Abusive Relationship Special Traps for Person-In-Charge Types: Doms and Masters are Big and Bad
Special Trap: Doms and Masters have to be big and bad. They have to save face. They have to manage their reputations. This means that a support group like MAsT, when it comes to the Masters’ Circle, will probably not be as open and as supportive the way that the slaves’ Circle is often supportive.
Plus, at least in my circle, most of the Masters were men, and even men who are not explicitly M-types do this kind of thing, because masculinity and dominance are so wrapped up in each other in our patriarchal culture. (This is what people mean by “toxic masculinity.”)
I spent so much time working to establish myself and prove myself in my MAsT chapter there was no room for me to be vulnerable.
What we can do: I’m glad there are feminist men working to dismantle patriarchy and eliminate toxic masculinity. But that is a really long-term project. I don’t think it’s reasonable to wait for that to happen.
Right now, one solution that might work is the buddy system: when that new Dom/Master/Owner/Person-In-Charge actually reaches out to you for mentoring or mutual support, take them up on it. View it as part of your service to the community to figure out ways to engage new M-types in conversations about what is going on for them, and actively build trust so that the relationship gives you something, too.
If you can’t stand the person, try to think of who they might click with, and introduce them. This prevents abuse by M-types as well: when you can talk about your ethics and values, and agree to hold one another accountable to those ethics and values, it is much easier to step in when someone is treating a submissive partner in unethical, abusive ways.
I found being semi-consistently shamed, blamed, and threatened by someone I loved and trusted to be extremely disorienting.
It’s tough to figure out if you are a horrible monster like your partner tells you, or if they are twisting reality and hurting you over and over. For years, I believed that I was just a fuck-up at relationships, especially the kind of relationship I was trying to have.
By the time another Person-In-Charge-type reached out to me, I was at the end of my rope, and I had all but forgotten what it was like to build trust with new friends.
I had years of putting almost all my energy into 1. making things “okay” for my submissive partner, and 2. never, ever, EVER saying anything that could possibly reflect negatively on our relationship (because my partner would get so upset with me).
I was not even sure how to talk about it anymore - what to say, what was okay, or how to figure that out.
Even now, many years after leaving this relationship, I am not sure how to approach the community I called home for over 5 years.
I spent so much time and energy engaged with the ideas of power exchange and authority transfer relationships, and later, I spent a great deal of time and energy engaged with ideas about personal boundaries and partner abuse.
Ultimately I want all of this thinking to be of use to my old community, even if I never do attempt to have a relationship like this again.
Special Traps
Your Personality Makes You The Dom
Experience Makes You Better
Reality Is What We Say It Is
You Are 100% Responsible
Happy Sub = Healthy Relationship













