Recommendations of wholesome media representation??

[Ba****]

I keep hearing about how important media representation is for people
So that got me curious
Has any one ever seen some accurate and health media representation of a male dom / femsub dynamic

What i’m looking for specifically;
1)Not porn/explicit erotica
2)Below M and R rating
3)At least a couple of prominent side characters being intentionally in a BDSM dynamic
4)Not a “two broken people being whole together”type story
5)Not glorified a.b.u.s.e(even accidentally)
6)Just wholesome people being happy together BDSM edition
7)Something actually more “romance” than “comedy” or “horror/thriller”
Another 1)Again not porn/explicit erotica

Does it exist??
I’ve seen it for lesbians and i’ve seen examples of femdom/male sub almost get close, all i’ve seen for gay men failed at 1)

If anyone knows any examples of books, comics, manga, anime, tv series, movies, video games, visual novels, whatever
Just throw it out here

For moderators; i’ve searched “representation”, got one result of someone asking for more specific trans categories, and “media”, got a few but all social media related
So this topic does not exist on this forum

[Sa****]

I don't really understand ur question,it's very unclear to me

[Sk****]

I believe the question is, are there any good seemingly wholesome examples in media that display a positive male dom female sub dynamic outside of strictly mature settings. Sadly men dont get a lot of slack in their sexual roles unless they are submissive. Any portrayal of men's roles generally has them as some sort of aggressor. There is 1 example that I think is great however its just an animation. Peter and Lois Griffin in family guy. Its the only example I can think of.

[Sk****]

Might even be wrong on that too. Lois usually had the whips lol

[Ba****]

47 minutes ago, basicbitch20 said:

I don't really understand ur question,it's very unclear to me

In extra short
Is there any borderline family friendly male-dom/femsub media representation of just “normal” people in a heathy relationship??
Aka nothing where the dynamic itself is the punchline or the story becomes horror if you start to think about it

[ca****]

Same here... what are you asking and what is your take on it???

Where are you hearing that it is so very important?   And why / do you think it is??

Edited February 16 by callipygian
Clarity

[Sa****]

I don't care for much of today's media tbh. Lots of "sh*t"for TV shows these days, game of thrones, breaking bad, family guy etc.

[Ba****]

1 hour ago, callipygian said:

Same here... what are you asking and what is your take on it???

Where are you hearing that it is so very important?   And why / do you think it is??

Well i personally don’t really care so much, i’m fine with exploring different dynamic styles via lesbian fiction and in RPG i usually play as the furthest from my IRL character the game lets me
All the fantasy races like women, people of colour and the elderly(warning: a joke)

On where i’m hearing that: really?? There is a whole other capital letter community out there with “loud and proud” as their slogan, i’m sure you’ve heard them too

I’m not complaining about them by the way, like i’ve said, i’m just curious, i want to know if actually seeing some of that positive representation they keep talking about would change my perspective and having some extra variety can’t hurt, I’ve already seen everything i know about and the ongoing projects need a few more month before it makes sense to look at them again

On why: not sure if you mean why i asked, in which case see above, or why i think people are campaigning for it, in which case i guess being represented only via the joke, the victim or the perpetrator gets old quick and yeah i agree cause same even as a cis straight white man

[vv****]

The entire idea of BDSM is taboo. It’s sexual deviance. Those of us in the community understand that there’s nothing “wrong” with our interests/preferences but to the vanilla world we are perverse. We are a minority and in terms of media profitability- not very marketable content for a broad audience. The concept of kink becomes a punchline, a trope, and often reduced to a cliche. We know that there’s deeper connection to be found in these relationships, but that’s not going to be aired out in the mainstream. We have seen what happens when BDSM has been packaged and marketed to the masses (hello, 50 Shades). It’s often missing the mark because it’s a caricature of the lifestyle we live.
Yes, representation matters and there’s definitely more interest now than in the past because of depictions of kink in the media but let’s take a moment to examine how that’s also brought harm into the community but way of “fake/vanilla doms” and generally uneducated people entering looking for a dopamine rush. OP is also specifically asking for the Male Dom/female sub dynamic which represents such a small portion of our community as so many identities/preferences exist and have found a safe home here.
Ultimately, you’re not going to find your representation in a Disney Pixar feature. We will have some media representation sure, but anything “family friendly” is extremely doubtful just because of the taboo nature of what we engage in.
To answer your question, the closest I can think of that matches your request is Secretary. It didn’t rely on the sexual aspect of a D/s relationship yet still illustrates a romance. It’s kind of a dark rom com but I’ve overheard it being discussed in vanilla conversations with hushed tones. 😂

[Ba****]

3 hours ago, vvhitelie said:

The entire idea of BDSM is taboo. It’s sexual deviance. Those of us in the community understand that there’s nothing “wrong” with our interests/preferences but to the vanilla world we are perverse. We are a minority and in terms of media profitability- not very marketable content for a broad audience. The concept of kink becomes a punchline, a trope, and often reduced to a cliche. We know that there’s deeper connection to be found in these relationships, but that’s not going to be aired out in the mainstream. We have seen what happens when BDSM has been packaged and marketed to the masses (hello, 50 Shades). It’s often missing the mark because it’s a caricature of the lifestyle we live.
Yes, representation matters and there’s definitely more interest now than in the past because of depictions of kink in the media but let’s take a moment to examine how that’s also brought harm into the community but way of “fake/vanilla doms” and generally uneducated people entering looking for a dopamine rush. OP is also specifically asking for the Male Dom/female sub dynamic which represents such a small portion of our community as so many identities/preferences exist and have found a safe home here.
Ultimately, you’re not going to find your representation in a Disney Pixar feature. We will have some media representation sure, but anything “family friendly” is extremely doubtful just because of the taboo nature of what we engage in.
To answer your question, the closest I can think of that matches your request is Secretary. It didn’t rely on the sexual aspect of a D/s relationship yet still illustrates a romance. It’s kind of a dark rom com but I’ve overheard it being discussed in vanilla conversations with hushed tones. 😂

Well remember when “the gays” where the taboo, sexual deviant, minority group that knew they weren’t doing anything “wrong” but where openly seen as perverse in the eyes of the straight world?? Kind of frowned upon today
And yeah the part about profitability and broad audience appeal would have hit harder before “50 shades”, for better and worse
(mainstream news was wild back then, i remember reports about people getting divorced because the husband wasn’t willing to try random zip ties in the bedroom and reports about hospitalization in cases where he was)

Also hi, i’m OP by the way^^, and yeah this niche i picked is kind of my neck of these woods and now imagine your global mainstream representation being something like “christian grey”

I wasn’t expecting anything disney/pixar more like audiences 13-16 and up
The only half decent examples i could give would be “secretary” for hollywood and the manga series “nana to kaoru” a sort of educational story where the age of the main characters is among the minor problems, both of them have their own issues but are still recommendable

And i think most people in this wider community tend to overlook just how many different groups are in it, i mean just how many industries do you think have sections specialize in catering to the many groups in this community??
By now our capital letter community is bigger than the one that added a “+” to reduce the number of capital letters they need and quite a few of “them” are also part of “us” so yes we are a minority but we are way closer to the demographics of men and women than we are to the level of foreigner in a homogeneous society and we already have trans representation beyond humor and shock value

Maybe it’s about time we have our “ape together strong”-moment^^

[Ge****]

On 2/16/2026 at 1:41 PM, vvhitelie said:

The entire idea of BDSM is taboo. It’s sexual deviance. Those of us in the community understand that there’s nothing “wrong” with our interests/preferences but to the vanilla world we are perverse. We are a minority and in terms of media profitability- not very marketable content for a broad audience. The concept of kink becomes a punchline, a trope, and often reduced to a cliche. We know that there’s deeper connection to be found in these relationships, but that’s not going to be aired out in the mainstream. We have seen what happens when BDSM has been packaged and marketed to the masses (hello, 50 Shades). It’s often missing the mark because it’s a caricature of the lifestyle we live.
Yes, representation matters and there’s definitely more interest now than in the past because of depictions of kink in the media but let’s take a moment to examine how that’s also brought harm into the community but way of “fake/vanilla doms” and generally uneducated people entering looking for a dopamine rush. OP is also specifically asking for the Male Dom/female sub dynamic which represents such a small portion of our community as so many identities/preferences exist and have found a safe home here.
Ultimately, you’re not going to find your representation in a Disney Pixar feature. We will have some media representation sure, but anything “family friendly” is extremely doubtful just because of the taboo nature of what we engage in.
To answer your question, the closest I can think of that matches your request is Secretary. It didn’t rely on the sexual aspect of a D/s relationship yet still illustrates a romance. It’s kind of a dark rom com but I’ve overheard it being discussed in vanilla conversations with hushed tones. 😂

That's because the BDSM community repeatedly...
* Protects it's problematic members if they're Gay or Female
* Gaslights young men into being "open minded" and grooms them for problematic abus@rs
* Bullies victims into staying silent
* Actively encourages physical and psychological v1olence
* Has members who have a heightened risk of SA and DV
* Laughs at male SA victims and blames a mythical "Patriarchy" for their traumatic experiences

Maybe when the BDSM actually practices RACK and Gender Equality (instead of the gynaecentric Misandry it's currently practising) then mainstream media will view it in a more positive manner 😉

[ca****]

One thing I would put forward re: representation and the media (any media) - all media is 'produced'  (to some degree) and all media has a bias (to some degree)...   

 

 

[Ba****]

16 hours ago, GeekyLARPerBWC said:

That's because the BDSM community repeatedly...
* Protects it's problematic members if they're Gay or Female
* Gaslights young men into being "open minded" and grooms them for problematic abus@rs
* Bullies victims into staying silent
* Actively encourages physical and psychological v1olence
* Has members who have a heightened risk of SA and DV
* Laughs at male SA victims and blames a mythical "Patriarchy" for their traumatic experiences

Maybe when the BDSM actually practices RACK and Gender Equality (instead of the gynaecentric Misandry it's currently practising) then mainstream media will view it in a more positive manner 😉

First you can find these problrms and more in every community, this one has generally less of them

Second name one setting outside of BDSM/kink where you can find “rack” in practice

Lastly this thread is about general media representation of a specific type of dynamic
Any potential mainstream view is barely secondary

Ps can you just go troll somewhere else??
I’m trying to have more constructive discourse here

[Ba****]

3 hours ago, callipygian said:

One thing I would put forward re: representation and the media (any media) - all media is 'produced'  (to some degree) and all media has a bias (to some degree)...   

 

 

Do you have a point??
Not meant to be rude but I don’t know the context of your comment or how it’s connected to anything else here

As it is now all i could say in response is basically “well, duh. And??”

[Pe****]

It seems like any representation of a BDSM relationship would necessarily qualify as R rated. I could be wrong, but I feel like American media follows a pretty puritanical protocol.

[Ba****]

Yesterday at 12:07 AM, GeekyLARPerBWC said:

You wanted opinions and viewpoints, you can't backflip and censor the conversation when people have disagreements with your opinions 🙄

I asked people to share media recommendations as close to the specifications above as possible

And what do i censor by engaging with people??
I mean we do still seem to have this off topic conversation

Soo… you know a book, movie or something at least sort of adjacent??

[Pe****]

Wholesome media doesn't come with a list of sexual caveats. Try The Secretary or Babygirl, but I'd look at you funny if you watched "wholesome bdsm" with kids.

[Pe****]

*clarification- America's view of wholesome doesn't come with sexual nuance...

[Ba****]

On 3/14/2026 at 8:03 PM, PebblesCailloux said:

Wholesome media doesn't come with a list of sexual caveats. Try The Secretary or Babygirl, but I'd look at you funny if you watched "wholesome bdsm" with kids.

I didn’t intend for anyone too young to drive to be relevant to this conversation

„Secretary“ is the primary reason for point „4)“, don’t get me wrong these stories can be nice, it’s just a bit depressing if that is the best representation out there
I haven’t heard of „babygirl“ before so it very well might be the first actually „valid“ recommendation, so thanks(again and again) for that, i‘ll check this one out

[FE****]

@Bartholdthe off topic portion of your post was removed.  Please stick to the OP or further action will be taken

[te****]

There is a recent movie called Pillion with Alexander Skärsgard that focuses heavily on a gay Dom/sub relationship which is very faithful to how actual relationships work. There are some explicit sexual scenes but they are a small part. I found it very interesting and romantic.

[Ba****]

4 hours ago, teriodore said:

There is a recent movie called Pillion with Alexander Skärsgard that focuses heavily on a gay Dom/sub relationship which is very faithful to how actual relationships work. There are some explicit sexual scenes but they are a small part. I found it very interesting and romantic.

Thanks
Not really „my“ representation but i‘ll check it out anyway
At this point any decent media representation of the wider community is more than welcome
This one is even around the general age rating i was looking for aka 16+ in reasonable societies and from 18 to banned in the others, promising^^