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FROM THE FUCKBUCKET: “What should I do when I just found out that me and my boyfriend are both subs?”

Depends on a few factors, namely, what kind of relationship are you in and how important is the power exchange aspect to you. (Also: how did you get to the point where you’re calling him your boyfriend and not already have some inkling what your individual power charge was?! I suppose you could have tripped across BDSM at the same time, but power roles usually come out a little bit, even when you’re just making out with each other, in my experience.)

Oh, well. That’s water under the bridge. You’re together now, and we don’t have time machines yet, which you could use to zip back in time and creep up on yourself while you’re sleeping and persuasively whisper in Past You’s ear something like, “he’s never gonna want to beat your ass, get out now.”

So yeah, you fell for this person with the best information you had, which sounds like it has changed, either your information or the situation itself, and now you’ve just got to work with what you got.

First of all, you must begin talking with your boyfriend about this. I’m going to assume that this is a relationship of some level of emotional commitment, otherwise you wouldn’t be writing this question, you would have just walked. I’m also going to assume for the sake of this discussion that your roles in a hypothetical power exchange are in fact very important to both of you. That is, neither of you is willing to just forget what you know about your own kinky sexuality and skip power games for the rest of your time together.

This just means that the two of you have got to keep talking, because your options here are all going to require a fair bit of psychological upheaval, work, and trust.

Both of you learn how to switch. Many sex-toy stores and community kink organizations offer workshops in how to dominate someone. You’ll want to check those out for ideas about how to get in the headspace, or at least how to act toppy for the sake of your partners.

Maybe it’ll click; maybe it’ll only be a one-time thing and then one or both of you is, like, no, this is too much work. But I do think in this case, where you both are presumably emotionally invested enough to want to make your partner happy, you could learn some valuable skills and get some experimentation in. It won’t change anything about you if you agree to pick up the whip every now and then; it just means that you’re willing to go the extra mile for the one you love, and vice versa.

Alternately, you open up the relationship. If you’re already in an open relationship, you discuss new ways and constellations that will speak more to this issue of BDSM and power roles. Sounds like you’re not talking about emotional connections as much as kinky sexy fun times, so perhaps you could get more active in your local swingers’ club or kink munches, places where people tend to be more open to more casual connections.

This is not an easy fix either: open relationships need as much communication as any other, if not more. But if you can get to the point of exploration, then there’s a lot of room to play. Do you want each of you to operate independently? Do you want to have the same dominant together? Maybe you could try taking turns watching the other one being dominated?

Make sure you talk with potential partners about what’s going on, and keep talking with each other, and hopefully you’ll be able to keep your subby bits happy without any further sexual surprises of that magnitude.

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As always, this edition of From the Fuckbucket comes to my readers from a recent Smut Slam. It’s all part of my work doing sex-aware theatre, performance, education, and community happenings. If you want to support that work, easy: just head on over to Patreon and become a patron of mine. You can boost my Patreon platform up to the next level and we’ll get a Smut Slam International podcast going, holy shit! If you’ve got the means and the desire, DO IT.