By David Futrelle
Time for some Saturday Schadenfreude. Today, the story of a polyamorous dom who tried to humiliate his subs by making them take an IQ test, only to end up humiliating himself in the end.
A couple of years ago – hey, I didn’t say this was a brand new story — a lovely fellow turned to the Relationships subreddit in hopes someone there might be able to help him out of a little pickle he’d gotten himself into. The 26-year-old “dom” was worried that a little stunt he’d pulled with an online IQ test was ruining his relationships with his two subs.
“A little background,” he began.
I am a Dom in a polyamorous relationship with two lovely young submissive women, whom we’ll call “Sarah” [22F] and “Jane” [19F]. Jane and I have been living together for three years, and Sarah moved in with us in January of this year.
Only a couple of sentences in and already our dear Dom has revealed himself to be an incredible skeezball. He’s been living with a “sub” since she was 16 and he was 23? He’s a predator, and very likely an abuser.
And we haven’t even gotten to the poor fella’s problem yet. Let’s let him continue:
Everything has been going quite well, but an issue has just arisen in our relationship that is making me very concerned.
Do tell.
Whilst perusing the web on Tuesday night, I discovered an online IQ test. I am aware that most online IQ tests are inaccurate, but, having studied psychology, I knew that this test used the exact same types of questions as a professional IQ test.
“Whilst.” Why are these doofuses always so fucking pretentious? This is clearly someone who isn’t quite as smart as he thinks he is. Er, SPOILER ALERT.
I decided to play a little game with my subs. They are very into psychological domination and humiliation, and I thought it would be erotic to dominate them intellectually by outscoring them on the IQ test.
You might have already guessed the punchline here.
While they are bright girls, I had no doubt that my IQ would be higher than theirs. I had them take the test, and Sarah scored 128; Jane, 134. I took the test after them. However, to my chagrin, I scored 112.
DIRECTED BY M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN.
This was, understandably, humiliating. Sarah and Jane didn’t say anything. We continued on as usual afterwards, but these results aroused many doubts in the back of my mind.
Way ahead of you, bud, on the whole doubts thing. I have nothing but doubts about you.
As a Dom, I demand total submission from my girls, and it is my responsibility to control them; I cannot do this if they are able to outsmart me.
How can I continue to manipulate them if they can see right through my bullshit?
I am sure Sarah and Jane know this too. Although they have not disobeyed or disrespected me outright, I am picking up on small aspects of their behaviour that show a loss of respect for me. I am afraid that this could kill their attraction to me.
Oh, let’s hope so!
I am asking for advice from /r/relationships because BDSMcommunity has been disrespectful to me in the past … .
Oh, they’ve been “disrespectful,” huh? Perhaps that’s because you’re a skeezy, manipulative predator who justifies his terrible behavior by calling himself a “dom?” Just a wild guess.
[I]nput from both BDSM and vanilla perspectives is welcome. I would like to know a way to mend the damage this has caused to our relationship.
Happily, most of those who responded in the Reddit thread weren’t having any of his bullshit, and several called him out for his obviously predatory behavior.
I wish only the worst to him. If he’s even real. The story is so perfect in its irony I think there’s a very good chance it’s fake; I certainly hope it is, for the sake of the women involved.
Maybe the OP was just honing a pitch for a new sitcom — Dom and Dommer.
H/T — I ran across this on Twitter, posted by the reliably hilarious and/or awful relationships.txt account.
I should clarify. I didn’t mean that only the sub can stop the scene, but as the active participant (the doer), the dom doesn’t need any special way to stop things. Doms generally also wouldn’t need one since they’re usually the one that’s actively doing something. Subbing is usually more passive, and the sub is usually the one having things done to them, so in a BDSM situation, the dom can stop whenever they want, but the sub is the pretty much the one with the power to have everything and everyone stop completely. Basically, since the dom is usually the one actively doing something and the sub is the one passively having something done to them, the dom can only stop themselves, but the sub can stop other people.
OT: Unsettling news. Several tweets I’ve read point out that two things can be true at the same time: (1) Argento was assaulted. (2) Argento assaulted someone.
Asia Argento, Who Accused Weinstein, Made Deal With Her Own Accuser
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/us/asia-argento-assault-jimmy-bennett.html
Hoo boy.
CW: sex,BDSM, kink.
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My Dom ass wants to make very clear that if this isn’t a parody (and sadly it probably isn’t) then this creep is yet another dime a dozen abuser who thinks calling himself a Dom makes it ok.
My husband is a sub because he enjoys being able to relax and let me be in charge & make the calls, while he gets to go along for the ride. He’s big into degradation and humiliation, and while I was hesitant when we first started with the whole BDSM thing, seeing how much he enjoys getting treated “bad” has made it fun for me too. If you’d asked me years ago if I’d ever do some of the stuff I consider routine now I’d have thought you were accusing me of being an abusive monster.
But it’s PLAY. He knows I don’t really think of him the way I talk to him when we’re in a “scene” and he knows he’s never actually in any sort of danger from me. The fact that he can trust me to play the bad guy is a testament to the level of comfort we have with each other.
And there’s a clear, bright line with what we do. If he says “yellow” I back off a bit and slow down. If he says “red” I stop what is happening immediately. Same for me, if I’m not comfortable with what’s happening I can call it off.
People like this make me sick, it gives all of us in the kink community a bad name
Ohlmann:
Very well put, I’d say as someone with just basic understanding of this issue. I could hardly put it so succinctly.
Talonknife:
But if you’re the sub you can only override other people exactly where you’ve let them override your own autonomy? I think it kinda evens out, if one can say so.
I hear doms are sometimes advised to keep their own safeword ready. It makes sense particularly if there’s no clear dom/sub or top/bottom distinction in your scene.
@lumipuna
(CW, Sexual content, BDSM content)
Yes, us Doms do also have safe word stuff. There’s times my husband will say/do something that I’m like “um, eww, no” and will “yellow” because he’s made me uncomfortable. A huge HUGE part of this stuff is have really great communication. I wouldn’t ever do a scene with someone until we’d had a long talk beforehand about expectations, hard limits, things they like, things I like etc.
And it is play. I’m not really demanding my husband prove worthy of me allowing him to get off, and he’s not really intimidated by my posturing. Hell, he’s the driver of most of the stuff we do even though he’s the sub simply by virtue of me knowing what he likes/is turned on by, and me figuring out ways to work that in to what we’re doing.
And yeah, my husband can only override me where it comes to the power he’s given me over his autonomy/consent.
We’re considered fairly edgy by BDSM community standards (though nowhere near the farthest out there, especially when it comes to the sadism/masochism part) because we do C/NC, knife play, blood play, etc. But we are honestly probably the healthiest BDSM couple I know. We’ve been together for 17 years and have a level of understanding of each other that enables us to do some stuff other folks don’t feel comfortable doing.
well.. My first boyfriend was 23 too when I was 16-which is totally fine and legal here- in general I always had older partners bc the ones in my age range were fucking stupid and immature.
I mean I tried, but grew fucking tired of explaining shit nd also regularly reminding them that they arent owed anything, that just because hey want sex they dont get it and no, porn isnt adequate how to.
I never had to do that with older partners- in general all my friends were older too and I chose them because they always were respectful and mindful of boundaries, they never tried to pressure me- what you cant say about people my age, where fittin in was the most important ever so smoking and drinking (beer is legal with 16, everything else 18) was seen as cool and you wouldn’t be cool if you, like me didn’t want to.
idk, there are some studies who even say that guys develop a bit slower- (pretty sure because how men and women are socialized, i.e how fitting in and being agreeable is something expected from women, not from men.)
so yeah, the guy could’ve been german as well.
Our age of consent starts with 14, around 30% have their first time with 16 (btw not unlike the usa, I think 25% there-despite laws. I think I read somewhere that 12% have it 14-16..)
bu doing BDSM is a grey area bcc you are considered an adult with 18- so only then you can consent to invasive procedures, piercings, tattoos etc..
So yea.. I always informed people before playing and told my parents and my gyn and general practitioners so nobody would assume I was an abuse victim.
still, hes pretty full of himself, so I hope his subs ditch him. Authority doesn’t come from force but competence, ability and respect
(in the usa? lol, I woudt advocate for lowering any age,you dont even have sex ed or any kid of healthcare.. Like may be racist but imo americans generally as a group arent mature enough for such thing unless there is mandatory scientifically accurate sex ed for everyone not only available bit obligatory in school as well as free healthcare, STI testing and contraception paid till 21 (like its done here)
But the usa? pretending sex either does not exist or will ruin you, then kicking people out with 18-21with no knwoledge abouts ex and sociatal usage of ethanol-and then wondering why there’s a rape epidemic which then gets ignored and downplayed by people with fucked up ideas about consent…
not to talk about high rate of teenage pregnancies(highest for all western countries) (those pregnancies are far more likely to kill the mom too btw)
the USA is a fucked up country.
Yeah lots of countries have an age of consent which is 16 or lower… Here it’s 15. And I did briefly date a 16-year-old girl when I was 20. Still, I think 16-20 is a noticeable age difference. Like, regardless of how mature and smart and yada yada the 16-year-old is, if the 20-year-old (like me at the time) has moved away from home etc that means you’re at pretty different stages in life.
I definitely don’t think a young adult sleeping with a 16-year-old is in auotmatically rape territory (I mean morally speaking, since there are obviously states in the US where it’s automatically rape in a legal sense). But there’s a higher potential for things getting iffy with that kind of age difference compared to people dating others the same age as them. And you should not move in with someone when you’re just 16, seriously, you gotta find yourself before moving in with a partner.
Also re BDSM… Obviously lots of sensible people have healthy BDSM sex. And obviously predators and abusers are found everywhere, in all communities. But it seems to me that predators who hide behind the BDSM label often end up hurting people more, since they can rationalize pretty much anything using the label.
Another funny thing about this is that IQ tests are questionable at the best of times, and online test even more so. When I did one it came out 132. I KNOW I am not that clever! When I had one done at the age of 13 at a reputable psychological centre it came out as 118. So his IQ is likely to be under 100.
He sounds like one of those ghastly ‘Shades of Grey’ ‘doms’. They make the kink community look bad and experienced subs hate them.
And a 16 year old is not yet developed enough to know their preferences – having been stuck with this bozo for 3 years telling her what to do is no way to learn about what you actually want to do.
I have read that female subs report (unofficially) that they have been raped at least once. ALL female subs that another female sub spoke to (sorry cannot remember source) said that it had happened during a scene. So there are plenty of shitty doms about – basically just misogynist men who use the kink scene as a cover.
tw: sexual assault, command rape
from WaPo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/im-full-of-outrage-now-former-students-allege-decades-old-sexual-abuse-at-maryland-private-school/2018/08/18/d9eb7c40-101a-11e8-9065-e55346f6de81_story.html?utm_term=.4afc2b35f808
Hey DF,
I have come across an interesting specimen and wondered if you have noticed him before. His name is Douglas Galbi, and he pretends at intellectuality to do his ugly work, digging in obscure ancient and medieval texts to discover “the truth” that women have always abused men.
His MO is to cold-email scholars whose work he has used to “thank” them and offer his own work to “critique”. Here is the link to the page he sent to me yesterday.
https://www.purplemotes.net/2018/08/19/exeter-riddles-sexuality/
As far as MRAs go, it’s not THAT objectionable, but is full of dumb historical errors, purple prose, and faux-intellectualism. His reading of the “dirty” Exeter Book Riddles makes the cosmically stupid mistake of maintaining their focus on human sexuality even after you realize their solution is an inanimate object.
A little digging did not not reveal huge amounts about him, but I did see a blog entry from a Byzantinist addressing the same behavior he showed towards me and my colleagues.
I can see 16-year-olds being attracted to older people, like 23-year-olds. It’s not that uncommon, experience and confidence is something that a lot of people are drawn to.
But 23-year-olds have NO legitimate reason to want to date 16-year-olds. I don’t care how “mature” the 16-year-old is, there is a MASSIVE gap in life experience, and the only reason to want to be with someone with that huge of a gap in experience is to take advantage of their naivete and exploit them.
@ellesar
If I recall, the last time the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom did a survey of the kink community they found assault rates similar to the public at large. No more, no less.
Oh no. Are we going to do the whole “haha, American prudes, age of consent is like, 14 in Europe thing?’
Because there is quite a big difference between a 16 year old girl having a boyfriend/having sex with a guy in his twenties and a 16 year old being a full time live in sub with a guy in his twenties. I’m just not seeing any universe in which that is not abusive. It seems extremely likely to me that this girl was probably being abused at home and desperate to escape. I know that’s speculation, but it just seems doubtful that a 16 year old with a safe and loving household would move in with a dom and become a full time sub.
Also, neuroscience supports the supposedly prudish view that the age of consent should be 18 but with some “Romeo and Juliet” laws so that relationships between young people of similar age aren’t criminalized. The brain of a teenager is not fully developed yet and one of the slowest parts to develop is the portion involved in judgement, planning, and impulse control. It is so not out of line to believe that adults who seek out relationships with teenagers are predatory and that a relationship between a teenage and an adult is not likely to be one of equals. European is not necessarily synonymous with correct or superior.
Now, I don’t even think it is automatically rape if an early twenties person and a 16 year old have sex. As individuals do mature at different rates. There also is a difference between people with an age gap happening to meet and be attracted to each other and people who deliberately target younger people for relationships. However, the line of consent has to be somewhere, and to me 18 makes sense because it’s the age commonly agreed on as the age of adulthood and it’s the age so many other legal rights and responsibilities come. The fact that you rarely hear people arguing that 15, 16 year olds are mature enough sign a contract or go to war but you do hear people (usually, but not always men) argue that they’re mature enough for an adult sexual or romantic relationship is super telling.
I should also clarify that when and I give the side eye to a relationship between a 16 and 23 year old, it’s not the 16 year old I give a side eye too. It’s common for 16 year old girls to want to date older guys because yeah, teenage boys are usually obnoxious and immature. Although I think it’s probably about the way girls and boys are socialized more than I think it’s a biological thing. It’s the 23 year old I side eye.
Although in general, sex ed does need to improve in the US, teenagers are not as cognitively developed as adults in Germany just because the sex ed there may be better. I’d also like to point out that there isn’t really such a thing as American sex ed. The way the education system works here, the sex ed curriculum differs quite a bit between school districts. Living in a liberal area, I did not get abstinence only sex ed and was not given any misinformation by teachers. Too many Americans get shitty sex ed for sure, but it’s not all of us.
Absolutely.
Yeah I’ll give the biggest side-eye to someone in their twenties who date one 16-year-old after the other.
@WWTH
I dunno, even the former is a tad squicky. When I was attending Seneca College for my tech writing certification back in 2010, I had a friend who recommended Scott Pilgrim to me, as I had mentioned I was interested in Toronto-based media. The way it was initially described to me, it sounded amazing: a love letter to geek culture through the lens of my own hometown? What could go wrong?
Then he started talking about the plot and characters. “So Scott’s a guy in his twenties and he’s initially dating a girl in high school–”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah, but he’s not that into her. Then he sees this girl in his dreams and then sees her in real life and he wants to date her, but he has to defeat all of her exes before he can do so!”
“Uhhh, this guy sounds kinda sounds like a shitty man-child. Is there an arc to this character where he realizes he’s terrible and makes amends?”
“Oh, the last chapter hasn’t been published yet.”
“…riiiiight….”
“But they’re making a movie of it!”
“……..”
Yeah, needless to say, I gave it a miss.
Apart from taking Peter Thiel’s shilling his worst quality seems to be suffering from a case of Dunning-Kruger syndrome, an affliction sadly common among autodidacts and Valleybros.
This is a problem the world really needs to address, because it’s getting to the point where fundamental policy decisions are going to be made by morons who think expertise can be acquired by listening to some guy in a British accent babble on YouTube. Respect for expertise and the work involved in attaining it needs to make a comeback and fast.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/08/the-1945-book-what-men-dont-like-about-women-excerpted-in-esquire-makes-for-a-jaw-dropping-read-in-2018.html
I can’t believe anyone would seriously write this line:
Now, I don’t have a lot of sex-related experience, and maybe there are kinks for getting good marks in things/being competitive… why not? But those words, put together in a (presumably serious, if not fake) sentence… I just can’t. It’s too silly.
Age of consent: I’m used to it being 16, but it seems icky that a 23-year-old would have a 16-year-old living with him as a partner. If this is real, it’s unsettling, especially in a situation like this that seems emotionally abusive.
The Canadian age of consent used to be 14 – I think it got changed to 16 when I was in high school. 14 always seemed to me too young. (Other than that, most things coming out of Harper’s Conservative government were crap – well, I did like the tax-free savings account, but that benefits middle classes more than the actually poor).
Only tangentially related: When I was a kid, I was really opposed to the age of adulthood being 18. I always thought it should be 20 because we use a base 10 number system, not a base 9 one. Plus, 18 is still in the “teens” and doesn’t seem like a very significant number. 😀
@epitome
I can see a vague idea of how this was supposed to work. The women might have a bimbo kink, or be interested in humiliation, etc. Thing is, this isn’t the way to do it. Why go thru all the external crap of an IQ test, why not just fake it? Why take it yourself, just say you’re smarter. It’s role play after all, you don’t need evidence.
Unless you are incredibly insecure, date women in their teens so they’re easier to manipulate, and hide behind “kink” to diguise your abusive ass.
To defend the European law here the German law:
Mostly the laws are what they are because the age of criminal resposibility is 14.
And to take two teenangers to court because they had consential sex with each other, is absurd. (In that case we would tell them they are mature enough to realise that they should have consent and that there partner is to young to give it, but not mature enough to realise what sex is and give meaningful consent themselves)
Above that age sexual content is in the law not automatical rape.
To sentence someone you need somethink more.
About the contract, teens in Germany can do them in some cases in Germany (buying stuff with your pocketmoney forms a contract). For bigger stuff they need the permission of their parents, sometimes even from the court. (But yeah the can make contracts)
In the defence my point of view is more “teens having sex happens, should we send people (worse the teens) to jail for it?” hell no. It is dificult if you define an age to mean someone can meaningful give consent you can’t say only if the person is so and so old, that is a bit illogical. (On of the thoughts about it is the point of criminal law as last resort, only if 100% necesary and the fear to imprison people unjust, what would happen if strict age of consent 18 is the law)
I am not so far away from WWTH as this sounds, because the relationship here sounds from all my know really abusive. There are laws to punish those who break consent and abuse teens.
Laws against people who deliberately target younger people for relationships are something that should be done. What are they doing to manipulate young people that could be made against the law or is allready against the law is the interesting question.
In general, for 16-23 relation, I do believe context is key. While 16y old are immature, 23y old aren’t exactly that much better, and in my experience relationship maturation really start at the first actual relation, not inherently. Plus, if there is enough mutual respect in addition to affection, things may end well. It’s the kind of relation that any parent should be extremely wary of, but it’s not inherently wrong in my opinion.
That being said, the guy in the post add so many red flags that . He say he live with here, which both hint that the relationship started even before 16 and make her dependant from him. He say she’s a sub, which is *definitely* the kind of thing that require a bit of maturity. He is polyamorous, which is another thing that require maturity from all participants. He himself don’t seem mature at all given his entire post. That look like a disaster in the making.
Of course, I don’t believe that the ages and time actually are true. But if it is, I do hope his two poor mates have escaped :/
My opinion on age of consent:
1. There needs to be a hard lower boundary age. Putting it as the same age as criminal responsibility makes sense to me. Because saying: ‘You can tell right from wrong reliably enough to know when you’re doing something wrong, but you’re too young to know your own mind about when to have sex.’ Just doesn’t work.
2. a)There should be a sliding scale between that age and the age of majority where people having sex with a person within 2-3 years of their own age is legal. Some of my class mates were 3 years older than me. Teens spend most of their time at school or with people they know from school, so chances the they’ll pick a sexual partner from that pool are pretty high.
2. b) If there is a power differential between two young people special care needs to be taken. Over here older teens often supervise younger children and teens in youth group settings. Mostly in community centres or religious contexts. There’s a few adults with the appropriate training/degree/etc. and a lot more youth volunteers that are only a few years older than their charges. There should never be any sexual context between a youth volunteer and their charge.
3. Once both parties are above the age of majority they can do whatever they want.
Regarding lesswrong:
Ugh. Some of his stuff is decent. He spends a lot of time reinventing the wheel. He invents new jargon where common technical terms already exist. He sometimes thinks that the basic level he understands is all there is to a certain subject. He sometimes thinks that common visualizations of hard to grasp physical properties (e.g. quantum mechanics) are an accurate description of what is actually happening…
He’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, lacks the education to accurately assess his deficits and has quite the talent of scamming people out of their money to found his ‘research’.
And despite running his own ‘research’ institute since 2000 he hasn’t published or produced anything at all.
My publication list is longer than his and I left academia ten years ago!
My experience is that when someone says they enjoy reading psychology or “studying psychology” and they didn’t major in it or study it in grad school, they most likely aren’t reading real psychology. Most of what is classified as psychology in the bookstores is really self-help stuff and pop psychology. There are some good popular psychology books. For instance, Susan Cain’s excellent book on introversion, which is aimed at a general, albeit informed, audience is very well-researched and accurately presents real psychology. However, much of the popular psychology is dumbed down Anthony Robbins and Stephen Covey pseudo-psychology crap written by people who couldn’t interpret an ANOVA score if their lives depended on it.
Even that can sometimes work out, though. My best friend in grade 9/10 was 17 when she moved in with a guy. I no longer remember exactly how old he was but he’ll be 52 next month so….I guess he was around 24 since she just turned 45. They had a daughter a few months after she turned 18 and they officially got married last year. I was really skeptical of their relationship at first – her previous boyfriend was an abusive ass – but I stayed with them regularly, for weeks at a time, and never saw any issues even when all of us were crammed into a tiny one bedroom house together.
Since the subject of BDSM came up:
Dude. FOCUS. 😛