Power Exchange Textbook: Chapter 7

Note: This is the seventh chapter in the Power Exchange Sextbook I am currently writing. The previously posted chapters can be accessed at this tag. This book is currently only accessible through my Patreon. Please do not post or discuss elsewhere.

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Chapter 7
Protocol and Rules

Rules and protocols comprise a lot of the structure of power-exchange. Fundamentally, these types of relationships make deliberate use of the systems of accountability, responsibility, consequences and answerability in order to get the most out of the relationship. While there are people who enjoy having rules to the end of habit-formation or routine-development, it is vital to remember that at the heart of it people who opt for power-exchange do so because they enjoy being subject to or assuming control in this way, and rules absolutely do not have to serve a practical purpose in order to be serious or real enough. These systems only need to be optimized for enjoyment and moulded to the genuine desires of the people in the dynamic, they do not need to make sense in other ways. As the dominant partner, one often has the temptation to act as life-coach, therapist or mentor, and as the submissive partner, one can have the temptation to lay all responsibility for ourselves at the feet of another, but unless your dynamic is specifically negotiated to that end in an informed manner, most power-exchange is not actually about that. It’s not about finding a coach or therapist who will fix your life. The misconception that the party in control is more together, intelligent, successful or mature often plays out in the ways rules and protocols are designed in relationships.

Before we proceed further into a detailed study of rules and protocols, let us distinguish between the two concepts.

-          Rules are specific guidelines that pertain to specific situations, protocols are a system of expectations that fall under a guiding principle. For instance, having to send your partner a picture of yourself as soon as you wake up every morning is a rule you may follow. The set of guidelines that govern one’s behaviour in a professional or work-based setting is the protocol of that environment.

-          Rules are individual and one does not indicate the existence of another. Protocol exists as a set and can insinuate behaviours.

-          Rules can pertain to prohibition, that is indicate what is allowed and not allowed, while protocols delineate the set of steps one must follow to complete a task.

-          Both rules and protocols can be non-negotiable and compulsory to follow in a consensual setting.

-          Consequences and accountability can be associated to both rules and protocols.

-          Rules can be enacted momentarily, but generally, a personalised system of protocols as it pertains to a dynamic tends to develop over time.

-          Rules govern incidents and protocols dictate environments.

Rules In Power-Exchange Dynamics

When it comes to deciding the rules of any power-exchange dynamic, the first thing to consider is how the power to form rules will be enacted. Some people prefer the decisions pertaining to the rules to fall within the ambit of negotiation and any rules agreed-upon in that space are exhaustive, whereas other may be comfortable with demarcating the limits of the power of the dominant partner in negotiation, but letting them construct and enforce the rules in their way and at their pace during the course of the dynamic. The following questions are a helpful guide to figuring out how you want to proceed with regard to rules:

-          What is the nature of the rules with which you are comfortable?

-          How many rules is too many rules for you?

-          Which sphere of your life is off limits/on the table to be influenced by the rules?

-          Do you want accountability measures built into the system of enforcement?

-          Are you comfortable with the idea of punishment for not following the rules?

-          What are the limits of the punishment you are willing to deliver/accept for infractions?

-          If you are not comfortable with punitive measures, what alternative systems do you suggest for accountability? If none, are you willing to function on the basis of a good-faith agreement?

-          What amount of flexibility on the rules are you willing to offer/do you need?

Some Important Concepts

1.       Overloading on Rules

Amongst the most common issues in power-exchange is this one. Some people believe that every power-exchange relationship begins with a contact being presented and agreed-upon in its entirety which is immediately enacted upon commencing the relationship. While some people do absolutely enjoy contractually laying out their dynamic, this is very rarely the way in which they do it. Think about it this way, say you decided you wanted to live a healthier life and you hired me as a personal coach to that end, and on the first day of our training, I told you to change the entirety of your diet, your circadian patterns, how much and how you exercise, the way you work, how you cook and how much money you spend on health-products. The chances are that you will fail very quickly because I have essentially asked you to change everything about how you live your life overnight. Presenting contracts full of expectations to people right off the bat is essentially the same thing and almost never works.

Think practically about how much work it takes you as an individual to incorporate a single new habit, even one you really enjoy and let that guide your expectations for incorporating rules into a dynamic. Here are some tips I have found useful:

-          Start with one and use it to gather data about how you are responding to it as the follower as well as the instructor.

-          It is best to start with a rule that develops organically between you, whatever the basis of your attraction to power-exchange is, that is a good place to start checking for what you may want to do.

-          If you have developed a practise organically, it can be anything like kneeling in the morning or taking your dominant-partner’s bag from them when they return from work, codify that into a rule first. Since you have already demonstrated that you will follow that rule, it will create the positive associations you need to be able to believe that you can and will do it.

-          Be realistic about who you are. It is often a path of disappointment to view power-exchange as a space where you will magically become (your rendition of a) perfect person. Power-exchange is not magic, it still involves you doing things exactly as the person you are and can only, at best, provide motivation systems. If you are not a person who is able to keep up with a lot of grooming practises, incorporating ten rules that require you to form ten new process-based routines is probably not going to work out. Control is most effective when individualised to the person in question and for that reason it is best to beware of the type of people who come in with pre-set expectations that do not factor your individuality into the process of negotiation at all.

-          Factor life and time-management into your expectations. It is very common, especially in a state of frenzy or excitement, to believe that you absolutely can write a 500-word daily essay about your experience as top/bottom or that you will always have the bodily ability to store a butt-plug inside your asshole for ten-hours a day, but a lot of that becomes unmanageable extremely fast. If as the dominant, you set expectations that are impossible to achieve, the person following the rules will fail at being able to do so extremely fast. It is okay to want to create an environment that is challenging but incremental increases in challenges have a better shot at success than overloading people. Most power-exchange relationships that I know of have at some point suffered from the magnitude of expectations, and many of them go into states of hiatus within the first year with both parties yearning for more but being unable to get it because of the “all or nothing” mentality.

2.       Active Involvement As The Dominant Partner

Another very common issue as it pertains to rules involves the dominant-party believing that their involvement is only limited to setting the rules and delivering consequences when they are not followed. While, in the long-term, this system does have a shot at working, it is also important to remember that control is a very active thing, and thrives in demonstration. Role enforcement is often very important to people because it constitutes the part of the relationship that is actually satisfying, gratifying or arousing. As the dominant partner, keep the following things in mind:

-          Approval/disapproval play a large role in how one receives control. Some people enjoy being rewarded for being good and punished for being bad, while others respond better to feeling like they are being seen in their actions and especially, if the action they are taking is adherence to the rules. If your partner does not feel like you are clued into what you have asked them to do, it may feel like busy-work or something that is not very important to you. It may also feel like you do not value their effort and that is the fastest way to get someone to lose interest. While it is entirely possible that the gratification is being derived from disregard or disapproval within your specific dynamic, it is important to remember that those are curated experiences within consensual dynamics, and actual ignorance or ambivalence are not the same thing as inflicting deliberate disregard on a person.

-          Whatever you think it is okay to forget, your submissive partner may think is okay to forget. In some ways, we don’t really change very much through senescence and the excuse for why we did not complete a task remains “I forgot” for most of our lives, but in power-exchange, dominant parties often think it is solely the responsibility of the submissive party to remember. However, if you issue instructions and rules, and routinely fail to check up on them or notice if they have been followed, the person in your control will respond accordingly. There are very few people in the world who will follow everything they are expected to do perfectly, without the involvement of an enforcer. Even god needs a rather elaborate system of religion to enforce their rules and ensure they are being followed. You can, of course, as many people I know have, choose to believe that your existence alone is enough to make any submissive entity adhere to your rules, but I know the submissive partners of most of these kinds of entities and let me tell you now, they lie to you. I understand why, because persona and ego alone are not enough to get people to want to please you, they have to want to do it and most people gain little gratification from serving a wall.

3.       Developing An Outlook Towards Rules

Over time, you will come to discover what type of dominant partner or submissive partner you are, and that will guide you into choosing dynamics that are most gratifying and manageable for you. While developing an outlook towards rules in general, here are a few things to keep in mind:

-          Some come to stay and some leave. Very early on in dynamics, I caution against forming heavy emotional associations with particular rules, especially before you have clarity on whether you will be able to follow or enforce them. Trying out a bunch and discarding the ones that don’t work, optimising the ones that do and keeping the ones that do is usually a good strategy.

-          Rules may not be forever, but if your resistance to any changes is permanent, you may want to question why that is?

-          It’s not about how many rules there are in a dynamic but how many are being consistently followed and enjoyed.

Protocols

The difference between rules and protocols is often difficult to articulate. It is similar to the difference between weather and climate. While a rule is a general guideline meant to direct behaviour, a (set of) protocols is a more specific detailed (and sometimes step-by-step) set of instructions on how something can be achieved. Within power-exchange, these definitions can be adapted in somewhat different ways.

Let’s consider it through an example.

Say, within your dynamic, you wish to practise some degree of formal-behaviour, within some situations, which is sometimes referred to as high-protocol (though the implication of that term does differ from scene to scene). This formal-behaviour may contain many different stipulations like how to address a person, how to conduct your body, service elements, body-positioning and others. The sum total of those behaviours may be viewed as a set of protocols that can evoked within specific situations or be permanently active.  

Some things to remember about protocol:

-          It develops over time. Unlike a single rule which can be instituted at once, a set of protocols develop through practise and engagement.

-          They look different depending on what you are trying to achieve through them.

-          For many people, there is a distinction between in-scene protocol and general rules that exist within the dynamic.