24/7

When people talk about 24/7 in terms of BDSM they are usually talking about a lifestyle where BDSM is present 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. Having said that, it's clear that activities such as flogging or caning are not the sorts of things which can be engaged in continuously, so while the fantasy idea of spending every hour of every day tied to a flogging bench being whipped into a frenzy of endless orgasms is attractive it's also clearly not practical.

24/7 can be different things to different people, but the one aspect which tends to be present in all 24/7 relationships---whether they are live-in or live-separate---is the continuous awareness each person has of ongoing presence of their partner in their life and the disparity of power or authority that this involves.

Commonly this involves two people where one is aware that the other is their dominant, and where the other is aware that their partner is their submissive AND this awareness effects how they feel and react during the day, even when they're not together. It might be that this plays out with the submissive modifying their everyday behaviour to reflect the standards their dominant wants them to display, and with the dominant planning and arranging present and future activities knowing that they have their submissive at their disposition---either immediately at the end of a telephone call, or when they next get together again---to carry through these plans.

When the two of them are together the submissive may devote themselves either to actual personal service or to being ready and available when their partner requires them. This may be for typical BDSM activities---such as flogging, bondage or just sex---or may be for more pedestrian activities such as shopping, errands, assistance with other projects, and so on.

The important point here is the awareness of the relationship and that this awareness serves to modify how each feels and reacts, especially when they're not together. If two people have some sort of BDSM relationship and when they're apart they just do as they please with no special regard to their partner then this is not 24/7. This is particularly the case, for example, where two people live together and only get into BDSM "mode" when they decide to play and head off to the dungeon or unpack the floggers and the chains. This is part-time BDSM based around play and is not 24/7.

We can perhaps describe 24/7 in another way by saying that 24/7 BDSM relationships tend to be biased towards an ever-present dominant/submissive or [[master/slave dynamic. This means that there is a constant awareness by the partners of their role and the authority owned by the master or dominant. That's not to say that the authority is continuously exercised, but when it isn't being actively used that it is instead there simmering and ready for use at any time rather than not being there at all. This necessarily leads to a different attitude of the partners to each other compared to a relationship where the partners are equal except during play (such as during scenes as mentioned in the preceding paragraph).