@Will_V Interesting discussion and such thoughtful comment as always. Pleasure to read. Herewith my own 2c.
Again, disclaimer, I'm not really experienced in kink, so if other guys know more about it than I do I'd be happy to hear what I might have missed.
In the interests of full disclosure in the context of this thread, I'm a practising switch (i.e. I enjoy games that involve me being either dom or sub) as well as also very often enjoying a straight up bang with no D/S dynamic at all. This doesn't give me a monopoly on kink wisdom but obviously I do reflect on the issues from time to time.
First, don't underestimate her ability to fantasize. In the right conditions, it's very easy to imagine whatever you want to imagine. Think about sitting down in a cinema to watch a movie. You know it's a cinema, you're even eating popcorn, but the movie can still easily capture your imagination, because you want it to and the setting is the right place for it. Same with comedy, you know the comedian will try to make you laugh, you know you're sitting with a hundred other people who've just turned up to laugh, and yet it doesn't prevent you from laughing because you want to and it's the right place for it.
I believe kink works in a similar way. Once she's established that the setting is right, as long as you know what you're doing, you don't have to go to extreme measures to prove that the fantasy really exists. She feels allowed to do it, you're authoritative, confident, in control, you have a developed skill to make her feel things (same as a comedian or a movie director) and so if you do your job she will do the rest.
Yes, if the logistics, atmo and vibe are good, she will be helped along a lot.
But congruence is also.important. She won't likely want to feel that
you feel that you're doing "your job" (unless she happens to have a gigolo fantasy). Part of her feeling able to be disinhibited enough to share taboo stuff is the confidence of being not just accepted but actually welcomed by the dom for her fantasies.
For many, sex is what
@Orgasmatron described in the OP as "the world of regular, boring, LTR, standard sex". And don't we all know it. Fine at times. Boring at others.
To break away from this, the sub kinkster wants to go on a journey of exploration. That journey involves self-discovery, self-revelation and vulnerability. To work really well, there usually needs to be a
belief on the sub's part that the dom is also an authentic part of that journey. Otherwise that's a lot of shit to put out for someone who doesn't ultimately care.
How important these issues of congruence and authenticity are will vary, based on the sub's personality and the degree of taboo-ness about the kinks themselves.
Secondly, it's easier than it seems to burst the bubble in the wrong way. Being a sub requires trust and if she doesn't know you well, she has no idea if you're going to go tearing off down the wrong path or have some weird personality trait make an appearance. It's very very easy to go too far.
I'll give you an example, some time ago I was banging a little Colombian girl with a very sexy body. I sensed she liked to be dominated and I started being a bit more dominant, smacking her ass, pulling her hair, pressing her down hard on the bed etc. She loved it. Then we were doing missionary and I grabbed her wrists and held them down as I fucked her. Instantly something changed, I could feel she got tense in all the wrong ways. I let go, kept going in adapted missionary and shortly after came (she already had before).
So after, to quell any bad vibe I did something like ask her what she liked and what she didn't. She said "well the light was in my eyes, it was very annoying". Feeling a bit dumb but knowing this was the right moment I said honestly, looking into her eyes "oh you should have told me!". Something changed back again, she got really turned on, jumped up and started rubbing her ass into my cock and looking over her shoulder with the most submissive wide eyed look you can imagine.
Finding out what someone likes and indulging it - and possibly then gently pushing their boundaries too - is key. Good kink should involve good communication. Although spur-of-the-moment scenes are thrilling, there's generally going to be a need to communicate boundaries and preferences, either in-scene or out.
Now my guess is that when I grabbed her wrists something made her think "wait a minute this guy might be crazy" and she started to panic. But then later on when I showed her that I was focused on her pleasure, that it mattered when something was not making her feel good, she realized that she could enjoy being dominated with me in ways she didn't normally feel comfortable with. And that's what turned her on hard.
A key tool in building trust when you're in the middle of a kink session, and especially if actually discovering one another's tastes and boundaries in the scene, is
eye contact. Holding a girl down by her wrists is much more intimate if you're looking her deep in the eyes with a look that combines passion, tenderness and complicity. You want her to know she can stop you at any point that she feels unsettled or out of the vibe, but that you're fully present with her if she's comfortable to go the journey.
Domming is a lot about delivering sensation with trust. Safe words might or might not be needed, but there has to be confidence in communication and it's best understood as a bond. (Can still be a one-night NSA thing, but that sense of complicity and a bond should still be there.)
Thirdly, in regards to who's pleasure it's all for, the concept that your pleasure is derived from her pleasure (or at least, more abstractly, from the intensity of her experience) is very much to the point. A woman tames the beast of a man by turning his conquering energy toward her, and by submitting and showing pleasure and a strong reaction, (knowing that he derives validation from it), she makes him invest in her by becoming the focal point of his expression of himself. I don't think kink is much different, though it might appear to be - though the sub is getting 'tamed' by being spanked and ordered around etc she 'tames' him by conforming to his desires, becoming that which he lusts to have, and making his pleasure dependent on her. If not for some sense of bottom control I don't think the experience would be complete for her.
Agreed up to a point. Taken too far, this can just become "topping from the bottom", which I'm personally very guilty of in my "sub" play moments because I'm just not an
authentic sub (as I mentioned earlier, I like switch games). You can end up bossing around the theoretical "dom" (female in my case) and the whole dynamic can get skewed. (Probably why plenty of guys just go off and pay a professional for these fantasies, because the pros won't take that shit.)
But these issues are less likely with a girl sub. Girls very rarely engage in "topping from the bottom" (as far as I know). So you're more likely to get an authentic D/S dynamic going.
So the dynamic you're describing here can be very latent IMO, and is one side of things. I'd pull this back to the point I mentioned about complicity. At its best, it's really a two-way street. Yes, she's creating compliance on the dom's part to fulfil her fantasies. Equally, if well matched, she is complying with his by making herself vulnerable to his authentic satisfaction. Nice harmony when it works well.
I know there are a lot of women out there who've probably been through some bad experiences and simply feel compelled to revisit them through kink, without enough self awareness to know what positive aspects need to be added to properly develop herself from it, but I don't personally believe that's particularly good or healthy or something you would want to be part of. The way I understand it, a lot of what turns women on is part of a loop that needs to close, and if it doesn't close, she's left psychologically high and dry. That's why though women might fantasize about some dangerous situation, and may even get turned on in a real dangerous situation, the being turned on is all in the expectation that at some point the loop will close - she will achieve some kind of control of the situation and things will turn out positively. And if it doesn't, well that's when she'll be seeing a therapist.
In my opinion, to close the loop, you have to embody two things - the one whose reckless desire overwhelms and overpowers her, and also the one who is attentive to her, wants her to feel pleasure, and guides her through the experience with care and skill. If she ever truly gets the sense that the latter is not there, even though she may be turned on initially she's probably going to end up stuck in an open loop and lose all trust in you.
I think this is what I'm driving at when I refer to complicity and trust. You put this very elegantly IMO.
I would add that kink need not be rooted in trauma or negativity of any kind. It can be but it's a myth that it necessarily is (and I realize you're not saying that, but people often assume it).
Whether kink helps to work stuff out is very individual and situational in my observation. Sometimes a therapist is probably just much more efficient.
Where kink isn't rooted (or primarily rooted) in trauma, it's typically - I think - actually a very healthy exploration of sensation. It offers some of the most powerfully erotic ways to navigate one's own body and the body of a sexual partner. That's a huge reward in itself, IMO.
