Titles

I don't call most Dominants Sir or any other title.  Master is the only one that gets the Master title as he owns me...he is my Master. I do have a few close friends that I may call Sir or Ma'am because I feel that with them. It flows out naturally with them, but here is the catch: I have asked everyone of them before calling them a title.

My reasons for not calling D-types by a title...

First by calling someone a title you are having them engage in your kink or fetish without their consent. So if at a party you are calling all dominants Sir and Ma'am without asking you might have violated boundaries and you were acting without their consent. When we are a community that touts consent all the time, seems very odd to me that we would use titles without consent.

Master and I are pretty high protocol in our daily life. But when we are out in the BDSM community, we don't often use it overtly because that would be pushing it on them without their consent.  We don't require that anyone to write Master first before friending me on FetLife, we don't require anyone asking before they give me a hug, and so on - of course it is nice when people do, but we don't require that because that is making someone engage in our kink and we didn't ask for their consent.

Next some people really hate the words Sir and Ma'am. I have a friend that grew up in a military family and she now hates using the words Sir and Ma'am as she was taught to as a kid.  She is dominant and would prefer other titles instead of Sir or Ma'am be used with her, but you would never know that until you ask.

Finally, for me, it feels like you are giving that Dominant the right to control or have authority over you when using a title.  You are submitting to them by calling them by a title. Because it is saying we have a dynamic that shows a D/s relationship by using that title.

I get that some people were raised saying Sir or Ma'am, but to me that is different. It is very rare when I separate BDSM and vanilla lifestyles. In this case, they are different.  A person raised saying Sir and Ma'am - sounds different from using a title in a BDSM setting.

I will say sometimes I get that kink or fetish used in a wider range of people is fun. We can be ourselves within the kinky community, but asking first is polite. Example:  In a past relationship, my Owner wanted to be in a higher form of protocol and to create a mindset of being an object  with me for a play party we were hosting. Part of his wishes he wanted me to Sir and Ma'am all dominants, so he emailed everyone attending and asked if this was okay with them and explained what he wanted to within the evening.  He didn't want others to have to engage in our kink if they weren't comfortable with it.  I had a lot of other protocols for the evening so he explained what he was going to do and how I was going to behave and made sure everyone was okay with it before the party.  It ended up being an extremely interesting evening and I am thankful for those that participated in it with us.  But again we asked first.

BDSM is about consent so please don't think just because you are okay with a kink that someone next to you will be.

I wrote about title and honorifics for a newsletter and our website in 2005. You can read it here: Titles and Honorifics