I have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to explore some of the darker, CNC parts of D/s, which has included quite a lot of rather delicious mind fuckery. The high has been intense and beautiful.

It has however proven surprisingly difficult to talk about, because the first question I have been asked by quite a few people is ‘what did you do to him?’. Now, when I came to think of what I did, the series of acts itself seemed… unimpressive. What had formed a beautifully powerful experience for the two of us put into black and white seems mundane and dull.

This is largely because D/s and the consequent exchange of power doesn’t lie in acts at all, but rather the mental space in and around those acts. As a dominant, if you can understand your submissive, their psychology, and their ‘buttons’, you can do far more than control their body – you can control their mind. This, from any perspective, is much more powerful, but is perhaps best illustrated like this – it is very difficult to make any physical restraint desperate person proof. It is far easier to ensure they don’t really try to escape in the first place.