BDSM Glossary D-M

D

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Den­tal dam - A latex bar­rier used for cun­nilin­gus or anill­n­gus to pre­vent dis­ease trans­mis­sion. Plas­tic food wrap is an inex­pen­sive, but sat­is­fac­tory, substitute.

Deriv­a­tive plea­sure, immediate/delayed - Cor­po­ral strokes that are painful at impact, but plea­sur­able fol­low­ing ini­tial exe­cu­tion. An imme­di­ately derived plea­sure stroke feels good right after the impact. Delayed deriv­a­tive plea­sure is an accu­mu­la­tion of painful strokes that explodes into sex­ual heat some time later.

Dis­ci­pline - The “D” in B&D that can mean; 1) pun­ish­ment 2) struc­tured train­ing of a submissive.

Do-me queen/king - A bot­tom that takes pas­sive delight from the phys­i­cal activ­i­ties of scen­ing with­out a desire to give sub­mis­sion or plea­sure in return.

Dom­i­nance, dom­i­nance & sub­mis­sion, D/S, D&S - The con­sen­sual empow­er­ment of one part­ner by the other for erotic enhance­ment. Dom­i­nance and sub­mis­sion are the psy­cho­log­i­cal and emo­tional under­pin­nings of SM. [see Power exchange]

Dom­i­nant, Dom, Domme, Dom­ina, Dom­i­na­trix - The per­son who is given con­trol in a con­sen­sual exchange of power. Domme, Dom­ina, and Dom­i­na­trix refers to women. Dom­i­nant, or Dom can refer to either gender.

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Edge play - Erotic role play near or at the edge of a submissive’s or dominant’s lim­its. The term also refers to activ­i­ties that carry a higher than usual ele­ment of risk.

Electro-torture - The use of elec­tri­cal stim­u­la­tion to cre­ate a desired phys­i­cal sensation.

Emo­tional but­tons, emo­tional trig­gers - Asso­ci­a­tions with words, behav­iors, or activ­i­ties that pro­voke a strong emo­tional reac­tion. Dom­i­nants will do well to become famil­iar with the unique trig­gers of his sub­mis­sive. It is impor­tant to know, as much as pos­si­ble. which but­tons evoke pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive responses.

Endor­phins, endor­phin high - Endor­phins are sub­stances cre­ated by the body to help endure pain or stress. Entirely nat­ural, but the­o­ret­i­cally sim­i­lar in feel to opi­ates. The body’s release of endor­phins may cre­ate a feel­ing of well-being, even intox­i­ca­tion, which is called an endor­phin high. Peo­ple dif­fer dra­mat­i­cally in their abil­ity to release endor­phins. The pos­si­bil­ity of addic­tion to endor­phins has been conjectured.

Enema - The instru­ment used for, or the act of inject­ing fluid into the anus to flush the lower intestines. Some peo­ple include ene­mas in SM scenes for humil­i­a­tion, for prepa­ra­tion for other activ­i­ties (such as fist­ing or anal sex), and/or sim­ply because they may enjoy the sensation.

Eng­lish - A code word for spank­ing or cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment some­times used in ads. We will have achieved social accep­tance when ads in main­stream papers can say, “Roman­tic sadist seeks masochist lover,” instead of non­sense like, “devo­tee of Eng­lish cul­ture seeks recep­tive partner.”

Erotic power - Erotic power is like poten­tial energy, becom­ing sig­nif­i­cant only when it is exchanged or used to empower a dom­i­nant by the trans­fer of con­trol. [see Power exchange]

Erotic pain - Stim­uli that are painful under nor­mal cir­cum­stances, but are plea­sur­able or arous­ing in a sex­ual context.

Erotic restraint - Restrict­ing move­ment for erotic play. Also, refers to the devices used for said purpose.

Erotic sur­ren­der - The sex­u­ally moti­vated gift of con­trol of one’s self (within nego­ti­ated lim­its) to one’s part­ner. A more accu­rately descrip­tive phrase for submission.

Erot­i­cally altered con­scious­ness, EAC - Any one of sev­eral altered states of con­scious­ness achieved by erotic stim­u­la­tion. [see: Bottom-space, Sub-space; Endor­phin high, Fly­ing, Top-space]

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Fetish - A sex­ual fix­a­tion on an activ­ity or object.

Fetish com­mu­nity - The name given to that group of peo­ple hav­ing an alter­nate sex­ual or gen­der ori­en­ta­tion, but exclud­ing the (vanilla) gay and les­bian communities.

Fire & ice - The use of hot and cold for sex­ual stim­u­la­tion, espe­cially hot wax dripped from a can­dle and ice applied to the skin.

Fist­ing - Inser­tion of the entire hand into the vagina (vagi­nal list­ing) or the anus (anal fisting).

Fla­gel­la­tion - The act of whip­ping a human being.

Flog­ger, flog­ging - An unbraided multi-thonged whip is a flog­ger. To whip using a flog­ger or other cor­po­ral instruments.

Fly­ing - A tran­scen­dent state of con­scious­ness some­times achieved dur­ing an SM scene. This rap­tur­ous state has been so often described in a sim­i­lar man­ner by inde­pen­dent sources that we have no doubt of the valid­ity of the expe­ri­ence. Feel­ings described by the sub­mis­sive seem sim­i­lar to that of out of body expe­ri­ences and often include a psy­chic link to the Dom. Most com­monly, this link is felt as either a tether to the dom­i­nant or as a feel­ing of being sur­rounded and pro­tected by the Dom’s pres­ence or con­scious­ness. Ela­tion and spaci­ness expe­ri­enced after fly­ing may be felt for hours, even days after the ses­sion has ended.

French - A com­mon code word for kiss­ing involv­ing the tongue, cun­nilin­gus, and fellatio.

Foot fetish, foot wor­ship - A sex­ual obses­sion directed toward the feet and/or shoes.

Forced oral, forced sex - Sex­ual role play where the Dom pre­tends to force an activ­ity that the sub pre­tends they are under duress to per­form. It involves a shared sus­pen­sion of real­ity. (A Dom only “forces” the sub to per­form activ­i­ties he or she has requested.)

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Gag, gag­gage - devices that are inserted in or cover the mouth to muf­fle sound.

Gear - Toys, props, clothes and what-have-you used for scene purposes.

Gen­der com­mu­nity - Peo­ple with cross-gender fan­tasies or cross-gender iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. Cross-dressers, trans­ves­tites, and trans­sex­u­als make up the gen­der community.

Gen­der ori­en­ta­tion - Gen­der ori­en­ta­tion is an issue apart from sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion. It is self-identification and feel­ings of male­ness or female­ness, rather than issues of sex­ual attrac­tion. A per­son with an alter­nate gen­der ori­en­ta­tion may or may not have an alter­nate sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion. For exam­ple; a trans­ves­tite or a trans­sex­ual may be either het­ero­sex­ual or gay.

Gen­der play - To dress up or take the role of the oppo­site sex dur­ing a scene. [see Sissification]

Ger­man - A code word for Sado­masochis­tic desires.

Golden shower - Uri­na­tion on or in another person.

Greek - The code word for anal sex­ual activities.

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Hand­cuffs - These metal shack­les are used to bind wrists by law enforce­ment per­sonal, legally, and by sado­masochists, covertly. Hand­cuffs are con­sid­ered weapons and ille­gal to own in most states, but are easy to buy and com­monly used.

Head games - 1) Dom­i­na­tion where the focus is pri­mar­ily men­tal, such as humil­i­a­tion, rather than phys­i­cal, such as bondage or whip­ping. 2) Non-consensual psy­cho­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion to make a per­son respond in a par­tic­u­lar way for one’s own purposes.

Heavy - 1) Intense SM play or whip­ping. 2) A term describ­ing an SM toy such as a flog­ger or cane that is capa­ble of deliv­er­ing intense sensations.

Hood - A cov­er­ing for the head. Hoods used in SM are made of var­i­ous mate­ri­als, espe­cially; leather, span­dex, and rub­ber. Some hoods are con­structed as orna­men­ta­tion, oth­ers are used as a part of bondage to con­trol or restrict sight, sound, speech (by incor­po­rat­ing a gag), and/or breathing.

Humil­i­a­tion - Play­ful embar­rass­ment or hum­bling a per­son by teas­ing them about their sex­ual desires can be part of erotic con­trol. Humil­i­a­tion in SM can para­dox­i­cally build a person’s self-esteem rather than tear­ing it down by rein­forc­ing their sex­u­al­ity. Real attacks on a person’s self-worth or sex­u­al­ity, or manip­u­la­tions designed to break their spirit are abuse not within the appro­pri­ate prac­tice of SM.

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Infan­til­ism - Role play involv­ing infant-like behav­ior such as dia­per wear­ing, nurs­ing, etc.

In-role - Assum­ing the per­sona of a sex­ual arche­type or fan­tasy character.

Iso­la­tion - 1) A fear of inter­re­lat­ing with oth­ers. Peo­ple are often; a) afraid to “come out” about their attrac­tion to SM out of fear of soci­etal reper­cus­sions, or b) they may think that no one shares their attrac­tion to a par­tic­u­lar SM(or other sex­ual) prac­tice. In both cases, this can lead to feel­ings of inad­e­quacy, self-doubt, depres­sion, and/or lone­li­ness. 2] A tech­nique of sen­sory depri­va­tion, bondage, and trick­ery to make a sub­mis­sive feel as though he or she is being left alone.

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Japanese bondage - [see Ori­en­tal bondage, rope dress]

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Kather­ine wheel - A piece of dun­geon equip­ment that looks like a large, ver­ti­cally mounted wheel to which a sub­mis­sive is bound, allow­ing her to be turned or spun. Warn­ing: not for use with the sub that is inclined toward motion sickness.

Knife play - Play that includes the use of a knife (does not nec­es­sar­ily imply cut­ting). Knives are more often used as props for psy­cho­log­i­cal effect, to scrap wax from a body after a fire and ice scene, to remove cloth­ing, and end­less other devi­ous purposes.

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Latex - Latex and rub­ber are used to make cloth­ing, sheets and other fetish items.

Leather butt - 1) A term that describes a per­son who has been beaten so often that only intense whip­ping has any effect. 2) The con­di­tion of the but­tocks after heavy pad­dling. The skin com­presses and becomes stiff or “leath­ery” to the touch. The com­pres­sion effect is most pro­nounced with pad­dles, so leather butt can be avoided by using a mix­ture of implements.

Lifestyler - A per­son who lives a lifestyle that sup­ports rather than con­flicts with his SM fan­tasy arche­type. Some lifestylers object to the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of their SM iden­ti­ties as fan­tasy role play, feel­ing that it is inte­gral to their per­son­al­i­ties rather than a sex­ual game. It is easy, and often attrac­tive, to con­fuse real­ity and fan­tasy. [see Alter­nate sex­u­al­ity; Alter­nate lifestyle; In-role]

Limit - The bound­aries of SM activ­i­ties set by both dom­i­nant and sub­mis­sive dur­ing nego­ti­a­tion defin­ing what each is will­ing and unwill­ing to do within a scene. Lim­its must be respected and never inten­tion­ally breached by either part­ner. Lim­its apply to roles, lev­els of dom­i­nance and sub­mis­sion, and dura­tion of time, as well as phys­i­cal activ­i­ties such as whip­ping, pad­dling, etc.

Live-in slave - A lifestyle sub­mis­sive in a com­mit­ted rela­tion­ship that lives within the con­text of a slave/master (or mis­tress) fantasy.

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Macho sub - A sub­mis­sive with a reluc­tance to show dis­tress, use a safe word, or who feels a need to sto­ically endure what is not plea­sur­able. The macho sub may be moti­vated by a desire to prove her met­tle, show devo­tion, or reflect her inter­nal fan­tasy. The macho sub must make sure the dom is aware of her incli­na­tions dur­ing nego­ti­a­tion. The dom of a macho sub­mis­sive should rely more on a checking-in tech­nique and less on spon­ta­neous feed­back. The macho sub’s sav­ing grace is a strong desire to obey. Order­ing her to com­mu­ni­cate clearly about stress, as it occurs can over­ride some of her reluc­tance to “be a wimp.”

Masochism, masochist - The erotic enjoy­ment of pain, humil­i­a­tion, and/or of being dom­i­nated. One who enjoys pain, etc. Some­times the terms are used to describe one who enjoys heav­ier pain.

Mas­ter - A male that takes the dom­i­nant role in SM role play. The title may be bestowed upon the male dom­i­nant in appre­ci­a­tion of his skill. It may be a term of endear­ment or a lov­ing trib­ute to a dom by a sub­mis­sive in a rela­tion­ship. Equally often, the term is self-aggrandizement by a male with dom­i­nant fan­tasies, not infre­quently with “true” or “real” tacked in front.

Men­tal bondage- Rope­less bondage by com­mand. A sub­mis­sive instructed by her dom­i­nant to remain in posi­tion will feel bound to obey.

Mis­tress - A female dom­i­nant. [see Dom­i­nant, Dom, Domme, Dom­ina, Dominatrix]

Mum­mi­fi­ca­tion - A bondage tech­nique of com­pletely or almost com­pletely wrap­ping a sub­mis­sive in restric­tive mate­r­ial, such as; plas­tic wrap, span­dex, elas­tic or gauze ban­dages, etc.