June 27, 2025
Submissive ≠ Passive: Ways to Take Control Through Surrender
When people hear the word “submissive,” they often imagine someone quiet, obedient, maybe even voiceless. The image is usually one of passivity, someone who simply receives orders, sensations, or structure from a dominant partner. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
In healthy, consensual BDSM dynamics, submission is not about being passive. It’s about choosing, communicating, and co-creating an experience with power running both ways, just in different forms.
Here’s how submission can be a deeply empowered, intentional role, and how you can take control through surrender.
They set the rules before surrendering to them
Submission doesn’t begin in the scene, it begins in negotiation. A submissive outlines their limits, their needs, and their desires. They decide what’s off-limits, what’s up for exploration, and what kind of aftercare they want.
They are not waiting to be told what’s allowed; they define it.
They hold the safe word — and everything it represents
A safe word is often misunderstood as a technicality. But it’s more than that, it’s the ultimate signal of power and trust. When a submissive says the word, everything stops.
It’s not a backup plan — it’s proof that they’re in control of how far the experience goes.
Their pleasure is not a side effect — it’s central
Some assume submissives are only there to serve. But many submissives are deeply tuned into their own pleasure. Whether it’s the physical sensation, the emotional high, or the psychological surrender, their experience is just as important as the dominant’s.
They lead with their reactions, with their consent, with their desire.
They choose who receives their submission
Being submissive doesn’t mean lying back and letting things happen. It means engaging, responding, feeling. It means being fully present in every breath, every command, every touch.
They are not spectators in the scene — they are co-creators.
"A dominant has only as much power as the submissive wants to give them." – Tash Mia, a sexual wellness advocate and professional dominatrix
Tash Mia offers a nuanced perspective, describing power as a dynamic exchange: “I would never say that one person is completely empowered and the other is stripped of it. I see it as a dance where the power floats between the submissive and the dominant. Because the dominant is empowering the submissive to enter a space that is extremely vulnerable. So they're giving that power by providing this very safe space that they're creating to lead them through, but at the same time, the submissive is empowering the dominant to actually do that. That's how I look at it: they empower each other, and that power flows back and forth”.