Uncommon Curiosity

When I first discovered BDSM resources online, I stumbled onto very formal versions of D/s without knowing it.  Negotiation looked like a ballet performed to music I couldn’t hear to accompany words I didn’t understand.  The whole thing seemed way beyond me, and like nothing I’d ever be able to do, let alone want to try.

I wish I had known then what I know now.  Negotiation, at its purest, is simple.  Not easy, certainly, but simple.  You tell your partner what you want.  If you’d like, you can incorporate elaborate rituals around it and make it seem exotic and frilly, or you can just turn to your partner during lunch and say, “you know, I don’t like it when you lick my arm.  Please don’t do it again.”

In fact, negotiation really only has two rules:  One is to be honest, and the other is to plan to do it before you’re naked and strapped to a rack.  It seems almost silly to say this, but negotiation HAS to be done ahead of time.  Some people are able to meet and negotiate on the spot, mere minutes before they play, and some can’t.  I’ve found over the years that I need to do it much earlier than that.  Once I’m in a dungeon, the sounds, the sights and the smells affect me in dangerously seductive ways, and I tend to agree to all sorts of things that aren’t really gonna be good for me.  Regardless of how much advance warning you need, negotiation is something that MUST be attended to beforehand.

As  a case in point, during one of my visits to the Big Pink House, I had the opportunity to be whacked on by Wendell and his 4-foot flogger.  He whacked my back, he whacked my ass, he whacked my thighs and I was in heaven (ok, technically, he hit me so hard that I fell to my knees a few times, which is, in fact, my idea of heaven) when he suddenly switched it up and hit me with a paddle.  Now, normally that wouldn’t be a problem – most people who love floggings also like paddlings – but personally I can’t take much in the way of paddles.  I can take 7s and 8s (out of ten) from the flogger, but from a paddle, I top out at 3s and 4s.  Since we didn’t discuss it ahead of time, he didn’t realize it would be a problem, and when he hit me, I fell to the ground in more pain than I knew how to handle, and had to stop the scene.

Let me be very clear – stopping a scene is always the right answer when you get more than you can take, but I was still bummed I couldn’t continue.  Sometimes it’s just a pause, a moment to collect yourself and say, “that was too much for me,” before you get back into the swing of things, but this one was a full stop because it knocked me right out of happy endorphin/adrenaline space and into a bad place in my head.

Afterward we both felt a bit sheepish, because we both know better.  However, neither of us was thinking of it as any big deal ahead of time…I had been helping him with some leather work and he innocently (actually, come to think of it, nothing about Wendell really qualifies as “innocent”) asked if I’d like to take a few rounds with the big flogger and I jumped at the chance.  No big deal, right?  For some people, yeah, that would be fine.  For me…well, I’ve got some hard limits and peculiarities with intensity (hard as you want with a flogger, light on a paddle, love cold, hate heat…) that make it more important for me to remember to say something like, “yeah, but just the flogger, ok?”  In a moment like that, the scope of the negotiation depends on how well you know your partner and how well they know you.  It wasn’t the first time we had played, but it was territory we’d never discussed before (beyond, “hey, would you whack on me with that monster flogger sometime?  Pretty please?”) so I really should have said something.

I find that negotiations are hardest for me in the beginning, when I’m still feeling out a new partner.  All the worries about getting to know a new person (“Am I dressed ok?  Are they gonna like my stories about my grandma?”) get exaggerated when you’re talking about sex and desire (“Do I look ok naked?  Is she gonna think I’m weird for asking about puppy play?”)

One solution is to find a checklist online that you can fill out together.  This is the one I sent to Kyle to get the ball rolling back when we first started talking about BDSM, mostly because he didn’t have enough experience yet to know what to ask for.  It’s very long, and fairly exhaustive, but was a really good springboard for conversations about what each of us likes (hint:  most BDSM terms are well-defined on wikipedia if you’re feeling too shy to ask someone.)  Another solution is to go to a kinky website and talk together about what you’re seeing. (Kink.com has a lot of different options, with hundreds of free trial photos and short video clips, but keep in mind that professional porn is not gonna look much like the playing you’ll be doing unless you have 20,000 square feet of dungeon and a dozen fetish models on hand.)  Ask each other questions like:  What do you like about it?  What do you hate about it?  Does it scare you?  Is that good or bad?  Why?  You can even start with a piece of fiction that you find really sexy and discuss what you like about it.   Once you’re more comfortable with negotiations, they can become more routine (“flogger, no paddle, as hard as you want, no knees, marks are ok below the waist, please pull my hair and call me names, my ears are really sensitive and I love feeling pressure against my chest, I can get bratty, but I’m really just looking for loving approval”) but in the beginning, longer conversations will give you better results.

Some areas to consider for a negotiation:

1)  What toys will be used?  Where would you like them?  How hard do you like them?

2)  Do you like giving pain?  How much?  Do you like receiving pain?  How much?

3)  What language will be used?  Do you like being humiliated, or would you prefer a loving response from the top?  Do you like to humiliate?  What sort of response are you hoping for from the bottom?

4)  How will the bottom be restrained?  Do they have favorite materials?  (I personally prefer metal chain to rope.)  Will there be sensory deprivation (blindfolds, earplugs, hood, etc.)?

5)  Will the scene be sexual?  What sort of sexual contact is allowed?

6)  Are there any body parts that are off limits?  (“Off limits” can mean anything from “don’t hurt me there” to “don’t touch me there.”)

7)  How does the bottom like to respond?  How does the top like to respond?  Will it be formal submission, or a force scene, or something in between?  Will it be friendly or adversarial?  Would you like to play out a particular storyline or set of characters?

8)  How will you each be dressed?  Is nudity something you like?  Dislike?  Hope for?  Dread?

9)  How are you each hoping to feel?  Like a good girl/boy?  Like a bad girl/boy?  Scared?  Exhilarated?  Desired?  Punished?  Powerful?  Loved?  Humiliated?  Terrified?  Canine?  Equine?

10)  Do you like surprises?

11)  How will you signal that something has gone wrong?  My favorite is the well-loved (and oft-despised) “green/yellow/red.”  It’s simple, easy to say, easy to remember, and easy to understand.  “Green” means that everything’s great, keep going; “Yellow” means that you’re getting close to an edge, so caution is necessary, perhaps even a pause is called for; and “Red” means stop everything and take down the restraints as fast as possible – the ultimate “game over.”  Some people prefer a “safe word” (something easy to remember, but personally significant, that will stop the scene.)  Some people prefer to play without safe words and rely on clear communication.  Regardless of what you choose, you must know ahead of time what to do if one of you suddenly screams, “oh, god, please, stop, PLEASE STOP!  I CAN’T TAKE ANY MORE!!!”  Does that mean stop?  Does that mean go?  Does that mean you’re gonna get a big ol’ basket of cookies cuz you’re the best Dom EVER?

12)  What kind of aftercare will be provided to each of you?  Hugging?  Sitting together quietly?  Lots of kissing?  Going out for burgers? A handshake and a thank you?  Husker Du?

And if you want to play with someone who doesn’t want to put the effort into negotiation that would make you feel comfortable?  Trust me, you’re not compatible, and it’s better that you discover that now, rather than the moment that hot wax is hurtling towards your freshly-clamped nipples as you bark like a dog while standing in chocolate pudding thinking, “this is not what I thought we’d be doing.”

And now there’s one more thing I’d like to add.

*DING!*

That was the sound of my Super Magical Bondage Wand (which looks remarkably like my sparkly purple riding crop) magically granting you the freedom and the responsibility to honestly tell your partner exactly what you want.  If, like me, you can’t take a paddling no matter how hard you try, you need to say something.  If being called a “slut” is gonna bring tears to your eyes and make you want to run away, and that’s a bad thing, then say so.  If being called a “slut” is gonna bring tears to your eyes and make you want to run away, and that’s what you’ve always wanted, then say so.  If you’d like the other person to ride around on your back like John Wayne…well, you get the idea.  If your top, or bottom, doesn’t know what you want, how in the world are they gonna give it to you?

I guarantee you, even in the three short years I’ve been “in the scene” it’s become clear to me that whatever (really, whatever) it is that turns you on, there’s someone out there who likes it just as much, and you’re gonna have to speak up to find ‘em.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Alfred Kinsey, the noted sex researcher, which becomes more meaningful to me every time I hear it:

“The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform.”

Now get out there and curl some toes, ya hear?