Usually denial is a means of protracting the submissive’s excitement. (In a reverse behavior the submissive is sometimes ordered to climax repeatedly—either autoerotically or with the dominant lending a hand and possibly a vibrator; this activity is sometimes called milking when it refers to men, in reference to the obvious similarity in draining a cow’s udder.) A submissive may be denied orgasm either as a method of psychological control or, sometimes, as a form of punishment. For some submissives being forced to contain sexual impulses for hours, days, or longer can in itself be a delicious exercise in anticipation; for others, it’s simply punishment.
Although we have not spoken with anyone who regularly engages in denial scenarios, some professional dominatrices advertise that they require their submissives to have all their orgasms controlled in this way.
Some control over orgasms is common among D&Sers, though most dominants seem not only to be lenient with permission but may perceive it as a point of pride to be able to excite the submissive to transcendent, earth-shattering orgasms. Still, most dominants do claim the prerogative of determining when and under what circumstances the submissive may climax.
Some couples practice other types of denial. Privileges, for example, may be revoked in the case where a submissive has engaged in willful disobedience, and some dominants, while training a submissive, may keep rewards of all sorts—including pain or bondage—to a minimum until the submissive seems appropriately humble.
Denial, like all other D&S scenarios, demands clear communication and a certainty that both partners agree that they are getting what they want out of the experience. One submissive whom we interviewed reported that her dominant tried to train her by consistently denying her permission to visit with him, claiming that her reward for remaining passive would ultimately be to earn the privilege of spending more time with him. She had never expressed any interest in this denial scenario and was instead distressed by what she perceived as cat-and-mouse play. Finally, she decided that spending any time with someone so insensitive to her needs would be no privilege.
INTERVIEWS
MASTER CHRIS
I’m both dominant and submissive, but predominantly dominant—that’s what I fall back to more often than not. I’m dominant both outside my sex life and certainly in my sex life. I’m not a particularly aggressive personality, but control may be an issue for me. When I’m being dominant, all of the attributes that I need to be successful at being dominant and making the whole thing work enter into play, like listening more intently than you would in a normal relationship and making sure that you’re taking care not just of your own needs but of the needs of the submissive. That kind of attitude has carried over into my daily life. For example, when I’m working with an employee of mine, I see not just what I need but what the employee needs. It carries over to the way I behave in other relationships. Not that I have to be aggressive or in control, but I extend myself in much the same way that I do while dominant.
I’ve had several relationships outside of my marriage which have been strictly D&S in nature. It’s something that interests me a lot and something that I enjoyed before my marriage and something that is still very much of interest to me. For the [few] times that I have gone outside of my marriage, it has been uniquely for that kind of relationship. My wife knows which way I lean. She just doesn’t know that I’ve gone outside of our relationship to act out. One or two of these relationships have been long, and a couple were short-term.
From time to time I’ll switch-hit and play the submissive, which can be fun. My wife enjoys being submissive from time to time, but we don’t have a master-slave relationship. It doesn’t play a full-time part in my marriage, although I’m a dominant personality generally. I like being in control. I’ve been this way since I was a kid. My parents never spanked us, aside from a single smack across the seat to have us wake up or something. Corporal punishment was not part of our family. But you know how when you’re prepubescent and start playing doctor around the age of 10 or so? When I started playing doctor, it was all tied up in having someone turned over my knee and getting spanked. Or I’d be the doctor and they’d be the patient.
The thing that turns me on most about this whole experience is the anticipation of the moment. I don’t have a particular urge to make someone wear a blindfold or any particular garment. But when a girl puts on a blindfold, or even when I’m being submissive and I put on a blindfold, it’s like all of one’s senses heighten about 2000 percent. And the tension rises about 100 percent.
One of the things that’s a turn-on—and which I’ve both done a few times and had done to me—is to have a woman bound and unable to remove her blindfold in, say, a hotel room. And then to leave the room for a few minutes. Not a long time, just a few minutes. Then I come back, but I don’t say anything. You can imagine the sensation for her. I’ve done the same in the submissive role, where a woman leaves the room and then comes back to find me like that. You know that it’s your partner coming back, but you really don’t know for sure. You trust her absolutely, otherwise you would have never let her tie you up in the first place. On the other hand it allows your imagination to wander … maybe they came in with a friend? There’s that unknown: It’s a powerful rush. And then being touched for the first moment or touching a woman … watching a woman gasp, or tremble … it’s more and more exciting. Of course, for some people that’s just scary. So with such a person you can’t play such a game. For them it’s a turn-off, so you wouldn’t do it.
I also like giving a woman a hand spanking over my knees. I like the idea of having her stand with her nose in the corner after that, knowing that that’s kind of embarrassing, because it’s childish to be treated like a naughty girl. And I’m very anally oriented. I’ll spend a long time with a girl, giving her an anal exam.
One of the images that gets to me the most is when I had a relationship with a woman and arranged to meet her—both of us were from out of town—at a hotel. She called to say she was on her way over, and I said fine and I gave her a series of instructions. She was instructed to go to the hotel where the room key would be waiting for her. I would not be in the room when she arrived. I told her to take off all her clothes and get into [a] position I described. I remember … she had to do that by a particular time, exactly 4:00. I then arrived about 4:10, knowing that she had been waiting in that position for me for those 10 minutes.
I remember opening the door to the room. The first thing I could see as I opened the door to the hotel room was the end of the bed, and I could see her feet sticking just off the end of the bed, and then I could see her ass. And then I walked in, and as I did, it was clear that she was completely naked. Absolutely open … and vulnerable. And she had done that not knowing who would really enter the room, because she was blindfolded. So I walked in and you could have cut the tension with a knife. I stroked her and touched her and pinched her ass and touched her pussy, and then I said, “How’re you doing,” and she just went “Ahhhhhh, it’s you!” I hold that moment in my mind. That was probably the biggest turn-on, knowing that she was completely vulnerable and that she was submitting to me while knowing that it might not be me … she was submitting to the idea of me.
ANNE
I’m sexually submissive in my personal life with my husband. I can’t imagine getting tired of [the power exchange], because everything always changes; the only thing that’s not different is that he’s the master. Underlying everything is the fact that I would do anything that he tells me to. I’m happy with it. I know I’m very valuable to him. I have a strong sense of self-worth. My husband and I have discussed the difference between our relationship and others’. We look around and think we’re happier in our relationship than most. We’ve never had periods of time where we weren’t talking to each other. We’ve never had any really big fights. I’m not talking about squabbles over priorities for money and stuff that everyone has, but we’ve never had any serious disagreements in all these years.
I seriously think that our relationship eliminates the struggle for power. We’re both very comfortable with our roles with each other. I like myself. I look back on my life, and it’s been very happy. I’ve done a lot of interesting things. I’ve raised three children. My grown daughter is successful and happy; I have two young boys at home, and they’re really nice little kids. My daughter understands the relationship between my husband and myself, but not in detail—it’s not her business. My sons say, “Ah, Poppa and Mommy are at it again.” It’s a very natural thing. Again, it’s not that my husband says, “Come here, honey, I’m gonna punish you,”—no, no! But I can be in the kitchen cooking, and he’ll come in and start fooling around.
The only time that anything ever happened that caused me to question [this openness] was once when the kids suddenly walked in on us. We thought they were outdoors. I was over my husband’s lap, and he was spanking me. But nobody panicked. The boys asked, “What are you doing to Mommy!?” They were 6 and 10 years old. I had my underpants on, but my pants were down around my ankles. It was almost funny. My husband was very natural—to him this is the normal way to live. He said, “I’m spanking Mommy.” And they said, “How come you can spank Mommy and we can’t?” He said, “ ’Cause, I’m the boss.” Then he explained: “When I’m home, I’m the boss; when Mommy’s the only one home, Mommy’s your boss.” They wanted to know, “How come you can spank Mommy if she’s the boss?” So he explained, “Because I’m Mommy’s boss, and Mommy is your boss.”
We [established] a chain of command, and that was all there was to it. No big hysterical fuss, no cover-up. Since then, any time that they’ve caught any ends of anything, it’s always “Oh, this is Mommy and Poppa fooling around, and it’s no big deal ’cause obviously all mommies and poppies must fool around.” I’d rather see them with that attitude than the attitude that mommies and poppas never kiss or mommies and poppas never fool around. They hear a lot of giggling and laughing; they see a lot of affection. So I don’t see anything wrong. They’re nice, well adjusted, happy little kids who fight all the time.
I remember when we first became aware of our interests. We watched Story of O, and I expressed curiosity in being tied up. He tied me up, blindfolded me, and we had intercourse that way. I found it tremendously exciting, extremely erotic. It was very intense. Understanding [about D&S], understanding the motivations, [has] improved it for us. It made me more willing to let myself be pushed farther. For my husband it was a revelation to understand why he enjoys what he’s doing with me and why he didn’t enjoy other relationships. Nobody’s ever responded to him the way I do.
I like being embarrassed, not humiliated; there’s a difference. He’ll surreptitiously touch me; he knows nobody else sees it. But I’m sure everybody else is watching us—whether they are or not, it doesn’t matter! For example, we have a country home. There’s nobody around for miles. We have a huge skylight over our bed, and he’ll swing the skylight open and stand up and announce, “Okay, satellites, get your spy beams out now; here she is, lying here naked!” Now, there’s nobody for five million miles out there, but I’m still embarrassed. You can just see my whole body turning red.
In my relationships in the past I was always submissive. I had a strange life. I was not a quiet child. I was one of those nasty little girls who used to tie up her dolls and hang them. Possibly someone who has more insight than I would say that I was expressing what I wanted done to myself.
I’m intellectually aggressive. But there’s always been this submissiveness in personal relationships with men. I did the regular dating thing. Your typical nice little Jewish girl. I joined Mensa Teens and went out with boys who were in Mensa Teens, but I also had a completely separate life. I started an odd relationship with a man which lasted from the time I was 13 until I turned 18. It was not a sexual relationship. I was a virgin, and we never had sex. There was a very strong element of sexuality in the relationship, possibly even more so because there was never any intercourse. Looking back, it was a very peculiar but definitely [a] D&S relationship. He told me what he wanted me to do, and I did it, and I was very happy.
When I met my husband I was a guest at his roommate’s party. I’d come there with a date. When I saw my husband, I remarked to the man I was with, “This is the person I’ve been looking for.” My husband told me later that he said the exact same thing to his roommate about me. A week later I was at their house again; we talked all evening and finally went to bed together. In the morning he said, “You know you’re not leaving. You understand you belong to me,” and I said, “Yes,” and that was it. And now it’s 22 years later. It wasn’t just exciting—it was that we both knew that we were the right person for each other.
In my professional life I’m not submissive. I figure out what people’s problems are and tell them what to do about them. I supervise large businesses where I’m the only woman. But I find being personally submissive works very well in controlling people who I have to work with. I’m quietly assertive as opposed to aggressive. I don’t get any satisfaction from forcing my way. I find that if I compromise, I can get things so that they’re usually satisfactory. I’ll find a way around rather than straight through. I have a horror of confrontational relationships. I’m not a yeller or a screamer.
While I like ritual, [my husband] doesn’t, so a spanking is unpredictable: It could be anywhere or any time. I might bend over to change the channel on TV, and he’ll grab me and put me over his knee or over a chair, as the mood strikes him. I like being spanked. I find it very exciting. I can come to orgasm just from being spanked. And he likes to use his hand.
He’s also got an original approach to elevators. If there are cameras in elevators, we must be on videotapes all over the country, because as soon as an elevator door closes, he goes wild. He’ll reach his hands under my clothes, or he’ll expose himself to me, so that I’ll screech and tell him to cover himself. If it’s a long elevator ride and the place is isolated, he’ll have me give him a blow job. I know the police and [the] FBI are going to break in at any moment! We’ve even been caught once or twice! The responses were amusing, too. They were: “I don’t believe I saw what I just saw.” I’ve been embarrassed but never upset. I was more concerned that my husband was pleased.
LANCE
[I’m] primarily heterosexual. In terms of S&M, I’m primarily a bottom. I consider it quite important in my life. Your sexuality tends to permeate many parts of your life. But [it can’t] dominate your life. [In a marriage], other factors enter into one’s life. [There are] business and family relationships where the S&M relationship doesn’t have any bearing at all. These are roles that one chooses to play at one’s leisure or at times [when] opportunity [permits]. One doesn’t volunteer for a spanking during a board meeting.
I think [S&M] had a positive effect on my life. It’s been a way to express love for a person that is much deeper [and] allows much more room for development than the typical man-wife sexual relationship. I think it creates a deep bond of trust and understanding and gets into your head a lot more than other types of sex play may bring, certainly to me. It’s meant a lot to us in our relationship.
My interests are extremely eclectic. I fly airplanes; I’m a sports nut, but I’m also a concertgoer and a ballet lover. I’m very liberal in my politics, very conservative in economics; I’m [increasingly] for the underdog, because I belong to a community of people who are underdogs. I don’t know that all of that is a result of S&M. [But] the involvement in a minority community helps me identify with other minority communities.
I really don’t see that big of a connection [between sexual power and daily power], because 99 percent of the S&M that you see or visualize is play. I think you see that more in people who display their power in an awful and an ugly way because they can’t express or are unaware that they have [S&M] interests. I think the tyrannical boss in the office place is a misplaced character; the doormat personality is a misplaced bottom. These people have no other outlets, so th
ey live it. Dominance and submission within S&M are chosen and accepted roles. Powerlessness or powerfulness in life are not chosen roles.
My wife and I enjoy power play. Fantasy roleplaying is very important. We like forced scenes where the bottom is forced to do something humiliating. Spanking [may] play a part as a statement of authority; over-the-knee spanking is a big thing. But [the] situation may [also] involve some forced cross-dressing or the use of diapers.
I think S&M [which] doesn’t necessarily lead to an orgasm to be an enormously powerful and fulfilling experience. I don’t think it’s foreplay; I think it’s another way to love. I can certainly engage in vanilla sex and enjoy the hell out of it, but I can also enjoy the hell out of S&M. I think it’s just another choice. It’s rather funny that all the sex-research books in the ’60s said you can do anything that you want—as long as it ends in intercourse, then it [is] normal. I think a lot of people still use that as a backup.
I started fantasizing about this sort of thing when I was a little kid. Going to a Catholic school and going through all that ritual also had certain aspects that I found exciting. There was plenty [of corporal punishment] at home, but there wasn’t any in the school. The nuns were intimidating enough without it! [I grew] up in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Pornography was not generally available. The first pornographic [S&M] literature I can recall reading was in a magazine called Bizarre. That seemed so disconnected from the reality of everyday life, that I didn’t connect.
[In my teens] I found myself turned on by the thought of a woman or a girlfriend spanking me. I never had the guts to ask one of them to do it. I was real embarrassed to talk about it with anybody. In fact, they were always asking me to do it to them! Much to my chagrin! I had a couple of girlfriends in high school who absolutely loved to get spanked [at] a drive-in or something. It was exciting, but I wanted to be where they were.
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