You're listening to the loving BDSM podcast. Kayla
Lords here with the one, the only, the
I'm I I don't have anything cutesy to
say again this week. Dang. John Brownstone. Wow.
The brain is mush. The brain is mush.
It's been a it's been a long Yeah.
Week. Yeah. But we're here, and we're happy
to be here, and, ultimately, that's all that
matters. That's true.
Lola agrees. Yeah.
This week, we're answering a question from Adam
who provides his sub aftercare, but she's irritable
after every scene. Welcome
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Okay. Let's get right into it. Okay. My
41 male Dom and my wife, 42 female
sub, have been married for 4 years and
discovered our kinky side with each other. Over
the past year, we have found that the
day after a scene, she is irritable and
in her words, pissy and crabby.
Her irritability is directly related to how deep
into subspace she goes during a scene with
deeper subspace leading to a longer period of
irritability.
Our aftercare is precisely what she says she
needs with showers, cuddles, and verbal affirmations.
Is this a form of sub drop? Is
this normal? Is there a way to prevent
this in advance?
Can we get the obvious answer out of
the way? Yeah. Yeah. It's drop. Yep. There
no doubt in my mind that's drop. Mhmm.
I think some of the confusion comes in
when some people talk about drop. They'll either
talk about physical ailments or and I know
in my experience feeling sort of sad or
down. And so you see the crankiness and
don't necessarily
associate it Right. With drop, but I would
say absolutely.
Oh, yeah. Without a doubt. Mhmm. Mhmm. So
then the next question, is this normal?
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Because the higher you go,
then you gotta come down. Right. And so
typically, it's a direct correlation.
The higher the high Right. The lower the
level. I mean, we're we're talking, you know,
a lot of different hormones
that go into sub drop, you know, your
your adrenaline and and, you know Dopamine and
serotonin. Dopamine and serotonin. Thank you. Yeah. The
space and then the drop. And that's for
both sides of the slash. It's just right
now it's impacting your submissive. Because however high
up you go,
you're gonna go just as low when it
when those,
chemicals wear off. Exactly. Exactly. And it seems
to be, for now at least, the way
your submissive
responds is with irritability,
which is valid.
So
the on the question of how do we
prevent it?
If we could figure out how to prevent
drop, we'd be millionaires. Right. Because
it's the one thing I think most of
us would just prefer to avoid.
To my knowledge, in our experience,
there is no avoiding it. There there isn't,
you know, and and yeah. There's no avoiding
it, and there's no chasing it.
No. You can just prepare for it. Right.
And you're doing the right things. If she's
getting the aftercare she wants and needs and
you're consistent with it, then
that is what you can do in the
moment to help mitigate
drop. Mhmm. I think the work needs to
come on the front end before drop happens.
So there needs to be a conversation between
the 2 of you when you're in a
good head space and you're ready to talk
about it. Not too stressful. Right? Right. Not
just before a scene or not after a
scene. Right.
Where you're talking about how that irritability impacts
both of you. Does she feel guilty? Do
you feel,
like your needs aren't being met in that
time frame? Is there a way you can
modify whatever your power exchange looks like so
that whatever you're feeling that might be negative
can be diminished.
Is there anything
that
she can think of that she needs that
might help her feel less irritable or just
deal
with the irritability
in another way.
You know, I know when I'm when I'm
cranky,
especially as a submissive who does not wanna
be disrespectful for dominant. When I'm cranky, I
just have to shut the hell up or
just can't say anything.
But
I have gotten better at just saying to
JB,
I am very cranky right now. Yeah. I'm
I'm in a I'm in a different headspace,
and I just say it so he knows
it, and then he
it behaves in a different way than he
might normally. And then a lot of times
I'll ask her, is there
anything I can do? Mhmm. Is there anything
you want?
And if the answer is no, I just
kind of
leave her alone, step back, and let her
go through her thing until she asks for
help or something. Or I crack a joke
or I just kind of come back to
myself. Mhmm. You know, you can have that
conversation with one another, and your submissive might
say, I think I just want to be
left alone. And then, okay, you do that.
Nothing wrong with that.
If you do that a few times and
she goes, oh god. That's not feeling right
either. That's valid. That's okay. You come back
to the moment and have the conversation again
and go, okay. But what do you what
do you think might help? And such and
retry. Yeah. Right. And it might be different
from time to time. Look. There are things
in drop, out of drop that will make
me feel better on one day that won't
work the next time. That's true. But the
the
the biggest thing is keep doing what you're
doing with aftercare.
Feel free to together to expand on what
aftercare may look like.
What we recommend for a lot of long
distance relationships is to make sure you're in
contact with one another
that day or 2 after a scene. That's,
you know, yes. You you live together. You're
married. You're in contact, but there's a different
kind of connection
between living your life and going to work
and dealing with whatever
versus being connected.
So it may be
if if she feels up for it because
that crankiness is real,
that, you know, it might be helpful in
the moment to have some source of connection.
Doing a comfort thing that she enjoys or
that you both enjoy. You know? If I'm
in the right if I can get myself
into the right headspace,
sitting down to watch a movie
and just being together And I was just
gonna say, you know, some kind of TV
show, whether, you know, some kind of cartoon
that they enjoy or movie or, you know
Whatever. Something. Anything comedy. So that's a thing
to consider as well. But all you can
really do for drop is
mitigate it and plan for it,
and
both of you, you know, don't
get your feelings hurt or take it personally
when the other person is
experiencing
tough emotions
because it's the drop off from the high.
Now that does not mean that's not a
a
free pass to behave badly.
You know?
We can feel badly and still, you know,
be respectful human beings. Yeah. But, you know,
that whole am I doing enough or am
I doing it wrong? No. No. No. No.
This is just apparently what your partner goes
through now and or forever.
Drop can change over time. Mhmm. The,
the quickness with which you go into some
space or the how often you go into
some space or if you go into some
space, that can change too. So this will
likely just
morph over time, and the biggest thing is
to keep the lines of communication. That's true.
That's true.
And
I Yeah. I I don't think there's much
more to No. No. So I hope that
was helpful.
We have talked about drop many, many, many
times over the years of our podcast, so
I'll put links in the places for more
information
for anybody who's sort of
dealing with this and not sure how to
navigate it. And also Subspace, and I think
we did an episode on Topspace and all
that good stuff because, yeah, just because it's
affecting your submissive doesn't mean it can't affect
you as a dom at some point in
the future.
And you can't stop it, but you can
prepare for it. So it's kind of all
anybody can do. That's true. Mhmm. Thanks for
listening to this week's q and a episode.
If you want us to answer one of
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