Dominants tend to be the “Alpha Male”, and that is why “Dom” is always spelled with a capital, while “sub” is always lowercase.
As we were sitting in the kitchen on our Friday together, I came across a website, which had guidelines for submissives. I didn’t read all of them, but one series caught my eye. This however is subject for a different #NotTrueWay prompt and a different post. That website inspired me to look for other, similiar websites. And also to see whether something like that exists for dominants as well – so far I haven’t found much.
I was reading out ideas and sequences to him which caught my eyes and the quote above was one of them.
When I found my way into BDSM, I started to find names for all kinds of things that have always been on my mind, but I didn’t know what to call them. Rope play. Cane. Wax play. Masochism. Flogging. Submission. Dominance.
Dominance and Submission.
My first and most experiences I had, were in English. I have written about it before, and also how weird it was when I had my first German speaking dom.
When it came to titles, it was as it was. I was influenced by what everyone else did and by the grammar of the language I speak best – German.
My first dominant was a “Daddy-Dom“. And I never questioned whether it should be Daddy or daddy, because it seemed logical to me that that word was capitalised. It’s a name. Plus, his name for me – Princess, I believe, – wasn’t lowercase.
When it comes to German, all nouns are capitalised. (For further reading, see here. I found that link short and well explained. Also, it might explain some of the English grammar mistakes I make.)
But back to the prompt. As I got more involved with other people, while with my first dominant, and after, I learnt that everyone wrote “Dom” and “sub“, D/s, “Master” and “slave“, M/s and so on. I simply accepted it and went with it. But every now and then it annoyed me. Not with most people, but when someone insisted on it.
I remember messages on CollarMe and such websites, where I was told that I should always refer to myself in lowercase, meaning to write “i“. Let’s say that wasn’t the reason there was no further communication with that man, but one of the many things that made me go: “Yeah, I don’t think so”.
Same things happen with Geman men, althought there it is a bit different and too much to get into.
The more I came across people who were so very focused on the spelling of “D/s“, the more I questioned it.
There were moments when I simply decided that from now on I would write dom and sub the same way. But by then, my phone had learnt and would automatically capitalise “Dom“. Maybe my phone is simply a better submissive than I am 😉
I would also catch myself writing it the way everyone else does, because it’s what I have been doing for years and I simply got used to it.
Today.
Today I’d say that it doesn’t matter. Sometimes I feel the urge to write “dom“. But mostly it is, because I want to cause a reaction or discussion with people online. Often times I will place the word dom at the beginning of a sentence to aviod the problem altogether or I write dominant, because that is different somehow.
I don’t refer to Michael as my dom, Really, he is my Sir – or Daddy. And both of those don’t seem to be wrong with a capital letter. But again, that is connected to German.
As for the rest of the sentence above:
Whether you capitalise dom or you don’t has nothing to do with the dominant partner to to be an “Alpha”. Yes, you often see people who identify as dominants, to be that way in other aspects of their life, like work for example. But I don’t believe that every “Alpha” person is also a dominant and for sure, not every dominant has to be an “Alpha”. I have seen many wonderful Doms and doms (see what I did there), who are just normal. They don’t have to be in control of everything and don’t mind giving up some control, some power.
It doesn’t take away any of their dominance.
That is one of the many things I like about Michael. His dominance isn’t challenged, because I disagree or might have a better way to do something. It’s not diminished, because I might be right and take charge in something.
His dominance stays just the way it is. No matter, if it’s capitalsed or not.
Btw, when reading about BDSM on Wiki, “dom” is lowercase, just as “sub”.
See whow others deal with “Alphas” and capitalising:
See all the other participants in The Blog Days of Summer:
My native tongue is English, but Sir’s German. I’m not fluent in German, but I’ve learned some because I knew it would be nice if I could communicate with him in his first language rather than just mine. Sometimes, I address him as mein Herr when we are communicating in German. But I didn’t know those grammar rules from the site you referenced. I’ll have to keep that in mind as I’ve probably been communicating with him incorrectly this whole time haha.