Wednesday Writing - Fictional BDSM versus Real-life BDSM

This week’s post on fictional BDSM versus real-life BDSM is on jealousy:

I have often wondered about relationships in BDSM and whether the issue of jealousy comes up. You don’t often read about it in erotic romance fiction. If it does happen it is usually a secondary character who often turns out to be the bad guy. In some cases their jealousy gets so bad that they try to harm the good guys and, of course, the good guys win (it may even lead the hero to realising he nearly lost the heroine and that he does really love her!!)

So I talked to my American Dom who said that there is not really any fighting or jealousy between Doms but, instead, a good deal of respect among them.  However, he felt that there is less respect and more jealousy between subs as sharing a Dom or being the favorite is a major issue with a lot of subs where he is, regardless of age, and winning the affection of a Dom is a big deal which can lead to a lot of problems.

Now that is certainly what I would expect as it mirrors any kind of relationship, vanilla or otherwise.

But what about ménage relationships? It is common to read about two Doms sharing a sub (rarely do two subs share a Dom in fiction, although you can find them). He stated that it is more common for one Dom to be with one sub IF that relationship is secure and that it would be very hard for a Dom (or sub) to have more than one totally committed relationship where they could be available to all participants.  This may be why there is a lot of moving from one Dom/sub relationship to another.  Any jealousy or overly vying for a Dom’s affection may bring anxiety to the entire relationship.

He went on to say he thought the percentage of Doms with more than one sub is about 25% (or a little over) and the percentage of subs with multiple Doms is less that 10%.  There is however a lot of playing with the other Doms, but these are not considered a relationship, but rather fun service. Hmm. Interesting. This goes counter to what I said in the previous paragraph about the number of ménage stories where the two or more Doms share a sub.

I was amused when he felt that it would be much easier for the reader to relate to a one on one Dom/Sub relationship – that the Sub hierarchy system could turn some of the readers off. In actuality ménage stories sell better than straight forward male/female stories.

We women like our fantasy of the heroine being the centre of attention of more than one man. If Doms fight over her, that doesn’t cause us any problems, in fact it adds to the excitement. But readers don’t really want two heroines fighting over the one hero!

Next week’s post (the last in this series) is on the Dom ‘look’.

Jen