The most common style of BDSM is dark: “depraved”, “dirty”, oppositional: such as for example a “bad guy” (or someone at least acting like a bad guy) forcing something on you that you don’t want. Where the physical is in conflict with the emotional.
Dark BDSM is popular. You go to a BDSM club, it has a dungeon theme, the doms are color-coded weared black, and so on.
Another style of BDSM is one that’s neutral, focused on an activity.
For example, you might want someone to do X to you, you find someone who wants to do X to you, and you do X together.
You’re not in conflict, you’re doing what you both want, but the focus is on the activity, the physical activity, not necessarily on the emotion.
This can actually be pretty common at BDSM clubs, despite the dark theme. It can be like going on a roller coaster ride: it might be a Wild West themed ride or a Haunted Castle themed ride, but really it’s a roller coaster ride.
Of course, you can have a desired emotional reaction to an activity. (Few people are looking to be bored in kink, for example 🙂). That can be hit-or-miss sometimes though, if your partner is really focused on the activity and not always so much on you.
Lyrical domination is focused on emotion, on creating a desired emotional state.
Here, your partner is not in conflict with your emotions, nor neutral, but on your side in achieving the emotion you wish to have.
The various possible activities of BDSM then become tools, useful when they take you towards your desired emotional goal.
This focus on emotion means that lyrical domination can often more easily achieve a particular emotional state, such as subspace for example.
Each style of BDSM has its own particular power, and its own particular risks.
For a physical activity, the risks are primarily physical, such as going too far physically, and getting physically hurt.
For dark BDSM, the conflict with the emotional can be fun in the right amount, but going too far can mean crossing the line into emotional hurt.
And in lyrical domination going too far might be getting into an emotional state what wasn’t what you were asking for, or deeper than you were prepared for.
While attention to consent, risk, boundaries, and limits is always important in BDSM, it can be especially important in lyrical domination. In a state of lyrical domination you may not want to have limits, to say “no” to anything, to pay attention to risk.
In power exchange where you desire to have a partner have physical power over you, you need a partner who can be both willing and able to handle the responsibility for the physical aspects of the activity that you want to do together.
Likewise, in lyrical domination you need a partner who is both willing and able to take responsibility for the emotional aspects of lyrical domination.
And just as you wouldn’t want to engage in a strenuous physical activity if you were injured or not in good enough physical shape for that activity, it wouldn’t be a good idea to engage in lyrical domination when you were emotionally injured or not in good emotional shape.
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