#46 BDSM 101: No 50 Shades of Grey B******t with Dan and Dawn

On the show today we welcome Dan and Dawn Williams, master-slave couple, kink enthusiasts podcast hosts and authors of the new book Living M/S! Our guests unpack their own experiences of discovering their submissive and dominant sides and how they found each other and each other’s limits.

They explain some basics about the master-slave dynamic and how it fits into the broader world of BDSM and kink play. They explain the important role of trust and the things that are pivotal in making a relationship like theirs work. We talk a bit about the events, parties and BDSM activities which they enjoy and Dan and Dawn are so open and honest, explaining the erotic nature of their lives.

The conversation also covers, shame, abusive relationships and how sharing stories, using cards and watching porn can help certain couples.

Key Points From This Episode

• Dan and Dawn’s awakening to their dominant and submissive sides (discover whether you’re dominant or submissive).
• A little bit about how their master-salve relationship works.
• Earning trust and taking responsibility for mistakes. 
• Contrasting Dawns and Dan’s average day with other relationships.
• Parties, dungeons and the BDSM play that the couple enjoy.
• The parts of play that each of them engage with.
• Considering the erotic and non-erotic elements of play.
• Some of the issues of shame related to submission. 
• Comparing a sub-dom relationship with an abusive relationship.
• The helpful act of sharing naughty stories and porn. 
• And much more!

Tweetables

“In our case, it happens to be a male led relationship where I happen to be in charge. What that means is that I take responsibility for everything in the relationship.” [0:03:45]

“If something needs to be addressed, it’s addressed head on instead of sideways. It’s a very authentic relationship where we’ve decided, what do we want this relationship to be.” [0:11:05]

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Transcript

[0:01:16.5] Sean Jameson: Today, I’m talking to Dan and Dawn from the Erotic Awakening Podcast. Dan and Dawn are a master-slave couple since 2001 and have presented at over a hundred events around north America. They are the authors of Living MS, that’s Master Slave, a book for masters, slaves and their relationship, as well as co-hosts of the Erotic Awakening internet radio show. An educational podcast that explores all things erotic.

Dan, Dawn, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

[0:01:51.6] DAN: Our pleasure, nice to be here.

[0:01:53.2] DAWN: Thanks for having us.

[0:01:54.6] SJ: I’d love to start off with your backgrounds and how both of you discovered your dominant and submissive sides. You know, before getting to how you guys met, if that’s okay.

[0:02:07.2] DAN: Sure, absolutely. I think a lot of couples, at least for us, it started in the bedroom, right? We started off with that and nowadays, people relate it to 50 Shades of Grey or something like that but you know, having one partner dominant in the bedroom and the other partner not dominant in the bedroom.

What we found was after some time went by, it became harder to turn that part off. Yeah, it’s great to be able to say, “Go down on me slave, give me the oral pleasuring right now.” But having that afterwards to say, “Hey, go get me a sandwich,” and to have a similar feeling of that felt good, that’s really nice.

For Dawn to feel the same way, to say that that’s service, not just in the bedroom but as the service starts to get out of the bedroom as well, to say boy, this is still feeding me this way as well.

[0:03:01.8] DAWN: Honestly, I found it through just reading books. We had the Marketplace at that point, The Story of O, Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, that type of thing. Dan and I were friends at the time and I brought it up to him and somehow we clicked and now it’s 20 years later.

[0:03:22.9] SJ: Awesome, good to hear. I’m wondering if you could talk then a little bit about your relationship and the master-slave dynamic and then how that maybe also fits in to that umbrella term of BDSM?

[0:03:37.4] DAN: Yeah, the simple way to look at it is, this is a hierarchal relationship where I‘m in charge. In this case I have to be master/slave where it’s a male led relationship, it doesn’t have to be that, there’s plenty of them male/male, female/female, female led. In our case, it happens to be a male led relationship where I happen to be in charge.

What that means is that I take responsibility for everything in the relationship. Dawn has the job of taking responsibility for taking care of me. It works out when we both have very clearly defined rules, what we find is we don’t end up in arguments, we don’t end up – we’ll have disagreements but they’re small logistical disagreements, not things that really matter.

Because one of the things we figured out is it just requires a great deal of communication, openness, vulnerability –

[0:04:22.8] DAWN: Trust.

[0:04:23.6] DAN: Trust. To say this is who I am. I am the leader in this relationship and you are the follower and you know, I don’t get to play the poor me card or sneaking off to the pub with friends after work and not tell the missus sort of thing, right? I don’t have that right to do that.

Nor do I have the need to do that. If I’m going to go stop by a bar on the way home, I say, “Hey slave, keep dinner warm for me, I’ll be home an hour later than you expected me.”

[0:04:53.8] DAWN: It works really well for us. Over time, you know, Dan’s gained my trust at the very beginning and I know he’s got the best intents for me, us, our relationship and everything we do. It’s actually easy to follow a good leader.

[0:05:09.8] SJ: You mentioned communication, having excellent communication. Is that a case of just having one way communication from the dominant person, from Dan?

[0:05:18.7] DAWN: No, actually when we came into the relationship, we had no communication skills. We had to develop those because even as a slave, I still needed a voice. We came up with something called ‘porch time’ and this is a place, we haven’t used it in years and years but we really needed it at the beginning.

It’s a place where it’s like sacred space and if one of us calls ‘porch time’, it means that we drop our roles and we communicate in whatever manner that needs to be done at the time. Knowing that we’re going into it, looking for a solution.

I think in 20 years, we’ve used that like six times because we’ve figured out other ways to communicate without dropping our roles.

[0:06:04.6] DAN: Yeah, it’s super easy for me because Dawn’s allowed to say anything she wants to me as long as it’s said respectfully, right? With some level of courtesy, but the reality is, Dawn’s an intelligent person, she has many skills that I don’t have, she’s much smarter in some areas than I am and behooves me to take, ask for advice and to seek out her council.

It helps that I generally like her.

[0:06:32.0] SJ: That can be quite helpful in relationships.

[0:06:34.2] DAWN: Yes, absolutely.

[0:06:34.8] DAN: Yeah. The difference being is, we know, it’s a matter of the buck stops here. And that I’m going to take responsibility even when it’s, you know, even if it’s say, Dawn, go make this thing happen. Just last night I told her, “Hey, go make this book tour happen,” you know? I can just fire and forget and she’s going to go do it and she needs input from me, she’ll get it but chances are, she’s just going to go make it happen.

It’s very freeing and it’s very empowering, that relationship with this level of trust where if I tell Dawn to do something, it’s going to happen and if I ell her, I’m going to take care of something, she knows I’m going to take care of it.

[0:07:13.4] DAWN: Right.

[0:07:14.3] SJ: Awesome. Dawn, you mentioned that Dan gained your trust at the start of the relationship. Why was that important?

[0:07:23.7] DAWN: It’s very important to me because for this type of relationship to work, I have to be able to drop my walls and be completely vulnerable because Dan cannot master me if he does not know all of me and I can’t share all of me unless I trust him.

We worked very hard at the beginning to get me to drop my walls and you know, share even the deep, dark stuff inside. Yeah, over and over again he proved that he could be trusted and now it’s just – I just had faith in him. So you know, if he messes up, I know he’s going to take care of it.

[0:07:59.5] DAN: That’s probably one of the keys that you know, when people ask me, “Well how do I become a competent dominant or a competent master?” The first thing you have to recognize is you are a human being and you are going to screw up.

When that happens, take responsibility for it. You know, we often make fun of old American sitcoms and how the format of all of them seem to be guys are dumb, they do dumb things, they hide the dumb thing from the wife as long as they can and then wife finds out and everything’s okay, you know?

Say, “Nope,” if you do something wrong, if you make a mistake, own it. “Hey, I made this mistake, I own this mistake,” and if it is a mistake, well, that’s not going to happen again and that’s how you gain that trust from somebody is simply by being authentic and being vulnerable when you make mistakes.

[0:08:52.1] SJ: What does the average day for both of you look like? I’m asking that in the sense of how would it differ to a couple in a vanilla relationship?

[0:09:05.5] DAWN: That’s easy because we have a lot of rituals during the day. It starts out with Dan getting up first, me giving him 15 minutes to himself and then I start making his lunch and then we meditate together and I make sure his clothes are laid out, I make sure his lunch is made, I send him an email even after he goes to work and we’ve already kissed good morning, I still send him a good morning email, listing out what I’m doing during the day and you know, get his coffee.

If he says, “Get this,” I say, “Yes sir.” In that way, it’s different. For some people not paying attention, it could be pretty casual vanilla sometimes until I slip up and say, “Yes, sir,” in public.

[0:09:49.2] DAN: Yeah, it’s really neat to recognize that some of the domestic stuff is Dawn’s role in taking care of laundry, cooking, that kind of stuff. That’s all based more on logistics than anybody’s role. She has time during the day, so she takes care of the stuff. If she needs my help, she says, “Sir, would you mind grabbing some laundry, I’m falling behind.” And it’s like okay, cool, whatever.

It’s not like, I mean, one of the great examples I use with people is, I change the cat litter and masters aren’t supposed to deal with cat litter. That’s dumb. I’m a guy, it’s my job, right? I feel like I should take care of the cat litter and take out the trash and maybe that’s chauvinistic or old fashioned. Maybe I should make my slave do that but the reality is, that’s the kind of stuff I want to do, that’s how I take care of my slave, is by doing some stuff like that.

The day to day really isn’t that much different than you would see any loving, healthy couple. The big difference is, well, we don’t know a lot of loving, healthy –

[0:10:56.5] DAWN: Vanilla couples.

[0:10:57.4] DAN: Vanilla couples, right? It’s more of the – there’s no hidden agenda, no passive aggressiveness, if something needs to be communicated, it’s communicated, if something needs to be addressed, it’s addressed head on instead of sideways. It’s a very authentic relationship where we’ve decided, what do we want this relationship to be.

Not because we’re married and you know, our preacher said, thou shalt and this thing and the other thing. No, we’re going to create our own relationship and rely on what our strengths and weaknesses are and compensate for each other.

[0:11:33.6] DAWN: The parties we go to are different than a vanilla couple’s.

[0:11:37.5] SJ: How so?

[0:11:39.5] DAWN: Absolutely. We spend a lot of time in the kink community. We also own a space that has its own parties and we travel and yeah, we have a lot of naughty parties to go to.

[0:11:53.3] DAN: Yeah, it’s funny because most of what we have talked about so far is how we live but there’s also reflection of how we play, right? There are every – no more than two weeks, we’ll go by before we’re at somebody’s dungeon or somebody’s play party.

Sometimes you play and sometimes you don’t play. When I say play, we’re talking BDSM, whips and chains, not necessarily board games, we do that too but that’s a different podcast all together.

[0:12:22.8] SJ: I think so.

[0:12:25.7] DAN: It’s really neat to be able to – there we can be authentic as well, right? If I say, “Dawn, go get a drink,” nobody looks at her askew like, “Are you going to take that from him?” They just smile and say, “Yup, there they are again, doing their thing.”

It does allow – that vulnerability allows us to express some really cool play as well. Dawn has some interesting thoughts about being bound up – what do you call that? Don’t like being in small boxes?

[0:12:51.6] DAWN: Claustrophobic.

[0:12:52.6] DAN: Yeah, Dawn’s somewhat claustrophobic.

[0:12:54.9] DAWN: Somewhat?

[0:12:56.1] DAN: But she trusts me so we get to play with that claustrophobia some. We’ve done a lot of suspension and bondage with seran wrap type stuff that’s large packing wrap. I’m not a rope guy, right? I use that instead and we get to play with that fear a little bit and you know, we mix the normal BDSM stuff in there, the spanking, whips and chains and all that good stuff.

[0:13:20.7] DAWN: It’s fun.

[0:13:21.9] DAN: It is fun.

[0:13:23.5] SJ: I have a kind of conceptual question, I guess, in a way is what do both of you get out of the play part?

[0:13:34.1] DAWN: Okay, I love that I can drop my walls and show my fears to Dan and play with them. There is just something about that. And then the pain that’s involved causes endorphins. There’s something with that, you know, it’s just that whole vulnerable thing.

It’s really awesome. I can get primal and scream and growl and I don’t even know what word to use but it just taps into the deep core of me.

[0:14:03.9] DAN: You know for me whether I am using a flogger or a whip or whatever instrument we’re using, these are items that if you stopped paying attention, if you are not completely engaged in what you are doing, you have the possibility of actually causing some harm. And that is one of the things that I really enjoy about this kind of play because it forces you to be very intentional. It forces you to be very engaged in what you are doing.

Your mind can’t wonder to what you’re going to have for dinner the next night or did I leave the stove on, right? So very much and I don’t want to misrepresent the word but it is a Zen sort of thing because you are very mindful with what you are doing. It is very connected. It is no different from some forms of tantric sex, where it is all about being present and being engaged.

BDSM play is 100% present and engaged and if you are not present and engaged, you’re either causing the person you are playing with harm or you are going to smack yourself in the face with a flogger and nobody wants that.

[0:15:11.1] SJ: I don’t think so but maybe they do, it depends on the person.

[0:15:16.5] DAWN: That is so true.

[0:15:17.2] DAN: Good point.

[0:15:18.0] SJ: So is it always then strictly an erotic thing or does it touch other areas as well or can be completely non-erotic?

[0:15:27.4] DAWN: For me and for it to be good play, you know in my head and the way I am using good, I like it to be erotic. I like it to be connecting. I like there to be power exchanged involved, I like it to be mindful.

But then again, there are times that I need something that is just hard and rough and get me out of my head and it turns into be erotic but it always doesn’t start that way.

[0:15:55.2] DAN: Yeah, I would say most of the time that I play in this context my pants stay on, right? But that doesn’t mean that it is not erotic. It’s absolutely still erotic. It’s just not insert tab A into slot B sort of thing, right? But it is absolutely an erotic energy, it is an erotic exchange.

[0:16:14.8] DAWN: It is actually the best kind.

[0:16:17.3] SJ: So I love to talk maybe in the more general sense now. I just have a few questions on it, if that is okay with you guys.

[0:16:25.4] DAN: Sure.

[0:16:26.0] SJ: So let’s say someone has this feelings that they want to dominate their partner or they want to be submissive to their partner, why may they feel ashamed or feel that they are wrong or it is somehow weird, why is that?

[0:16:42.1] DAWN: I think media has a lot to do with that. Right now I am supposed to be all up in your face and loud and proud and I am woman, hear me roar. So for some people to find out that I actually enjoy being submissive to Dan it confuses them and it can cause shaming.

So I’ve had people take me aside and ask me what is it all about because they see me lead workshops and stuff and then when they see me with Dan, my personality is a little different. So people can feel shame in that.

Men, I’ve got submissive men friends. They absolutely feel ashamed because they are supposed to be all macho and media and society really places a lot of expectations on us. So it can absolutely be shaming.

[0:17:31.8] DAN: But the reality is you got to get past that. One of the first times Dawn and I ever went to anything, we went through something called a munch, which is this public gathering of people that are all interested in kink things and it is not there to be kinky. It is because you are all interested in the same thing.

[0:17:50.6] DAWN: Just like at a restaurant or something.

[0:17:52.0] DAN: Yeah, normally they held that at a restaurant and I remember that the first time I went to was just had no clue what to expect or who would be there and the people that walked in — and there was about 20 people there and they looked like anybody else. They looked just like people that you know, everyone that walked in they could have been walking in that restaurant just because they are there for dinner.

Yeah, all kinds of bodies, shapes, sizes, races, makeups all that kind of stuff.  And the reason I bring that up is one of the ways to get past that sense of shame, that sense of that I am a weirdo or something is wrong with me, when you attend public events like this you see that there is 20, 30, 50 or here in the United States in Columbus, Ohio we have an event. The last event we went to had 600 people in it.

600 people that were just like you and me, right? They didn’t look – there is nothing about them that said, “Oh they must be a weird kinky person,” you know? They’re like, “That must be the…” whatever.

[0:18:47.9] DAWN: Convention, yeah.

[0:18:48.9] DAN: Yeah, it could just have been any other convention in the world we are there for except for where we were in general wearing more leather than most people at conventions.

[0:18:56.8] DAWN: Or nothing at all.

[0:19:00.3] SJ: Ah, one difference. So then can you talk a little bit about the difference between the consenting maybe master-slave-dominance-submissive relationship and then an abusive relationship, how are they different?

[0:19:13.1] DAN: One of the things that Dawn and I started off with, we started off as peers saying and we’re big fans. We wrote down, “Here is what I want out of this relationship.” Dawn wrote, “Here is what I want out of this relationship.” And when you are in an abusive relationship, you may not know it right off the bat but times go by you will as, “I am not happy, I am not being fed.” I am not –

[0:19:35.4] DAWN: Being empowered.

[0:19:37.7] DAN: And you know, there are some general things to look out for, right? Some general – if the new master says you have to cut off all of your friends and family ties chances are that is not going to be a healthy situation. You know, so there is some generalities like that.

But overall, when you are out an about when you are home alone are you smiling a lot. When you are home by yourself and there is nobody advancing any power over you. Are you looking at your life coming as pretty rock and I can’t wait for him to get home?

And you know we are not experts into abusive relationships but certainly, you have to be able to look at who you are today and if you are actually achieving those goals both as a couple and as an individual.

[0:20:23.1] DAWN: Yeah, I am a much better person now in this consensual relationship. If it was abusive, Dan would be taking my power, you know what I mean? Taking my power and holding me and there’s just that difference.

[0:20:37.5] DAN: so we are exchanging instead of taking. Well said honey.

[0:20:41.7] DAWN: Yeah and I offer you my submission, right? You don’t have to wrestle it from me. So that is another clue.

[0:20:49.2] SJ: Awesome, I think that is a great answer guys. So how would you advise then someone in a relationship, how do you think they should approach their partner to discuss incorporating maybe aspects of the master-slave dynamic or any aspect of BDSM into their relationship?

[0:21:09.9] DAWN: Well, I highly recommend that they share stories. One of the things that Dan and I did was we used to share naughty stories. So either I would read something that really turned me on or I mean literally, we were sharing as friends. We were sharing our porn collection and found out we had some of the same porn or I would show a picture and go, “You know what really turns me on about this?”

And I would share or we would write stories together. So I would write a chapter or a paragraph and then he would write a paragraph and then the rules are is that you could only write stuff that you are willing to do and that turns you on and if someone writes something that doesn’t really turn you on, you steer the story somewhere else but I would write the stories of “I want to kneel for you. I wanted you to do these things to me.”

And he never changed the direction of the story, so –

[0:22:08.6] SJ: Here we are.

[0:22:10.0] DAN: People in the BDSM and MS communities give a lot of guff to the 50 Shades of Grey movie and book franchises. But the positive part of it is if I met somebody and I was like, “Man, I would like to do some of that stuff with them.” You get to take them and say, “Hey let us go check this movie out.” And if they sit there and they are laughing the whole time while you’ve got this – while you are self-pleasuring, you might realize this may not be working out.

And that opens an opportunity for conversations to go, “Wow, he’s really spiking her heart. I wonder what that would be like?” And if the other person goes, “Yeah, I mean I have always wondered that too.” That gives you that opportunity to begin the conversation.

The reality is you know, we know so many people that come into this lifestyle in their 50s and 60s and they always say, “I wish I have gotten started earlier” I have never met somebody in their 20s going, “Damn, I wish I had waited until I was 40 to get started,” right?

So how long do you want to wait until you get started? Take that chance and ask that person. We know so many people that have been married for 15 years and then one day the one person finally spoke up and said, “Look I got to tell you for the last 15 years I have been fantasizing about this thing.” And for the other person to say, “Oh hey that is pretty cool, let’s give that a try.” You know? It’s like, “Damn, I should have brought that up 15 years ago.”

[0:23:33.7] SJ: Absolutely and especially if both partners for 15 years are secretly fantasizing about the same things but they are just afraid to share it.

[0:23:42.4] DAN: Yeah.

[0:23:43.0] DAWN: Yeah and honestly, I am going to do a quick minute of self-promotion here.

[0:23:47.7] SJ: Sure.

[0:23:48.3] DAWN: So Dan and I also created this deck of cards called The Kink Starter Cards and we’ve actually had some people. I had this new guy that I was chatting with and he bought a deck of cards and he’s like, “I don’t know if my wife is really into this stuff but I am really interested in this stuff.”

And I’m like, “Well show her the cards.” It’s got all these scenes in there, it’s got implements and accessories and all of this stuff and he came home one night and she’s actually gone through the deck of cards. It’s like 52 cards and she had pulled out six of them that she was interested in.

So even though she wasn’t interested in everything that could happen, she was interested in these few little things. So it gave him a place to start and yeah, I just think that is really cool.

[0:24:31.5] SJ: Yeah, I think that sounds like a great idea that – you know someone listening might have this very specific idea in their head that could be very intricate and contain lots of aspects of a scene they want to try. And they don’t have to describe that all at once you know?

They can just try a bunch of different ideas. Try your deck of cards and then there might be just a little thing that sort of lights the fuse.

[0:24:59.2] DAWN: Exactly.

[0:25:00.6] SJ: So this has been great Dan and Dawn. I’m just wondering if you guys have any advice for my listeners that you’d like to leave them with?

[0:25:08.3] DAN: Well, you know, one of the things that come to mind is keep checking out podcasts like The Bad Girls Bible and listen and just keep listening and seeing what’s out there. And we have a lot of people that are going to program you that your desire for kinky stuff or your desire for power exchange or any desire that doesn’t match theirs is bad.

So behooves it you to take some energy to saying, “What else is out there? What am I being programmed for and what do I really want?” You know? As I have said before, we have this limited time to check this stuff out.

When you are sitting alone and not worried about what anybody else thinks, what are those things that make you – that turn you on? And they are probably not bad things. Somebody told you they’re bad but there are probably not bad things and you will probably find a few thousand other people that go, “Oh yeah, I self-pleasure to that stuff all the time.”

[0:26:05.1] DAWN: Yeah, you take the bull by the horns and enjoy life.

[0:26:07.9] SJ: Absolutely. I think that’s great. Guys, thanks so much for coming on the show. If people would like to get in touch with you or find out more about The Erotic Awakening Podcast, your book, your deck of cards, what’s the best way for them to do that?

[0:26:21.3] DAWN: So probably checking out the website.

[0:26:33.3] DAN: And we love hearing from people and we love people saying, “You know I heard you guys on Bad Girls Bible and I went and try out some of that stuff and had a great time.”

And you know finding out – probably like that. I mean this isn’t like a business for us, right? This is just who we are. So anything we can help people do to find their authentic self, you know, that feeds us as well.

[0:26:56.4] SJ: Awesome, guys thank you so much for coming on the show.

[0:26:59.9] DAN: Well, thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

[0:27:01.4] DAWN: Thank you, this was great.

[0:27:02.3] DAN: It’s been great to be on somebody else’s podcast instead of being on our own for a change. It is nice that somebody else says and comes up with the questions. It was great.