Honorific titles

There is a protocol when describing certain relationships to apply honorific titles.  In particular when referring to Dominants (or Dommes).  See, I did it just then.  I capitalised the first letter. For a submissive, the lower case.  I do differentiate when writing non-fiction and I would do for real people, though I have not written about real people.  However, in my books?  It was a dilemma. To begin with I did use capitals and then when I decided to publish my stories, I wondered how it would be perceived.  To somebody unfamiliar with the lifestyle and its accompanying nuances, would it put off the reader? Appear pretentious?  I would capitalise Q for the queen, G for God and other job titles, but D for Dominant?

In the end I took out the capitals. I’m not writing these books for a fixed audience of and it looked better to read.  Also, my grammar checker threw a wobbly.

However, there are exceptions.  I do use D when abbreviating to D/ s or Dom / sub because it defines the relationship, rather than an individual.  In the same way TTWD is used for the board definition of This Thing We Do or BDSM to cover a range of activities and people.  I also, when writing from the perspective of a character, such as an email or text message, used the upper case, because the character would use the honorific title in their own writings.

So, I may have offended some by my decision or perhaps it’s not that important. What I have tried to be is consistent. An important element of the D/s dynamic.

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