The girl’s hands were tied above her head; not too tightly – there was plenty of slack on the rope. He stood behind her, swishing the cat o’ nine tails across her back. From where I was sitting it didn’t look like the whip was really making contact with her skin. He was being very gentle, stopping every few minutes to check if she was okay.

After a while he decided to pick up the pace. He lifted up her skirt and whipped her ass. Now he was putting a bit more wrist into it, moving backwards so that the whip connected, with a slight crack. Again he stopped to check if she was happy and she smiled and told him to continue, but when he was behind her, it seemed to me that her face told a different story. At every lash her face screwed up in pain – not the expression of both pain and pleasure you normally see on a person being whipped. I could tell she wasn’t into it, but why didn’t she say so?
A little while later, a second couple acted out a scene in front of us. The Master barked orders at his Slave – how to position herself and what to do. If she didn’t react quickly enough, he paddled her ass. Unlike the first couple there was no stopping to check that everything was okay, but there wasn’t any need to either. I could see from their behaviour that they’d been together a while and had obviously found the rhythm that suited them. They both looked happy and I enjoyed watching them in a way I hadn’t with the previous twosome.
Last week I went to a fetish party (again!) and these little scenes got me thinking about the power dynamics in sexual relationships. All relationships have a dynamic that is specific to them and what BDSM relationships do is act this out, but in a strange kind of way. I don’t think these relationships are strange because some people enjoy pain and others get their pleasure giving it, but strange because the power dynamic is often the opposite of what it seems.
Here’s what I mean. At a casual glance it appears that the Master is in control of the situation. The Slave may be tied up, dragged around on a chain, whipped, made to obey orders or treated in a way that some people would regard as humiliating. But of course – ninety nine times out of a hundred – it’s really the Slave that’s in charge. He or she decides what they want and how much they can take and the Master obliges. So unless you have a Master that doesn’t listen and goes beyond what’s agreed, which is getting into a whole other area which isn’t sexual but abusive, the upper hand actually belongs to the person who appears to have none.
It would be great if, like BDSM relationships, all power in relationships were acted out so transparently. At least you’d know what you were getting yourself in to. However, most power in a relationship is wielded in subtle ways, making it difficult for an outsider to know what’s going on. Besides which, the dynamics of the sexual relationship do not always reflect the dynamics at work elsewhere in the relationship or even in life. However, in most relationships, someone has the upper hand – maybe a little, maybe a lot.
The perverse thing about power in a relationship is that the person who has invested the most emotionally, and therefore has the most to lose, is often the person with the least power. Even worse is the fact that there is more than a grain of truth to the old cliché – treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen. I am sorry to admit that I lived by that particular rule – until I grew up a bit. Of course, as is fitting, karma had its revenge, and someone did the same, and worse, to me.
This charming man treated yours truly in a really shocking manner, but I, like an idiot, let him. For months! Okay, the sex was great, which may go some way towards explaining it, but for the rest of the time he was extremely badly behaved – once going so far as to make me cry in the middle of a restaurant and then leave me with the bill! Bastard!
Unfortunately it’s very difficult to change the power dynamics of a relationship. You can, but as far as I can see, this generally involves drastic action, or alternatively counselling, neither of which is much fun! It’s far easier to start as you mean to go on and find someone who suits you whether you prefer to be in control or to take a backseat.
This is what confused me about the first scene I’d witnessed – as he kept stopping to check that his partner was happy, I’m completely certain that the guy with the whip would have stopped or been more gentle if she’d asked him. So why didn’t she? Was there another power dynamic at work? Was she scared of looking like a wimp or seeming too uptight? Was she in love with him and pretending to have a compatible sexual appetite? I don’t know what was going on, but I have to say it bothered me. I don’t blame him, nor do I blame her, I just wish I knew what the dynamic was and what she was getting out of a sexual act she – on the face of it at least – didn’t enjoy.
These days I’m mostly a convert to the Church of Egalitarianism – but not all the time. For the most part, there are only two people involved in a sexual relationship, making a democracy an unworkable proposition, unless you do some kind of ‘your turn, then my turn’ tit for tat mutual stimulation, which while fair, is a goddamn dull proposition 2.5 times a week.
Sometimes I like to be in control – and am not averse to using mutually agreed upon ‘violence’ to get what I want.
But as long as I get to chose the film, club or where we spend our holidays every now and again, then I’m happy to let Thomas have his way with me in a sort of Benign Dictatorship set-up and have him order me around in the bedroom. Bliss.
In everyday matters, an equal distribution of power is surely the only way to have things – but in the fantasy world of the bedroom, well, that’s a very different matter entirely.