How to Bring a Dom/Sub Dynamic Into Your Relationship: Everyday Rituals That Build Power Exchange

Annette: Today’s Talk Sex with Annette topic is how to bring the dom/sub dynamic into your relationship: everyday rituals that build power exchange. Say the words dominance and submission and most people picture a dungeon full of gear. And look, the cuffs and rope and toys can be a whole lot of fun, I’m not knocking them. But here’s what couples who actually live in power exchange know that beginners don’t: the gear is the tip of the iceberg, not the foundation. The real heat gets built long before anyone reaches for a toy. It’s in the way a cup of tea gets made, or a meal gets served and received, the small daily rituals that keep a current running between two people all day long. Get that part right, and everything you reach for later lands ten times harder.

My guests are Auntie Carmen, the Desire Midwife, a certified sex and relationship coach and host of the Shame Proof Your Desires podcast. She calls herself an alpha sub: driven, outspoken, and someone who deeply wants to serve the man she loves, who’s here with her today. Her husband and dom, Linwood, whom she calls a “domestic,” because he cooks, gardens, runs the house, and hands the power right back to her. Carmen and Linwood, welcome. Tell my listeners a little more about you.

Carmen: Hi, Annette. I’m Auntie Carmen, the Desire Midwife, a certified sex and relationship coach. I primarily work with women on discovering what they truly desire, because most of us have been conditioned to respond to someone else’s desire, someone else’s hunger for intimacy, and we’re rewarded for playing by the rules and being responsive rather than having our own autonomous desires. So my work is about helping women discover what actually turns them on. Today I’m here with my husband and dom, Linwood, to give a behind-the-scenes look at what it actually looks like when you discover what you desire and start claiming it. We’ve both done that for ourselves, and we’ve come together to co-create a relationship based on power exchange.

Linwood: A little background: I discovered I enjoyed being a dom later in life. My natural tendencies aren’t the stereotypical alpha-male thing, but it’s something I really step into in the bedroom. Our relationship gives us both the chance to explore sides of ourselves that aren’t present day-to-day, which matters for both of us.

Annette: This is special, listeners, because you rarely get both people. Usually when a guest teaches how to bring kink into your relationship, you only hear one half. Here you get both, and how it actually worked for them. This is a foundational episode, even more foundational than anything I’ve done before. Talking to Carmen, I realized this might be exactly why I’ve struggled in my own attempts at a dom/sub dynamic, I didn’t have this information. So we’re all learning together.

Most people instantly think whips, chains, and cuffs, and when they want to try it, they run to the sex store. That’s not your approach. Speak to that.

Carmen: We have this idea of what power exchange is, fed by pop culture, movies, books, images, and it’s really hot. So we want that. But my approach starts with what you’re trying to achieve, not the activities. The activities are just how things get executed. Power exchange is actually about the feeling, how you want to feel, like any part of intimacy. What I discovered about myself was a desire to be cherished for the gifts I bring to a relationship. I wasn’t being appreciated the way I wanted. So the foundational questions to come to power exchange with are: what makes you feel more dominant, and what makes you feel more submissive? Those might be mismatched, so where’s the common ground? If I’m a service submissive, which I am, and I’m matched with a hardcore sadist who’s all about pain, that’s not a match. I need someone who can see my gifts of service and appreciate them. And the second question: how do you want to feel? Seen? Cherished? Closer? Degraded? Released from having to think? What are you actually chasing?

Annette: I love that. That’s a question a lot of people going into kink never ask themselves. They think “this sounds hot” without asking what feeling they’re wanting. Linwood, what feeling did you want out of it?

Linwood: Going back to childhood, I was easygoing, always the class clown. As I grew up and became intimate with people, I realized there was something more. I don’t have to perform being a man, that’s just what I am, so I don’t go down the path of constantly showing off some alpha act. With Carmen, I see us as equals, but when we want to engage in dom and sub, that’s when it starts. I’ve always wanted to be more than friendly, easygoing Linwood. I wanted to play in the space where a darker, dominant, playful-but-nasty character comes out, and I don’t mean painful, because that’s not Carmen’s thing. Playful nasty. “Get on the floor, I want you to stay there a moment.” And by the way, the basic kitchen is full of toys. There’s so much you can do in a kitchen, and because I love food and Carmen’s a great cook, the kitchen nourishes me food-wise and it nourishes my dominance. I can come in while she’s cooking, slap her on the ass, say “that’s beautiful.” It becomes an erotic space. I don’t want to be constantly dominant, and Carmen doesn’t want to be constantly submissive. She’s incredibly capable and organized, and that’s part of the attraction, because I don’t want to dominate someone who’s already weak. I want to dominate someone who’s strong.

Annette: Years ago I did an episode with my girlfriends called kink on a budget, we brought home household objects you could use. Dominatrix Lucy brought a whole bunch of kitchen implements, all the different paddles you can make out of spoons and spatulas. The kitchen really is full of erotic opportunity, so you don’t have to run out and buy things until you realize what you actually want. And it sounds like the pain-pleasure dynamic isn’t the core of yours, which a lot of people think is all there is.

Carmen: Exactly. Power exchange is so much more. It’s a chance to play in a space where you don’t normally exist, and to hand over your power to someone for a period of time, with limits around what you’re willing to engage in. For me it’s a way of putting all my responsibilities aside and having a container where my dominant leads me, tells me what to do, how to please him, how to position myself. It’s a vacation. I’m not planning what’s next, he gets to do that.

We have this idea that a submissive is weak. There are people who need more structure and guidance, but that’s not what I’m talking about. In my work with women, I say let’s not recreate the real world and our conditioning inside a power-exchange space. What power exchange has done for me is lift the veil on the power dynamics I engage with every day that are non-consensual. So then you get really good at asking: is this something I actually enjoy? Do I want it? Am I consenting to it? Are both of us consenting? Men have pleasing tendencies too, Linwood is very much a pleaser, and you don’t have to be submissive to be a pleaser. But I always ask, “What do you want?” A lot of men say “I want to please you,” and we need to go deeper than that, own what makes you feel good and how you want to show up, and see if it matches the other person. Because if I have gifts I want to give but the other person doesn’t see them as gifts, then I’m doing it for me. They need to receive it as something they actually wanted. That’s where a lot of us get tripped up in intimacy: we think we’re doing something for someone else and wonder why they don’t appreciate it, but it doesn’t feel like a gift to them because it’s not something they want.

Annette: So the steps I’m hearing: first, know what you want to feel. I’m going to play this out for myself, because I’ve never done this. I’m so dominant about everything in my life, and I’d love to find that sub dynamic, I’ve never truly found it. When I think about what I’d want to experience, what I like is being punished and then praised. I love the punishment-praise dynamic, and what I really love is the praise coming after, being told I’m doing good, being adored and taken care of again. The return to being adored. I’m big into the over-the-knee world. I like a daddy dom, I’m not going to lie. But I’ve struggled to explain that to someone. So you have to figure out the feeling so you can tell the other person. And then they need to know their thing, how they want to be dominant. That’s another step. But what if they want something different?

Carmen: For couples already in a relationship, that’s a conversation, a way of opening a new way of looking at things and getting vulnerable. You’re scratching the surface right now, this overall feeling you don’t quite have words for. You like the punishment and the praise, you want it all, and that’s so common, for women and probably male subs too. It’s a cocktail of polarizing feelings. For me, degradation is delicious, but not from a stranger or in casual play. It’s with someone who has my back, who truly adores me and doesn’t actually feel those things toward me. So casual power exchange is tricky, and finding that match is challenging. You can take parts of what you’re looking for and try different things, try the emotional aspects rather than the activities. Flogging and spanking can be part of it, but they’re not the focus. Power is very present when things slow down. Power is present in noticing, in silence, in positioning, in anticipation. It doesn’t have to be loud. Building that up can start even before you’re doing anything together.

What happens in dating often, and I was looking for my dom when I was dating, is people fall into it too fast, or without consent. They start the dynamic without asking “Would you like to try this?” They immediately demand honorifics, call me sir, call me daddy. I get a lot of messages where people start calling me an honorific like mommy because of my age. Hey, I’m a really good mommy dom, but don’t assume that’s how I want to be called. That’s something you earn, and something we discuss.

Linwood: That’s mainly the rush we’re in. We want a fix. Men are particularly good at that, they just want to get off when they want to get off. To truly have a connection, especially with women, you have to romance their brain. You have to connect and earn trust, that’s the biggest one. Carmen and I had an ocean between us, and it took a very long time to build that trust. It wasn’t me contacting Carmen, getting off, and saying “see you later.” It was a constant conversation about everyday things too, how are the kids, how’s the house. Building that trust is what makes it so much more beautiful when you start introducing the dynamic, because you’ve built strength in the relationship first.

Annette: And because you were long distance, you got to talk things out in depth, and I’ll assume you had some long-distance sexy time where you could start introducing the dynamic at a lower-risk level.

Carmen: Yes, you can start with simple things. So two people have figured out what they want to feel and there’s enough overlap to move forward. The first thing isn’t to run out and get a paddle. You start by trying things out, and by building rituals to set the base of your dynamic.

I was thinking, we may not know exactly what makes us feel a particular way, so we may sense we won’t match. But if you’re a couple living together, take an entire day or a weekend and try things out. Say, “I’d like to hand over power to you for the weekend. It starts at this time and ends at this time, and it’s an exploration.” Maybe my approach as a submissive is using an honorific and saying “May I have permission to do this?”, building in respect. When there’s been tension around intimacy, these rituals can make it easier, they demand a respect we don’t have in casual, rushed, stressed conversation. If I really want something, I have to slow my roll, center myself, and approach him respectfully, tapping into permission rather than flippantly saying “this is what we’re doing.” It builds awareness.

In terms of rituals, ours have changed. Long distance, I was tasked by my dom to write something every day, a mantra that reinforced our relationship, and email it to him. We have rituals for entering play, collaring, getting into a humble position on the floor, crawling, putting on a specific outfit, preparing the play area. But recently, we’ve only lived together three and a half years after seven years long distance, it was getting harder for me to get into a submissive space because it didn’t exist day-to-day. My child was going to college, we sold a house and bought another, I’m running a business. We kept cutting each other slack until we realized we needed to take responsibility and remember that power exchange is why we’re together. My question was: how do we do this day-to-day without it feeling like a burden?

So we had a conversation about what we could do daily to remind us of the dynamic. Because I do the cooking, when I serve a meal, he wanted me to get down on the floor and kiss his feet. I love the idea, but often I’m exhausted, I’ve made dinner, I’m hangry, and getting down on the floor, my knees, it was a lot. So I said, “How about a shoulder rub instead?” We negotiated it, because I didn’t want to feel resentful. There’s a part of me that’s “tell me what to do,” and a part that’s “don’t tell me what to do.” Sometimes if it’s not done in a way that speaks to me, there’s resistance, and I don’t want to be punished for that, because that’s a boundary. Other times it’s, “ooh, I was naughty, punish me,” but that’s playful. Don’t punish me for something that feels like a limit. So we worked the foot-kiss into bedtime instead, where I can actually savor it. It has to be meaningful for both of us. I have to want to do it, and I do.

Annette: Linwood, after seven years long distance and then moving in together, were you drifting from it too? Carmen brought up something a lot of women relate to, sometimes sex starts to feel like work. Did you feel that, or were other things coming up for you?

Linwood: For me it’s about making sure Carmen has the space to be submissive, because I can’t be dominant unless she can be. So it’s about making sure things get done around the house, and because I’m in that space I’m adding to the complication of it. It’s about putting my effort in, having her recognize it, and then celebrating by coming together intimately. It’s about caring where she’s at. That’s the thing men find hard to understand, because we’re hardwired, I relax by getting off, but if she’s had a hard day, most women just aren’t in that space. So you have to measure how you work through it. It’s another job that supposedly has to get done, and you have to understand that.

Annette: It’s fascinating. I masturbate a lot, and even I don’t want to when I’m tired, it becomes work even then. And in the hetero world especially, I think there’s some wiring where men, if they’re tired, getting off doesn’t feel like another job, and neither does sex. For women, it’s “no.”

Carmen: I was finding I was tired a lot, and it made me sad because I have a high sex drive. It’s easy to say “it’s stress, it’s perimenopause,” which is real, but under there my libido is still there, and it craves to be seen and let loose. So how do I feed that instead of adding more work? For me it was reminding us of the dynamic and stoking those fires. And in heterosexual dynamics you get this obligation that builds up, or the fear that if I get sensual or tender it’s going to lead to something else. Instead of, “how about we do a little of that and then walk away from it,” which revs the engine. Those things throughout the day might not even be physical, a look, a call, a text. When I get home I can’t wait to taste the meal you made, or I want to give you a foot rub, little reminders of “this is what I want, how can I serve you?”

Annette: Women’s libido is fed off those little flirts through the day, the sexy reminders. And in a dom/sub dynamic, even if you’re not fully engaging that night, a little “good girl” on a phone call, asking “did you get that email off?”, “yes, sir, I did”, “good girl.” That gets me a little wet for a second. Doing them even when it won’t result in a full play session feeds desire and keeps you in the dynamic, so when there is time, you get into it faster.

Carmen: As a solo entrepreneur running a business, to get outside recognition, “I see you working so hard, good girl”, that resonates for me. “Good girl” is instantly arousing for me ninety percent of the time. And when a dom does something for me, that’s the reward, being taken care of because I’ve been a good girl. But it’s only hot that way if we’ve talked about our dynamic and my needs are understood. The pain itself isn’t my thing, if someone’s just trying to hurt me or takes it too far too fast, it’s an icky feeling, like you don’t like me and want to hurt me. That’s something I had to learn, through trial and error, and then communicate. Which comes back to self-reflection: what do I want to feel, what do you want to feel, how does that match, and how do we show these things to each other?

Annette: So instead of my usual three takeaways, let’s give people a roadmap, an on-ramp for both a submissive and a dom. If a couple has tried it and it fell flat, or they want to spice things up, what can they do to on-ramp it in a way that builds a strong foundation?

Carmen: For couples who’ve been together a long time, power exchange can be a way to step outside your normal dynamic and find things that are arousing rather than annoying. If everything looks the same and you already know how sex is going to go, play with that. I talk about the kitchen a lot because I love cooking, but sometimes it feels like a burden. To turn something everyday, cooking, even going to work, into something sexy, add a check-in: “Did you do the thing? Were you a good girl? Were you a good boy?” You can turn anything into dom or sub. Linwood could be the dominant in the kitchen, in control of meals. There’s no rule that a job is for a dom or a sub, you can flip anything.

Annette: Can you give an example of Linwood flipping it, running the dynamic as the dom in the kitchen?

Carmen: He calls himself a dom domestic, because he loves doing things around the house. He likes a tidy house, folds clothes properly, makes the bed a particular way. That doesn’t take away from him being dominant. He’ll say, “No, you get to work, I’m going to hang out the clothes,” or “make the bed,” or “tell me what to get at the grocery store.” “I’m here to support you.” And that can go either way.

Annette: So he’s telling you what to do and taking control, even if it means him doing the thing. That’s hot. It’s got a little Fifty Shades in it, that’s why women were turned on by that, the guy in control, telling her what to eat, so she didn’t have to think about it.

Linwood: An example: I met a woman, we were already in our relationship but distant, who wanted to experience a submissive process. I invited her over to cook a meal. I’d grown vegetables in the backyard, so I said, “I’m making a pasta dish with zucchini. Go out and select a zucchini.” She goes out and comes back with one, and while I’m preparing the meal, I have her stay present and performing under my direction while I keep working, then I take the vegetable, cut it, and add it to the meal. We didn’t have sex that night, that was the whole scene. She was performing while I was working, and that’s the thing to remember as a dominant: you can be working and your submissive can be relaxing, but you’re still in control of it.

So I could say to Carmen, she might want to watch a hockey game, a heated rivalry. I’ll say, “Look, I’ll cook the meal, why don’t you go watch.” Me preparing the meal and having Carmen relax is dominant. I’m telling her, “You need to rest, you’ve had a big day, go do that now. Be a good girl.”

Annette: And that’s a lot of it right there. It’s also the tone of voice, the cadence, slowing things down. That’s your on-ramp: slow down and be present, because nothing happens quickly. Do women want to be ravished and thrown against the wall? Some of us, yes, but not out of nowhere. You have to stoke the fire and play with the energy first. Even just saying “when I get home I want to grab you by the back of your hair and push you against the wall”, talking about it is part of it.

Linwood: If a couple wants that experience, here’s something lovely: if you’re out working and your partner’s at home, say you’re meeting for a drink and dinner, I might say, “Put out a selection of clothing and send me a picture, I’m going to dress you. You don’t have to think about it, I want you wrapped up a particular way”, underwear or none, clothing, shoes. Women love dressing up when they go out and want to look their best, and the thing men don’t understand is women dress for other women, not for men. So to dress a woman and meet in public, and have her do exactly what I wanted, is so hot.

Carmen: And that’s being seen, because you’re pleasing the person, they chose it. He’s not choosing one outfit, I get a choice, I put out things I’d like to choose from and he picks, because fashion is complicated and how we feel in our body changes day to day. That’s why the selection is done.

Annette: I think this is brilliant, because by taking the work off her plate, you get the control and you take some of the load off, and when you take work off her plate, sex starts to sound fun instead of like another job. Even the service part, you could say, “Go sit on the couch, take your underwear and shoes off, spread your legs, I’m going to give you a foot massage, we’re not having sex, but I want to see you while I rub your feet.” She relaxes, opens up, gets turned on, and you leave it there, still in control.

Carmen: And when women know some of those things are going to happen and the guy isn’t suddenly pushing for sex, it’s a turn-on, “he really didn’t try,” plus now we’re relaxed.

Linwood: One of the best things you can do as a man is take your partner clothes shopping and actually enjoy it, not sit there complaining. Grab a piece, hand it to her: “Try this, I want you to wear this.” I was with a partner who was insecure about herself, and saying “try that” got her into clothes she’d never have taken off the hanger, and she’d go “oh my God, it works.” That encouragement, and creating how she looks, not just for herself but for you, is exciting.

Carmen: And I want to push back on the idea that women just respond to sex. Annette and I are both women who show up wanting sex and intimacy, and life gets in the way. So how do we still get what we want? It’s totally possible to have a woman hungry for you, not just relaxed and open. I’m obsessed with my husband, I feel like I’m the dominant one sometimes because I’m so hungry for him. What would it feel like as a man to have your woman doing that instead of you always initiating? Most men want that. That might be your ask, that might be how you want to feel: desired. Someone who cannot wait to have sex with you. And it doesn’t mean immediately, it means, how do we build that energy, that arousal? For men to feel comfortable saying “I want to feel desired”, I get tons of messages from men, and that’s at the core of what they want, and I’m confident almost none of them have said to their partner, “I really want to feel desired. How can we build toward that?”

Annette: That’s a basic conversation people need to have. “What’s going to make you want me? How can I set the table for you wanting me?”

Carmen: For me, wanting to feel desired was a huge part of deciding power exchange was for me, because the intensity in D/S is like nothing else. It’s hard to do casually. I really want it in my relationship. It brings closeness and vulnerability, it’s really about being vulnerable, and I wanted that hunger, that desire and ownership, not prescribed ownership like a marriage contract, but something we create together and decide the shape of. Being in a power-exchange dynamic has unveiled the power dynamics I engage with every day without thinking, and it’s made me more aware and more empathetic to how we operate in the world. It brings awareness to all the unseen, unrecognized, unpaid labor women provide, and appreciation for it, and for what men do too, and turns it into something erotic.

Annette: Thank you both, this filled me with ideas for how I could approach the dynamic in the future. Listeners, if you don’t come away with great ideas to try, go back and listen again with a pen and paper. Grow some zucchini. Carmen, tell my listeners where they can find you and how to work with you.

Carmen: My website is shameproofyourdesires.com, and I’m on Instagram at shameproofyourdesires. Linwood and I are contemplating doing some work together, and we’d love to do a free masterclass for couples about exactly this. I also have a self-led course, Shame Proof Your Desires: Claim Your Kinks and Start Having the Sex You Crave. It’s developed for women, though men can purchase it, a four-week course with short, digestible lessons, on my website. Feel free to DM me on Instagram.

Annette: Definitely check that out, all their info is in the show notes. Thank you so much, listeners, take some notes and get ready to launch into a little dom/sub play. Thank you both for your honesty and your stories. Until next time, I’ll see you in the locker room. Cheers.