Ready to take your D/s dynamic to the next level? This guide will walk you step by step through structuring your D/s dynamic using a BDSM contract, sometimes referred to as a slave contract or Dom sub contract, complete with rules, rituals, protocols, punishments, and a structure that suits your reality and makes space for both of your needs and desires.
A BDSM contract is a document that defines the boundaries and agreements of the dynamic between the Dominant and the submissive. The document could be as simple as one page with a few rules the submissive is agreeing to follow, or it could be a full fledged, long and detailed breakdown of the entire dynamic. If you’re looking for a template, you can download the one I use here in this article.
“We’re just having a little kinky fun, why on earth would we need to bring in a boring document?”
It’s not necessary to have a contract for every D/s dynamic you get into or if you engage in kinky play; however, there are a few benefits worth considering.
Benefits of having a D/s contract:
One last benefit, that hopefully you’ll never have to experience, is that in the event that something goes terribly wrong and the law gets involved, you have a written consent. While these contracts are not a formal or legally binding document, and neither person is under a legal obligation to follow it, they are far better than playing the “he said she said” game in front of the court. In fact, I have heard of some couples running it by a lawyer friend just for good measure.
If you’re going to engage in total power exchange, 24/7 dynamic, or true master/ slave dynamic, I highly recommend having a contract. In those relationships, the Dominant is taking 100 percent, or close to, control over the submissive’s life.
To be honest, I don’t even manage my own life entirely in my head. I have documents and external systems to help keep everything organized and on track. So taking the complexity of another person’s life into my hands without the minimum written plan about how to do that seems ludicrous.
But what about the other side of the spectrum, say in a casual, friends with benefits, only in the bedroom dynamic? A contract sounds pretty serious. Is it needed in this scenario?
Probably not. However, if you remember the purpose of the document and its benefits, and forget what a contract is supposed to look like, you can still have something similar for this level of engagement.
For example, I’ve had casual dynamics where we agreed upon just a few rules to spice up the dynamic, including one or two to be followed outside of the bedroom, and I texted those rules to her so she could save them in her phone. There was no formal document or signing of anything, but I still gained consent for special acts or demands, and she had clear directions and tasks she could reference at any time, which made her a happy little sub.
You can make your own contract or download a template that others have created. If you’d like to use a template of my contract, I have one created on Google Docs which makes it easy to share between you and your partner.
Also giving credit where credit is due, I learned this process from Andrew and Dawn at Infinite Devotion who I believe have some of the best resources on committed D/s dynamics and are a stellar example of how these play out. While our style of contracts and some sections differ from each other, the foundational principles are the same.
I’m going to walk you through the process of creating a contract with the sections I believe are most important. That said, remember that this contract needs to serve your dynamic. So in the words of Bruce Lee, “Absorb what is useful. Reject what is useless. Add what is essentially your own.”
Sections of a Dom sub contract:
Note: Before I take you through each of these sections in depth, I want to offer a word of caution. As you go through this process, you’re going to be incredibly excited about what your dynamic could look like. Some of your fantasies are going to feel like they are within arms reach and you want all of it to exist, right now. I advise you to have patience and start small with your first contract, implementing just one rule at a time. It’s much easier to desire more and add more along the way, than it is to try and do everything you want in the beginning, being overwhelmed, and feeling like you failed and the whole endeavor isn’t worth it. In time, you will have everything you desire and more, but learn to crawl before you walk, walk before you run, and run before you sprint.
Contract terms can be short and new ones iterated upon. It’s why we set term dates for the contract, so they can be revisited and renegotiated. Each time you create the contract, you’ll be able to take what you learned from the previous one and improve upon it. Before you know it, you’ll have a dynamic you couldn’t even imagine.
In a Dom/ sub relationship, the Dom must lead everything. He’s the one taking responsibility and part of that responsibility is to structure the dynamic.
So if you’re the Dom, you need to get clear on what it is that you want and why do you even want to have a D/s dynamic like this. I’m going to give you some question prompts in the next step to have conversations with your submissive. I recommend going through those prompts on your own first, so you're clear on your intentions. In doing so, you will also be able to fully listen to your submissive without trying to come up with your answer in your head.
As the Dom, for each section of this contract I recommend going through the following process:
This may look like it’s going to be a lot of conversations and a lot of time. You’d be correct in your observations. Remember, you're building the foundation for your entire dynamic. If it’s weak, it’s more likely to crumble in the future.
If you’re the submissive in the dynamic, your role in creating this contract will be to inform your Dom of your wants and needs and to give feedback about the structure he presents to you.
Once you have an idea of what it is that you want, it’s time to have a discussion with your submissive about what she wants. Remember, Dominance is not about tyranny. We are taking into account both people’s desires and creating a vision and plan to meet both of those.
Below are several sets of questions that you will have conversations around. It may be helpful to have each of you write out your own answers to these questions before having a conversation. That way the conversation can be focused on digging deeper and getting to your true desires.
You can do them all in one batch, but it may be easier to do this over the course of several days, allowing plenty of room for each conversation.
Purpose Questions:
Fears Questions:
Parameters
Code of conduct
Accountability
Communication
The first section we’ll discuss in depth is the purpose of the dynamic.
Basically, we’re trying to answer the questions:
As the Dominant, you need to create a vision to lead the dynamic towards and give direction for you and your submissive. Of course, you could just set rules for your sub for fun, or you could leverage them as tools to grow towards something greater than either of you. The purpose section is where you’ll paint a vision of what that will look like. Where is all this going and what will it mean to you? This vision should paint a picture of a D/s dynamic that feels inspiring to you.
Here’s an example:
This agreement is intended to guide the two individuals on their journey together, and while the primary intention is to please the Dominant, it is also intended to shape the submissive into a better, happier, and stronger woman, and to help the couple grow together spiritually, lovingly, mentally, and physically. This agreement shall serve as the basis or an extension of the relationship, committed to in the spirit of loving and consent. Dominance and submission with the intention of furthering self-awareness and exploration, promoting health and happiness, and improving both our lives.
When you have a draft of this, share it with your submissive and why it inspires and excites you. Tell her what this means to you and let her really feel that. It’s the emotion behind the words that will inspire her to actually follow this. Then seek her feedback and make sure she is heard. You’ll want to incorporate what she desires in the future as well. Keep iterating until it inspires both of you.
What happens for a lot of couples starting a D/s dynamic is they try and do everything at once, on top of their already busy lives, to have the idealized dynamic they have in their head. That leads to overwhelm.
Instead, you need to integrate the dynamic as a part of your existing life and relationship structure already, turning your mundane experiences into reinforcement of the dynamic.
The first place to start is by outlining the parameters of your relationship, specifying the boundaries of where the dynamic starts and ends. If you want only in the bedroom with a few specific acts, great, you can do that. If you want a total power exchange relationship, great, you can do that, too. I urge you to start small though and work your ways towards that.
Here’s a list of some parameters you’ll want to consider. This list is not exhaustive, so feel free to add or subtract anything that seems appropriate for your specific situation.
Possible parameters:
As before, gain information, draft up the section, discuss and make sure both of you are on the same page, and then add it to your contract.
Now we’ve reached the largest portion of the contract: the Code of Conduct. This section is designed to outline all the ways you two will act and behave within the dynamic in order to reach the vision you set forth in the Purpose section. Within this section will be the values you will uphold in the relationship, the Dominant’s responsibilities for caring for and leading the submissive, and the submissive’s duties for serving the Dominant in the form of commands, assignments, protocols, rituals, and rules.
First, we will discuss your values. Values help create guidelines for the dynamic in order to make decisions and guide actions. Your values should reflect who you both are, what you care about, and where you want the relationship to go.
If you’re the Dominant, and you’ve taken the steps to become a Dominant man, then you should already have a pretty good idea of your values as an individual. After having had many discussions already with your submissive, you should be getting an idea of what hers are as well. Your job now will be to create a list of values, no more than ten, but ideally 5-7, that are cornerstones of your dynamic.
To discover your values:
Present these values to your submissive. Tell her why they are important to you and how they will help to give direction for the dynamic. Take her feedback and adjust these values as necessary until you both can agree and are excited by your list.
I don’t see this section very much in Dom sub contracts; however, I believe it belongs there just as much as the list of rules for the submissive. If you have ever looked at a real contract for anything else in life, the contract will describe the obligations for BOTH parties entering into an agreement. The reason the submissive is submitting is because the Dominant is taking responsibility for her and the dynamic, so why is that not a standard part of the contract?
So in this section, you will list all the ways in which you agree to take responsibility and how you pledge that you will act. We also put this section before the submissive’s because as the Dom you should be leading by example. She sees what your will to do for you both and it will inspire her submission and desire to follow her duties that come next. Trust me, if you want to set the right tone of trust and accountability for your submissive, you’ll include this in your contract.
In the past I would just give my submissive a set of rules and call everything a rule. However, I came across Diespater’s writing on organizing a D/s framework which broke it down into commands, assignments, protocols, rituals, and rules. What was brilliant about his structure was there was an order of importance or priority between these categories. Let me explain.
A submissive will have the following categories of duties:
The first reason the submissive’s duties are broken down in these categories is to avoid conflicts when the dynamic is being put into practice in everyday life. I gave the example earlier that there may be a ritual that your submissive is to kneel on the floor by your side while you're eating at home; however, when you’re in public she may just be sitting on that same side but not kneeling on the floor. In this example, protocol overrides ritual. Commands override everything because as the Dom, you know what is needed at any given time, so you may need to give a command that overrides one of the submissive’s duties because it will serve the dynamic better in that moment.
The second reason for the breakdown is to allow both for flexibility and rigidity. Rules are the most foundational and will not change until the next time the contract is signed. These give your submissive an anchor to ground her submission in. She knows these will not change. She knows if she follows these, she will make her Dom proud. On the other end of the spectrum are commands, which are fluid, in the moment, and temporary. This allows the Dominant to still have power in moving the dynamic in the direction it needs to go in any given situation.
In the contract, you will list out the protocols, rituals, and rules you expect your submissive to follow. Because commands and assignments are short and temporary, they are not listed in the contract other than the expectation that she is to follow them when given.
As I’ve stated before, start small and slow. You may have dozens of duties you want to assign to your submissive, but giving a ton of rules and such right off the bat is going to lead to overwhelm and resentment for both of you. She’ll be expected to follow all these rules and you’ll be expected to keep her accountable. Instead, consider writing down a list of everything you would like her to do at some point, and then pick only a select few to start with in your first contract. When you’ve both got a solid handle on those, then you can add more to subsequent contracts. I recommend starting with 3-5 rules, 1-2 rituals, and any protocols that may need to override those previously stated rules or rituals.
Unlike the other portions of the contract, protocols, rituals, and rules are not up for negotiation. They are either consented to by your submissive or not. You will present them to her to make sure that she understands them clearly and to gain her consent.
The reason for this is because as the Dominant, you are deciding what behaviors are needed to get you both towards your vision. As I’ve described in how to become a submissive, sometimes she is going to struggle surrendering to your leadership because she thinks there is a better way to do something, even though what she truly desires is to submit to you. So expect some apprehension to some of her duties. In fact, some of her duties should challenge and stretch her comfort zone, if you want to see her grow towards the mutually agreed upon purpose of the dynamic.
With that said, always take into consideration her feedback and feelings about her duties. Your job will be to help support her in following these duties, adjusting when necessary, and overcoming challenges as she begins to follow.
Now that you have established your Code of Conduct, you need to outline in what ways you both will be held accountable for upholding these standards. The important elements of your accountability plan will be the submissive’s accountability, how to handle bratting, the Dominant’s accountability, and whether the submissive has any type of veto powers.
Once again, this piece is often left out of many contracts, but I believe it has its place. The Dominant is also agreeing to the Code of Conduct and has pledged to take responsibility for the dynamic. How will the Dominant be held accountable for that? List out the ways in which the Dom will be held accountable which may include external accountability by other Doms, getting feedback from the submissive, improving yourself, and correcting mistakes.
To help your submissive know how they will be held accountable for following their duties, you need to outline how behavior will be corrected, when discipline will be necessary, and what punishments will be. In general, it’s best to use the least amount of force necessary to correct a behavior which is why we delineate between forms of accountability.
To hold your submissive accountable use:
Delivering discipline and punishments can sometimes be difficult, but if you let them off the hook, then the Code of Conduct holds no weight. After delivering these, you should rebuild the connection. Take the time and attention necessary to remind her that she is still your submissive. She is still good and valuable, and that her mistakes don’t define her.
If you and your partner like to engage in brat play, you need to delineate when it is ok to do so and what types of punishments are used for fun in brat play, and which ones are for serious transgressions. The delineation is needed in order to keep the integrity of accountability, otherwise the lines between what’s punishment vs funishment gets blurred very quickly.
It should be stated that while making a D/s dynamic is serious work, it should also be fun! So if your submissive really enjoys being a brat, then you’ll need to make room for her to engage in that. So find ways that it’s enjoyable for you as the Dominant as well.
Personally, I don’t think I could ever engage in a 100% total power exchange. At most, I could do 95%. Within that last 5%, I want my submissive to still hold some agency for herself. I don’t feel confident that I would ALWAYS do what’s in her best interest. For this reason, I like to have a veto clause.
A veto clause delineates when and in what circumstances the submissive is allowed to veto anything in the Code of Conduct and suspend the power exchange. This veto power should be used very sparingly, if ever. Think of it as the nuclear option. Before using it, the submissive should do everything they can to surrender and follow the Dominant’s wishes. I consider the veto clause to be the last fail safe against possible tyranny as the Dom.
An example of when a veto may be appropriate is:
As before, draft the accountability plan, present it to the submissive, gain feedback, make adjustments, and add it to the contract.
I think it’s helpful to set standards and boundaries for how each of you will communicate with each other, especially since there are so many forms of communication in the digital age. Doing so helps set expectations.
Possible elements to include in the communication section:
I think you know the drill by now.
Once you have the final versions of each of the sections of your contract, it’s time to set a term date and sign.
For your first few contracts, I recommend setting short term dates such as a one month term. This gives you long enough to see if the structure works, but doesn’t lock you into it if it’s really not working. As you gain experience within your dynamic, you can extend the terms to quarters or half of the year. Personally I think a year is too long to wait before the next review, but if it works for you both, that’s all that matters.
Next, you will both sign the contact. While this contract technically isn’t “real”, I would recommend treating it in your mind as if it were real. The more serious you take this contract and the dynamic, the more you will get out of it. Some couples even go as far as treating a contract signing as they would a marriage, having a celebration or ceremony. Whatever you do, make it special and memorable for you two.
Finally, if you’ll be using collars in your dynamic, you can symbolize this moment by collaring your submissive with a collar chosen specifically for her.
Now you have this document with an entire plan for your dynamic. The last step is to implement it. Just like any habit or routine, it’s going to take consistent effort to implement these new behaviors and ways of being for both of you.
What I recommend is creating some sort of training schedule where the Dominant teaches the submissive the entire Code of Conduct in one intense session over a couple of days so she knows what your training is towards, and then slowly implementing each new duty over the course of weeks until the next contract.
So for example, let’s say you took my recommendation when creating rules, rituals, and protocols. You decided to start with 3 rules, 1 ritual, and 1 protocol and your contract term is one month.
Your training schedule might look like this:
This schedule can easily be adapted for any length of time and number of duties. We do the intensive at the beginning to set expectations, test out the duties, and give a reference point for what you’re both working towards. Then we break everything down progressively so as not to become overwhelmed by learning the new behaviors.
If you combine this training schedule with weekly check-ins, your submissive can give you feedback about the structure and challenges she is facing. You can then use this information to adjust the contract when the new term date comes.
Whew… that is a lot of work. What lies on the other side? The dynamic you have always dreamed of having. If you’ve followed these steps with diligence, carefully crafting a vision for where you want this dynamic to go, and implementing the right behaviors to get there, then all that is left is to have patience and enjoy the journey. Don’t rush. Every phase of your dynamic will be exciting, so enjoy wherever you are now. There will always be more you can explore, add, build, and change in the future. One day you might even reach a point where what you two have created is more than you could have imagined.
Download my free BDSM contract template complete with sections for rules, rituals, protocols, punishments, and builds a dynamic that suits your reality and makes space for both of your needs and desires. With this contract you'll be ready to start building the D/s dynamic you've always dreamed about.
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