Ritualizing Submissive Male Behavior
By Kane
Here are some musings I will just toss out, since I’m tired of them kicking around in my head they can now kick in yours… 
What are kinky rituals and why use them? Elements of BDSM can be used to set a mood, a tone, to control a sub, to elevate a Master (both flip sides of showing differences in station) – to introduce or reinforce training. To move play into the theater of the mind, or out onto the physical stage.
To give focus for discipline of self…. I receive a beating routinely every morning after I spend the night at the house of a woman I sub to. It is a reminder of my place. This also puts me in mind that even after a recent phenomenal, very heavy scene that left me caned bloody and extremely bruised – I woke up to her caning me where I was already badly beaten, leaving me nearly in tears to start the day.
I loved it. (OK, so I’m a pervert Someone making free with my body that way makes me feel very possessed and used. And controlled. And that is very much the cornerstone of my kink (being controlled, and used). So this is a Good Thing to experience, not to mention it builds a bond between top and bottom, dominant and submissive. And the experience comes about through the pointed application of ritualized play in BDSM.
Rituals can be as simple as formalized methods of greeting a dominant or presenting one’s (sub) self; they can be as elaborate as offering extended service like a formal tea, leather, boot or high heel care, having a routine around ordinary daily events (rising, dining, bed-time come to mind) or similar events which lend themselves to structure and ritualization. Persons who want to really get their hooks into their submissive, pushing erotic as well as control buttons, would do well to contemplate what kinds of rituals can be incorporated into their interactions.
Perhaps the sub must dress a certain way; perhaps orgasm is controlled, and relief only allowed in certain settings, or after particular service is rendered. Perhaps a routine beating of the sub – as with the dominant I enjoy subbing to, her standard ritual is that her subs bring her her cup of morning coffee and an implement for her to beat them with. Or as one dom I know treated his slave, three brutal slashes with a quirt, nightly, upon his back before he was allowed to go to sleep. After each stroke he was required to thank his Master, of course.
How does one create rituals? *Anything* can be made into a ritual – simply codify how and when and why it is to be done. Any activity set out in “required steps” becomes ritual, when it is done mindfully.
Raise an activity from the mundane to the ritual by making it a formal event to which special attention is paid. Set it off by recognizing – in words and deed – that this activity has special significance, and is required from the sub because it pleases the dom. In this way, an act as simple as combing one’s hair a certain way can take on ritual significance – if, say, the grooming occurs at a specified time, and the results inspected by the dom, with approval as a reward, or disapproval shown through punishment. Not that grooming need be ritualized – that is for the individual dominant (and perhaps submissive) to discuss and determine for themselves, what activities would be meaningful or have charge to them.
For myself, some things I like to interact with in a ritualized way are: service to my domme in kinky social environments (where I stand and how I sit around my domme; how a drink is served to her, etc); daily beatings; orgasm control, with masturbation being permitted only in specifically-defined ways and circumstances. I also like to create rituals around something that might only be important for a finite period of time: for instance, in striving to get a project done in the household, a ritual to start it out with, and to conclude it with when the work is complete, is both motivating and puts one in a particularly “meditative” headspace during the project.
I knew a dominant who joked about subs who said they would do anything to serve her – until she got to the line where she retorted, “So, would you put a butt-plug up your ass and weed my back yard?” Yet even this kind of activity could become eroticized as “the weekly weed-cleaning ritual”, if the dom/me wished to ritualize such an event. And I have no doubt there would be subs who would be eager for that day of the week to come around, and be in a very meditative (and erotic) head-space for the duration of their hillside labors. Ritual is a powerful tool, but not every dominant knows how to (or cares to) use it.
One of the more frustrating persons for a ritual-oriented sub to interact with is not the simply ignorant dom/me, who we presume is still learning the “tricks of the trade”, but the more experienced players who may talk much about BDSM ritual but in fact make little or no use of it. This kind of dom/me is more than a lazy Master/ess. That is a person acting with something of a willfully misleading dominant tone, as well as apparent ignorance of the power of the psychology they are playing with (or not playing with, more properly speaking).
A dominant has the power to open doors of compliance and eroticism in the sub’s mind, invites the sub to follow on the journey that she (the dom) can take the sub upon. One who speaks those words but seldom acts out their intent is someone to avoid, if the sub is looking for meaningful play that incorporates ritual. The dominant who does not know how to play counterpoint to that willingness risks being a very one-dimensional player indeed.
Rituals & Female-Led BDSM
Female Led Relationships - Female Domination, Superiority, Supremacy, Dominant Wives & Girlfriends, Woman Worship, FLR Lifestyle