Blog post: Long Distance D/s series: part 1— How does it work?

I told you I was working hard on these! You’ll never know how stressful it was to pull this series together, so I hope you find some use in it. I will be setting this up to post a new piece in the series every Friday so it will be nice and steady.

When you read romance novels about D/s relationships you get the idea that everything is about sex and that it’s all animal passions with any discipline usually just being a reason to assert the dominance that both people like. But in real life D/s comes in many different flavors and styles and some of these styles can work quite well from a distance.

If you’re the kind of person who needs to be in bed with your significant other every night and needs constant physical attention then a long-distance relationship of any kind, D/s or otherwise, may not be right for you. But many relationships these days involve distance and pretty much anything you can/would do in person can be evolved and adapted for a long-distance relationship.

Ask a military spouse how they survive without seeing their husband for a year or more at a time, or anyone with a partner that has to move to a new location frequently. It’s not always possible to pack up and go with them, especially if they will just be sent someplace else in a few months.

And then of course, many people start their relationships online now too, which means you often don’t get the luxury of falling for someone who lives nearby. Whatever the reason for your separation, technology can help to add depth and dimension to a relationship when you can’t always be in each other’s arms.

Do you get lonely sometimes? Yes, of course you do. You live for the in-person visits, but in the meantime, you use technology to nourish your bond and keep the relationship healthy.

I’ve put off writing a post on this for a few reasons. First, I am very experienced at being a long-distance sub and I have more experience at distance relationships then my Doms do and I really didn’t want to give them ideas.

Second, well… it’s not an easy topic to write about. Parts of it are kind of embarrassing which you’ll come to understand when we get to punishments. And last, it’s not going to be a quick and easy post because the dynamics are too complicated, and I want to make sure I cover everything thoroughly.

I tried to sort out how to write this and I realized there is way too much information for this to be a one-post topic without completely overloading everyone, so it had to be a series to do it justice. Right now, I’m thinking it will be four or five parts that way I can keep each one a reasonable length, but if you have questions or points you’d like to make feel free to drop them in comments or email me privately and I’ll try to make sure they are included by the end.

I was twenty when I entered my first LD relationship and it involved being on the phone pretty much all of my waking hours. Over the years this has evolved to more computer interaction and less phone time because spending that much time with someone via a device of any kind can make it difficult to get everything else in your life taken care of, and if most of your communication is via text it is a lot easier to multi-task, but that’s just my preference. I know couples who are constantly in each other’s ears as they go through the day and that works too.

I feel like the most important thing to remember when you’re apart is that you need to set aside what time you can to make each other a priority. It becomes very easy, when you communicate through text, to just occasionally reply while you’re working, spending time with family and friends, running errands—and that’s nice.

Checking in with each other is important, but in the same way you’d still need a date night to focus on each other if you were physically together, you need to make sure that you plan some non-distraction time to concentrate on each other from a distance.

It can be hard, but nothing kills a relationship faster then apathy from a routine that doesn’t change, and we’re all guilty of falling into a rut with our relationships. Whether you live together or apart it’s easy to do. D/s thrives on a bit of excitement.

A snap of an order, unexpectedly getting into trouble, letting your mouth get away from you and hearing that ominous silence—these are the things a submissive needs to remember their place and all of it can be done from a distance but not if you let busy and separate lives reduce everything to the same-old pattern.

Of course, life sometimes can be overwhelming, and it can be hard to find the time to dedicate, but when you feel things starting to get stale, you’ll want to say something, plan something, DO something because long distance relationships wither a lot easier. The simple fact that you aren’t tied together with as much red-tape and baggage when you don’t live together means that drifting away can be a real problem.

There are tons of ways to keep things fresh and exciting and I’m going to try to cover some of them, but your own imagination and creativity is going to be your best guide here. And remember the downside of a long-distance relationship is that it can be harder to catch things. You don’t see the expressions, the shrugs, the eye-rolls. Even on video chat you often miss these things so communication on both sides is important.

A submissive who is starting to feel lonely or undominated is going to get sulky. There will be attitude out of nowhere and they might not even know why they are suddenly upset until they think about it later. I’m writing this as much to remind myself as to help others, because even though I know these things I sometimes forget too.

Submissives in a dynamic like this need to be better about honesty and confession. Let’s not pretend, as submissives, that ‘getting caught’ doesn’t give us a little thrill. For the brats and littles obviously, but even the service subs like to know someone is paying enough attention to catch them being naughty, right?

But the problem, is that it’s harder to catch someone when you aren’t right there. Subs have the onus on them to be more up-front about things, to confess when they break rules and that can be hard. It can also take a bit of the spice out of the relationship for some. A lot of subs fall back on just hinting that they’ve done something, so they can be questioned and then caught and that works fairly well, but it does require the Dominants to be paying attention.

People will ask me “How does that even work? How do they know when you’ve done something wrong?” and it seems incomprehensible to them that I just tell my Doms. Oh, sure, sometimes I try and hide things. It’s natural to be anxious about being in trouble and try not to get caught, but as much as part of me doesn’t want to be in trouble the submissive side is too strong to hide things well or for long.

And I know I have a responsibility to let them know what’s going on so even when I’m not talking, I at least try to hint that they should be asking me questions. Honesty is how a D/s relationship is able to work, it’s just even more important in this kind of dynamic.

All relationships, but especially D/s relationships need open communication, and when it comes to people who aren’t always in the same place physically it’s something you really need to focus on. If you find that you aren’t getting enough D/s time, then you might need to schedule it in on a regular timeline.

With my Doms, regardless of what happens throughout the month, we’re supposed to take time at the end of the month to discuss ‘infractions’ and issues and there’s usually a punishment scene to clear the slate for the next month. Not everything is put off until then of course. It’s not always enough to know that there will be an accounting at the end of the month, and they can tell by my behavior when something is needed immediately.

Certain behaviors call for instant correction and some needs require on the spot fixes, but the regular day-to-day rules like drinking 60oz of water or completing every item on the daily list can usually be marked down to be dealt with later.

But how do you deal with these things when the Dom isn’t right there to punish you? We’ll be covering that in part two! I know, cliffhangers are horrible right? Don’t worry part two will be up next week so you won’t have long to wait!