Dear Roe,
My partner has requested several times that we try some experimental methods of making love, and has a kink for BDSM. I agreed once or twice, but find it quite extreme and unnatural, as he has an extremely domineering personality while I am then left to be the sub (in all areas). I have no issue with partaking in minor BDSM and role plays but he seems to want to push things further at a pace that I’m not comfortable with. I’ve talked to him about it and he said he would take it into account but he hasn’t, is it a red flag?
It isn’t that your partner’s behaviour comes with a red flag. It’s that your partner is himself a human-formed red flag.The problem here is not BDSM, which is an umbrella term for a range of desires and acts that includes three subcategories. Bondage/discipline can involve physical restraint and/or the setting of rules, and the use of punishment to enforce them. Dominance/submission refers to a power exchange, where partners take on roles where one person is dominant the other person submissive. And sadism/masochism describes a desire for giving physical or emotional pain, and the sensation of desiring and enjoying that pain.
He's not listening to your boundaries, and is trying to rush and pressure you into more extreme acts without discussing them first
There are three absolutely vital things to note here. Firstly, if the explanation above seems broad, it’s because it is. The term BDSM contains infinite multitudes. It can include using handcuffs or ropes for restraint; spanking for punishment or pain; role playing where one partner is dominant; none of the above; all of the above.
BDSM is a huge catch-all term, but the experience of it is incredibly individual. People who like one particular aspect may have absolutely no interest in others. Not all people who enjoy role play like bondage; not all people who have a fetish enjoy power play; not all people who enjoy spanking enjoy ideas of punishment. One person’s idea of bondage or discipline can vary hugely from another person’s, and the pleasure they find in acts or dynamics will have their own specific contours and details.
Some people who enjoy aspects that could be put under the BDSM umbrella may not use the term at all. And so telling someone you’re into BDSM is really not telling them much at all; it’s merely an entry way into a conversation.
Secondly, BDSM is hugely misrepresented in pop culture and generally misunderstood. BDSM is often presented as something abnormal, when it’s incredibly common. It’s also all-too-often misrepresented as being rooted in genuine sadism or abuse, when healthy BDSM interactions are rooted in mutual pleasure, trust and connection. It can be sweet, tender, creative, emotionally and physically fulfilling. And any power plays are a performance; in healthy BDSM relationships, trust is built and maintained, and the submissive person can always slow, control or completely stop the interaction. Carefully selected mechanisms like safe words or gestures ensure that even within a role play or while restrained, the submissive person has control and agency.
Thirdly, BDSM is and must always be rooted in consent. Of course, consent is the key for all sexual interactions, and because some of the acts or dynamics of BDSM play with ideas of physical or emotional control and harm, a lack of ongoing, enthusiastic and freely given consent can rapidly turn an interaction from one of pleasure and connection into one of violation, or even physical or emotional abuse. This is why communication is absolutely crucial to BDSM. The risk of harming yourself and/or your partner, physically and emotionally, is just too high. People who aren’t able or willing to have extremely clear, ongoing conversations about desire, boundaries and safety frankly shouldn’t be having it.
And your partner is one of those people.
As I always write in this column, sex is never just the act of sex. Sex is intrinsically about connection, communication, empathy, respect, pleasure, desire, safety, emotion, embodiment, power. The weight of these aspects may change, the nature of the connection and emotions may vary, the presentation of these ideas may differ, but these aspects are always present within sex – even in the negative. And your partner’s actions are all in the negative. He’s pushing his desires on you when you’re not comfortable, instead of discussing what specific acts or dynamics you would enjoy, and how to enact them so that you feel safe, in control and are experiencing pleasure.
My advice is to leave him. The world feels dystopian enough right now – so this is the time to prioritise being with someone who respects you
He’s not listening to your comfort level or boundaries, and is trying to rush and pressure you into more extreme acts without discussing them first. You don’t feel like his respected equal in your relationship, which means he is exerting power and control and disrespect on you at all times, making sex feel not like a place of trust and respect, but force, disrespect and coercion. When you assert your boundaries, he says he will “take them into account”, as if your consent and experience is an afterthought interrupting his experience.
What your partner is demonstrating through his actions is a dangerously selfish lack of care for your sense of safety, your desire, your pleasure. He is demonstrating a lack of respect for your boundaries and comfort. He is not respecting your emotions and your experience of sexual or even non-sexual interactions with him. He is not trying to connect with you. He is asserting power and control over you – not the performance of it, but actual control and power. That’s not a consenting sexual relationship, that’s violation. Add in aspects of BDSM and he will end up harming you. It sounds like emotionally, he’s starting to already.
Your partner is not a safe person to have sex with, and if you’re describing yourself as feeling submissive “in all areas” it doesn’t sound like he’s a good person for you to be in a relationship with either.
If you are for some reason determined to stay with him, BDSM should be completely off the table until he learns basic consent, communication and respect - in all aspects of your relationship.
But honestly? He’s into things you’re not; he’s disrespectful, uncaring and violates your boundaries; he’s “extremely domineering” and you feel submissive in your relationship. Even without BDSM, all these are giant red flags. My advice is to leave him. The world feels dystopian enough right now – so if this is not the time to prioritise being with someone who respects you, cares for you, who makes you feel safe and brings you pleasure, when is?
Roe McDermott is a writer and Fulbright scholar with an MA in sexuality studies from San Francisco State University. She is researching a PhD in gendered and sexual citizenship at the Open University and Oxford
If you have a problem or query you would like her to answer, you can submit it anonymously at irishtimes.com/dearroe