You're listening to the Loving BDSM podcast. Kayla
Lords here with the 1, the only, the
guy that if we have to be
in bad moods, I'm glad we could be
in bad moods together. John Brown, sir.
I guess that's one way of looking at
it. Luck.
My internal
eternal optimist is going to find the silver
lining.
And us being all up in our feelings
and in our heads about stuff that's not
related to anything here, and it is just
it is just life lifing. It's no big
deal. But if we're both gonna be in
moods where we're kind of at one another,
glad we can do it together. There you
go. See?
The couple that
Growses together. Stays together.
Mhmm.
Maybe. That's not what we're here to talk
about though. This week, we're answering a question
from a kinkster who's trying to navigate their
kinky relationship as a switch, but especially trying
to figure out how to be the dom
they wanna be. Welcome to the Living 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'd like us to answer your question in
a future one of these, just use our
contact page. It's literally called ask your questions,
on our website at lovingbdsmdot
net,
or you can find it in the show
notes for this episode.
Okay. Let's get into the question. My husband
and I have been together for almost 10
years, and we started our BDSM journey pretty
young.
Lola agrees.
We usually just have kinky sex, but we've
tried being bringing the dynamic out of the
bedroom. We had a kid about 4 years
ago and that changed her life a lot,
obviously.
And now that she is 4, we have
some more kid free time and we wanna
bring BDSM back into her life. We are
older and better understand the life now. But
because of all these changes, I think our
kink life has changed too.
As I learn more, I think we're both
switches and I'm and I'm trying to find
a way to make that work for us.
I don't know if you guys have any
advice, but I would love to hear your
thoughts on a relationship with 2 switches.
I feel like my switch correlates with my
mood and anxieties. It fluctuates and ebbs and
flows for both of us. How do we
navigate a relationship where we both wanna be
a dom or a sub in different ways
for different situations? I think a big part
of my anxiety in being a dom as
a
woman is that I don't want to be
mean and it doesn't feel as natural so
it's harder for me to get into that
headspace. I haven't seen a lot of DS
relationships where the woman is the d and
the man is the s, where the dom
isn't
mean or isn't a substitute mother.
I wanna find somewhere in the middle, but
I don't really know how, especially in the
bedroom.
Thank you, Lola Right.
Right. For sharing your opinion. We would like
to share our opinion now. Yes.
So
what are your thoughts? What are my thoughts?
You know, the What?
You know, the,
the one thing that really kind of popped
out at me
was for
So anyway,
I I think the one thing that that
really, like, you know, jarringly
jumped out at me, and kind of made
me chuckle a little bit was, you know,
part about
not wanting to be
the mean big d.
Or wanting to be like the caregiver.
Yeah. Yeah. Mommy type. Sure. Yeah. So, you
know, that that kind of made me chuckle
because,
you know, they're saying that, you know, this
is what they see.
Maybe what you see, but it's not what
you have to be.
And what you see isn't all that there
is. Right. Typically, if you are coming across
these same stereotypes over and over again, it
is time to find a new place to
look. That's not an easy thing to do
necessarily,
but it is possible. Yeah.
And, you know, be
we've we've talked about this enough times before,
you know, this is a spectrum. So you
can be anything you want to be on
that spectrum,
and it's fine. As long as it works
for you, you're not hurting anyone,
unless consensually, of course.
I mean, we're all about the consensual hurting
of another, so it's it's fine.
So, you know, as long as those things
are going on that, you know,
do you.
Yeah. And I think that is the the
concerns about figuring out how to be whatever
your kink role is Mhmm.
Dom, sub, something else,
is that concern that you don't know what
you're doing or it doesn't feel natural. I'll
say this. I think there is a bit
of
a fallacy out there that, you know,
dominance and and or submission just come naturally
to people. There are some people where it
does sort of feel that way. I would
say that in
certain circumstances at certain times with certain people,
yes, I can fall into that naturally.
That doesn't
mean that my submission is somehow
better
or
more authentic than the person who has to
learn some new things and and unlearn some
other things. The same is true with dominance.
And, you know, I think that
belief can can limit you, and it can
hold you back.
But I I go back to what we
said at the very beginning. If all you're
saying is a certain stereotype of what it
means to be a female dom, it it's
time to go seek out more people. And
that might be at munches. That might be
in person community where, you know, doms meet
up, whether it's a a group of, you
know, mixed gender of all the genders or
if it's just,
you know, female doms.
FetLife, for all its problems,
all its flaws,
can be great for finding
different perspectives that you're not seeing elsewhere. Yeah.
As for
navigating
that both of you are switches and both
of you
want to express both your dominance and submission
in different ways Mhmm. And the ebbs and
flows and what gets you into
that headspace.
That's tricky. And the other thing I would
say is while you're seeking out new resources,
seek out
switch experiences.
Because just like dominance and just like submission,
every switch is gonna have their own unique
experience of it and will have their take
on, this is how we do it. And
then you
choose from the things that resonate with you
as ways of, you know, navigating the relationship.
My personal perspective, if I tried to imagine
being a switch,
knowing what I know about power exchange, the
thing I'm gonna tell you is you have
to get
real damn good at communicating your headspace. Yeah.
Now that communication
can become over time a shorthand
where you don't have to have long, drawn
out conversations about how in this moment, at
this time, this is the thing you'd really
like. But that might be where you start
is long, drawn out, technical conversations
to kind of figure out of, oh, when
this kind of thing happens,
this is what I'm feeling, and this is
what I'd like to experience. How about you?
And then over time, you kind of find
where you align.
You, you know, I truly,
from the the few things I've seen when
I'm reading or watching or listening about other,
you know, switch experiences
is that it is different for everybody, but
sometimes partners will get on a wavelength.
So one partner
will,
like,
have a look on their face, say an
ex a a phrase,
do a thing,
and the other partner who's like, oh, I
wasn't even in that headspace. Oh, now I
am. It becomes a signal.
So you can, you know, feed off of
one another, but that can take time to
work up to, especially if you're not feeling
confident
in one side of the slash or the
other as that role for yourself yet.
Might be worth for this person who
is more uncomfortable in their dom headspace,
playing
intentionally and specifically more in that headspace,
trying to do more in that headspace because
what you need is practice. What you need
is
enough experience with certain forms of play that
it stops feeling like you're wearing,
you know,
a scratchy, uncomfortable suit. But I will say,
if you play in certain head spaces and
in certain ways and it never feels comfortable,
then it's probably not right for you when
it's time to try a different way of
doing it.
So that's that's a thing. Mhmm. Go ahead.
I was gonna say another thing that kinda
comes to mind is
not putting too much pressure on yourself or
your partner
to be in a compatible headspace at the
right time.
You know? Some things I've I've heard Switches
talk about is they kind of flow with
their partner. And, again, this is not everybody's
experience. This is just some experiences I've heard
about where when they know it's time to
play, that's like you've got a kid, get
start scheduling playtime for yourself because it's probably
the only way to set up. Yeah.
I promise they get older and they tend
to need you less, but just schedule it.
So you can't necessarily know going into it
as a switch maybe what you're gonna do
in that playtime session. Mhmm. But if your
personalities
your kink personalities
sort of work out this way where you
can feed off of each other's energy,
then you have that time designated
30 minutes, an hour, the whole night, like,
whatever.
And then you can kind of just go
off of vibes, if that fits true. But
again, it goes back to you gotta get
real real good at communicating
what's going on with you in a moment.
Mhmm. You know? And and you're absolutely right
about,
you know, not putting too much pressure on
yourself.
We can be our own worst enemies. Oh,
yeah. In instances like that, you know, over
overthinking
and and, you know,
making unreasonable expectations, you know. Oh, yeah. We
we can all I've done that to myself
too, you know, making unreasonable expectations of something
and then falling short and be like, oh,
dear. But we're also
more critical of ourselves than other people will
be of us. So if you are thinking
that, you know, your dominance isn't coming naturally
or you're not doing a good job,
to get out of your own head, ask
your partner what they think. Like, are they
having a good time? Are they responding
positively
to what you're doing?
You know, do they want more of that,
and is that more something that you want
to give? You know? I mean, there's there's
a lot of balancing there. But, you know,
most often,
you're not doing as bad a job as
you think you are. You're not as awkward
as you think you are. You know?
I am one of those people who,
in the right circumstance with the right person,
can kind of fall naturally into my submission
because I tend to default to that in
certain situations. That's how I've been in some
bad situations before with people who did not
deserve that.
But
not feeling
natural or comfortable, air quote, all of that,
doesn't mean
you're bad at it, and it doesn't mean
that it's not right for you.
But also you have to use that as
information to decide, is it right for you?
Mhmm. Because the first few times, especially, you
do something new, it's probably not gonna feel,
air quote,
typical, normal, whatever. Right?
But there's to me, there should be a
rightness to it where you're like, oh, I'm
awkward as fuck, and I don't really know
what I'm doing here.
But I think I'm having a good time,
and my partner's having a good time. And
that's the thing you look for. Yeah. And
then the more you practice it and the
more you refine what you're doing and refining
what you're doing
is both a figuring out dominance or submission,
what feels right for you, what your partner
responds to,
what gets 1 or both of you in
the headspace, that kind of refinement.
Over time as you refine that, then
even if it didn't start out feeling, quote,
natural,
and I sort of roll my eyes at
that because that's that's a expectation we shouldn't
all just have. That's not fair to us.
No. You know? I think you can get
there once you're on the right path of
what dominance or submission
or just switching in general
mean to you. You know? I think that's
just
inherently personal, and it's trial and error, and
it's experimentation. And you know what? Experimentation and
kink,
it's called play. Yep. Like Yep. Experimentation
isn't you know? I mean, unless you're into
some science role play, it's not about getting
your lab coat and your goggles on. If
you are into science role play for science.
You know.
So,
you know, that that's the big thing is
play around with what mutually intrigues both of
you on either side of your slash in
whatever headspace.
But
part of that and along the process,
communicate, communicate, communicate. You know? Talk about your
headspace before.
You know? As you're getting into it, definitely
do debriefs afterwards. Oh, yeah. What worked? What
didn't? What were you thinking about? What were
you feeling?
Because it's that kind of information that over
time you can create your shorthand. And you
can create the kind of shorthand where one
of you is in whichever headspace, Dom or
Sab, and they say a thing or they
give a look, and the other person
knows what it means,
and if they're feeling it, they respond the
way that, you know, you would expect to
respond. And if they're not feeling it, then
that's a different conversation. And and that's okay.
It's a form of communication.
And and just one little caveat I wanna
throw in there. True.
Have fun. Yeah. Have fun with it. You
know,
you have,
an an opportunity.
You are both switches, so you can,
you know, experience both sides. Mhmm.
And,
you know, have a blast with it. Don't,
you know,
don't get so caught up in in everything
that it becomes a chore.
Have fun.
Laugh.
You know? Get silly. Get weird. Get silly.
Get weird. Do, you know, do the weird
thing as they say. Right. Exactly. You know?
Like our girl Lola is off to the
side being a menace. I don't know what
the mic is picking up. Oh, Lord.
So And I think that's another
thing. It is a good thing to take
kink seriously because Oh, yes. There is serious
risk involved, mental, emotional, physical.
Communication is super important and it's not a
skill we, you know,
enter the world possessing. You have to gain
that skill. Right?
So there can be pressure that we put
on ourselves or that, you know, others put
on us, whatever. And some of that is
is good pressure. You you want to be
taking it seriously. You want to do no
nonconsensual
harm. Right?
But I think that in that process, it
is easy to forget that we call this
play for a reason. You're supposed to be
enjoying yourself. That's true. If it is more
misery than pleasure,
if it's more stress than pleasure, if it's
more anxiety than pleasure, it is time to
switch something up. It's time to back off
of something. It's time to go in a
different direction. Step back and reevaluate. It's time
to take a pause and have a conversation,
because it it is
right and good that you might be a
little
a little nervous, a little, like, not sure
what's gonna happen the first time you do
a thing as a dom or a sup.
But it should be something that you dread.
It shouldn't be something
that is sending you into a panic every
time you think about it. It shouldn't be
something
where
the downside is all you can think about.
And if that is the case, take a
pause, take a beat, figure out where
you can go with it that's fun again.
And that might mean
taking it back 10 steps. That might mean
acting like you know nothing about kinking, you're
starting from scratch, and what is the one
small thing that you, you know, are the
most intrigued by. That's okay. There's nothing wrong
with that.
But, yeah, we it's important to take it
seriously, but, also,
we're supposed to be having fun here. Yeah.
And,
you know, the other thing too, you you
are also
in in a a wonderful situation where,
you know, take advantage of things like, submissive
roundtables
Mhmm. And And dominator. Roundtables.
Online or in person. Online or in person,
absolutely.
Because you y'all have the unique ability, y'all
can go to both.
Yeah. Oh, yes. As
as switches, y'all can go to both. You
both can attend a sub meeting, you both
can attend a dom meeting, you can split
off and go to 1 or the other,
and, you know,
that's some good conversation stuff right there, you
know, to to spark for your relationship. Yep.
And if you ever come across a community
that actually has
group stuff just for switches, because some of
the stuff y'all go through is just so
unique, that whole headspace switch thing that I
cannot imagine.
Take advantage of that too. There, you know,
if you don't live in a major metro
area that you can easily
drive or travel in some way to a
a meet up, a munch, or something,
since the inception of COVID, which sucks, we
hate it. But but
a thing that came out of that that
is a a net good is that a
lot more kink education,
is online. Online. Yeah. And so Mhmm.
You know? Yes. Let me say it again.
FetLife is a cesspool,
but also
it can be a wealth of information for
finding that kind of stuff. Yeah. FetLife is
is a fantastic place for for information.
You know, a lot of people tend to
forget is you have control over the block
and mute button. And use it liberally. Yep.
But, yeah, you know,
to break it down,
if you feel like you're only seeing a
certain type of dominance or submission, it's time
to start looking elsewhere. It's time to change
your algorithms. It's time to change your community.
It's time to do something different so you
can get different types of people in your
feed and in in your space for you
to learn from.
Communication is gonna be super, super important, and,
eventually, you can get to a shorthand probably,
but start with good communication and then, yeah,
remember to have some fun. Mhmm. And learn
as much as you can about what you
enjoy
as an individual and together with your partner.
Mhmm. And then focus on that more than,
air quote, what you think you're supposed to
be as a dom or something.
Mhmm.
Yeah. I think I think that's it. Okay.
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 kingsters, 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.