If you are considering undergoing some form of initiation, consider asking yourself a few questions:
Where have you been? What are you leaving? What are you coming into?
What will you gain by becoming part of this group that you did not have before?
How will you integrate this into your life?
Who are you doing this for?
Where will the initiation take place?
Are there any individuals to ask about what it is like to be/have a mentor?
How will you be tested?
Can you fail? What happens if you do? How will you denote success?
What will be expected of you during the initiation period? After you are initiated?
Will initiating into this group exclude you from other groups?
What will you have to give up?
Who are the other members of this group?
Why do you want to be initiated into this specific group?
Also consider questions that are rolling around in your head. Your own inner wisdom knows more than your active mind does. Listen to your intuition. Also consider using tools such as divination or stream-of-thought journaling to look at whether undergoing a specific initiation is right for you. You don’t have to have the answer to all of these questions, or any of them really, but spending a few moments at least asking “why” can be beneficial in the long run.
Be aware that some initiations are not about joining a specific group. For example, you may long for a ritual or initiation to mark a point in your own life. How many of us did not get a quality rite of manhood or womanhood? Because awkward nookie at prom doesn’t count.
One example of this sort of initiation is to find a more experienced individual who will guide the journeyer into their next steps forward. Sensual mystic, Dominatrix and Erotic educator Cleo Dubois encourages this route in setting a path towards realizing erotic desires. By guiding an individual or couple through a ritual of erotic power exchange, she says her “intention is to share the magic of consensual erotic power exchange with you and give you the confidence you need as you step into your role: Dominant, Submissive, Switch. I encourage each person to work out challenges that may get in the way of successful, intimate, erotic BDSM scenes.”
Other individuals combine self-initiation with body modification to literally change the body to match the new spirit. This idea is not exclusive to kink. Circumcision and female genital modification have been used to mark boys and girls as men and women of specific faiths or tribes for generations. There are groups around the globe that undergo scarification, full body tattoos, subdermal implants, neck stretching, piercings and more, to note not just within the group but to the world at large that “this is one of us.” The line between “tradition” and abusive mutilation approved in the name of tradition can be hard to see at times, but needs to be considered as we move forward with eyes wide open as a world, no matter how important the markings of tribal membership might seem. Various forms of genital modification on children who cannot give consent is an example of this issue.
Some individuals in BDSM and kink transform their bodies and attire for the world to see them in their new identity with ease. They might choose to dress in cultural uniform, pierce their faces, wear collars out in the world at large or have full body tattoos done. But this is not required by most kink-initiatory groups. If this is something you desire, or have no interest in, consider asking the group what is their members are expected to present as being full members. Also, pay attention. Watching and learning group social norms is part of the initiatory experience. Failing to notice that everyone in the group has their nose pierced and then being shocked when asked to have your nose pierced at the end of the trials, may surprise your initiators too!
You may not know you are being tested for initiation, or when you have succeeded. Just by living and doing your thing, groups may be paying attention. This is especially true if you do not currently have any group affiliation but show respect, honor, skills and potential. By being yourself, your peers and elders may come up later and honor you for being one of them. You yourself could even consider coming up and honoring your peers, elders or new members in some way. Even if it is just with an honest thank you.
There are other times when you may be called to honor yourself. Sometimes, we do not have anyone around to congratulate us for a job well done. Other times we inherit a position of power from someone who has passed away, such as when the head of a leather family passes away, leaving you in charge. There are moments when we realized that we have changed inside, and we have earned our leather or have truly been initiated, even if there was no sudden shift.
In these cases, we can take the time and energy to acknowledge our own accomplishments. Look at all we survived. If you wake up one morning after years of debate and realize that no, you do deserve to wear that Master’s cap, you don’t have to wait for someone else to recognize it too. Slide it on. Look in the mirror. Are you being honest and true? Is this really who you are now? One of the reasons that earned leathers are not gifted as often as they might be in our community is because so many of us doubt if we have the right to gift. If no one gave us a cap, ring, collar, or vest, who are we to give one to someone else? It has to start somewhere, and it’s okay to have it start with you.
If you find yourself gifted with something, and you are not sure you deserve it, that’s okay. For many, we do not earn our leathers once. Though earning our leathers can be like Boy Scout badges, honoring a milestone, it is not that way for everyone. There are many for whom earned leathers is about, as Master Archer once said, “Earning the right to wear it every time you put it on.” You do not get a free pass from here on forward. You must prove your Mastery, your Slavery, your club membership, your devotion to a lifestyle or tribe, each time it touches your skin. You do your leathers proud each time you walk the walk, not by hiding behind your hide.
Power of the Ordeal Witness
When planning an ordeal, another point to consider is who will bear witness to it. Is this challenge to be done in an entirely solitary manner? Will it be announced in advance to your leather group or coven, with everyone waiting to hear the results? Are you considering having a small group of friends watch over your work? Or are you planning on undergoing this trial before a group of strangers at a local club?
No matter what path you are working in, including the element of the witness will change the nature of the working. If someone else sees what you have done, there is additional validation to it not “all being in your head.” In addition, the energy from the audience will oftentimes feed into the work you are doing, making it all the more powerful, facilitating the experience that needs to take place. That is, it will, if they are on the same wavelength.
If you are doing something challenging to you, and it is about surviving something challenging, an audience who also thinks and feels that what you are doing is challenging will ramp up that feeling of being challenged. Everyone else in the space is nervous, or inwardly rooting for you, or pushing you with encouragements. However, if what you are doing is challenging to you, and the witnesses are unimpressed and express that fact, it can deflate the power of the ordeal or inversely make it even more challenging with the feeling of “why is it so simple for everyone else?” I have also seen audiences who were unaware of the ordeal being an ordeal try to step in and “save” the Journeyer or Seeker, which can cause all kinds of additional issues.
The more individuals that are involved in the mix, the more personalities and ingredients must be kept in mind. If you are working with an Ordeal Top, Shaman or some other Guide in your ordeal, make sure they have some experience with crowd control. Did the Guide hand-select the witnesses? If so, it is easy to have them briefed in advance about the working. They can be set on the same vibe in advance to amplify, diffuse, or simply hold space for the energy of the scene. If the group bearing witness is an unknown quantity for you or your Guide, consider what can be done to create an ener
getic or physical wall between you and the witnesses, or whether it is right to do the ordeal then and there.
If I am undergoing an ordeal in a public or semi-public setting, I prefer as either a Journeyer or as a Guide having a team that can audience-wrangle. These individuals can act as “shills” or good examples as to appropriate behavior. They say “oooh” when they need to, “aaaah” when it’s appropriate, chant when asked to, and can stop overly helpful viewers from being “white knights.” It can be scary to see someone screaming and looking like they are not enjoying it. Some people may want to “stop the bad wo/man from doing that horrible thing.” Having a team to help out can take care of this issue.
When a team is unavailable, the simple act of going to the party host and telling them the rough idea of what you have planned is an option. Let them know that if the Bottom screams or safewords, you will be going forward anyway. The host (or dungeon monitor, or safety person, or whomever) may want to hear that fact from the Bottom themselves. In many play spaces, saying “Red” or “Safeword” loudly will bring the dungeon to a full stop and everyone coming over to help end whatever “bad” thing is happening. If you plan on pushing past this, warning them in advance is not just a good idea, but a necessity. Misunderstandings can lead to not being invited back to parties, being banned from local communities, nasty things being said, or in some cases, local authorities being called.
That said, having witnesses can be truly powerful. Many Bottoms will go further than they thought they could because the energy of the space that was provided by the witnesses helped make it possible. Some Tops will push their bodies harder and stay focused for longer because they want to save face. An energetically resonant scene at the next station over can spill energy onto your scene, and in doing so make it go even deeper. And especially in the case of initiations or rites of passage, having others who can tell the story afterwards can more effectively transform the role of the initiate in the community’s eyes.
Triggers and Being Squicked
There are things in life that might be traumatic ordeals that are not being discussed in the context of sacred kink. Rape. Abuse. Interrogation. Torture. Though these are forms of ordeal experiences that might leave a person transformed afterwards, they are not what we will we be discussing in this chapter. But know that there is some work in the Ordeal Path that has been used to process some of those traumas.
There are also individuals who also use some of the archetypes of those real-life traumas to craft kink ordeals that may trigger some who have experienced such traumas, such as what as referred to as “rape play” or “interrogation scenes” in the BDSM or kink communities. Rape and “rape play” are profoundly different experiences. One is a non-consensual experience wherein a person perpetrates sexual violence upon another, whether they appear “violent” or seem “harmless.” This includes overpowering a person, coercion, abuse of authority, or interacting with a sleeping or drugged person, or a person who is unable to give consent to those activities. The other involves full consent given in advance, where a role-playing scene is set up in which fantasies that look like non-consent can take place.
Bearing witness to a rape play scene can be triggering to some individuals. A trigger is a catalyst for some form of emotional response that is often unwanted. This can include flashbacks, outbursts or even violent responses. There is a difference between being triggered by a situation and being “squicked” or feeling uncomfortable with a concept or topic.
Let’s use the example of a character named Michael. Michael walks into a dungeon play party and sees a scene happening that involves someone being hit with a belt. If Michael is triggered by belting scenes, he might flash back to when his father hit him with a belt, and might want to run away, or even try to break up the other person’s scene. If instead Michael is simply uncomfortable with the concept of anyone using belts as a toy, he is likely being squicked by the scene.
Either way, Michael’s response is about Michael and his emotions, not about the belt, the belting scene, or the two people who are enjoying using the belt as an erotic toy. It is Michael’s responsibility to take care of himself. Michael should likely leave the area in which the scene is happening, and find a place to cool down, process, or otherwise let that experience pass. If there is a concern that the belt was being used unsafely, or is highly likely to be making the rest of the party uncomfortable, Michael can take the concern to the party hosts or dungeon monitors and let them know what is going on. Unless there is direct danger and damage happening, it is worth it for Michael to look at whether his interaction is about what is happening in the scene, or his own squicks and triggers.
No one knows what your triggers are but you. In fact, you might not know what your triggers are until they come up. There are individuals who have triggers as innocuous as a type of cologne, a pattern of fabric, or a specific type of language used in conjunction with sexual activities. Unfortunately, this means that these triggers will not be something you can share in advance.
If triggers arise during a scene, any roleplaying, pain play and bondage should cease and all parties should find a way to help the party who has been triggered. Any person in a scene can become triggered, regardless of their role in the scene. What the triggered person needs varies widely, ranging from needing to continue the scene without that type of play continuing to having you leave the room for a while and letting them call their therapist. Listen to the person, and be aware that their reaction, no matter what it is, is not about you, no matter how they might be responding in the moment. This can be hard to remember if the response involves verbal or physical outbursts of blame on the part of the triggered person. At the end of the day, their triggered mind was responding to some part of their historical trauma, not to you.
During future negotiations or scenes, someone who has triggers or is squicked by certain things now has the ability to communicate that in advance to avoid those things. It is important to be clear with sadistic partners that those lines are truly no-go zones, and it is not okay to do any sort of fear play or teasing around. It might seem funny that someone has a trigger or gets deeply squicked by some seemingly random thing like roses, but choosing to bring roses to the party just to “mess with them” is actually a form of abusive behavior if they have been clear about the issue.
Along the Ordeal Path, some advanced practitioners choose to work into what is behind a trigger and see what is happening there. Both partners deconstruct it, examine it, and construct with full consent on both sides an ordeal ritual in which they look at the stories behind it. During such design it should be decided why the work is being done, lest it simply be a case of exercising your demons rather than exorcising them or reducing their debilitating power in your life.
For Michael’s trigger of belting scenes, he may remember being physically abused by his father for various infractions during childhood, and choose for these forms of advanced workings to do a belting scene with those memories in mind. During the scene his lover chooses not to do such a working with him because he does not want to pretend to be an abusive man, and they enlist the help of another local Ordeal practitioner, who will act as the father role. As the scene plays out, they could arrange to have Michael fight back against his father and beat the person who had been hitting him, or perhaps have his father consider hitting him, and then instead apologize for ever hitting hit him in the past.
But remember not to confuse therapy and potentially therapeutic play. They are not one and the same, and playing with past traumas can be a potential recipe for disaster. Working with kink-friendly therapists, counselors or spiritual guidance can be incredibly valuable, as can taking other outside opinions from people who have done this sort of work before. It is easy for Michael’s mind to replace the face of an abusive father with the face of a perceived abusive Top, or to have Michael debilitated with the memories of his pain and suffering. These are not rituals to be undertaken lightly, and should not be considered a form of
casual play.
Exercising or Exorcising Demons
Every single human being has a shadow, a part of ourselves that carries all of our demons, darkness, pain, taboo, and ghosts. If all we had was the lightness of being, could we truly appreciate what we have and who we are? We would be flat, one-dimensional. By having a shadow side, we become more than cardboard cutouts of ourselves.
This is the subconscious. This is the part of us that longs for curious desires. This is our fantasy life, our dream self, our charged memories mixed with past trauma and a splash of erotic desire.
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