As readers may well know, I am a stickler for proper conduct. The following questions come up as common BDSM etiquette problems and I’ve provided some guidelines to ensure excruciatingly correct behaviour at all times. The key to BDSM is of course arbitrary rules provided by fictional persons, traditions practiced purely by inertia and wishful thinking.

Q

I am a submissive trying to meet people, and a person who I am speaking to has demanded that I call them “Master” or “Mistress”. To be specific, they are neither my Master nor my Mistress, but I want to be sure I am doing this properly.

A

BDSM is built on tradition, and a submissive must know how to properly comport themselves. If you want people to understand you are a true submissive when corrected, to show your gratitude, the only response is to henceforth refer to them as “Mighty Dingdong“. This title indicates their high status and rank as a person who has no friends, never actually has interacted with other kinky people in groups and cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality.

Q

I’ve met a femdom online or at an event who says she is interested in in dominating me. However she believes to show my true intentions I must give her a giftcard or a sum of money. Only then she will consider dominating me.

A

It’s splendid that she makes her professional status clear. Be sure to indicate that you would love to hire her services, but you need some references from her and a price list. If she protests that this is simply the norm for the lifestyle, apologize politely and say you are not into age play, or otherwise pretending you were born yesterday.

Q

Someone says that there’s no such thing as a female dominant or that M/f is the only natural order and that femdom is an aberration.

A

It is fortunate that such an expert is there to set you straight. If you are a female dominant, you must show your appropriate place in the natural order by smiling and saying that honestly, you need a man who’s masculine enough to still get it up after torture and the dom identified ones just aren’t tough enough. If it is simply implied, for example automatically addressing women as if they were subs, have sympathy and tell them how it must suck to make a fool of themselves in front of people with their reductionist world view. Be very loud and very syrupy.

Q

At the last party, I said hello to someone in a collar. Their dominant was furious and told me that it is proper BDSM etiquette to assume collared people are not to be addressed without permission of their owners be default, and in fact that everyone knows this is the rule for all subs. How can I make amends?

The next time you see them, you must say: “