A Fair Exchange

W/we bought a bottle of hot sauce at the market – emphasis on hot. It’s made of carolina reaper chillies, which i google in the kitchen after i’ve already smeared it all over two slices of toast and it’s too late to reduce the generous helping i dolloped out. Oops. What follows is the most intense snack of my life – i’m sweating, my mouth is on fire, and by the end i can’t really talk, but i’m making some pained mnughargh noises. Mx watches in absolute horror.

“If it hurts that much stop eating it,” They say.

“i’m enjoying it!” i protest. Or try to, anyway, it’s not very coherent but They get the message. It’s delicious, and the challenge and pain is half the fun.

A couple of days later i mix a half teaspoonful of the same hot sauce into a six portion curry, and that’s more to Their taste – “it’s got a kick,” They say, just as i was thinking it was pretty mild.

No one would say that anything unfair is happening here – one of U/us likes more heat, so gets more heat. W/we don’t have to both have the same experience, as long as W/we’re both enjoying what W/we eat in O/our own ways.

i got asked recently why i call Mx my “partner” when a partnership implies an equal relationship. It was a good question and i talked about it a bit on Tiktok, because i can absolutely see where it comes from. W/we don’t present as equal, act as equal, or even feel equal in many ways. As O/our relationship has developed the gap between O/our levels of power, autonomy, and authority within the relationship has widened dramatically. So it may be surprising that W/we still consider this an equal partnership.

The starting point for any relationship – kinky or otherwise – is about establishing needs and wants, and discovering if the other person or people involved meet those needs. Whether those needs are the typical things you’d expect – company, support, physical touch, love – or something more uncommon, for the foundation of a healthy relationship those needs and wants need to be balanced. Compromise can be important sometimes, but no one should be feeling pressured to compromise on their deal breakers and no one should feel they are the one making all the compromises.

So if me and my partner started here – which W/we did – it follows that W/we had to examine what those needs and wants were. For me, what i seek in a relationship is leadership. i want to have as little autonomy over my own choices as is practical, i feel more secure and loved with strict discipline, and the way i express love is through service and a state of deep admiration and respect for my partner. Physically, i need intimacy to involve violence, degradation, and i need to feel useful or used – but i also need my pleasure to be a priority. my partner, in contrast, looks to lead. They enjoy the exact mirror of what i do – where i look for external discipline They thrive on creating structure, where i look to serve They look to possess. When W/we’re intimate, They desire a more active role, whether pain or pleasure are on the menu They want to control it. Neither of O/our needs would be met if W/we forced O/ourselves to share either role – and so W/we don’t.

What W/we have instead is power exchange – not “power take” or “power give” but a fair exchange. i give away choices and freedoms, and receive leadership, care, and structure. i offer acts of service – taking on housework, and surrendering to free use – and in return receive a reprieve from decision making and stress, and from the anxiety and self-consciousness of initiating. The things i give are things i either do not want – which my partner will enjoy managing far more – or things that i am willing to sacrifice for the greater rewards my submission gains me. And from my partner’s side, it is the same. For it to work, both of U/us have to equally give it O/our energy, commitment, and time. A half-assed D/s relationship isn’t going to be sustainable – this shit takes work.

Now i can already hear a vocal minority of kinksters bristling at this – saying “no, a true submissive should only want to serve, they have no desires of their own.” And, firstly, no – everyone’s different and submission includes a huge range of behaviour and identity, you can definitely be a submissive and still have certain essential things you need a Dominant to be able to offer to be compatible with you. But even if you are the One True Sub who wants absolutely nothing except to serve – that’s a need right there. A desire for leadership, ownership, and someone to relieve you of your autonomy, desires and independence is in itself a desire. Even if the last choice you ever make is the person who you’ll hand all that over to – that’s a choice. A choice you, and they, equally consent to and participate in.

So what does this balance look like for U/us? It looks like lots of things. In the early days it was negotiating and planning O/our play, sharing ideas and teaching each other about kinks that W/we had different levels of experience with. There was a lot of giving feedback and adjusting play – and it still looks like that sometimes now, a pause mid scene for me to tell Mx “that flogger is heavy, so You’ll need to be extra cautious near the spine” or for Them to say “I love your screams, but the neighbours won’t so let’s switch to something less intense.” As O/our relationship developed it was in the constant conversations about what an ideal D/s dynamic looked and felt like to U/us – in the rules They suggested and the rules i asked for, in experiments with protocol as W/we figured out the right level of formality and the most natural feeling routines and rituals for U/us. W/we can feel the equal support W/we give when one of U/us is struggling – when my mental health dips, and with Their struggles with confidence at times. In O/our matured and stable relationships, it’s there over coffee and cigarettes in the kitchen as W/we have O/our monthly check in and ask each other for full honesty as W/we share what’s going well and if anything needs to change. Although O/our roles don’t ever pause, when it comes to talking about O/our relationship W/we are both equally heard, supported, and loved. W/we both want this to be the best it can be.

A D/s relationship is a collaboration – creating something unique around the needs of the people within it. Breaking down the social expectations of what a relationship should be and making your own rules, rituals and structure is not a one person job – it’s a team effort to create something as complex and beautiful as this. i have Their back, They have mine, and if W/we find a problem or a challenge the goal is always to solve it together, not to let it become a wall between U/us. That’s how all relationships should be, i think, and in D/s it is often even more essential to prioritise healthy communication and mutual respect. W/we’re playing in the darkest corners of O/our minds, taking each other to strange places and chasing intensity. It’s not a journey to be taken in isolation or disconnection – it’s a journey to take with a partner by my side.