Dynamic: Constant Change, Activity, or Progress

It’s O/our monthly check-in looking back over October 2024, and Mx is doing Their distinctive worried-and-overthinking face. W/we’re discussing play and events from the last month, and those are very thin on the ground. That might not have freaked Them out so much, except the notes from O/our September check-in say much the same. It’s been quiet.

Mx’s worry is understandable, but i don’t exactly share it. Would i like to play more? Hell yes, but the slump hasn’t been from any lack of desire or intention on either side. From early September me and Mx have been taking it in turns to have various colds, flus, sore throats, migraines, and the odd mental health day. It’s bleurgh season and W/we’ve had every bug going.

Mx, however, worries i’ll feel neglected and won’t be getting what i need. That’s fair – kink isn’t just fun and hot, it’s where i get a lot of my sense of routine, reassurance, and stress relief too. i’m feeling the effects of less play and less firm discipline – but it’s not critical just now. At this stage it’s no big deal, and that’s what the check-ins are for – W/we’ve spotted a pattern, now to break it.

The two months of not playing at events has wobbled Mx’s confidence when W/we return – so W/we pace O/ourselves and build it back up. Being unable to play often – and unable to play hard when W/we did – for a long stretch has made it harder to be spontaneous and too easy to revert to couch time and trash TV instead of planning a scene – so W/we schedule playtime until it becomes more natural to be spontaneous again. And before long, it’s like the slump never happened.

i got a question on Bluesky this week about how W/we keep O/our dynamic going, as well as how W/we keep love in the relationship, so that’s what i’m going to talk about today. i will say, upfront, it’s not something W/we typically have to work very hard at – call that luck, compatibility, or just a consequence of how W/we’re wired, i’m not sure which. But that blessing may limit my perspective a bit for helping people who really struggle with this!

The check-ins W/we have are, i believe, essential for a dynamic as heavy as O/ours. W/we have a formal contract as well as a two page list of rules and protocols. It’s complex, it has to be reviewed just to make sure it’s all functional and understandable even before W/we get into whether it’s fulfilling, healthy, enjoyable and generally good. Check-ins allow U/us to pick up on issues before they become a bigger problem – so a lull in play, for example, doesn’t become an ongoing rut of lower intimacy and loss of confidence that’s hard to break out of. It flags up rules that aren’t practical, aren’t being enforced, or that W/we just don’t like as much as W/we expected to. It prompts U/us to talk about new kinks W/we want to try, and old ones W/we haven’t done in a while because W/we moved on to new shiny things. Now, none of that stops U/us talking the rest of the month – W/we do. But having a special time set aside and a little agenda of what to discuss pulls ideas out of the dusty corners of O/our heads. It encourages U/us to step back and look at the bigger picture – not just “does the dynamic feel good today” but “does the dynamic feel consistently good over the last month”.

All relationships take work and commitment, but a power exchange dynamic takes, i think, a little extra. What W/we do is very real – i’m not personally someone who subscribes to the idea that a D/s relationship is just a long-term scene or a roleplay – but it also relies on elements of performance and ritual to create the magic. W/we need to feel attached to O/our roles to feel the flow of power between U/us – and it is definitely possible for that special feeling of submission or dominance towards another person to fade. i can lose my submission – or start to – if discipline is too slack, if i don’t feel seen or appreciated by a Dominant, or if communication is poor. i have never felt any serious risk of this with Mx, but it’s something i’m conscious of and something W/we work against. W/we make sure that the agreed rules within O/our relationship are consistently enforced and have predictable consequences if broken – not all dynamics involve punishment, but when they do i believe it’s important that those are predictable so that they feel like a correction and not random retribution. W/we have protocol that effects daily routine and communication – i cannot lose my connection to Mx and O/our relationship when it’s embedded in my speech, my movements around O/our home, my morning and bedtime routines. Most of O/our protocol is things i do and Mx receives, and W/we identified that having a more passive part to play in protocol wasn’t ideal for Their connection to Their dominance. Their experience before me was mainly with brat dynamics, where They were kept on Their toes and constantly enforcing discipline – my obedience leaves Them with less to do. O/our solution was for Them to up what W/we call the “random violence” W/we both enjoy, where any moment i can expect a slap, a punch, a kick, a pinch. Them fully embracing the right of “just because I can” in O/our relationship helps Them realign with Their role and feel more active within it. Reminding O/ourselves and each other of what W/we’re creating together keeps the dynamic feeling vibrant and alive.

And, just as routines can help the dynamic, so can breaking out of them for something new. Kinky people tend to have an advantage here that isn’t as easy to tap into in a vanilla relationship – the menu of new things to try to spice things up is near infinite when you’re a multi-kinked pervert like U/us. Both me and Mx came into this relationship with very extensive lists of things W/we each enjoyed, there was easily enough overlap to play in O/our shared comfort zone but very quickly W/we wanted to broaden each others’ horizons. Mx introduced me to new physical experiences of pain and pleasure, and i opened the door to darker psychological play. And then W/we got to exploring things that were new to U/us both. That’s how O/our current bimbofication exploration started. i like having ongoing control over my appearance and being treated like an object, existing as something useful and feeling used. Mx likes those things too – from the ‘making it happen to someone else’ side, of course – and also likes boobs and tan lines and makeup and tiny skimpy underwear and big fake lips. The progression was natural. W/we explore new kinks that cross over with one’s W/we have, branch off, combine in new ways, and go back to old favourites with new ideas and perspective. W/we buy new toys (every month W/we say “no more hitty things” and fail), new kink furniture, and go to new events. Dynamic means change and W/we are never stagnant.

So where does keeping love in the relationship fit into this – wedged somewhere amongst the weird sex, the random unprovoked violence, and the check-ins with Their agenda and note taking? i can see why people sometimes find it hard to imagine it’s there, because the way W/we live O/our lives is so different to how love is typically expressed – but it’s there. It’s there in all of it.

The check-ins might sound a bit dry, but They are also dedicated time for real, deep communication. A minor issue that could become a dealbreaker after ten years of ignoring, repressing and resenting gets dragged out into the light and squashed. A hard to express desire becomes a planned scene on a to-do list. Bad habits and routines that could become intimacy killers get disrupted. The love is in U/us both showing up to nurture O/our relationship and keep it on track.

The love is in O/our intimacy – strange, dark, twisted intimacy yes but meeting the same needs as gentle sex, sweet pet names, and forehead kisses. W/we feed O/our desire for each other, W/we accept each other without judgement, W/we treat each other in the ways each of U/us wants and needs to be treated. W/we do not allow distances to open between U/us, or intimacy to fade away or go stale.

W/we take care of each other – whether that’s Mx using Their authority to force me to rest when i have the urge to burn myself out, or me brattily demanding They say something nice about Themself if i catch Them doing negative self talk. W/we tell each other all the time the things W/we love about each other, how much W/we appreciate each other, and W/we don’t leave anything positive unsaid. No one is playing it cool here – W/we’re unapologetically affectionate and soft.

W/we don’t fight. i introduced this one to Mx, who said early in O/our relationship that They were surprised W/we hadn’t had an argument yet. i fully believe arguments are preventable in relationships, 100% of the time. That doesn’t mean if you have a fight – or several – that the relationship is bad or failing. But with the right communication and a mutual commitment to work as a team against any problems instead of working against each other, it is possible to stop. Have W/we disagreed on things? Sure. Have W/we unintentionally upset each other? Yes! But when that happens W/we skip the part where W/we yell and attack and get defensive, and instead W/we talk it through to get to a solution. If They do this or i do that it makes the other feel some variety of bad and so W/we change the behaviour or find ways to manage O/our reactions or some combination of the two. And so far that’s working well!

Love is something you do as much as you feel, in my view. Actively choosing every day to make O/our relationship a high priority, consider my partners feelings and needs, and actively make sure They know that. Thinking to myself how great They are and how lucky i am does nothing to feed O/our relationship – telling Them and showing Them that every day does. For U/us, the structure and the intensity and the downright strangeness of O/our relationship becomes part of how W/we show O/our love, how W/we communicate, connect, and bond. It is the love as something that W/we do – in what is perhaps its most authentic and pure form, as W/we give each other the pieces of O/ourselves that the rest of the world does not experience. The dynamic, the romantic relationship, and O/our identities as individuals come together to create the unique balance that is U/us.