Episode 10
Step into the art of Containment with our beloved mini course, Containment: Finding & Creating Safety and use code: BTK10 to get 10% off.
In this episode, you're going to learn what containment means and why it’s essential in personal and relational dynamics, how men and women can create healthier interactions through understanding boundaries, how agency and consent transform challenging dynamics into healing opportunities, why men struggle to step into their dominance, and practical advice for improving relational dynamics, whether in parenting, partnerships, or professional settings.
Om Rupani is an expert and teacher in the field of man-woman relating as well as the founder of Om Rupani's School for Dominance & Submission and leader of BDSM trainings, workshops and communities.
Timestamps:
[03:16] What is containment?
[06:48] The importance of containment for children
[10:16] How boys learn containment from older men
[12:01] Why men benefit from role models
[14:30] The concept of coolness in masculinity
[16:34] How lack of boundaries affects relationships
[18:22] Why containment improves relationships
[22:32] Why consistent containment is necessary
[24:15] How gratitude affects relationships
[26:51] The difference between consensual and non-consensual dynamics
[30:10] Why BDSM is about mutual self-interest
[33:13] How to avoid using BDSM as therapy
[37:02] The role of consent in BDSM
[38:47] Why agency creates healing in BDSM
[40:20] Why trust matters in BDSM scenes
[43:09] Why good doms must manage their energy
[45:39] Why reciprocity is essential in relationships
[47:00] How men can learn to provide containment
[50:32] Why some men resist stepping into dominance
[53:36] The cultural challenges men face in embracing dominance
[55:28] Why the “nice guy” energy is problematic
[58:02] How communication prevents breakdowns in BDSM
[60:18] How non-consensual actions affect birth experiences
Transcript + Keywords
Key Words:
containment
boundaries
consent
agency
dominance
submission
non-consensual dynamics
relational dynamics
man-woman relationships
masculine energy
feminine energy
emotional regulation
trust
power dynamics
intimacy
energetic fields
communication
gratitude
reciprocation
dom-sub scenes
BDSM principles
relational healing
vulnerability
mother-baby dyad
martial arts
cultural narratives
nice guy energy
shadow work
energetic balance
birth trauma
medical consent
Transcript:
On the episode today, I'm joined by one of my teachers, Om Rapani. Om is an expert and world renowned thought leader in the world of BDSM and man woman relating. I discovered Om's work and teachings a little over four years ago, and a whole new world was blown open for me, illuminating how I related to those around me, related to my world, my work, my children, and most importantly, how I related to myself. I believe that without healthy communication to self, without a clear understanding of our needs, our wants, limits, and boundaries, we really become a liability to those around us, particularly to our children and and those we love. This has been one of my favorite conversations to date. We explore the highly charged topic of consent and the many ways in which we live in a nonconsensual society and world, and what it means to bring a yes to something that was always a no. We dive into a topic I weave into all my work as a doula, educator and mother, containment. What does it mean? And how do we feel it? And what happens when it's dropped? For me, a whole world of possibility opened when I understood this concept and, integrated it into my life. And I can see how it also impacts the birth space, the relational space, relationship to our children. So I am super excited to dive into this today. According to me, BDSM is a secret framework for how so many things in our life can expand, improve, and harmonize. And it doesn't necessarily always involve chains and whips. Hi, thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1
Absolutely.
Speaker 0
I found your work about four and a half years ago, and listened to some videos that you and Laurie had created that I was, let's just say like reconnecting with my physical body. I had been in a, maybe like a separation of soul and body for quite a long time as a means of survival and, you know, just moving through the world in the way I needed to. And so in my reclamation process, I had found your work and watched about probably everything that you created that was available. So thank you in advance.
Speaker 1
Binge watching. Oh, my feel for you people who binge watch. Good luck with you. Good luck with that.
Speaker 0
I thought it was better than binge watching Netflix. It's either, like, nature documentaries or BDSM content.
Speaker 1
I guess it is better than binge watching Game of Thrones or something. We hit it every fifteen minutes.
Speaker 0
Yeah. Exactly. So anyway and then I went to your retreat and, it was incredible. So That
Speaker 1
was wonderful.
Speaker 0
Yeah. So thank you. And, yeah. I, you know, I trained doulas, birth educators, women who work in the birth space, and I started weaving in the concept of containment and what that means and how to just take notice of when we're going into certain containers, how that feels, and what we start to do, either verbally, physically, energetically as a means to survive in that container, right, and to be in that container, and so to take notice and take inventory. So I would love for you to share with us how you, I would say, coined this term containment, you know, and and what it is to create a container.
Speaker 1
I don't think it's an original term. I think it probably goes back to, therapy and psychology that people do in in our, kind of woo woo circles, we call it holding space. And a holding space is a good analog for what containment is. That, one person is present first first and foremost with somebody else. Your attention is on them. You are kind of you are kind of holding space for them. I do believe this phenomenon happens at an energetic level, at a field level, and that's where things get a bit woo woo because we can't see these fields yet, but I do believe they exist. Right? If you come into a meditation circle, if you go to a church where people are in prayer and you feel something, you feel the field. There's a you sigh there. You feel things are more gathered. Things are more collected. I believe our system is feeling the field. And when the field is coherent, our system comes in resonance with that coherent field, and we come into greater coherence. In a way, our right? I kinda describe as that Van de Graaff generator, you know, like that Frankenstein thing where the ball with the lightning in it shooting sparks. And it's wild and it's crazy and it's shooting sparks all over the place. And then all of a sudden, let's say somebody comes in and kind of teams and gathers the energy and the whole energy goes a little coherent and comes out into a sphere. I believe our our fields are doing this all the time. A very accessible entry point into feeling this is simply being in nature. Nature is a coherent field. So simply going for a walk in the woods, going for a hike, and you just sit on a rock and you go and you are quiet and you are peaceful. Your mind is quieter. I think it's because nature is a coherent field and going into nature, we sit with nature and our field gets in resonance with it and we feel calmer. Our thoughts calm down. Even if we wanna think, we're able to think better. We can kind of see things. What's in front of me really. All of that, I think, is what the containment phenomenon is. Right? And so it's a deeply human need. Children need it badly. Babies need it badly. They don't have their own containers. Right. Babies cry or or doula. You probably know this hundred times more profoundly than I do, but all they can do is cry when something doesn't feel good. It's gonna be the only alarm call they can send out. And oftentimes, so much of it, apart from their very basic physical needs, is a need for containment, is a need for holding, for swaddling, for feeling held, feeling safe, we may call it these days. We use the word safe a lot. But that feeling of feeling contained and safe, they're very similar. The Right. Somatically, they register essentially the same way. Right? So I believe containment is a very big thing. It's very important. We all need it. And I think in the man women difference, I believe women in general have a greater need for containment. I think women systems are a bit more fiery and sparkly and shooting all over the place and a little bit more head noise, more self obsession noise. And I think the masculine, especially our growth from boyhood to manhood is to come into self containment. And I believe one of the kind of the energetic contracts between men and women, or at least one of the energetic contributions that men can make to women, is to kind of share with them their surplus of containment. Hopefully, the man has it, and he can hold the woman in that field, and she can benefit from his containment. So that that would be yeah. That's
Speaker 0
Yeah. You said a few things there. So, of course, it reminds me of the mother baby dyad. Right? I I do work with a lot of babies. And then in the birth space, what I offer more than tips and tricks on the labor and birth process is that holding, whether it's simply my presence. Yeah. Or even just hands on the back. Like, it depends on the woman. And a lot of it is conversation, you know, having an agreement about what types of touch feel good and, you know, there's informed consent. And once I know that, I can offer that without a lot of talking. And that's that's the difference, you know, and then
Speaker 1
Yeah. And touch is absolutely wonderful as a medium of creating containment, using our bodies as the field. But it's not essential. You can give somebody containment over the phone. You can give somebody containment with your voice. You can give somebody containment simply by your presence. There are people who will walk into the room and the room gets more grounded.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
They are walking containment. So this is why this is why I feel if it's if it were simply a physical hugs and muscle phenomenon, we could simply place it there. We could teach people how to give good hugs. But I think I really feel the phenomenon is energetic. It's a field phenomenon, and we don't our technology hasn't caught up to to seeing fields yet. I believe it will probably. It'll probably see be able to see the fields and, like, you could be able to point some kind of a camera at nature and see the coherence of the field compared to, let's say, a protest or whatever, a noisy hall or, random train station. Yeah. And you would see how cacophonous the field is and how if you are sensitive to it, your system is, like, trying trying not to resonate with the chaos and trying to hold its own, and some people have a lot of difficulty with that.
Speaker 0
Well, I feel that if we actually have the capacity to see that unseen, you know, that enter that resonance that you're talking about, I just think we've tricked ourselves or gaslit ourselves into believing we don't see it or we don't feel it. Right? We feel it.
Speaker 1
We feel it. For sure, we feel it. But I mean, like, it'd be great to, like, point a camera, like, we have infrared See
Speaker 0
some color.
Speaker 1
Do you have to be I because I believe it I don't believe it's, I believe it's an existential phenomenon. I believe it's it it is a phenomena that physics can account for at some level. Yeah. I just don't think it completely has yet. I at least, I don't know that it has.
Speaker 0
Right. And it's it's totally true what you say about the touch. Right? Because I have been touched or hugged, let's say, by someone who seems like they might offer great containment, let's say. Maybe it's someone who's a little taller than me, little bigger than me. And so and then I've hugged them, and I feel like my my system actually frays a little bit more. Yeah.
Speaker 1
I have And so Yeah. I've I've had this conversation with, women who have big hulking boyfriends.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
Two hundred pounds of muscle.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
But the man's not giving her good containment. And you would think he would be he would just sweep up his gal, and and he's like, when I need containment, I have to go hide in the bathroom. Yep. His his energy is, you know, too needy. Yeah. So it's it's
Speaker 0
Right. Or he's or he's somewhere else.
Speaker 1
You know? He's not. He could be in a little boy energy, which is which is completely annoying and irritating to women, especially when they're needing containment. Because, essentially, the little boy energy is seeking containment from the feminine.
Speaker 0
Yeah. I still understand.
Speaker 1
Thing she wants to be around when she's needing containment. She's like, get the hell away from me.
Speaker 0
Yeah. Exactly. And I I think most maybe let's a large amount of women haven't been able to identify or, you know, they don't have the language for that, but they know they know inside something doesn't feel great, and something doesn't feel stable or or right for them. Yeah. You know, there so that's something I was talking about this week with this pastor, actually. He talks about initiations for boys into manhood. And you mentioned, you know, that capacity to offer the containment. How does how does the boy because we don't have initiations in our culture anymore. I mean, really, at this point, cross culturally, historically, there were so many initiations that boys would go through to step into that manhood. So now that we don't have that and and boys are getting their information from, you know, they're at school with a bunch of female teachers. They're typically in households where there aren't fathers or the father is there, but he's, you know, still perhaps in a boy energy. So there's a a, you know, twice removed, right, masculine energy in his space. So how do boys now and maybe we could speak to the men who still feel that they haven't initiated yet. What are types of initiations that that men can do to step into that?
Speaker 1
I resonate with the difficulty that you're laying out. I I hear it spoken and expressed when I talk to men and I coach men. The best way for young boys, younger men to get it is kind of with through osmosis, is to be with older men. And there is a very natural desire and instinct. Boys, follow around their older brothers. Boys wanna impress their older brothers and their older brother's friends. They wanna they wanna be like them. They wanna be cool like the older kids. And I think that all those are healthy instincts. And part of that was is that I wanna be as contained as the older older guys are. I wanna be as contained as the grown men in my family are. But you have to see that and you have to see, oh, that's that's where my masculinity is headed. And then boys really wanna emulate it. They wanna play grown up. Right. They wanna play a little tough. They wanna play adult. And those are all healthy ways to, like, lean in that direction. So I think but you kind of have to do have to see it. If you don't see it in your own home, maybe you can find it you can find it anywhere. You can find it in school. You can find it in a teacher. You can even find it in fiction. You can find it in characters. There's a reason why we love certain movie characters, TV characters. I tell my man, my favorite not I can only see this in retrospect. One of my heroes as a as a teenager when I came to this country was mister Spock on Star Trek. Like, a lot of people love mister Spock. Maybe but I think, like, maybe the lot of the reason that boys may have loved mister Spock is for for his unflappability. Mhmm. Right? He was as cool as a tough cowboy.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
He just he didn't have fear. Premise was he didn't have emotions, but all the also men, you put a gun in his face, he will just raise his eyebrow at you, which is what, Indiana Jones would do. But so but we could still feel like there's something correctly masculine
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
About this really cool character who you simply can't throw off balance. Right? So we are seeking this in in wherever we can find it, even if it's in Star Trek. But we see that model. We see that containment. Does the man who is self contained, the man who is unfuckable with. Right? We we are drawn to that. Women are drawn to that too. Boys are also very drawn to it. We may be another very typical example of that, you may seem silly, but actually teach with this archetype is James Bond. Right? James Bond is the ultra cool guy, but and why is the ultra cool guy? He is absolutely unfuckable with. You can't mess with him. You can't throw him off his balance. Not even the prettiest girls can throw him off his balance.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
Which is something, which women find attractive because women test men to see how solid is your containment. Right? If I flash some boobs at you, do you just lose your shit? If you do, I'm actually not that impressed.
Speaker 0
Right. Women
Speaker 1
lose respect. Particularly fabulous about my boobs. If my boobs can throw you off balance, anybody's boobs can throw you off balance, which makes you weak and stupid. So this is why that character is is really that. When we say a character is cool, part of that coolness is his containment, his unflappability. He's not easily distracted. He's not easily swayed. He knows his center. Right? Yeah. And so much of, we ask how men can get containment. One wonderful way to do it is martial arts. Martial arts very much is truly any athletics, but certainly specifically martial arts, which the discipline of it is being centered. It actually being in your center line, being in your hara, being in your feet so that you physically can't be thrown off balance. Right. Energetically, you can't be thrown off balance, and that's a great way to build that discipline. But truly, any any kind of physical discipline would require a centering. Even if you do yoga, even if you do dance, it will require that somatic centeredness, which is certainly a leaping off point from the emotional towards emotional centeredness.
Speaker 0
And that discipline for me is inextricable from boundaries. Right?
Speaker 1
I think it's very, very, very intimately related. Certainly, they are adjacent.
Speaker 0
And what I have found with a lot of my couples that I work with over the last decade is when there's a lack of boundaries on the male's part, the woman it's it's the unspoken, but the woman feels unsafe. Right? His family can steer him in any direction. Yeah. You know, a coworker can call at ten PM and he'll answer. Right? There's no boundaries.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 0
And the woman energetically starts to, what I've noticed, become controlling. Right? Kind of holds that dark mommy energy of like, why are you taking the call? What? Because she's trying to secure some sort of safety for herself because he's she's, she's entrusted him to hold those boundaries.
Speaker 1
Yep.
Speaker 0
And so I would say, yes, they're adjacent for sure. And and what for me, it's a huge part of it. Right? That initiation is to learn how to draw those boundaries.
Speaker 1
Very much so. This phenomenon you're describing has, ramifications throughout man woman relationship that wherever there is a deficit where there shouldn't be, wherever there's a deficit, the system, if you will, the the couple's system will try to fill that gap. Yeah. So wherever men drop containment, women's system goes into hypervigilance to make up for it. Wherever men drop leadership or women want them to be in leadership, if he can't lead, then well, now I have to. And so because well, somebody has to. Otherwise, that thing falls apart. And this is what creates a lot of exhaustion and resentment in women because they are spending all this energy creating containment they would rather not be creating. Right? Because they they can't be soft and feminine and be in that much hypervigilance at the same time. Right? And as as you say, women don't even they're like, I don't want to be this controlling bitch. I really don't wanna be this woman. I would rather be soft and flowy. And yet, if there's this much stuff not being taken care of, well, who the hell is gonna do it? Right? So this this this compensation is happening all the time. This is why this is why, containment is in a way such a PG rated topic considering I'm a BDSM instructor. It's not the sexiest of topics, but it's like the first thing I teach. And as you know, even in the BDSM class, the first thing we teach is containment. And even in the man, woman relating, I emphasize this over and over to men that first first and foremost, whether it's a first date or ten year marriage, double or triple the containment you're giving to your woman. Because chances are you're not getting the best out of her yet. If she's in containment deficit, you haven't seen the best of your woman. So all of your other complaints that you have, let's put them on the back shelf for now. Let's let's we'll get to them. Increase the containment you're giving to your woman. Make her really feel contained and actually notice how many of those problems may disappear. She may actually become less irritable. She may actually become more gracious. She may actually wanna have more sex with you. She may actually stop being critical. Lot of that is symptomatic of her not feeling contained.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
So this really is kind of a magic pill. First, do this one thing and then come to me and say, these are the problems that exist. If you have a uncontained woman, just count on there being a list twenty twenty point list of problems, but they may all have the same solution. First, increase the containment and see how our system relaxes and changes. Yeah. And then let's see which problems are left on the table. We'll talk we'll talk about them then.
Speaker 0
Yeah. I would even wager that women look physically different when they're offered that container.
Speaker 1
They look more girly. They look soft. Their shoulders relax. Their neck tilts. Their hair comes forward. Right. They smile more. Right? Do BDSM long enough, I always like to point out the way women look in aftercare after a good scene. I'm like, that's what you're going for.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
She's leaning over into his arm. She doesn't even wanna get up. Feels good to be in that containment field. And I'm like, there she is. Instead of her sitting eighteen inches away from you Right. Breathing through her nostrils about to tell you all the things that aren't working because
Speaker 0
Right. The construction in her chest. Yeah. The tightening of the pelvic floor, like, all of the things that Oh,
Speaker 1
but and and the energy is in the head, the list making.
Speaker 0
Yeah.
Speaker 1
How am I gonna solve these problems? Frustrated again.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
Not in the body. Right. Right? Where feeling contained is a relaxation. She actually comes down into her belly and her pelvis if she's feeling contained. Pain.
Speaker 0
Yeah. And what would you say is like the if we were to look, you know, give a from a bird's eye view of this man woman container. Right? Like, I always I always imagine the woman is this body of water, and the man is kinda like the river banks around her water, you know. And if he starts, you know, if one part of that river bank is leaking or open or not offering that, it'll start to leak out. And then he'll say there's, you know, there's no water here. There's no the magic is gone, the magic is leaving, and then he starts to put his attention elsewhere, you know. So it's, it's interesting how it's all feeding off of each other, you know, because I have dealt with infidelity with some of the couples that I that I've worked with over the years.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 0
And it's like, well, I left energetically because she wasn't available and because she was controlling. And then she's like, well, I would have to control because you weren't taking charge. And then next thing you know so, yeah. I mean, how can we if we're, you know, listening to this right now and we're, you know, facing those challenges whether we're we're single and and and, you know, dating, right, or we're in a ten year marriage or whatever it is. Yeah. If you're gleaning this awareness right now from this, how can you take that one step forward, man or woman? Right? Like, what can we do today that's going to shift the dynamic?
Speaker 1
Well, I think what what the two people can do on their part, and I I completely hear the frustration you're describing, it is extremely common. It seems like a bad downward spiral, a catch twenty two. And I think the way to solve it is to kind of create a little bit of an upward spiral on both sides. And on men's side, it's like, give more and better containment. Stop taking away your you have to give consistent containment. This is one of the places where men are so lacking these days, which is this is one of the poisons really of the egalitarian mentality where men are like, well, but do I have to give containment all the time? I'm like, do you need to not drop your baby all the time? Can you drop your baby on Tuesday and Thursday and just not drop your baby the others the other five days? Would that be okay? Yeah. You kind of need to give you kind of need to be that containment machine all the time. It's kind of should be the place you occupy. But there might be exceptions where you're sick, you're grieving, where you need your own space, and women are brilliant at holding space for their men during those extraordinary times. Women are wonderful in stepping into their nurturing. Right? Nurses are holding containment all day long. Mhmm. They can hold containment professionally if they're built for it. So it's not like women can't do containment. Women are holding containment for their children and infants all the time. You know that. Listen, we all hold containment. It's just women in general don't wanna hold containment for their man. Of course. They're like, I want I'm holding containment for this infant twenty four seven. So it's not like women are not providing containment. They are like, I don't also wanna hold containment for you. I need you to hold containment for me. Right? So on men's end, they kind of need to step into this responsibility. Yeah. Right? And on women's end, if they have a backlog of frustration and disappointed with the man, they need to work on that a little bit because men want to be rewarded for their energies. Mhmm. So if the man is feeling my attention is not being appreciated, what I'm providing is not being appreciated, all I'm getting in return for it is more complaint and more unhappiness from the woman's side, then he may pull back his attention. Then he will say, my containment is a resource, and this resource is not being appreciated right now. And that can be a very losing formula. So I can only place this in front of a man and a woman and say, please be mindful of this.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
You increase your containment as a man, and please appreciate the containment he's giving you. Don't slap him for it. Don't criticize him for it. He is giving you something. Receive it. And appreciate him for it so he will do more of it. That's a good way to build the cycle. That's pretty much it.
Speaker 0
Yeah. The gratitude and the receptivity is huge for women. Yeah. And that's a practice in itself.
Speaker 1
Need men want men work on a reward system, truly. We are we really work on positive reinforcement. We wanna put our energies where the energies are rewarded. So if he if and when he is doing something right, let him know that, let him feel it, and he will do more of it. Train train train your man well. Man, they're really trainable, but they really train them with positive reinforcement. We don't really work well with negative reinforcement. This is, this is something women haven't figured out yet. After sixty years of nagging at men through feminism, women haven't figured out men actually don't respond well to negative reinforcement. Doesn't really work. We'd gets gets us demoralized, makes us walk out the door and chase the next piece of ask who may be more rewarding to us.
Speaker 0
Yeah. I always I always say the blonde secretary who doesn't complain.
Speaker 1
It's not the blonde secretary. She could be a fat brunette secretary who doesn't complain and appreciate him, and he will go for it. Trust me. It's not the youth and beauty. It is where am I appreciated as a man? Where am I approved of as a man? We want that desperately. Where am I found right?
Speaker 0
Could you lay out a scene? So let's move into BDSM a little bit because that's so many of the questions I got were about that. Could you because I I mean, let's say ten years ago, I used to think, okay, like BDSM, like, you know, it's there it's dominance. Right? And I I associated it with being domineering, which is not the case. I didn't understand understand the really understand the dom sub dynamic as well as I do now, and I'm, of course, still learning. But I was like, people have to be not well mentally, emotionally, spiritually to want this type of dynamic. Right? Because I was also very much poisoned by feminism. And so, in my own learning of that, I started to understand, right, the concept of containment. And I started to experience it myself and realized that so much of my shame that I held, which from, you know, various experiences in my life or belief systems that were superimposed on me by my family or my culture or my religion, I didn't know I I didn't know how to offload that shame. Like, I I didn't know I I couldn't recognize or identify a channel through which to alchemize the shame. And so BDSM actually became that channel. So could you walk us through what it looks like to set up a scene? Right? Because there are conversations that and there are a lot of people doing this that I think might not have the kind of higher level understanding of agreements and contracts. Yeah. And so could you walk us through what happens before, what happens during, and then how it's closed?
Speaker 1
Absolutely. I think even before, describing the structure of a scene and the agreements between Dom and Sub, if you will remember, one of the very first conversations we had in our workshop was, making a distinction between nonconsensual domination and consensual domination. And I think that is where the that is where the understanding really needs to come in because there is there's a tremendous amount of nonconsensual domination and submission in the world. Yeah. Right? As as I was as I say in the the conversation we had, it's in my handout, pretty much every every news headline, every single day, in every newspaper for all of human history probably is a report of nonconsensual domination. Right? Some all violence all violence is nonconsensual domination. Every shooting, every war, every attack, is nonconsensual domination. Every every every crime, every robbery, every assault, that's a lot. So we are inundated in nonconsensual domination. So nobody really wants to be at the receiving end of nonconsensual domination. So if that is the framework on what domination is, domination is somebody taking something from somebody else, somebody hurting somebody else, somebody just doing whatever they want to somebody else, you would say, why the hell would I wanna be at the receiving end of it? I would have to be emotionally disturbed to want to be mugged or beaten or invaded or violated. What's wrong with you? That's entirely a reasonable thing to conclude if that's your only framework. And that is the political framework. That is the feminist framework that men have non consensually dominated women for eons. That's the entire premise. That's the premise of patriarchy. That's the entire feminist premise, is men have nonconsensually dominated women since the beginning of time. Right? Leaving the politics aside for a moment, it certainly is not what BDSM is. It is not what a scene is. It is not what the connection between a dominant and a submissive is. It is based on consensual domination and submission. Well, what does that mean? It means, first of all, that both people are completely equal parties. This is a this is a tricky thing for people to understand. In a BDSM dynamic, some people, maybe even BDSM people are gonna object to this. In a BDSM dynamic, there actually isn't a power gradient between the two people. I agree. The people may not get this. Right? If you and I are going to have a scene, and I'm going to be your dumb, and you're going to be my submissive, and we come together, and we say, okay, let's talk about this. In that moment, there is no power gradient between us. You don't have less power than me. I don't have more power than you or vice versa. Even if even though even if we have agreed, I'm going to play the dominant in the scene Mhmm. And you have agreed, I'm gonna play the submissive in the scene. Here now, as human beings, there is no power gradient between us. Right? So within the BDSM context, it really this is why also people need to understand. BDSM is theater. This is why we call it a scene. It's play acting. I will step into my dominant archetype. You will step into your submissive archetype, but let's stop right there. Why? Why would you step into your submissive archetype and come across from me while I'm in my dominant archetype? One simple reason. You're getting something out of it. It's in your self interest. I'm doing it because it's in my self interest. You're doing it because it's in your self interest. What could the self interest be? I enjoy it. You enjoy it. I get pleasure out of it. You get pleasure out of it. I get a certain amount of self expression because I resonate with the dominant archetype. You get a certain amount of self expression because you resonate with the submissive archetype. It is truly so parallel to partner dancing. Right? The man in a tango is not superior to the woman in tango. They're two human beings doing a dance, but the dance requires complimentary steps. They both wanna do the dance. They both wanna find a partner with whom they can do their steps well and dance well. They both wanna have fun dancing. That's what we are doing. We're getting off. We're enjoying ourselves. We're playing. And it's a very limited container. We come, we do our dance, we do our scene, we stop, and we we come out of our archetypes. I'm no longer your domino longer my submissive. We have finished our scene. Right? With which is such a far cry from nonconsensual domination and submission.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
There's nothing like it. So that's something people need to understand right off the bat. If their entire lens when they hear dominance and submission, if their entire lens is a political lens, they are so far away from what this is. So that's the first part, and we can get into how you design a scene if you want.
Speaker 0
Well, I mean, I I actually would like to ask you, you know, from a case study perspective, how you have seen people bring a trauma in our workshop, you know, and listening to your videos that people have brought certain traumas that they feel very safe working through. So could you give us some examples of that, actually? I would love to hear.
Speaker 1
I can give you wonderful examples of people experiencing release through BDSM play, but I really need to first bracket that with, something I teach in all my classes, which is I really, really discourage people from doing scene play as therapy.
Speaker 0
Mhmm. Okay.
Speaker 1
I really, really discourage people from saying we are going to heal a trauma in this scene. I do not encourage dames to step in and say, I'm going to heal you. I'm your shaman in the scene. I think it's I think it's a really bad framework. I think the the framework I encourage people to do is please do this for fun. Please do this for play. And along the way, if release happens, wonderful. And even if along the way, you're like, this thing happened to me. I wanna bring it into a scene. Do it in the spirit of play. Do it in the spirit of exploration. And if release happens, it's a gift. But don't chase it. Don't think you're being a therapist. But then you can play with things, and you can explore things and say, this is a tight spot in my system because of something that happened. I would like to explore it and do it with with do it with some measure of humility. Don't think you're going to just go in there and heal this thing like you're some kind of a surgeon.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
Play with it. Have room for it. Have the same kind of attitude you may have. I don't know. Like, if if you're trying to release some pain from your past when you go into a medicine journey. You're not going there with demands. Like you this I wanna release this today. You'll see.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
They'll see. Maybe it'll come up. Maybe it won't. Maybe
Speaker 0
The release just might be a product, a byproduct of the intention to play.
Speaker 1
Be humble about it. Set an intention by all means, and ask for help and ask for release, and then see what happens.
Speaker 0
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Right? In that in that vein, people do explore many tight spots in their systems, bad experiences from the past. They can reenact in role playing. Oftentimes, they're they're able to find release with it. Oftentimes, they're able to find Eros in it. We we can flip it flip our trauma on its ears and milk Eros out of it. It's very interesting and fun that way.
Speaker 0
Right. Yeah. Is that something to do with the taboo of it? Right? Something that was maybe prohibited or forbidden and now?
Speaker 1
Not clear exactly what the logic of it. I think Jack Morin was a wonderful, writer. He wrote his great book called The Herotic Mind. I think he mentions as a section in there that talks about we tend to eroticize our traumas.
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
Right? I think from a tantric perspective, you can view this as a trauma as kind of a bundled of stuck energy. Yeah. Frozen energy in the system, which is kind of how they describe trauma to it's a frozen moment that didn't get to complete its action. We got frozen in time, which is also how tantra would think of stuck energies. And through movement, through motion, whatever that motion may be, it could be emotional release techniques. It could be bioenergetics. It could be a flogging session. If the energy get loosens and moves, could be orgasmic. The movement of energy feel measurable, can feel erotic. Or it could come out in crying. It could come out in snot and tears. You don't know how it's gonna come out.
Speaker 0
Right. Yeah. Shaking. Right. Yeah. It's energy moving through the body. And the mind wants to ascribe a certain wrong or right to that movement of that energy. Right? It's better if it's laughing, or it's better if it's pleasure. Right? But it's not good if it's crying, you know.
Speaker 1
But It's hard to hard to know how it's gonna come out. Yeah. In any in any modality. In medicine journeys, people could be laughing or they could be crying. Right. So the world knows what's gonna happen.
Speaker 0
Yeah. One of the exercises we did, was spanking session. Yep. And I know that for the most part, you know, many of us grew up with corporal punishment.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 0
Whether from our parents or school teachers or caregivers, whoever it was. Right? And some of us didn't, but we assume that there's only negativity tied around that. Right? Yeah. Because we have we look at it through the lens of nonconsensual domination. So in this session, I remember it was a, you know, very large group, and a lot of the people were saying like, oh, you know, I I would never let anyone do this to me, or, you know, this, you know, how is this going to ever feel good. Right? But the thing that flipped it for me was the consensual aspect of it. Like, that's what that was when I could release the lens and allow the actual physical sensation and the anticipation that comes with that exercise to really fill my body and my system, you know, and knowing that the person asked and I agreed. And so so much became possible with the consent. Yeah. You know, and so, yeah, people were laughing. People were
Speaker 1
cry there
Speaker 0
were a few people crying, But that's that's, you know, for me kind of like a a PG example, let's say, of having something done to us as children that
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 0
You know, didn't feel good. Didn't it wasn't consensual, wasn't loving, it wasn't good containment. And, you know, being able to do that now consensually is Yeah. Pretty powerful.
Speaker 1
I totally agree that I think that is the crucial piece of bringing a yes to that which was a no. If there is a therapeutic element, a therapeutic angle, I think that is it. That within a BDSM scene, that which happened to you nonconsensually, you decide I'm gonna visit this consensually. I'm gonna do it deliberately. I'm the one who's gonna set up the scene. I'm going to ask for it. And I also know that I am an active consent, meaning I can call yellow at any time and stop the scene. I'm not forgetting that I am the one in charge here. Right. That I'm not out of control. Nobody's doing anything to me. And I've seen it time and time again, bringing that element of active consent and agency is what creates the healing. It is actually also what creates the erotic element. That I am the one doing it. It flips it for people that this nonconsensual thing that happened to me, now I ask for it, and it's really naughty. Yeah. It's really transgressive that this thing that I've been whining about for twenty years, Now I've decided to get off on it, and I am the one seeking it out. I am an active agency and consent asking for it, and I know I can stop at any point. And I'm I actually need to find a Dom who can agree to do this crazy kinky thing with me.
Speaker 0
Right. That's a form of initiation from my perspective, self initiation, where we step out of the victim consciousness that, you know, we tend to hold, and then we say, okay. I can ask for it in a way and in a setting and that I'm saying yes to.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I think that the word empowerment, I think, has been overused in our generation, but I feel that bringing that agency truly is an empowering move in the system that I am the one in charge now. Nobody's doing anything to me. I am no longer a victim. There is no overwhelming force controlling me, my body, and doing something to me. I am actively at creating it for myself.
Speaker 0
Right. And so I I I know this to be true for myself, but I know that a big question a lot of people have when I talk to them about this, they say, you know, can these BDSM scenes be non romantic? Right? Does it have to be with someone that I know really well that I, you you know, have some type of romantic relationship with? You know, my answer is always no. But how would you distinguish that? Right? Because there's a level of intimacy that happens. So what what would you say what would you say are the prerequisites for creating these scenes?
Speaker 1
I Think the prerequisite is trust between two people. I don't think it is that the two people are romantic partners. If anything, it is the trust which is the crucial ingredient. And either being a romantic partner facilitates that trust or it can get in the way. It really gets in the way too. Romantic partners are not always able to go places where a submissive may simply go with somebody who is just their dumb, who admit they may just may have met in class for a scene. You but you do have to trust them to hold you. You have to trust their ability. You have to trust their containment, their mastery. The way you would do with anything, the way you would do with a massage therapist or a chiropractor or a medicine shaman. You're handing yourself over to them. It doesn't matter whether you know them three years or whether you met them today because a friend recommended them. But you do need the trust because you are going to be in a more molten chaotic state as a submissive, and you're trusting somebody to kind of hold you through that journey. That's what's important. But that trust is not always easier found with established partners. If anything, couples can oftentimes bring in a lot of baggage from the past, and they don't trust their partner to hold that space for them. They trust somebody else who may be particularly trained in that area. And as as you probably heard me mention many times during our class, a good dom needs a slightly cool energy. That coolness is actually important. It's kind of a doctor's coolness, a surgeon's coolness. They're not your buddy. They're actually not caretaking you, but they are serving you in this container. Right? Your shaman is not going to come over and mother you when you start puking. He'll just point to one of the assistants and say bucket. Bucket is probably already there. That's his care. Yeah. He's not coming there to pat your head and say, oh oh, you're okay. No. Not gonna interfere with your process. There's a coolness to the space holding, to the containment. And that coolness can be terribly, a crucial element sometimes in a domes of scene, which oftentimes your romantic partner or your husband or your wife may be the wrong fit for. They care too much or whatever else is going on there.
Speaker 0
Yeah. And that's what helped me see that being a dom is actually requires a lot of energy.
Speaker 1
It does.
Speaker 0
Right? It requires a lot of energy to hold that. And I think that that's where some who venture into that role, they get that kind of rude awakening where it's like, I have to care for my body, I have to nourish myself, I have to do my own inventory before I can offer this, and then I have to rest. And and it's really beautiful what you say about it being equal because as a submissive, there's so much that I've gleaned, you know, from the experience and that transaction, right, and that agreed upon transaction. And I see that there are needs being met equally. And if that ever feels off, then a conversation is had. And that accountability and having that conversation is also what builds the trust. And that's what I find in, you know, a lot of the marriages, relationships that I encounter in my work is that there's a lack of accountability, and I feel that the good dom always has the accountability component, you know, so much unlock. Yeah. It's part of the containment as well. It's like, oh, I'm not able to do this for you now. Like, even off even saying that relaxes the subsystem, you know. Or I I did say that I could offer you that, but at this moment, I can't, you know. And instead of, you know, tripping over oneself to try to meet the need when they're really not able or capable in that moment to do so.
Speaker 1
Very much so. This is a very common phenomenon and breakdown in the BDSM community and energetics. They have words for it. They call it top drop.
Speaker 0
Uh-huh.
Speaker 1
Where the gum may exhaust themselves by holding that position and then end up very empty. Right. Very tired, very empty, which is not good, which is not sustainable. No. So I think for the long run, it is great if people are more mindful of the balance of energy between any two people. That there be some exchange of energy and both people feel nourished so that they can keep doing it. It's not that doms do love to dom, doms do love to hold that space, but it is an energy expenditure. If the energy is not being replenished, you will simply burn yourself out. And a simple example of that would be, you love throwing dinner parties. So you love having people over. You love spending four hours cooking for your friends. But if you were the one cooking every Friday for your friends and nobody ever cooked for you, you would wonder after a while what the hell is wrong with my friends. It's not that you've stopped enjoying cooking for your friends or you've stopped enjoying feeding your friends, but it is a tremendous energy expenditure, even a monetary expenditure. And if friends are not balancing out their giving and receiving, you'll be like, I have some pretty selfish friends.
Speaker 0
Yeah. So in a marriage, let's say that the male is, you know, holding that that containment consistently. Part of that, mastery is being able to step away and communicate stepping away in order to replenish themselves so that they
Speaker 1
can continue. The submissive can also replenish their dom. That's so that the dom is simply not replenishing themselves or the two people are pouring into each other. There there is reciprocity.
Speaker 0
There's a reciprocity.
Speaker 1
There has to be a reciprocity for any kind of a relationship to work even if it's a non romantic, even familial relationships work or not don't work on reciprocity.
Speaker 0
Okay. What would you say to a woman perhaps who's come into contact with this information and maybe her husband, her partner is not available to expand into this? Is this just where there's like a deviation of, relationship connection? Because this is something you can't really unsee. Like, I simply can't unsee it right myself, you know. And so if a woman is learning about this Yeah. Learning to communicate, learning to have, you know, these consensual conversations and says, I can't go on without containment. I realized this has just been the thorn in my side for the last, you know, ten years.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 0
What if the husband is not coming along for that ride? Is there a way to inspire that? I don't really believe women need to go tell men how to be, you know, but how does that get inspired? How does that get explored?
Speaker 1
You know, first? Answer that question in two parts. The first part would be I I would encourage every man in a man woman relationship to provide good containment for his woman. I believe men who are not doing that are kind of dropping the ball on one of the main contributions they can make to their woman. So I would I would categorically tell men, give your woman good containment. And if you don't know how to do it, it's not that hard to learn. You can learn it from my videos. You don't even need to come to a class. That's why I made so many videos on containment. You just really have to want to do it. And once you get it, it's not rocket science. Yeah. So that part, I would say, it should be universal. Men should be walking containment to women. I encourage the men I coach, I'm like, when you're walking down a concourse at the airport, be walking containment. You can. You literally can't be walking containment as a man. It's simply the way you hold yourself and you contain yourself. And certainly, any woman you're in a relationship with, certainly, any woman you touch, your touch should give containment. That would be a universal advice. My advice to all men, I don't think women wanting containment from their men is any kind of unreasonable demand. I really don't. I think it is it is the equivalent of saying, I want physical affection in my connection. I don't think that's unreasonable demand. I want touch in my connection. Yeah. Of course, you do. What what's the point of being in a connection? I think men should be able to provide wonderful containment to their women. I think that's pretty basic. If you wanna take that a step further regarding BDSM play, DOM sub play, and the woman has discovered, oh, there's a lot of joy for me in my submissive archetype. And I want my man to DOM me, not just giving me containment, which is truly a PG rated energetics. It doesn't need to be it is not a bedroom technique. Containment is pretty much a
Speaker 0
Foundational way of living.
Speaker 1
All the way around. But if you're saying, well, I have discovered a lot of my Eros is in my submissive archetype, and I need my man to dom me and be in his dom archetype. That is a longer journey that requires your man to want to step into his dom. He may not even be an actual dom. So this is something I'm grappling with in my coaching all the time. The biggest challenge is men start exploring and they realize I also prefer being a submissive. Now that's a challenge to resolve. That's that's a longer conversation. That doesn't always have automatic solution. If if the man knows, obviously, if he's on board, then all he needs is training, which is doable. Come to my week long workshop. At the end of it, you'll really have some very basic solid foundation.
Speaker 0
We do workshops for Jessman?
Speaker 1
No. Come take the class that you took. Right? Any man who has taken that class, been through that week long training, I hope can create wonderful scenes going forward, and they do. So it's teachable. This is not amazingly difficult. You have to want it, and there are things to learn and kind of understand. People have a lot of bad ideas about what BDSM is.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
So they really have to understand what a scene is and what containment is, what the dom does, what the whole point of the thing is. It's very learnable. But if you don't wanna learn it, then there is kind of a relationship challenge. And I do encounter this on a regular basis where and almost without variation. You would think it would be the other way around. You would think men would be the one dragging their women to my coaching session saying, I wanna do BDSM. She doesn't. It is almost without exception the other way around. The women are like, I want this, and can you talk to him or do something? And it's sometimes it's really difficult if the man is unwilling. It's always hard in any journey if one person wants to they wanna go and the other one doesn't. I'm like, I don't have a I don't have a ready made solution for that. I don't believe we're ready made. It's the skills that you are wanting are teachable, but you have to want to learn them. It's like anything else.
Speaker 0
Yeah. The desire has to
Speaker 1
be kayaking with my husband. The husband's like, I'm not setting foot in the water. I'm like, okay. Well, it's gonna be hard to do this together. Something like that. I don't know.
Speaker 0
Yeah.
Speaker 1
But there are deeper reasons for it. Obviously, the resistance men have to stepping into their down mark type or this. There are oftentimes there there are a lot of cultural reasons why men don't wanna step into their dominance. So there really is there are real sticking points on what's keeping men from stepping into this. Considering their women are so openly and enthusiastically saying, do this, and it'll really turn me on. Do this, and you can really please me sexually, which men so badly want to do. Like, this is one area where women are not shy. They're like, this really gets me off. Can we do this, please? Even then, you would know the men are, like, sitting on their hands, and they're terrified or they're reluctant.
Speaker 0
You said it might be cultural. Is it also, like, the relationship to their own mother? Like, what what are the things that would hold a man back from saying, oh, she's just given me the keys to the kingdom, and I'm not gonna
Speaker 1
Any dysfunction in their relationship to the mother certainly plays out in their romantic dynamic all over the place. I don't know whether the resistance to exploring BDSM play is always has to do with the mother. I think it a lot of it has to do with there is a cultural force against men stepping into their dominance right now.
Speaker 0
Yeah.
Speaker 1
A lot of messaging to men is this part of you is not good. This part of you is toxic. This part of you has caused damage in the world, including towards women. Put this part away.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
Their men, I can't even get them to spank their woman's ass. They're like, I can't hit a woman. I'm like, her ass is bent over and in your face. I don't think I don't think this one is going to object if you slap your ass, but they're like well, they're like, if I become this guy, it's like they're gonna come at me with torches.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
They have this fear that if you ask me to step into my dominance, there's a great part of the culture that says, any man who does this is men are already bad. You really are the poster child for bad if you want to dominate women. Right. And I can I can understand that fear because this message is real? It is out there that women again, the the leap is from the nonconsensual to the consensual. The leap is nobody even wants to argue with the premise, have men nonconsensually dominated their women for five thousand years. Let's just leave that aside because that'll be a debate. Right? I actually don't believe that men's energies towards their women has been, I'm gonna keep my boot on your throat. Yeah. I think men and women, for the most part, have been just been struggling to survive together. Yeah. I think they have tried to be partners to each other. I don't think they have tried to oppress and dominate each other, but this is not the popular view these days. The popular view is men have not consensually dominated women. So now telling men now consensually dominate your women, and they're like, no. That's too short to leap. They're gonna come after me. Right? They're afraid. They're really afraid at this point. This is the this is what's actually you want to see this crystallized this crystallized in a nice sky phenomenon. Your classroom, if I remember, had a lot of nice guys, which you women were very fed up with. They weren't fully handling you well.
Speaker 0
By day two.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And, I have this. This is a repeated challenge. Put put people in a class, fifty people in a class for seven days, and you see how many nice guys are in the class, and it's like they're crystalized in this frozen energy.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
Night the nice sky energy is not a genuine energy. It is a completely frozen reaction. It's a completely fake energy. This is why you women find the nice guys creepy. As you know, this is an authentic. It's not like this guy is just genuinely simply gentle and friendly. No. There's a shadow piece here. This is not really who you are. This is who you are showing everybody to be, which is just not really you. But the reason they are that at is is this is kind of their standing safe mode. Like, if I'm a little mousy little guy in the corner, certainly, you can't blame me for being toxic, but there's no way to live for him as a man, and he certainly can't get you off or dominate you for sure.
Speaker 0
No. And what's underneath the nice guy anyway?
Speaker 1
His rage.
Speaker 0
His rage.
Speaker 1
Lot of rage because nobody likes being a poodle. Right? So it's it's a it's a shadow piece for sure, but it's a real shadow piece. So that shadow piece does show up in front of me on a regular basis. It shows up in every class I teach. It showed up in your class. Mhmm. Where men simply, with full permission, with written permission, with women taking their clothes off and sticking your ass in his ear and, like, come on now. Hit it. And they're, like, nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. And, like, I don't know what more permission do you need. I don't know what more clarity do you need. I don't know what more consent do you need. But they are completely frozen in that energy, and that is a challenge. That is a challenge to solve. So if a couple comes into me in front of me, it's the same challenge I face. I'm like, I can make him an offer, you can make him an offer.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
But as I say, more more often than not, it's the woman who wants it and the man who simply doesn't wanna step into it.
Speaker 0
And then a decision has to be made, I guess.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 0
Yeah. I I see I mean, I've seen this as a framework, like all of this as a framework for disabusing ourselves from this greater dynamic collectively that I think we play with, you know, the government, with the medical system, with all of these institutions that we feel like, you know, we're victims too. Is it for me, this framework has really, because of the consent piece, has really allowed us to or allowed me and the people around me that that I know do it to verbalize and have agreements and feel that there is an equal exchange. And so would you say that this could be a really good way for someone who is looking to stop parentifying the medical system, stop parentifying certain systems, stop parentifying certain maybe even cultural structures that this could be a way to do that? This could be a way to build the language.
Speaker 1
I think BDSM scene play is terrific at many, many things and understanding our agency, understanding consent, understanding boundaries, which are very important life skills. Right? And I think BDSM is brilliant at, in a very concrete concentrated way. Teaching these because if you don't do one of these things, your scene will fall apart. You will create breakdowns and it'll it'll be a fast breakdown.
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
If your communication is messy and one person thought they expressed this boundary but the other person didn't hear it, it'll show up in your scene as a breakdown. If you express the boundary and then you try to change it, it'll show up as a breakdown. Mhmm. If you wanted to call yellow but you didn't, it'll show up as a breakdown because you didn't call a boundary. There'll be some kind of a breakdown. Either you'll fall into victimhood or you'll blame your dom for violating you, and the dom will say, I didn't violate you. I did what you were a yes to. You never called yellow. But the it's like the breakdowns will show up faster if you're not observing boundaries, communicating clearly. Right? Not in your agency, falling into victimhood, going into a freeze response, which may not be entirely your fault, but certainly, it will create breakdowns or at least we need to have some provision. So we even have that conversation at having it more even these days. I've created the added the, safe word blue. Blue for sky when you're checked out. So people can't always people don't always know when they are checked out. But if you do have a iota of awareness, I'm kinda starting to check out. Call blue. Stop your scene. The effect of blue is the same as yellow. Pause your scene. I'm not here anymore as a submissive. I'm checking out. I'm leaving my body. I'm not completely present. Let's pause the scene, which is a way of reinstilling your awareness, saying you don't need to escape your body. You can stay here. If the stimulation is too much, stop everything. Yeah. And on the other side, we understand that this is a coconspiracy. These are two friendly people working together.
Speaker 0
Yeah.
Speaker 1
And Dom will say, excellent. Thanks for letting me know. Because the Dom doesn't get to win if you are checked out, and you should should have called yellow two minutes ago, five minutes ago, and you didn't. Right?
Speaker 0
Makes me wonder if the Dom is in blue sometimes because if they can't read that the sub is in blue, what does that mean? I've seen it before. It just says you see the
Speaker 1
DOM check out. In BDSM scene, it's not always easy because somebody being checked out doesn't often look anything different from somebody simply being in their happy zone. They could just be quiet. They could just be in their sensation. Right. You can't tell simply by looking at them whether they're present or not. You can check-in and find out. You can ask. They're not mind readers. This is why we need communication. This is why we need safe words. It's not all help each other out. Yeah. Right? Instead of laying these gauntlets for each other, saying you should be able to read my mind. I'm like, this isn't helping anybody. How about we help each other out? How about we this is why we say the dom takes two hundred percent responsibility, but then the submissive also takes one hundred percent responsibility. And part of your hundred percent responsibility is being an act of consent. And if you can't be an act of consent, we're in breakdown. Right? So the dom doesn't know if the submissive is checked out. The dom doesn't know the submissive has abandoned their hundred percent responsibility. Right? So whatever we can to do to prevent these breakdowns, we try to do actively in scene play.
Speaker 0
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Right? Or at least we are doing this deliberately, doing our best to prevent breakdowns, which in real life, people are not as deliberate or conscientious about it. Within a short scene, we can create this also because we need it, because we are playing with intensity.
Speaker 0
Oh, it's huge in in in the real world, let's say. I mean, for me, this is the real world, but it's huge in my world with birth in the medical system. Very often of many women who I work with in in birth trauma sessions, they agree to certain medical procedures without knowing any outcomes, consequences, evidence, anything like that. They agree because they don't wanna upset who they've placed in this role, you know, this medical provider role. And then very quickly, the body shuts down, labor can stop, right? The cervix won't continue to open, certain things happen in the body and the system, and it goes sideways very quickly, simply because there was a non consent consensual action taken. And, a lot of resentment builds. You know? No communication is happening. So it's it's really for me, it's just such a metaphor for everything.
Speaker 1
I think our friend, Kelly Brogan, is also very passionate about this topic, about Yeah. The dark holes in the medical system and everywhere things are not as caring as they seem to be on the surface.
Speaker 0
Yeah. And parenting dynamics and and everything and everything. Well, thank you so much. This has been such a deep pleasure for me. So thank you
Speaker 1
Absolutely.
Speaker 0
For offering this. And where can people find you? I'm gonna share your information, but is there something specific right now you have going on? I know you have some retreats coming up.
Speaker 1
I have a retreat in February in Cyprus, a week long retreat in BDSM, and I have other programs. I have a program for women who wanna take a deep training in BDSM and possibly do it in session work. You can find all my workshops at omoorpani dot org. All the workshops are listed there. I also have a teaching website on omrepani dot com where I have a lot of free material and videos. So you can check out a lot of free material without having to take any of my classes.
Speaker 0
Beautiful. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Absolutely.
Want to hear more conversations like this one? Om Rupani's School for Dominance & Submission is a private online community of like-minded people.
To learn more from Om Rupani, visit his YouTube Channel or Online Workshops.
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Subscribe to born to knowEpisode 10
Step into the art of Containment with our beloved mini course, Containment: Finding & Creating Safety and use code: BTK10 to get 10% off.
In this episode, you're going to learn what containment means and why it’s essential in personal and relational dynamics, how men and women can create healthier interactions through understanding boundaries, how agency and consent transform challenging dynamics into healing opportunities, why men struggle to step into their dominance, and practical advice for improving relational dynamics, whether in parenting, partnerships, or professional settings.
Om Rupani is an expert and teacher in the field of man-woman relating as well as the founder of Om Rupani's School for Dominance & Submission and leader of BDSM trainings, workshops and communities.
Timestamps:
[03:16] What is containment?
[06:48] The importance of containment for children
[10:16] How boys learn containment from older men
[12:01] Why men benefit from role models
[14:30] The concept of coolness in masculinity
[16:34] How lack of boundaries affects relationships
[18:22] Why containment improves relationships
[22:32] Why consistent containment is necessary
[24:15] How gratitude affects relationships
[26:51] The difference between consensual and non-consensual dynamics
[30:10] Why BDSM is about mutual self-interest
[33:13] How to avoid using BDSM as therapy
[37:02] The role of consent in BDSM
[38:47] Why agency creates healing in BDSM
[40:20] Why trust matters in BDSM scenes
[43:09] Why good doms must manage their energy
[45:39] Why reciprocity is essential in relationships
[47:00] How men can learn to provide containment
[50:32] Why some men resist stepping into dominance
[53:36] The cultural challenges men face in embracing dominance
[55:28] Why the “nice guy” energy is problematic
[58:02] How communication prevents breakdowns in BDSM
[60:18] How non-consensual actions affect birth experiences
Transcript + Keywords
Key Words:
containment
boundaries
consent
agency
dominance
submission
non-consensual dynamics
relational dynamics
man-woman relationships
masculine energy
feminine energy
emotional regulation
trust
power dynamics
intimacy
energetic fields
communication
gratitude
reciprocation
dom-sub scenes
BDSM principles
relational healing
vulnerability
mother-baby dyad
martial arts
cultural narratives
nice guy energy
shadow work
energetic balance
birth trauma
medical consent
Transcript:
On the episode today, I'm joined by one of my teachers, Om Rapani. Om is an expert and world renowned thought leader in the world of BDSM and man woman relating. I discovered Om's work and teachings a little over four years ago, and a whole new world was blown open for me, illuminating how I related to those around me, related to my world, my work, my children, and most importantly, how I related to myself. I believe that without healthy communication to self, without a clear understanding of our needs, our wants, limits, and boundaries, we really become a liability to those around us, particularly to our children and and those we love. This has been one of my favorite conversations to date. We explore the highly charged topic of consent and the many ways in which we live in a nonconsensual society and world, and what it means to bring a yes to something that was always a no. We dive into a topic I weave into all my work as a doula, educator and mother, containment. What does it mean? And how do we feel it? And what happens when it's dropped? For me, a whole world of possibility opened when I understood this concept and, integrated it into my life. And I can see how it also impacts the birth space, the relational space, relationship to our children. So I am super excited to dive into this today. According to me, BDSM is a secret framework for how so many things in our life can expand, improve, and harmonize. And it doesn't necessarily always involve chains and whips. Hi, thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1
Absolutely.
Speaker 0
I found your work about four and a half years ago, and listened to some videos that you and Laurie had created that I was, let's just say like reconnecting with my physical body. I had been in a, maybe like a separation of soul and body for quite a long time as a means of survival and, you know, just moving through the world in the way I needed to. And so in my reclamation process, I had found your work and watched about probably everything that you created that was available. So thank you in advance.
Speaker 1
Binge watching. Oh, my feel for you people who binge watch. Good luck with you. Good luck with that.
Speaker 0
I thought it was better than binge watching Netflix. It's either, like, nature documentaries or BDSM content.
Speaker 1
I guess it is better than binge watching Game of Thrones or something. We hit it every fifteen minutes.
Speaker 0
Yeah. Exactly. So anyway and then I went to your retreat and, it was incredible. So That
Speaker 1
was wonderful.
Speaker 0
Yeah. So thank you. And, yeah. I, you know, I trained doulas, birth educators, women who work in the birth space, and I started weaving in the concept of containment and what that means and how to just take notice of when we're going into certain containers, how that feels, and what we start to do, either verbally, physically, energetically as a means to survive in that container, right, and to be in that container, and so to take notice and take inventory. So I would love for you to share with us how you, I would say, coined this term containment, you know, and and what it is to create a container.
Speaker 1
I don't think it's an original term. I think it probably goes back to, therapy and psychology that people do in in our, kind of woo woo circles, we call it holding space. And a holding space is a good analog for what containment is. That, one person is present first first and foremost with somebody else. Your attention is on them. You are kind of you are kind of holding space for them. I do believe this phenomenon happens at an energetic level, at a field level, and that's where things get a bit woo woo because we can't see these fields yet, but I do believe they exist. Right? If you come into a meditation circle, if you go to a church where people are in prayer and you feel something, you feel the field. There's a you sigh there. You feel things are more gathered. Things are more collected. I believe our system is feeling the field. And when the field is coherent, our system comes in resonance with that coherent field, and we come into greater coherence. In a way, our right? I kinda describe as that Van de Graaff generator, you know, like that Frankenstein thing where the ball with the lightning in it shooting sparks. And it's wild and it's crazy and it's shooting sparks all over the place. And then all of a sudden, let's say somebody comes in and kind of teams and gathers the energy and the whole energy goes a little coherent and comes out into a sphere. I believe our our fields are doing this all the time. A very accessible entry point into feeling this is simply being in nature. Nature is a coherent field. So simply going for a walk in the woods, going for a hike, and you just sit on a rock and you go and you are quiet and you are peaceful. Your mind is quieter. I think it's because nature is a coherent field and going into nature, we sit with nature and our field gets in resonance with it and we feel calmer. Our thoughts calm down. Even if we wanna think, we're able to think better. We can kind of see things. What's in front of me really. All of that, I think, is what the containment phenomenon is. Right? And so it's a deeply human need. Children need it badly. Babies need it badly. They don't have their own containers. Right. Babies cry or or doula. You probably know this hundred times more profoundly than I do, but all they can do is cry when something doesn't feel good. It's gonna be the only alarm call they can send out. And oftentimes, so much of it, apart from their very basic physical needs, is a need for containment, is a need for holding, for swaddling, for feeling held, feeling safe, we may call it these days. We use the word safe a lot. But that feeling of feeling contained and safe, they're very similar. The Right. Somatically, they register essentially the same way. Right? So I believe containment is a very big thing. It's very important. We all need it. And I think in the man women difference, I believe women in general have a greater need for containment. I think women systems are a bit more fiery and sparkly and shooting all over the place and a little bit more head noise, more self obsession noise. And I think the masculine, especially our growth from boyhood to manhood is to come into self containment. And I believe one of the kind of the energetic contracts between men and women, or at least one of the energetic contributions that men can make to women, is to kind of share with them their surplus of containment. Hopefully, the man has it, and he can hold the woman in that field, and she can benefit from his containment. So that that would be yeah. That's
Speaker 0
Yeah. You said a few things there. So, of course, it reminds me of the mother baby dyad. Right? I I do work with a lot of babies. And then in the birth space, what I offer more than tips and tricks on the labor and birth process is that holding, whether it's simply my presence. Yeah. Or even just hands on the back. Like, it depends on the woman. And a lot of it is conversation, you know, having an agreement about what types of touch feel good and, you know, there's informed consent. And once I know that, I can offer that without a lot of talking. And that's that's the difference, you know, and then
Speaker 1
Yeah. And touch is absolutely wonderful as a medium of creating containment, using our bodies as the field. But it's not essential. You can give somebody containment over the phone. You can give somebody containment with your voice. You can give somebody containment simply by your presence. There are people who will walk into the room and the room gets more grounded.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
They are walking containment. So this is why this is why I feel if it's if it were simply a physical hugs and muscle phenomenon, we could simply place it there. We could teach people how to give good hugs. But I think I really feel the phenomenon is energetic. It's a field phenomenon, and we don't our technology hasn't caught up to to seeing fields yet. I believe it will probably. It'll probably see be able to see the fields and, like, you could be able to point some kind of a camera at nature and see the coherence of the field compared to, let's say, a protest or whatever, a noisy hall or, random train station. Yeah. And you would see how cacophonous the field is and how if you are sensitive to it, your system is, like, trying trying not to resonate with the chaos and trying to hold its own, and some people have a lot of difficulty with that.
Speaker 0
Well, I feel that if we actually have the capacity to see that unseen, you know, that enter that resonance that you're talking about, I just think we've tricked ourselves or gaslit ourselves into believing we don't see it or we don't feel it. Right? We feel it.
Speaker 1
We feel it. For sure, we feel it. But I mean, like, it'd be great to, like, point a camera, like, we have infrared See
Speaker 0
some color.
Speaker 1
Do you have to be I because I believe it I don't believe it's, I believe it's an existential phenomenon. I believe it's it it is a phenomena that physics can account for at some level. Yeah. I just don't think it completely has yet. I at least, I don't know that it has.
Speaker 0
Right. And it's it's totally true what you say about the touch. Right? Because I have been touched or hugged, let's say, by someone who seems like they might offer great containment, let's say. Maybe it's someone who's a little taller than me, little bigger than me. And so and then I've hugged them, and I feel like my my system actually frays a little bit more. Yeah.
Speaker 1
I have And so Yeah. I've I've had this conversation with, women who have big hulking boyfriends.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
Two hundred pounds of muscle.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
But the man's not giving her good containment. And you would think he would be he would just sweep up his gal, and and he's like, when I need containment, I have to go hide in the bathroom. Yep. His his energy is, you know, too needy. Yeah. So it's it's
Speaker 0
Right. Or he's or he's somewhere else.
Speaker 1
You know? He's not. He could be in a little boy energy, which is which is completely annoying and irritating to women, especially when they're needing containment. Because, essentially, the little boy energy is seeking containment from the feminine.
Speaker 0
Yeah. I still understand.
Speaker 1
Thing she wants to be around when she's needing containment. She's like, get the hell away from me.
Speaker 0
Yeah. Exactly. And I I think most maybe let's a large amount of women haven't been able to identify or, you know, they don't have the language for that, but they know they know inside something doesn't feel great, and something doesn't feel stable or or right for them. Yeah. You know, there so that's something I was talking about this week with this pastor, actually. He talks about initiations for boys into manhood. And you mentioned, you know, that capacity to offer the containment. How does how does the boy because we don't have initiations in our culture anymore. I mean, really, at this point, cross culturally, historically, there were so many initiations that boys would go through to step into that manhood. So now that we don't have that and and boys are getting their information from, you know, they're at school with a bunch of female teachers. They're typically in households where there aren't fathers or the father is there, but he's, you know, still perhaps in a boy energy. So there's a a, you know, twice removed, right, masculine energy in his space. So how do boys now and maybe we could speak to the men who still feel that they haven't initiated yet. What are types of initiations that that men can do to step into that?
Speaker 1
I resonate with the difficulty that you're laying out. I I hear it spoken and expressed when I talk to men and I coach men. The best way for young boys, younger men to get it is kind of with through osmosis, is to be with older men. And there is a very natural desire and instinct. Boys, follow around their older brothers. Boys wanna impress their older brothers and their older brother's friends. They wanna they wanna be like them. They wanna be cool like the older kids. And I think that all those are healthy instincts. And part of that was is that I wanna be as contained as the older older guys are. I wanna be as contained as the grown men in my family are. But you have to see that and you have to see, oh, that's that's where my masculinity is headed. And then boys really wanna emulate it. They wanna play grown up. Right. They wanna play a little tough. They wanna play adult. And those are all healthy ways to, like, lean in that direction. So I think but you kind of have to do have to see it. If you don't see it in your own home, maybe you can find it you can find it anywhere. You can find it in school. You can find it in a teacher. You can even find it in fiction. You can find it in characters. There's a reason why we love certain movie characters, TV characters. I tell my man, my favorite not I can only see this in retrospect. One of my heroes as a as a teenager when I came to this country was mister Spock on Star Trek. Like, a lot of people love mister Spock. Maybe but I think, like, maybe the lot of the reason that boys may have loved mister Spock is for for his unflappability. Mhmm. Right? He was as cool as a tough cowboy.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
He just he didn't have fear. Premise was he didn't have emotions, but all the also men, you put a gun in his face, he will just raise his eyebrow at you, which is what, Indiana Jones would do. But so but we could still feel like there's something correctly masculine
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
About this really cool character who you simply can't throw off balance. Right? So we are seeking this in in wherever we can find it, even if it's in Star Trek. But we see that model. We see that containment. Does the man who is self contained, the man who is unfuckable with. Right? We we are drawn to that. Women are drawn to that too. Boys are also very drawn to it. We may be another very typical example of that, you may seem silly, but actually teach with this archetype is James Bond. Right? James Bond is the ultra cool guy, but and why is the ultra cool guy? He is absolutely unfuckable with. You can't mess with him. You can't throw him off his balance. Not even the prettiest girls can throw him off his balance.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
Which is something, which women find attractive because women test men to see how solid is your containment. Right? If I flash some boobs at you, do you just lose your shit? If you do, I'm actually not that impressed.
Speaker 0
Right. Women
Speaker 1
lose respect. Particularly fabulous about my boobs. If my boobs can throw you off balance, anybody's boobs can throw you off balance, which makes you weak and stupid. So this is why that character is is really that. When we say a character is cool, part of that coolness is his containment, his unflappability. He's not easily distracted. He's not easily swayed. He knows his center. Right? Yeah. And so much of, we ask how men can get containment. One wonderful way to do it is martial arts. Martial arts very much is truly any athletics, but certainly specifically martial arts, which the discipline of it is being centered. It actually being in your center line, being in your hara, being in your feet so that you physically can't be thrown off balance. Right. Energetically, you can't be thrown off balance, and that's a great way to build that discipline. But truly, any any kind of physical discipline would require a centering. Even if you do yoga, even if you do dance, it will require that somatic centeredness, which is certainly a leaping off point from the emotional towards emotional centeredness.
Speaker 0
And that discipline for me is inextricable from boundaries. Right?
Speaker 1
I think it's very, very, very intimately related. Certainly, they are adjacent.
Speaker 0
And what I have found with a lot of my couples that I work with over the last decade is when there's a lack of boundaries on the male's part, the woman it's it's the unspoken, but the woman feels unsafe. Right? His family can steer him in any direction. Yeah. You know, a coworker can call at ten PM and he'll answer. Right? There's no boundaries.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 0
And the woman energetically starts to, what I've noticed, become controlling. Right? Kind of holds that dark mommy energy of like, why are you taking the call? What? Because she's trying to secure some sort of safety for herself because he's she's, she's entrusted him to hold those boundaries.
Speaker 1
Yep.
Speaker 0
And so I would say, yes, they're adjacent for sure. And and what for me, it's a huge part of it. Right? That initiation is to learn how to draw those boundaries.
Speaker 1
Very much so. This phenomenon you're describing has, ramifications throughout man woman relationship that wherever there is a deficit where there shouldn't be, wherever there's a deficit, the system, if you will, the the couple's system will try to fill that gap. Yeah. So wherever men drop containment, women's system goes into hypervigilance to make up for it. Wherever men drop leadership or women want them to be in leadership, if he can't lead, then well, now I have to. And so because well, somebody has to. Otherwise, that thing falls apart. And this is what creates a lot of exhaustion and resentment in women because they are spending all this energy creating containment they would rather not be creating. Right? Because they they can't be soft and feminine and be in that much hypervigilance at the same time. Right? And as as you say, women don't even they're like, I don't want to be this controlling bitch. I really don't wanna be this woman. I would rather be soft and flowy. And yet, if there's this much stuff not being taken care of, well, who the hell is gonna do it? Right? So this this this compensation is happening all the time. This is why this is why, containment is in a way such a PG rated topic considering I'm a BDSM instructor. It's not the sexiest of topics, but it's like the first thing I teach. And as you know, even in the BDSM class, the first thing we teach is containment. And even in the man, woman relating, I emphasize this over and over to men that first first and foremost, whether it's a first date or ten year marriage, double or triple the containment you're giving to your woman. Because chances are you're not getting the best out of her yet. If she's in containment deficit, you haven't seen the best of your woman. So all of your other complaints that you have, let's put them on the back shelf for now. Let's let's we'll get to them. Increase the containment you're giving to your woman. Make her really feel contained and actually notice how many of those problems may disappear. She may actually become less irritable. She may actually become more gracious. She may actually wanna have more sex with you. She may actually stop being critical. Lot of that is symptomatic of her not feeling contained.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
So this really is kind of a magic pill. First, do this one thing and then come to me and say, these are the problems that exist. If you have a uncontained woman, just count on there being a list twenty twenty point list of problems, but they may all have the same solution. First, increase the containment and see how our system relaxes and changes. Yeah. And then let's see which problems are left on the table. We'll talk we'll talk about them then.
Speaker 0
Yeah. I would even wager that women look physically different when they're offered that container.
Speaker 1
They look more girly. They look soft. Their shoulders relax. Their neck tilts. Their hair comes forward. Right. They smile more. Right? Do BDSM long enough, I always like to point out the way women look in aftercare after a good scene. I'm like, that's what you're going for.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
She's leaning over into his arm. She doesn't even wanna get up. Feels good to be in that containment field. And I'm like, there she is. Instead of her sitting eighteen inches away from you Right. Breathing through her nostrils about to tell you all the things that aren't working because
Speaker 0
Right. The construction in her chest. Yeah. The tightening of the pelvic floor, like, all of the things that Oh,
Speaker 1
but and and the energy is in the head, the list making.
Speaker 0
Yeah.
Speaker 1
How am I gonna solve these problems? Frustrated again.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
Not in the body. Right. Right? Where feeling contained is a relaxation. She actually comes down into her belly and her pelvis if she's feeling contained. Pain.
Speaker 0
Yeah. And what would you say is like the if we were to look, you know, give a from a bird's eye view of this man woman container. Right? Like, I always I always imagine the woman is this body of water, and the man is kinda like the river banks around her water, you know. And if he starts, you know, if one part of that river bank is leaking or open or not offering that, it'll start to leak out. And then he'll say there's, you know, there's no water here. There's no the magic is gone, the magic is leaving, and then he starts to put his attention elsewhere, you know. So it's, it's interesting how it's all feeding off of each other, you know, because I have dealt with infidelity with some of the couples that I that I've worked with over the years.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 0
And it's like, well, I left energetically because she wasn't available and because she was controlling. And then she's like, well, I would have to control because you weren't taking charge. And then next thing you know so, yeah. I mean, how can we if we're, you know, listening to this right now and we're, you know, facing those challenges whether we're we're single and and and, you know, dating, right, or we're in a ten year marriage or whatever it is. Yeah. If you're gleaning this awareness right now from this, how can you take that one step forward, man or woman? Right? Like, what can we do today that's going to shift the dynamic?
Speaker 1
Well, I think what what the two people can do on their part, and I I completely hear the frustration you're describing, it is extremely common. It seems like a bad downward spiral, a catch twenty two. And I think the way to solve it is to kind of create a little bit of an upward spiral on both sides. And on men's side, it's like, give more and better containment. Stop taking away your you have to give consistent containment. This is one of the places where men are so lacking these days, which is this is one of the poisons really of the egalitarian mentality where men are like, well, but do I have to give containment all the time? I'm like, do you need to not drop your baby all the time? Can you drop your baby on Tuesday and Thursday and just not drop your baby the others the other five days? Would that be okay? Yeah. You kind of need to give you kind of need to be that containment machine all the time. It's kind of should be the place you occupy. But there might be exceptions where you're sick, you're grieving, where you need your own space, and women are brilliant at holding space for their men during those extraordinary times. Women are wonderful in stepping into their nurturing. Right? Nurses are holding containment all day long. Mhmm. They can hold containment professionally if they're built for it. So it's not like women can't do containment. Women are holding containment for their children and infants all the time. You know that. Listen, we all hold containment. It's just women in general don't wanna hold containment for their man. Of course. They're like, I want I'm holding containment for this infant twenty four seven. So it's not like women are not providing containment. They are like, I don't also wanna hold containment for you. I need you to hold containment for me. Right? So on men's end, they kind of need to step into this responsibility. Yeah. Right? And on women's end, if they have a backlog of frustration and disappointed with the man, they need to work on that a little bit because men want to be rewarded for their energies. Mhmm. So if the man is feeling my attention is not being appreciated, what I'm providing is not being appreciated, all I'm getting in return for it is more complaint and more unhappiness from the woman's side, then he may pull back his attention. Then he will say, my containment is a resource, and this resource is not being appreciated right now. And that can be a very losing formula. So I can only place this in front of a man and a woman and say, please be mindful of this.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
You increase your containment as a man, and please appreciate the containment he's giving you. Don't slap him for it. Don't criticize him for it. He is giving you something. Receive it. And appreciate him for it so he will do more of it. That's a good way to build the cycle. That's pretty much it.
Speaker 0
Yeah. The gratitude and the receptivity is huge for women. Yeah. And that's a practice in itself.
Speaker 1
Need men want men work on a reward system, truly. We are we really work on positive reinforcement. We wanna put our energies where the energies are rewarded. So if he if and when he is doing something right, let him know that, let him feel it, and he will do more of it. Train train train your man well. Man, they're really trainable, but they really train them with positive reinforcement. We don't really work well with negative reinforcement. This is, this is something women haven't figured out yet. After sixty years of nagging at men through feminism, women haven't figured out men actually don't respond well to negative reinforcement. Doesn't really work. We'd gets gets us demoralized, makes us walk out the door and chase the next piece of ask who may be more rewarding to us.
Speaker 0
Yeah. I always I always say the blonde secretary who doesn't complain.
Speaker 1
It's not the blonde secretary. She could be a fat brunette secretary who doesn't complain and appreciate him, and he will go for it. Trust me. It's not the youth and beauty. It is where am I appreciated as a man? Where am I approved of as a man? We want that desperately. Where am I found right?
Speaker 0
Could you lay out a scene? So let's move into BDSM a little bit because that's so many of the questions I got were about that. Could you because I I mean, let's say ten years ago, I used to think, okay, like BDSM, like, you know, it's there it's dominance. Right? And I I associated it with being domineering, which is not the case. I didn't understand understand the really understand the dom sub dynamic as well as I do now, and I'm, of course, still learning. But I was like, people have to be not well mentally, emotionally, spiritually to want this type of dynamic. Right? Because I was also very much poisoned by feminism. And so, in my own learning of that, I started to understand, right, the concept of containment. And I started to experience it myself and realized that so much of my shame that I held, which from, you know, various experiences in my life or belief systems that were superimposed on me by my family or my culture or my religion, I didn't know I I didn't know how to offload that shame. Like, I I didn't know I I couldn't recognize or identify a channel through which to alchemize the shame. And so BDSM actually became that channel. So could you walk us through what it looks like to set up a scene? Right? Because there are conversations that and there are a lot of people doing this that I think might not have the kind of higher level understanding of agreements and contracts. Yeah. And so could you walk us through what happens before, what happens during, and then how it's closed?
Speaker 1
Absolutely. I think even before, describing the structure of a scene and the agreements between Dom and Sub, if you will remember, one of the very first conversations we had in our workshop was, making a distinction between nonconsensual domination and consensual domination. And I think that is where the that is where the understanding really needs to come in because there is there's a tremendous amount of nonconsensual domination and submission in the world. Yeah. Right? As as I was as I say in the the conversation we had, it's in my handout, pretty much every every news headline, every single day, in every newspaper for all of human history probably is a report of nonconsensual domination. Right? Some all violence all violence is nonconsensual domination. Every shooting, every war, every attack, is nonconsensual domination. Every every every crime, every robbery, every assault, that's a lot. So we are inundated in nonconsensual domination. So nobody really wants to be at the receiving end of nonconsensual domination. So if that is the framework on what domination is, domination is somebody taking something from somebody else, somebody hurting somebody else, somebody just doing whatever they want to somebody else, you would say, why the hell would I wanna be at the receiving end of it? I would have to be emotionally disturbed to want to be mugged or beaten or invaded or violated. What's wrong with you? That's entirely a reasonable thing to conclude if that's your only framework. And that is the political framework. That is the feminist framework that men have non consensually dominated women for eons. That's the entire premise. That's the premise of patriarchy. That's the entire feminist premise, is men have nonconsensually dominated women since the beginning of time. Right? Leaving the politics aside for a moment, it certainly is not what BDSM is. It is not what a scene is. It is not what the connection between a dominant and a submissive is. It is based on consensual domination and submission. Well, what does that mean? It means, first of all, that both people are completely equal parties. This is a this is a tricky thing for people to understand. In a BDSM dynamic, some people, maybe even BDSM people are gonna object to this. In a BDSM dynamic, there actually isn't a power gradient between the two people. I agree. The people may not get this. Right? If you and I are going to have a scene, and I'm going to be your dumb, and you're going to be my submissive, and we come together, and we say, okay, let's talk about this. In that moment, there is no power gradient between us. You don't have less power than me. I don't have more power than you or vice versa. Even if even though even if we have agreed, I'm going to play the dominant in the scene Mhmm. And you have agreed, I'm gonna play the submissive in the scene. Here now, as human beings, there is no power gradient between us. Right? So within the BDSM context, it really this is why also people need to understand. BDSM is theater. This is why we call it a scene. It's play acting. I will step into my dominant archetype. You will step into your submissive archetype, but let's stop right there. Why? Why would you step into your submissive archetype and come across from me while I'm in my dominant archetype? One simple reason. You're getting something out of it. It's in your self interest. I'm doing it because it's in my self interest. You're doing it because it's in your self interest. What could the self interest be? I enjoy it. You enjoy it. I get pleasure out of it. You get pleasure out of it. I get a certain amount of self expression because I resonate with the dominant archetype. You get a certain amount of self expression because you resonate with the submissive archetype. It is truly so parallel to partner dancing. Right? The man in a tango is not superior to the woman in tango. They're two human beings doing a dance, but the dance requires complimentary steps. They both wanna do the dance. They both wanna find a partner with whom they can do their steps well and dance well. They both wanna have fun dancing. That's what we are doing. We're getting off. We're enjoying ourselves. We're playing. And it's a very limited container. We come, we do our dance, we do our scene, we stop, and we we come out of our archetypes. I'm no longer your domino longer my submissive. We have finished our scene. Right? With which is such a far cry from nonconsensual domination and submission.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
There's nothing like it. So that's something people need to understand right off the bat. If their entire lens when they hear dominance and submission, if their entire lens is a political lens, they are so far away from what this is. So that's the first part, and we can get into how you design a scene if you want.
Speaker 0
Well, I mean, I I actually would like to ask you, you know, from a case study perspective, how you have seen people bring a trauma in our workshop, you know, and listening to your videos that people have brought certain traumas that they feel very safe working through. So could you give us some examples of that, actually? I would love to hear.
Speaker 1
I can give you wonderful examples of people experiencing release through BDSM play, but I really need to first bracket that with, something I teach in all my classes, which is I really, really discourage people from doing scene play as therapy.
Speaker 0
Mhmm. Okay.
Speaker 1
I really, really discourage people from saying we are going to heal a trauma in this scene. I do not encourage dames to step in and say, I'm going to heal you. I'm your shaman in the scene. I think it's I think it's a really bad framework. I think the the framework I encourage people to do is please do this for fun. Please do this for play. And along the way, if release happens, wonderful. And even if along the way, you're like, this thing happened to me. I wanna bring it into a scene. Do it in the spirit of play. Do it in the spirit of exploration. And if release happens, it's a gift. But don't chase it. Don't think you're being a therapist. But then you can play with things, and you can explore things and say, this is a tight spot in my system because of something that happened. I would like to explore it and do it with with do it with some measure of humility. Don't think you're going to just go in there and heal this thing like you're some kind of a surgeon.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
Play with it. Have room for it. Have the same kind of attitude you may have. I don't know. Like, if if you're trying to release some pain from your past when you go into a medicine journey. You're not going there with demands. Like you this I wanna release this today. You'll see.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
They'll see. Maybe it'll come up. Maybe it won't. Maybe
Speaker 0
The release just might be a product, a byproduct of the intention to play.
Speaker 1
Be humble about it. Set an intention by all means, and ask for help and ask for release, and then see what happens.
Speaker 0
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Right? In that in that vein, people do explore many tight spots in their systems, bad experiences from the past. They can reenact in role playing. Oftentimes, they're they're able to find release with it. Oftentimes, they're able to find Eros in it. We we can flip it flip our trauma on its ears and milk Eros out of it. It's very interesting and fun that way.
Speaker 0
Right. Yeah. Is that something to do with the taboo of it? Right? Something that was maybe prohibited or forbidden and now?
Speaker 1
Not clear exactly what the logic of it. I think Jack Morin was a wonderful, writer. He wrote his great book called The Herotic Mind. I think he mentions as a section in there that talks about we tend to eroticize our traumas.
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
Right? I think from a tantric perspective, you can view this as a trauma as kind of a bundled of stuck energy. Yeah. Frozen energy in the system, which is kind of how they describe trauma to it's a frozen moment that didn't get to complete its action. We got frozen in time, which is also how tantra would think of stuck energies. And through movement, through motion, whatever that motion may be, it could be emotional release techniques. It could be bioenergetics. It could be a flogging session. If the energy get loosens and moves, could be orgasmic. The movement of energy feel measurable, can feel erotic. Or it could come out in crying. It could come out in snot and tears. You don't know how it's gonna come out.
Speaker 0
Right. Yeah. Shaking. Right. Yeah. It's energy moving through the body. And the mind wants to ascribe a certain wrong or right to that movement of that energy. Right? It's better if it's laughing, or it's better if it's pleasure. Right? But it's not good if it's crying, you know.
Speaker 1
But It's hard to hard to know how it's gonna come out. Yeah. In any in any modality. In medicine journeys, people could be laughing or they could be crying. Right. So the world knows what's gonna happen.
Speaker 0
Yeah. One of the exercises we did, was spanking session. Yep. And I know that for the most part, you know, many of us grew up with corporal punishment.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 0
Whether from our parents or school teachers or caregivers, whoever it was. Right? And some of us didn't, but we assume that there's only negativity tied around that. Right? Yeah. Because we have we look at it through the lens of nonconsensual domination. So in this session, I remember it was a, you know, very large group, and a lot of the people were saying like, oh, you know, I I would never let anyone do this to me, or, you know, this, you know, how is this going to ever feel good. Right? But the thing that flipped it for me was the consensual aspect of it. Like, that's what that was when I could release the lens and allow the actual physical sensation and the anticipation that comes with that exercise to really fill my body and my system, you know, and knowing that the person asked and I agreed. And so so much became possible with the consent. Yeah. You know, and so, yeah, people were laughing. People were
Speaker 1
cry there
Speaker 0
were a few people crying, But that's that's, you know, for me kind of like a a PG example, let's say, of having something done to us as children that
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 0
You know, didn't feel good. Didn't it wasn't consensual, wasn't loving, it wasn't good containment. And, you know, being able to do that now consensually is Yeah. Pretty powerful.
Speaker 1
I totally agree that I think that is the crucial piece of bringing a yes to that which was a no. If there is a therapeutic element, a therapeutic angle, I think that is it. That within a BDSM scene, that which happened to you nonconsensually, you decide I'm gonna visit this consensually. I'm gonna do it deliberately. I'm the one who's gonna set up the scene. I'm going to ask for it. And I also know that I am an active consent, meaning I can call yellow at any time and stop the scene. I'm not forgetting that I am the one in charge here. Right. That I'm not out of control. Nobody's doing anything to me. And I've seen it time and time again, bringing that element of active consent and agency is what creates the healing. It is actually also what creates the erotic element. That I am the one doing it. It flips it for people that this nonconsensual thing that happened to me, now I ask for it, and it's really naughty. Yeah. It's really transgressive that this thing that I've been whining about for twenty years, Now I've decided to get off on it, and I am the one seeking it out. I am an active agency and consent asking for it, and I know I can stop at any point. And I'm I actually need to find a Dom who can agree to do this crazy kinky thing with me.
Speaker 0
Right. That's a form of initiation from my perspective, self initiation, where we step out of the victim consciousness that, you know, we tend to hold, and then we say, okay. I can ask for it in a way and in a setting and that I'm saying yes to.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I think that the word empowerment, I think, has been overused in our generation, but I feel that bringing that agency truly is an empowering move in the system that I am the one in charge now. Nobody's doing anything to me. I am no longer a victim. There is no overwhelming force controlling me, my body, and doing something to me. I am actively at creating it for myself.
Speaker 0
Right. And so I I I know this to be true for myself, but I know that a big question a lot of people have when I talk to them about this, they say, you know, can these BDSM scenes be non romantic? Right? Does it have to be with someone that I know really well that I, you you know, have some type of romantic relationship with? You know, my answer is always no. But how would you distinguish that? Right? Because there's a level of intimacy that happens. So what what would you say what would you say are the prerequisites for creating these scenes?
Speaker 1
I Think the prerequisite is trust between two people. I don't think it is that the two people are romantic partners. If anything, it is the trust which is the crucial ingredient. And either being a romantic partner facilitates that trust or it can get in the way. It really gets in the way too. Romantic partners are not always able to go places where a submissive may simply go with somebody who is just their dumb, who admit they may just may have met in class for a scene. You but you do have to trust them to hold you. You have to trust their ability. You have to trust their containment, their mastery. The way you would do with anything, the way you would do with a massage therapist or a chiropractor or a medicine shaman. You're handing yourself over to them. It doesn't matter whether you know them three years or whether you met them today because a friend recommended them. But you do need the trust because you are going to be in a more molten chaotic state as a submissive, and you're trusting somebody to kind of hold you through that journey. That's what's important. But that trust is not always easier found with established partners. If anything, couples can oftentimes bring in a lot of baggage from the past, and they don't trust their partner to hold that space for them. They trust somebody else who may be particularly trained in that area. And as as you probably heard me mention many times during our class, a good dom needs a slightly cool energy. That coolness is actually important. It's kind of a doctor's coolness, a surgeon's coolness. They're not your buddy. They're actually not caretaking you, but they are serving you in this container. Right? Your shaman is not going to come over and mother you when you start puking. He'll just point to one of the assistants and say bucket. Bucket is probably already there. That's his care. Yeah. He's not coming there to pat your head and say, oh oh, you're okay. No. Not gonna interfere with your process. There's a coolness to the space holding, to the containment. And that coolness can be terribly, a crucial element sometimes in a domes of scene, which oftentimes your romantic partner or your husband or your wife may be the wrong fit for. They care too much or whatever else is going on there.
Speaker 0
Yeah. And that's what helped me see that being a dom is actually requires a lot of energy.
Speaker 1
It does.
Speaker 0
Right? It requires a lot of energy to hold that. And I think that that's where some who venture into that role, they get that kind of rude awakening where it's like, I have to care for my body, I have to nourish myself, I have to do my own inventory before I can offer this, and then I have to rest. And and it's really beautiful what you say about it being equal because as a submissive, there's so much that I've gleaned, you know, from the experience and that transaction, right, and that agreed upon transaction. And I see that there are needs being met equally. And if that ever feels off, then a conversation is had. And that accountability and having that conversation is also what builds the trust. And that's what I find in, you know, a lot of the marriages, relationships that I encounter in my work is that there's a lack of accountability, and I feel that the good dom always has the accountability component, you know, so much unlock. Yeah. It's part of the containment as well. It's like, oh, I'm not able to do this for you now. Like, even off even saying that relaxes the subsystem, you know. Or I I did say that I could offer you that, but at this moment, I can't, you know. And instead of, you know, tripping over oneself to try to meet the need when they're really not able or capable in that moment to do so.
Speaker 1
Very much so. This is a very common phenomenon and breakdown in the BDSM community and energetics. They have words for it. They call it top drop.
Speaker 0
Uh-huh.
Speaker 1
Where the gum may exhaust themselves by holding that position and then end up very empty. Right. Very tired, very empty, which is not good, which is not sustainable. No. So I think for the long run, it is great if people are more mindful of the balance of energy between any two people. That there be some exchange of energy and both people feel nourished so that they can keep doing it. It's not that doms do love to dom, doms do love to hold that space, but it is an energy expenditure. If the energy is not being replenished, you will simply burn yourself out. And a simple example of that would be, you love throwing dinner parties. So you love having people over. You love spending four hours cooking for your friends. But if you were the one cooking every Friday for your friends and nobody ever cooked for you, you would wonder after a while what the hell is wrong with my friends. It's not that you've stopped enjoying cooking for your friends or you've stopped enjoying feeding your friends, but it is a tremendous energy expenditure, even a monetary expenditure. And if friends are not balancing out their giving and receiving, you'll be like, I have some pretty selfish friends.
Speaker 0
Yeah. So in a marriage, let's say that the male is, you know, holding that that containment consistently. Part of that, mastery is being able to step away and communicate stepping away in order to replenish themselves so that they
Speaker 1
can continue. The submissive can also replenish their dom. That's so that the dom is simply not replenishing themselves or the two people are pouring into each other. There there is reciprocity.
Speaker 0
There's a reciprocity.
Speaker 1
There has to be a reciprocity for any kind of a relationship to work even if it's a non romantic, even familial relationships work or not don't work on reciprocity.
Speaker 0
Okay. What would you say to a woman perhaps who's come into contact with this information and maybe her husband, her partner is not available to expand into this? Is this just where there's like a deviation of, relationship connection? Because this is something you can't really unsee. Like, I simply can't unsee it right myself, you know. And so if a woman is learning about this Yeah. Learning to communicate, learning to have, you know, these consensual conversations and says, I can't go on without containment. I realized this has just been the thorn in my side for the last, you know, ten years.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 0
What if the husband is not coming along for that ride? Is there a way to inspire that? I don't really believe women need to go tell men how to be, you know, but how does that get inspired? How does that get explored?
Speaker 1
You know, first? Answer that question in two parts. The first part would be I I would encourage every man in a man woman relationship to provide good containment for his woman. I believe men who are not doing that are kind of dropping the ball on one of the main contributions they can make to their woman. So I would I would categorically tell men, give your woman good containment. And if you don't know how to do it, it's not that hard to learn. You can learn it from my videos. You don't even need to come to a class. That's why I made so many videos on containment. You just really have to want to do it. And once you get it, it's not rocket science. Yeah. So that part, I would say, it should be universal. Men should be walking containment to women. I encourage the men I coach, I'm like, when you're walking down a concourse at the airport, be walking containment. You can. You literally can't be walking containment as a man. It's simply the way you hold yourself and you contain yourself. And certainly, any woman you're in a relationship with, certainly, any woman you touch, your touch should give containment. That would be a universal advice. My advice to all men, I don't think women wanting containment from their men is any kind of unreasonable demand. I really don't. I think it is it is the equivalent of saying, I want physical affection in my connection. I don't think that's unreasonable demand. I want touch in my connection. Yeah. Of course, you do. What what's the point of being in a connection? I think men should be able to provide wonderful containment to their women. I think that's pretty basic. If you wanna take that a step further regarding BDSM play, DOM sub play, and the woman has discovered, oh, there's a lot of joy for me in my submissive archetype. And I want my man to DOM me, not just giving me containment, which is truly a PG rated energetics. It doesn't need to be it is not a bedroom technique. Containment is pretty much a
Speaker 0
Foundational way of living.
Speaker 1
All the way around. But if you're saying, well, I have discovered a lot of my Eros is in my submissive archetype, and I need my man to dom me and be in his dom archetype. That is a longer journey that requires your man to want to step into his dom. He may not even be an actual dom. So this is something I'm grappling with in my coaching all the time. The biggest challenge is men start exploring and they realize I also prefer being a submissive. Now that's a challenge to resolve. That's that's a longer conversation. That doesn't always have automatic solution. If if the man knows, obviously, if he's on board, then all he needs is training, which is doable. Come to my week long workshop. At the end of it, you'll really have some very basic solid foundation.
Speaker 0
We do workshops for Jessman?
Speaker 1
No. Come take the class that you took. Right? Any man who has taken that class, been through that week long training, I hope can create wonderful scenes going forward, and they do. So it's teachable. This is not amazingly difficult. You have to want it, and there are things to learn and kind of understand. People have a lot of bad ideas about what BDSM is.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
So they really have to understand what a scene is and what containment is, what the dom does, what the whole point of the thing is. It's very learnable. But if you don't wanna learn it, then there is kind of a relationship challenge. And I do encounter this on a regular basis where and almost without variation. You would think it would be the other way around. You would think men would be the one dragging their women to my coaching session saying, I wanna do BDSM. She doesn't. It is almost without exception the other way around. The women are like, I want this, and can you talk to him or do something? And it's sometimes it's really difficult if the man is unwilling. It's always hard in any journey if one person wants to they wanna go and the other one doesn't. I'm like, I don't have a I don't have a ready made solution for that. I don't believe we're ready made. It's the skills that you are wanting are teachable, but you have to want to learn them. It's like anything else.
Speaker 0
Yeah. The desire has to
Speaker 1
be kayaking with my husband. The husband's like, I'm not setting foot in the water. I'm like, okay. Well, it's gonna be hard to do this together. Something like that. I don't know.
Speaker 0
Yeah.
Speaker 1
But there are deeper reasons for it. Obviously, the resistance men have to stepping into their down mark type or this. There are oftentimes there there are a lot of cultural reasons why men don't wanna step into their dominance. So there really is there are real sticking points on what's keeping men from stepping into this. Considering their women are so openly and enthusiastically saying, do this, and it'll really turn me on. Do this, and you can really please me sexually, which men so badly want to do. Like, this is one area where women are not shy. They're like, this really gets me off. Can we do this, please? Even then, you would know the men are, like, sitting on their hands, and they're terrified or they're reluctant.
Speaker 0
You said it might be cultural. Is it also, like, the relationship to their own mother? Like, what what are the things that would hold a man back from saying, oh, she's just given me the keys to the kingdom, and I'm not gonna
Speaker 1
Any dysfunction in their relationship to the mother certainly plays out in their romantic dynamic all over the place. I don't know whether the resistance to exploring BDSM play is always has to do with the mother. I think it a lot of it has to do with there is a cultural force against men stepping into their dominance right now.
Speaker 0
Yeah.
Speaker 1
A lot of messaging to men is this part of you is not good. This part of you is toxic. This part of you has caused damage in the world, including towards women. Put this part away.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
Their men, I can't even get them to spank their woman's ass. They're like, I can't hit a woman. I'm like, her ass is bent over and in your face. I don't think I don't think this one is going to object if you slap your ass, but they're like well, they're like, if I become this guy, it's like they're gonna come at me with torches.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
They have this fear that if you ask me to step into my dominance, there's a great part of the culture that says, any man who does this is men are already bad. You really are the poster child for bad if you want to dominate women. Right. And I can I can understand that fear because this message is real? It is out there that women again, the the leap is from the nonconsensual to the consensual. The leap is nobody even wants to argue with the premise, have men nonconsensually dominated their women for five thousand years. Let's just leave that aside because that'll be a debate. Right? I actually don't believe that men's energies towards their women has been, I'm gonna keep my boot on your throat. Yeah. I think men and women, for the most part, have been just been struggling to survive together. Yeah. I think they have tried to be partners to each other. I don't think they have tried to oppress and dominate each other, but this is not the popular view these days. The popular view is men have not consensually dominated women. So now telling men now consensually dominate your women, and they're like, no. That's too short to leap. They're gonna come after me. Right? They're afraid. They're really afraid at this point. This is the this is what's actually you want to see this crystallized this crystallized in a nice sky phenomenon. Your classroom, if I remember, had a lot of nice guys, which you women were very fed up with. They weren't fully handling you well.
Speaker 0
By day two.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And, I have this. This is a repeated challenge. Put put people in a class, fifty people in a class for seven days, and you see how many nice guys are in the class, and it's like they're crystalized in this frozen energy.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
Night the nice sky energy is not a genuine energy. It is a completely frozen reaction. It's a completely fake energy. This is why you women find the nice guys creepy. As you know, this is an authentic. It's not like this guy is just genuinely simply gentle and friendly. No. There's a shadow piece here. This is not really who you are. This is who you are showing everybody to be, which is just not really you. But the reason they are that at is is this is kind of their standing safe mode. Like, if I'm a little mousy little guy in the corner, certainly, you can't blame me for being toxic, but there's no way to live for him as a man, and he certainly can't get you off or dominate you for sure.
Speaker 0
No. And what's underneath the nice guy anyway?
Speaker 1
His rage.
Speaker 0
His rage.
Speaker 1
Lot of rage because nobody likes being a poodle. Right? So it's it's a it's a shadow piece for sure, but it's a real shadow piece. So that shadow piece does show up in front of me on a regular basis. It shows up in every class I teach. It showed up in your class. Mhmm. Where men simply, with full permission, with written permission, with women taking their clothes off and sticking your ass in his ear and, like, come on now. Hit it. And they're, like, nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. And, like, I don't know what more permission do you need. I don't know what more clarity do you need. I don't know what more consent do you need. But they are completely frozen in that energy, and that is a challenge. That is a challenge to solve. So if a couple comes into me in front of me, it's the same challenge I face. I'm like, I can make him an offer, you can make him an offer.
Speaker 0
Right.
Speaker 1
But as I say, more more often than not, it's the woman who wants it and the man who simply doesn't wanna step into it.
Speaker 0
And then a decision has to be made, I guess.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 0
Yeah. I I see I mean, I've seen this as a framework, like all of this as a framework for disabusing ourselves from this greater dynamic collectively that I think we play with, you know, the government, with the medical system, with all of these institutions that we feel like, you know, we're victims too. Is it for me, this framework has really, because of the consent piece, has really allowed us to or allowed me and the people around me that that I know do it to verbalize and have agreements and feel that there is an equal exchange. And so would you say that this could be a really good way for someone who is looking to stop parentifying the medical system, stop parentifying certain systems, stop parentifying certain maybe even cultural structures that this could be a way to do that? This could be a way to build the language.
Speaker 1
I think BDSM scene play is terrific at many, many things and understanding our agency, understanding consent, understanding boundaries, which are very important life skills. Right? And I think BDSM is brilliant at, in a very concrete concentrated way. Teaching these because if you don't do one of these things, your scene will fall apart. You will create breakdowns and it'll it'll be a fast breakdown.
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
If your communication is messy and one person thought they expressed this boundary but the other person didn't hear it, it'll show up in your scene as a breakdown. If you express the boundary and then you try to change it, it'll show up as a breakdown. Mhmm. If you wanted to call yellow but you didn't, it'll show up as a breakdown because you didn't call a boundary. There'll be some kind of a breakdown. Either you'll fall into victimhood or you'll blame your dom for violating you, and the dom will say, I didn't violate you. I did what you were a yes to. You never called yellow. But the it's like the breakdowns will show up faster if you're not observing boundaries, communicating clearly. Right? Not in your agency, falling into victimhood, going into a freeze response, which may not be entirely your fault, but certainly, it will create breakdowns or at least we need to have some provision. So we even have that conversation at having it more even these days. I've created the added the, safe word blue. Blue for sky when you're checked out. So people can't always people don't always know when they are checked out. But if you do have a iota of awareness, I'm kinda starting to check out. Call blue. Stop your scene. The effect of blue is the same as yellow. Pause your scene. I'm not here anymore as a submissive. I'm checking out. I'm leaving my body. I'm not completely present. Let's pause the scene, which is a way of reinstilling your awareness, saying you don't need to escape your body. You can stay here. If the stimulation is too much, stop everything. Yeah. And on the other side, we understand that this is a coconspiracy. These are two friendly people working together.
Speaker 0
Yeah.
Speaker 1
And Dom will say, excellent. Thanks for letting me know. Because the Dom doesn't get to win if you are checked out, and you should should have called yellow two minutes ago, five minutes ago, and you didn't. Right?
Speaker 0
Makes me wonder if the Dom is in blue sometimes because if they can't read that the sub is in blue, what does that mean? I've seen it before. It just says you see the
Speaker 1
DOM check out. In BDSM scene, it's not always easy because somebody being checked out doesn't often look anything different from somebody simply being in their happy zone. They could just be quiet. They could just be in their sensation. Right. You can't tell simply by looking at them whether they're present or not. You can check-in and find out. You can ask. They're not mind readers. This is why we need communication. This is why we need safe words. It's not all help each other out. Yeah. Right? Instead of laying these gauntlets for each other, saying you should be able to read my mind. I'm like, this isn't helping anybody. How about we help each other out? How about we this is why we say the dom takes two hundred percent responsibility, but then the submissive also takes one hundred percent responsibility. And part of your hundred percent responsibility is being an act of consent. And if you can't be an act of consent, we're in breakdown. Right? So the dom doesn't know if the submissive is checked out. The dom doesn't know the submissive has abandoned their hundred percent responsibility. Right? So whatever we can to do to prevent these breakdowns, we try to do actively in scene play.
Speaker 0
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Right? Or at least we are doing this deliberately, doing our best to prevent breakdowns, which in real life, people are not as deliberate or conscientious about it. Within a short scene, we can create this also because we need it, because we are playing with intensity.
Speaker 0
Oh, it's huge in in in the real world, let's say. I mean, for me, this is the real world, but it's huge in my world with birth in the medical system. Very often of many women who I work with in in birth trauma sessions, they agree to certain medical procedures without knowing any outcomes, consequences, evidence, anything like that. They agree because they don't wanna upset who they've placed in this role, you know, this medical provider role. And then very quickly, the body shuts down, labor can stop, right? The cervix won't continue to open, certain things happen in the body and the system, and it goes sideways very quickly, simply because there was a non consent consensual action taken. And, a lot of resentment builds. You know? No communication is happening. So it's it's really for me, it's just such a metaphor for everything.
Speaker 1
I think our friend, Kelly Brogan, is also very passionate about this topic, about Yeah. The dark holes in the medical system and everywhere things are not as caring as they seem to be on the surface.
Speaker 0
Yeah. And parenting dynamics and and everything and everything. Well, thank you so much. This has been such a deep pleasure for me. So thank you
Speaker 1
Absolutely.
Speaker 0
For offering this. And where can people find you? I'm gonna share your information, but is there something specific right now you have going on? I know you have some retreats coming up.
Speaker 1
I have a retreat in February in Cyprus, a week long retreat in BDSM, and I have other programs. I have a program for women who wanna take a deep training in BDSM and possibly do it in session work. You can find all my workshops at omoorpani dot org. All the workshops are listed there. I also have a teaching website on omrepani dot com where I have a lot of free material and videos. So you can check out a lot of free material without having to take any of my classes.
Speaker 0
Beautiful. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Absolutely.
Want to hear more conversations like this one? Om Rupani's School for Dominance & Submission is a private online community of like-minded people.
To learn more from Om Rupani, visit his YouTube Channel or Online Workshops.
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