Going under
2011 22 Apr
“Come back,” an S&M partner said softly, the other day, pushing my hair out of my eyes. I blinked and shook my head in a futile attempt to clear it.
“That’s weird,” I said. “Someone else used to say those words to me when I was coming out of subspace. I … that’s weird.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “It’s a natural thing to say to you. You go under so fast, and so deep. You’re so far away.”
“Not all the time,” I said. “And not with everyone. You’re good at putting me there.”
He smiled. “You bring it out in me.”
Subspace is so hard to describe. I’ve written about it before, in passing, in multiple posts, because it’s so important, but I’ve never come up with a good description for it; and when I Google for it I can see that other people have the same problem. When I’m starting to go into subspace it’s just soft and dark and slow. But when I’m really far under, I’m totally blank. Falling. Flying.
Somewhere else.
Come back.
What is it, where do I go? It’s just submissive, masochist headspace. But I don’t always get into subspace when I submit, and I don’t always get into it when I take pain either. I’m not sure what the other ingredients are: some amount of trust, of course. And strong feelings about my partner make everything more intense … way more intense. Orders of magnitude more intense. Still, I’ve had new partners put me under with surprising thoroughness.
It’s a lot like deep sexual arousal — hard to think, hard to process, hard to make decisions — but the deepest sexual arousal does not put me anywhere near deep subspace. Deep subspace is. More. Than anything else.
Some S&M teachers tell people not to drive after an S&M encounter, not for a while; not until you’re over the subspace. They compare it to an altered state, like being drunk. Some S&M teachers caution that it’s dangerous for the dominant partner to suggest a new activity in the middle of an S&M encounter — something that wasn’t negotiated beforehand — because the submissive may not be able to think clearly enough to consent. (And because in those moments, the submissive will have a harder time than ever saying no.)
I sometimes think that when I was younger and less experienced, I abandoned myself to subspace more easily. I’m better at pulling myself out of subspace now, but I think the cost may be that it’s harder for me to really get into it. (Safety first?) I trained myself to be able to say, “Don’t stop,” when I wanted my partner to keep going. (Sound easy? Trust me, it took a while.) Playing with unfamiliar partners, I trained myself to be on guard. (One of my sex worker friends told me once, “I don’t care how deep the subspace is, I can always come out if the client tries to fuck me without a condom.”) I got better at calling my safeword before I had to — asking my partner to do something else or give me a break, rather than suddenly stopping everything once I hit my absolute limit.
I am nowhere near perfect, of course. In particular, I can rarely answer complicated questions, and sometimes my partners literally can’t get me to answer any questions when I’m subspaced. Sometimes it takes me a long time to come out, and partners may get nervous while I’m surfacing. But I’m not sure these aspects can actually be eliminated from subspace. And I’ve gotten better.
I’m sure that in an emergency, I could talk and function straight out of heavy subspace. I doubt I would be optimally intelligent and thoughtful, however.
When I was younger, I’d get frustrated with my partner if he tried to ask me questions or clarify things or otherwise check in with me when I was in subspace. Damn it, can’t you see I’m not here? Can’t you see I’m under? Don’t drag me back – Intellectually, I understood that my frustration was unreasonable, and I did my best to train myself to deal with the check-ins. To surface quickly, slip back under afterwards. But I had to experience subspace from the dominant side before I understood how hard it was to deal with.
I remember sitting with my arms around the submissive and occasionally asking him how he was; in response, he would murmur and snuggle up to me. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. I was processing my own dominant experience, and I had questions; I’d occasionally ask one. He’d murmur something softly. After a while I really wanted a glass of water and I thought he’d basically fallen asleep, so I said, “Hey, I’m going to go get a glass of water, okay?” and tried to move away.
“No,” he cried, and grabbed me. Holy shit, I thought, so that’s what surfacing from subspace can look like from the outside. Suddenly I understood exactly where his head was at: barely any time had passed for him at all, and he was still drifting up through velvety layers of consciousness. When I tried to leave, he’d felt sudden panic, a shot of pure abandonment, no no no you can’t, you can’t leave me alone when I’m like this, please I need your arms around me, I need you –
I knew exactly what to tell him. “Shh,” I said, “I’m here.”
A dominant friend once told me that he always informs his partners ahead of time that he has to move after a good scene, he has to go for a run, and he won’t stick around to guide them out of subspace. I’ve always wondered how his partners deal with it. Maybe it’s easier if you know it’s coming.
There are questions of consent, of negotiating new activities while a partner’s in subspace. Some people have told me they can’t even actually safeword when they’re in deep subspace; I can’t quite relate to this, but I imagine it could happen sometime. I myself have occasionally had trouble safewording in the past, but it wasn’t ever just because of subspace, it was because of pride or difficult emotions with the dominant partner. Subspace did complicate things, but I don’t think it was the reason I had trouble (though it can be hard to disentangle these things). But maybe someday I’ll go under so far that it will be.
I’m not saying it’s never okay to push further than you discussed, once they’re under — it’s just important to be careful, and not to do it unless you’re pretty sure you can read your partner … or that they have the emotional wherewithal to deal with it if you push too hard.
Because safety in subspace is a question of emotional safety, more than anything. The vulnerability and intimacy in those moments can be terrifying. The tiniest change in his tone can mean the difference between mindless fear and absolute trust. It’s so scary, and so intoxicating, and so weirdly unexplainably glorious.
Come back.
The best part might actually be coming back.
Postscript: this person has a list of “stages of subspace” that describes reactions I can totally relate to.
Tags: BDSM, communication, storytime, terms
“A dominant friend once told me that he always informs his partners ahead of time that he has to move after a good scene, he has to go for a run, and he won’t stick around to guide them out of subspace. I’ve always wondered how his partners deal with it. Maybe it’s easier if you know it’s coming.”
I can’t imagine ever playing with someone who had such a policy. It’s good that he lets partners know up-front, but it still seems irresponsible. Although I suppose that with a bottom who has a less emotional orientation to their kink, it might be less of a big deal.
I could handle something like that during a less personal scene, for example: a scene where it was all about experiencing certain sensations for the first time, rather than having an emotional situation with my partner. For instance, it’d be okay with me if I got flogged in a dungeon by a stranger and then he couldn’t stick around afterwards. It’d be a lot less okay with me if I got flogged by a long-term partner in private and he played a bunch of difficult dominance headgames with me and then he couldn’t stick around afterwards.
Hey Clarisse – long-time and devoted lurker delurking for this question: do you know if there’s been any research about physiological or biochemical aspects of subspace? I’m really curious about what causes it. Can’t imagine it’s exactly a mainstream research topic, but you never know…
Good question. I haven’t heard about anything. There was a recent study that demonstrated that consensual S&M increases intimacy (like we needed a study to prove that), but I don’t think there’s anything out there on subspace particularly. A lot of people talk about endorphins and compare it to the “hitting the wall” feeling that athletes get, but there’s no research backing that up.
I’ve been thinking about how I feel about this from my perspective as a top.
Firstly: I definitely need a good “come down” period after a session, maybe tidy up a bit first but cuddling and sitting together on the couch afterwards is very important to me.
Secondly: I can’t speak for any other tops about this, but there’s a place I get to in a scene where every little bit of feedback matters and needing to feel directly connected; “subspace” as somewhere distant messes with that so I tend to feel an urgency to “check in”, almost as my own version of the, “no no no you can’t, you can’t leave me alone when I’m like this, please I need your arms around me, I need you” thing going on, just on a mental distance rather than physical distance, if that makes sense?
Snowdrop, your “secondly” part absolutely makes sense. That’s part of why I forced myself to learn to at least be able to deal with check-ins — out of respect for the top’s experience. Personally, I should maybe note that I do tend to give a lot of immediate feedback when I’m enjoying a scene — even if I’m screaming or fighting, that’s feedback. If I shut down and go silent, that’s a really bad sign … partners usually notice when I start withdrawing though, and do something else.
One of the many reasons that I think of myself as more bottom than sub is that I rarely “go under” in that way. I’ve been there, but more often, while I’m in some ways in an altered state, I’ve very conscious and responsive.
I have in mind the film version of Fight Club — I have not read the book — where lye is burning Norton’s hand, and he’s trying to find his happy place, and Pitt smacks him and tells him to stay right there and deal with it. Some of my most intimate moments have been when I’m wrestling with pain that I’m very aware of, and I know I can quit, but I want go on.
@Thomas – Read the book. Really, it’s awesome. Completely unrelated to this conversation – but if you haven’t read it any you have any interest at all in the themes of the movie – read the book.
The Topspace/Subspace thing is very strange for me. I absolutely get Topspace. I am spacey after a point in a scene. I need post play cuddles and intimacy to ground myself again. Being in top space is an almost predatory experience, the tunnel vision focus on the person I’m hurting and the posessive, sadistic agression are massively outside of my usual emotional state.
But the knack for being a good top is all about reading your bottom. Being able to pitch intensity and tempo in response to their feedback, their body language, their non verbal cues and their non vocalized expressions. With new partners, or partners who are stoic/passive/non verbal during scenes – it’s much harder. Wigglers and screamers are much easier to read – once you get used to the idea that the wiggling and screaming doesn’t necessarily mean ‘stop immediately’.
Keeping a focus on all those signals and indicators in top space is a real challenge. Keeping a motivation of mutual enjoyment in mind when you’re in a headspace that’s all about hurting someone and ‘owning’ the moment and the interaction is difficult. But so very worthwhile.
Negotiation mid scene for me is kind of a light/public scene thing only. I don’t escalate heavy scenes or scenes without an audience – because I don’t want the pressure or any fear of me to motivate the decision – and I’m wary of the idea of beating someone into something they don’t want to do, even through good intentions.
I do sometimes escalate the intimacy level of a demo (using a violet wand on someone’s arm or back to using a violet wand on someone’s nipple or something) in a public situation based on my read of that person. If they’re having a really good time and want more, I’ll ask the question about escalation and see if they want to proceed. But I try really hard to make it very clear that it’s an option and if they don’t want to go there, it’s entirely ok and there’s no pressure to do so.
I also just as a general rule don’t ever move a non sexual scene, no matter how intimate, to include sexual contact or intimacy without very, very deliberate renegotation outside of scene context. I’m very, very wary of the ability for someone who’s not only turned on, but conditioned by the situation to obey, to be moved into something that they weren’t actually ok with. And I really don’t want that, either on my conscience or my reputation going forward.
Subspace is getting scarier for me, because my husband is getting better at putting me there deeper and faster. I adore the feeling of being there, crave it like a drug sometimes, but then when I come down a day later I am sooooo sad. And this is even after he provides me with lots of tender, loving aftercare.
How do you keep from subdropping in a major way?
Sub drop is tricky. I’ve found it’s not very predictable. Sometimes I get it really intensely, and sometimes I just feel invincible for a while rather than dropping. I don’t really have any tricks to deal with it except to take a nap if I can, and drink coffee and get some work done if I can’t … :P