service-oriented submission

{{Short description|Erotic practice}}

In BDSM, service-oriented submission (or sometimes servitude) is the performance of personal tasks for a dominant partner, as part of a submissive role in a BDSM relationship.{{cite web|work=Vice|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/slutever-lifestyle-slave-bdsm-karley-sciortino/|author=Sciortino, Karley|date=January 31, 2018|title=A 'Lifestyle Slave' Is More Than a Sub Who Does All Your Chores for Free}} The submissive is sometimes said to be in service to the dominant. Service-oriented submission is part of a spectrum of submissive behaviors, and not all submissives are service-oriented.{{Cite book|last=Shahbaz|first=Caroline|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/960040878|title=Becoming a Kink Aware Therapist.|date=2016|publisher=Taylor and Francis|isbn=978-1-315-29532-9|oclc=960040878}}

In domestic service roles, the submissive can receive pleasure and satisfaction from performing services for their dominant, such as serving as a butler, waitress, chauffeur, maid or housekeeper. Many derive satisfaction from being focused on the needs of another, rather than themselves.{{Cite book|last=Easton|first=Dossie|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/793001222|title=The new bottoming book|date=2001|publisher=Greenery|others=Janet W. Hardy, Angela Beck|isbn=978-1-890159-87-0|edition=New|location=San Francisco, Calif.|oclc=793001222}}

Service-oriented submission can be performed in either servile, or dignified ways.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}} Bootblacking is a service-oriented task performed within the leather subculture.{{Cite web|date=2016-04-12|title=Bootblacking by Niki Smith|url=https://www.ohjoysextoy.com/bootblacking/|access-date=2021-10-12|website=Oh Joy Sex Toy|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|date=2016-05-11|title=A Top's Guide to Being in the Bootblacking Chair|url=https://www.devianceanddesire.com/2016/05/bootblacking/|access-date=2021-10-12|website=Deviance & Desire|language=en-GB}}

Bootblacking may sometimes involve boot-licking as part of the activity.{{Cite web|date=2019-09-18|title=Inside the Surprisingly Intimate Fetish of Boot Licking|url=https://www.out.com/sex/2019/9/18/boot-licking-fetish-leather-bdsm-bootblacks|access-date=2021-10-12|website=www.out.com|language=en}}

The satisfaction of service submission is often combined with the pleasures of fetishes, the pleasures of humiliation, or both. A submissive may rub his or her dominant's feet because the sub enjoys providing the service, has a foot fetish, enjoys being "lower" than the dominant, or any combination.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}