Connection within BDSM: the foundation you build on

Within BDSM we talk a lot about trust, boundaries, safety, techniques and responsibility. All important subjects. But there is something that, for me, actually runs right through all of them: connection.

You can handle a whip with excellent technique. You can know exactly where you can and cannot strike, how to tie someone up or how to build a particular experience. But technique alone does not make a good experience. In the end you are working with a human being. With someone who feels, reacts, experiences tension, is perhaps nervous, dares to surrender more and more or, at a certain moment, briefly comes back out of that surrender. To be able to see and feel that, there has to be contact.

Connection begins before the experience

For me, connection does not arise at the moment a BDSM experience begins. It begins much earlier. By talking with each other, getting to know each other and being curious about what drives someone. Why does someone long for submission? Where does a particular need come from? What makes someone insecure? What calms someone down and what, on the contrary, creates tension?

Moreover, when you see someone more often, something develops that you can hardly achieve in a one-off meeting. You learn to recognise reactions. You discover small signals that may mean nothing to an outsider, but whose meaning you now know. Trust thereby gains more and more substance. It is not only: I trust that you respect my boundaries. It also becomes: I trust that you see me. And it is precisely the latter that can be enormously important within BDSM.

Staying in contact during an experience

During an experience, too, you can seek connection in all sorts of ways. It does not have to be constantly with words.

Suppose someone is tied up and you stand behind them to use the whip. You can stay there and focus entirely on the technique. But you can also walk round to the front in between. Briefly seek eye contact. Run a hand over a shoulder. Softly stroke the skin. Look at someone for a moment before you continue. Those few seconds can do an enormous amount.

It is precisely the alternation that can make an experience intense. One moment distance, the next very close. A firm stimulus followed by a gentle touch. Building up tension and then briefly seeking that physical contact. Not necessarily to reassure someone, but to let them feel that you are there and that you are still together in the same experience.

There is no fixed step-by-step plan for this. It requires you, as a Dominant, to keep watching and feeling. What is happening with the person in front of you? How is their breathing changing? What does their posture tell you? Is someone becoming quieter? Is someone actually seeking your gaze? How does the body react when you come close?

You are not only occupied with what you actually do. At the same time, you are occupied with what is happening between you.

Not only leading, but also receiving

For me, therefore, dominating also does not mean that all communication goes one way. Of course you take the lead within an experience, but in the meantime you are constantly receiving information. A reaction to a touch. A change in posture, a look, a moan or a sigh. Moving closer to you when you touch someone, or instead pulling away a fraction. Sometimes those small reactions say more than an entire conversation.

The better you know someone, the easier it becomes to judge those signals at their true value. That is why a BDSM relationship can also develop. You do not have to start from the same point every time. You bring along what you have experienced together before. You learn to read each other better and better, and that can create room to go further, to discover new things or, on the contrary, to work much more subtly.

For me, that is also an important difference between simply doing something with someone and actually experiencing something with someone.

Connection does not stop when the experience ends

Just as connection does not only begin with the first action, it does not end as soon as the experience is over. Contact afterwards gives room to look back. What happened? What felt good? Where was there a special moment? Was there something unexpected? But also: how are things a few hours later, or the next day?

That does not have to become an extensive evaluation every time. Briefly asking how someone is doing, or coming back to something you noticed during the experience. In doing so, you show that the other person was not only interesting for as long as the BDSM experience lasted.

Connection between Dominants

Within Pro Domme Society we deliberately take the concept of connection much more broadly. Because as a Dominant, you need others too.

Dominance can sometimes be a rather solitary position. During an experience, you are the one who makes the decisions, carries the responsibility and has to stay alert. People come to you with questions and expect you to have knowledge and to know how to act. But where can you turn with your questions?

Who understands when an experience went differently than you had expected? With whom do you discuss your doubts? Who dares to tell you honestly that something could perhaps be done differently or better? And with whom can you share that fantastic moment when you notice that someone has taken an enormous step thanks to your guidance? That is precisely why connection is one of the most important pillars of Pro Domme Society.

Helping each other grow

For me, connection within PDS does not simply mean that we know each other or get together now and then. It means that we are willing to share knowledge and experiences with one another and to wish each other well.

One Dominant has years of experience with a particular technique, while another has a great deal of knowledge of psychology, communication or guiding beginner subs. By not keeping that knowledge to ourselves, we all ultimately become better for it.

That also includes being allowed to ask questions. Being allowed to be curious about how someone else approaches something, without this detracting from your own position as a Dominant. After all, no one ever stops learning.

But connection goes further than passing on knowledge. It also means being there for each other when needed. Listening when someone is struggling with something. Thinking along without judging straight away. Offering support when someone has had a difficult experience, and just as much being happy together when something beautiful happens.

We do not all need to dominate in the same way for this. In fact, it is precisely the differences that make it interesting. Each of us has our own style, preferences, experience and vision. What matters is that we are willing to take each other seriously and to help each other grow.

In the end, it is about people

This is exactly what it is about for me: the people. A sub who wants to be seen by the person to whom he or she surrenders. A Dominant who may also need understanding and support. And a group of Dominants can become much stronger precisely by sharing knowledge, experience and commitment with one another.

Connection does not arise by itself. Sometimes you have to reach out, show interest or simply make the effort to get to know someone better. But once that connection is there, BDSM becomes more than a collection of actions and techniques, and an experience emerges that you truly create together.

And within PDS something arises that is at least as valuable: a network in which we do not merely stand side by side, but are truly there for one another.

Mrs Moriah