Transforming a Vanilla-ish to a D/s Relationship

[SweetErika]

I know people have mentioned their vanilla long-term relationships moving into kink before, but I don't recall seeing a lot of elaboration on how they did it, the challenges, pitfalls, triumphs, etc. they experienced during the 'transformation' (perhaps not the best word, but better ones are escaping me right now). ETA: I'm talking about the type of situation in which there are complimentary needs, wants, and full communication, not one in which one partner is trying to get the other into D/s with hints, talking, behaviors, etc., like we so often get "How do I get my S.O. to be more dominant/submissive?" threads on here.

[Positive and big, I think] Change is afoot in my husband/marriage at present - Hubby is realizing and seriously exploring his sub nature on his own and with me, which is wonderful. So if anyone has anything to share on the practicalities of moving from a basically egalitarian relationship to one with a strong D/s dynamic (which is what we want, eventually), I'd really appreciate it. In other words, how did it work once you were both on the same page about what you wanted and needed in terms of the dynamic and activities?

Like any big change, this is very exciting, but also a bit overwhelming for me (and him, but I'll let him speak for himself, if he so chooses), and while I know every person and relationship is unique, I think hearing others' experiences will help with the latter.

 

[FurryFury]

I know people have mentioned their vanilla long-term relationships moving into kink before, but I don't recall seeing a lot of elaboration on how they did it, the challenges, pitfalls, triumphs, etc. they experienced during the 'transformation' (perhaps not the best word, but better ones are escaping me right now).

[Positive and big, I think] Change is afoot in my husband/marriage at present, so if anyone has anything to share on moving from a basically egalitarian relationship to one with a strong D/s dynamic, I'd really appreciate it. Like any big change, this is very exciting, but also a bit overwhelming for me, and while I know every person and relationship is unique, I think hearing others' experiences will help with the latter.

There have been quite a few threads on this but as you said most of them don't give many specifics.

If you have a willing partner as far as trying things, and it sounds like you do, then that will take you far.

However if he is simply not, at his core Dominant or submissive, which ever you are wishing for, well, it can only go so far IMO.

That is where I'm at right now. He is not dominant in the bedroom. We are both submissive there. Though we can both take charge and even enjoy doing so from time to time, we both prefer not to. This often leads to less scenes and less sex than we would both like.

I've discussed some specifics of what I've done in many of my threads such as:

Priceless:

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=398358

The Topping From the Bottom Poll

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=399290

OMG!!! I was just looking through the library and MY thread is in it! Wow!

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! Whoo. Okay, calming down now.

And other threads I've started or contributed to, most of which I can't seem to find other than my own, cause those are under my user name.

So how did we start moving from a long term vanilla into kink? Well, IMO we were always kinky but we did not practice scenes or Power Exchange on a conscious level.

He had a strong sex drive and hid things because he wasn't sure what I'd do or feel about it.

I had a lot of baggage from a prior relationship, was extremely insecure, had a big sex drive but was highly stressed and touched out from being a stay at home mom.

One day I found some time for ME. That lead to online role play (non sexual.) Which in turn lead to cyber (sexual.) Which opened up my conscious mind to Power Exchange and communicating about sex as I never had before, not to mention making my libido go up about 500%.

Suddenly I was discussing things that I'd been waaaaaay too shy to discuss with him before. I had to find ways to do this because it wasn't a comfortable thing. Sometimes it was talking in the car so we weren't looking at one another. Sometimes it was sending transcripts and e-mails.

I did not pressure him. I was careful to make sure that he knew he had the power to stop any thing at any time. I made sure he knew his happiness was the most important thing to me.

At first he HATED the idea of spanking me or hitting me in anyway. To a large degree he still does. What he does like now is how happy it makes me. Nothing and I mean nothing can help my outlook on life or mood the way a good spanking or beating can do.

I still consider our relationship egalitarian. I like to give back to him as much as he gives to me. We wil,l I believe, never have a true D/s relationship. He doesn't want one.

I'm a fair minded person. If he does something for me, I like to do something for him. Thankfully he feels the same way. We both want to make the other person as happy as we can given who and what we are. So what we do a lot is try things. In the spirit of love for one another and fun.

I do often find myself focusing on what I know intrigues him and not what does me. It's a default thing that often surprises me. I do have my wants and wishes too.

I will say when I spanked him and he found it sensual he finally was able to see how a spanking didn't have to only hurt and relax with giving spankings to me a little more.

I will say that when I tried anal sex with him and it felt incredible I didn't blink an eye that he wanted to try it too.

Learning ropes is an ongoing thing for me. He is very escape-ist when I want him to be more like me, about the sensual, instead of some game of "see what I can do, you thought you had me tied up na na!" LOL. The first time I tied him up, he was ALL about showing me how fast he could escape.

That totally hurt my feelings. I was doing all these things to bring sensation to him, things that would have be wonderful to me, but he is not me. He made me feel totally like a failure with his escape routine and inability to focus his mind where I wanted and tried to direct.

When we talked a few days later, after I wasn't too pissed off to talk, I learned it was for him, one of the best nights of his life. That took a bit of the sting out of it. But it surprised me that my ego got into the mix on something I thought I was only doing for him. The next time he was good about not playing that game and paying attention until I gave him the go ahead.

I have more thoughts but it occurs to me that this may not be the sort of thing you are after. If not I apologize.

Fury

 

[SweetErika]

Fury, thank you so much for the excellent response.

I realized I wasn't very clear in the OP and my question could be intrepreted as something like "How did you get your vanilla spouse to be kinky?" so I made some changes to it just now. Chalk it up to cloudy communication skills from so much bouncing around in my head right now!

That said, there are some very important thoughts in your post that a particularly timely, and I will definitely take a look at those links because I always gain valuable insight from your threads.

 

[Rubnesque]

The boyfriend prior to the one I am with now was definitely the Dom in the bedroom. I'm not sure I'm comfortable living the lifestyle 24/7, but it definitely satisfies something inside both emotionally and physically during sexual play. However, as compatible as we were in bed, outside we were a disaster. Mind blowing sex does not a relationship make.

My current boyfriend is definitely the sub in bed. He's extremely eager to please, which is always a bonus, but there are times when I just need him to pull my hair, slap my ass, and bite me; not necessarily in that order. He will do it for me, but I don't always want to have to tell him. I can get off on dominating him, which I've done on more than one occasion, but though I'm physically satiated, I sometimes feel there's something lacking.

I've tried to explain my needs, but he doesn't always understand, or cannot achieve that specific tone or firm pimp hand *grin* That doesn't lessen my love for him, but a little voice in the back of my mind has to be smothered at times. Is sexual satisfaction important? Hell ya! Is it, or should it, be the all consuming factor? Fuck no.

I wish I could tell you the magic switch that would flip your husband to the level you'd prefer, but sadly there doesn't seem to be one. Perhaps, like the poster before me, you could ease into the play and test the waters, see how he reacts or likes it. Maybe he'll surprise you and himself with his enjoyment of it once he begins to understand the benefits.

 

[catalina_francisco]

I think the biggest advantage in making the transition a reality is first making the transition in the mind. What I mean by that is changing thought patterns which have been to this point predominantly vanilla, and replacing them with D/s oriented patterns such as acknowledging internally the desire to be either Dominant or submissive and reinforcing it regularly until it becomes more automatic and first thought rather than a corrected thought. I think most of us fall into the vanilla thought from time to time simply because most of us have been raised with those thoughts and expectations....for example...sometimes looking at whether a partner is acting loving according to the beliefs we were raised with as in thoughtful, kind, considerate ec., when in actuality what we might find more loving is to be humiliated, controlled, beaten. Am I making sense....my head is not cooperating today.

Catalina

 

[FurryFury]

Fury, thank you so much for the excellent response.

I realized I wasn't very clear in the OP and my question could be intrepreted as something like "How did you get your vanilla spouse to be kinky?" so I made some changes to it just now. Chalk it up to cloudy communication skills from so much bouncing around in my head right now!

That said, there are some very important thoughts in your post that a particularly timely, and I will definitely take a look at those links because I always gain valuable insight from your threads.

*preens*

Thank YOU!

I find you to be one of the wisest and kindest people here at Lit. So that means a lot to me coming from you!

Fury

 

[SweetErika]

I think the biggest advantage in making the transition a reality is first making the transition in the mind. What I mean by that is changing thought patterns which have been to this point predominantly vanilla, and replacing them with D/s oriented patterns such as acknowledging internally the desire to be either Dominant or submissive and reinforcing it regularly until it becomes more automatic and first thought rather than a corrected thought. I think most of us fall into the vanilla thought from time to time simply because most of us have been raised with those thoughts and expectations....for example...sometimes looking at whether a partner is acting loving according to the beliefs we were raised with as in thoughtful, kind, considerate ec., when in actuality what we might find more loving is to be humiliated, controlled, beaten. Am I making sense....my head is not cooperating today.

Catalina

Yes, you're making sense! I think changing our thought patterns is the biggest challenge right now. We've been egalitarian for the better part of a decade, and it's difficult to change that mentality, even though we're easing into it.

 

[myinnerslut]

Sir and i were vanilla... he pried my desires to be tied up out of me and, whith a great deal of research and conversation, things just grew from there. things grew very slowly, but they most certianly grew. we've been D/s for a little over a year, and even now we are still learning, growing, changing, and becoming morethe type of relationship we would like to be.

 

[SweetErika]

Sir and i were vanilla... he pried my desires to be tied up out of me and, whith a great deal of research and conversation, things just grew from there. things grew very slowly, but they most certianly grew. we've been D/s for a little over a year, and even now we are still learning, growing, changing, and becoming morethe type of relationship we would like to be.

May I ask how you started (after the research and such) acting on it? Was it difficult to transition for you? Did you have trouble with anything as a new sub?

 

[catalina_francisco]

Bumped this thread for you which you might find interesting.

Catalina

 

[myinnerslut]

May I ask how you started (after the research and such) acting on it? Was it difficult to transition for you? Did you have trouble with anything as a new sub?

May I ask how you started (after the research and such) acting on it? Was it difficult to transition for you?

well, we sort of just dove in, but the fact that we were both newbies prevented either of us from diving too far too fast. we experimented with toys, experimented a little with bondage, experimented a little with spanking. each time we tried something, we didnt go far into it, but went far enough to see if we liked it or not.

before we even go to anything physical, we had talked a lot about it. about why i felt i wanted and needed this. about what i was looking for, and what he wanted. we talked about safewords (mine is 'safeword" for simplicity). a bit into things, i stumbled across a BDSM checklist, which i then formatted and filled out for him. That helped us grow by so much as it asked about things that we had trouble talking about due strictly to niavity.

the first time i remeber us adknowledging that we were participatiing in an official "scene" we set up and not just folling around with some BDSM in some other sex play we were engaging in, we had talked about it before hand for a while. i was visiting him and we had decided that when i took my shirt off, i would be his submissive until he ended the scene or until i used my safeword. it worked out wonderfully, and we started to do things more and more in depth.

slowly things became normal that werent before. ive had a set daily assignment for months. we arnt 24/7, but anything sexual is BDSM now, where originally sometimes it was sometimes it wasnt. he is Sir and i am his puppy, his slut, or whatever else he wants to call me. we have rules of conduct that we developed one at a time as needed or appropriate. things sort of just grew.

Did you have trouble with anything as a new sub?
yes actually. i was convinced i knew more since i had done more reasearch, was more involved with the community online, and in person. this led me to top from the bottom a lot in the very beggining. he quickly put a stop to that, but it wa something i faced as a new sub. also, i wanted to keep knowing more, doing more, feeling more, after my first taste of submission. ive heard it described as sub frenzy before, but im not entirely sure how accurate that is.

weve been D/s for a little over a year now. i hope i answered some of your questions.

 

[SweetErika]

Bumped this thread for you which you might find interesting.

Catalina

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, Cat!

We just read it, and it's sparking a lot of great thinking and discussion.

Even so, there are lots of new perspectives, and I hope people will continue to share them here or there.

 

[SweetErika]

May I ask how you started (after the research and such) acting on it? Was it difficult to transition for you?

well, we sort of just dove in, but the fact that we were both newbies prevented either of us from diving too far too fast. we experimented with toys, experimented a little with bondage, experimented a little with spanking. each time we tried something, we didnt go far into it, but went far enough to see if we liked it or not.

before we even go to anything physical, we had talked a lot about it. about why i felt i wanted and needed this. about what i was looking for, and what he wanted. we talked about safewords (mine is 'safeword" for simplicity). a bit into things, i stumbled across a BDSM checklist, which i then formatted and filled out for him. That helped us grow by so much as it asked about things that we had trouble talking about due strictly to niavity.

the first time i remeber us adknowledging that we were participatiing in an official "scene" we set up and not just folling around with some BDSM in some other sex play we were engaging in, we had talked about it before hand for a while. i was visiting him and we had decided that when i took my shirt off, i would be his submissive until he ended the scene or until i used my safeword. it worked out wonderfully, and we started to do things more and more in depth.

slowly things became normal that werent before. ive had a set daily assignment for months. we arnt 24/7, but anything sexual is BDSM now, where originally sometimes it was sometimes it wasnt. he is Sir and i am his puppy, his slut, or whatever else he wants to call me. we have rules of conduct that we developed one at a time as needed or appropriate. things sort of just grew.

That's great, thank you! We're taking a similar route, but it's very nice to hear what others have done. Even though I'm confident in my level of knowledge and skills, it definitely provides a good measure of reassurance.

FWIW, our verbal safeword is "safeword" as well. That's what's used at our community playspace, too, and the consistency and ease are helpful. I made sure he was willing and able to use it with an invitation tonight. He was, even though he said it wasn't that bad, and I'm very proud of him for drawing that line (for himself, really).

Did you have trouble with anything as a new sub?
also, i wanted to keep knowing more, doing more, feeling more, after my first taste of submission. ive heard it described as sub frenzy before, but im not entirely sure how accurate that is.[/QUOTE]Yeah, if we have to call it something, I think "frenzy" (D/s or otherwise) will work, but there are definitely varying forms and degrees of it, from what I can tell. In our case, it's very much like the above with a lot of additional emotion and some other things. Then, this is different for us, so it feels like we have some new relationship energy--that lusty, cant get enough of each other feeling--thrown in.