“The sub is the one who’s really in control”

[cw: kink talk, D/s talk, consent talk, rape mention, food mention]

I’ve heard this line multiple times now, so it’s getting its own post here for the next time it comes up again.

My gut reaction is always: I don’t believe you.

So here’s some rationale as to why.

Point One: Definitional Hypocrisy.

Being “the one in control” (“really” or otherwise) contradicts the fundamental meaning and goals of putting oneself in a submissive role.  Sometimes, not being in control is kind of the point — as explained by a kinkster who used the “the sub is the one actually in charge” line in the very same breath comment (thanks for the demonstration, totorolight).  The fact that a D/s practitioner can purport an experience of “LACK of control” existing simultaneous to being “actually the one in charge” suggests, to me, that these are not two opposing camps in the politics of kink.  It’s not that we have one group of kinksters saying “the sub is the one really in control” and another group of kinksters fighting to have subs recognized as, well, submissive and control-ceding.  If subs were “really,” actually “the ones” (not on an even plane with, but more so) “in control” (over their doms), then… they wouldn’t be called subs, now would they?

Point Two: Because Safewords.

Safewords can end a scene or halt a given course of action, as a way of communicating “no” or “enough” or “I want to stop now.”

At least, that’s the idea, anyway.  That’s what they’re supposed to do, ideally.  Thing is, safewords aren’t magic.  They don’t literally freeze the scene.

What a safeword is, really, is a request.

A request that a dom has to decide to obey.

That’s why they always say that D/s requires trust, right?  Because the sub places trust in the dom that the dom will respond correctly to a safeword.  The sub relies on the dom to honor their agreement, usually when the sub is in an emotionally or physically precarious position — tied up, for example, or unarmed while the dom is wielding a weapon of some kind, and enmeshed in an interpersonal tide that flows toward continued acquiescence.

A safeword isn’t a form of control.  It’s a form of vulnerability.

Point Three: Bad Reputations.

“If the sub comes forward with a story of a dom behaving badly, their reputation will be ruined and that will guarantee they never play with anyone in the Scene again!  It’s a totally foolproof!”

Don’t be naive.

[edit: see here for the full explanation.]

Point Four: Kinky PR.

I think I’ve established by now why I understand the claim about subs being “the ones really in control” as, generally, unrealistic.

But that raises the question: why would D/s fans contradict their own definitions and ideals of submissiveness to claim that subs are more “in charge” than doms are?

From what I’ve seen, the line seems to function as an ethical rhetorical move.  Onlookers, critics, and greenhorns alike might regard the concept of D/s with categorical concern for subs.  It’s an issue discussed among established kinksters, too.  So a primary response that has emerged is to emphasize the blanket efficacy of safewords-as-commands and configure that as a mechanism to explain how, “actually,” the sub has more control over the scene than the dom does.  It’s a move that’s less about elucidation than about justification.  And in this style of response, instead of affirming that not being in charge is okay and delving into the ethics of hierarchy, the approach is to bizarrely abandon D/s practitioners’ habitual language (in which dramatic power-loss is fine and okay and also sexy) to, suddenly, define the sub as a dom, which makes it okay because it’s understood that being a dom is best.

Oddly enough… if the actual self-identifying dom isn’t the one in charge and isn’t the one in control, no one rushes in to assure listeners that their rights and needs aren’t being trampled on.

Point Five: Boundary Exclusivity.

The “the sub is the one who’s really in control” argument infers a sub’s supposed lion’s share of “control” based on the sub’s right to make a safeword request and hope that the dom will honor it.  Only the submissives’ safewords are acknowledged.

Which would imply either that doms never safeword, or that doms’ safewords are less important.

Given how a safeword is defined, on the surface, there’s no reason for either of those to be true.  Everyone has boundaries.  Doms and tops count, too.

So why are doms’ boundaries less emphasized?

Simply put: because these boundaries are not pushed and targeted in the way that subs’ boundaries are.  Generally speaking.

It’s generally assumed that the sub, more than the dom, is the one facing risk of injury or excessive strain.  It’s generally assumed that the sub, more than the dom, has more reason to feel uncomfortable or want to call it quits.  It’s generally assumed that the sub, more than the dom, is the one being put to a test of endurance.  It’s generally assumed that the sub, more than the dom, may experience their boundaries being pushed or broken or encroached upon by an aggressive partner.

I think, deep down, the people making these types of assertions know that there’s generally more vulnerability to the role of submissive, ceteris paribus.  That’s why they put far less effort into emphasizing doms’ boundaries, comfort, pleasure, and access to control.  Because they don’t need to.  Because those needs, by default, are (generally) already being seen to.

Absence is its own form of communication.

Consequently, we end up with a line of argument that claims subs have the “real” control over doms… thanks to their access to a mechanism that doms, themselves, also have access to.

Point Six: Comparable Contexts.

As I said, this form of rhetoric is presumably meant to provide reassurance.

But you want to know why that’s funny to me?

Nobody says “the person with allergies is the one REALLY in control” about a group of people ordering pizza together.

Nobody should be saying that “not harming or violating you” amounts to you “controlling” them.  Asking people to accommodate you, and to keep you safe, and to work around your limits, is grasping for basic decency, not “control.”

If anything, the ones being called upon to provide situational accommodations are, all too often, the ones with the relative power.  And I daresay there are ableist overtones to claiming the reverse.

The notion that subs “actually” control the scene also strikes me as very similar to the notion that women, categorically, are the ones “in charge” of sex: a woman-as-gatekeeper framework in which men approach women for sex, and women, conceived as the site-where-sex-happens, are the ones who “decide” whether sex will “happen” or not — as if men choosing to rape is not a thing that happens, and as if women’s consent being treated as relevant amounts to unilateral “control.”

What I’m saying is, the peculiar sub definition-reversal for pure rhetorical use might just seem ill-thought-out and lazy, but I’m inclined to think it’s more insidious than merely incoherent.  Under closer examination, it looks a lot more like a tool of misdirection — or rather, of twisting things into their opposites, in precisely the way that’s useful to some people more than others.

Related reading:

• a post on “real doms” rhetoric
• a post on “the difference between BDSM and abuse”
• a challenge to D/s fans