What is a red flag?
All of us strive for connection, for finding that someone who “gets us,” for meeting those human beings who are compatible with our own needs, wants, and desires. Finding that right connection is essential to initiating a good dynamic in a BDSM relationship, or any relationship, and to building and maintaining good mental health in our daily lives. Unfortunately, the journey to finding that right connection, and particularly for those people who are new to the BDSM lifestyle, is often a very rocky road and it can be a road fraught with difficulty. Especially since most people new to BDSM are online and the online community, unlike the ‘In Real Life’ community, still has no good way of policing itself at this time and it is very easy to fall victim to predators, to people who lie about their place in the community, their history and experience.
But we don’t want that. So we have to learn to look out for and recognize those indicators that someone is not who they claim to be or that they are not right for you. These indicators, what we call ‘Red Flags,’ are usually quite obvious in retrospect but often we tend to overlook them in the heat of the moment, during the excitement of trying to find a new partner, and we need to be very careful and force ourselves to step back, slow down, and say to oneself, “I am worth more than that person thinks I am.” We have to learn to look for, recognize, be cognizant of, and accept those clues that clearly indicate there is going to be trouble further on down the road.
Now, my primary concern is always educating people who are new to the BDSM lifestyle and I am particularly concerned about female subs as they are the most common target, or victims, of abuse and/or neglect. However, most, if not all of these red flags can easily pertain to anyone, of any dynamic, of any sex or gender, on either side of the slash, and no matter how experienced one is, we are all susceptible to making rash decisions and not paying attention to our instincts – and then paying for it later. Try and learn some of the more obvious red flags, pay attention to how often you’ll see them in the online communities, and hopefully you’ll save yourself a lot of grief in the future. When you do encounter them you need to really take a step back, pause, and make a sane determination about whether or not to proceed. Some red flags might simply indicate a lack of experience or education, others might be outweighed by so-called ‘green flags’ (those indicators that we consider positive for a relationship), while others should cause us to quickly put on the brakes and say “Hell, no!”
First Impressions
We don’t often think about it, but every relationship is built on a foundation of first impressions. In real life our first impressions are created in just seconds; online they are created in the first few communications, or in that first look at a profile, etc. First impressions give us that initial feeling of trust and interest, or lack thereof, that every relationship starts off with. And first impressions are not easy to overcome. Nor should they be. After all, our first impressions are often right – or at least they are right in the moment. And we need to be able to trust our first impressions, trust that they will help us to reduce uncertainty in establishing grounds for a new relationship. So what are some of the things we should look out for in establishing those first impressions?
How they speak or write to you. If someone approaches you and strikes up a conversation like some thug, or sends you an online message using ‘text slang,’ how serious can you really take them? If someone is unwilling to write proper English, form complete sentences, check their spelling, and so on, do they really care that much about establishing a real relationship with you? When someone isn’t willing to try and make a good first impression, when their writing is just plain lazy, or they aren’t putting any effort in how they speak to you, why would you expect them to try to put effort into a future relationship? Can you really take them serious, or are you so desperate that you’re willing to overlook the most basic courtesies that anyone should take when initiating a conversation with someone new?
Remember, how you start a conversation with someone, whether online or in real life, lays the groundwork for the whole relationship.
Getting to know you
The second stage in relationship development is getting to know each other. During this stage you are ‘testing the waters’ while trying to find what you have in common. You are trying to discover what about this other person makes them worth your time and interest. You want to know if they are receptive to you, to your wants and needs. You are basically determining your level of commitment. The most important thing to understand is that at this level you are either reinforcing your first impressions or you are making the other person work extremely hard to overcome that first impression. And this is where most people make their first bad mistakes. This is where we tend to fall victim to our own infatuation, to putting on rose colored glasses and missing the obvious, or just letting our amorous natures take over. We have to take a step-back and insure that we are trusting our first impressions, if they were good, we should be building on that, but if they were bad… we should never just overlook it.
There are a number of red flags we really need to look out for as we are getting to know someone beyond that first contact.
Disrespectful communication. This is, unfortunately, a very common problem particularly with the online BDSM community. Anything that is degrading, demeaning, or objectifying is disrespectful to you. When someone sends you sexual messages before a formal relationship is established, it is disrespectful. Asking for nude or provocative images is disrespectful. Any kind of attacks- anything that is deliberately confrontational, aggressive or abusive, even subtly, is disrespectful. Be cautious however to differentiate between assertiveness and aggressiveness. If you are new to BDSM and have never dealt with Dominate men before, particularly those of us who tend toward the more Alpha/masculine/sadist spectrum of dominance, it is easy to conflate assertive behavior with aggressive behavior. If you are ever in that position, say something to the person you are speaking to, do not be afraid to speak up. Any competent Dom will adjust themselves, tone themselves down a bit, to ease your anxiety. If they won’t/can’t, it might be a red flag.
Narcissistic abuse. Narcissism is a personality disorder that can manifest itself in a variety of ways. Perhaps the most insidious form is isolationism. Anyone who talks about isolating you in any way, either at the development stage of a relationship, or later on, is someone you need to run away from. Regardless of your lifestyle you should always be able to talk to friends and family members whenever you want. If a person tries to isolate you, that is, they try to keep you away from your social circles, it is a huge red flag. The opposite is also true, if they isolate themselves, keeping away from all of their family, not willing to make or have friends outside of the immediate relationship, not willing to let you get to know anyone in their life, it’s a red flag. But if we are in an established relationship, some isolating might occur that is done as a form of healthy protectionism. That is, the Dom might want the sub to stay away from people that He considers abusive or that cause the sub distress. But this is something that has to be carefully communicated and should never carry over to the subs healthy relationships. In addition, be aware that narcissistic abuse may include lying about you to others, silent treatments, withholding money, gaslighting, and more.
False claims and forced titles. Okay, here goes one of my biggest personal pet peeves. Listen up everyone. If you’re fucking 18 years old, have had 1 vanilla relationship, and watched 50 Shades – you’re not a fucking MASTER! Got it. Stop, just stop with the BS claims. Okay, rant over. But seriously, when you meet someone and you’re first getting to know them, no one anywhere, in any part of the BDSM community (outside of the Old Guard) should be trying to get you to call them by any honorifics. Until you have negotiated a relationship or play, no one is a SIR, or DADDY, or MASTER, or anything else. And you also have to be very careful, and exercise some common sense, about the claims some people make. When someone claims to have ten years of experience in the BDSM world, but doesn’t know the difference between SSC and RACK, or subspace and subdrop, seriously?! Look, it is perfectly okay to not have experience but to want to be a top or Dom, but be honest about it. Please. And when your instincts tell you someone is lying, is grossly exaggerating their place in the community, trust that inner voice. Along with the false claims, and title whores, be aware of community gatekeepers- there are a surprising number of people out there who seem to think they know everything about the BDSM world, that their way is the only way, and if you don’t to it ‘right’ you’re not really part of the community.
Communicating in a timely manner. Imagine you’re in a serious relationship, maybe dating for a year or so, the magic is there, you’re glued to one another, finishing sentences, everything is roses, but then suddenly your partner vanishes for two weeks. No reason, no explanation, and just as suddenly, poof, they pop back into your life and expect to pick right back up like nothing ever happened. How would you respond? And this is after a year of being together. Now, imagine this happening when you’re first trying to build a relationship. I would hope most of us pull the plug right then and there, but it’s a sad reality that this type of behavior is quite common, on both sides of the slash. I regularly see people complain about this type of behavior, complaining about how the person they are vetting keeps dropping off the face of the earth for a week or two and then comes back, about how someone takes days to respond to a simple text. But then they keep trying to vet the person in the hopes that it will somehow work out down the road. Listen, if someone can’t be respectful enough to communicate in a timely manner at the start of a relationship, what the hell makes you think they will be a good communicator further down the road. Most of us show our best sides when we are first starting out with someone and if that is your best side, well… it won’t get better later.
Sexual messages way too early on. While this is really part of the disrespectful communication that I wrote about above, it happens so often, it is so annoyingly common, that I wanted to add it as a separate red flag. There is absolutely no way that anyone, with any level of decency, will walk up to a person on the street, introduce themselves, and ask to see them naked or have them come to their mom’s basement and have sex with them right then. Don’t fall for it, don’t let yourself be pressured into it, just plain don’t do it, respect yourself. Don’t fall for lines trying to get you to see if you two are compatible, or to just play for one night. You aren’t in a BDSM club negotiating a scene, you’re trying to establish a long-term (probably) relationship. If they are that pushy right out of the gate, how much do you think they’ll respect your boundaries further down the road? Besides, BDSM isn’t just about sex, in fact sex is a minority part of almost any dynamic, and if you’re vetting someone who does not understand that, you need to move on.
Note that a lot of these red flags cease to become red flags after a relationship is established and boundaries are negotiated. It is all about timing and it is really imperative that we adhere to the boundaries of acceptable behavior.
Safety
Let’s talk about safety. Physical safety. Emotional safety. Mental safety. Relationships are supposed to be a safe space. A place where you can trust one another on a deeper level, where communication is open, vulnerable, and honest; where we can be emotionally open with our partner, where we don’t have to feel like we are forced to be silent. Relationships are supposed to be a place where we are free from danger, fear and anxiety. Free from rejection and the fear thereof. We should be celebrated by our partner (and celebrating them in turn) and never just tolerating one another. This type of relationship, which all BDSM relationships should strive to be, are built on trust and any act which violates that trust, or lessens it, is a red flag.
Feeling pressured. No one should ever feel pressured in this lifestyle. When you push someone to do something they don’t want to do, guess what, we are entering the realm of abuse, maybe worse. Feeling pressured is not the same as pushing boundaries or growing beyond previous limits. Those are things that happen organically in a relationship with someone you trust and you will know when you’re ready to go further. Someone else trying to convince you, to berate you, into doing something you’re not comfortable with, or have no interest in, is simply unacceptable and is a hard red flag. You should be able to talk about something, whether it is a kink or not, and as soon as you say no – that’s the end of it. Your limits are yours and no Dom anywhere gets to push a sub beyond her stated limits.
Doesn’t want to use Safewords. Okay, there is exactly one single place in BDSM where safewords might not exist and that is in long-term, very experienced M/s relationships. These are couples that have been together for years (decades in my case), they know one another inside and out, they trust one another implicitly, and their relationship has evolved into a carefully negotiated M/s dynamic (whether they call it that or not). Absolutely no one else in BDSM, especially no one in a new relationship or with less than a decade (give or take) of BDSM experience, should ever even talk about giving up safewords. Anyone who won’t use safewords, or suggests that they don’t want to use safewords, or tries to talk you out of using a safeword, is a predator and an abuser – without exception. Also, watch out for people who don’t want to use standard safewords like the stoplight system or words that are easy for the sub to remember. I have run into at least one person who deliberately tried to use difficult safewords so that they would have an excuse to push the sub way past what she wanted, and could then claim she never used her safeword. Listen to me, anyone who does that is a rapist, plain and simple.
Talking about TPE or 24/7 M/s too early. Alright, this is one of my personal kinks. To me, Lifestyle BDSM reaches its zenith when an established couple enters into the realm of 24/7 TPE whether they call it D/s or M/s is irrelevant. But note that I said established. A new couple, a new dynamic, is absolutely not a place for talking about Total Power Exchange relationships, other than casually or to indicate it as a possible future interest. To suggest to a new partner that they should engage in 24/7 TPE is simply way too controlling and someone is on a power-trip. Now, that does not mean that new partners can’t negotiate a temporary TPE for a limited duration, say a night or a weekend- that is quite common. What I am referring to is the person who wants to enter into a permanent 24/7 TPE dynamic right off the bat, which is never acceptable.
Doesn’t do aftercare. This one has always been a complete mystery to me. Now, I’ve seen this one manifest in a few different varieties. The first is the new person who isn’t aware of what aftercare is, doesn’t understand it’s place and importance. If they are willing to be educated, not a problem. The other ones fall under the “I don’t or won’t do aftercare” flag. Even if someone is upfront about it, to me that is a solid red flag. Look, if you don’t want to ministrate to someone after getting your rocks off – than you don’t really care about them, it’s just bad sex, and who needs that in their life. Even in a BDSM dungeon, between two people who just met and arranged a little play scene, aftercare is standard. Seriously, if a stranger can do it, you damn sure better expect it from a real partner. Besides, if you do it right, aftercare is just as enjoyable as the play and can even be part of the scene.
Unwilling to engage in safe sex. This is one of those areas where the definition of safe sex isn’t quite cut and dried and needs to be carefully negotiated between the involved parties. It absolutely must involve STI testing and anyone not willing to go and get tested isn’t worth your time. Beyond that, the use of various forms of birth control, condoms, BC pills, morning-after pills, barriers, sterilizations, and so on, are all up to the individuals and their negotiated limits. Now let me say this, even for those people with impregnation and breeding kinks, this is an area you still must negotiate and deal with. Don’t skip it and don’t let anyone push you out of your comfort zone when it comes to unprotected or safe sex practices. Your life, your sexual well-being, your health are not worth it.
Wants to play or scene while using drugs or alcohol. This is another one of those areas that needs to be a real hard limit, until you’ve been together for a while. There is a reason why almost no BDSM club in the country serves alcohol or allows people to play while inebriated, BDSM and intoxication don’t mix. It is dangerous. Lethally dangerous. There are a number of well-documented cases where people have died during BDSM activities where drugs and alcohol were involved. Your inhibitions are lowered, your ability to make rational, quick, accurate judgements is removed. Breath play becomes strangulation, edge play results in manslaughter. It just isn’t worth it. Of course, there are some kinks that play in this area, but those need to be carefully controlled and negotiated, and again, should only occur within an established dynamic, not with new partners. You should also never let yourself fall into the PNP scene, especially as a newbie in the BDSM world. Ever.
Disrespectful actions. I spoke about disrespectful communication above. While this overlaps that, I want to concentrate a bit more on how a potential partner is acting toward others more than you. First, avoid the kink shame. Everyone has limits, things that don’t attract them, turn them on, or might even be flat repulsive to you, but that doesn’t mean we go around shaming others for their kinks. And people who do, what’s to stop them from shaming you when you share something they don’t like? Also watch out for people who are constantly critical of all of their past partners. People who excessively critical tend to have a lot of weak areas in their lives, unresolved control issues, personality conflicts they are unable to deal with, a whole host of character weaknesses that dominate the personality. Do you really want someone who spends all their time talking crap about the people in their past? That’s a lot of negativity. Next, watch out for anyone who is constantly chasing the new people. Get involved in the online BDSM communities, learn to observe, and pretty soon you’ll spot the ones who are always pouncing on the people who are new, inexperienced, and don’t know better. Yeah, they’re the predators. You don’t need that.
The no limits dude. Well, really it could be a guy or girl, Dom or sub. But anyone who says they have no limits is either an idiot, has never considered their limits, or is so desperate to get laid they’ll say and do anything. Every single person has limits, every one of us. Your limits may be way further out than others, they may be in a completely different place than others, but you do have them. And if you’re honest with yourself, they will be well defined and clearly set in place for others to see as necessary. It’s actually quite important. Without knowing our limits, our boundaries, we risk putting ourselves in harms way. Even worse, we risk putting other people in jeopardy and that is inexcusable.
They won’t ask or learn about your needs and wants. The entire point of BDSM is to explore and discover, to embrace and enjoy, new pleasures. However, some people are so concerned with their own self-satisfaction that they never take the time to learn what their partner needs for their own pleasure, or growth, or happiness. They don’t care about what other people want, only what they can take from others for their own self-serving satisfaction. That is a one-sided relationship destined to fail. Some people are simple unwilling to stretch themselves to please a partner because it’s outside their comfort zone, not necessarily because it’s a limit, but because they are just plain lazy. Look, if a person doesn’t care enough about you to want to learn what you need to enjoy your time together, move on.
What’s the bottom line?
Everyone has those things about them that are nonnegotiable. Hopefully you know what those things are and hopefully you’re willing to stand by them. We also have those parts of ourselves that we are willing to work with, the parts that we don’t mind changing or molding for others if we think it will be worth it. So it comes down to what you are willing to do and what you are willing to not do, what you are willing to overlook and what lines should never be crossed.
Some red flags should never be overlooked, some are pretty universal to everyone. But others might be negotiable, might be worth glossing over, might be outweighed by the good. None of us are perfect. So you have to weigh the good with the bad and make sure the scales always tilt in your favor. The bottom line, trust yourself, trust your instincts, don’t be so desperate for something to work that you just give in and abandon your own principles, your own boundaries. If you’re not sure, keep talking, but do it from a distance, don’t leap in blindly, don’t ignore the red flags that scream out, don’t keep hurting yourself and sabotaging your own future because you won’t trust your own instincts. You are worth caring about.