I want my boyfriend to take charge in bed. I can say that much. What I can’t quite picture is how we get from the sex we already have to the kind I’ve been thinking about, without expecting either of us to know a role we’ve never really tried.
I’m 20 and he’s 21, and we’ve been together for four years. We’re willing to experiment, so this isn’t a case of wanting to introduce curiosity into a relationship that has none. We know some of the things we’re interested in. Turning those interests into something we actually do together is where I get stuck.
There’s already some dirty talk between us. Lately, though, our usual sex has started to feel a little predictable to me. I want to explore a more submissive and dominant dynamic, with me on the submissive side. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped wanting my boyfriend. I’m trying to imagine a different way of being sexual with the same person.
The version that appeals to me has a playful, defiant side: I like the idea of teasing him and having him take the lead rather than simply going along with me. In kink language, it’s sometimes called a brat-and-tamer dynamic. The appeal is the back-and-forth, the sense that we’re responding to each other. I’m interested in more than adding a few stronger words to what we already say.
Some of the possibilities I’m curious about involve restraint and an agreed sense of rules or consequences. But naming a fantasy isn’t the same as knowing what I want an actual experience to feel like. I’m fairly new to BDSM. Having a name for an interest has helped me describe it; it hasn’t told me how to begin trying it with him.
That’s the part I wish people talked about more. I can find words for the dynamic, but I’m wondering about the transition inside a long-term relationship. We already know each other as a couple. Now I’m curious about trying something that asks us to relate differently during sex, without assuming familiarity means we automatically understand this part of each other too.
I’m also curious about whether any of that play could ever belong outside the bedroom. That is a possibility, not something we’ve agreed to do. I would only want to consider it if we both felt comfortable. Wanting him to take charge sexually doesn’t answer what either of us would want in the rest of our day.
I know there isn’t one version of this that every couple enjoys. That makes sense to me, but it also leaves me unsure where our own version starts. At the moment, I can describe what draws me in. I’m still looking for the first step beyond the dirty talk.
