It took me a long time to get comfortable with partners bratting during play. As someone who is putting herself out there and using all her confidence and bravado to run a scene it felt a little disrespectful to have the other person shut down the momentum of a scene by no-selling.
But I've discovered that bratting comes in different flavors and different kinds of bratting usher in different responses.
A brat could rise to meet the challenge with a fierce tone and make me attitude about the affair. This is when the one running the scene needs to physically or mentally overpower. To make the brat know, not believe-- but know; that they are helpless in this moment and have abandoned their desire to fight back.
But they may take an approach of teasing. When offered a suggestion/command they may approach with an air of Oh, will I? that indicates less of a desire to be shut down and more a desire to escalate. To raise the stakes. To up the ante of a scene. This kind of bratting should be met with teasing in return. A reminder of why this dynamic exists and what this scene is leading to. I find when you say something and their eyes flash or they offer a whimper that's when you have them.
Another approach is that coy and inviting tone. This one carries more of a maaaaaybe... tone that may be seem have the language of rejection but the tone of pure invitation. It's an offer. A request for a roadmap, a desire to know where this is going so the offer can be accepted. It's saying 'I am not going to come to you, why don't you come to me?' and the correct response is to tenderly do so. At least in my experience, meeting coy tones with harsh tones doesn't work out.
Bratting is just another kind of communication in the language of a scene. Learning to listen and engage in kind is the key to a good pacing.
Essentially the tones boil down to Conflict, Teasing and Invitation. Each should be met in kind. The bold harshness of conflict should be shut down firmly. The smirking mischief of teasing should be rewarded with more fun and the invite should be met with promise.
At least this is how it has been in my experience.
Bratting is, at its best, a "please escalate" request, and can take a scene lovely places. But only when a partner is ok with that flavor of banter. Not everyone is.
But gosh I love being a brat with a partner who's good with that.
Mmmmm, yes, I love this framing so much. It's so consistent with my style of bratting.
I love the conflict for the same reason I love resistance play- I don't want to feel like I'm just playing along, I want to know that I am being overpowered/outsmarted.
I like to call the teasing kind of style "mischievous compliance". Obeying in such a way that makes it clear I'm definitely on board with what's happening and also definitely following the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it, and it's exactly as framed here, to up the ante.
But yeah, bratting is one of my absolute favourite kinds of playfulness, and if I've done it right, I'll be a puddle of submission by the end of it, and I'm super super blessed to have partners who are good with that and have the confidence to approach me in a "do what you want, you'll get got regardless" demeanour.
