You're listening to Living BDSM podcast. Kayla Lords here with the one, the only, the definitely a bratty daddy, John Brownstone. Indeed I am. I mean, it's a feature, not a bug. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a selling point, really. Mhmm. Absolutely. Until you turn that, like, the evil bratty ways on me, like, then I'm, like, really frustrated and I'm reminded I'm an only child and I do not know how to handle teasing and it, like, really upsets me.
When when when bratty daddy and sadistic daddy get together, it's Oh my god. Oh my god. I need to send up, like, some sort of bat signal so somebody can come save me when you go bratty and sadistic. Anyway, that is not at all what we're talking about today. This week, we're answering a question from a dominant who isn't sure how to maintain the dynamic when their submissive partner cannot, for good reason, be consistent.
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 in a future one of these, you can get in touch and send that question to us through our contact page that's literally labeled ask your questions, available at loving BDSM.net. That's loving BDSM.net, or the link is in the show notes.
Okay. Here's the question. My wife has voiced interest in kink play. She is submissive by nature, seems a bit like Kayla, submissive but with attitude at times. She has had trauma around sex as a teenager, and she also takes medication for depression. Sometimes she is keen to submit and others she is quite shut down and gets caught in her conflict about how she really feels. I find it difficult to maintain a power exchange because her mood and mindset are so unpredictable.
I would love some advice as to how we can make this work. I certainly don't want to exacerbate her trauma. I'm not sure how to be loving and empathetic while keeping her in her place as my sub. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Oh, wow. I have so many thoughts. But Yeah. What do you think? You know, I I my my very first thought went to I I think it would probably be helpful for both of them if they spoke to
a counselor. If they're not already out. If they're not already, especially one that's kink friendly. Mhmm. Okay. I I think in in this case specifically that that is something that needs to be, you know, thought of. That that kink a kink aware, kink friendly counselor is something. You know, I I think this is gonna come down to a lot of communication. Mhmm. I agree. You know, and, I think there's going to have to be some understanding, some give and take Mhmm. In
all this. And and, you know, it it's gonna take a little bit I don't think this is anything that's gonna happen overnight. It's gonna take some some time and some work. Right. Because there's the working through the emotional aspect and how, if in any way, the kink life is touching on stuff that the submissive partner is dealing with or has dealt with in the past. And then there's figuring out what power exchange means to each of them as
individuals and then together. Like, this is a long journey kind of process with a lot of, what's the word I want, looking within, figuring yourself out, and then also figuring out how how that relates to one another and how you both relate to each other within this dynamic. And also being very, honest with yourselves about, is it a dynamic that is best for your relationship? Or, you know, as the question starts out in kink play, should it be kept to bedroom only, kinky activities
when in the mood only? And there's no right answer for sure. It's it's gonna come down to what is needed for everybody to Right. Stay mentally and emotionally healthy for sure. Mhmm. A couple of things that came up for me in this question. Have y'all had the conversation about what it means for you to be the dominant, what it means for your partner to be the submissive, how you define those things for yourselves, and then how that comes together
in your power exchange. There is a difference to me between kink play and a power dynamic you try to live. Mhmm. They can go hand in hand, but they're not it's not the same thing automatically. No. And especially if your wife is doing that push and pull of, am I submissive? Is this what I want? You know, sometimes it's having to, you know, sort of move beyond what we've most of us have been taught and socialized to be, especially as women of, you know, don't behave in this way, don't want what
you want. It I'm of that, you know, young gen x elder millennial thing of you better be an independent woman because your mothers and grandmothers fought for this. And so the idea of then being a submissive purposely being submissive in a relationship is, like, are my feminist ancestors rolling in their graves
right now? So you there's some of that that might have to be thought about again and and looked through in a different lens and reconciled with who you want to be versus who you think you are versus what society expects you to be. And if that exploration is not being done, then it can absolutely lead to internal conflict. There's also we talked about this in last week's, q and a of figuring out what your
personal definitions for dominance and submission are. If you are basing your kink play or your power dynamic off of what other people have told you dominance and submission are supposed to be, and that does not work with who you are as a person, that creates an immediate conflict that, you know, is is hard to reconcile, and then people can do struggle with that push and pull. Yeah. So there's that as well. I agree with you that flexibility is gonna be key here.
Yeah. If your partner's having a day or a week or a moment where the power exchange works just like you want it to, and then 10 minutes from now, tomorrow, next week, It's not. There's gonna have to be some understanding between the 2 of you that she's not failing, and you are not being somehow less dominant by understanding that flexibility is required here.
The other thing, that came to mind, and this is a a thing that will not work for everybody, but I just wanna throw it out there as something to consider. If for you as the dominant, this speaks to you, then feel free. If it resonates, go for it. Reject it if it doesn't. Caregiver doms, in my experience, can't seem to be able to find ways forward where they can be both the dominant that they wanna be and take care of their submissive partner in the way that your
submissive partner needs to be. It is entirely possible that there are times when what your submissive needs is strict rules and high expectations and lots of protocol and rituals and whatever. And, you know, you can tap into that and go, this is what we do. And then there may be times when what your submissive partner needs is to be taken care of. Being taken care of looks like a lot of things. Sometimes it looks like enforcing bedtimes and enforcing rules that are good
for your partner. And so you still have the control, but ultimately they're taking care of themselves. Consent is required from everybody involved for that to work. Yes. Yes. Yes. You do not have to use terms like daddy, mommy, like any of those words. If those don't feel right, don't use them. But the concept of caregiving, sometimes, like, broadly referred to as soft doms. I don't love that term because I don't those are not those they're not terms I like.
But caregiving, nurturing, taking care of, there can absolutely be control and power in that. Right. And sometimes that might be what a submissive needs, short term or long term,
as long as they're willing to accept. And and and don't think that, you know, because a lot of times the world has thrown out this image, you know, of of a dom, you know, the this pillar of strength, you know, whether whether you're a high protocol Dom, you know, or or or or a, you know, owner, slave, or anything like that, you know, you gotta take care of your take care of your toys. Gotta take care, you know. So one way or another, you you're, you know, you're taking care. You have to. Right.
I think this would be much more purposeful based on what your submissive needs. And if it works for her so that she can still feel the dynamic when she may be unable to meet a higher standard that y'all have
when everything's going well for her. Now that is assuming that part of her conflict comes from past trauma, the medication she may be on, her mental health, or is the conflict coming from she has not yet figured out what submission means to her and has not reconciled her submission with what others have told her she's supposed to be? And that can be a completely separate
thing. And that reconciliation for somebody when they come to that understanding of themselves and that comfort level with understanding themselves, that that can change everything so that you can have whatever kind of dynamic works for whoever y'all are. So there's gotta be a lot of communication going on. Yeah. The other thing that came to mind, because we have done this in different circumstances, but I think the concept works in anything.
It is entirely possible that you will not know from one moment to the next, is my submissive in a headspace for our typical dynamic, or do they need softer, gentler care? Or do they need something that's not within the dynamic? The thing I would recommend for you to talk to together is to come up with it's a little bit like a safe word, but it's sort of a code word. It's a phrase. It's a word sending a text. It's in that case, it
could just be an emoji. Something that signals to you that your submissive is not in the headspace that they were previously, and they cannot do what they were just doing or what you expect them to do based on where you thought the dynamic was in this moment. Maybe you already have something like that for the rest of your life. I would absolutely recommend adopting it for your kink life. If you don't have it anywhere, I recommend it. This all transfers.
We JB has what we call a safe word for when I, am info dumping too much, and I am running away with a conversation. And him just being my dom is not enough to get him to shut me up. I am I've moved beyond who I am as a submissive, and I am Information overload. And I'm just running off at the mouth so bad that he just we created a word that does not fit with anything. Yep. And I know that when I hear that I've gone too far, I need to pull back. That's a completely different situation than what
we're describing here, but the concept remains. Yeah. What will make it easy for your submissive to communicate where their headspace is and make it easy for you to understand, oh, I've gotta switch tactics here. I've gotta Mhmm. Gotta do an about face. We gotta do something different. This is not working. And, again, that's a thing you discuss together that you come up with that you can both agree on, and then it has to be done without
judgment. It has to be done you know, when you hear that word from your submissive, you cannot, you know, let yourself think that you're being a bad dom or they're being a bad submissive. You want to do your best to not have any outward sign of emotional impact beyond I'm I understand and I support you and I'm here for you.
At the same time, your submissive needs to understand that they are not failing as a submissive for needing that moment, that they need to communicate that to you in order for you both to trust each other. Because you could I I with this question, it tells me you don't want to accidentally do harm to your partner by pushing too hard when they're not in the space that they can handle it. This is a way and sometimes this is the framing you need to use for a submissive partner.
This is how you keep them safe and you keep yourself safe by not unintentionally causing harm. They have to do their part. They just have to say the words, send the text with the emoji, raise the white flag, whatever the signal is that works best for y'all's communication styles and and your submissive comfort level and all that good stuff. But find that signal so you know where they're at at any given moment instead of playing this constant guessing game of, are we in dynamic?
Are we not? Should I be the strict dom, or should I be the softer caregiver? Whatever whatever. Like, who do I need to be in this moment? Because you're not a mind reader. You probably have, over time, learned your partner's tells, and you will learn more as you go. But that's not a guarantee of anything, and you should not be expected to read their mind and just know what's happening. That's unrealistic. That's unfair to you. It's unfair to your partner.
So, yeah, I I could not tell you how to, quote, fix anything or to have a very specific dynamic, but I think you can put different tactics in place that help you get to where you want to be. And I agree with you completely. If if y'all are not already or if your partner is not already, a kink friendly therapist, you know, mental health counselor, whatever, is a great first step. Because then when they're kink friendly or kink aware, you can
then talk about, hey. Here's where my head's at, and here's the the power exchange part that I'm trying to do, and here's the conflict. I will put a link in the places to where you can search for kink aware professionals. It's heavily geared towards the US, but I believe there are non US, providers who have listed themselves. And it's not just therapists. It's other professionals as well.
And in, you know, some cases, you know, telehealth does exist, and depending on licensing and requirements and all this stuff I don't know anything about Yeah. You might not have to find somebody who lives right where you are. You might be able to find somebody that you can, you know, get online with and have those conversations with. So that's definitely that's if that's already happening, that's the first step, I think. But, yeah, that's that's what I think. And is that what
you think? That's kinda what I think. That's what we think. Yep. Thanks for listening to this week's q and a episode. If you want us to answer one of your questions, just use the contact page on our website at lovingbdsm.net, or you can find the link in the show notes. Big thanks as always to our kinky community over on Patreon. We're able to do this podcast and keep it going and
help kinksters due to your support. If you'd like to be part of our community and get access to extra content and a Discord server with a group of super cool, super nice kinksters, you can do that. Just join us at patreon.com/kayla lords. That's patreon.com/kayla lords, or use the link in the show notes.