Who has the Power?

No matter what your thing is whether it is a vanilla, DD, D/s BDSM relationship or a conglomerate of the four, there is always someone who has control but which one has it? Is it the Husband, HOH, Dom, Master or is it the Tih, Sub, Slave, Wife? From here on out I will be referring to the DD lifestyle because that is the type of relationship we are in, but you can substitute whatever “ism” you want.

If one were to sit back at a mall, park or even work and watch people, (one of my favorite past times) you would probably start to notice the power exchange between the vanilla crowds. Whether it is a work situation where the boss is in charge of the subordinates navigating through the business world or, if it is sports, you have a team captain telling the players what positions to play. Even in the mall you can see husband and wife dancing to the power exchange music, it is prevalent in everything we do.

To the outsider a DD relationship can be difficult to tell who is in charge and who the follower is. At first glance the DD relationship may seem like the man is a tyrant, looking like all he does is sit on his throne barking orders, pointing with his scepter in the direction that he wants his submissive to go.

To another outsider looking through the same window of a DD relationship what they might see is a couple where the husband is telling his wife what to do. Directing her in a way that he wants their relationship to go, bossing her, if you will, and if she fails in any way he can and sometimes does spank or punishes her in other ways because he has the power and she is under his authority. They might see her as a weak downtrodden broken woman.

The outsider may be privy to see how the couple had actually negotiated their dynamics of a DD relationship where the wife agrees to live under the authority of her husband thus giving him the power over her.

In the same breath, the same outsider could also say that the woman has the power because she is the one that sets the limits on what can and what cannot be done, even if it appears that she has given full consent to let the HOH do whatever it is that he wants. The reason being is that she is the director, giving orders behind the scenes how to perform and act while she is in the submissive mode.

The person looking at the same DD couple again may be thinking that the woman has the power because she has given him the authority to do what she has stipulated. If at any time she gets bored, feels threatened or she feels uncomfortable, she can stop everything and go back to the way it was before she initiated the new relationship.

Even the people in a DD relationship say there is a division in who has the power.

Some HOH’s say that they have the power to do so because she has given them the full authority to do what they agreed upon and even if she refuses, he has the power to discipline her.

Some submissive wives feel they do because they have given it as a gift and therefore they can take it back leaving the HOH powerless.

So who really has the power, the control in their relationship is it the HOH or is it the wife?

The way I see it is that they are equal but different. Equal because they both have the same amount of power because there are two needs that has to be met for it to be successful. One, you have the wife’s desire to be dominated to be directed in what to do. Two you have the HOH’s need to dominate his wife directing her in what he wants her to do.

How can either one have total power without the other’s participation? If the HOH refuses to lead, how can the wife hold the power because there is no one to take her in hand and the same goes for the wife if she refuses to be taken in hand, how can the HOH lead?

The unique difference in a successful DD relationship is not who controls the power, whether it be the HOH or tih, the important fact is that she, the tih, has with great thought willingly given him, the HOH, the power to make the decisions to steer his family through the waters of life. The only thing that keeps her there is her trust and love for her man and to me that is were the difference is.


Bob.