You're listening to Loving BDSM podcast episode 4
10. That's 410, y'all. Dang. Kayla Lords here
with the 1, the only, the light of
my life, the creamed my coffee, John Brownstone.
Wow. And you know how much I love
me some cream in my coffee. Yeah. You
do.
Would you like a little coffee with that
cream? I don't want my coffee to taste
like coffee. I want it to taste like
cream and and whatever flavor syrup I'm using
this day. Yeah. That's what that's what I
want.
That's not what we're
here to talk about. Although, I'm happy to,
talk about the Walmart brand,
creamer that I just got to open today
and how delightful it was. But we can
talk about that later. This week, we're actually
starting a series for the month of September.
At least we've never done a series like
this, I think.
We're calling it back to basics, but we're
actually having conversations that I don't think we've
had in quite this way before,
because we tend to talk about bits and
pieces, and this is, I think, a more
holistic
conversation. Okay. And we're starting with
starting your d s relationship, starting your power
exchange. You're like, this is a person I
want to be in this power exchange with.
What next? That's what this conversation is. Gotta
start somewhere. Gotta start and the beginning is
usually a very good place to start, I've
heard.
Welcome to the Living BDSM podcast. If this
is your first time listening, glad to have
you. You're back for another week, welcome back.
Loving BDSM is produced every Monday Friday for
your kinky pleasure and education, and show notes
are found at loving BDSM dot net. Come
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or on YouTube at youtube.com/lovingbdsm,
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lords. That's patreon.com/kayla
lords, or use the link in the show
notes.
Okay.
I don't really have any announcements for this
week. Okay. The kinkery exists, the kinkery.com,
the loving BDS on Etsy shop exists. I'm
not gonna say that URL, but we're there.
Yeah.
So ta
da. We are always sponsoring we because
we decided we wanted to sell things, and
so
shops exist for that. We'd like to keep
the lights on. We do like to keep
the lights on. Links in the places. Okay.
That's that's
the announcement,
I guess. Let me double check myself. Yeah,
no.
I've got no announcements.
So
we are trying something new for the month
of September.
Will it go longer than that? I don't
know.
We're doing I think it's our first ever,
like, series of topics in in the big
episode. Like, we've done many episodes before that
was kind of a series. Got our question
q and a,
episodes each week that we can kinda call
that a series if you wanted.
But this is meant to be a topic
based
series that a stupid walk from my stupid
mental health helped me come up with. That
I'm I'm doing that happen. I know. Come
back to basics.
It's
in some of them that we have we
we actually have plans. Okay? We're actually talking
about before we come to do an episode,
what we wanna talk about. I know Before
the mics get put in front of our
face. It's crazy talk. I don't know what's
happening either.
But Kinda like we used to do. Oh,
shh.
Don't let anybody know how far we've fallen.
This week's topic is
starting a power exchange. There will be other
topics. Some of that is gonna overlap with
things we've talked about in the previous 409
episodes.
So some of this might be a repeat.
Some of y'all do not need the basics,
and that's okay. We hope you're here for
the entertainment. But sometimes you may pick up
a gem from
Bay, you know. Because we've been talking about
this stuff since literally 2015,
we might say something different in the year
of our Lord 2024 that we have not
said previously.
For this episode, it overlaps a ton of
things we've talked about in past. There are
links to past episodes slash YouTube videos for
all of that if you wanna do a
deep dive.
Starting a power exchange relationship is such a
massive topic.
We are gonna keep it a little high
level. Mhmm. That's what all those links will
be for if you wanna, like, get into,
like, the
the the deep, dark details of every little
thought we might have. We meaning me, because
y'all know how I am. How deep do
you wanna dig?
Oh, now that just sounds sexy. I don't
know if this is the time of your
place for you to be asking me that
question.
We also actually have notes that we're actually
going to try to follow. We'll see how
this goes. We're gonna try and be grown
ups here.
Okay. So
starting a power exchange.
This is
after or at the same time of,
am I kinky? What does that mean?
Maybe you're kinda past that, or this is
a simultaneous thing that you're figuring out.
Let's start at the top
because there's two sides to this.
You're starting a power exchange with a new
partner or a newish partner that you've never
really been in a relationship
with before. That's one way to start a
power exchange.
And then there is the, oh, we've been
vanilla the whole time we've known each other.
For some of y'all, that's literal decades.
1 or both of us has figured out
we're kinky,
and we wanna switch things together. Yeah.
So let's which which one of those do
you wanna start with, daddy?
Because it is a little bit of 2
separate conversations about how you actually start the
relationship.
Because one has preexisting history that you have
to work through, and one is you've met
a person and you're like, yeah, you seem
like a good one.
We're gonna start the way you got her
written. Let's go with the new partner. Okay.
So
I'll take new partner for 500, Alex. No.
No. Nope. No.
No.
I'm not clever enough or quick enough,
off the cuff to do a Jeopardy thing.
So sorry. So let's talk about new partners.
You've met a person. Let's start with the
question we get all the time. Where where
do I meet potential partners?
You know, you
can meet them anywhere. Wherever people are. I
promise you kinky people are existing. You know,
you
munches, workshops.
Fat life. Fat life. Dating apps.
Dungeons, parties, you know, we're everywhere.
I this will not
we are everywhere.
The non kinky should probably be a little
nervous. It's fine though.
I am a big fan of
kind of trying to figure out your kinky
self before you worry about going and finding
a partner. Assuming you're single when you're go,
hey, wait. I think I'm kinky. Mhmm.
It
this is not universally true,
but a lot of
new submissives, like,
figured out they were submissive yesterday. Today, they're
looking for their dream dom.
Man, it's real easy to get into some
trouble with that. And so to maybe not
be as discerning
about people as you will be in the
future when you've kinda gone, well, what does
this even mean to me? Mhmm. What do
I think I'm into? What have I learned
about BDSM as a whole?
You know, it's not like it's a requirement.
I would just say it's a good idea.
So then you've got
established kinky people who are like, I'm kinky.
I've been in my community
for literal years.
Hey. When y'all ask, how do I meet
people? I'm like, well,
where are you going, and who are you
going with? Because the same answer still applies.
If you prefer to be online, there's FetLife.
Yes. It's a cesspool. I know. Just just
use the block and delete buttons liberally. Yeah.
That is true on all social media. Well,
I'm glad.
There's there are dating apps. They're,
you know, in person community stuff. Now
what I know my opinion.
What is and this is a personal choice.
What's your stance on
for folks who maybe are they know they're
kinky, they know they want power exchange, but
they are on the
typically non kink, like, dating apps. Because the
question
oftentimes comes up, do I tell somebody I'm
kinky before
I, you know, like, do I put that
on my profile? Or do I wait until
I've met somebody I like and introduce them
to the top? There there there was a
time I would have said,
you know, on a non kinky
dating site, don't say a word. Mhmm.
Okay? Now,
I am at a point in my life,
like, no, I wanna cut to the chase.
Yeah. Let us weed out the people who
cannot handle this information. I I I you
know, yeah. You know, one, the people who
don't
want it, you know, they're like, okay, and
they they keep going.
And,
you know, it it it it's a matter
of I yeah. I I don't want to
thresh the wheat, so to speak. I do
not want to waste my time. Yeah. You
know,
just just get down to business, get down,
you know. It may sound a little impersonal
in a way, but, you know,
the the dating sites
I have not used a dating site.
Alright?
I I have heard people
talk about it,
both personally
and and social media,
about how it it's it's a cesspool to
navigate.
So, you know, I I would say,
you know, yeah, be upfront.
Yeah. I think the the time to to
maybe question is this the right move is
if you're on a dating app and you
it's specific to local people and you happen
to have a career that if somebody found
out, you would lose said career. You're gonna
have to think about your privacy in that
situation in a way that other other people
will not.
Teachers will know that, feeling.
Anybody in, like, an official city,
you know, county
state government position might have to Mhmm.
So in those situations, you've gotta think about
it differently than the average person. There there
there may be always little, you know, caveats
like that. Yes. You know, some people do
have jobs and, you know, things that you
boss might see or a parent of a
student you teach might see
you on that app, and you've got, like,
I am a bratty submissive who just wants
to be called good boy or whatever. Like
Yep.
That might not Yeah. Right. You do have
to think about that. You know,
a lot more people
are out
today Yes. Than than used to be. Yes.
For sure.
You know, but that that is a a
choice that they make,
and,
you know, it's it it is not always
the right choice for everybody. Mhmm. Okay? But
if you possibly can, yes, you know, be
be upfront
on the dating apps. So let's say you've
gotten through the dreck that is trying to
meet somebody new who is compatible
to your side of the slash. Right?
Okay. You've you're
you've met. You've talked online, however you've met.
Before you got here's here's our, I think,
our mutual take.
There's a step from it's not I met
Adam
today, and tomorrow, we're going to negotiate a
bar exchange. Please don't. Please don't. I'm begging
you.
Maybe
maybe one out of every, like, 10,000,000 people
that works for. But in general, it's not
no.
So,
what we typically say is before you get
to the point of power exchange, we're gonna
negotiate, you're the dom, I'm the sub, please
be like them as a human being and
and be friends first. We are this is
a I can say this for both of
us. We are huge believers in friendship first.
Yeah.
It can be a little bit different if
we're talking casual,
pickup kind of play. It's not doesn't necessarily
have to be that way. But this is
true if it's romantic, sexual, platonic. It does
not matter. Friends first. Because
when real life lifes at you,
do you actually like this person as a
human being and not just for the role
they're playing in your relationship? Yep.
Lola agrees.
So what that means, if you're
meeting a new person and you're like, I
think I want them to be the dom
to my sub, the sub to my dom,
the switch to my switch, like, whatever,
is that you're hanging out and you're talking
and you're getting to know one another. And,
you know, hanging out can mean a lot
of things. I feel like I sound very
old there.
JB and I, quote, hung out via text
a lot.
But it's just having
conversations that are not necessarily
kink oriented. Part of it is kink. Some
of it is the openness of knowing that
you're both kinky. Kink can come up in
a conversation organically. You're not trying to hide
it or or
tiptoe around the topic or say it in
words with the other you know, you get
to be more open, which is yet another
reason to just if you're kinky, say you're
kinky and you're looking for a partner who
is either gets it, interested in it, aware
of it, whatever. Right?
But, yes, please please please please,
before
you negotiate the power exchange,
make sure you like this person as a
human being and you would want to be
around them. Let alone let them have power
over you or do things for you or
whatever. And and, you know, there
there's a thing that you want because oh,
hello.
Lola came in like a wrecking ball. Yes.
She did.
You know, one of the things you wanna
think about, you know, in
going into a kink relationship,
I I said this early on, I'm gonna
say it again right here and now,
building a kink relationship is like building a
house. You need to have a solid foundation.
Mhmm. K?
Communication, trust, respect,
honesty,
those are all things
that are built on
for the DS relationship. And it is tough
when you're meeting new people because we have
all, I think, had
a situation,
some more than others, of this person claimed
to be a thing, claimed to be a
certain type of person, and then you find
out later that they were a big liar
liar pants on fire.
And a lot of
people, you know, will reach out to us
and basically, like, try to find the magic
formula to kind of make sure that they
don't get caught with a liar liar pants
on fire, and there is no magic formula.
The way I I look at it is
pay attention to what they say,
pay closer to attention to what they do,
and then focus the fuck on how consistent
they are. Because a liar can do
the right thing once, maybe twice, but they're
not gonna be consistent. Things. Yeah. Right. Right.
Exactly.
So
you're looking
at do I feel like I can trust
them, and are they providing
consistent proof that I can keep trusting them?
At some point, you're gonna have to make
a leap of faith if, you know, they're
kind of checking all the right boxes for
you. Mhmm. Okay. I gotta I gotta move
this forward a little bit.
I'll give them
a chance and let's see what they do
with it. Right?
But
that's how you know. And you won't you
will have your own internal system for is
this the right partner for me? And that
person will check all the boxes, and they
can still be a raging asshole liar liar
pants on fire.
Abso fucking lutely. Those people exist. They're just
really fucking good at it, and that is
terrifying.
There's no way to completely guard against
the heartbreak
and the devastation
of what a person like that can do
to you. But you kind of put systems
in place to go, okay. I know what
I want from them. I know what they're
saying. I know what they're doing, but what
are they doing over time?
Let's give this a chance. She wants to.
JB's gotta go let Lola out who she
is no longer swaddled and no longer being
a calm girl.
Now, when JB gets back to the microphone,
let's flip
to the people in an existing vanilla relationship
and 1 or both of you have had
that
light bulb
moment of, oh, shit.
We're kinky, and we wanna do this thing.
So, typically,
it's one partner figuring out they're kinky Mhmm.
Or getting interested in kink in some way
or being curious about something to do with
kink or power exchange or whatever Yeah. Bringing
it to the other partner
and the
terror that tends to go with that. That's
tough. That is tough. That is very tough.
You know, you want to be careful how
you approach it. Mhmm. Mhmm.
And what I mean by saying that is,
you know, when you discover this,
you
do not go running up
to your partner
and say, look, I found this. I want
you to do this to me. Put me
over your knee and beat the shit out
of me.
Yeah. That's usually not gonna go the way
you're envisioning that I That is gonna go.
Okay. You know, that that is that is
not gonna work.
You know,
you you you kinda gotta feel it out
and,
you know, I I think really the best
way to do it is
to kind of, you know,
approach the other person. Hey, you know, have
you heard
about erotic spanking? Do you do you know
anything about it? Right. I I came across
it and it it seems like it might
be something kinda interesting. Wanna talk about it?
Right. That's one way. The other thing I
like to do, if you're really uncertain about
how your partner is going to react to
the idea of kink or if they've had
a not so great reaction in the past,
I like to,
advise asking hypotheticals.
I heard about this thing. Insert the kink
you're interested in. Have you ever heard of
that? What do you think? We, you know
and sometimes they're gonna go, I don't know
what the fuck you're talking about. Yeah. And
sometimes they're gonna go, oh, I've heard of
that kink thing, and they're not gonna have
a good connotation for it. And and you
gotta navigate that. But sometimes and this I
have noticed
I noticed to a degree that it was
a pleasant surprise.
If you happen to be in an, like,
long term
established relationship
that is relatively
happy and healthy, obviously, there's like, we'd I'd
like to be doing different things because I
figured out I'm kinky.
Those folks,
more often than not, when they approach their
partner about kink,
their partner
reacts
in the way that they're they would react
to anything else that they
that you bring something to them in an
open way, in a curious way, in a
nonjudgmental
way, in a I don't know about that.
What do you know about that kind of
way? And
Lola really has opinions about it this week.
So that, yeah, they might not know what
you know, and they might not
know how they feel about kink yet, but
really long term established relationships, again, that's already
relatively happy and healthy,
it the that switch over tends to be
a lot smoother than you anticipate.
Now the one thing that,
we have
I have been told about, and I believe
I think it's safe to say JB has
experienced
is,
if you have been telling yourself that your
relationship is probably air quote fine,
but it's really not.
You
it's not actually that surprising when what happens
is you go, hey. What do you think
about this kink thing?
And this person you're calling a partner,
has
a devastating
response to it. Negative. Like, not just I'm
not interested. Not just I think that's gross.
Not just what do you mean,
but more of a judgmental towards
you Mhmm. Reaction. JB experienced that himself.
Let us not be shocked that
that relationship did not last that much longer
after that occurred. Because
presenting an existing partner with and to them
or maybe even to you, quote, out there
suggestion
can sometimes,
give a painfully clear indication
of how
good things are not in your relationship.
But in general,
if this is your best friend, you would
call them your best friend, this is your
true partner,
and you've been through hell and high water
together,
you know, I would say more often than
not, you don't need to be scared about
bringing it up. Yeah. You not might need
to be delicate. Right?
Like Jamey said, do not rush up to
them and go, guess what? I want you
to, like, fuck my throat tonight.
Some people you could spring that on, but
not everybody, right?
And you also have to be patient. And
that's the thing that I think trips up
a lot of
existing relationships when they're making that switch. When
one partner
starts exploring, maybe they read some fiction,
maybe they came across a video or a
podcast or they they whatever. Right? A movie.
Something. And you're like, hey, wait.
This has pushed a few buttons and I
like it. You go
on an an explorative journey. Right? Like, what
does this mean? What do I think about
it? Where can I learn and read and
consume information about it?
And unless your partner is going along on
that journey with you, maybe just a a
day or 2 behind you, you're gonna come
at them with a lot more knowledge than
they may possess. Every once in all, I've
had folks tell me, oh, yeah. I was
terrified to tell my partner that I think
I was kinky. I wanna try this kink
thing. And then come to find out, they
had done kink, like, decades before and just
didn't think I was into
it. Right? Like, most of the time,
you're gonna know more than your partner does,
and so what you have to do is
have the patience to let them catch up
and let them figure out what they think
about this.
Sometimes they're gonna figure out what they think
about it by participating with you, and sometimes
they're gonna be like, I gotta go, like,
learn about this. I gotta go I gotta
get some information. I gotta go talk to
somebody. I got whatever. Right?
That I find in the conversations I have
with people,
especially submissives, but not always,
is the patience part
of I'm really excited to do this, and
I I gathered up all of my courage
to tell you, and you didn't freak the
fuck out.
But so tomorrow can we have a power
exchange? Can we can we do DS? And
it doesn't usually work that way. You you
know,
there there is a lot more
to all this than meets the eye.
A lot of lot of little,
nuanced
stuff, you know, especially when you're getting into
a a DS
relationship.
And, you know, yeah, that that
ugly
patience word, you know, you want to take
your time. You you want to,
you know,
jumping into it has its own repercussions
sometimes.
But, you know, the the main thing with
this, you don't want anybody
to get
hurt.
Right. And you You know? Only mitigate that
as much as possible. And you mitigate it,
and you do what you can to mitigate
it, you know.
So,
you know, yeah, you you need to
to
tread the water lightly Mhmm. In the beginning,
so to speak. Conversations with an existing partner
are gonna start with first of all, my
recommendation is don't
don't have your partner drink from a the
fire hose of kink. Yeah. Do not
try to take them on a journey of
what does BDSM and power exchange mean all
in, like, one conversation.
Unless they have a background and a and
a baseline of understanding,
that's a lot. That's so much.
You know, start with a thing you're very
interested in doing with them. That might be
power exchange. It might be just
a bit of kinky fuckery. It might be
spanking. It might
be rope. It might who knows? Who knows
what it is?
Start small in the conversation,
and then be prepared to have multiple conversations.
Because you're gonna present some information.
And depending on how your partner processes information,
they might wanna go away and think about
it. They might have questions. They might wanna
be like, give me give me till this
weekend.
I'll I'll get back to you with, like,
whatever my brain comes up with. Right? Yeah.
The other thing is, like any other important
conversation you have
in your relationship, you timing is everything. True.
You know, the in the chaos of getting
ready for work in the morning or if
you happen to have kids, dealing with whatever
kid thing is going on, first of all,
please do not have conversations about potential kink
and power exchange in front of children who
are not adults. And maybe just not in
front of your children at all, unless you
just happen to have that kind of life,
and I know some folks do. Can't imagine
it couldn't be me.
But it's more of a, hey, there's something
I wanna talk to you about. No, it's
not for our anxious folks. No, it's not
a bad thing.
When do you think we can do that?
Right? Like, wanna go get coffee? You wanna
can we do it tonight after dinner?
Like, find a time when you can both
focus.
And, as an anxious girly myself, I am
very fond of,
practicing what the hell you wanna say. Make
yourself some notes.
Put it in your in your note app
on your phone. And
if your partner knows you, they're probably not
gonna be surprised you were like, hold on.
I gotta pull up my notes app. I'll
be reading this to you from here on
out. Right? Like, just be yourself, but do
not think you have to show up to
this conversation
as if you are about to give a
performance on stage and you have to know
every single line by heart, like, to get
take the help where you can get it.
And be prepared for questions. Do not think
you have to know all the answers to
the questions. I always like to say whatever
resources you got your information from,
send them there. Right? Now we all process
information differently. So in the beginning of my
kink journey, if somebody had asked me, I
would have sent them to places to read
things.
But if you know your partner is not
a reader, they're a listener, or a video
watcher, send send them there. Right? Let them
Yeah. Let them explore a little bit on
their own because
the if they're willing to do this with
you and they wanna try and they wanna
see what can happen and, you know, they're
like, yeah. Let let's explore together.
You're going on 3 journeys. You're going on
your individual journey and whatever your kink role
and personality is. They're going on theirs with
what they're gonna learn and what they're gonna
want and what they're gonna figure out about
themselves. And then there's the thing you're doing
together
in your relationship.
And so they have to
have the ability
and maybe the encouragement
to
go explore what that means to them and
what intrigues them and how they feel about
it. Because here is the downside.
And we're talking
in this series about folks who are definitely
doing power exchange, but let me be very
clear. Sometimes you're gonna tell your partner,
I'm a submissive, and I would I want
you to be my dom. I want you
to be my top. I want you to
tell me what to do. I want you
to take turns, like, whatever. Right?
And they're gonna go off and explore or
not, but they're gonna come back to you
at some point and go, this is not
me.
It's not me. That's a different conversation to
have, and and that's different. I would tell
you different things than I would tell somebody
else where their partner is
intrigued, enthusiastic,
willing, whatever whatever.
That is the scary part.
You figure this thing out about yourself. You
present it to your existing partner
and they that's not a journey they want
to go on.
People still have, successful relationships with that. It's
possible,
but that is a that's a thing you
have to just know is a possibility. Okay.
So let's let's go forth from
we have our new relationship. We know we're
both kinky. We're moving towards power exchange. Okay.
We have our existing relationship. Everybody's enthusiastic,
willing,
learning together. Here we go. Alright.
Let's talk about
the actual process.
The first thing to know
is get ready to communicate,
most likely in ways you have never communicated
in your whole fucking
life. And and the hard part about that,
from what I hear from most people, I
don't know even for myself and and a
little bit for you, is, you know, when
when you communicating at those kind of levels,
you're leaving yourself kind of vulnerable,
you know. It's a very vulnerable thing for
sure. And, you know, again, that that's a
hard thing to do, to let yourself be
vulnerable in front of somebody,
you know.
And,
and yet,
as as time goes on, as as you
are, you know,
moving through the through this world, you're, you
know, you're learning about yourself, you're you're learning
about the things you want,
it does become easier. Yeah. It's a skill
thing. It's a there's a trust factor. There's
a, ease with being vulnerable with each other
factor, but there's just a skill thing that
the more you do a thing
and try to get better and improve and
you learn from mistakes, the the more you
improve. And it it especially with a partner
you trust. I can say shit to JB
now
that me from 2014
could never
could never. If I was going to say
it, it would take 3 business days
and a
600 to 1000 word email.
Okay?
Like, it took Yeah. Fucking effort. And now
I can probably, if I watch my tone
properly,
say it in about 4 words.
It's the time together,
and it's the practice at just saying
important things, hard things, meaningful things to one
another,
and realizing that we're not gonna scare the
other one away.
Some of that comes from, you know, past
experiences and past partners.
The one thing I I
will say to existing relationships when you're transitioning
from vanilla to kink,
you are gonna have the baggage of every
argument you ever had outside of of kink
and power exchange. You're gonna have hurt feelings
from
the 1st year of your marriage. You're gonna
have
experiences
where
the old style of your relationship
did not allow for this level of communication
necessarily.
And you're gonna wanna fall back in
to old habits and patterns, but not because
you like them, but because they're familiar and
the familiar is easy. Comfortable. Right. At the
same familiar and the familiar is easy. Comfortable.
Right. At the same time, new relationships, you're
coming with everything that's ever happened to you
in other relationships prior to meeting this person.
Mhmm.
Which means you're coming with your lack of
communication skills if that's a thing that
you struggled with.
Mhmm. The thing about kink
power exchange or just kink in general, it
does not matter. In order to do it
in a relatively
safe, air quote that word, a risk aware,
way
so that it is good for everybody,
requires some deep level work on yourself.
Because you gotta not only figure out what
the fuck you want, you then have to
figure out how to effectively communicate to somebody
and do it in such a way that
if they
don't understand the first time, you can go
back and go, no. No. No. Let's let's
clarify. Let's fix. Let's whatever. And those are
that's a skill, and we do not come
into this world possessing it. No.
And if you've been through shit where
you weren't, oh, you know, you didn't feel
safe saying what you thought. You had you
were not raised in an environment where you
got to express yourself. You've had the kind
of relationships where you've been shut out and
you shut down and
that is still there. That is all still
there.
Yeah. And same. JB's raising his hand, but
same.
So,
one thing that we have been recommending for
literal years at this point Mhmm. Is a
book that I believe is also available in
audiobook,
if you are a listener rather than a
visual reader.
It's called Tongue Tied by Stella Harris.
I do not reread books, especially nonfiction. I
have read this book 2 or 3 times
now. Mhmm. It only has 1 or 2
chapters specific to kink because the rest of
the information
is applicable to
to relationships because it's about Yeah. Figuring out
not just,
how to tell your partner what you want,
but to figure out what you want and
to go a little bit on that the
personal self journey and then to express it
to a partner.
It is not the only resource out there.
It's not the end all, be all, but
it is a hell of a good one,
especially
if the communication if you struggle to communicate
around intimacy
and and sex, because intimacy is not always
sex. Sex is not but you know what
I mean? Like, for sexual relationships, romantic relationships,
this is written specifically for that. But even
if you we're talking platonic,
the skills transfer. Right? Like, the the skills
we learned on how to effectively communicate to
our children
transferred how we effectively communicate with one another.
What happened is we learned it in kink
and then we transferred it to parenthood, but
they transfer the other way too.
You look like you're about to say something.
No. Oh,
the other thing, and we talk about this
a lot, we've talked about this a lot
over the years, is while verbal communication
or
yeah. I can't think of another word. I
know there's another word. I'm not thinking of
it.
Mhmm. While saying the thing is usually preferred,
it is not the only way. Sometimes,
you can't get your thoughts together when you've
got somebody in your face. Sometimes your emotions
and your own feelings get the better of
you, and you don't feel like you're expressing
yourself.
So writing it down Yeah. Voice messages and
voice memos Mhmm. Texts,
email,
a shared Google Drive doc, a piece of
paper, like, whatever you need
to gather your thoughts, put them in a
spot, and then hand them over to your
partner.
Yep. Use it. It is okay. There it
does not have to be
effective communication does not have to be we
sit across from one another,
and we look each other in the eyes,
and we say the thing back and forth.
That's ideal. When you can do it, do
it. Yeah. But if that is still a
struggle, but you've got shit you've gotta say,
look. We've been together over we've known each
other over 10 years now. Mhmm.
Less than 6 months ago, we got into
a disagreement. And, good lord, I don't even
remember what it was about anymore. You probably
do because you remember shit, and I don't.
But I didn't feel like JB was hearing
me and and getting my point and what
I was trying to communicate. I don't think
he thought I was hearing him.
So even though we don't really need it
anymore, I sure as shit wrote an email
and expressed myself because I could gather my
thoughts. I could edit myself. I could revise.
I could go, wait. Do I think that's
clear enough? Oh, wait. I forgot this detail.
Let me find you know? I could take
my time. I could then
send it off to him. Yep. And now
the hard part is you then have to
wait for your partner To respond. To take
the information and think about it and respond.
In the end, we had to agree to
disagree on a thing We did. Which was
also very frustrating.
But even after all these years, that is
still a tool that we will use I
to effectively keep I I have woken up
and found a folded piece of paper on
my desk by the keyboard. Yep. Yep. Mhmm.
I know. Yep. Whatever
it takes. Yeah.
For some, if it's accessible to you,
therapy. For some, it's dealing with your mental
illnesses with maybe that's medication, maybe it's therapy,
maybe it's something else. Maybe it's right? There's
gonna be stuff that's gonna get in the
way that is bigger than just,
oh, if I, you know, learn how to
communicate, this will be fine. Right? That but
that is a part of it. If there
is
something going on with you that prevents you
from
being able
to share
innermost thoughts that are necessary
to have a safe power exchange relationship, to
negotiate your power exchange Mhmm.
You're you might have to do some extra
work to get to that place.
Having
a safe, supportive,
caring, trustworthy partner
makes a big difference, but that is not
a cure all
for whatever has gone on in your life
or whatever is going on in your own
wiring and brain chemistry and however you are
built
to overcome everything. Right? Some of that is
just gonna require work. Now that does not
mean you have to wait until you are
quote, oh, I don't like this word, but
that you are, you know, better, air quote,
you are fixed, air quote, like, what is
the those are awful words. You don't have
to wait till everything's just right and then
go to your power exchange. What it does
mean is you have to be very
honest with yourself
about
where you're struggling and how this might interfere
with, you
know,
trusting your partner or communicating your feelings or
negotiating what you really want.
And it it's a thing that you can
do side by side with all of that.
Right? Like, you could be working on that
stuff for yourself
and learning how to talk to your partner
and talking about kinks with each other and
figuring out what is this thing that we
even fucking want.
But that's a that's an introspective,
if you don't know thyself, then fucking learn
thyself
kind of situation.
And when you have a supportive partner
who, for your own sake, wants you to
be the happiest, healthiest version of yourself that
you can be,
then that makes it a little bit easier.
It's still a lot of work you have
to do on your own. You you know?
First time I went to therapy, I was
walking in on my on my lonesome
to say, hey. I think I'm going crazy.
Can you help me?
I think it was perimenopause starting, but whatever.
So, yeah, that that's part of it too.
We there's this expectation that we're supposed to
all communicate well, and you're supposed to know
what the fuck that means, and it's just
not true for most people. Not all of
us were
taught good
communicating
straight out of the box. You know? They're
some some people were.
Some people are natural
learners,
but not everybody, and and that's when, you
know, a book like this is invaluable,
absolutely invaluable,
you know.
My
biological family,
they never talked.
Still don't. Still don't.
No. And,
you know,
when I tried to,
it it just
over the head.
And,
you know, yeah. It you you in in
many cases, you have to learn it, you
have to practice it, and work at it.
It, you know, it it's not something that
you just snap your fingers and it happens.
Right. Because communication
is
required for any of this to work. Yeah.
You have to communicate
your wants, your desires, the things you you're
into, the things that you you want to
get from. In this case, we're talking about
power exchange, but this applies to all facets
of BDSM.
You also have to learn how to say,
no. I don't want that.
And you have to learn how to say,
I want I thought I wanted that, but
now I I don't want that.
The I think one of my bigger struggles
as our relationship developed
was figure learning how to communicate
when I was upset with you. Now
we've had many, many,
episodes where we talk about, like, arguing and
Yeah. Not being happy with one another. And
many people are not effective communicators
in in the middle of their their, like
No. Their highest emotional,
like, anger or whatever. Right?
I had to learn that it's okay
to walk away temporarily Yes. Calm the fuck
down and come back and communicate. Right? Yeah.
My,
go to was to shut down completely,
stew on it internally,
and outwardly go, it's fine. It doesn't matter
for it then to bubble up, 6 months
to a year later.
That was not healthy either. No. Because then
that point, nothing is resolved or, you know
And the the real trick in power exchange
specifically
is to figure out amongst,
you know, y'all, your relationship,
how you're gonna handle
your roles when you're pissed at one another,
and you gotta talk through conflict.
Some folks do a time out. They come
completely out of the role. They're just one
to 1 with total equals here. Let's just
say what we gotta say.
We stay within our role. So but all
that means for us is that we watch
our tone with one another. The the rule
we have for each other is we can
say whatever we gotta say. We just have
to be respectful. And in power exchange, it
sounds like that that's just my rule because
I'm the submissive. It's a stated rule for
me because I'm the submissive, but it's an
understood rule for everybody. Right. Right. It's like
I follow the same rules. I Right. It's
a core tenant of who we are in
a relationship. Right.
So we don't feel the need to come
out of a
role. We just walk we try to watch
our tone, and we're quick to go, hey.
I need a break or, hey. We gotta
come back to this when we can feel
ourselves
Yeah. Be not being able to to stay
respectful. I mean, we we set It's just
very rare that now. We we set certain
tenants,
you know, because arguing isn't
is inevitable.
Mhmm. Okay? It's gonna happen at some point.
And,
you know, yeah, the the thing talking with
each other respectfully,
make a point, you know, because let's face
it. You're having an argument, it's easy to
get angry and and you get angry, you
say things that you probably shouldn't say. You
know, make a point,
you know, the the rules of engagement,
so to speak.
You know, we do not call each other
any names
whatsoever.
You know, we we don't bring up the
past
because past is not relevant to what we
are And if something was unresolved in the
past, then that is on us as adults
to bring it up outside of a heated
moment to resolve it. Mhmm. Mhmm. You know,
you know, we we don't put each other
down. Right.
You know,
we do our best to stay on track
and and, you know, resolve what is at
hand. Right. And, again, that's a skill we've
learned over the years. We have sucked at
it,
and we've gotten better at it. Yeah. But
it's a thing you've just gotta know going
into this whole power exchange thing. And I
I get it. The both the new relationship
the frenzy of being so excited about power
exchange, whichever side of the slash you're on,
you can forget shit like that. But this
is why we're gonna about to go into
it. It's figuring out what you want. Figuring
out what you want is what leads to
negotiations.
Mhmm. Communication
and and being so
when you're figuring out what you want and
you're going to
negotiate your power exchange,
you are unlikely to be really great at
communication
yet. It's probably still new for you Mhmm.
To be working on this skill. But it
is important to be mindful of 1,
maybe this is not a skill I have
and I'm this is gonna this is gonna
be tough, and it's gonna be challenging, but
it can get better. Right? Like, I'm just
it's being aware of how the importance of
communication.
While we're on communication, before we get to
the figuring out the hell what you want,
another thing, and this is more for submissives,
but not completely, because doms can have these
too.
Communication is also
being
able and willing
to use a safe word,
to nope out of something in the middle
of something.
Now what that will look like in your
power exchange as part of the negotiation, you
talk it through of, okay, if something's gone
wrong, you know, am I gonna use a
safe word? Am I gonna just say stop?
Like, you you need to have those conversations.
Yeah.
But that is a form of communication, and
I say that because too damn many submissives
believe,
sometimes because the dumb has made them feel
this way and sometimes because they've gotten it
in their own head, that safe wording in
a in a scene or any situation
is a failure. They're disappointing their dom. Nope.
And so then they do not use that
communication tool to keep themself and their partner,
air quote, this as safe as possible. Right?
Mhmm. So communication is not just, let me
tell you what the fuck I want and
how I wanna get kinky with you. And
it's not just, oh, hey. We're I thought
we were gonna be, happy and in love
and and,
you know, in new relationship energy or in
frenzy for fucking ever. And wait. We woke
up this morning, and you fucking pissed me
off, dude.
Right? It's that's that communication.
And then there is the, I have to
tell you a thing that I think you
won't wanna know. Right? And it's getting over
this idea
that safe wording out is a disappointment or
a bad thing. Here's here's the thing.
As a submissive,
you know, regardless of what you have negotiated
for your dynamic,
you still need to advocate for yourself.
K?
Still need to do that.
You know, if if you are being
asked to do something you don't want to,
you do not have to. K? You know,
use your safe word.
Don't, you know, if if if it is
really something that is absolutely positively against, you
know, hard limit that you
don't do it. Or if you're in distress
or if something has gone wrong or if
you're like, that's not a pain I wanted
to feel. There's so many reasons to use
a safe word. We've done so many episodes
on safe words.
So oh, go ahead. You know, I I
just somebody mentioned in in chat,
CDC said, you know,
one of the first
one of their first, communications agreement was do
not assume.
And you know what? That that it that
it those are 3 amazing words right there,
you know, because yeah. When you assume something,
you that can make for trouble. Yeah. You're
almost always wrong, quite frankly.
Here's the thing, if you have ever
been in a relationship where you thought this
or a partner thought this, figure out where
you're at on that,
of air quote, they should just know
you are setting yourself up for a world
of fucking hurt because
they don't know shit that you have not
told them. Are there
things that we should ideally all understand as
human beings and with our morals and ethics?
Of course.
However,
in any relationship, but we talk about power
exchange here, do not assume. Say it plainly.
Right?
Say
the, here's the things that I like. Here's
the things I don't like. Here's what I
can do. Here's what I won't do. Like,
whatever it is,
do not assume your partner is the the
majority,
not all, not all, but the majority of
the situations
we see on Reddit, people message us about,
where a scene went to absolute shit and
now
1 or more people are at some level
of traumatized
Yeah. Will be because
1 or both partners assumed
that they knew what was happening and what
the other person wanted and that the other
person would understand what this
facial expression meant, what the sound meant, what
you know what I mean? And they did
not they were not clear with each other.
It's gonna sound boring to some and uncomfortable
to others, to be super fucking clear. I
mean,
I don't want to, you know, some people
get touchy about, oh, you think I'm stupid
because you're telling me this basic stuff? No.
I wanna make sure I know that I
said it and I know that you heard
it. Right.
Yep. We can we have done and can
do
so many episodes on communication. I've linked to
a couple. Let's move on to the this
is starting a power exchange. What the fuck
do you want? What do you want as
individuals, and what do you want together? The
fun stuff. Right. So let's talk resources first.
Let's talk about methods. Uh-huh.
A very common one, a very popular one
is
BDSM checklist, sometimes called a yes, no, maybe
list.
We do offer 1.
You need to subscribe to our newsletter,
to receive that, in your email inbox. Or
Mhmm. It doesn't load as a page. Either
way, you can download it if you do
that. What we're gonna do this week in
our,
weekly newsletter for folks who've been subscribed for,
like, a 100 fucking years,
and you don't know where your copy is
anymore, we're gonna include it in the newsletter
for anybody who wants it. But you can
also do a Google search for BDSM checklist.
Something will come up. The other thing, this
is a shameless
self promotion. We actually created the 30 days
of DS, now a workbook. It used to
be an email series,
specifically to help newer kingsters figure out what
power exchange even means to them. Mhmm. And
their journal prompts slash conversation starters, they're linked.
But you gotta find a method
to go, but what do I want and
what do we want? And how are we
gonna make these things come together?
And so
BDSM is like drinking from a fucking fire
hose. Yeah. You It can be. Will think
you know what BDSM encompasses.
And 6 months to a year later, you
will learn about 10 1,000 other things you
never thought about. So there's a lot. And
and then you you gotta add in the
fact, you know, when I first came into
the community,
it has changed
quite a bit
from that time.
Mhmm. Exactly.
So start with a position of what See,
there's 2 ways to start, I think. There
is the checklist
workbook,
talk through what all your options could be.
And for some people, that will work beautifully.
Go there.
For others, it's, this is the one thing
I'm kind of interested in, and this is
the one thing I know about that thing.
Yeah. Right? And it's intriguing.
So let me tell you, my partner, who's
gonna do this power exchange thing with me,
what do you think about it? And if
they're on board to try it, they're not
like, oh, hell no. I'm not doing that
shit kinda. Right? It's not a hard limit.
It's not even a soft limit. They're like,
yeah, I'm down to experiment.
You can start there with the what you
do
know about. Right?
There's no right right way. The the only
right versus wrong way
is to assume that you know what your
partner means or that they will know what
you mean,
and to not
talk in-depth
about what you're talking about trying before you
try it. Somebody said in the live chat,
and this is so true, especially in the
early days, the negotiation is 3 times longer
than the actual fucking scene.
Yep. Yeah.
Because there's so much to go over. And
a lot of people will say, oh, but
doesn't that take the,
you know,
the the sexiness out of it? Doesn't that
take the the fun out of it? Doesn't
that take the surprise out of it? Here's
the thing. There are good surprises and there
are bad surprises.
What you don't want in one of your
first interactions with a kink partner is for
a bad surprise. Nope. Nope. So you can't
guarantee you will never have a not so
pleasant surprise. Mhmm. But the best way to
mitigate that is to get real, real, real
detailed in your conversation
about what this is gonna look like. Mhmm.
From a power exchange,
perspective,
that's conversations about, okay, what what's your role?
What's my role? What do those words mean
to us? Mhmm. How do we think we
envision
this moment in the bedroom, this relationship,
this whatever, right? What do we think that
looks like? You're gonna each have your own
individual way of looking at that, and what
you're looking for, what you're trying to do
in all of this is take the thing
you want, the thing they want, put them
together, and find the Venn diagram in the
system. Ground. Yep. What do we both want
out of these things, and how do we
make that work? Mhmm.
I am a big, big fan of starting
real basic and real small.
If I was a, like, a baby kingster
today and I knew that spanking was, like,
super intriguing,
the first conversation that I had with a
potential, you know, spanker is gonna be, okay,
how how hard, how fast,
just, you know Mhmm. I'm scared of all
these other things. What's the minimum we can
do? Right? Which is usually your hand.
You know, you're gonna get real detailed, real
descriptive
because, again, you're not going to assume.
Mhmm. No assumptions. Nope.
But you gotta have a a starting point
of what are we even talking about.
One book that we like, I believe it's
still on Amazon, is Kinktionary.
Mhmm. Which is just a a friend a
kink friend and a fellow educator, put it
together several years ago, and it's just a
bunch of terms Correct. Defined so you have
this
sort of understanding of what these things even
are.
Mhmm. There is probably not
a broad king term on the planet that
doesn't have 10,000,000
resources to learn what that even is Mhmm.
And what that might look like.
But you're you know, you you go, okay.
This is my person that I'm gonna do
the power exchange with, however y'all have met.
You go, okay. I I'm not good at
it yet, but I'm gonna have to communicate
and, like Mhmm. Even the uncomfortable stuff. And
then it's like, okay, but what the fuck
do we wanna do? And you can decide
a thing on day 1, and both of
you get to change your mind at
any
point.
Absolutely.
Absolutely. You
know, when when, you know, when
any point. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, when when
when Kayla and I were coming together,
there were things she told me right up
front. She's like, you know,
this is
these are hard limits. I I this is
what, you know, I do not like this.
This this is something I have no intention
of trying.
You know, okay, there there were a couple
things she said that I was mildly disappointed
about. But, you know what?
I never once went to her and and
said,
can we do this? I want to do
this. I can I really want to do
this? Can we? Yeah. No pressure. Pressure's not
cool. Yeah. You
know,
and
you know, I I never even went back
to her and said, you know, man, I
I know it's been a little bit of
time. What do you you know, still feel
the same way about this?
But what did happen was over time,
as
we became
more familiar with each other, we we seen
more, you know, we did more together,
you became more comfortable with me, you know,
the the trust was there. You came to
me one time and said, you know, I
know I said this was a
hard limit for me, but I think I'd
be willing to try it at least once.
Mhmm.
My experience is
not always not for everything. Sometimes we just
know on a visceral level that thing is
not for me.
But what happens not infrequently
is that you have a picture in your
head of what something is because you've seen
it depicted in a certain way. Mhmm. And
in your mind, that's what that thing is.
And so that might that's your hard woman.
I don't wanna do that thing. Yeah. The
more you
learn about BDSM, the more you see what
other people do, the more you just discover
all of this, the more you realize that
for any single activity you can imagine, there's
a million ways to do it. And it's
entirely possible
that
you don't like 999
ways of a 1,000, but there's that one
way
and
and you're willing to explore it. But those
things come with time. We did a whole
episode
on even though for some people it's very
eye roll worthy and cringey to call BDSM
a journey, it it is. It's not a
destination because the thing you decide with your
in your power change on day 1,
by day 100, it might not even look
like that.
We started with a very platonic power exchange
Mhmm. Yeah. That morphed over a brief amount
of time to a romantic and sexual power
exchange. We had a long distance power exchange
that looked nothing like our in person power
exchange. And the in person power exchange we
envisioned for one another in June of 2014
lasted about 10 minutes.
And by July of 2014, we were doing
something completely different.
And here we are now, 10 fucking years
later of living together, and our power exchange
today,
and the things we're in into and the
things we're interested in, things we wanna try,
it's just not even the it's it's night
and fucking day in some ways
from, you know, when we first moved in
together. It's all going to morph and change
because
your
your life is gonna morph and change. You're
gonna be in different seasons of life where
certain things are or are not possible.
You're gonna learn more, so then you're gonna
be like, oh, I didn't know that thing
was a possibility. Certain things may not interest
you anymore, and then they go by the
wayside.
You're gonna have physical and, potentially, mental health
issues that crop up between you, whether from
just
life stress or something else. Mhmm. And you're
gonna adjust from that, and it's it's it's
a journey because it is changing, and you
are
moving forward with no there's no finish line
to cross. Right? Like, it's a thing that
just develops and shifts and morphs over time.
So
when you're getting started, you're like, okay. I
gotta I gotta get good at communication. This
is this is a thing. Mhmm. Oh, I've
gotta figure out what the hell I even
want.
Getting started, we it's easy to put a
lot of pressure on ourselves that the day
1 of power exchange, when you've talked about
it, you've negotiated, you've got your person,
you've made a plan
that you think that this plan is the
plan you will live with for fucking every
You might not make it 24 hours of
that plan. Because the thing about getting started
with the thing is you're gonna do the
thing in the way that y'all talked about
and you envisioned that you would do this
thing. And 1 or both of you can
go, oh, that
was not realistic to our life right now.
Or
I thought I would like that better than
I like that. Mhmm. And we said this
literal fucking years ago,
god, almost a decade ago, that to us,
negotiation is just a very fancy term for
communication.
Mhmm. And so when you negotiate this power
exchange, you've gone through the steps of here's
my person, here are the things I want,
we're gonna practice our communication.
Mhmm. You don't negotiate in your one and
done. You are constantly,
consistently,
in some form, negotiating how this will work.
Because negotiation is, hey, daddy, you know the
that thing about kneeling at the bedside every
night? Yeah. My knees are
screaming at me. Can we address that? Yeah,
baby girl. We can. Oh, baby girl, you
know that thing about how I'm gonna give
you, like, a blistering,
spanking every night?
I do not have the energy for that.
Let us adjust this way. Right? Like, there's
gonna be situations that happen that are one
offs, and then there's gonna be things you
figure out that your body can handle, that
your mind can handle, that you like, that
you don't like. Mhmm. There's gonna be the
seasons of life where, like, the kids are
kidding, the parents are are parenting,
the job is jobbing, you know. Right. And
it's all gonna be the best. Right. Which
is why we go back to the thing
we said about get ready to learn how
to fucking communicate. Right. Because, like, I our
power exchange right now is primarily that JB
is the decider.
Capital t, capital d, trademark,
the decider.
I have
that's his main thing.
The things I do as a service submissive
are
not daily directed by him. He's not coming
up to me on the hour, every hour,
make my coffee, do this thing. We set
up a routine that I could do, and
I knew what was expected of me, and
I just fucking do it. And if I
don't do it, then we have to have
a conversation. Yeah. So here's a real life
such example of this. He is the decider.
I have my rules that I follow, my
tasks that I do because that is best
for our power exchange.
Communication
means that if something has happened, I have
a migraine.
I'm not gonna be home at this time.
Something is going on with my body that
will prevent me from doing the thing that
I've agreed to do as a submissive. Communication
skills and negotiation
means I have to go, hey, daddy.
I have a I have a blinding migraine
right now. Yeah.
I'm not sure I can bend over the
bed and get my ass beaten tonight. Mhmm.
Now we are in tune enough with one
another that he is paying enough attention to
go, are you feeling okay? Usually long before
I say I don't feel good. Right? Yeah.
And so we're having those conversations
and doing a day to day negotiation
Yeah.
Of what is this going to look like.
Most days, we are not even talking about.
We're just doing our thing. Just do it.
But some days, you have to have a
real brief conversation
and adjust things. That's
the that's the importance of the commute this
the communication skill.
It's also the importance of the flexibility of
the thing you think you're gonna do on
day 1. I hope you can. I hope
you knock it out of the park first
try. You're like, yep. This list that we
typed up so we would could both reference
it. That's a a thing you can do
when you're setting up your power exchange.
We do every single thing, and it we're
6 months on, and that that's what we
do, and we love it. If that's you,
I am very happy for you. But let
me tell you, you are the exception, not
the rule. Because most of us go, I
think I would like this. And the reality
goes, I'm a need you to sit down
and shut up because you're not getting
that.
That's that's not happening for you. Mhmm.
And a lot of time, you're gonna go,
oh, I thought I wanted that. I don't
I don't think that works for me, or
I don't that doesn't feel the way I
thought that was gonna feel. Yeah. Or that
doesn't work for our life. Like, I think
we thought when we moved in together, there
would be a lot more fucking scenes. Oh,
yeah.
No. No. No. And it's
it's actually dwindled over the years. Yeah.
Because life just keeps lifing. I know. So
with the getting started
as our final thing Mhmm. Because this is
such a big topic. It is. And we
only, like, have 4 main points and it's
still not enough and I could still talk
for literal hours. Why do you think we
have 409
fucking episodes? Yeah.
The getting started thing is you start
small
and slow.
Yeah.
I like to say, look at your mutual
list of things you wanna try. You're like,
yeah. We can do those things. Find the
one that you both are super excited about.
The thing that you're like, oh, hell, yeah.
That'll feel good. Now that might be a
kinky fuckery scene thing.
It might be a power exchange y thing.
Right? It might just be,
you know,
using your titles and your labels with each
other. Like, the first time I
JB was sir before he was daddy.
The first time using that can as exciting
as it might be, can feel awkward. It
it takes some getting used to.
Does subfrenzy sometimes make that a little bit
easier for some of us? Yes. Because we're
just
delirious with excitement.
But when we switched from sir to daddy,
first of all, it felt natural. Like, internally,
I was like, this is the right term,
but it was still a weird thing. You
can literally start that small. What are your
titles? Where are you gonna call one another
when it's appropriate to do it? Like, you
might not use those titles in front of
And, kids or work or whatever. But, you
know, when you're a little And what's funny
now, fast forward to to to to the
here and now,
is that you don't even like using my
given name anymore. Does not I have not
for years. It does not feel right in
my mouth.
That makes
trying to get his attention in public very
difficult. I will not say daddy to him
because
so there was a time when our age
difference looked a lot
vaster than it really is, and people would
think that he was my actual father, and
that really piss I don't like that. So
I was never gonna call him daddy in
public
to get that, you know, whatever.
And now
I look closer to my actual age, and
he's aging like a fine fucking line. Oh,
please. And so if I say daddy, now
we're gonna get looks I really don't wanna
deal with. I get I get comments on
Instagram from people that see my demonstrations. Oh,
look at that sweet old man talking about.
Sometimes I just think Instagram needs to be,
like, thrown into a volcano.
Okay?
Good god. I've got 2 people arguing on
one of our posts I know. Right now.
Anyway,
so I don't use daddy in public. That's
a between us. That's a sometimes in front
of y'all and sometimes not.
John Brownstone and JB, that is mostly a
here and in this context. With the kids,
because he met them when they were very
young, he was mister John. So mister John
became a title.
But they're like around my family. I don't
know that the kids are older. I don't
call him mister John. That would be weird
to be talking to just my mother and
not a single child around and go, yeah,
mister John. No. That doesn't make any sense.
You'll have to say John. But when we're
in public,
there's, like, 85 Johns in any given
establishment.
And he was not hearing me even with
his hearing aids on, and I'm going, John.
John. And I'm hating it. It, like, it
literally feels wrong in my mouth. And finally,
JB. And he whipped her out. I'm
like, I guess that's your new name in
public, man.
So yeah. And
but so you can start as small as
let's practice
trying our labels tonight. Yeah. Let's start with
depending on how your power exchange will do
it, it's very common for people to do
something like kneeling for a submissive.
We have talked about this in the past.
Kneeling is not a requirement. Sometimes your body
just will not let you. It's fine. You
can find other things. I don't kneel anymore.
If I do, it's for about 30 seconds
and then You you you kneel for a
while, then we went to a pillow.
Yep. And then And now I just bend
over. Bend over the bed. Bend over the
bed. Yep. You you'll find a thing. Maybe
it's,
the
some some power exchange folks like to do
a a ritual that tells your brains,
we are stopping our vanilla day, and we
are going into our kink life. Right? We
just live it all the time because of
the nature of our lives, but for some
folks one of the one of the most
common things I've heard is that, you know,
when,
somebody comes home from work, you know, especially
if you don't have
kids, you know, when the submissive comes home,
their collar gets put on. Right. And that
can be a thing you can literally start
with because all of this is new habits.
It's new things you're doing Yeah. That you
probably did not do before, or you did,
but you didn't label them in a certain
way, and you didn't ritualize them. Right? So
to get started, you've you've gone, I've I've
got my person.
I'm prepared
for communication.
You're never prepared. You don't know how much
communication there is until you're in it, but
tell yourself that.
We think we know what we want. As
of this day, this moment in time, this
is what we our Venn diagram.
Now we've gotta get started.
Start with the exciting thing and start small.
Mhmm. And just remember, you are building habits
and routines. I say that to say, dominance
out there who are gonna do submissive training,
have expectations of their submissive is gonna, you
know, behave in new ways, act in new
ways,
form new routines around the power exchange,
I'm gonna need y'all to be patient. You
are asking a person who has lived their
life a very specific way for however many
years you've been on this planet to upend
that and do something different. And it takes
time to retrain the brain. Mhmm.
And in the middle of it, you might
find that the things you thought were okay,
like we said earlier, you're like, no, this
is not working, and you're gonna have to
have that conversation, negotiate, and adjust it.
And, yeah. And I want submissives to be
patient with themselves.
You are literally changing the way you're living
some portion of your life.
You are not expected to be perfect
right out the gate. Now sometimes,
frenzy and excitement and new relationship energy and
all those good, like, endorphin
things going on will propel you forward, and
it'll be a little easier.
Eventually, it becomes mundane. Eventually, it becomes routine.
Eventually, you're like, this is my life now.
It's a little less exciting than it was
6 months ago. It's still good, hopefully,
but the excitement
is just
it changes over time. And so now it's
the, is this what I want?
You know? Am I gonna do this even
when I'm uncomfortable? Am I gonna speak up
if I'm uncomfortable and don't? You know what
I mean? Like, it
then we get past the getting started
stage, and we're in in the thick of
living it.
I could keep talking and yet we cannot.
No. It's why I included so
several links
in the different places depending on how you're
listening or watching, but also and I'll I'll
go back and add this to YouTube, and
I'll include it in the show notes. We
do have pages on our website, lovingbdsm.net,
that is, like,
new dominance, new to submit new to dominance,
new to submission, I think new to DS,
and we have resource links there.
We are not the end all, be all,
so, you know, There's the Pink Ink podcast.
There's
Evie Lupine on, YouTube. There's all there's it's
a guide. There's geeks and geeks. Yeah. There's
all kinds of resources, and you're gonna learn
something different from each resource that you Everybody
has their own perspective.
And everybody has their own way of doing
things. And and and there's nothing wrong with
that. That's good. You know? It'd be kind
of boring if everything was the same, you
know. And the thing is is the resources
that you
follow, you listen to, you
read, you watch, like, however you consume and
learn stuff.
Take what,
there's a word resonates with you, reject the
rest. You do not have to do it
specifically like anybody else for it to be
correct.
For very, very new folks, there is an
expression that those of us who are chronically
online
know, and that's one true way ism, where
it's there's this one true way to be
a dominant or ism
or to do d s, and all of
that is bullshit. So the more people you
can learn from,
go to a munch if that's an option
for you. Join a Discord if that's an
option for you. Right?
The more that you can get exposed to
the different ways people do this, the more
you'll get ideas and and and something will
make sense to you and click with you
and go, yeah. I'd like to try that.
Oh, no. That's fine for them, but not
for me. Right? You'll Mhmm. So,
just as a recap on
the resources that we've mentioned, they are all
linked in the places, but,
Tongue Tied by Stella Harris. Mhmm. Highly
recommend.
Yep. Oh my gosh. Yep.
We have
3 days of DS. We have 2 workbooks.
1 is for beginners. Volume 2 is for
established power exchange folks.
We have a BDSM checklist when you subscribe
to our newsletter. Mhmm. If you are already
subscribed to it, you're going to get
a fresh copy,
in the Friday newsletter. Mhmm. But you can
do a Google search.
We can we have in the past talked
about contracts.
They are not required for some people. That
works really well. They want that formality. Yeah.
For others, it's unnecessary. We literally
we like things written down when we don't
have them memorized yet, and it's not part
of our routine.
So our very first agreement negotiation
was a shared Google Doc. Yeah. It can
be that simple. Yeah.
So,
yeah, this is the first, and then I
don't know how long we'll do this series.
Certainly through the month of September, that is
the plan,
of getting started with your power exchange. Does
it feel like a lot? It is. It
it really is.
It can be broken down into steps. Mhmm.
You I'm I'm begging you to take your
time.
I'm begging you to take your time.
Make sure you actually like this person you're
trying to power exchange with.
That helps. And start with the fun stuff
that you like, both mutually are like, yeah.
That's super exciting. Yeah. Take some of the
pressure off some.
And, yeah, just get ready to communicate your
fucking heart out. Oh my god.
Oh my god.
We have gotten
so good. I don't know if good is
the I say, like, not even relationship stuff,
just life stuff. I say to JB that
I have never said this man knows more
about the things I do in a bathroom
than any other human being has ever known
about me.
I know all of those intimate details about
him Right. Because we've gotten so comfortable with
just telling each other things that I realized
after the fact, I was like, why did
I say that out loud?
Why did I feel like that was the
detail to communicate?
And then because he didn't bat an eye,
he was like, oh, okay. Just took it
in and then started sharing some details with
me. We just kept it going.
Does that mean that you could go too
far? Probably.
So, yeah, that's
but like I said, on our website, we
have we have pages for newbies Yeah. With
a lot more links than we've included in
the places. So if you
are
figuring this out and trying to get started
Yeah. Hopefully that will help. Mhmm. A lot
of good stuff there. I hope so. 409
episodes worth. Just saying. Yeah. Just saying. So
I guess we need to be done now
and do a bonus section. Okay. So,
are we good?
I don't know.
I don't I really don't know.
Keep it kinky, y'all. And we'll see you
next week.
Daddy.
Yes, baby girl.
Can we talk to the crickets?
Yes.
Yay.
What have we got?
You said you had all kinds of stuff
you were waiting to talk about and we
got and then here we are. I don't
remember any of it. Can't remember any of
it. You need to make notes.
Oh, God. I make notes on everything.
The 14 year old officially god. We're so
late. I don't know if I should be,
like,
like, amused or embarrassed. I haven't decided.
The 14 year old who is 6 fucking
days away from me and the 15 year
old Yes.
Officially starts,
9th grade tomorrow, September 5th.
He's got multiple different pieces of curriculum coming.
He's
he is you know what? He's not excited
because he's he's
not traditionally a school I was a school
kid who was like,
please let me do school. I'm good at
it. I fucking love it.
I thought I wanted to be a teacher
for years, not because I wanted to to
educate,
today's youth. I wanted to grade papers.
And then I learned that the curriculum he's
gonna be using for, like, some of his
core subjects this year, I have to actually
grade papers, and I got super excited about
it. I'm such a nerd. Mhmm.
So he's not dreading it like he usually
does. He's not resisting it. I've been easing
him into these things. Mhmm. Today was the
log in to this system and start clicking
around so you know where things are.
So, yeah, that's happening.
I told the 9 I reminded the 19
year old that his brother was turning 15,
and he went, no. He's not for, like,
5 minutes. He's like, no. He's not. He's
not that old. No. He's not. I'm like,
dude. Yeah. The fuck he is. Yeah. He
is. Yeah. The fuck he is.
So
yeah.
So that's happening.
We are planning
what we're doing for his birthday. We do
very low key birthdays. Yeah. You know, part
of it is,
we are not the type of people to,
like,
do, like, loud, big Big. Crazy things. But,
also, you know, like, budgets are small. So
the kids like, I would like chocolate cake,
chocolate frosting. I'm like, can do. Done. And
we think we think for his special birthday
dinner, it might be Popeye's. And I'm not
mad about it because I hadn't had Popeye's
in any way. If it's what he wants
Yes. You know? Yes. If it's what he
wants.
So yeah. And we've gotta, like, actually get
his gift, which can't say anything because child
is in the house and you never know
where they're standing. And so we have picked
out the gift. We just have to purchase
it.
Probably do that maybe tomorrow or the next
night. Oh, yeah. Yeah. See how that goes.
I know. The we're gonna see we're gonna
see the 19 year old this weekend because
he needs groceries again. Yeah. And we need
to go to Walmart for him.
So, that's happening. He eats like a damn
college student. Jeez. Well, he needs to eat
more like a damn college student. Yeah.
Because he is
not a strapping young man by any stretch.
He's got the form of ADHD where he
does literally forget to eat. Yeah. Can't imagine.
Could not be me. Me either.
So, yeah,
not having
a parental figure to go, it's time to
eat. Here is the food.
He yeah. Food served.
Lola is doing much better. Yes. Her eye
looks almost completely normal Yeah. Now. Mhmm.
She was she was like a fussy toddler
for a little bit there during during this
episode. Mhmm. Did we figure out what her
issue was? What she wanted? What did she
want? She wanted to go in the other
room. She wanted to get a drink. And
when she was done drinking, she wanted to
come back in.
Because I heard her in her bowl from
here. Lord, that's our girl.
Mhmm.
I could complain about things, but I don't
know any
anybody feels up for for me. I want
to complain about the Internet, but also Yeah.
We have a livelihood because of the Internet.
So, like, I I you gotta
Yeah.
Yeah. You take the good with the bad.
So both That's okay.
Go ahead. I I was gonna say that,
you know,
the certain
comment
and Which one?
And conversation
that was being had most recent.
I'm not gonna talk about it right here
and right now yet,
but I had some thoughts about that. I
wanna talk to you about it later. So
just as a general overview, both
stuff we've posted to the kinkery on Instagram
and stuff posted to that fucking handle I
hate on Instagram, loving d s and the
number 1,
have been picked up by the Internet. And
when it's on the kink side of the
Internet, it's mostly good. Every once in a
while, they're like, on one thing that we
posted, somebody was like,
oh, it can't it can't be that bad.
They you know, that person has no pain
tolerance. And I'm like, come here. Let me
hit you with this thing, and let's let's
see what what you do. But I just
wanna, like, whatever whatever.
But sometimes some of those things find the
wrong part of the Internet, the non kink
side of the Internet. And I
keep telling myself
daily.
The engagement is good, technically. Except the engagement
seems putting us in front of more non
kinky folk
who are not the, hey, this I might
be into this kind, but more like the,
why am I seeing this kind? And I'm
just like, I it's the the things we're
doing on social media appear to be working,
but also I'm very tired.
I am so very tired of and, you
know, it's one of those things we can't
like, with the kinkery, I can't ignore comments
because you get customer questions and comments. Like,
how does this thing work? What is it
made of? So I am looking at the
comments daily,
like, is there, you know, is there a
pertinent question that we need to answer for
folks?
But it means that I can't get away
from some parts of the Internet that I
did not ask to be a part of.
And I just wanna let everybody know of
every flavor of what of life.
If you don't wanna see something in your
algorithm Yeah. Yeah. Do not ever comment on
it. Do not send it to a friend
even if you're going, what the fuck is
this? Because you have just guaranteed
that the algorithm is now gonna serve you
up more of it.
And the problem is
I'm not getting into arguments with random people
on the Internet. That is not my life.
I'm not built for that shit.
And yet, every time I wanna go, please
stop fucking commenting.
Block us if you need to. Mhmm. I
don't give a fuck.
It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.
It's fine. I've you know, in all of
this with with
content being picked up by the Instagram algorithm,
I've only been called fat one time. So
I'm gonna call that a win.
Only once. And and I had somebody jump
in to defend. So
okay.
Not about me personally, like, they knew me
personally, but they did absolutely take offense to
the the comment that was made. And I
I was like, okay. Thank you. I appreciate
that.
So
yeah.
I like this part of the Internet where
we're talking into our microphones and looking at
a camera and post a podcast.
Oh, man. Those social media parts of the
Internet. I could just I know.
I could just do without it. I could
just What are you gonna
do?
Do?
Anything else? We had we had a good
Labor Day from a business perspective. Yeah.
The Kingery had a sale, and apparently, folks
were as excited about it as we were.
And that was that was wonderful.
I had
to
so I'm I'm at that point where I'm
energized by being here. Yeah. And so I
want to continue being here, but I don't
have anything
to really
say.
And yet I don't actually
want to stop
talking. Yeah.
I know. But it's, I know. It's getting
late. It's almost 8:30 our time. I know.
Mhmm.
And, I'm ready to be done with the
day and I know. I'm ready to take
my bra off, quite frankly. I'm here with
y'all in a bra.
You're welcome. And tomorrow is a non walking
day.
Yeah. So we don't have to walk in
the dark. Don't have to walk in the
dark. And, tomorrow, you will be helping me
in the shop, which I am very happy
about. We're finally at a point, thank you,
Labor Day sale, where I can go, here,
you can have my day. You know? Yeah.
Let's let's go let's go do shop stuff
to get dusty and sweaty. I need the
help right now to reach out. We're coming
into that part of the year where yeah.
Can't do it alone anymore. The nice thing
is is it's much easier to record
short form video content in when I'm in
the shop with you because you're, like, doing
tool things and I'm like, I'm bored. Let
me pull up my phone and record something.
So
yeah.
So
But yeah.
I got I got nothing else even though
I don't wanna go anywhere, but I we
need to. I would I would also like
like you. I'd like to put the day
to rest, call it done.
Yep.
But I love being here with y'all. I
know. It's yeah. I really do. Mhmm. What
maybe one of these days, I'll, like, I
really will just livestream and and I'll be
background noise for y'all. Y'all can just be
back. You'll you'll just randomly pop up and
And I'll just be working. We'll just y'all
stare at me while I'm working, I guess.
I don't know.
Y'all will learn how much I talk to
myself.
I talk to myself so much. Oh, boy.
Anyway
Anyway. We are gonna go. Yep.
Thank you for joining us and and being
here with us through this, chaotic madness. Especially
to the bitter end. Yeah.
We're gonna we've got several topics lined up
for this series, but if there are some,
like, beginner level, like,
entry level questions or topics that you're like,
man, I wish more people talked about this,
feel free to, like, slip those in the
comments contact page on our website. It might
be something we're already gonna do, or it
might be something we can incorporate. We're happy
to do it. Yep. Yep. Yep. So yeah.
Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Okay. Alright. Okay. Alright. Bye. Is it
good?
Yep. Bye.