Love and BDSM, sticky, painful, clinical digging. You have been warned.

Touching upon a sore spot for many.... so trigger warning? I have been digging in many corners of psychology, Freud, drama, trauma, Tantra, internet, my own experience, talking to some kinky friends and psychologist and here it is:

When deep BDSM is combined with Tantra, it opens the heart: love, transference, and tests the Mistress's boundaries.

In true BDSM—when it's deep, conscious, and held with power and presence—love often enters the playroom. Not the romanticised, projected fairy-tale version of love, but something more raw, more real. A sense of being seen, claimed, sense of belonging, being guided, transformed.

When a Dominant holds space with care and intensity, when she touches the mind, the cock of her submissive, she inevitably touches his heart as well. The lines between Eros, reverence, and attachment can blur. And yes—many subs fall in love with their Mistress. That is not a flaw. It is a sign of emotional depth, of the intensity BDSM can activate.

How do the emotions in intense BDSM sessions affect sub/slave relationship towards the Mistress?

1. Emotional intensity into a sub space

BDSM play, especially when done with deep presence alters the nervous system. All the hormons, such as endorphins, adrenaline, oxytocin, and dopamine flood the body. In those heightened states (read: sub space), the submissive feels alive, seen, held, and invited to be fully vulnerable. In the safety of that container, in trust, he often lets go.

That intensity can easily be mistaken for romantic dreaming, when it's actually a cocktail of emotional catharsis, gratitude, arousal, and surrender.

2. Let's dig deeper: transference and (my favourite) projection

In the process of giving up control, the submissive may unconsciously begin to project unmet emotional needs onto the Mistress. She becomes not only the FemDom, but also: a healer/fixer, a mother figure, an erotic muse, a Goddess, a symbol of safety and authority. This is known as transference—a psychological phenomenon where someone redirects feelings for one person (often from childhood *) onto another.

3. Bonding and attachment

Consistent play, rituals, and intimacy can lead to a very strong attachment. The Mistress becomes a fixed point of stability, transformation, and arousal. For a submissive, who is emotionally open, this often leads to deep devotion, loyalty, and sometimes falling in love. This love may be genuine (even on both sides). This can lead into beautiful friendships too.

4. The Risk of Expectation Collapse

When a submissive begins to expect emotional reciprocity—romantic involvement, exclusivity, caretaking beyond the container —things can unravel. If those expectations aren't met, because the Mistress remains clear in her role and boundaries or finds a romantic partner, (oh whatever the reason! For heavens sake it is her perogative after all), the submissive may feel rejected, jalous or abandoned.
This can result in: emotional withdrawal, blame or guilt projection, accusations of boundary-crossing, rewriting of past scenes or agreements. This is where the Domme's clarity and boundaries are essential. She must hold firm in her power, while also recognizing that part of deep domination is stirring emotional shadows.

5. Healing or Harming—The Submissive's Choice

What the submissive does with those stirred emotions is key. Some use the dynamic as a path for growth, healing, and emotional maturity. Others—if not there yet—may spiral into codependency, avoidance, replacement or even hostility.

Over the recent years I have encountered this oh so many times. The deeper the connection, the deeper the impact. Here is the the paradox. Because sometimes, what begins as deep devotion turns into disappointment. On both ends. Except it takes a true Mistress to recognise the paradox and calls for action on her end.

Instead of metabolising, alchemizing the grief, the sub often lashes out, blames her, accuses her, says she crossed boundaries, he never voiced clearly. He forgets the safe words he never used. He rewrites the power exchange to place himself as victim and her as villain.

We call that romantic transference collapse (hello Mr Freud!)

This is exactly the time where the Dominant must act from clarity and her inner alignment. She must pause and feel: Where does my care end? And where does his healing begin—without me as the container?
If he cannot process the intensity, if he weaponises the vulnerability he once offered freely, if he clings to her as a fantasy rather than meeting her as a woman of power—then it is time to release him. With firmness, with compassion, without guilt.
I never fuel that fantasy.

Einstein called it madness: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.And yet—how many submissive men repeat the loop of romantic transference?
They kneel, they fall in love, they project, they ache. And when the Mistress doesn't feed their fantasy, sets her boundaries? They go… off to another lady, secretly and unconsciously hoping she will finally give them what they never dared to give themselves: emotional responsibility, accountability, integrity, commitment. The faces change. The unmet longing stays, until and if the slave finally chooses to meet himself fully in the mirror she holds— he is not surrendering, he is escaping. That's where even the pain offers the relief in his internal suffering.
There are many things and tools to do inner work. Slave or not, Misstress or not, we all should be doing it, WORKING. ON. OUR. SHADOWS. For that we need to confront our ego (that's however another story for another time).

Not all who kneel are ready to rise.
And not all who fall in love are ready to hold that love in integrity.

I bet many of you here can relate to either side, submissive or Dominant in this text. Let's shake hands. Shout out and leave the comment.

Love,

MM

*Childhood Deconditioning (PRIMAL) is a very intensive therapy that works by bringing unconscious childhood wounds into conscious awareness—grief, shame, abandonment, the hunger to be seen. PRIMAL helps meet that inner child directly, heal the wounds, help with relationship with Mistress, but is also beneficial for other (romantic ) or not relationships. For me, personally it was the biggest gift I could have given myself, next to my first Ayahuwaska journey in which I experienced the ego death.