Rules

What are rules in BDSM?

Rules in a D/s relationship are the agreements about behavior that carry on outside the session: how you address him, what posture you take, what you wear, and what you ask permission for. They do not switch on and off at an agreed moment. That is the whole difference from a protocol.

What rules look like in practice

Like three or four sentences that describe nothing spectacular.

A common set for two people who do not see each other daily: every morning she sends a message with how she slept, she asks permission before she masturbates, on the days she sees him she wears something he has chosen, and she reports it when one of these three did not work out. Nothing more.

What stands out is how small such rules are. They do their work precisely at the moments when nothing is going on: Tuesday morning, alone at home, no one watching. A rule that exists only during a scene is not a rule but an instruction.

Where the word comes from

From the monastery, and before that from the toolbox.

The Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands gives the oldest Dutch attestation of regel from 1236, and there regle means exactly this: ouer regle van leuene, about the rules of living, the monastic rule. Only in 1240 does regle turn up as a ruler or measuring stick, and only in 1477 as a writing line on paper. The sense “custom, standard” is added in 1623.

The word is borrowed from the Latin rēgula, a lath or guideline, which is related to regere: to direct, to lead, to steer. Jan de Vries counts it among the early-borrowed monastery words. So a rule was first a rule for living that held day and night, and only centuries later a line on paper. For the meaning this page describes, that is not a detour but the original.

Why a rule does what a resolution does not

Because it rests with someone else, and because repetition in the same situation does something to you.

Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch investigated for Psychological Science whether people voluntarily set themselves deadlines that cost money or points. Yes, they do, and yes, those self-imposed deadlines help. But they are less effective than deadlines imposed from outside, and people do not choose them optimally. That, in one sentence, is why a rule from someone else works while the same resolution from yourself evaporates.

The second part is habituation. Phillippa Lally and colleagues had 96 people perform one behavior daily for twelve weeks in the same context, for example “after breakfast”, and measured how automatic it became. The time it took to reach 95 percent of their own ceiling of automaticity ranged from 18 to 254 days. Missing one occasion turned out not to damage the process meaningfully.

Two things to remember. The fixed context is the engine, not the willpower. And one missed Tuesday means nothing.

Why people ask for rules

Because the thinking goes out of it and the attention stays in it.

• For you, a rule is a way to keep someone present at moments when he is not there. That is usually the real reason, and rarely the obedience itself.
• For him, it is a form of attention that does not fit into one evening: he has to know what he asks, remember what he has asked, and do something with it.
• For the two of you together, rules make the relationship visible on days when nothing else happens.

Ali Hébert and Angela Weaver interviewed nine dominants and twelve submissives and set the payoffs against the drawbacks in The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. Both roles named freedom from their everyday role as a gain. And both named a price: dominants spoke of more work and more responsibility, submissives of vulnerability, of bad dominants, and of following orders and accepting decisions.

Rules solve no inequality that already exists outside the play, and they are no way to change someone who does not want to change.

Telling rules, protocol, and house rules apart

“Rules and protocol are the same thing.” No. A protocol fixes the form and applies within a window that begins and ends; rules fix behavior that carries on outside it. Anyone who sends a message in the morning does not do that in high protocol.

“More rules is stricter.” More rules is mostly more forgettable. A set you cannot recite from memory is a set that stalls halfway through the week.

“Breaking a rule is punishment.” Only if it was agreed that way beforehand. The consequences range from a conversation to punishment, and sometimes the breach is the whole point: that is called funishment.

What I see myself

I am Victor, a gigolo, twenty-five years active in BDSM and trained as a psychotherapist. Setting rules you may test is part of what I do, but I do not do it in the form most people have in mind.

Too many get agreed, in one evening, in a mood where anything goes. Two weeks later no one remembers more than half of them, and then the whole arrangement feels like something that failed, when all that happened is that too much was promised.

What does work is one. One that fits a moment that already comes back every day, and that is small enough to manage even on a day when your head is not up for it. What happens then is not that you become more obedient, but that the subject no longer goes away.

How you set up a rule

• Hang it on something that already happens every day, such as getting up or coming home; the fixed context is what produces the automaticity.
• Start with one rule and only expand once it has stood for three weeks, not the other way around.
• Agree on the consequence at the same time as the rule, because a rule where no one knows what happens on a breach dies on its own.
• Note when you will review it. A rule agreed for a situation that no longer exists should not silently stay in place.
• Do not let a missed day be a reason to stop, because in Lally and colleagues’ study one skipped occasion did not meaningfully matter.

More on rules

On this site, protocol explains how the form is fixed within an agreed window, discipline describes the whole of rules, training, reward, and punishment that this is a part of, and contract shows what happens when you write it all down.

Beyond this site, the article by Ariely and Wertenbroch is the most enjoyable piece to read on why people impose limits on themselves, and the Etymologiebank gives the whole history of the word across four dictionaries side by side.

Where this fits on this site

If you want to try what it feels like to hold to something from someone else, the page on the BDSM date shows how I build that: start small, and only agree on what holds between two bookings once you know whether it suits you.

Sources

• How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. Phillippa Lally, Cornelia H. M. van Jaarsveld, Henry W. W. Potts & Jane Wardle, European Journal of Social Psychology 40(6), 998–1009, October 2010 (DOI 10.1002/ejsp.674). Ninety-six participants performed one behavior daily for twelve weeks in the same context and scored each day how automatic it felt. Provides that the time to reach 95 percent of one’s own ceiling of automaticity ranged from 18 to 254 days, that one missed occasion did not meaningfully harm the process, and that automaticity increases along a flattening curve with repetition in a consistent context. Only the abstract was read; the full text is behind a paywall. The much-cited median of 66 days is not in that abstract and is therefore not used here.
• Procrastination, Deadlines, and Performance: Self-Control by Precommitment. Dan Ariely & Klaus Wertenbroch, Psychological Science 13(3), 219–224, May 2002 (DOI 10.1111/1467-9280.00441, PMID 12009041). Provides the three findings this page rests on: people do set themselves costly deadlines, those self-imposed deadlines improve their performance, but they are less effective than externally imposed deadlines and are not chosen optimally. Only the abstract was read.
• regel. Etymologiebank, hosted by the Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal, with the entries from the Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands (Philippa et al., 2003–2009), the Etymologisch woordenboek by Van Veen and Van der Sijs (1997), and the Nederlands Etymologisch Woordenboek by Jan de Vries (1971). Provides the dating of the senses: 1236 for regle van leuene, the rules of living or monastic rule, 1240 for ruler or measuring stick, 1477 for the writing line, and 1623 for custom or standard; further the borrowing from Latin rēgula, a lath, standard, guideline, the relation to regere (to direct, lead, steer, mark out), and De Vries’s placing of the word among the early-borrowed monastery words.
• 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, April 2015 (DOI 10.3138/cjhs.2467). Semi-structured interviews with nine dominants and twelve submissives, thematically analyzed. Provides that both roles named freedom from their everyday role as a payoff, that dominants named more work and more responsibility as a drawback, and that submissives named vulnerability, bad dominants, and following orders and accepting decisions as a drawback. Only the abstract was read.

Related terms

Rules are the part of a D/s relationship that stays standing between the bookings; the terms around them are about the form, the consequences, and the recording.

• Protocol. The form within a window, where a rule carries on outside that window.
• House rules. The same idea for a whole room instead of for two people.
• Discipline. The whole of rules, training, reward, and punishment that this is a part of.
• Contract. What happens when the rules go on paper.
• Punishment. The consequence that goes with a breach, if that was agreed beforehand.
• Funishment. The rule that is there to be broken.
• 24/7. The dynamic in which rules no longer stop.
• Position training. The postures that are often fixed in such a rule.
• Negotiation. The conversation in which a rule is agreed and revised.
• Training. What it takes to turn a rule on paper into behavior.