"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.
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 😬
What follows are strong opinions, weakly held.
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"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.
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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 😬