Comments

1
The aunt doesn't seem sex-negative, or that she wants to put the girl in an "ivory tower." There are red flags all over the niece's situation and I'd be worried too. The therapist's advice about creating a strong, honest relationship so she can support her niece is a lot more helpful than "butt out, you obsessed prude."
2
Yeah, I dont think it's wrong to have concern over a family member's participation in all encompassing lifestyle involving a full financial/caretaking submission to one or many people out of state. What to "do" and not do and where to set boundaries is much more important.

+1 to @1.
3
I'm with #1 here. LW doesn't seem worried about her niece's choice of the type of sex she has, but only about her physical and mental well being. if LW is willing to let her niece make her own choices without shaming her while providing a supportive, open, communicative living environment (which it seems she is), I think that she should get involved and talk to her niece. Niece may be a legal adult, but that doesn't mean she's making the best choices for herself. Parenting doesn't stop at 18.
4
I'm very kinky, but I think any sort of 24/7 is a terrible idea. I don't know of any 24/7 kink situation that didn't end badly.

Assuming that the description in the letter ("she can't talk, think, earn money, make decisions independent of her 'master'") is accurate, does Matisse really think that's a healthy relationship, especially for a young adult?
5
Actually, Mistress Matisse seems to be going too far to the other extreme by saying "butt out it's none of your business." What the aunt lays out some disturbing patterns: depression, lack of motivation in school, drug use, stealing from her parents, etc. Furthermore, the fact that her screen name is similar to her regular email is reckless and another sign this person is on a self destructive path.

I will grant that the aunt seems more freaked out by the kink than the other reckless behavior, but reckless people with self esteem issues are the most vulnerable to being exploited by abusive assholes using kink to "justify" abusive behavior

Matisse, re-visit this letter and offer some constructive advice on HOW to have a HEALTHY master/slave relationship: safe-words, boundaries, warning signs of abuse, etc.
6
^ What @5 said.
7
I agree with the comments so far, LW is clearly more concerned about the fact that niece is taking full financial/life decision/etc orders from some person out of state, which frankly I also find deeply concerning.

Frankly, Matisse, I think you've completely missed the point in your haste to criticize the aunt for potentially not liking BDSM. Bad response.
8
Yeah, this response is pretty severe considering all the context in the letter. Sure, she's a big girl now and responsible for her own life, but I'd be similarly concerned. And concerned doesn't mean "controlling." BTW, I don't think that Tinder is much better. It's basically an app whose function is to objectify its users.
9
@4, my 24/7 D/s relationship has lasted more than 20 years. All things end eventually, but I doubt our marriage will end badly. And I know quite a few others in the same situation.
10
Matisse, you have no children of your own so spare us the lectures. Not every action a teenager wants to do should be supported and embraced. Parents are there for guidance, not just room and board. This young woman appears to be acting out, acting up, and acting like a spoiled brat loose cannon. She appears to be exhibiting nothing in the way of good judgement. It ain't the kinky sex, it's the "in your face" attitude and disregard for privacy and personal safety, all on a backdrop of no experience. 24/7 slavery of an 18 y.o. and your answer is "sure, go ahead!"? Matisse, stick with cats!
11
Why doesn't it surprise me that Matisse offered an unbelievably unhelpful response to this letter?
12
If the niece has shown a history of poor decision-making and self esteem issues before - bad choice in friends, risky behaviors, drug use, etc. - then YES, the aunt is justified in being worried that her niece's poor choices may be carrying over to her new relationships in dangerous ways. There's a world of difference between kink-shaming and "I worry you're setting yourself up for an abusive relationship and I know you don't have the emotional resources to get yourself back out." Healthy BDSM relationships require participants to have other social outlets as well - other friends and family and activities which don't revolve around sex or D/S dynamics. If the niece doesn't have that, it's a problem and something the aunt should try to help address.
13
Also, I agree with Mistress Matisse -- the depression is a bigger red flag than the fantasy submission to a 22 y/o guy in another state. I would try to spend time with your niece, and talk with her about her life like an involved adult. If she wants to come live with you, talk about your house rules. But mostly just try to listen to her rather than telling her what to do.
14
@1: /thread
15
What specifically has this 18 year old girl done that most don't do? She sounds normal to me.
16
More or less what @1, @2, and others said, but I'll add this. Navigating the dynamics of any relationship is tricky. Navigating the dynamics of a long-distance 24/7 D/S relationship? I don't blame the aunt for being nervous. And merely being loving and supportive? Helpful emotionally, but not helpful in any practical terms.

Seems to me like the niece could use a female friend who's been in D/S relationships, not just a supportive aunt. Or maybe a penpal, like EricaP?
17
Matisse and the therapist nailed it. LW's reaction is hysterical, unjustified, and will cause more damage than good.

First, LW completely pathologizes the niece for symptoms that are experienced by every adolescent who's the least bit quirky.

Second, she incorrectly sees BDSM as subjugation of her niece's will rather than the emergence of it.

Third, based on BDSM alone, she's "terrified she's going to end up physically and psychologically damaged, or even killed by some sociopath". Why? Where's the science showing that kinky guys are more harmful than your average vanilla douchebag?

It doesn't even occur to LW how invalidating it would be for her to swoop in and "save" the niece from her kink. If LW wants to be a positive force in her niece's life, she needs to figure out how to be a supportive and loving role model who is worthy of her niece's trust and honesty. Right now, she's acting like a hysterical judgmental busybody who's worthy of neither.
18
@EricaP: What specifically has this 18 year old girl done that most don't do?

She's tried drugs! She's had flaky friends! She's felt a lack of motivation in school! Scaaaarrryy!

It's only a matter of time before she rides off on the back of some gum-snapping hooligan's virtual long-distance motorcycle.
19
"Butt out, this girl's choices are none of your business" is only reasonable advice if the girl lives on her own and can support herself. If she's still dependant on her parents then sorry, she's not a grown-up yet, and to expect her parents/aunt to just throw up their hands and let her do whatever self-destructive bullshit she wants is ridiculous. The aunt doesn't seem at all sexually judgy to me, and she asked for ADVICE, not dismissive name calling. Terribly lame response Matisse.
20
I'm with Mattise and Seandr on this one. Even if she is "concerned" the only thing she can do--and should do anyway--is be a supportive and non-judgmental listener, and to give advice when asked. The pathologization is what some of us find so disturbing.
21
Sorry Matisse, you're wrong.
22
Hey, when did Ron Jeremy ever look like that?>>>>>>>>>>>>

I was so creeped out by the letter at first, because I thought the LW was her uncle (ewwww).

23
Ooops and now he's gone.
24
It's interesting that if the LW had been a boyfriend or an ex, most of the comments would probably have been "How dare he snoop and stalk her like that, she should DTMFA! But surely her aunt can't be creepy and violate her niece's boundaries, and she's just looking out for her niece to protect her. Won't someone please think about the childrenz?"

Good advice, Matisse.
25
I think that Mistress Matisse has certain blinders on in her situation that her therapist friend CERTAINLY should have caught. When one works as a paid dominatrix, ultimately the control is not total. The submissive always has the choice of simply stopping the ongoing payment, at which point the dominatrix will vanish from his life. There is an automatic emergency brake built in. This situation is playing by lifestyle rules, not paid BDSM rules, and those rules are pretty damn clear, at least in the IRL BDSM scene. There's nothing wrong with the type of 24x7 lifestyle the LW describes. But it's the BDSM equivalent of marriage, and not something an 18-year-old should jump into with some stranger she's never met who lives far away from her. Her aunt should encourage her to go to local munches and meet real, experienced dominants and submissives and talk to them. If she has the support and advice of her local BDSM community, she will realize that her recent behavior is the BDSM equivalent of being a mail-order bride.

Likewise, if her "Master" is controlling her money as the LW says, that is a big red flag. Again, that does happen in total power exchange BSDM relationships, but it's not something to be entered into lightly. She might have simply fallen in with some con men who are primarily out to steal her money.
26
I'm torn on this one. I quite agree with Mistress Matisse that the long-distance BDSMer the niece is involved with has no reason to be more of a sociopath than a vanilla boy. But the way the relationship is described, it could very well be abusive - the boyfriend is pretty young too, and may not know how to do BDSM the ethical way. And if moving to the aunt's is the first step to disappearing with the boyfriend, that's worrying.

So before moving, I think LW should have a heart to heart with the niece. House rules are a given, but disclosing what she knows about the niece's online activities should also be important, so that everything is clear and settled. I'd add to the conversation the advice by Marrena, for the niece to be expected to get involved with the local BDSM community : the niece needs to learn firsthand from experienced practitionners what is safe and what isn't, and progress by herself from there.

The niece needs to have a safe place from which to explore her kinks, in order to grow more confident and make a good head start in life. The aunt can provide that better than the mother, but the niece has to be told the conditions of her staying at the aunt's before she makes the decision to go there : house rules, no snooping, but expectations of her getting to know the local BDSM community.
27
I expected a little more than butt out of her sex life. Drugs, stealing, and the other dependent behaviors are a problem. If the mother and aunt are supporting her basic needs, and she's choosing to accept their support, the basic contract is that she also accepts their guidance so that she can learn independence. Drugs and stealing should result in her support being cut back, and career successes (applying for jobs, applying to schools, getting admitted/hired, advancing) should be rewarded.

Informational sex and relationship talks are part of parenthood. Scarleteen.com is a great resource to give her. She needs a safety talk about her username/email similarity and a talk about privacy and keeping her sex life private, and she may need some more information about healthy relationships. I also think that some rules like no sex under this roof while you live here can be appropriate. Or no marriage or children while you live here. Maybe meeting any guy she would stay out all night with. Meeting her boyfriends and commenting on their behaviors is a great way to offer some feedback. And they are certainly free to talk about the benefits of being financially independent and taking a slower approach to dating. Ultimately, if she wants a dependent relationship, nothing will stop her from being a full time live in slave. But her parents can give her tools to make an informed, risk aware choice.
28
Frankly, I'd be more concerned about the 24/7 dom if he wasn't long distance. A long distance dom can't easily control your whole life. A long distance dom gives you the positive emotional sense of having a dom combined with the reality of having whole areas of your life that you don't need to share.

I'm with Matisse, the therapist, Erica & Seandr. Nothing to worry about here. If you can talk adult to adult about safe, sane & consensual approaches to relationship (all teens in all relationships need this, not just bdsm), then have a short, simple convo and leave a nonjudgmental door open. If you can't, then butt out.
29
@Seandr
"LW completely pathologizes the niece for symptoms that are experienced by every adolescent who's the least bit quirky"

Yes these are things experienced by many teens that most eventually grow out of, but it doesn't sound like she's clearly demonstrated to have grown out of these things yet. And its because of the underdeveloped judgement that spurs on these normal teen activities that teens should usually be discouraged from making major life changing decisions.

And while BDSM activity is perfectly safe and acceptable, its also something should be approached slowly in order to understand personal boundaries. Jumping full on into a 24/7 scenario with little to no prior experience is just as stupid as people in BDSM saying they have no boundaries or don't want to use safe words.
30
Frankly, an unstable adolescent who has a long-distance dom who she has never met, yet who is her "master" 24/7 and controls her money, sounds like a dangerous situation to me. I would worry too if she were my family. If that makes me "sex-negative", then so be it.
31
The dude could probably give his niece some Digital Safety 101 advice (unique usernames for each site, don't put certain info up) as that would probably be the most pressing safety issue.

I agree that the niece is probably enjoying winding her family up a bit by being so in your face about it, and she's being so extreme in her stated preferences (24/7 etc) again because she likes the reaction, but also because she's young and inexperienced and, well, go big or go home.
32
I'm a bit concerned that both MM and KK ignored the part of the letter where the aunt expressed concern over a niece with low self-esteem issues suddenly being interested in living a "no esteem" lifestyle. BDSM and especially master-slave type relationships really require a high level of self esteem and ego from the "submissive" in order for it to be really healthy, IMO.
33
Agreed with the peanut gallery. A swing and a miss.
34
@9: Just as I feel weird with people rushing into marriage at a young age, someone rushing into a 24/7 all encompassing submissive role long distance would set off a few flags of concern. Just because it works for you doesn't mean it's a good idea for every person at every point in life.
35
I'm of two minds on this. We have here a situation where a legal adult has a mom who goes through her things and an aunt stalks this young woman online; both of whom talk behind the young woman's back. This is creepy as hell and if the young woman is taking her mom's things, one might wonder where she learned to have crappy boundaries, no?

And frankly, if your loved ones are making bad relationship decisions, there's really only so much you can do. They're going to do what they're going to do... the only thing that will change is whether or not they tell you about it. She already didn't, so the niece in question obviously doesn't think her family will listen and reserve judgment. And she's right.

THAT SAID... Hooo boy. young girls just getting into this stuff, at least in my region, are often sought out for not knowing the rules and being gullible by the unscrupulous. It would be good if someone in the know could watch her back. The aunt is clearly not that person.
36
Matisse's response sounds like a GOP parody of mindless extreme liberalism. Kink was clearly NOT the aunt's concern: she compared the niece's subjugation to a cult. The niece is legally a grownup, but the family shouldn't support this type of self-destructive relationship - morally or financially.
37
Reading someone's public, very identifiable dating profile is not cyber-stalking any more than googling someone is cyber-stalking them. If you don't want your mom to read about your sex life on fetlife, don't make a profile with your face on it where you talk about your sex life. A troubled 18-year-old is an extremely vulnerable 18-year-old when it comes to the kink scene and I would be really worried about this one if I were her relative.
38
Mleh. All the red flags are mitigated by the fact that it's super long distance. Assuming she's engaging in a dom/sub relationship that controls all aspects of her life (and that's not just the presumption of the aunt and mother), she has the convenience of breaking it off whenever she wants--or following it as strictly as she wants. I don't mean to disenfranchise online relationships, but let's be clear here--they're a lot easier to wriggle out of than any other kind of relationship. This sounds like silly, perhaps over-the-top-for-the-sake-of-rebellion exploration of a kink, and she should be allowed to explore and fuck up and figure shit out as long as she's not walking into the jaws of danger. I'm with the Mistress here--back off, auntie.
39
If LW is going to be taking a parental role of the niece for the summer, it might be appropriate for one of the conditions of that to be therapy sessions for the niece, if she's still having problems. Niece could be the one who was mostly in charge of picking the therapist, with LW pretty much getting to check that it's a real therapist and then butting out. LW could maybe also drop a "I heard some stuff about your personal life from your mom. I don't judge you, and it's not my place to force you to talk about it with me, but when you're looking for a therapist, I think you should make sure the therapist you pick is sex positive? Everything can be done in a healthy or an unhealthy way, and if someone's spending their time criticizing you for what you're into, that's going to be really terrible."

Then, LW should let her work it out with her therapist. Her relationship might be unhealthy and it might not, and if it is unhealthy, it might be unhealthy to a worrying degree or it might just be one of those commonplace shitty relationships people have when they're young and still figuring out what they want. But it'll be best for her to go through that with a professional who's seen different types of relationships before, and knows what makes those types of relationships healthy or unhealthy.
40
@38
All the red flags are mitigated by the fact that it's super long distance.


If Mr. unknown long distance dom has the logins to her financial institutions, then maybe not.
41
At the very least, this girl ought to be informed that her kink profile is too easy to link to her regular identity. Doing a poor job of separating your online sex life from your true identity can cause potential employers to reject you, and she needs to start covering her tracks better before she embarks on her career.

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