7 Ways to Challenge Your Creativity as a Dominant

Just like sex of the non-kink variety, BDSM scenes can begin to fall into a rut if you aren't careful. Especially as a dominant, where your job is literally to control the scene, it can be easier to default to the predictable, pleasurable things you know you and your partner enjoy. Maybe you know that he loves to be spread-eagle and edged until it's time for sex? Or maybe you like to just go straight for bondage, name calling, spanking, and some fucking?

Whatever your default scene, it's easy for a dominant to craft scenes that feel predictable, including feeling about the same as last week's scene.

Let's be clear: there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. Playing in our comfort zones allows us to focus on our interactions with our partners and less on the physical techniques of what we're doing. It allows us a lower-energy alternative to the time commitment and skill commitment than new skills can require.

Scenes we've done hundreds of times let us settle into the acts themselves and focus more on our connection and pleasure.

Read: Quiz: What Should Your Next BDSM Scene Be?

At the same time, predictable sex lives aren't why most of us got into kink. Just like non-kinky sex, predictable scenes can begin to lack the passion of something your submissive partner never sees coming.

Once you decide to explore outside your current comfort zone, though, it can be hard to figure out exactly how to push those boundaries. After all, there's a reason that these are your predictable scenes: it's because you know how to do them and you both enjoy them.

Lucky for us, there's a lot of places (especially thanks to the internet!) to find inspiration to challenge our creativity as dominant partners. While the final responsibility rests upon you to figure out how to integrate these things into your sex life (and what you both will enjoy in the first place!), these seven ideas will give you some ways to challenge your creativity as a dominant!

1. Watch Other Scenes

By far, the most effective way to challenge yourself is by getting involved in your local kink communities and attending play parties. Networking with other kinksters can be extremely helpful, and so can watching other kinksters play with one another during play parties.

For one, if it's a new skill you want to learn, you have a living and breathing mentor to ask...right in front of you! Most kinksters are happy to help teach a new skill, especially if it's something they're well-practiced in.

This, of course, comes with the warning that you should always make sure you're learning from the right teacher. There are no degrees or certifications in kink. While Domly Dom's whip scene might have been hot to watch, there's no guarantee that he was doing it correctly. Before you ask Domly Dom to teach you what they “know,” make sure you ask around the community and see what other people have to say about their skill level.

Read: Everything You Need to Know About Your First BDSM Play Party

Also, watching in-person play has the benefit of being real. While that sounds like common sense, it's a benefit you won't get anywhere else. While reading and watching scenes online can be hot (and good inspiration!), there's no guarantee that those scenes are "real." The videos probably cut out all of the outtakes, and the stories probably have embellishment or leave out the three weeks of negotiation that took place before the scene.

Watching a kinky scene right in front of you puts all of the realistic aspects in your face. Yeah, that rope bondage is hot as hell, but a movie would cut out the part where the bottom had to be entirely untied and retied into something safer because of wrist pain. That spanking scene where the bottom cries out in intense pain might be the exact thing you're going for, but a story might leave out the part where it took over an hour of spanking warm-up to make it to that intensity level.

Kink is hot and kink can be fun, but it also has a lot more moving parts and safety issues than our fantasy worlds include. Watching people play right in front of you is a fantastic way to absorb everything about a potential new scene, not just the jerk-off stuff.

Read: Making a Scene: How to Create the Hottest BDSM Encounters

2. Look at Adult Media

Attending kink groups isn't an easy possibility for everyone, and for that, we have adult media to help fill in the blanks. By choosing your preferred form of adult media (stories, photos, or videos), you can use porn to help you explore new kinks and figure out what you'd like to try next.

Of course, like I mentioned earlier, don't forget that porn is nicely-digestible versions of sex and kink. Even camgirl/camboy amateurs edit their content to show off the best stuff - which makes sense!

You wouldn't want to watch the model spend ten minutes gathering all their stuff or having to switch out dildos when their body isn't quite stretching how they (or you) want. So while you can get inspiration for new kinks to explore and new ways to be creative from porn, make sure to do further research to learn how your creative ideas can apply in real-life scenes.

Read: 3 Scenes for a Beginner Femdom to Try

3. Hang Out in BDSM Forums

Porn doesn't really include the realistic stuff, and that's where BDSM forums can come in. Groups on Fetlife are a particularly popular example. Not only can you find some inspiration in a pornographic sense, but there's also a lot of people practicing those kinks in real-life with their own partners. After (or before!) they do those scenes in real-life, they might log onto the forums to talk about tips or tricks – or just to share information. That makes forums a fantastic reference for learning a bit more about your new kink and figuring out how to creatively and safely include it within your own scenes.

In particular, look for forums that are particularly active and seem to have a large number of people doing things in real-life. It's too easy for most forums to get overrun by fantasies or people looking to only indulge online.

Read: Welcome to the Dungeon: How to Join the BDSM Community

4. Write Fiction

Sure, it's not the same as acting it out for yourself, but writing things out can really help you figure out how you'd want the flow of a scene to progress. Especially if you don't currently have a partner or just want to mentally explore some kinks you're not ready to try in real-life, writing everything down can be a fun (and sexy!) way to figure out if a kink is for you as well as how it would fit into your life. What new things could you add to a scene that sound fun? How would you slide into the kink during a scene? What ways would you reinforce your power exchange dynamic with your partner in a way that makes sense with the kink?

Don't be shy, either. Even if you're not a good writer, it's okay! There are no rules here. You can choose to post your finished erotica to your Fetlife or keep it private. Maybe you prefer to write a screenplay, or maybe you'd just prefer to write an outline of how your scene would go. Whatever format you choose to use, you'll be challenging your creativity while imagining how your ideal scene would pan out.

5. Learn a New Skill

Learning a new skill can be a fantastic way to challenge yourself in any hobby, not just kinky ones. The same applies to your sex life, too, though. Challenge yourself to learn a new skill. Depending on the skill, you might be able to learn it from a book or you might need to immerse yourself in the local kink community. Consider sexual skills as well as kink skills.

Popular new skills to pick up include rope bondage, g-spot pleasure, prostate pleasure, whips, floggers, spanking, erotic hypnosis, roleplaying, and more!

As you learn the skill, think of new ways to add it to your scenes. There's no reason to wait until you "master" a skill to put it into play. Just play within your current skill level. You don't need to become a shibari expert rigger and put someone into perfect suspension in order to use basic rope bondage wrist cuffs during your scene.

You don't need to have the perfect whip aim in order to use the whip as a threatening prop during your next scene. You don't need to have mastered the art of pegging in order to wear a strap-on harness and order your partner to suck it.

There's a lot of ways to bring your new skill level into your current play and at an experience level where you're comfortable. You're here to push the bounds of your creativity and challenge yourself, and sometimes that looks like playing with skills at a safe level before you've entirely mastered them. Creativity and challenging yourself might come with the possibility of messing up or not “knowing everything” during a scene. If there's no chance things might not run perfectly smooth, you're probably not challenging yourself.

Read: 8 Tips to Make Role Play Sexy - Not Silly

6. Play a Game With Yourself

Most kinky people have more kinky ideas than they have time to act them out. Your life might be exactly the same. Instead of letting those ideas just sit stagnant in your head, write them down! Clear out some time (an hour or two) and write down all of the kinks and scene ideas that you'd love to try and haven't had the chance, money, opportunity, or energy to do yet. Number each item on your list if you'd like.

Next time you're thinking about challenging your creativity as a dominant, slide out your list. Using a random number generator, you can choose an item off your list. You could also just pick one randomly! Give yourself a little bit of prep time (either a full day or a couple of weeks) to bring everything together for a cohesive scene.

You can increase the challenge level, too. While the scene idea itself is likely a challenge, consider upping the "difficulty" by doing things in a way you wouldn't normally do. For example, if you'd usually use wrist cuffs for the bondage, consider using cling wrap, rope bondage, scarves, or something else. That's the whole point of the challenge - getting outside of your comfort zone!

7. Ask Your Submissive for Ideas

Why not take your need for creativity to a local source? Your submissive partner! If you have a current play partner, this can be a fantastic way to challenge yourself and think "outside the box." Have an open discussion about what fantasies your partner entertains, and pick and choose your latest creativity venture from their offerings.

As with everything in kink, don't forget to put safety first. While challenging yourself and your creativity can be a fun way to improve your skills in kink, it's important that you don't forget to improve your knowledge of safety right along with it.

While these ideas are fantastic ways to get yourself thinking about new, fun kink activities (and how to bring them into your life!), don't forget to do the required reading and learning to make it safe, too. Plus, more knowledge about the kink (and what you're trying to do!) directly translates to a better ability to put it all into play.