Sex Gets Real 269: Sinclair Sexsmith and rife on 24/7 power exchange relationships

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Sinclair Sexsmith and rife are here to talk 24/7 power exchange

First up, you can hear me on two podcasts this week talking all about pleasure, bodies, and sex. I chatted with Chris Maxwell Rose of The Pleasure Mechanics all about pleasure, hunger, and the relationship between sex and food. I was also on Rebecca Scritchfield’s podcast Body Kindness talking about sex as a social skill. Check them out!

This conversation with Sinclair and rife is beautiful. They pull back the curtain on their relationship and let us take a peek at the ways they’ve grown into their dynamic of 24/7 Master/slave.

We explore the ways that bringing conscious, deliberate negotiation to the ways we do relationship can create beautiful conditions for love, support and growth.

Sinclair shares how they want to show more vulnerability as a Dominant, allowing room for growth, mistakes, and not knowing – the antithesis of how so many people see Domination.

rife talks about their ultimate goal of creating a trust so deep and so strong that they can surrender all their boundaries and the long, slow process of how they’re working in that direction.

They also share some of the things they’re holding around the language  Master/slave and the legacy of those words within the white supremacy of the United States.

I can’t wait for you to hear this.

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About Sinclair Sexsmith and rife:

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Podcast Transcript

Dawn Serra: You’re listening to Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra, that’s me. This is a place where we explore sex, bodies, and relationships, from a place of curiosity and inclusion. Tying the personal to the cultural where you’re just as likely to hear tender questions about shame and the complexities of love, as you are to hear experts challenging the dominant stories around pleasure, body politics and liberation. This is about the big and the small, about sex and everything surrounding it we don’t usually name. The funny, the awkward, the imperfect happen here in service to joy, connection, healing and creating healthier relationships with ourselves and each other. So, welcome to Sex Gets Real. Don’t forget to hit subscribe.

Dawn Serra: Hey, you. Welcome to this week’s episode of Sex Gets Real. I am ridiculously excited. This is finally my conversation with Sinclair Sexsmith and rife. We talk all about their 24/7 power exchange dynamic. That is Daddy-Boy, Master-Slave, Dominant- Submissive. There’s a yummy deliciousness that they’ve been co-creating over the years that’s become something really powerful. And now, they are teaching webinars classes and have their online course all about DS and it’s such a powerful, vulnerable, beautiful conversation that I get to have with the two of them. 

Before we jump into that conversation, this is the last call for the July cohort of the Power in Pleasure course, my five week online course all about your pleasure. The cost is the same as one coaching session with me but we spend five weeks every single day doing journal prompts, asking questions, being in the forum together; plus having weekly calls where I get to be there with you witnessing your story, answering your questions and helping you to dive even deeper into the material. 

Dawn Serra: One of the April cohort participants said, “This is going to change my life. Thank you, Dawn, for your wisdom on the group calls and these breath giving modules.” Another person from the April cohort said, “I want to briefly express how much your love, compassion and insight has allowed me to give myself permission to feel pleasure and to take responsibility for stepping away from disease. I send my love.” 

This course is so incredible. If you have a complicated relationship with your hunger, with your desire, with your libido, if you’re looking for ways to experience more aliveness and embodiment, body trust; all of that is built into this beautiful course where we get to explore together so that you feel less alone and so that you can tap into more power and boundaries around the things that make you feel good. If you want to join us, registration closes on July 21st, 2019 which is just one week from when this episode drops. If you’ve been thinking about it, now is the time. There is tiered pricing based on need. All of the details are at dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse. Please go check it out. I would love to have you join us. Again, that’s www.dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse/. Let’s explore your pleasure because your pleasure matters. It’s so fun. 

Also, if you want to hear more about the course and a really deep, yummy discussion about the ways that our hunger and our desire intersect, and also the ways that we treat food and the ways that we treat sex are so deeply aligned. I was on the Pleasure Mechanics podcast this week talking with Chris Maxwell Rose all about pleasure. So there’s a link in the show notes. You can hear me being interviewed for a change on the Pleasure Mechanics podcast and it’s such a deep, interesting, theory-ish conversation. And I was also interviewed on Rebecca Scritchfield’s Body Kindness podcast talking all about sex as a social skill bodies and the ways that we have such complicated relationships with our needs.

Dawn Serra: So if you want to hear me on either or both of those podcasts, links are in the show notes or if you head to sexgetsreal.com/ep269/ for episode 269. There, you can also learn more about Sinclair Sexsmith and rife. So let me tell you about our conversation. Also Patreon supporters, if you support the show at $3 and above, you get exclusive bonus content every week. There’s a huge backlog of awesome things by now. And Sinclair, rife and I spent an extra 10 minutes having a little bonus conversation just for you, that you can’t hear anywhere else. So if you want to help support the show, help me keep doing this labor of love that I fund entirely myself, the Patreon support really makes a huge difference every single dollar.

So thank you to those of you who do support the show. If you go to patreon.com/SGRpodcast for Sex Gets Real. You can support the show there and check out all of the bonuses whether you support at the $3 level, the $5 level or above. 

Dawn Serra: Let me tell you a little bit about Sinclair and rife. Sinclair Sexsmith, they/them pronouns is a writer, teacher and performer studying sexualities, genders, relationships, and kink. Since 2006, they have produced the award winning site, Sugarbutch Chronicles at Sugarbutch.net detailing their personal adventures and in depth studies of how to be their best self. Their full length collection of short stories, sweet and rough, kink, queer erotica is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in the Erotica Category. In addition, they were just awarded the National Leather Association, John Preston Short Story Award for their piece, “Awakening Mistress Elsa Winter and Morgan.” 

Sinclair leads college workshops around the country and teaches puberty and sex ed to fourth through eighth graders around the Bay Area. They live in Oakland with their boy. And speaking of their boy, rife, is the property of Sinclair Sexsmith and a gender queer leather boy from Texas. He is the illustrator and co-creator of the Gender Book, a fun, colorful community based resource. When not serving master, he serves many other folks in the community through his graphic and web design small business, Rowdy Ferret design, which you can find at rowdyferretdesign.com. Here is my wonderful touching conversation with Sinclair and rife, and be sure to head to Patreon, and to check out my talks on the Body Kindness podcast and the Pleasure Mechanics podcast: Speaking of Sex.

Dawn Serra: Welcome to Sex Gets Real again, Sinclair, and welcome rife. I’m really excited to talk to the both of you today for the show.

Sinclair Sexsmith: Thank you. Thanks for having us. 

rife: Great to be here.

Dawn Serra: Yay! Okay. So for people who aren’t familiar with the two of you and the work that you do, the dynamic that you have, can we just start there and have you tell folks a little bit about the two of you and how you move through life together?

Sinclair Sexsmith: Sure. So people might know my work through Sugarbutch.net and I’ve been writing there for 13 years now and mostly about queer sex, kink relationship dynamics. rife and I have been together for eight years. We’re in a 24/7 dominant-submissive kind of daddy-boy, master-slave partnership and we’re married and pretty much monogamous. So, living together and kind of building our world around that DS dynamic.

rife: My name is rife. You might know me from The Gender Book and I also made Kinkopoly, and sometimes contribute in Sugarbutch.net as well. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah.

rife: We met at a kinky queer summer camp 8 years ago and have been together ever since. 

Dawn Serra: Oh… Yay for kinky queer summer camps. So you kind of threw out– We have this dom-sub, daddy-boy, master-slave kind of dynamic and I know a lot of people are really curious about the 24/7 thing especially. But also the ways that we can be really creative with power in relationship. The way that you just described that the dom-sub, daddy-boy, MS kind of thing made it really seem like you’re creating something that’s really for the two of you and kind of growing into it as you go. Can you talk a little bit about how things have transformed from the beginning of your relationship to now and what you’ve discovered along the way?

rife: Sure. Our access point to some authority exchange was through kink. That’s not everybody’s story, but we definitely both like rough sex and pain play and all that good stuff. And so that was an entryway point for us. Our very first scenes and dates together involved that. As like flirting with this idea of power exchange, it wasn’t until we been together for a little while that we actually had a more formal dynamic. We negotiated it together, wrote a contract and it started out as a sir-boy. Later on, we added on the daddy-boy language as poly arrangements shifted. And then, the ownership property dynamic was the last one to come in probably about 4-5 years ago. 

Sinclair Sexsmith: I think it was longer ago than that. 

rife: But the words, maybe, and the more explicit contracts around that. 

Sinclair Sexsmith: Yeah. I moved here six years ago. 

rife: Oh my gosh.

Sinclair Sexsmith: It took us a little while to work into using the words master and slave. Those in particular are really loaded, particularly with the racial history in the U.S currently. And as white people, using the words master and slave they’re, in some ways, not ours to claim. So we work on that actively and try to have conversations about it. It makes me a little nervous to even just claim master-slave on a podcast because it’s vulnerable and it’s a complicated. So I don’t say that without an asterisk, to say this is complex and we’re having these conversations. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I’m really glad that you brought that up. I think that it’s something that we need to be having more conversations around. And I’ve seen Mollena Williams Haas talk about it a little bit, especially in the documentary that recently came out about her and her partner master. And I think it’s a really fascinating space where the language has a legacy and the legacy, specifically, in the United States is one of violence and racism. And to use that language, I think, with that asterisk is important because it’s language that’s kind of known in kink communities. You mentioned before we hopped on, the title holders for the Northwest Master-Slave Conference, which is really exciting, so congratulations. But as you kind of like pick that apart, what are you finding inside of that?

rife: Well, there’s two things and they both have to do with consent. The first is that obviously this is a very different relationship structure. We’re not trying to emulate that. We don’t actually do race play. That is a different kink all together. But for us, it’s more just that there’s not better language out there yet. We’re always kind of questing for the most perfect word and this is just the best one we have at the moment. It’s not ideal in some ways because it does cause harm. 

The other thing is consent around who we use these words with. And so in our kink, in our leather… kind of spaces it’s different. Everyone has a sense of buy-in, that’s why those spaces are really valuable to us. But also, we would love to see more awareness in the community as a whole. And that’s part of our platform is that we want to have these conversations and brainstorm less hurtful language and get creative with our words so they cause less harm.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. And just out of curiosity for you, what do you feel into or what do you experience as different when you’re thinking about a dominant and submissive dynamic versus a master and a slave dynamic? Even a daddy-boy dynamic, but I think more specifically the DS versus the MS. What, for you, is the difference in there that makes you hungry for one set of language over the other?

Sinclair Sexsmith: I think someone who came from being a top and being a dominant, and being a daddy before coming to a master identity, all of those other things are identities that I go in and out of. I’m sometimes a daddy, I’m sometimes not. I’m sometimes a dominant, I’m sometimes not. I’m sometimes a top. Being a master is something I always am. It has room for all of those other things at any given time or to not have them at any given time. So it has to do with a level of responsibility and in charge-ness, for lack of a better word in my brain right now, that doesn’t ever go away. So there’s always this sense of being in authority for everything.

rife: For me, it’s the ownership fetish, I think, is the biggest difference.

Sinclair Sexsmith: Right. Like I own you as opposed to I’m controlling you right now.

rife: The other thing is that in, at least in our relationship, my limits approach zero or kind of the abstract ideal that we’re sort of shooting for, whether that actually ever is realistic or not is a different conversation. But that’s kind of the theoretical goal, to build up that trust to the point where Sinclair is holding the limits.

Sinclair Sexsmith: Or you have no limits whatsoever. Isn’t that a fascinating way to build a relationship? Of course, we all have limits. And of course, we have places where I’m like, “I don’t want to be in charge of that,” or, and he’s like, “Please help me with this.” Or vice versa of him saying, “Don’t be in charge of that.” And I’m saying, “But I want to be in charge of that.” So we’re navigating that as a, really, as a spiritual practice for me of surrender and of the spiritual relationship with control, being that there isn’t any. And I’m trying to make a balance and a kind of melody harmony happen. 

Dawn Serra: One of the things that I’m really interested in inside of that is, I’m sure all of us who have been in kink for at least a couple of months, if not more, have run into people who claim the title of either dominant or master. And what they’re really doing is deeply hungering to perpetuate the violence of misogyny and patriarchy. They’re hungry for control over in a way that’s really not about trust and more about abuse. 

So for you, I’m wondering, rife, one of the words you used was trust. How can we build enough trust in that you can experience the space of something as close to no limits as possible. For the two of you, as you’ve kind of deepened into this dynamic together, how do you do that in a way while continuously kind of checking yourselves to ensure it’s something that’s fostering connection and healing, and not at any point leaning into something that’s manipulative or coercive or unwanted?

rife: I think that’s a great question. Trust is something that has to be built a little bit at a time and it takes a while. I wouldn’t recommend jumping straight into, even a DS relationship until you have a pretty good sense of that person. And I would recommend asking around and vetting a new play partner. Regardless of which side of the slash you’re on. I think that’s a good practice to get to know who you’re playing with first. Meet in public to… Start with things that are a little bit less edgy for you and work your way up to scarier, more areas of control. It started out that they could control my haircut and my underwear and then as we got closer and more trust built, like, “Okay, we can control this too.” It wasn’t like I gave them my voting ballot and control over my family or my religion on the first day. I think that it takes years. 

Sinclair Sexsmith: There’s all sorts of little trusts that we build and feel stronger and more capable to give more trust as we go along. But there’s also the trust that comes with fucking up. What do we actually do when we have a big mistake or a big blow up or even little ones, what do we do about it? How do we deal with it? Do we come back together and feel closer or does it end up festering and never really resolving? And so, I think the kind of fuck up recovery skills are also really important in DS and in MS to be able to own your mistakes, take responsibility, apologize, do better, change, acknowledge things. I think that’s a big piece of the trust building too. And something you said, rife, what did you just say that I was thinking of…

The thing about controlling your underwear or something, I guess I want to– It pinged my thought that relationships, all relationships have these ways that we kind of do things for each other because that’s what they like, right? Like someone compliments, “Oh, my god, I really love when your bra and panties match.” And then every time after on dates that someone makes sure that that happens. You know? We do these things already in partnership and the way that we do them is kind of explicit. We just make a really specific guideline for them. This is not just a preference that I stated once. And then for you, this is a thing we’ve both written down and agreed to. So in some ways, it brings that all conscious and it makes it more clear and hopefully means also we can keep it open for negotiation. So at some point if rife’s going, “These thongs that you make me wear everyday are really uncomfortable and whatever,” hypothetically. Then we could renegotiate, like my whole goal is that you’re uncomfortable, so yay. Or, “Okay, I actually don’t want you uncomfortable. I want you sexy. So let’s switch to whatever briefs.” So, making it explicit means that we can change it a lot better. 

Dawn Serra: So it’s almost like a living document, the agreements that you have are something that you’re constantly revisiting and refining, and changing as bodies and needs that and experiences change. 

rife: Exactly. 

Sinclair Sexsmith: Exactly. And that really builds trust, too, because we’re looking at what the ultimate goal is underneath the things. It’s not necessarily that you wear a thong, it’s that I get to control your body or I like looking at your body and this is what I look looking at. Right? So there’s lots of other options there. If we get… what the purpose is. 

rife: Yeah. Google docs are great for that. You can just change them infinitely. 

Dawn Serra: Perfect. 

Sinclair Sexsmith: And we can work on them at the same time. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. And see the history and the legacy of where you’ve been. 

rife: One thing you said reminded me of that quote, “Relationships without power dynamics are not relationships without power dynamics.” It’s like we all come to relationships in different social and political privileges and powers. What we’re doing is trying to make that very visible and intentional and conscious. We’re not trying to say, “Oh, we’re all equals. (inaudible) to act that way. I think that’s a very noble goal to have in relationship. We’re just coming out the same concept from a different angle of like we’re coming into this with our own baggage and our own power in the “real world.” Here we get to have this playground when we can make it however we want.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. Yeah.

rife: And I think you’re right that some people do come to DS, as a way to recreate those power structures of the patriarchy or of racism or of classism in their own little playground and to do it up. And there’s a way that you can do that consciously and with a lot of negotiation and with a lot of awareness and education and care. And there’s also a way that it does end up just recreating the same structures that you don’t like in the real world.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. Yeah. Like I think the word that’s kind of coming to mind as I hear that is unexamined. Like who is coming into this? And they haven’t really examined their privileges in the world, their desires, the things that they really want, how they show up in relationship. And, of course, we’re all on a path of discovery and kind of figuring that out as we go. And as you said, fucking up along the way and having to recover. But I think, some people, in any kind of relationship structure, it’s not just kink, but so many of us come into relationship and we just play through the scripts without really examining what they mean to us, and if we want to do something different. What you’re offering is that there’s so much deliberateness in what you’re building.

Sinclair Sexsmith: That’s the goal for sure. And of course, I’ll speak for myself, I certainly have plenty of areas that I can’t see about myself, that I’m still learning. And in some ways I think this power dynamic is… Because I use a power dynamic, it illuminates that even quicker and more intensely because the stakes are so high. And that’s part of what I love about it, that it points out my bullshit and my problems and my unexamined places. Also it’s part of what I hate about it. It’s really painful, really hard and really, really challenging. 

One of the things I really strive to do is be and show my vulnerability as a dominant and the ways that I do fuck up in the ways that I am upset or need help or don’t understand or don’t feel perfect ‘cause I think there’s not enough visability around that. I think especially for dominance, but for first submissives too. There’s just fear to be vulnerable and a fear to be vulnerable around messing up and fear to be not good at it. There’s so much vulnerability in submission and in dominance though. And I think we don’t talk about the vulnerable dominant and the powerful submissive enough. 

Dawn Serra: Oh my God. Yes. I love that and I totally agree. I would love to just hear a little bit more about that. I think so many of us have this vision of dominance as something that’s pretty specific. I know one of the things that I’d love for us to talk about, maybe next or a little bit later is I get so many cis women who write in and say, “My male partner has these fantasies of being dominated by a dominatrix. And he keeps asking me to do this, but I don’t want to be the hard mean latex covered humiliation dominatrix he’s asking for. I don’t know what to do.” 

This vulnerability that’s in dominance of really making decisions, fucking up really publicly, and being able to ask for the things you want, which is sometimes so, so vulnerable. I’d love to hear a little bit more about what you’ve discovered inside of that vulnerability.

rife: It reminds me of what River Dark says about, “The best dominance have a little bit of a hard exterior and a really squishy interior.” That some ways you really do want your dominant to be vulnerable and to care and to be human.

Sinclair Sexsmith: In some ways.

rife: I mean, in many ways. The fantasy might be that you’re the invincible woman in latex who’s super mean. But you actually do want her to care on the inside and pet your head after you have your crying fest. You really do need both. And it’s a bit of a paradox to balance those two. And I think that compatibility is a big tricky thing where just because– Maybe you’re never going to be that hard ass dominating woman, but what would you can ask is the kind of questions like what kind of feelings are you hoping to get from that? Because maybe I could be this different mommy type who will make you cookies and tuck you in and read you a bedtime story. Maybe that’s more authentically my approach to dominance, to find what’s the goal or the feeling that you’re trying to get underneath that, and is there some way that that can be met here or is that something that you have to keep in your fantasy for now?

Sinclair Sexsmith: Right. Is it helplessness? Is it nurturance? Is it being overtaken like caught like prey? What are the feelings? What’s the actual dynamic?

rife: Because we can get fixated on all of this stuff, right? 

Sinclair Sexsmith: The latex and the whip and the…

rife: Right. We can get really set on our vision of how it’s supposed to happen because that’s what the porn looks like. But maybe that’s not actually– Maybe we don’t need the latex and the whips. Maybe what we need is somebody having really good boundaries with us. Maybe that could scratch the same itch even though it’s not the first thing we think of.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. Or maybe it’s… I worked with some clients recently where we were kind of picking at that a little bit to get underneath it. And where we landed was she felt very expressed as a deity or a goddess that was all powerful. And he found that kind of delicious space and getting to be worshipful but also slightly afraid of her power. It didn’t start there. It started with kind of the more traditional whip and “stand on me with your heels” thing. But they were able to get to this place where they were able to bring a little bit of themselves in new ways and then create… It’s kind of where that venn diagram overlapping. It might not be what you originally imagined but where you end up feels really yummy and more true.

Sinclair Sexsmith: Right. We all have all of these archetypes, right? We all have these different senses of self and I think that’s part of the collective human unconscious that includes all these different versions of self. Some of them resonate with individuals more than others just based on our own frequency and history and body and all that things. So I think finding what really fits is a key piece. 

Sometimes though, let’s just have a fantasy night. I’m just going to put on this maid skirt anyway or whatever, right? There’s nothing wrong with playing outside of those realms either. But when we’re talking about something over time and more sustained, we really need it to fit so that it’s able to keep going and not exhausting.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, I think that’s one of the things that’s kind of has emerged in the conversations that I’ve had with you in the past, Sinclair, and through your writing and in the workshops that you do is just… For the longest time, whenever I’d hear someone say 24/7 dynamic, my immediate reaction was, “Fuck. That sounds exhausting.” Just like, “Oh my God, I need a break.” 

rife: Sometimes it is. 

Dawn Serra: And sometimes it is, right. But the opportunity to kind of get to grow into something that really feels like you and then getting to use that as what you use to kind of fuel the experiences and the agreements in the exchange. That’s totally different than, “I’m going to put this character on and then I have to stay in this character all the time,” and it doesn’t quite fit. That can be absolutely exhausting. But finding this way where you get to really kind of be embodied in the work and really be present in the way you’re relating to each other sounds so much more sustainable.

rife: Sure. 

Sinclair Sexsmith: Absolutely. 

rife: I don’t want to throw any kind of shade on people who are in part-time dynamics. I think there’s so much really yummy, awesome play that can happen. We have weekends together. We started out long distance and we would have these dates that were one or two nights at a time together. We would both travel to see each other. You can get so deep and you can do so much in containment of specific amounts of time, whether you’re in long distance or in the same place.

Sinclair Sexsmith: Right. Because none of our real life had to be involved in that. Nobody had to go deal with an emergency. Nobody had any work to do. Nobody had any appointments to go. Nobody had to go to therapy. Nobody had to go shave their legs or I don’t know, whatever. It was all just completely carved out time for each other, right? So I think the folks who are in hard time dynamics… Not a partnership that is sometimes DS, but people who are seeing someone part time that there’s a way that a lot of the other things that are really hard about sustaining it just aren’t applicable ‘cause they aren’t there. 

rife: Yeah. I think that we have a tendency in the community to, a little bit, put 24/7 on a pedestal and I want to make sure to say that that’s, I think that’s bullshit. They’re both perfectly wonderful approaches. There’s ways that you can go deeper in a part time dynamic and there’s ways you can go deeper in a 24/7 dynamic and they’re both really valid approaches. You know they would say, “Sprinting is less valuable than marathoning.” They’re both really hard in different ways.

Dawn Serra: And they’re better suited to certain people depending on where they are in their lives and in their bodies or just because you like it more. I mean as long as it feels good for you and it’s what you want and then there’s consent then great play.

Sinclair Sexsmith: Right, exactly. And then we’re, hypothetically at least, coming out the other side is better people and feeling good about it consistently. Right? Like feeling good about the dynamic we’re in frequently. The thing that we haven’t actually talked about very much here yet, also, that I want to throw in just because I can get so serious and earnest and, “This is a make me a better person than any other human on the planet,” It’s actually really, really fun and really fucking hot and sexy. So let’s remember that part, too, that some of this is just because this is what gets me off.

Dawn Serra: Yes. That’s so important. Yes. Kink is really just about play in a way and getting to try different things, feel different ways, connect with people that can take us to new places and to, I think, even… Yes, it’s hot and it’s sexy and it can also be such an incredible way to get present. There’s all the different ways that we can do kink. So many of us have difficulty arriving in the moment…

Sinclair Sexsmith: Right, in their bodies. I mean our bodies aren’t always safe for us, in general, for lots of reasons, for lots of people. But, kink is a way to really feel and be present and be embodied, have an embodied practice. I think it’s really useful that way. 

In June, we spent three weekends traveling to conferences. It’s partly because of this northwest MS title that we have now. And two of the three were, basically outdoor events. Some people were camping, some were in more lodging kind of rooms. They were both very different events, one was desire in Palm Springs, California, which was a women only event. And one was Boundless, which is outside of Ukiah in Northern California. Even still though, I was so struck by the freedom that was given to people and the freedom people took to just wear whatever the hell they wanted. Absolutely nothing to only a cock ring or only heels or beaded skirt or a ballgown or a Tuxedo made of leather or anything in between. All sorts of different fetish wear, people with full hoods and people with just flowy, hippie outfits that were super comfy. There was just so much acceptance for ourselves and our bodies and each other, at least that’s what I really felt. 

I was really struck by it and really hope that everybody at some point gets to go play at one of these outdoor kink events and just be naked anywhere and play and meet people every so like into being friends, because they’re all there and doing vulnerable things. That was my experience. I know that’s not everybody’s experience with these things, but I really encourage people to find one of those and to play in there.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. And I think what’s so important to name, ‘cause I’ve gotten this question a number of times is it’s not only for people who are in poly or non-monogamous dynamics. You can go to these things and be single, be monogamous, be asexual. I mean, any kind of person can go and enjoy and just savour being around all kinds of different bodies, getting to just be different kinds of bodies, doing things that they love and you get to watch. You don’t have to partake. I mean you really get to make it your own. It’s not only for certain kinds of people doing certain kinds of things.

Sinclair Sexsmith: Absolutely. And actually at the Boundless event, one of the things we did was teach a class called radical monogamy.

Dawn Serra: Oh, awesome.

rife: Which is basically poly skills for folks who don’t want to be poly.

Dawn Serra: Oh, my God. Can you talk just a little bit about that? I know a lot of people listening would be totally into hearing more about that.

rife: Well, the essential premise is that negotiated conscious monogamy actually has more in common with what we think of as open relationships or polyamory than it does with non negotiating monogamy. And then we can use a lot of those same skills and practices that really… People in the poly community can get a little bit on their high horse sometimes about, “We are better.” Speaking as somebody who has identified as poly in my life for many years. That we are so much more enlightened because we’re doing our relationships with negotiation on purpose. I think that there is truth to that that negotiating relationships are objectively probably healthier than non negotiated relationships. But they don’t have to be poly. You can have any number of partners, you could have zero partners. The point is that we’re actually examining and being conscious about the kinds of relationships we want to have. That’s the really juicy, special skill that we want to steal from our poly friends.

Sinclair Sexsmith: The workshop also just dispelling myths around it that you have to be poly or you have to be slutty, and you have to play with everybody, and you have to say yes, and you have to want to all the things and try everything, even if you don’t know if you want it or not. Especially around these weekend conferences and retreats, but also just in general to be involved with the kink community. There’s some misconceptions there just like you were just saying.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. Oh, my god. More conversations like that would be awesome. And I especially think even having these types of conversations with nonsexual relationships is important, too, where we get to decide what kind of friendships we want, what kinds of working relationships we want with colleagues, and being really deliberate about… All of the contracts that I have with clients have breakup clauses. What happens if things start to go wrong? I think it’s so important that we all learn how to be able to have these kinds of conversations so that we’re nurturing and fostering relationships that have a little bit more of that intention, and deliberateness so that we’re not just kind of struck all of a sudden when things aren’t working and we don’t know how we got here. But that we’re checking in and actually asking questions about how things are going and what we hope for the future. We can do this for all of the relationships in our life, even with our family.

Sinclair Sexsmith: Absolutely. 

Dawn Serra: I’m curious, too, because the two of you have not only been in relationship for a number of years and really seen it morph and grow and deepen, but you’ve also been teaching so many awesome workshops at conferences and hosting webinars. You’ve got amazing content on your Patreon. I’ll have a link to that in the show notes and your DS Playground course. What do you think of something, and you can answer this, either together or individually, what surprised you the most as you’ve really deepened into this authority exchange dynamic together?

Sinclair Sexsmith: Oh, gosh. 

rife: Well, surprise to come to a slave or property identity. I remember not seeing a lot of role models in the queer world for that. I know them now. But growing up in Houston, Texas, there wasn’t a ton. I knew that it was a thing that existed in the leather world, but I didn’t think… It wasn’t somehow a live option to me. I always wanted ownership, like from my earliest memories. I love that Bible verse, “I have called you my name, you are mine.” I thought that was just like, “Yeah.” It’s weird that it took me 15 years being in the kink world to have to come to that identity, even though I always wanted more. And it wasn’t until reading a book that Sinclair assigned me to read that I wrote in the margins like, “Oh shit, I think this is me.” Because it’s never really occurred to me. So, I think that’s really neat that you can be super slutty in experiences and still discover new things about yourself. 

Sinclair Sexsmith: I mean, I have a similar story about coming to Mastery. It was a surprise to me. I didn’t see people… It never occurred to me that that’s what I should look at and all of my DS relationships, I always got to the point where I wanted more. And just kept assuming that we would go up, sometimes we called it DSescalator. We just keep getting more and more and more and more control and I would get more and more authority, and that is not what everybody wants, right? There’s places where they want to go, “Hey, this is enough. This is as much as I want you to have.” And I was like, “What do you mean? What do you mean? Don’t we keep going now?” So it was a surprise. 

It was a surprise also to come to that, to mastery, and it’s a surprise how hard mastery is and how personal it is, how much it has to do with me being a master over myself and having my own… Oh gosh. Having my feet firmly on the ground, really being capable of my reactivity, I guess. how important that is. I guess the biggest surprise is how much it’s shown me myself in the ways that I’m looking at myself and seeing things that I don’t necessarily like and being given the opportunity to do it differently. 

Dawn Serra: I could tell you my stuff inside right now, it’s kind of like… I don’t know if I want that mirror.

Sinclair Sexsmith: The thing about the opportunity though is that I have this person who has said, “I will stand by you no matter what.” And so I get to have a do over with it all the time. I get to be my worst self and then rife gets to go, “That was kind of your worst self.” And then I get to do it again and it doesn’t have– I mean, it has a lot of consequences, but it doesn’t necessarily have to ping on all my attachments problems.

Dawn Serra: I’m going to be left forever.

Sinclair Sexsmith: Maybe. Probably. I mean that is one of the things that would happen if I really… One of the things that would end our contract would be him saying, “I want to end our contract.” Right? We joke about, “Contracts can never be broken and it’s forever,” et cetera. But if there are times when he’s like, “I don’t want this. This isn’t good for me.” Then we’re not going to… that would be a process, but we’re not just going to keep going anyway. We do have a breakup clause and an ending the agreement clause in the contract.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I think that’s something that’s so clear about the way you’re doing relationship and what you’ve shared here is just this opportunity to continually recognize each other’s humanity.

rife: Yeah. I would rather be with an honest asshole than somebody who seems like a really nice person and actually isn’t.

Dawn Serra: Yeah.

Sinclair Sexsmith: He called me an honest asshole. I didn’t even want to say it ‘cause I probably am too much, at least too much more than I want to be, which is one of those things that I get to say, “Oh look what I’m doing.” 

rife: I think those are sometimes the only options. We’re all sometimes selfish. We’re all sometimes imperfect like I am too. Certainly. We don’t get the option to be perfect humans. We get the option to be honest, imperfect humans or dishonest perfect humans. Those are the only choices.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, and I think so much of what so many of us are hungry for but also terrified of is an opportunity to be in relationship with other humans where we can be and imperfect, where we can make those mistakes, where we can fail and fuck up, and be ugly and still have a space to then say, “I’m okay. I’m still loved. Let me try again and do better.”

Sinclair Sexsmith: Absolutely. That gives me shivers.

rife: One of the main motivations for me to be in a authority exchange relationship is that I can be really fucking hard on myself and to be with somebody who can see me fail and then say like, “Actually, you’re okay. I still really like you. I’m keeping you,” is super healing. 

Sinclair Sexsmith: It’s funny, we’ve talked about this a lot. But I don’t think I’ve said it like this before. I think I actually can be too easy on myself. So putting myself in an authority position means that I’m held to my own standards in a different way.

Dawn Serra: So there’s a lot of points when you’re like, “Goddamnit!” to yourself? 

Sinclair Sexsmith: Totally, totally. Okay, can I just walk away now? Oka, bye. But I can’t. And I take this commitment very, very seriously. I mean, I can but I won’t. I’m committed to this in a really deep way. I feel really tethered in a way that is just so grounding and nourishing for me. It’s not “can’t,” it’s “won’t.” I won’t do it. 

rife: Our collaring ceremony became before our wedding and it feels like the bigger commitment in many ways. There wasn’t any fears going into the wedding ceremony ‘cause we’ve already committed to all the important stuff. This is just a formality for the government and our families. 

Sinclair Sexsmith: But maybe that’s what helped it maybe like a week long party instead of, I don’t know. But the pressure that sometimes I hear about other people having on their marriage or wedding. 

rife: Yeah. Just have a collaring ceremony. It’s good. It’s a good addition. 

Dawn Serra: So I’d love to ask just one more question ‘cause I know we need to wrap up in a couple of minutes and I want to respect that. You have a course, the DS playground, it used to be submissives playground, I think. But you’ve collaborated and now you’ve got the DS playground. For people who are looking to learn more or to explore more deeply in this space of power exchange or authority exchange, can you tell us just a little bit about the course and maybe what some of the things that people can experience or kind of feel into when they join either the course or some of your webinars?

Sinclair Sexsmith: Sure. The course has four units and the way it’s broken up now, people can do just one of them or all four. And it doesn’t necessarily teach someone, this is how to be submissive, this is how to be dominant; as much as it’s a way to explore different ideas about DS, different teachers and educators, things to read, things to watch, experiments to do, homework, homework to do and develop one’s own relationship to DS and whatever that might be. 

I don’t think most people are a 100% dominant, 100% submissive at all. I think there’s way more common for people to be switches and top leaning switches or dom leading switches or whatever. So this is a place to explore with very curated media what I think and feel about these forms of authority exchange expression.

rife: The biggest philosophy behind the course is that everything is an experiment. Do the experiment and collect the data. So it’s not so much about downloading other people’s knowledge as it is about having an excuse to say, “Hey, new play partner. I’m doing a unit on bondage. Will you help me with my homework? I want to try this meditation.” And then just say like, oh, did I like that experience? Would I changed something different or do something different about that experience next time? Is this a fetish of mine or does it not have that much heat for me? So it’s really more experiential and an excuse to get out into the world and do things than it is about sitting at your computer watching videos and reading porn. Although there is that too.

Sinclair Sexsmith: It’s an excuse, also, to put the time in to the exploration, right? We can all think like, “Oh, I really want to know more about that thing,” but if we don’t actually invest with time and sometimes with money, we’re not going to actually get the information about ourselves that we want to get. So this is our best idea at some places to start experimenting and figuring out where someone falls, where they want to fall, what they want to do, how they want to change their current partnership or what kind of new things they want, where they’re moving, how they’re evolving. It’s also just really fun. I love… We did it live as submissive playground exclusively for five or six times now, and it’s just so fun for me to have all these deep conversations with people about dominance and submission, and where they’re coming from, and what they like and don’t like, and why and how that works for them, and where they want to tweak and file.

This course now is on demand, so it’s a little different. We’re not doing it with a cohort where everybody’s going through it. But there are more options for support and connection through a chat room that we have set up and through coaching individually and through the Patreon also which does have the live webinars and people making friends and communicating with each other and connecting through that little community.

Dawn Serra: If someone was interested in it, where could they get more information about the course and how can people stay in touch with the two of you?

Sinclair Sexsmith: DSplayground.com is the DS playground. It’s an easy one. Keeping in touch with my primary website, Sugarbutch.net and my contact info is on there. I rarely am on Instagram right now as @MrSexsmith, MRSmith. And the Patreon is also Mr.Sexsmith so that all of those ways will get to me.

To get to rife, you guys can ask to talk to me too. But also, if you look at thegenderbook.com, his work– he’s a professional illustrator, designer and has illustrated and co-created The Gender Book. So there’s information on him there.

rife: And Kinkopoly. 

Sinclair Sexsmith: And also Kinkopoly, which is what it sounds like. It’s a kinky monopoly game, which is really fun.

rife: Awarded board game most likely to start an orgy. 

Dawn Serra: That is an award to hold with on.

Sinclair Sexsmith: It’s also a little on the goofy side. You can play it with your rugby team as rife has done and it’s not necessarily overly personal. It’s more on the goofy side and everybody gets consent tokens that they can or I’m sorry, safe word tokens that they can call a safe word at any time.

Dawn Serra: I am totally gonna check that out. I will have all of these links in the show notes for people to check out and click through and hopefully check out the course. I want to thank you both so much for being here and sharing so honestly and vulnerably about your experiences and sharing your wisdom. This has been amazing.

Sinclair Sexsmith: Thank you. Thanks for having us. 

rife: Great to be here.

Dawn Serra: To everybody who tuned in, please do click through. Support them on Patreon. Check out their DSplayground and follow all of the places. Thank you to you Sinclair and rife. And until next time, I’m Dawn Serra. Bye

Dawn Serra: A huge thanks to The Vocal Few, the married duo behind the music featured and this week’s intro and outro. Find them at vocalfew.com Head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to support the show and get awesome weekly bonuses. 

As you look towards the next week, I wonder what will you do differently that rewrites an old story, revitalizes a stuck relationship or helps you to connect more deeply with your pleasure?