My Subs Have Unionized

Confirmed 75,663

Part of a series on /r/Relationships. [View Related Entries]

About

My Subs Have Unionized is a copypasta originating from a troll post in Reddit's /r/relationship_advice in which a person wrote a story claiming they were in a dominant/submissive relationship and that his multiple "subs" had approached him with a list of demands to be followed lest they leave the relationship, essentially forming a union. Once a screenshot of the post was posted to Twitter, users there turned its title, "My (25M) subs (23F, 26F, 22M, 28M, 28M) have unionized," into a snowclone in which "subs" was replaced with different objects.

Origin

On April 29th, 2019, Reddit user dennismiller2024 posted a thread titled "My (25M) subs (23F, 26F, 22M, 28M, 28M) have unionized" to /r/relationship_advice.^[1] The post details how the poster is in a polyamorous dominant-submissive relationship with five people acting as his submissives. One day, the subs approach him with a list of demands including "Allow kissing between subs" and "Demands are only to be followed after 8 pm." The post has since been deleted, but has been archived on removedreddit.^[2] It reads:

I have been in a committed polyamorous dominant submissive relationship for the past three months. I’m the Dom and I have 5 subs, three men and 2 women. It’s been going great, it’s all consensual and everyone if having a good time. We do not live together, but we hang out at my apartment almost every day. It is not a purely sexual relationship either. We all share an emotional connection and it’s like any other relationship but poly and bdsm.
Of course, as the dom, there are some rules. They need to call me master. No kissing anyone except for me. If i tell someone to do something, they do it (within bounds of course). The punishments depend on the person, some of my subs get whipped, some publicly humiliated. It all depends on what I agree on with each sub. We have safe words too, and we stop the roleplay whenever anyone says one. It seems weird to vanillas but this is what we enjoy and we like to be open about it. Everything has been great.
At least I thought everything was going great. I woke up a couple days ago and told one of my subs to get me a cup of coffee. He didn’t do it. I told him that I was going to punish him (public humiliation which can be easily resisted) and he said that he wouldn’t do it. Now, if one of my subs acts like this I break it off with them so I threatened him that I would kick him out of the relationship. The other subs chimed in and said that if I kick him out, they all leave. That’s right; my submissives have unionized.
They handed me a sheet of paper with a list of demands. The demands included (I’m not sharing all of them for their privacy), “Allow kissing between subs” and “Demands are to only be followed after 8 pm”. I tried to negotiate, but they were firm in their demands. I couldn’t punish them. My hands are tied, and I have no power anymore.
I told them that I would think about it for a couple days. They haven’t left me yet, they still stay overnight, but this list of demands is lingering over our relationship and our sex life. They want to keep a dominant, and no one has stepped up to replace me. They thought about finding a new dom online but only if I don’t give into their demands. I want to negotiate because I don’t want to give up too much power. I offered “kissing subs only after 6 pm” and “follow demands after 1 pm”. I also offered following each demand separately but not both together.
I really do have feelings for them, and they have feelings for me. But the power balance was shifted when they unionized and I don’t know what to do. The relationship isn’t as satisfying anymore and I don’t know if it will ever be.
What should I do. Do I let them get a new dom and leave them? Or do I give into their demands and relinquish some of my power?

Spread

On July 26th, 2019, a screenshot of the post's title was posted to Twitter^[3] by user @welshsnarker, gaining over 16,000 retweets and 67,000 likes (shown below).

This led to a surge in interest in the post. The title was posted to /r/CompleteAnarchy^[4] later that day, gaining over 420 points. The entire post was posted in /r/copypasta^[5] the same day, gaining over 1,100 points. As the post spread on Twitter, users parodied the post as a snowclone by replacing "subs" with other objects, often creating references to pop culture. User @avantredguard^[6] tweeted the snowclone with a biblical reference, gaining over 5,400 retweets and 26,000 likes (shown below, left). User @ldrinkh20^[7] posted it with a Neon Genesis Evangelion reference, gaining over 5,600 retweets and 18,000 likes (shown below, right).

Several people made jokes related to the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary. For example, Twitter user @notjessietwit^[8] made the joke, gaining over 30 likes (shown below, left), as did user @ohumsarah (shown below, right).