Feeling Helpless

[SweetErika]

I've heard several pyls say their favorite part of D/s was feeling helpless. Making someone feel helpless isn't my absolute favorite from the Top side, but I certainly appreciate it.

Whether it's your favorite part or not, what really brings out the feeling of helplessness for you as a pyl?

Or, as a PYL, what are your favorite ways to inspire the feeling of helplessness in your pyl?


I'm sure 'bondage' is on most lists, but I'm curious about other and more specific acts and thoughts (so maybe a certain type of bondage, positions, things that happen while you're/the pyl is bound, etc.?).

 

[catalina_francisco]

Bondage does not do it so much for me, but the knowledge I am totally reliant on him in all ways can. Though he entrusts me to take care of our finances, I am very aware I do not have any financial independence anymore, nor do I have the freedom to make any decisions based on what I want or want to do unless he is willing to indulge those desires. In that way I realise I am helpless in the sense I cannot just up and walk out the door at any given moment, cannot buy a ticket home, cannot even buy my own food. Being tied in bondage is more a physical thing, something tangible which may or may not work depending on the mindset and moment. I guess for me also it is only a temporary state whereas lack of money and freedom are constant.

Catalina

 

[Netrider]

Feeling helpful

For a dom, its not about making the other person feel helpless - it is in fact being helpful, when the sub is feeling helpless. Of course its a trust maneuver no matter how you phrase it.

To protect and be served.

 

[unfoundiamond]

Financial Bondage, LOL

Catalina...I am in a very vanilla relationship, and He controls the money, how much of it, and if I get any...

(Like you) No matter how much I want to leave, I can't. I have to rely on him for everything (that costs money), and He enjoys it that way.

The diffrence is you have consented...

AND To Erika...

I don't think I get off on "helplessness"
I have sat here and tried to think of an answer for your question...

I think that if anything, I like the feeling of being stuck in a sexual position, I often fantisize about having those leg brace type things that keep your legs in a stationary position... (so maybe that's helpless, I don't know, somehow I think its not...)

 

[twysted73]

Catalina...I am in a very vanilla relationship, and He controls the money, how much of it, and if I get any...

(Unlike you) No matter how much I want to leave, I can't. I have to rely on him for everything (that costs money), and He enjoys it that way.

The diffrence is you have consented...

AND TO Erika...

I don't think I get off on "helplessness"
I have sat here and tried to think of an answer for you...

I think that if anything, I like the feeling of being stuck in a sexual position, I often fantisize about having those leg brace type things that keep your legs in a stationary position... (so maybe that's helpless, I don't know, somehow I think its not...)

Merry Christmas.
And as with my rape thread, helplessness seems to go along the same lines. It's not so great when you don't know or trust those in the possition of power over you.
The fear and uncertainty set in and ruin it when you can't rely on what you know (or don't know) of the other person to safely calm yourself or to trust that they have your best interests at heart.

Simply put, it's hard to enjoy yourself when you're focused on surviviing.

 

[Chicklet]

Mine's so simple, and yet it really, really does the trick:

I hand holding tight to my hair, right next to my scalp, or a hand over my mouth. Either of those things make me feel like my head is being controlled, and make me feel helpless.

I love those sensations.

I want to add that bondage does NOT make me feel helpless. I've commented several times to friends in the community that if it did, I probably wouldn't do it so often. The helpless feeling, to me, is very, very intimate. I'm not going to go there with someone I'm not head over heels for. Bondage, however, seems like platonic play to me, heh.

The first time one of the local riggers had me up in some suspension bondage, he made a comment about how I must feel so helpless. I smiled at him and said not at all, that if I felt helpless I wouldn't let him do it to me. He laughed, and has volunteered to put me in the air at every monthly event since then. (See the av; that's his work... for functionality, though - got myself a nice flogging up in the air.)

 

[myinnerslut]

vulnerability is linked with sensory deprevition for me. i like having my sight as long as i possibly can. my eyesight is truly horrible so if you remove my glasses you have effectivly blinded me. with anyone except A i fight tooth and nail to retain my sight.

another thing that makes me feel helpless isnt bondage in general, but specifically spreader bars or anything else that prevent me from closing my legs. having something solid holding my legs apart, holding my legs open for anything that might cross A's mind, it makes me feel completly vulnerable. which of course, i am in that stuation. being ties with my legs apart doesnt do quite the same thing, but close.

 

[FurryFury]

I don't think feeling helpless does it for me.

*thinks about it some more*

Nope. I'm pretty sure it doesn't. The only times I've felt relatively helpless were non consensual. Even then I could have chosen to fight more and to try to hurt him. Too bad I loved him and therefore found the idea of hurting him to be "wrong."

I was sooooo fucked up.

LOL.

 

[madetotakeit]

...The helpless feeling, to me, is very, very intimate.

I agree. It is not something brought forth from a physical perspective for me. I have been tied spread eagle before and the mood was playful. At no time in that instance did I feel helpless. For me that feeling of being helpless comes at the moment that mental connection is made. When I realize that other person has control over me. I will comply with no thought. His will becomes my actions. It all happens in the mind. That moment of complete trust. If it happens in conjunction with bondage...that's just all the sweeter.

 

[alexanna]

Bondage does not do it so much for me, but the knowledge I am totally reliant on him in all ways can. Though he entrusts me to take care of our finances, I am very aware I do not have any financial independence anymore, nor do I have the freedom to make any decisions based on what I want or want to do unless he is willing to indulge those desires. In that way I realise I am helpless in the sense I cannot just up and walk out the door at any given moment, cannot buy a ticket home, cannot even buy my own food. Being tied in bondage is more a physical thing, something tangible which may or may not work depending on the mindset and moment. I guess for me also it is only a temporary state whereas lack of money and freedom are constant.

Catalina

I'm curious...do you really not have ANY independence. I mean if you really wanted to couldn't you just cook the books a little, buy a ticket some place and just be....gone? One of my fantasies is to be in a situation where I absolutely could not get out of the relationship once I signed up for it. My own every changing mind scares me and I really see no way in the modern world to get away from it. I could always walk away. I would love to know what it feels like to have that option removed.

 

[Homburg]

No idea if she feels helpless, but there are certain actions and positions that I inflict on her that provide sufficient appearance of helplessness, and, yeah, that turns my crank.

As Chicklet mentioned, grabbing the hair close to the scalp and controlling the head is a big one, especially to pull the head back and expose the throat. There's something primal about that area being exposed that fires off the beast in me. Probably comes from being raised around almost feral hunting dogs, and watching pack dynamics.

Sensory deprivation is another.

Bondage is, sort of. There are certain positions that cause that impression, but not bondage in general. More often than not, I feel like I am liberating my bottom, freeing her to experience more input, not restricting her and making her helpless. Certain ties inflict it, but it is positional. Any time I have someone tied face down, head on the deck, ass in the air, legs open, and arms restrained, I can't help but see that person as helpless. That said, that position hits almost as hard unrestrained. *shrug* Like I said, it's a positional thing.

 

[madetotakeit]

As Chicklet mentioned, grabbing the hair close to the scalp and controlling the head is a big one, especially to pull the head back and expose the throat. There's something primal about that area being exposed that fires off the beast in me. Probably comes from being raised around almost feral hunting dogs, and watching pack dynamics.

Exposing the throat does go to the primal part of us. It is our most vulnerable area. In that short span of flesh the two systems we need to survive are just below the surface. The air exchange can be restricted just as the blood flow. Pulling the head back to expose the neck goes to the physical acknowledgment of being in control. It is inherently aggressive and can definitely trigger the fight or flight adrenaline rush in me. However if I present my neck or even allow any control over it (not in a breath control way-not my play scene) that is an acknowledgment either intentionally or not that at that moment I am helpless.

 

[alexanna]

I was recently given a couple of very firm swats in a department store while we were Christmas shopping. I am extremely afraid of doing anything "inappropriate" in public and at times I have put my desire to appear acceptable before my spouse. They were small, inconsequential things but I felt guilty afterward for doing it and sometimes became angry at him for not interpreting what is accpetable in public in exactly the same way I do. In the seconds after the shopping swats I had this wave of helplessness wash over me that there was no way I could cover up the dynamic of our relationship to the other shoppers without jeapordizing that dynamic by being disloyal. It was a delicious feeling to just trust his judgement and no longer have to be the one that decides what is appropriate and what isn't.

Being the submissive introducing my spouse to this lifestyle I feel pretty in control of the situation most of the time. For awhile I wondered if I was topping from the bottom. In most every scene we do there is a moment when I no longer feel in control...when he quits carrying out the fantasy I have requested and asserts his own will. I get this "The train has left the station" sort of helpless feeling.

This happened the other night when I asked to be bound for awhile. I even picked out a picture in one of the bondage books I thought I would enjoy. I just wanted to sit quietly for an evening feeling securely owned. Even if I wasn't sure I was owned I would be content to indulge in the fantasy for an hour or so. As it happened I was comfortably bound and did get to watch a little television at his feet but before long I had clamps on with a chain running from them to my mouth and a rope wrapped around my neck which he seemed to be delighting in controlling. I didn't feel helpless so much because the rope could most definitely strangle me if he wanted it to as much as because what I was getting wasn't what I had asked for.

I have also felt helpless when he has quickly and without ceremony inspected me a couple of times. In that tiny moment when I feel he is stronger than I am, doing something I didn't expect without thought for my feelings and without asking for my cooperation. Bending me over in the kitchen and pulling down my pajama pants to check for marks from the previous evening's activities; Kicking my legs apart and checking for wetness after a spanking. The helpless feeling is fleeting but it is defintely there and definitely yummy.

 

[Netzach]

I get testy when guys approach me with fantasies of caging, dependence, helplessness, limitation. It sends me into instant "get me a beer, bitch" mode. Objectification + helplessness is ok when I've made the call and decided that's what's being done today - expectations around it which don't jive with whatever is expedient or up my alley feel like an imposition on me. I don't babysit unless I feel like babysitting.

 

[graceanne]

Bondage makes me hot, but it doesn't make me feel helpless. I'm with MIS in that taking my glasses makes me feel helpless. I'm nearly legally blind in one eye, and I can't even see my feet without my glasses. Once my glasses fell behind the bed and I was without them almost all day, cause I couldn't figure out where they were. (K left work early to get them for me.) I literally spent the whole day on the couch, doing nothing. I couldn't see the TV, I could barely see the computer. I couldn't read without risking a nasty headache . . . I'm rambling. Anyway! What does it for me is when he cups my neck with his hand and pulls me back until I can barely move. That's absolutely hot, and probably cause I feel helpless.

 

[myinnerslut]

Bondage makes me hot, but it doesn't make me feel helpless. I'm with MIS in that taking my glasses makes me feel helpless. I'm nearly legally blind in one eye, and I can't even see my feet without my glasses. Once my glasses fell behind the bed and I was without them almost all day, cause I couldn't figure out where they were. (K left work early to get them for me.) I literally spent the whole day on the couch, doing nothing. I couldn't see the TV, I could barely see the computer. I couldn't read without risking a nasty headache . . . I'm rambling. Anyway! What does it for me is when he cups my neck with his hand and pulls me back until I can barely move. That's absolutely hot, and probably cause I feel helpless.

im 20/480. nope not a typo. thank god for technology, my glasses are rather small and the lenses surprisingly thin. forget cant see my feet, i cant see my hand at the end of my arm. as for the computer, forget it. its all one big blur. my glasses are always in the same spot when i sleep so i can reach out and find them. if they fall to the floor, i either end up on the floor feeling around or i ask someone for help. its an unfortunate case of "i need my glasses to see my glasses".


to make this post relevent, A took off my glasses tonight to 1- evoke that natural fear 2- make me helpless and dependent on him to guide me through the night. its a measure of how much i trust him that i let him take possesion of my glasses once they are off my face becuase i wouldnt have been able to find them again without his help once we were finished.

 

[Etoile]

Heh, my wife needs her glasses to see her glasses, too! Sometimes if she knocks them off the table by accident, I have to get them for her. I like that, it makes me feel useful.

 

[VelvetDarkness]

Almost any sexual activity with Master makes me feel helpless because I never know where he's going with things or what he will decide to do next. The fact that I have given him the right to do whatever the fuck he likes just adds an edge.

I have also felt helpless when he has quickly and without ceremony inspected me a couple of times. In that tiny moment when I feel he is stronger than I am, doing something I didn't expect without thought for my feelings and without asking for my cooperation. Bending me over in the kitchen and pulling down my pajama pants to check for marks from the previous evening's activities; Kicking my legs apart and checking for wetness after a spanking. The helpless feeling is fleeting but it is defintely there and definitely yummy.

This is a big turn on for me. Inspections like this happen without warning and he holds me down with ease. Yesterday, foe example, I had people coming round for Christmas dinner and loads of stuff to do. He clearly felt neglected amid my festive frenzy because 10 mins before people were due to arrive he threw me down, yanked down my jeans and started playing with me. He reminded me that he should be the most important person in my life at ALL times and kept me there until there was a knock at the door. Once everyone had arrived and had a drink in their hand I was instructed to go upstairs and put my ben-wah's in. I spent the whole day in a state of nervous arousal, deliciously aware of how much control Master has in my life. How I love the bastard.

 

[catalina_francisco]

Catalina...I am in a very vanilla relationship, and He controls the money, how much of it, and if I get any...

(Like you) No matter how much I want to leave, I can't. I have to rely on him for everything (that costs money), and He enjoys it that way.

The diffrence is you have consented...

Yep, that is a big difference because in a vanilla relationship I would see it as abuse and I have enough professional experience, life experience and personal fight back to not tolerate that and stay. It is a choice that has to be made when it is right for those involved and there is help available. If I was working and in a vanilla relationship, it would make it even easier as I would be able to access that money from my employment one way or another and be guaranteed of more coming in to support myself. As it is, I consented to anything he chooses because I felt safe enough to do so, and it was my choice.

Catalina

 

[catalina_francisco]

I'm curious...do you really not have ANY independence. I mean if you really wanted to couldn't you just cook the books a little, buy a ticket some place and just be....gone? One of my fantasies is to be in a situation where I absolutely could not get out of the relationship once I signed up for it. My own every changing mind scares me and I really see no way in the modern world to get away from it. I could always walk away. I would love to know what it feels like to have that option removed.

No, I don't. He isn't interested in taking care of the financial side of things, but he knows what is happening with it, and also that he was able to trust me because as he has told me many times over the years, I am not only a lousy liar, but I just don't have it in me to do something I know is wrong. Add to that I still do not speak the language, know very few people here (most I do know are through F), don't like to ask for help from anyone, and am not so stupid as to act without thinking about tomorrow and how I could support myself the next week onward, it sort of does place me in the position of being financally dependent amongst other things.

Then there is the aspect of agreeing to a TPE no limits relationship. For many, it is about saying it but not fully embracing it, telling themselves if they really want or need to, they can leave. I didn't want that type of relationship and so I did not go into it believing there would always be a way out, nor with a man who would be happy to allow that to happen. I have no doubts over his promises of what he would have to do if I tried such a thing being reality....he doesn't make those type promises lightly or for effect either. So no, it isn't something I did with the intention of staying while it went my way, then packing up and disappearing if I wasn't happy or 100% satisfied any longer.

Catalina

 

[catalina_francisco]

vulnerability is linked with sensory deprevition for me. i like having my sight as long as i possibly can. my eyesight is truly horrible so if you remove my glasses you have effectivly blinded me. with anyone except A i fight tooth and nail to retain my sight.

LOL, I can so relate. My sight is getting beyond bad and so now I find my camera is taking the place of my eyes. I can take a photo, but until it is on the screen, there is so much detail I missed while taking it and just by wearing glasses. I hope this holds out for many years as an aid as nearly everrything I love doing, requires my eyes.

Catalina

 

[myinnerslut]

Heh, my wife needs her glasses to see her glasses, too! Sometimes if she knocks them off the table by accident, I have to get them for her. I like that, it makes me feel useful.

[hijack] hahaha. i remember once when i was in high school i got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. i put my glasses back on the window sill where they always go ad they fell off. i spend fourty minutes trying to find them on my own before feeling my way down the stairs across the house to my parents room (with my eyes closed as its less distracting and i couldnt see any better with them open) to ask someonbody to help me find them. my dad said that it made him feel useful then too. [/hijack]

 

[graceanne]

im 20/480. nope not a typo. thank god for technology, my glasses are rather small and the lenses surprisingly thin. forget cant see my feet, i cant see my hand at the end of my arm. as for the computer, forget it. its all one big blur. my glasses are always in the same spot when i sleep so i can reach out and find them. if they fall to the floor, i either end up on the floor feeling around or i ask someone for help. its an unfortunate case of "i need my glasses to see my glasses".


to make this post relevent, A took off my glasses tonight to 1- evoke that natural fear 2- make me helpless and dependent on him to guide me through the night. its a measure of how much i trust him that i let him take possesion of my glasses once they are off my face becuase i wouldnt have been able to find them again without his help once we were finished.

That's what I am in my right eye - when it's working, since it's lazy. The other eye is. . . 20/300ish I think it's a bit below that, but I don't recall exactly. One of the problems with when I'm no wearing my glasses is that it aggravates my eyes, and my right eye does 'the slide'. (You know moves in so I'm only looking out of my left eye.) So not only can't I see, but my depth perception goes in the toilet. I quite literally walk into walls and stuff, cause I'm not sure where they are.

 

[alexanna]

Then there is the aspect of agreeing to a TPE no limits relationship. For many, it is about saying it but not fully embracing it, telling themselves if they really want or need to, they can leave. I didn't want that type of relationship and so I did not go into it believing there would always be a way out, nor with a man who would be happy to allow that to happen. I have no doubts over his promises of what he would have to do if I tried such a thing being reality....he doesn't make those type promises lightly or for effect either. So no, it isn't something I did with the intention of staying while it went my way, then packing up and disappearing if I wasn't happy or 100% satisfied any longer.

Catalina

Those promises sound lovely.

I'm not sure my wits and inherent drive for freedom will ever allow me to feel completely helpless long term. I would like to feel it. Would like to have a break from the tension of always wondering is this what I want? I'm not sure I'll ever have that. It’s just part of being a walking, talking contradiction.

I have a very strong desire for a TPE style relationship "right now" but like I said I am afraid of my own changing mind. I'm pretty damned sure I haven't reached your level of maturity and as soon as I made the commitment I would immediately start feeling trapped and start testing to see if the bars really were tight enough. I guess he could take me back to his home country but he has no desire to live there and plenty of people speak English so even though I would be intimidated I could get out.

I'm a good embezzler and a good liar when I really want something and feel like lying is the only way I'll get it. I have in the past calculated it was better to lie to get something I wanted than risk revealing my desires and raising suspicion. At least we are acknowledging this tendency openly now. I know part of the reason I do it is because it is my way of acting up when I feel trapped and I want him to notice and do something about it. I need to be a lot more open when I'm unhappy even if it’s just so I can get a swift kick in the tushy rather than acting up in this sneaky underhanded way that usually goes on for months before I'm found out. It always disappoints me a little that I can fool those close to me. Part of me wishes they knew me well enough to know. It’s all part of the infernal testing and I've done it since I was a kid. Make commitment > feel trapped > get sneaky > eventually get caught > feel loved and happy with commitment made. Its as if I'm hard wired to go through this cycle and the sneaky part just gets easier and less guilty ridden every time I do it.

I think part of my fixation on this has been the removal of Mormonism from our lives. Turns out it was a pretty good cage for me, albeit an unhealthy one, and having been removed I now feel like I'm here doing this voluntarily every day, moment to moment and frankly I don't feel as secure as I used to. The kids are supposed to be a good enough reason to be happy with my safe, boring suburban lifestyle. Every day I’ve been having to reanalyze whether they are or not. Even though I conclude every day they are the process is exhausting. I'm happy to report my sore bum this morning reaffirms for me every time I sit on it that this is exactly where I want to be.

Hmm I've contradicted myself in this post but I think I've figured something out. Sorry it was so long and thanks for listening.

 

[SweetErika]

I was recently given a couple of very firm swats in a department store while we were Christmas shopping. I am extremely afraid of doing anything "inappropriate" in public and at times I have put my desire to appear acceptable before my spouse. They were small, inconsequential things but I felt guilty afterward for doing it and sometimes became angry at him for not interpreting what is accpetable in public in exactly the same way I do. In the seconds after the shopping swats I had this wave of helplessness wash over me that there was no way I could cover up the dynamic of our relationship to the other shoppers without jeapordizing that dynamic by being disloyal. It was a delicious feeling to just trust his judgement and no longer have to be the one that decides what is appropriate and what isn't.

Being the submissive introducing my spouse to this lifestyle I feel pretty in control of the situation most of the time. For awhile I wondered if I was topping from the bottom. In most every scene we do there is a moment when I no longer feel in control...when he quits carrying out the fantasy I have requested and asserts his own will. I get this "The train has left the station" sort of helpless feeling.

This happened the other night when I asked to be bound for awhile. I even picked out a picture in one of the bondage books I thought I would enjoy. I just wanted to sit quietly for an evening feeling securely owned. Even if I wasn't sure I was owned I would be content to indulge in the fantasy for an hour or so. As it happened I was comfortably bound and did get to watch a little television at his feet but before long I had clamps on with a chain running from them to my mouth and a rope wrapped around my neck which he seemed to be delighting in controlling. I didn't feel helpless so much because the rope could most definitely strangle me if he wanted it to as much as because what I was getting wasn't what I had asked for.

I have also felt helpless when he has quickly and without ceremony inspected me a couple of times. In that tiny moment when I feel he is stronger than I am, doing something I didn't expect without thought for my feelings and without asking for my cooperation. Bending me over in the kitchen and pulling down my pajama pants to check for marks from the previous evening's activities; Kicking my legs apart and checking for wetness after a spanking. The helpless feeling is fleeting but it is defintely there and definitely yummy.

Great post, alexanna! I'm impressed with, and learning a lot from, everyone's comments so far, but your descriptions really jumped out at me.

I get testy when guys approach me with fantasies of caging, dependence, helplessness, limitation. It sends me into instant "get me a beer, bitch" mode. Objectification + helplessness is ok when I've made the call and decided that's what's being done today - expectations around it which don't jive with whatever is expedient or up my alley feel like an imposition on me. I don't babysit unless I feel like babysitting.

I couldn't agree more, Netz.

The last person who mentioned a favorite was feeling helpless was doing so in response to my question. I'm still checking him out, but he's not striking me as the type you described above, or a fantasy-based player in general, like so many of the male subs I've met thus far.

Maybe it's the difference between feeling helpless and being helpless. I often enjoy many of the acts described in this thread that inspire the feeling of helplessness. I'm not usually a big fan of my pyl actually being helpless due to physical restriction, certain types of roleplay, etc., because it can limit the options and I like being able to change it up on a whim. I'm definitely not attracted to people who think they're helpless in general or the 'I need my PYL to micromanage me' mindset, either.