Do I have to call him sir?

No. Not sir, not anything else. This gets asked so often because the internet is full of people announcing rules they made up, and a beginner has no way of telling those apart from things that actually matter.

Consenting adults only. Everything on this page is about adults over 18 who have freely agreed to it.

Written from first-hand experience or extensive research by the editor.

No. Not sir, not ma'am, not anything. Forms of address are one of the many things two consenting adults over 18 decide between themselves, and there is no authority anywhere that requires one.

I have played happily for years with people I called by their first name throughout, and I have been called by mine while doing things that were anything but casual. The word is not what makes it work.

Where the idea comes from

Partly from fiction, where a title is a fast way of showing a reader what sort of relationship they are looking at. Partly from older leather traditions where forms of address were part of a genuine subculture with its own etiquette. And partly from strangers on the internet who have discovered that announcing protocol is an easy way to sound experienced.

In British spanking circles specifically, the domestic register has produced its own vocabulary, so you will hear sir and quite a lot of first names with a particular emphasis. None of it is standardised and none of it is required.

What a title is actually for

When it works, it is doing one job: marking that the ordinary relationship has paused and a different one is running. It is a verbal switch, and switches are genuinely useful, because most people need something to tell them the evening has changed gear.

That is a real function and a useful one. It is just not the only thing that can perform it. A change of room. A change of clothes. Being told to stand up. Being addressed by full name. Silence. All of these mark a transition, and some of them do it more strongly than a word does. See setting and space.

Alternatives that do the same work

• First names, said differently. The same name in a flatter, slower voice is remarkably effective and requires no vocabulary at all.
• Full name, or surname. "Ms Hargreaves" or just a surname carries the formal register without anybody having to say sir.
• Nothing. Speak to them, do not name them. Plenty of scenes run entirely without either person using a name and nobody notices until afterwards.
• A title only in one direction. Some pairs have the top use a formal address for the receiver and not the reverse, which is a nice inversion and works well in office and interview scenarios.
• A title only at specific moments. Used once, at the start and at the end, rather than every sentence. This is the version I like most, because constant use wears the word out.

If you find it silly

You are in large company. A great many people cannot say sir without hearing how it sounds, and the self-consciousness pulls them straight out of whatever was building. Trying to force through that usually produces the nervous laughing described on what if I laugh.

So say so during negotiation. "I would rather use your name" is a complete sentence. Nobody experienced will mind, and if they do mind, you have learned something useful for the price of one awkward moment.

It is also worth trying once before deciding, in fairness. Some people who are certain they will hate it find that in the middle of a scene, with the room already changed, it lands quite differently from how it sounds in a text message on a Wednesday afternoon.

The version that is a warning sign

There is a specific pattern worth naming. Somebody you have never met insists on a title from the first message, corrects you when you use their name, and treats compliance as a test you are passing or failing before any negotiation has happened.

That is not a dynamic. Authority in this is something two people agree to construct, not something one person announces at a stranger. Anyone doing it to you unilaterally is either play-acting at somebody else's expense or running a script that will not improve once you are in a room with them. See red flags.

The short version

Use a title if you both want one, drop it if either of you does not, and change your mind later if it stops fitting. It is a costume for the voice, and costumes are optional.