Anton Fulmen - The Heart of Dominance: a guide to practicing consensual dominance

What and Who This Book Is For

The book you are holding is a how-to guide to the concepts and skills at the heart of consensual dominance. If you are new to dominance, still figuring out just what it's all about or what you want it to mean to you, then this book will provide you with a solid foundation from which to start. If you already practice dominance and are interested in improving your ability to create deep and lasting power dynamics then you'll find many advanced concepts and concrete techniques to integrate into your own personal style.

What consensual dominance means here is any kind of intentional, mutually desired, mutually fulfilling exercise of power and control between partners . There are a lot of different kinds of connections that fit that broad definition, and the fundamental principles that this book explores can be applied to any of them. So it should be just as valuable whether you practice dominance in occasional intense evenings within an otherwise egalitarian relationship, in a full-time power exchange relationship, in long distance or online relationships, in pick-up play with strangers at BDSM clubs, or anywhere else.

This book also doesn't assume that you identify as "a dominant," or that you conform to any stereotype about what a person who dominates should look or act like. It looks at dominance as a practiceas something that any person can learn to do, rather than something that some people areand it is meant for anyone with a desire to learn to practice dominance well. It is written to be accessible to absolute beginners, as well as to switches and primals and tops and mommies and daddies and bigs and masters and trainers and Goreans and heads-of-house and owners and label-defying powerfuckers. (And don't worry if you have no idea what any of those labels meansdominance has nothing to do with labels.)

If you have an interest in the bedrock principles of inspiring, deepening, maintaining and enjoying control over a person who dearly, desperately wants you to control them, then this book is for you.

The Reluctant Dominant

One thing this book does assume is that you want to dominate. If someone else has slipped this book under your pillow because they want you to dominate, but you aren't sure whether or not you're into the idea, then it may or may not be useful for you.

The book takes a broad view of dominance and will introduce you to many varied ways of doing it, as well as debunking some distasteful myths that sometimes turn people off of the idea. If you have any undiscovered or unexplored passion for dominance, this is a good place to feel out that latent interest.

On the other hand, many people simply have no interest in practicing consensual dominance. They might be perfectly capable of taking command in any number of situations, but they don't get excitement or fulfillment from commanding their partners. If you read this book and it all leaves you cold, that's okay. Not wanting to dominate doesn't make you less powerful or less capable or less anything, except maybe less of a match for someone who craves domination.

There are all kinds of things that make perfect sense to do for a partner's sake. If your partner loves Indian food, you can learn to cook a mean vindaloo even if you really prefer burgers. If your partner really, really, really wants you to dance with them, you can take dancing lessons and learn to do it and go out and dance with them just because it makes them happy. If your partner fantasizes about being tied up, the giving and loving thing to do is learn some ropework, even if you've no particular interest in it yourself.

But dominance is different. Often the very core of what a person is wanting from submission to you is to please you, or make you proud, or meet your expectations. What they need is directly connected to your passion for dominating them . They want to be subject to your desires. They want to feel used as a toy for your gratification. If you're making up rules that you don't enjoy having to enforce, issuing orders that you don't really care if they obey, or having them crawl around on all fours just to cater to their desire to be dominatedit will often be unsatisfying for them as well as for you.

My advice is to not practice dominance solely to please someone else (though certainly most of us do enjoy pleasing our partners). Don't let yourself be wheedled or pressured into practicing dominance. Don't do it because you want to impress someone. Don't do it because you're afraid your partner will leave you if you don't. Don't do it to avoid looking weak or because you think you should want it.

Instead, read this book with an eye toward the wide diversity of different styles and flavors in which dominance can be practiced, and look for a kind of dominance that speaks to you, one that you think might feed you, that you could get really invested in and really want to explore. Then try dominating in line with that true dominant drive.

If you don't find any such drive, again: that's perfectly okay. And in that case the most genuinely dominant thing to do is say "no thanks; this isn't for me."