As somebody chronically online talking about bondage and BDSM, you can imagine I am the recipient of many DMs. Some questionable in nature, and some perfectly polite and harmless.
In the DMs that fall under the former category, they often start with something like:
“Hello, Mistress.”
“Good evening, Goddess.”
“Hi Ma’am.”
And we’ve never spoken before. There’s no context, no conversation and certainly no post on my feed that would indicate that I prefer to be addressed as such. It’s an assumption they’ve dropped as if it’s already been agreed.
But what is an honorific in kink?
An honorific in kink is an addressable title agreed on by two people in a consensual dynamic that can signal respect, position, intention and in the right dynamic, it carries weight.
But this only works when this has been agreed on by both parties, and more importantly, when they are earned.
When somebody uses an honorific towards another person without consent, it’s not respectful (as perhaps intended), it’s presumptive.
There’s a tendency I’ve noticed, particularly online, to collapse dominance, and indeed submission, into a blanket rule. A set of signals you can apply to a person based on how they present. If somebody looks dominant, speaks with authority or (like me) owns a brand in this space, they can be assigned whatever relevant title you want to give them and treat them how you like.
And this applies as much to submissives in my inbox calling me Goddess, Ma’am and Mistress as it is for “Dominants” who jump into a submissive’s inbox immediately calling them ‘Good boy’ or ‘Good girl’ in the first message.
It skips a very important part of kink, where dynamics are negotiated, language is agreed upon and where both people understand what that word means within the context of their interaction.
Honorifics suggest a level of familiarity and consent that simply does not exist in a first message from a stranger.
The trouble is that most people learn about kink through a media channel that flattens it, and from this, assumptions are made. It comes back to my point about treating all Dominants and submissives the same.
They assume all dominance is loud, theatrical, recognisable and we all have honorifics (spoiler: I don’t), and so they replicate it.
They reach for language that signals respect, (or degredation) depending on the context of the person and who they’re approaching.
And this is a part that often gets lost because kink is not a fixed set of rules. It’s a series of choices made between people based on what works for them. This includes language and titles.
But none of it should be assumed.
There is also a broader point here about how we approach people online.
Opening a conversation by assigning someone a role removes their agency in that interaction. It places them into a dynamic they have not agreed to, even if the intention is positive.
How about just saying hello?
Start a conversation like you would with anyone else and don’t load it with any expectation. It goes much further.
