Oh youth.

What I find most telling is that the LW says nothing about his 3-5 year old relationship outside of sex. No 'we have a Weimaraner we both love', no 'he is the most amazing baker', no 'he is so exhausted after work trips that I feel his being sub is a default and isn't even that erotically invested'. Just the sexual permutations laid out with the greatest clarity, in a spirit of pained, self-scourging honesty. This perhaps tells me that the LW does not want to be in an exclusive relationship with his bf long-term.

I would usually be someone who thinks there is (or can be) something hateful, self-hating or oppressive in tops' abjection of bottoms--a certain, implicitly violent insistence on, and policing of, a male gender norm. It's something I residually find hot and personally fear, too. But in this case, it manifestly (to me) isn't the case. The LW couldn't be more self-aware--despairingly self-aware. He isn't a good fit with his partner; but his domming of his partner is not contemptuous or punitive. He gets off on domming but isn't working something out. He is a dom top, as Dan said; his imagination and long-term pleasure as a person having sex are engaged, and will become more engaged, in this role and its prerogatives. There are people he can be happier with. His sex life can sail, happily, for further wild shores.

I'd like to hear more about this health concern for which bottoming is no problem, but douching is dangerous.

As a hetero sub, I want to back up Dan's point #4.

When you find someone you really click with kinkwise, the concern that you're somehow exploiting them doesn't go away magically right away. However, when you talk about it (honest communication even more of a big deal for kinksters, after all) you find that both of you feel like you're getting away with something. I feel like "he's working so hard, and I'm tied up down here just enjoying it and getting off!" and he feels like "I can't believe she gets off on getting tied up and hammered!" A good kink fit is amazing.

I don't think you're correct in dismissing PLEASED concern over the roots of his desire in dominance.

I'm in a similar boat. In bed, I'm pretty dominant. It's an easy, comfortable role to slip into. It's not beyond my imagination that this says something negative about me - the desire to dominate someone isn't part of my social repertoire, and when I spot it in other people, I assume it's to compensate. I also wonder if part of it because I get to inhabit another character - one who, however you judge him, isn't to be confused with me, the regular person, in my day-to-day. I think you've done a disservice by seeing only the specifics and not the greater narratives: Just because you're gay doesn't mean you don't need to have your masculinity affirmed or that you are somehow immune to "toxic masculinity" (barf). Me, growing up, I was small, very small, I graduated high school at 125 pounds, smaller than most girls. I got bullied and beaten frequently; my mom left for work before I woke up and went to bed immediately on returning home, we essentially just split an apartment but never saw each other. I was (am) shy and soft-spoken. I got ignored and forgotten frequently, I considered myself largely invisible. It doesn't seem unreasonable to think that my current desire to be the center of attention during sex is because I was everything but the center of attention as a kid. It could be arbitrary, I could have forced a linkage the way a psychic cold-reads people... but I think it's a bigger deal than you are giving credit for.

I write from the perspective of someone who enjoys incorporating D/s into relationships with s-type women.

Despite PLEASE's understanding of his dominant interests, it actually sounds like he has relatively little knowledge of BDSM, given the way he conflates his D/s interests with an M/s relationship structure or his apparent belief that people in D/s relationships don't engage in vanilla sex.

It might behoove PLEASE to do some reading about D/s relationships and to get out into his local kink community to get a deeper understanding, rather than focus on his fantasies.

Lastly, PLEASE might want to do some more exploring of his submissive side, because his own statements indicates that he might be more of a switch than a dominant.

@5, Sportlandia. I agree with you, looking at why a certain dynamic turns us on could unearth some life patterns we are compensating for. Linking past experience doesn't mean the kink necessarily loses its power and enjoyment, so I've not understood Dan's resistance to people seeking causes. Having insight into one's own erotic life can only be an empowering situation, as I see it.

Yes, as Cat in fez says @4, a good kink fit is amazing, but I think this guy is so focused on what he's missing that he's not leaving room in his fantasy for his future kinky partner to be a real person, with whom he might build intimacy.

I think it's entirely possible to find someone who will adore making him come and doing what he wants, giving blowjobs without reciprocation, while locked in chastity. But I think connection doesn't work if it's one-sided.

If PLEASE really doesn't care about teasing his chastity slave playfully, hurting him in ways the slave finds satisfying, noticing when the slave is stressed and needs affection rather than brutality -- then I think he'll have trouble building a solid long-term relationship.

I think it's sad when giving blowjobs is considered "submissive." Has PLEASED been watching the same porn as RAGING in the weekly thread? She may want to read this to see that some gay men, indeed, "take a dip in the degradation pool" in their approach to oral sex.

Harriet @2: I think PLEASED only mentioned his sex life because (1) it's the sexual aspect of the relationship that is causing issues, and (2) it's Dan, the sex advice columnist. Nobody - not Dan, not us - wants to read an entire biography of a 3.5 year relationship.

It sounds to me like PLEASED doesn't really know what he wants, which is understandable. There are SO many different aspects to D/s. Every sub he meets will have a different way of submitting, different desires, different boundaries. Will they mesh with PLEASED's? One thing I am rapidly learning is that "I'm dominant, you're submissive" is no more a guarantee of compatibility than "we're both gay" is.

The boyfriend definitely has to start douching, but besides that I don't see any glaring dealbreakers that can't be solved with compromise. Just from the letter I don't get a sense that talking about it has been fully explored...

As for the concerns finding someone else, well, a top (dom or not) in somewhat decent shape generally will have no problem finding whatever specific flavor of bottom he wants. It's a candy store out there for tops. I wish I knew this when I was younger and not putting myself out there enough because I needlessly worried about rejection.

@9. BiDanFan. He is monogamous by inclination and always assumed he would end up with the guy he's with now. But I can't read the letter as that of someone who's happy in his relationship with 'everything but the sex'. The couple not seeing eye to eye, and especially his bf not douching, indicates wider problems.

In general, I'd go further and say that I'd think there are very few specifically sexual problems in relationships. If the will is there, they can be worked out. What's the idea of GGG about, if not this? In this case, the LW enjoys subbing, but the thought of it doesn't fit at all well with his idea of his sexual personality. He and his partner would seem at a loss to come up with scenarios, probably of a D/s sort, that would satisfy them both. This may well be because they're coming to an end of their time together. There's no vigour or excitement or sense of curiosity for them in working out something new.

My reading of the spirit in which the letter's written is that it's asking Dan for permission to break up. At the same time, the LW is concerned he'll just encounter the same problems of feeling bored, or problems like he'll have to assume a burdensome alpha or master role, in whatever context comes next. No--it needn't always be burdensome; he can be a better personal and sexual fit with a partner than he is now; he can have thrilling, exploratory sex, and, who knows, thrilling, exploratory conversations too.

How clinical. I lost interest when I read the bf didn't prepare himself, and things got messy.
LW, fantasies are there for us to please ourselves. Mine, like yours, are about my pleasure being paramount. IRL, you have to negotiate with real people.
I agree with Dan, leave this guy. Then relax re finding guys to play as you do, or some approximation.

Harriet @ 12 - "In general, I'd go further and say that I'd think there are very few specifically sexual problems in relationships. If the will is there, they can be worked out. What's the idea of GGG about, if not this? I"

That is, assuming both partners actually want to be GGG. Which, IRL, is not often the case.

@5 all valid and he may want to unpack the root with a therapist, but Dan was pointing out that it likely won't change his kink and therefore the incompatibility with his current partner. Kinks are generally hard wired so he shouldn't beat himself up over it or delay the inevitable.

Regardless of why one is drawn to dominance or submission, if it feels right, go with it. Consent is required, of course. Everyone evolves. Don't worry about what you might be ten years from now, but also don't bring kids into the picture until you feel your relationship is solid.

Get real world feedback from a variety of people on FetLife.

There is nothing inherently feminine about being gay. This is a holdover from a culture best left behind. One can be totally masculine as a submissive.

@15. " kinks are generally hard wired," and your proof for this?

@17 Dan has talked about it before how what turns you on, a fetish, a kink, it sticks and there's no effective way to change it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_f… look at the "treatment " tab on wiki it confirms this.

I agree that it is rather sad that a plain vanilla sex act like giving a blow job is deemed inherently a submissive act. That thinking, which also extends to performing cunnilingus, seems rooted in a lack of understanding of dominance and submission, and how that dynamic can be incorporated into a sexual relationship.

That said, I don't think porn can be blamed for that thinking. Many people shared that view before the internet made video porn so widely available.

@14. Ricardo. But then is the mismatch primarily sexual?

So your bf is fine with you getting his shit on your dick? In fact he's insisting on it?!?
Yeah, no. DTMFDA!