Domination, totally controlling your partner sexually or being completely at your partner’s mercy, can be a truly liberating and incredibly exhilarating sexual experience.
As a form of erotic lovemaking, domination is much maligned. There is nothing frightening, weird or dirty about playing these imaginative and tantalizing adult games as long as you both enjoy them. But if you ever saw the steamy scene in the film Body Of Evidence where Madonna pours candle wax on her willing sex slave, Willem Dafoe, you’ll know just how ‘hot’ an addition domination can make to your sex life.
What is sexual domination?
Domination – when one partner dominates proceedings and the other, passive partner willingly submits to his or her partner’s whims – can sometimes be symbolic but most often it is physically acted out as a sexual performance in which one partner has total physical and emotional control of the other. It is this ‘control’ factor which sometimes makes domination seem taboo. Understandably, people are scared of being physically and emotionally hurt, and domination scares them because they regard it as one step away from sadism and masochism – practices that imply pain. Domination also carries a psychological fear that it is depraved and abnormal, that people who enjoy these acts are unbalanced and that the only way they can have sex is if they are in control or, for the submissives, if their feelings of guilt are relieved by losing control. Despite this social disapproval, domination is widely practised. Suppliers of domination apparatus and magazines claim that approximately ten per cent of American households have some domination apparatus and indulge in practices that offer dominant and submissive experiences.
Domination is fantasy. You can be who or what you want to be, giving in to a part of yourself that is ignored in everyday life. Many people who indulge in domination and bondage consider it the ultimate sexual experience: it heightens their level of arousal as power and submissiveness are great aphrodisiacs – and it frees them from the usual constraints of the ‘natural’ sexual order – the woman can be fully in charge. Domination is about trust – about trusting your partner so implicitly that not knowing what they’ll do to you next or what you’ll have to do to them is not intimidating, just incredibly exciting and erotic. Treat it as a new and tantalizing adventure.
To include domination in your sex play, you should start by gently building up trust and confidence, and then, if you are both willing to, try moving onto stronger practices. Because domination can sometimes intimidate beginners, always make your bedroom, or wherever you want to have sex, a safe, clean, sensual, non-threatening environment: soft music, dim lights, candles and exotic smelling joss-sticks make for a comforting, erotic setting. It’s your wild and wonderful fantasy playground.
Dress code
Obviously you don’t have to dress up to dominate but looking the part adds to the fun: stilettos, stockings, lingerie, basques, leather, rubber, uniforms, even masks and leads can make you feel more sexual, more dominant or more submissive – and definitely more horny. And using equipment can make domination a truly mind-blowing experience: satin and silk scarves can be used to tie each other up; vibrators and other sex toys can be used to arouse and stimulate each other (remember to clean sex toys thoroughly before sharing them) and when you’re feeling brave enough, manacles and handcuffs can be used to render one of you helpless to the pleasures your partner will inflict on you. Soft domination can be as simple as talking dirty to your partner. Telling him to go down on you now or ordering her to strip and bend over can be exciting and stimulating, especially if you both use crude language and harsh tones, even more so if bad language and authoritative tones are out of character.
Sex positions
Basic domination can involve sex positions you are already familiar with. Any position that limits the control of one partner is a dominatory one. The missionary position, with the woman on her back and the man on top, is dominant if he pins her arms down so she can’t move or touch him. Many women love feeling the man’s weight and strength on top of them and thoroughly enjoy the feeling of being ‘taken’. Woman-on-top positions enable the woman to dominate. She can control the depth to which his penis enters her and she can control the rhythm and speed. She can hold both his wrists above his head so that he is in the submissive position. She can lean backwards and take herself out of his reach, teasing him. Taking the passive role can be enlightening for the man. In rear-entry positions, when the man enters the woman from behind, it is the man who is in control. The almost animalistic element of this position is arousing for both partners. Anal sex, too, is male dominant, but by using a vibrator, the woman can take the dominant role. If you do want to try anal sex, always use a strong condom and plenty of water-based lubricant. Although anal sex is often seen as male dominant, with the passive partner ‘forced’ to perform, either partner can be dominant.
Sexual role-playing
Domination is often more about role-playing and scenarios than positions. You can be someone you’ve never dared be, you can take control and order your partner to satisfy you. The list of possibilities is endless… Dress up as a strict school mistress and punish your disobedient pupil by caning him and then making him redeem himself by pleasuring you. Be the hoity-toity Lady Chatterley chastising her common lover; show him how low class he is by making him kiss your feet and then all of your body. Pretend to be a furious Victorian man, angered and aroused by his slovenly maid. Be a dominatrix, dressed in five-inch spiked stilettos, sheer black stockings and a basque, leading her naked slave around by a leash: making him feed her grapes, kiss her feet and perform any sex act she wants on her for as long as she wants it.
Dressed up or down, domination is highly charged sexually: some people find it so erotic they spontaneously orgasm just by being tied up. Why not try it? Again, the possibilities for domination acts are endless. The man can tie his partner to the bed post with a silk scarf, with her arms stretched so she can’t move or touch him. In this prone position, he can straddle her face and order her to fellate him. She has no control and that’s the joy of it – she’s pleasuring him while turning herself on. Or the woman can restrain the man by handcuffing him to the bed-head.
She can strip in front of him, dance above him and tantalize him without letting him touch her. She could climb onto the bed, squat over him and lower herself onto his face. In this scenario, she is completely in control and can do whatever it is she wants to do to him.
When she’s aroused, she can slide down his body and lower herself on his penis. Riding him as quickly or as slowly as she wants, punishing him if he tries to control the movements, she can control her climax. And she can decide when he’s allowed to climax. Being forced to wait will be exquisite pain and pleasure for him.
The joys of domination sex are that anything goes (as long as you both genuinely enjoy it) and you can literally allow yourself to lose control and just relish the sexual sensations. Remember that mutual consent is vital since commitment to sexual domination hinges on absolute trust. And absolute trust in any sexual sphere results in warm, loving sex.