Book Review: The Loving Dominant

Rating:

Who is this book for? The new player who wants to really take an in depth mental journey into BDSM, its history and how to navigate the scene and relationships.

What will you learn? You will learn about the history of BDSM and its psychological origins. You will learn about consent and safewords. Also covered is how to initiate dating and how to transition that from online to in-person safely. You will learn how to construct a scene an get an introduction to a wide variety of implements (from whips to clamps) and play types (from protocol to rape)

Warnings: I hate to say it but despite a wealth of information at times this book felt as though it rambled on a bit. I was sometimes looking for the point and wanted the author to be more direct and succinct.

My Thoughts:

Warren has gone to great lengths to create a comprehensive and openly accepting introductory book that explores BDSM. He and his wife give you great depth and insight into the world of consent and safewords. They recommend learning about yourself in order to create the type of relationships you want. They describe how they believe there are 3 levels of submission: fantasy, clarity, transparency. This hierarchy is an interesting framework to work with. Fantasy is a stage with minimal outer engagement whereas clarity is when power exchange begins to take place. Finally, transparency is defined as working with a known and established partner that allows for more flow in a scene essentially allowing the submissive to be seen. This terminology is not typically used but could useful for a new submissive who wants to describe the depth they've achieved as a submissive in previous relationships. It could also be used to describe their current level of connection and submission. If the dominant or submissive believed they were in different stages than one another that would likely be a source of conflict for progression. 

Warren includes a lot of intellectual discussion on the origin of kink from different psychological perspectives such as an overview of Freud’s work. This provides some insight into some of the thought processes of S&M and gives you a historical look at its origins. Some of this feels enriching and historical and some of it feels like a stretch that he is trying to make relevant in order to help us navigate a topic that doesn't have as much scientific background supporting it as we would all prefer.

When it comes to scene design Warren recommends being prepared in a variety of ways but also leaving your scheduling open to allow for spontaneity. He recommends steering clear from repeating scenes or from getting too caught up in a past fantasy. He touches on alternating sensations from harsh to gentle to create a richer experience, starting out slower and allowing the sensations and psychological interventions to increase. Through these chapters he encourages ambience and safety when creating your scenes. Ambience includes settings, clothing, and potentially defining specific roles for your play. He closes by recommending a lot of communication after a scene is complete. 

The book also gives specific examples for different types of scenes that you might want to explore. These include examples of rape play, interrogation play and mind-fuck play. Warren seems to really find his sweet spot in mind-fuck play and I found this section the most engaging and novel part of his work.

This book has several sections that describe the implements and toys of BDSM extensively. You will essentially get a little tour of a sex shop while getting to hear Warren wisely explaining the pros and cons of different types of clamps and other items. The section on toys is then followed by one that describes many different acts that might occur during a scene such as bondage, spanking, wax play, pet play, humiliation play. It is a great overview of many topics and helps direct you to other resources so that you can get the depth you need in these areas.  

Next there is a well composed section on how to make a contract and what elements should be considered when taking this next step in your commitment to a submissive. This section also includes some information on being a poly style player and how to manage jealousy and the problems that you should expect to encounter when managing multiple individuals. The book also includes a glossary of terms that I suspect new players would find very valuable.

Overall, this book gives you a great look into playing safely, is ripe with extensively written examples and does its best to include some historical background. It is great for new players who want a more complete introduction to the BDSM lifestyle than is achieved in other shorter books. This book goes beyond the headspace discussions that occur in some of the other introductory books and attempts to be a single stop that can introduce you to many concepts and items to help you initiate play.