A version of this piece originally appeared on the Ask A Sub Patreon in December of 2020. If you’d like to support my work, please become a patron or upgrade to the paid side of this substack.
Also, an announcement!
Ask A Sub Office Hours are now open to all.
When I first started talking about D/s on Instagram, I had never heard the term “Fake Dom.” I just had a cluster of shitty experiences, and a cluster of my friends’ shitty experiences, and just surmised that some Doms were kinda shitty. Then, the more I learned, the more I found that that kind of boundary-crossing shittiness is the opposite of what a real Dom is. Hence the term “Fake Dom.”
A Dom is not just someone who dominates people. A Dom, as a coherent identity, as something you call yourself to strangers on the internet, is empathetic, invested in open communication, treats partners with dignity, and can speak about sex without turning the conversation to sexting (which is really a maturity thing).
So when we talk about a “fake Dom” we’re talking about someone who co-opts the language of BDSM to sext subs and cross their boundaries on dating apps. Generally, these people haven’t done any work to understand what BDSM is other than how it presents in the porn they watch. They don’t know how to negotiate, they don’t solicit information from subs about their limits or boundaries and in fact roll their eyes at every tenet of Risk Aware Consensual Kink (RACK). Here are some examples of classic fake Dom behavior:
Telling the sub to approach them begging for attention before a dynamic has been established
Pressing subs on their hard limits, or being annoyed/short tempered about having to respect boundaries
Making jokes about any aspect of Risk Aware Consensual Kink, for example: “negotiation? We don’t have to do that. That’s for nerds”
Using means of address or derogatory terms before a dynamic has been agreed to (i.e. ‘beg for Daddy’s attention,’ or ‘you look like a slut that’s begging to be f*cked.’)
Refusing to discuss their history with Dominance or be specific about their practice
Not knowing what aftercare is, or being unconcerned with sub drop (i.e. “if you get sad, that’s your problem)
Negging of any kind ever
Thinking “Dominance” consists of fucking hard, choking without consent, and spanking during doggy
Every time I use the phrase “fake Dom” on social media, someone comes out of the woodwork to tell me I’m gatekeeping. And you know what? Some behaviors deserve to be gatekept. Because it’s not like the Fake Doms really want to be part of our community and I’m somehow keeping them out. By definition, if you don’t care about negotiation, aftercare, boundaries, and consent — you’re not part of our community. In fact, you’re gatekeeping yourself.
More than that, putting a name to bad behavior allows us to agree that it’s bad behavior, and to be on the lookout for it. There was a point in history where if you said the phrase “unsolicited dick pic” to someone, they wouldn’t have understood what that meant. I think fake Doms are the next unsolicited dick pic. The more behaviors we understand to be part of the fake Dom pattern, the better chance we have of building an archetype subs can be more confident about rejecting, and spare people a lot of hurt and harm.
I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but I think it’s important now and again to remind ourselves that we don’t have to be accepting of everything. It’s ok to say “that’s not for me” or “I find that behavior toxic.” Furthermore, no one has to sleep with or play with anyone else. Being put off by someone’s toxic behavior is not problematic. It is not a sub’s job to fix a fake Dom. If the fake Dom was interested in being a real Dom, they would do that work themselves.
“But what about fake subs?!” says the choir of avatarless profiles with 3 followers in my DMs. “What about them?!”
Yes, so-called “fake subs” do exist. They’re equally belligerent about being anti-RACK, anti-negotiation, anti-communication, and generally are bad at expressing themselves in a way that makes the top feel safe. This is particularly a problem for sex workers and pro-Dommes who have to deal with subs approaching them without forethought and devaluing their time and effort. But we hear about fake subs less because the boundary-crossing behavior of fake Doms & subs can generally be considered an outgrowth of toxic masculinity. And the rules of toxic masculinity mandate that all men must be Doms and not subs. This is not to say that fake Doms and subs are always men, but I’d venture to guess that about 90% of them are.
[For those concerned about Topping From The Bottom, check out this article]
To be clear — I am not man-hating here!! I love men! In fact, I’m so committed to my love of men who have done the work on themselves to not engage in this kind of entitled behavior, that I’m doubly committed to shaming the ones that are co-opting the language of BDSM and cheapening what it stands for. Real Doms, I believe, are an antidote to toxic masculinity, male entitlement, and incel culture’s commodification of female attention. Male-identified Real Doms have done the work to transcend the bare minimum behavior that patriarchy has drilled into them. They’re divesting from the scripts of heteronormative sex, and doing their own thing.
[This is not to erase queer Doms & female-identified Dommes — I just literally never hear about your bad behavior. Gold star for all of you.]
All that to say, calling out fake Doms is not in any way a condemnation of real ones. It’s a defense of real ones. And it’s pretty easy to tell who the real ones are, as the fake ones have a habit of telling on themselves pretty quickly. Check out these screenshots a follower sent me from her convo with a fake Dom on a dating app:
I think we can all agree that this disembodied torso is not behaving very well. So to all subs out there who get even a whiff of this vibe, you have my blessing to unmatch immediately. Because if they're acting like this over DM, I can't imagine it gets better when they're in the same room as you with an impact toy in their hand. These people are clearly incredibly confused about what BDSM is and how to do it like a responsible adult, and fixing them is not your labor to perform.
However, if the vibes are more ambiguous and you’d like to feel them out, here are some vetting questions that can help you find out where they stand:
What are some of your limits and boundaries?
Can you take me through some of your safety practices?1
What’s your standard procedure when a safe word is called?
What are your views on collars and what they mean?
And any other questions specific to your kinks that would signal safety to your nervous system
Alternatively, and this is my Gemini evil popping out, if you’d like to throw back some of their rancid energy and insinuate some deep insecurity into their fragile egos, I’d recommend asking some of the below questions in a fake earnest manner just to fuck with them2:
Who are some of your mentors?
Have you trained under the supervision of any pro-Dommes?
What are your thoughts on non-sexual BDSM? Is sex part of your practice? (believe me this question will be very insulting to their egos)
Do you think of your kink practice as more RACK-based or SSC-based?3
Do you experience post-coital dysphoria?4 How do you feel best supported in these times?
All of the above behaviors are a type of fake Dom I’m now referring to as “Fake Dom 1.0,” all because in this Friday’s podcast episode I’ll be breaking down some key points where certain Fake Doms have co-opted the language of consent and sex positivity to make their manipulation and abuse more insidious (thus evolving into Fake Dom 2.0). If you’re reading this on or after Friday, 8/2, you’ll be able to find that episode here.
In the meantime, below are links to some episodes I’ve done on the Fake Dom 1.0. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than ruining these people’s sex lives from afar 🥰 Join me 🥰
If you enjoyed this post please consider leaving a like or a comment. It’s an easy and free way to support this publication.
None of this free content would be possible without the kind support of the sexy, smart folks who have chosen to subscribe to the paid side of this substack or to Patreon.
If you’d like to receive special content such as monthly hour-long Deep Dive interviews with experts across the kink and alternative sexuality worlds, as well as monthly premium written posts, upgrade your membership here. For a preview of everything you’ll get instant access to, go here.
Reserve your spot at ask a sub office hours here.
Check out my online courses:
Conscious Kink - Build Your Own D/s Dynamic
Sub Survival Guide - Learn How To Make Your Submissive Fantasies A Reality
Got a question for me? Submit it to the Ask A Sub podcast by recording a voice memo and emailing it to podcast@askasub.com.
A sub I met once said she always puts this question to new partners as a little test. If they only talk about STIs when they hear the word “safety,” she found they didn’t often know about safe words, negotiation, aftercare, or Risk Aware Consensual Kink practices
These are of course great q’s to ask normal people as well but are designed to be particularly confronting to the fakes
This is a fun one because it emphasizes a shift in lingo from “Safe, Sane, and Consensual” to “Risk Aware Consensual Kink” which have important differences, but it will make them feel inadequate because they aren’t aware of the terminology
This is a fancy name for sub/top drop that comes from the vanilla psychology world. It will make them feel bad for not knowing a big word.
What follows are strong opinions, weakly held.
---
"We'll see about that. My submission doesn't come easily."
That statement seems like a reasonably good fit for your definition of "fake sub". There's no negotiation or communication: The speaker fails to communicate or negotiate what would be required to "win" their submission, except for implying it will be hard. "We'll see about that" arguably counts as a neg, or perhaps bratty/defiant behavior, before a dynamic has been established. There's arguably a failure to speak clearly about her submission practice.
I want to be really clear here, and yes I know that I'm an avatarless profile with 0 followers: I'm not saying that negotation, consent, etc. etc. are unimportant. They are important! And I **support** gatekeeping people who disagree.
Rather -- I'm noticing a pattern of gaslighting in the BDSM community around this notion of "fake doms". In your screenshot, the sub is initially playful and bratty with "so that's it?", and then retreats to "you needed to discuss my boundaries first, you rude fake". It's not 100% clear to me that the sub actually has the moral high ground here. In the first few messages, she's "in character" just like him. Then later she says he's being rude, because he needed to step "out of character" to negotiate before diving into a dynamic. But she was doing the same thing he was: Playing "in character" before a specific dynamic was negotiated. That's why it's unclear to me that she actually has the moral high ground.
Perhaps realistically we need to acknowledge that sometimes people play a little bit, as this sub is doing in this screenshot, without having a dynamic 100% nailed down. Then we can have a frank, honest discussion of when/how this is acceptable.
More gaslighting here: "I’d recommend asking some of the below questions in a fake earnest manner just to fuck with them..." How is this different than negging? You're not communicating clearly. If you *were*, you would express your concern in an open and forthright way. How would you feel if a dom said some things to a sub "just to fuck with her" before a dynamic was negotiated? Would such a dom qualify as a "fake dom" in your view?
So, my overall read on this situation is the term "fake dom" mixes up two distinct things. The first thing is awareness of safety and consent practices. And the second thing is a thing certain bratty subs will do to test how "bsdm-cool" a dom is, since they'd prefer to be dommed by someone who is "bdsm-cool". These things are related, since "bdsm-cool" doms are more likely to take consent seriously, but they are also distinct. And I think this overall situation is very dangerous, because if the meta-discussion of "when to talk about consent" itself takes on a BDSM flavor, that's when someone is liable to get hurt.
Notice that in the post, you don't ever state: "If you find a dom you're attracted to, who's insufficiently familiar with BDSM practices, you should send them resources like these..." Instead you state: "Nothing gives me greater pleasure than ruining these people’s sex lives from afar 🥰 " This doesn't seem like a particularly constructive impulse? I'm sorry if doms have hurt you in the past, but I don't think having felt pain in the past gives you a license to pass it on to others, like some sort of abused child who grows up to be an abusive parent.
---
Curious to hear your response to this!
I've had a couple of these approach me on a dating website before, which given the sheer amount of subs propositioning me with the exact same profile that has nothing about BDSM on it, and same photos, makes me wonder if they just blanket message every woman they see 😬