First off the good news. My Miss is back home and was in SL for a while last night. She got very sick on her trip, ended up in hospital for a couple of days. She’s back home now and getting better, but still pretty under the weather. We were able to spend some time together just hanging out at home, and then later at a talk at The Fet which is what I really want to talk about.
The topic was Red Flags in BDSM relationships. It was an interesting talk overall, mostly from prepared notes, but that’s fine. The topic area was well covered and thought provoking for me. Two of the red flags that were pointed out were: Partners with emotional issues, especially undisclosed emotional issues; and partners who are constantly making excuses. Those two really resonated for me, and I’m sorry I didn’t see them at the time.
The talk, or rather the speaker’s credibility, went sharply downhill when the speaker went off her prepared notes. There were a few things she said that set my teeth on edge, but one in particular that I just have to comment on, and here is as good a place as any to do so.
The issue was regarding a phenomenon known as “sub drop”. Sub drop is a depressed state that can occur following a foray into sub-space, the euphoric state which many submissives actively seek out as part of BDSM play. Fundamentally, sub-space is most commonly associated with a flood of various neurotransmitters and endorphins and is not unlike the Runner’s High that marathon runners speak of. Sub drop is what happens when that flood of hormones stops. It’s a rebound effect and for a short time you end up in a low following the high. The duration and severity depends on a number of factors and can be anything from something that’s quickly shrugged off, to a couple of weeks of recovery.
That is my understanding of sub-drop anyway, based on my own (admittedly limited) experience with it, and based on a lot of reading over many years. Last night’s speaker initially defined sub-drop as a failure in scene aftercare. Later she did note the relationship between the physiological basis of sub-space and the resulting drop…. and still managed to blame inadequate aftercare. I think what she was attempting to do was impress of folks how important aftercare is. In that I definitely agree. The whole point of aftercare is to help bring the sub down safely from sub-space, and to help deal with the drop that follows. My problem with the claim that inadequate aftercare causes the drop is twofold. First, it sets up unreasonable expectations on the Dominant. It becomes the Dominant’s fault if the submissive suffers significant sub-drop. Second, it leads to bad decision making. If a sub knows that they tend to have really bad sub-drop when they go too far in a scene, then that should set up a limit for how far they go in a scene. If instead they believe that it’s the Dominant that is responsible for preventing sub-drop, then they’ll blame the Dominant and continue to seek out situations that cause them to drop badly. By mis-identifying the cause, we end up making bad decisions. Aftercare is important because it is a good mechanism for dealing with sub-drop, not because bad aftercare causes sub-drop.
There were a few other things, but on reflection they seem a bit more nit-picky. Overall though, an interesting talk. The best part though was that I attended with my Miss. Now that she’s back home for a while we’ve got some time together. We both miss it when we’re not able to. We make up for it as best we can, we regularly chat on Yahoo or by text message during the day, but that’s not quite the same as kneeling at her side, leash in her hand…
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You know Bubba…I can’t honestly say I’ve heard a ton about Sub-drop but it makes sence..I wish I could have heard the talk on it. But you make some good points.
March 15, 2010 at 16:54