5 Quick Tips on How to be a Better Submissive

Are you wondering how to be a better submissive? Read on! Writer Abi Brown takes a look at five things you can do right now that will instantly improve your kinky relationships.

1. Make an effort to defer to your dominant (but only when it’s healthy)

Making a conscious effort to defer to your dominant in small ways that are a part of your everyday life will instantly help you both feel more connected to your dynamic. However, this doesn’t mean that you should turn into a doormat. Sublimate your wants and needs or start living like a creepy Stepford wife (unless that’s your kink, of course). Considering your dominant to be more important than you is not how to be a better submissive. You should only ignore your preferences if you have freely chosen so to do.

Sometimes making an effort to defer to your dominant to help yourself feel more submissive is fun. I love having my food ordered for me in restaurants and giving up responsibility for little things. Like ‘what film to watch tonight’ or ‘where to go for a walk this afternoon’. I’d throw an epic fit if anyone tried to assume that role without my overt permission and invitation, but when it’s my dominant I love it - so I try to cultivate it where I can.

2. How to be a better submissive - don't forget the aftercare

You hear a lot about aftercare for submissive partners, but amongst dominants, it’s a much less discussed question. In my experience, that’s key in how to be a better submissive. You could do a lot worse than to start paying attention to the times your dominant might want a little aftercare following a scene.

Doms get into some pretty heavy headspaces. It can take a little while to come out of those headspaces. If your shared kinks involve a lot of intense *** or ***, it can be helpful to reassure them that you know they care about you and don’t want to hurt you. Why not try thanking them for giving you what you, as a submissive, so dearly want? Which isn’t just a nice gesture, it’s also a neat way to reassure them that they haven’t crossed a line and that they have no need to be anxious. (If they have crossed a line, of course, you should tell them that, too. Aftercare is about support, not lying.)

3. Always use your safeword when you want to

If a dominant cannot trust a submissive to use ar safeword when they're unhappy, they’ll never feel safe doing all the things they'd like to try together. If they constantly need to worry that you might not be into it, they won’t be able to let themselves go and relax into the role you both want them to take.

Consent is a massively complex subject, but in BDSM, the basics are pretty clear-cut. If you’ve agreed on a safeword in advance and you’re not using it, then you haven’t withdrawn your consent in a way your dominant can understand. Don’t put yourself through the consequences of being in that position. And don’t put your dominant in the position of having to worry that you might - that's not how to be a better submissive.

How to be a better submissive and get the most out of your kinky relationship

4. Stick to your damn rules (and fess up when you don’t)

A lot of the rules we set in BDSM relationships are not as robust and visceral in reality as they are when we fantasise about them. If you’re supposed to ask permission before you masturbate whenever your dominant isn’t there, then one day you fancy a quick go before you fall asleep alone that night, well, how are they to know? It doesn’t matter, right? It is an easy trap to fall into if you don’t live together. What difference can it make if it doesn’t feel much like a part of your relationship?

The trouble is that every time you do that, you break the fourth wall. BDSM dynamics are, in some sense, a fiction. No matter how real they feel to the people who live inside them. A lot of their success depends on you maintaining that fiction.

We all break our rules sometimes. If you want to be in a relationship that has rules, the only way to make it work for you both is to try and stick to them. That means confessing as quickly as possible when you haven’t. Otherwise, all you’re doing is cheating yourself and your partner out of the kind of relationship you’ve always wanted to have.

5. Take the initiative now and then

Leaving all the hard work to your dominant can be tempting, and a lot of the time, that’s why a submissive is interested in these relationships in the first place. Within my defined limits and with a safeword as my unspoken get-out clause, I don’t want to be in control of what happens to me during sexual encounters, after all.

That said, there are still two people in this dynamic. It will work better for both of you if you’re as much of an active participant in it as they are. I’m not saying you should top from the bottom - unless that’s what you’re into, of course! Try being the one to initiate sex or scenes occasionally or suggest a kink event you’d like to attend together. Or try out a fantasy. If your dominant feels like you’re as invested in keeping the dynamic going as they are, you’ll both be much the happier for it.

Abi Brown is a freelance writer and general pen-for-hire devoted to sexual deviancy, far-left politics and wearing too much jewellery.

Do you agree with these suggestions for a better D/s relationship? Do you have any tips on how to be a better submissive? Share your thoughts in the Fetish.com forum.