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Dominant

A person who prefers to be superior in a D/s relationship, being obeyed, served, and pleased by their submissive partner. Dominant is the broadest term in the dominant / master / owner orientation. All masters or mistresses are dominants and all who describe themselves as owning property are dominants but not all dominants are masters / mistresses or owners of property. Self-describing as a dominant does not necessarily mean that the person already has a submissive. Instead, dominant describes a preference for taking the dominant role in a relationship, and operates as a type of self-description or self-advertisement.

The everyday definition of the word "dominant" is: "commanding, controlling, or prevailing over all others" (Merriam-Webster). The D/s use of the word dominant differs from the everyday definition of dominant in the following ways:

• Dominant in D/s is commonly used as a noun and this is a correct usage within this subculture.
• The word dominant in D/s is considerably more varied than the ordinary use of the word. Dominant in the everyday sense is an adjective describing a fixed personality feature exhibited in all interactions with others. In the vanilla world "dominant" commonly refers to a set of traits that is manifested whenever the person interacts with anyone. Within D/s the word "dominant" refers only to that person's relationship to their own submissives or potential submissives they wish to form a relationship with. In other words, it is possible for people who do not display dominance in the vanilla world to describe themselves as dominant when referring to their relationship with a submissive or when describing themselves in D/s.

In the wider BDSM scene, dominant is often used in place of the more correct word "top" for the active participant in bondage, flogging and other forms of physical BDSM.

Differences between dominants and owners

When discussiong M/s and ownership, dominant is often used in contrast to the term master or owner, mainly due to the differing connotations of the corresponding terms submissive and slave.

See also

• Master
• Property
• Submissive

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