D/s

What is D/s?

D/s (Dutch: dominantie en onderwerping) is the form of BDSM in which one person takes the lead and the other willingly hands it over. D/s is about power, not pain: no rope and no blow need come into it, and neither does sex. A D/s dynamic can last one evening or run on for years.

How a D/s dynamic works in practice

From the outside, D/s usually looks like nothing special. What sets it apart is who decides.

Take the smallest form, one evening. Beforehand two people agree what happens, what definitely does not happen and which word stops everything. After that, one of them makes the decisions. Where you sit, when you may do something, how you are addressed. The other no longer has to think anything up. At eleven it is over and they are back on the couch as two equal people, and maybe not a single object was ever involved.

The second form has no start and end time, and is therefore harder to spot. One arrangement runs through the ordinary week: who decides what is eaten in the evening, whether a message is sent before someone goes to bed. No scene, no room, no costume. Just a rule that stays in place when no one is watching. That is how almost every 24/7 dynamic begins.

That pain need not be part of it is not an opinion. The systematic review by De Neef and colleagues in Sexual Medicine cites Cross and Matheson: it is power that forms the core of BDSM interactions, and pain, bondage and humiliation are only means to create a difference in status together. In D/s, those tools stay in the cupboard.

Where the abbreviation D/s comes from

From a writing convention, and that explains the whole notation.

The encyclopedia entry on dominance and submission describes D/s as a set of behaviors, customs and rituals in which one person submits to another, in an erotic scene or as a way of life. Some people in that world write everything referring to the dominant side with a capital letter and everything referring to the submissive side with a lowercase letter. Hence the D and the s. Anyone who knows that convention reads a relationship in “D/s” right away, and not just an abbreviation.

The movement underneath it has its own name too. Power exchange, in that same entry, refers to empowering the dominant precisely because the submissive surrenders to their control. That is the core and at the same time the most misunderstood part: the power arises on the side that gives it away.

In practice that exchange runs in three steps, and they come in this order because the first one carries the other two.

1. Setting limits. Wishes, limits and conditions are discussed beforehand, including the word that stops everything. Without that frame the dominant side may do nothing.
2. Handing over. The submissive side gives up an agreed amount of decision-making room, for an evening or for a longer period.
3. Giving back. At the end that room comes back. That moment should be just as explicit as the beginning, and it is exactly the moment that gets skipped most often.

Why people want a D/s dynamic

Because it is a relief not to have to decide everything, or to be allowed to do exactly that.

The wish is not rare. Joyal, Cossette and Lapierre presented 1,516 adults with 55 fantasies and published it in The Journal of Sexual Medicine. Their conclusion on this subject is short: themes of submission and domination were common for both men and women, and they were also significantly correlated with each other. So anyone who feels both sides in themselves is not a curiosity but the rule.

What a D/s dynamic delivers has been studied per person involved. Hébert and Weaver interviewed nine dominants and twelve submissives and published it in The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality.

• For the submissive side the participants named one benefit that belongs only to their role: giving up control itself. The handing over, then, and not so much what follows it.
• For the dominant side three other things were on the list: control or power, reward, and confidence.
• For both sides together those interviewed named pleasure in the other’s pleasure, personal growth, better romantic relationships, community, psychological release, freedom from their weekday role, and being able to be yourself.

That people with this preference are no worse off psychologically has been measured separately. Wismeijer and Van Assen compared 902 BDSM practitioners with 434 others and found the first group less neurotic, more extraverted, more open to new experiences, more conscientious, less sensitive to rejection and with higher well-being, but also less agreeable. Their own summary: BDSM is better understood as a leisure activity than as the expression of a disorder. Note what that does not say: it is about who signs up for such a study, not about what the dynamic does to you.

From that same interview study comes the other side. Both roles named stigma, relationship problems and accepting your own desires as burdens. On top of that, dominants named more work and more responsibility, plus submissives who become possessive. Submissives named vulnerability, bad dominants, and the effort of following orders and accepting someone else’s decisions. So a D/s dynamic solves nothing that was not already off between two people.

How people actually do D/s

The most common form is the lightest: one arrangement, within one evening, and nothing set outside of it.

Alongside that there are variants that differ mainly in scope and tone. There is the form around service-oriented submission, in which the submissive side does something rather than undergoes something. There is the strict form, in which rules and correction carry the play and discipline is the tool. There is the caring form, in which steering and caring coincide, as with a Daddy Dom. And there is the ongoing form, in which the arrangement does not stop when the evening stops.

How thoroughly people talk about that depends on how long they have known each other. That last part has been measured. Tarleton, Mackenzie and Sagarin asked 202 BDSM practitioners how acceptable certain ways of arranging things are, and published it in Archives of Sexual Behavior. Their participants held on to strict agreements, but showed more flexibility in long-term relationships than in short-term ones. They also found thorough negotiation more important the riskier an activity is.

From that same study comes the sharpest difference between the careful and the sloppy way of doing it. Taking something away during a scene was found much more acceptable than adding something. And adding something was found more acceptable for the receiving side than for the giving one. So whoever is in the lead has the least room along the way to suggest anything more. Reason to put your own wishes on the table beforehand, for instance on a dom list.

Misconceptions about D/s

“D/s goes with pain.” No. The review by De Neef and colleagues puts power at the core and pain, bondage and humiliation as means you can use or leave. In D/s they are often left.

“D/s is the same as BDSM.” D/s is the D and the s from that abbreviation. The B and the D stand for bondage and discipline, the S and the M for sadism and masochism. They often occur together and they are different things.

“The dominant is the top.” Not that either. The encyclopedia is clear about it: top and bottom refer to the active and the passive role, and there is no requirement at all that the dominant is also the top or the submissive the bottom. You can hold the say-so without performing a single act.

“A D/s relationship is always sexual.” According to that same entry a D/s relationship can be sexual or non-sexual, long-term or short-term, intimate or anonymous. That is a broader field than most people expect.

“D/s is rare.” Holvoet and colleagues studied 1,027 people from the general Belgian population. Of them, 46.8 percent had at some point done at least one BDSM-related activity, 12.5 percent did so regularly, and 7.6 percent called themselves a BDSM practitioner.

What I see of it myself

I am Victor, gigolo, in the BDSM world since 1990 and with a background as a psychotherapist. D/s is the part most women who call me actually want to talk about, even when they start with a different word.

Almost everyone says a version of the same sentence: for one evening I do not want to be the one who arranges everything. There is no rope in that and no whip. No cage either. There is a calendar behind it, and four people who need something from someone.

After a few hundred conversations I dare to say this: the lighter the form, the bigger the effect. An arrangement about who talks when the waiter comes often does more than a whole scene.

And this is what I see come back every time. The handing over usually works. The giving back is the hard part. That is why I always say out loud when it is over, even when that sounds inelegant, because the way back needs as much attention as the way there. That giving back belongs to a BDSM date just as much as the scene itself.

What you can do yourself

• Start with what does not happen. Name your hard noes first, then everything left over after that is free, and you have to negotiate less along the way.
• Agree on one stop word that always holds, even outside a scene, and say out loud beforehand what happens the moment it falls.
• Put your own wishes on paper too if you are the one leading. Adding something along the way is least accepted from the giving side, so beforehand is the only good place.
• Choose one small rule instead of a big scenario: one arrangement about one thing, for one week. That is the mistake beginners make most often. They build a whole structure and keep it up for three days.
• Say out loud when it is over. End the arrangement as explicitly as you began it, and check afterward how the other person is doing; a drop often comes only days later.
• Talk more thoroughly the higher the risk. That is what experienced BDSM practitioners do themselves, and it is the cheapest insurance there is.

More reading about D/s

On this site the blog category on dominance is about how the two sides of power exchange feel in practice, and a dominant gigolo describes why the fantasy of handing over the lead is so stubborn. The role itself is at dominant, the longest form of this dynamic at 24/7.

Off this site the systematic review by De Neef and colleagues is the best starting point: free to read, and the only overview that lays the whole research literature on BDSM side by side. If you want to hear people themselves, dominants and submissives at Hébert and Weaver each say separately what their side delivers and what disappoints about it.

Sources

• Bondage-Discipline, Dominance-Submission and Sadomasochism (BDSM) From an Integrative Biopsychosocial Perspective: A Systematic Review. De Neef, Coppens, Huys & Morrens, Sexual Medicine 7(2), 129–144, 2019. Provides the claim by Cross and Matheson that power forms the core of BDSM interactions and that pain, bondage and humiliation are means to create a status difference together, and the finding that psychological research has shown no notable psychopathology among BDSM practitioners.
• Perks, Problems, and the People Who Play: A Qualitative Exploration of Dominant and Submissive BDSM Roles. Ali Hébert & Angela Weaver, The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality 24(1), 49–62, 2015. Interviews with 9 dominants and 12 submissives; provides giving up control as the benefit that belongs only to the submissive role, control, reward and confidence on the dominant side, the shared gains (including better romantic relationships, community, psychological release and freedom from the weekday role) and the shared and role-bound burdens.
• Consent Norms in the BDSM Community: Strong But Not Inflexible. Tarleton, Mackenzie & Sagarin, Archives of Sexual Behavior 54, 549–559, 2025. 202 participants; provides the greater flexibility in long-term relationships than in short-term ones, that taking something away during a scene is found more acceptable than adding something, that adding is more acceptable for the receiving than for the giving role, and that thorough negotiation is found more important the riskier the activity.
• Fifty Shades of Belgian Gray: The Prevalence of BDSM-Related Fantasies and Activities in the General Population. Holvoet, Huys, Coppens, Seeuws, Goethals & Morrens, The Journal of Sexual Medicine 14(9), 1152–1159, 2017. Sample of 1,027 people, representative of the general Belgian population; 46.8% had at some point done at least one BDSM-related activity, 12.5% regularly, and 7.6% called themselves a BDSM practitioner.
• Psychological characteristics of BDSM practitioners. Wismeijer & Van Assen, The Journal of Sexual Medicine 10(8), 1943–1952, 2013. Comparison of 902 BDSM practitioners with 434 others; the BDSM group was less neurotic, more extraverted, more open to new experiences, more conscientious, less sensitive to rejection and had higher well-being, but was less agreeable, and the authors summarize BDSM as a leisure activity rather than the expression of a disorder.
• What Exactly Is an Unusual Sexual Fantasy?. Joyal, Cossette & Lapierre, The Journal of Sexual Medicine 12(2), 328–340, 2015. 1,516 adults rated 55 fantasies; themes of submission and domination were common for both men and women and were significantly correlated with each other.
• Dominance and submission. Wikipedia. Provides the description of D/s as a set of behaviors, customs and rituals in which one person submits to another, the writing convention with capital D and small s that the notation comes from, power exchange as the empowering of the dominant through the submissive’s surrender, the distinction between dominant/submissive and top/bottom, and that a D/s relationship can be sexual or non-sexual, long- or short-term and intimate or anonymous.

Related terms

• Dominant. The role on the D side of D/s, and what it asks of whoever takes it.
• Dom. The abbreviation and the form of address, with the explanation of that capital letter.
• Domme. The feminine spelling of it.
• BDSM. The umbrella that D/s forms the middle two letters of.
• B&D. The other two letters, and why they are often named separately.
• 24/7. The same dynamic, but without an end time.
• High protocol. The formal way of relating in which a D/s bond is made visible and audible.
• Master. The title that goes with M/s, the heaviest variant of this relationship.
• Domspace. The state the leading side can enter during a scene.
• Femdom. The form of D/s in which the woman holds the D side.
• Maledom. The form in which the man holds that side, and why far less has been written about it.
• Findom. The form of D/s in which money is the tool, with the risks that come with it.
• Free use. An arrangement made within a D/s dynamic that brings the asking for consent forward.
• M/s. The heaviest form of this exchange, in which the household and the money fall under it too.
• Submissive. The small s of D/s, described in full.
• Submission. The act the small s stands for, apart from the person who performs it.
• Sub. The label people place themselves on that side with.
• Switch. Who switches sides within this relationship, with the four axes it happens along.
• Total power exchange. The most all-encompassing version of this relationship, and the reason the scene keeps its distance from it.