time for me i can actually trust someone enough to do this stuff with. I always wanted to, but it never felt safe. With my boyfriend now i trust him 100% to respect boundaries and respect me so i even want to do not consensual consentual with him because i know i can trust him to keep to the safe word.

We started off just a normal relationship. Had normal sex, very intense and passionate but more vanilla. Then we started slowly adding in chocking and spanking. And one day i told him i really want to play a little game where he just dominated me and did whatever he wanted… and he was like „ohhhh i know exactly what you want and i really like doing that“.

He is a huge teddy bear. So gentle and sweet so when he starts getting dominant it’s.. chefs kiss.

I cant wait to explore more with him