“I will do whatever I want to you, whenever I want to do it.”
For a lot of folks that is an insanely hot fantasy, while also provoking a lot of anxiety when they start thinking about the daily practicalities.
I mean, how sexy is it to know that you exist as a toy for your partner’s enjoyment? To get to go through life with the constant, background awareness that you are possessed. To get the experience of being taken and used, with genuinely no say about how or when.
At the same time, you’ve got a life, you know? You have responsibilities and needs of your own. Maybe you have a demanding job, and sometimes after a hard day you badly need time to decompress with some wine and a trashy novel. Maybe you have family who you need to spend time and attention taking care of sometimes. Maybe your mental or physical health is not always in a good place for certain kinds of use.
And sure you could power through and obey if your partner demands that you put your needs aside and submit to their needs instead, but how often and for how long before it stops being a positive experience?
I have a huge appetite for authority and control in my relationships. The dynamics that delight me most are ones where “I will do whatever I want to you, whenever I want to do it,” is the rule, and my partner comes to function more like property than like a person. So I’ve encountered this tension in my partners many times.
The way I’ve learned to explain it is that “whatever I want” includes taking care of my property.
Me having total authority to do whatever I want with someone doesn’t mean a life of me bending them over and fucking them immediately every single time my cock twitches. Because what I want includes maintaining my property well, seeing it flourish, and keeping it not just willing but excited to be used by me. So if you become truly and utterly helpless and subject to my every whim, what I’m going to do is work on figuring out ways to use you for my enjoyment that are good for you.
That isn’t just a limit or an inconvenient necessity to me. It’s an essential part of the romance and delight of power exchange. I love learning how a partner ticks: all the intimate, vulnerable little subtleties of their needs and their capabilities. And I find more satisfaction, fulfillment and pride in being able to own a person in a way that is good for them than I do in getting to indulge every momentary whim at all times.
For me, the main point of dominance is in where the authority lies. The point of taking control isn’t to be able to beat my partner into a bloody pulp beyond what they would have wanted. It’s that there is a deep and essential difference between limiting how hard I beat you because you have set a firm boundary that you are constantly, consciously monitoring and defending—and limiting how hard I beat you because I’ve learned how to read how much beating is good for you and I’m deciding not to push beyond that.
I want to push and challenge my partners, yeah. I want to use them in hard ways sometimes. I want to see them obey when obedience isn’t convenient. I want to prove to us both that they will suffer for me. But I want to do it with careful attention to ensuring that I’m not negatively affecting their life, or pushing them so often that submission turns from heartfelt devotion into drudgery.
I want my partners to relax their vigilance of their boundaries and accept my authority to do whatever I want to them not so that I can trample all over those boundaries, but so that I can take responsibility for them.
If you’re on a similar page, consider how clearly you’ve expressed the distinction to your partners, especially if you’re running up against anxiety about letting go of control. It may be obvious to you that having total control of how they dress doesn’t mean that you’ll make them strip in front of their boss, or keep them shivering naked every day for months on end—but it may be less obvious to them. Especially to the vigilant, reactive part of their mind that looks out for their safety.
Explain to them that doing whatever you want with them includes wanting to watch out for their wellbeing and ensure that you’re using them in a way that works for their submissive needs. Then show them, consistently, that you mean it; and see if their anxious resistance to surrendering control doesn’t soften.
If you’re in a power relationship, and want to explore deeper into your desires together, check out Power&Intimacy part one: Desire