If you’re a top who thinks you can handle consent easily, you might not be intentional enough to handle consent easily

Chester was the most aggressive dog at the shelter. Through many months of patient work, he gradually learned to trust. Consent is even more important in shelters than it is in the kink scene, and one day, someone violated Chester’s consent. They touched him in ways that triggered his trauma, and he began biting again. It took us another six months to undo the damage. Only when rescues have control over who touches them and when do they begin to recover from their PTSD. Like clockwork, that’s usually when they find their forever homes. They are now capable of loving freely, so they form connections and build relationships.

At the shelter, we do not touch without permission. If anyone breaks that rule, the rescue will retreat or bite.

I learn a great deal from the shelter dogs. When I see how triggers affect them, I gain a better understanding of my own. I also feel more justified to have those triggers in the first place.

My first Fet dom once made a mistake during a scene. It caused some of the worst pain I’d ever experienced. That night, I added an entire swathe of soft limits to my list. I needed to rebuild trust before I engaged with that kind of kink again, but Fet Dom wasn’t the kind of man who waited. Every time he pushed, I lost a little more of my sense of control. Ultimately, I felt unsafe, so I turned those soft boundaries into hard limits.

Much like a shelter dog, I needed the freedom that comes with an internal locus of control. I needed to recover and regain my courage. Most of all, I needed Fet Dom to take that journey more seriously than he did his pleasure.

This is what we do in the rescue community: We get consent. Everything we do comes down to this, so we spend countless hours sitting in kennels giving dogs a sense of control over their own space and bodies. If you do this well, the pooch will bond to you and do anything you ask. If you don’t do it, the pooch will never submit to your presence. They will never bond with anyone.

D/s is a paradoxical power play. Subs give their best when they have, at first, been given an internal locus of control. We can only submit freely when we do so out of choice. You could say D/s relationships begin with a submissive dom and a dominant sub. This is how you earn submission: By providing absolute freedom.

Chester has found a forever home, but his new human hasn't taken him home yet. He comes to the shelter to walk his pooch with a volunteer. He's gradually earning Chester’s consent, and he needs a behaviourist to assist with that because trauma work doesn’t always come easily. Everyone makes mistakes with this process, and everyone makes mistakes with D/s.

If you’re a top who thinks you can handle consent easily, you might not be intentional enough to handle consent easily. We wrestle with this process, both as subs and dominants. It can be tough. We’re often engaging in scary and destructive kinks, so only fools and clowns think they’ve got it tapped.

And you don’t. None of us do. It requires continuous work and thoughtfulness. This has been another edition of Happy Fairytales and Christmas Songs. Join us next week when we’ll be discussing flowers, birds, and rainbows.