What Limits Mean to Me

Someone once shared with me his impression that many of my posts were about what I won't do, so I can understand why a Dom could get turned off by the title of this post. Most Doms don't seem to be like that, but on occasion I have come across a Dom who expressed his preference that I didn't have limits. He'd reason that he was a superior Dom and that his preferences and wishes were all that mattered.

I feel like such a sentiment truly deserves an eye roll. A sub's limits are not his preferences. We can talk about hard limits, as opposed to negotiable limits, and sometimes it is possible to stretch limits, but even in such cases, they represent more than mere preferences.

I have a perfect example to illustrate this — my experience from last night with a very Dominant Master. Let me preface this by reassuring you that I don't wish to speak ill of him, primarily because he's not a bad guy. It just wasn't a great match, though a big part of that was because he didn't care much for limits.

I'm finding it hard to describe this Master's demeanor in a word. I don't want to say he was abusive, though he did slap me unnecessarily hard. I also can't say he was respectful, even though he eventually asked about my limits, because that was a little late, after I'd already arrived at his place. And again, slapping is not so respectful.

Another good reason not to speak ill of him but to try and offer praise, is that he has an amazing thick cock. I loved it and I was so grateful that he offered it to me so early on in our meeting, shortly after I began giving him a massage. He just ruined it by complaining that I wasn't doing the massage well while he was fucking my face.

Now, although this might not seem like a limit I have specified, being blamed by a Dom for something that is not my fault, not to mention being called stupid because of it, is a big turn-off. It makes me think less of him, because it's he who's being dumb. And as I think about it more, I realize it does cross one of my limits. That is abuse, both physical and emotional. Some Doms confuse domination with abuse, and they really shouldn’t go there without consent.

Some Doms also easily confuse a sub's submission with real inferiority. Don't get me wrong, there is such a thing as having inferior intelligence, physique, style, or cock size. But there's no rule to say the sub is inferior to his Dom by any of these measures. He might be his equal or even, pardon my blasphemy, his superior! A sub's inferiority is in the role he assumes — the place he takes under a Dom. The Dom has superior dominance, but if he's a really good Dom, it would be natural for him to attract subs with superior qualities.

I love it when a Dom seeks to build a sub up and make him better however he can. It projects positively on himself. A successful Dom possesses successful subs. I do appreciate my Owner for taking that approach.

In contrast, I was put off when this Dom sought to put me down. It felt like he needed it to justify his claim that he was a king. But a natural Dom draws his confidence and authority from within. He doesn't need a sub to define his superiority. That's just pathetic.

Slapping me was perhaps the worst thing he did to push my limits. I immediately told him that pain and violence were hard limits for me. He tried to excuse it by saying that slapping for education should not be seen as violence. I am open to a little slapping for the purpose of humiliation or asserting authority. However, education doesn’t justify the action for me, because I consider myself an adult and I respond better to verbal orders and instructions.

That said, my bigger problem with the slapping was the pain. It just snaps me out of the sub headspace, as I've shared in the past. I can't help it. Pain triggers my fight or flight instinct. I either want to hit back — and even if I hold back, I'm still already in a much less submissive headspace then — or I start questioning whether I should remain in the situation. That's exactly what happened to me. It made me question whether I'd want to play with him again, and it even made me consider leaving right away if he slapped me again, because I wasn't fucking ready to take it, after telling him I wouldn't tolerate violence.

Whether he's a little sadistic and can't help it, or he's too full of himself and thinks he has a better idea of what could work, he was breaking consent and he was risking the termination of  his control over me. Was it really that important to be able to slap a little, rather than making me his slave?

Another limit he pushed was smoking pot. I asked him not to do drugs or smoke around me. I get it that some people can be sensitive about accepting any restrictions in their own home. But this is about breaking consent too. That happened to be the one limit we discussed when chatting before I arrived at his place.

He excused himself to smoke in the living room while he tasked me with folding his clothes in his bedroom. But that still smelled much more than I cared to tolerate and it put him in a mental state which was different from mine, making it harder for us to connect. That's a key reason why I ask partners not to use drugs with me. I'm not judging, especially when it comes to legalized substances, but it's just not conducive to making a solid personal connection.

The third limit I saw challenged, though less intentionally, was avoiding dirty stuff (except piss). Generally, the most common challenge for me comes from dirty feet. Masters sometimes demand that you lick their feet, and in some cases those feet are dirty. I feel like that happens in Europe more than in the US. I was required to kiss the top of his feet as soon as I arrived but I was spared from licking his soles. However, as I was giving him a massage, he expected me to cover every part of his body, including his soles, and boy, were they black!

You might find this rude or insubordinate, but I dared to ask that his feet be washed. That's not just because I couldn't bear to massage them, but I wanted to serve him better and be able to massage them. I was worried about wetting and infecting a bandaged wound on my right hand, so I washed him with just one hand. I applied soap twice, and would have done more, but he stopped me.

I didn't get to wash his other foot, but he insisted that I had washed it. Was he just being impatient, further ignoring my need for cleanliness, or was this a result of him being high? In either case, he was breaking at least one of the three limits I mentioned, if not all of them. In his dimly lit bedroom I struggled to see how black his feet were. Finally I determined that one of them was very dirty, and the other one, which I started cleaning, was still more than a little black and dirty. I hated massaging it. I felt the grainy dirt on my fingers and I was worried again about getting an infection. As to the other foot, I figured that if he was high enough not to notice I hadn't washed it, he might not notice I didn't massage it.

But there you have it. I already felt completely justified in providing sub-par service as he wanted a full-body massage, and I thought less of him for his diminished faculties. I didn't feel bad about that, because I knew that if he'd insist on getting a massage on his extra dirty foot, I would push back against his claim and tell him his foot was dirty and I couldn't massage it. Having that kind of perspective on a Master is not conducive to submission and transfer of power.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t just his feet that were filthy. His apartment was really filthy as well. Afterwards I was worried I would leave with lice or something. I couldn't avoid the thought that he couldn't be a real King if he wasn't able to keep things together enough to avoid living in a dump, or put his slaves to the task of cleaning his place. Nor could I understand the use of the several heavy blankets on his bed, when the room was quite hot, and I really didn't enjoy sweating through our encounter.

By the end of our hour together, I realized that his tasty thick cock was not worth breaking or even pushing my limits. And here I come to the point of what limits mean to me. This 2am encounter made it clear to me that even if I was able to temporarily push each or all of those three limits, the challenge of doing so was very demotivating. It made me lose interest in meeting this Alpha again.

Perhaps you could see it as a Dom's natural choice. He might prefer not to compromise his preferences too much, even if it meant  that he'd never meet that sub again. To me it all seems like a waste of time. If I'd known he'd have a problem with respecting my limits, I'd also know it wouldn't be fun and certainly wouldn't lead to a repeat visit. Being clear about limits is a great service a sub offers a Master. Getting a proper understanding on limits is a crucial step toward developing a sustainable relationship or at least a recurring engagement between a sub and a Dom.

Don't forget that regardless of any idea about a Master's superiority or supposed right to dominate and control a sub, it is the sub's choice whether to submit. Submission is something the sub gives voluntarily more than the Dom can take by force.