You're listening to Loving BDSM podcast. Kayla Lords here with the one, the only, the quite sadistic daddy, Joan Brownstone. Yes, ma'am. I thought I was in trouble a moment ago when you were like, are you waiting on me? Because I have a new rule. I'm not supposed to wait on you. And actually You're supposed to tell me when you're ready. I just got I sat down to start working and I was I knew what I was supposed to do and just poof.
Gone. Yes. So thankfully, while you are, yes, a sadistic daddy, you are also a kind and understanding daddy who knows that your submissive's brain is Swiss cheese. Sometimes. Sometimes. Anyway In a way, we are and we are not talking about things like that. Okay. This week, we're answering a question from a submissive whose dom is a caregiver dom, but they're also a switch.
And so the submissive is not sure how to provide emotional support and let their partner have their own, like, little small sub moments for emotional support too. Mhmm. K. Welcome to the Loving BDSM podcast. If you're new here, we help kinksters like you have happy, healthy, power exchange relationships. Add the podcast to your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. And if you have a question that you'd like us to answer, you can send that into us, on our website, lovingBDSM.net.
That's lovingBDSM.net. And in the show notes, for this episode is a link literally called ask your questions. Submit your question there, and it could be a future one of these. Okay. Let's get into the question. Hi. My partner and I are both relatively new to BDSM and kink and are in a daddy dom relationship. He tries his best to be loving and supportive and provides great aftercare that makes me feel very safe. He says taking on a caregiving role was a surprise to
him, but that he doesn't dislike it. However, I worry that I'm putting too much on him and that he may feel that now he can't come to me for comfort and to be in more of a small, taking care of headspace. He's a switch. Well, I'm a % submissive. My question is, how do you navigate having a caregiving dynamic and being able to equally provide emotional support? I I think, there needs to be a conversation. Ding ding ding. Right there. Mhmm. Needs to be conversation. What can I do for you? How can
I help you navigate this? Mhmm. Mhmm. You know, I know some people. Lola Lola agrees with me. And, you know, some people, I think, would would kinda look into this as, you know, having the the the sub give them support, it's almost could say it's like an act of service.
Especially if it's in you know, if you're talking about offering support to somebody who is made maybe wants to feel submissive or wants to feel, you know, less dominant, then, yes, it it becomes a way to, take care of your partner regardless of which side of the slash. But that's that would be the conversation I would say to have is, how can I help take care of you emotionally?
The conversation I think to have is how can I emotionally support you when you are feeling kind of that submissive headspace or when you want that support while in a submissive headspace? You know? How are you all and the other thing for the person asking the question is how are you already navigating as a % submissive your partner's switchy side? You know? Do they have other outlets with kink friends? Are you nonmonogamous?
Are they, you know, currently not really worried about their side and they're sort of swimming in their dominance a little bit more? You know, what the only way you know what your partner needs and how you can help them is to ask them. But from a submissive perspective. Now I say this as a service sub, and you may not be a service sub, but I want to take care of my daddy dom in my most submissive way and also my
most supportive way. And so I can do that and provide the emotional support and feel like, oh, this is me within my role because it's a thing I do out of love, I do out of care, but also I do it as I don't think of it this way. This is a little clinical, but, you know, as, quote, as a service. It's not a service. It's a thing you do for somebody you care about. But if, in y'all's case, if your partner is feeling their
more submissive side Mhmm. And you're providing that, you're not dominating them. It's maybe a a top situation, but not really. You can be submissive and let somebody else be submissive and provide emotional support. Because it it it doesn't seem like like this person is being their top. It I use that as a semantic thing. You know, we talk about Okay. You know, I'm a % submissive, so I'm not going to dom you, but I might do an activity where I function as the top. See
what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's not that you're embodying the space headspace of a top, but it's a little bit it's a word game. It's semantics. Right. It's pure semantics. But for some people, that helps them kind of understand, oh, I'm not the one actually in charge here. Mhmm. I am doing this thing for my partner that they would normally do for me. See what I'm saying? But at the very beginning, the thing you said is
the most important. You need a you need to have conversation and specifically ask, how can I do this for you? What do you need from me? Yeah. And then, you know, consistently use sort of check ins because the longer you're together, you're going to start picking up on these moments where maybe they need emotional support and they're not asking for it. You can say, hey. Can I help you? Whatever you know, when you have the conversation
with your partner and they're like, hey. Here are the things you can do to emotionally support me. These are the things I like. You're gonna hit situations where they're not specifically asking for that support, but you're gonna know them well enough and know the situation and the context well enough to go, oh, this is a thing that maybe I should do for them. They have needed this in the past.
As a submissive, one of the things that we do more often than doms do, depending on the dynamic, is we ask before we do anything. Yes. Yes. Yes. Everybody should ask because consent matters. But in power exchange, where some things are understood based on your individual relationship and your negotiations, and, again, context matters, JB as a dom will do things for me automatically because he's the one in charge, where if I wanna do them for him, I'm gonna
ask because I'm dismissive. In this case, you are honoring your submissive side by seeing your partner need something they're not currently asking for, and you ask, hey. Is this something I can help you with? Hey. Do you, you know, you wanna talk? Hey. Well, whatever those things are that your partner says, here's how you can emotionally support me. Here's how you can allow me to kind of be in that space I need to be in
with you. Mhmm. You are still completely submissive there even if they're not feeling their dominant self in that moment. You know? It's it's all I think it's a matter of flexibility. It's a matter of learning one another, you know, having not plans, but sort of ideas in place that you can kind of lean on and you can, you know, help remind your partner, hey. You said I could do this for you. Can I do this for you now?
And still embody your submissive side and and allow them to feel however they're feeling in the moment, if they're feeling like a caregiver or if they're feeling, you know, their submissive side, however that works for them. Mhmm. But, you know, I this question is part of, the most recent, like, main podcast episodes question. I actually pulled that question out of this
one because it fit the topic more. And it's a lot about worrying of, am I am I asking for too much because I know my partner needs and wants other things? And so that kind of ties in here. I think you might be overthinking this because you are fully aware that maybe this is not something your partner would have naturally gravitated towards, and now you think, I'm gonna ask her too much. I'm gonna tip the scales, and it's gonna be unbalanced. How do I provide that balance?
You know? Mhmm. It all goes back to communication, but True. True. We're time traveling here. We're recording this one before we have the answer to the the main how do I prevent being too much. But my suspicion is it's a little bit of learning to trust your partner to have their own boundaries and to let you know when they need you and to let you know when they can't do the thing you're asking for. And and less of worrying before you've even broached the subject with them and had a
conversation. Like, we're pre worrying. As an anxious person, I get it. I pre worry all the time. But there there is that as well. You're worrying about a thing that hasn't necessarily happened yet. You're anticipating it. There's in any relationship, but certainly power exchange, good, clear, honest communication is key. And so these are the times you lean on that, and you just ask the question. So now that I've, you know, lectured, is there anything you would add to this?
I I don't really think so. Yeah. Other than just to to say, you know, in in the wording of the question, you know, talking about the communication, it this kind of boils down to one of those situation, you know, nobody's a mind reader. Yes. Okay. Mhmm. You know, the the big misconception sometimes in in BDSM that, you know, your mind readers that you automatically know what somebody wants, and you and you can't. You you
can you can't. No. And I think that comes from the misconception that all everybody in a specific role is having a, similar experience and does the same thing and wants the same things and so handles things the same and so therefore maybe you witness somebody else's power exchange and here's how their dom handles this and here's how that sub handles that and and you know it it I think we understand on a deep level that will not automatically apply but we get kind of worried
or we assume that there's this, you know, script that everybody's following and so surely they will just do the thing and I'm supposed to just do the thing. And it goes back to mind reading, but it also goes back to thinking there's a script you're supposed to follow and there's none of that. It was truly when you wanna know how do I support my partner, you ask them. When you worry, am I being too much,
you ask them. Mhmm. You know? And you have to have developed a relationship or be in the process of developing a relationship where you trust their responses. You know, if there's no trust there, that screws it all up. But assuming there's, you know, trust developing or existing already and it's deep enough, then you just they're they're a grown ass adult. They they should be able to tell you what they want slash need if you ask them Yeah.
Or tell you, I'm still trying to figure it out, and maybe y'all can figure it out together. Right. But, yeah, the the mind reading portion, I think, tends to get a lot of people. Yeah. And the thinking of, like like I said before, a script. Like, everybody does the same thing, so, therefore, they should just know because they've put on this role of daddy dom or whatever. Nope. No. It doesn't work that way. Mm-mm. Thanks for listening to this week's q and
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