Long-Distance Domination & Submission… How Deep To Go?

A relatively new male Dom wrote me asking advice on how to keep an existing long-distance relationship going while adding his and his girlfriend’s newfound love of D/s into the picture. He explained how the roles of Dominant and submissive just sort of grew out of a natural, almost vanilla orientation and how the D/s roles quickly became extremely comfortable for both of them. In my answer I pointed out that not all forms of D/s are alike (some types being quite light while others can get very deep), that it is fine to start light, and ultimately that knowing the KIND of D/s you want to have is at least half the answer.

Enjoy.

To start, it sounds as though what happened is that in the course of your normal Vanilla life (no disrespect in that term “vanilla” by the way – it just means “non-fetish, non-bdsm”) you naturally established one of you as Dominant and the other as submissive. Though this CAN lead to happy “Formal D/s,” it is not always the same thing. FORMAL Domination and Submission, as in what my slave and I do, is a very thoughtful process full of protocols and specific etiquette, VERY conscientiously defined Roles, and more.

Defining The Right “KIND” Of D/s

To give you an idea of the spectrum of D/s, from almost-vanilla to Hardcore Formal, consider a new-ish term that showed up on various BDSM Personal’s websites, an item to check-off when telling others what sorts of activities and styles of BDSM you are into. That new item is “1950’s Style Relationship” and its a great new way to conceive of a light-hearted, simple, Male-Dom-fem-sub D/s-STYLE loving relationship that is actually DEVOID of FORMAL D/s. The “1950’s Style Relationship” is a metaphor for an idealized situation from the 1950’s where the “man was the man, and the woman was a woman.” In the “1950’s Style Relationship” both are equally fulfilled, happy and deeply devoted to each other in a monogamous bond where the woman can live a very traditional post-WWII “Happy Days” kind of lifestyle (sort of in contrast to militant feminism if you will). This description appeals to a surprising number of submissive women nowadays as it captures the FEELING the two people feel inside of a simpler, much less political orientation towards gender roles. It in NO WAY advocates a lessening of personality, nor any abuse of human rights – not in the slightest! Of course not everyone chooses a “1950’s Style Relationship.” The specific IDEA however, allows people to define a kind of LIGHT D/s situation without a lot of complexity. To bring this concept home, imagine Role-Playing a “Leave It To Beaver” man-woman context… i.e. the man is the traditional “classic man in charge of the home,” and the woman is his feminine complement in a fulfilled but nonetheless servile role. Each clearly defines what they contribute and there is zero sense of competition about it.

Certainly not everyone does their D/s in this way, and as mentioned the “1950’s Style Relationship” is fairly removed from the complexity and passionate intensity of Formal D/s. Nonetheless, it is certainly a pleasant addition to the ever-growing list of self-descriptions one can choose to fine-tune the KIND of D/s one is seeking. You can think of this new-ish check-list item as a beginning-to-midway point on the spectrum of D/s. You guys started at one end closer to this ideal, but it sounds like you are heading towards a more Formalized version of D/s, which btw I think is awesome. 🙂

Of course keep in mind the NUMBER ONE RULE for the Dominant in Formal D/s:
“The Essence of Excellent Domination is the essence of RESPONSIBILITY.”

The more you enter the world of Formal D/s, the greater will be your Responsibility for the care and well-being of your submissive. The Responsibility of the Man in the D/s Idea of the “1950’s Style Relationship” is very clearly defined. At the same time it is simple – bring home the bread, be a good leader, be able to make firm decisions and have an intelligent final say, and be the ultimate caretaker (though the woman may take care of the household).

When you enter Formal D/s it goes deeper – you must spend a great deal more energy Tuning Into and Training your submissive, and as soon as you go there your responsibility to her INNER well-being increases by Magnitudes. Personally, I am most fulfilled with that magnitude increase, but it does not in any way, shape or form mean that you or any other Dominant needs to go as deep — you must Find The Level of D/s That Fulfills You Both. As the Oracle at Delphi said, “Know Thyself.”

Once you guys decided to Formalize your D/s, you took a big step further into the wonderful world of your own Self-Understanding, and that is probably why it felt like a big weight was lifted. Roles became defined, duties (both for the Dom and the sub) became clearer, the leader fit into the leader role and the follower fit into the follower role, etc. You both gained a sense of selfhood that is Very Unique to a D/s Relationship when the two become Equally Fulfilled by the Respective Roles. The Dominant took on the empowering mantle of Control, and the submissive released into her personal bliss of giving up Control.

The Long-Distance Relationship

The Long-Distance aspect is actually the trickiest point, which I am guessing you already figured that out. There are Right ways to do an LDR (Long Distance Relationship), and there are Wrong ways to do an LDR. Famous are the tales of those who tried long distance relationships and failed.

HOWEVER, I can also tell you that if handled intelligently, the obstacle of long-distance ABSOLUTELY CAN BE OVERCOME if the two of you are really serious about each other. D/s over long distance is complicated – the Dom cannot see what the sub is doing and give the kind of immediate correction that may be needed if the sub is behaving erroneously. My personal experience in these situations dictates that the BEST thing to do is Aim For The Romantic Level. Sounds funny doesn’t it? You would think I would say “Give Limits” etc, but in all actuality what you need is to use the D/s to maintain CONNECTION first and foremost.

The romantic level of D/s usually centers around Personal Rituals. An example of a personal ritual could be where, when the two of you are next together, you buy a Slave Collar that she wears when around you, which one of you keeps when you are apart. I recommend that she keeps it and places it on a kind of altar that she makes at her home. Some nights you might have her wear the collar to sleep while you are apart, or perhaps she might wake up in the morning and kneel before the collar by herself and say some words of connection and romance about you and about her appreciation of the D/s Connection that you both now celebrate. This is just one example of the kind of Micro-Rituals you can create that keep the two of you connected while apart. The exact details of your Micro-Rituals are wide open, and I especially recommend ones that she enjoys doing for you. For example you can simply tell her that you really enjoy seeing a nightly photo of her wearing the collar when you are apart. That at least places a reasonable amount of responsibility on her, while at the same time NOT making it an order, but instead she knows that doing so Will Please You.

For more on Micro-Rituals we have a whole section dedicated to the concept in our book “Igniting The Fire: The Art of Romantic Submission” available on Amazon.

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The rituals you can create are very open ended. What can you keep or do at your end to make you feel Connected to her as your submissive, and what can she keep and do at her end to make her feel your presence and gentle hand there as her Dominant? One submissive I had used to tie her own ankles as she slept and send me a cell phone photo of her bound ankles right before she went to sleep – a very beautiful little personal ritual. She did not do it every night, but often enough so that it brought her a sense of connection to me. For another slave I purchased what I call a “walking collar” or a “daily” collar which to the outside world looks like an ordinary piece of neck jewelry and let the slave take it home with her, and she wore it most days we were apart. I had her do small rituals at home where she would meditate with the “walking collar” in her hands and let the sense of meaning about what the collar represented – and her connection to me as her Master – uplift her and inspire her. No matter where she was the collar always had this meaning and made her feel very close to me. Some nights she would wear it to sleep, other times she would put it on first thing in the morning, etc.

These small Micro-Rituals and others like them will do FAR more to actually build your relationship than making a whole list of rules that she is to obey based on an honor system which the Dominant cannot physically observe and reinforce.

Setting Long-Distance Boundaries, Limits, and Rules

By all means DO place limits on your submissive’s behavior if there is some area that is extremely important to you, the most common of which is playing with others when it comes to Long-Distance situations. If you are both serious about the relationship and serious about building something with each other, be absolutely upfront and honest about what you expect as far as seeing & playing with other people goes. You are the Dom – how do you feel about her seeing other men? Other women (if she is bi)? Other Doms? What will you need for yourself? This MUST be communicated very clearly between you both.

In my own long-distance experiences, my limit was really very fixed – a Hard Limit – when it came to the long-distance submissive seeing other Dominants. I personally will not allow another Dom’s secondary training upon even a poly-sub of mine, as it only ever ends up confusing the submissive from my experience. Other men in general came second to O/our dynamic, and involved vanilla men only… IF I allowed any sort of polyamorous activity at all. I have made rare allowances if the distance was great and the expected time before being together again was long. Of course I also made it clear in such a poly situation that I was going to be dating others at my end as well.

Since bisexuality in a submissive partner is something I am quite comfortable with, my simple rules in the event my slave was poly and bisexual was that, if my slave had a vanilla girlfriend in her remote location, she was never to allow the girlfriend to belittle or attack my slave’s submissive devotion to me nor our appreciation of D/s and BDSM in any way. Equally my slave was not allowed to bottom or submit to a girlfriend either – only One Dominant allowed, and that’s me. The standing order in the event any of any of her girlfriends acted in any way that was antagonistic towards me and / or our D/s Relationship (typically due to an erroneous and misinformed, media-incurred, negative impression about BDSM & D/s) then my submissive was too:
A) First, make it clear that disparaging remarks against she and I were not to be tolerated by my slave and she was to make this very clear to her friend;
B) Secondly, to make a reasonable attempt to inform her girlfriend about the reality of O/our D/s and hopefully educate her friend in the process (and of course I offered my time and resources to help if needed);
C) Lastly, if the girlfriend remained antagonistic despite my slave’s best efforts, then my slave was to stop spending time with that woman until said antagonist could learn to either accept U/us or go away.

For example, one time a Long-Distance submissive of mine had a vanilla girlfriend with militant feminist tendencies who openly lashed out against any and all female-submissive D/s in general. She applied the rules above and the friend agreed to back off in her antagonism after seeing how important D/s was to my slave. These same rules would apply to anyone she might date remotely – male or female – namely that above all she was never to allow the outside person to decry or disparage O/our D/s Relationship. To be honest that situation only ever came up once, so it isn’t really a big deal to worry about unless the situation arises. The important take away from this was that we had a set of Rules regarding how to handle the situation which worked well, and which were upheld by my slave’s honor and respect for what she and I shared.

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These are just examples of the various Rules and Boundaries the two of you can Negotiate. Most importantly, you need to come up with a Negotiation that works for both of you. She needs to feel your Dominant hand from hundreds (or even thousands) of miles away, and you need to maintain at least a modicum of honor-based or verifiable boundaries from that same distance.

DO NOT make the mistake of setting zero boundaries!!! Nothing frustrates a submissive more than having zero boundaries set by their Dominant! You don’t have to make stuff up for no reason – just look inside and think about where you would like to see her improve… or become more devoted… or become more spiritual, etc. Undoubtedly there are areas where you can happily set light boundaries which she will intuitively understand come from your desire to build a glorious relationship with her as Master and slave.

A KEY NOTE for Dominants in picking and setting boundaries:
Always ask yourself as the Dominant where and how your submissive will GROW because of the boundary you are about to set. If you cannot answer that question then pick a different boundary.

Here is an example of a boundary that was clearly aimed at helping my long-distance submissive:
I had one lovely submissive who lived almost 2000 miles away from me. As such we only saw each other every 6-10 weeks. She was in college and getting “C’s” in most of her classes. I asked about her home study habits and it turned out she was very undisciplined. She did, however, love to watch gossip-TV (e.g. “housewives of….”).
So I made the following rule for her:
Every night Monday-Friday (her school nights) she was to do One Hour of homework before turning on the TV At All. She was then to phone me and we would talk about her homework and what she learned, and when I was pleased by what we talked about (whether the conversation was short or long) I would give her permission to watch TV, whatever she wanted to watch. I also would occasionally suggest she watch a specific, more erudite show so we could talk about it. This went on for a while and was such a great boundary / assignment because:

• It was clearly aimed at her personal success in her home life
• It created a good reason to communicate many nights and stay verbally connected
• It created intelligent conversation between us
• It held her accountable in a manner that was neither excessively complicated for her nor so light as to be insignificant, i.e. a minimum of One Hour Of Study is a very reasonable amount to ask in this regard
• It was an assignment and boundary intentionally set up so that she was more likely to succeed rather than fail

The net result of this assignment contained all of the positives above, PLUS this got her into the habit of taking her studies much more seriously and she ended up becoming a Straight-A student. 🙂

Build The Connection

More than anything you both need to FEEL a connection, hence the romantic approach. Getting too heavy handed about your Dominance from thousands of miles away is not advisable. Build slowly – express tiny bits of D/s in small exercises you give her. Have her keep a written, digital D/s Journal or Blog for you both to read, or have her send you emails – or even actual hand-written letters – about what her connection / devotion means to her. ALWAYS respond back to her writings in some way – praise, commentary, at the very least a heartfelt acknowledgement of her effort and energy coming at you.

The two-way reality of your COMMUNICATION is Critical.
It must be a back and forth. Give her fun assignments too – remember in the movie Secretary where the submissive is eating dinner with her parents and the Dominant tells her over the phone what she can eat even though his assignment is kind of silly? That can actually be a really good way to connect for both of you. Sometimes the assignment can be serious – e.g. for her read a book on a D/s or BDSM topic, which you can then discuss over the phone. Other times an assignment can just be fun. One time I arranged with my sub to go see a movie by herself (one that we were both excited to see) and I was going to be in the theater at my end at the exact same time (accounting for time zone differences – we were 3000 miles apart at the time) watching the same movie – a long-distance “Date” – goofy and actually really fun. Of course afterwards we jabbered away about the movie over the phone, yet another good reason for a fun and bonding conversation across the distance. 🙂

Be creative with it, be in charge as the Dom. Be light-hearted about it, be romantic about it. When you are together you will really be able to gauge how well the long-distance activities are working to build the exact kind of D/s you want. A few solid things she can genuinely touch and / or hold will go a long way – the altar idea is one of the best from my experience.

Also keep in mind a Golden Rule of Domination:
**** Give the slave tasks in which she is at least 51% (or more) likely to succeed. ****

This is a rule I apply ALL the time to be honest. Just because your slave gave you power over her does not mean you have to prove your power by giving gargantuan tasks in which she is likely to fail… in fact doing so is foolish in my honest opinion. Of course if a task is difficult and absolutely necessary that’s fine to assign it based on some real-world need which should be made clear to the submissive. Not every task has to be easy, and sometimes a good challenge is fun. But when assessing a task’s magnitude, side with a degree of complexity that will tip the scales to your slave succeeding at the task (i.e. at least 51% in her favor), and thus feeling good about her submission, good about her capabilities, happy with herself, and happy with her ability to serve you well.

Any Healthy D/s Relationship, Long-Distance or not, certainly contains a mutual Win-Win attitude, even under the strictest control, and even when the going gets tough. If you do assign a task that is honorable but which does contain the possibility of her failing in that task, always be prepared to guide her with positive energy through an understanding of how she can succeed next time. When it comes to Long Distance D/s, this becomes even more pronounced. With the Romantic D/s frame of mind alongside the Long-Distance inability to immediately observe and assess the submissive’s performance, if you do assign tasks be extra creative and really try to pick tasks and assignments that will give your sub this sense of Successful Service, Satisfaction, and Achievement.

Remember: An assigned task does not always have to achieve some great result. Often times the most meaningful aspect to the submissive herself is very the act of doing it (the task) as a show of devotion to the Dominant. Thus in your Long-Distance Romantic D/s frame of mind, try to create tasks that are meaningful, fun, and that generally would NOT mandatorily require your immediate supervision the same as if you were there in person. If something comes up and you need a serious task done then it’s fine, for example if you have an upcoming work project and you honestly need your slave to look online and research a few items for you. That is certainly a form of useful and meaningful service as well. Nonetheless – again – keep in mind the Golden Rule to assign tasks where the slave will be likely to succeed.

My own experiences in D/s LDR’s suggest that you have some kind of contact pretty much every day. This does not have to mean a long phone conversation every day. However, you do want SOME kind of daily contact, even if it is just a loving text message saying, “How is my Pet?” or “How is Master today?” Some days you can have long video chats, other days one or both of you may be very busy and so a quick text or loving photo is all that gets exchanged. It’s important to understand that all of these count. Regardless of the size or quantity of the communication, both the Dom & Sub should go out of their way to try and have some kind of personal contact every day (with rare exception). “Touching Base” with each other daily is invaluable in a D/s LDR. It only takes a few words to show that you care, and anything more than that is icing on the cake. 🙂

All the best,
– Arcane