Sure, there are primary motivations involved like a dominant personality, an ability to take charge, and sometimes some non-sexual influences (some of the best subs are powerful business types who never get to "let go" and let other people be in charge in their daily lives, and conversely, some dominants are stuck in jobs or life situations that are usually highly controlled, making them want to act out the power trip when they get the chance).
That's not what I mean, though. Most online masters (and, to a lesser extent, real-world doms) fall into one of two categories, primarily driven there by an unspoken secret about the online BDSM world:
Most online sub boys are fakes.
I don't say this in judgment or scorn. It's hard to be gay, it's hard to come out of the closet, and it's harder to come out in the leather world. I don't doubt that most online subs want to be real subs, but when it comes to choosing between the safety and relative anonymity of hot online chat, or the real risk of putting their well-being in the hands of another, most of them choose chat most of the time.
And, you know, good for them -- you can't pick up a copy of Larry Townsend's The Leatherman's Handbook at your neighborhood 7-11, and they need to learn and explore safely somehow.
The problem, though, is that most dominant men are not newbies. They're experienced leathermen. Most of us are happy to guide novices and answer questions, but that's not all we're seeking. Sure, being "Dear Leather Abby" is fun and worthwhile, but we want actual play time with actual boys. That's what we seek. Personally, I'm not looking for in-person action from every boy I chat with, nor will I refuse to chat with a boy in whom I'm not sexually interested. There is a BDSM community, and we have a responsibility to each other to share safety and knowledge so fewer people have to learn things the hard way.
Most "sub" guys figure this out within a month or two. They find out that the "hot chats" they crave are growing fewer and farther between, largely because the dominant men they want to talk to aren't interested in cyber-only relationships. And so the sub stops saying he's looking for "cyber" or "phone" or "cam2cam" or whatever, and just starts saying he's submissive or a slave candidate.
That would be the normal progression for an exploring sub, too, but most of them aren't really ready or looking for in-person action. They're just implying that they are because they can't get the fantasy chat they want if they explicitly say they're only after fantasy chat. So they start making noises about in-person meetings, or that they're obeying orders, even as they're doing nothing but jacking off.
When it gets to the point where the master expects to see some results of the relationship -- evidence of obeyed orders, meeting in person, or whatever -- the sub clams up. Sometimes he stops talking, sometimes he completely vanishes only to reappear a few weeks later with a different online nickname, and sometimes he makes up some completely implausible story that explains why he's doing everything you told him to do except those things which would produce tangible proof of obedience.
A smaller-scale version is when you're chatting with a boy about BDSM and he suddenly -- and I mean suddenly, in the middle of a back-and-forth dialogue -- stops responding for the rest of the day (or night, or week). It's as if you were talking on the phone, and while you were in mid-sentence, he puts the phone down without saying "hold on," and walks away, and stays away for hours or days. That almost always means the boy was just jacking off to your chat, and once he came, he had no more "need" for you so he just walked away. On the larger scale, a dom and sub can build what the dom thinks is a relationship, sometimes for months, before the sub (who was never doing what he said he was anyway) finally walks away because he can't fake it anymore.
The real shit is that you can't tell which boys are real and which are faking it with any reliability. Some are really bad at faking it, and they're easy for experienced masters to spot. Others grow really good at it. Even if you're sure this boy is the one, it can fall apart quite suddenly weeks down the road, with no warning whatsoever.
Masters who've been online for a while know all of this. Many of them give up altogether, and I sympathize with them. I spent about 3 years avoiding public rooms on gay.com because I got so tired of the vapid fakes. But knowing all this, the online masters generally tend to fall into two groups:
- Indifferent. The master knows the boy is overwhelmingly likely to be a fake who'll never do anything in person (at least not with him), so he chooses not to care. He gives orders that he would not give otherwise, like having a suit-wearing corporate boy "slave" write "SLAVE" on his forehead with indelible marker, or to bind himself in ways that aren't necessarily good for self-bondage, or whatever.
The master knows the boy isn't going to actually do these things anyway, something confirmed when the "slave" quickly agrees to orders that would, if followed, cause serious problems for him. The master knows it's just cyber-fantasy, even if neither party says so, so he gets outrageous to get his rocks off and the boy's as well. And if the boy was for real? Eventually he'll refuse one of these orders, and the master declares him "fake" and cuts him loose. - Or Insecure. The dom believes, or wants to believe, that the boy is real, but has a strong suspicion (driven by experience) that he's being played. Real slavery and service is usually more "boring" than hot fantasy chat. (You would not believe how many boys have told me they want to be kept 24/7 in a cage, but who can't even seem to pay attention to a chat for ten minutes. They'd go absolutely insane if they got their wish.) The master, realizing that other temptations might draw his new boy away from him, reacts oppressively to keep him in place until the "danger zone" has been cleared.
This is a problem with in-person service, too -- new slaves are often kept isolated for a while, not allowed time alone outside the house or to have a job, because the master is concerned that the slave training is so harsh that the boy will walk away if he has a "chance." The concept is similar to that of military basic training -- they immerse you in the new life quickly and cut off contact with the outside world for several weeks until you've learned and acclimated. You're not allowed contact with your family or friends, and you're not allowed to leave, until your brain is rewired as a soldier. It's because they know that if new trainees could leave, a huge number of them would, and it's the same with becoming a slave. It's a rougher transition than most boys anticipate, and after a few days, most of them want out -- even if, a week later, they'll realize they just needed to wait it out.
And so, as with indifferent masters, the insecure ones wind up giving extreme orders, this time with the goal of making the boy prove his commitment and getting himself in deeper as a slave so he won't easily back out. Having been burned many times before, the master suspects any sign of incongruity as evidence of fakery, and responds harshly with difficult orders, or by cutting the boy loose to "cut his losses."
Most online masters share a combination of these traits at different times, depending on the boy, the situation, and their mood. The more a boy appears to be screwing him over, the more most masters will respond by falling into one or the other of these patterns.
If you're a prospective sub boy and you've gotten this far, you're probably wondering, "Fuck, sir, how do I avoid this?" I don't have all the answers, but these are mine:
- Be reliable. I said that earlier, but it's important. You trigger the fake/BS detector by being inconsistent: saying things that don't agree with what you previously said, not following through on what you said you'd do, saying you did things when other information makes it extremely unlikely that you actually did them, and so on.
- Be honest. You don't have to tell a master your real name and social security number (although one boy I have been thinking very highly of said he did that once under orders), but if you can't obey an order, you have to tell your master exactly why, and be prepared for the consequences. If you don't trust a guy online enough to tell him personal information, then you tell him exactly that. If he then chooses not to continue, boy, there's nothing you can do about that. You must be true to yourself, even at the cost of a potential master. Telling him something false because you think he wants to hear it is the same thing as building a house on a shaky foundation. Someday the whole thing will collapse.
- Keep talking. If something goes wrong, tell your master what went wrong, just as soon as you know it. Tell him what happened, why it happened (as best as you can figure out), and see what happens next. If you disobey him and then stop talking because you fear you've disappointed him, you are exponentially compounding your error. If you can't handle the consequences of something you did wrong, tell him that too. Online masters usually can't see your body language, tone of voice, or facial expression, and you have to communicate what's going on with you even more so your master can make the best decisions.
To pick a fictional example, your master may tell you that if you don't obey a certain order, you will be required to jump into a public swimming pool with all your clothes on in the middle of the day. He might view this as a public embarrassment, suitable punishment for violation of some other order that might have proved embarrassing. However, if you are the brother of the Wicked Witch of the West, being submerged in water would melt you, and you would die a painful death. This is very likely not what your master had in mind -- but if you never told him that water would kill you, how would he possibly know?
If Oz isn't your thing, imagine being told to smear peanut butter on part of your body when your master doesn't know you're allergic to nuts, or something similar. Masters can only make good decisions when given good information. If that didn't happen, the solution is more and better information, not hiding in a castle until it blows over.
The best way to make a smooth dom/sub relationship is to be the boy you want to be -- the boy that you're describing yourself to be. The more trut you build, the stronger the foundation your relationship has when something does go wrong (and it always does, even couples married for 60 years have fights) and the better you are able to weather it. If the whole relationship was built on fiction, a slight breeze will collapse it.
Now, this is a lopsided arrangement. The master must also be honest and reliable, but since he is the one making the decisions, he has more need of information than the slave does. In the last example, the slave won't be smearing peanut butter on the master against the master's will or without his consent, so it doesn't matter if the slave knows about the master's nut allergies or not. It only matters if the slave cooks for the master or something similar. Some slaves also find it alluring to not know as much about their online masters as they could, since it provides more of an air of mystery, and most masters know that.
This doesn't allow the master to be dishonest in anything more than little white lies ("Remember how I said I'd let you cum tonight? I lied; you stay horny a while longer"), but it does mean that the master doesn't have to communicate as much to the slave as the slave does to the master. The master has to tell the slave what he needs to know, of course, but the slave has to tell the master what the master might need to know. In a relationship with more equal and bi-directional decision making, the flow of information would be more equal and bi-directional as well. In BDSM, where one partner is in charge, that partner needs all of the information available.
Like I said way back in 1855 when I started writing this, I don't have the answers for everyone, but I believe in these principles, and I try to live them. I hope they're useful to you, too. I can't really see how being less reliable or less communicative could help anyone's relationship, BDSM or not, but I find these things crucial in online BDSM explorations. If you wonder why online masters act the way they do, maybe this explains some of it.
