Pleasure, D/s and BDSM

We are all pleasure seekers. Everyone wants to experience as many happy moments as possible. That hedonistic devil on our shoulder is constantly pushing us to chase the next high, the next orgasm, the next warm fuzzy feeling in our chest. But what is pleasurable for me, might be a turn off for others. And I think that is especially true for relationships that have a D/s component because there are a lot of different roles and constellations and the focus on kink is much stronger than it would be in vanilla connections.

Pleasure is about needs being met. You have a certain hedonistic need, and when someone or something can meet that need, you experience an explosion of positive emotions and physical reactions. Everyone tries to get their specific needs met every day: with the food that we eat, with the sort of art, culture and media we consume, through sex and other physical exercise, through socializing and alone time. Relationship needs, the things that bring people pleasure, are different for different people.

My Needs

I am quite aware of my needs, and what brings me pleasure. That is the reason why I am in a D/s relationship. What brings me pleasure lies in my submission to a person I respect as my Dominant. It gives me pleasure to please, and to get acknowledged for my efforts. And that of course also translates into the bedroom, where I want to be used, tortured and I want to experience that I am a good submissive.

Pleasure in D/s

I am sure that a lot of people wonder what could be pleasurable about being the submissive in a D/s relationship. I think from the outside it can look a bit like you are only there to please the Dominant and that what you do is hard work. But knowing that you have pleased someone else, and get the acknowledgment for doing it right, can bring just as much pleasure as someone doing an act of service for you. Imagine, you are cooking a meal for you and your friends, and everyone is complimenting you on your culinary skills. Or even more basic: you had a good grade in school and you came home and told you mother about it, and you could see in her eyes how proud she was of you and she told you that you have done well. That is the sort of feeling that a submissive is after and that brings pleasure to a submissive.

A D/s relationship is built around pleasure. All partners in the relationship want to have their needs met, and want to do their best to meet the other person’s needs. It is really like any other relationship, where the happiness of everyone involved should be considered. But as I said earlier, what brings you happiness and pleasure is subjective and individual. In a D/s relationship, the submissive derives pleasure from pleasing the Dominant, and from being controlled and taken care of by the Dominant. A Dominant, on the other hand, gets pleasure from having control over another person, from the trust they have been given and from the obedience they are receiving.

It takes work to receive and give pleasure in a D/s relationship. And it is not the sort of instant hedonistic pleasure I talked about earlier. It is a pleasure you have to work for. It is related to growth, communication and accountability. The reward for being responsible in the role you have accepted to be in? Pleasure.

I personally get the most pleasure out of my relationship through receiving care, feeling safe, receiving attention and being acknowledged. The glitter bombs of pleasure in my brain go off when I hear “good girl”. And I don’t mean anyone saying it. But my Master saying that to me. That tiny phrase has not lost its power over me. It is both acknowledgment and attention that I get in that moment. I also feel pleasure and happiness when my Master takes care of me, when he actively cares for me. I feel loved, I feel prioritized, I feel like I matter. And being able to trust him, to feel safe? That is what helps me to breathe out, to even be able to experience pleasure in other ways.

But to receive all those things, I also need to give. Experiencing pleasure in my D/s relationship is a reward for me prioritizing my Master’s pleasure first and foremost. If I do what what he says (which gives him pleasure), he rewards me with something that pleases me. So while the power balance in a D/s relationship is different from what it looks like in vanilla connections, there is still responsibility for the other part’s happiness and pleasure on both sides.

Kinks and Sex – Pleasure in BDSM

Pleasure in the bedroom might seem like an easier topic, but yet again, it comes down to the individual and one’s personal kinks to determine what can be deemed pleasurable. And there are also different kinds of pleasures. Sure, it is nice to have an orgasm, but it is also great to feel another sort of, more submissive, mind pleasure. After all, there are things like orgasm denial or consensual non-consent, that don’t necessarily lead to an orgasm but are still pleasurable because you have pleased the Dominant.

D/s is often (but not necessarily) linked to BDSM. And even within the BDSM realm, there are so many kinks and fetishes, and so many different constellations of roles, that it is difficult to say what generally gives a submissive or a Dominant pleasure in the context of sex. But you could say that for most people (but not all), it is sexual arousal and orgasms that are the most pleasurable things to experience during play.

I could write down an extensive list (and oh boy would that list be extensive) of the things that turn me on in the bedroom. But really, it comes down to a few categories that can have many different expressions: power struggle, pain, humiliation/degradation, lack of control and being used. And all of those have different degrees of pleasure, and can also go into the unpleasant corner if they are used as punishment.

The power struggle has a lot do with my brattiness and the need to feel that the person I am playing with really is stronger than me, and worthy to submit to. With the right Dominant, it also tickles their mind, so it can be a real win-win situation. The most pleasurable moment for me is when I have “lost”, when I have been overpowered and I have been forced into the submissive place. That is the moment the glitter bombs have exploded, and I can breathe out and float in the happy space.

Pain can easily turn into pleasure for me when it has been built up slowly and then becomes more and more intense. That second when the pain turns into a very different sensation, when the tension and pain become arousal and pleasure, is the one place many masochists crave to visit as much as possible.

I also love being controlled in many different ways, might it be through orgasm denial, forced orgasms or being unable to move or to breathe unless the Dominant allows me to. For me it is a beautiful thing to know that I don’t have agency over my body, and that is belongs to someone else. I have a sort of similar feeling when it comes to being used. The submissive pleasure of being able to give your Master everything you have, for him to play with as he pleases? And then getting the “good girl”? Yes!

One sort of pleasure that many can not relate to is the one that I get from humiliation and degradation. It might seem like the opposite of pleasure. But just being minimized into something that is either not human, or doesn’t deserve respect, or someone whose only purpose is to be sexual and an object, is absolutely hot to me. And it also, yet again, sets off those glitter bombs in my mind: I please my Master, my Dominant, by leaving my self-respect and my human status by the door. He can define and mold me as he wants.

Pleasure can mean entirely different things to different people. It depends which specific role you have in your D/s relationship, and what kinks you are into in the bedroom. But I think it is still okay to generalize that what brings pleasure to submissives is when their submissive mindset gets activated and they get rewarded for their submissive behaviour. For Dominants, it is also about the mindset, and the pleasure of knowing that they are in control of someone, that they are being trusted and obeyed.