D/s Relationships Can Be As Healthy, Or Even Healthier Than Regular Romantic Relationships

Does it sound strange to hear that? It shouldn’t.

I think that some people tend to assume D/s relationships are always bordering on unhealthy. That the attraction to this kind of lifestyle is the ‘darkness and danger’ inherently expected in any activity out of the mainstream. They confuse the excitement and thrill of kink with wanting a lifestyle on the edge.

And don’t get me wrong, there are risks in many of the heavier aspects of BDSM. But those are the activities we do, not the relationships we have. We can choose to participate in a scene that has elements of risk, while wanting a totally healthy and safe dynamic with our partners.

Read more: D/s Relationships Can Be As Healthy, Or Even Healthier Than Regular Romantic Relationships

We can feel a thrill at a little bit of danger in our games, but that doesn’t have to trickle over into the people we play with. Many of us want healthy, stable relationships with people we know we can trust.

People often have trouble understanding the difference.

Part of that probably comes from the fact that until fairly recently Kink/BDSM/D/s were all activities to be hidden. It makes the scene, and anything connected to it, very mysterious.  If you’re not involved, you just don’t know much about it, other than what you see in books, shows, and movies.

And that is where the rest of the image of risky, unhealthy relationships comes from. The movies we see and books we read that feature kink, often show the more problematic relationships, because they are more exciting. The goal of fiction will always be to entertain above anything else.

Think about the really popular BDSM movies you’ve seen. Not one of them shows a healthy balanced dynamic. 50shades? Nope. Nine and a half weeks? Nope. Secretary? Nope.

The same can be said for books, but since those movies were all based on books, I don’t see a reason to list a bunch of problematic top selling novels too. The reality is we lust over the exciting morally gray, constantly escalating relationships we see in fiction, because they are hot.

They are exciting. They glue you to your seat and make your heart race.

But they aren’t healthy, and I think we all know that perfectly well, while we watch and enjoy. Right? We might fantasize about those situations, but very few people would want to experience them.

This is why I always say using fiction as a template for a relationship tends to be a mistake, because what we find exciting to fantasize about, what we find entertaining, is very different from what we want to live. It’s not what we should be exploring in our real relationships.

Don’t get me wrong… hot BDSM fiction can be inspiring. It can give you ideas. It can make you want to experience all kinds of new things. But that motivation should take you immediately to educational sites, blogs, books about the reality of living the lifestyle.

Non-fiction in other words.

You shouldn’t go from reading a kinky romance, to trying to play that out in your life to any great degree. Add a little spice to a sex scene? Sure. Tell your wife she’s now your Goddess and will be in charge of everything going forward… ehhh… maybe don’t rush into that.

My books tend to have a lot more realism than most, because of my experience for so many years, but even in them, you’re going to see people make poor choices and mistakes. You’re going to see the characters occasionally prioritize what they want over what’s healthy.

Books need conflict. They need escalations to keep people hooked, and so that the happy ending feels more ‘earned’. There will always be issues to resolve.  Sometimes those issues will be part of the kink dynamic.

So, if all you know about D/s comes from fiction, then it would be an easy assumption to believe that most relationships based around BDSM are problematic.

But that’s far from the case.

BDSM relationships come in all types. You have your happily married spouses who prefer a ‘traditional marriage’ with spanking and punishment, and might not even admit that it counts as a BDSM lifestyle (It does). You have your Dom/sub pairings who go to the Scene events and play in public with whips and restraints.

You have your Daddies/Mommies and Littles who are all about safety and reassurance. Tamers and brats where the focus is on keeping the brats in line through punishment. And that’s just to name a few.

We are a diverse group of people.

So the automatic assumption that we’re all looking for risk and excitement at the expense of a healthy dynamics is incorrect from the start. Sure, there are dynamics that aren’t balanced and stable, because any relationship, no matter the type, can be bad for you.

Relationships, in general, can be good or bad. The fact that it might be a D/s dynamic doesn’t make it any more prone to be unhealthy. And, in my opinion, you have a better shot at finding a safe, balanced partnership between kinky people.

Why?

It’s simple. We prioritize certain aspects in the Scene that are, not coincidentally, things that help keep a relationship growing and healthy.

Communication is the first and most important. Because of the activities we do, it was necessary to build in ways to keep communication open and flowing. When someone is putting their safety, both physical and emotional, into your hands, you absolutely must be sure you’re on the same page.

Safewords. Negotiation before and during play. Clearly stating boundaries and limits upfront, and then occasionally revisiting the conversation as needed when/if anything changes. Anyone who is well-educated in BDSM will make sure these discussions happen.

How many regular romantic relationships would be improved if they did the same?

How much healthier would it be while dating, if you sat down monthly to have a discussion about limits and boundaries? About what you’d like to try in the future. What you want to avoid going forward.

How many marriages would last longer if spouses could whip out a safeword when they were struggling with something? And everything would just stop so they could calmly discuss the problem.

How many partnerships would grow deeper if they treated things like a negotiation. Clearing the air, and making sure they were both on the same page as a matter of routine.

D/s relationships are built on the premise that you must have honesty and open communication. And while all relationships are supposed to have those things, regular romantic couples don’t always prioritize them.

Without the specific tools built right into the very foundation of the relationship, it’s easy to forget to stop and talk. It’s easy to hold your feelings inside and pretend something isn’t bothering you, when there’s no clear method in place to ensure that you have room for that discussion.

In a D/s relationship a Dom might make it a rule that the submissive needs to report any feelings of upset. They might set up a scheduled discussion once a month to go over rules and behavior, and if there are problems that need to be addressed. The submissive, knowing that they are supposed to tell their Dom when they are struggling with a problem, and will be in trouble if they don’t, knows that it’s their job to report in on issues.

It might be a standard part of the aftercare, to discuss any worries or fears that came up during a heavy scene catharsis. Because, quite honestly, a heavy scene can open up a lot of emotions. Things, maybe, you’ve been hiding from yourself, will suddenly burst to the surface during intense play.

All of that helps to set the stage for healthy and open communication.

Now, I have said on many occasions that safewords should be standard outside of scenes too. They should be used when a discussion is getting too tense. When someone is triggered during a conversation and starts getting defensive. During an argument, once it’s clear you’ve stopped listening to each other.

Those are great times to use a safeword, step back, take a breath. Maybe walk away and come back to the discussion at another time.

But, outside of scenes, even kinky people forget to use them as often as they should. And as far as the general public using them…except as a joke, you just don’t see it at all. Even when vanilla people are having aggressive sex, that almost borders on a BDSM activity because of how rough it is, safewords aren’t really discussed and used.

They don’t even think about it.

People aren’t taught these techniques and safety features when they start dating. They aren’t taught how to create a foundation for a healthy, open communication with a romantic partner. There is no training on how to make your romantic relationship safe… people just fall into them and learn by experience.

Unlike the kink community which puts a massive effort into educating people from day one all the way through the relationship. Before someone even gets their first play partner, they have, hopefully, been pointed to all kinds of educational resources, conversation groups, munches.

Does that always happen?  No, but if they poke their head into the community first, before trying to play, then there is a good chance it will.

Aside from sex education, which is pretty much useless and narrow in focus, there is just no foundation for making sure people learn about romantic partnerships before they find themselves in one.

So it’s not until you dip your toes into the kink pool and start learning, that you realize how useful some of these D/s dynamic approaches can be in any relationship.

If you take the time to learn first, and don’t rush into things, you have every chance to enter a healthy, stable D/s relationship. Most of the time when you end up in an unbalanced, unsafe kink dynamic, it’s because you rushed things and ignored the warnings in the back of your mind, or didn’t take the time to educate yourself first.

This isn’t a judgement. Most people in, or out, of the scene have made the mistake of moving too fast and found ourselves in a toxic relationship. It’s mostly need that drives us. And that need can be so overwhelming that it’s nearly impossible to put on the brakes.

So, this serves as your reminder. Don’t rush. Educate yourself. Use the basic safety guidelines that generations of kinky people have developed, at least until you’re experienced enough to choose if you want to accept any additional risk by going off the beaten (pun intended) track.

If you go slow, make sure you know what you’re getting into, and have fully educated yourself, then your dynamic can be just as healthy, or even healthier than any standard romantic relationship.

But, that being said, don’t hesitate to take the healthy things you learn in a kink dynamic, and use them in all of your relationships. Platonic, romantic, kinky… it doesn’t matter. With a little tweaking these skills will translate over to any kind of relationship.