The (New and Improved) Loving Dominant

by John Warren

  In a woman’s body the urethral tube may bend a bit on its way to the bladder. However, in a man’s body, the route might be described as a prostate roller-coaster ride. Combine the tube’s fragile nature with its less-than-straight course and you have a situation fraught with peril. While stories abound of people shoving swizzle sticks, pipe cleaners and even pencils up the urethra, most of these are just that, stories. The rest had their end in an emergency room.

  The second danger is infection. While many people consider urine “dirty,” it is almost sterile. It is the rest of the world that is dirty.

  The major trick in using a catheter is to keep the rest of the world’s dirt out of the urinary tract. Failing to do this can lead to a world of hurt.

  First, if you are bound and determined to do this, try to find someone to instruct you. A book is a poor place to learn what is essentially a motor-skills task.

  Second, let me give you some serious warnings. Use only medical urethral catheterization kits. An amateur may be able to make rubber and plastic hose that look like what comes in the kits, but they are rarely as soft or as smoothly cut, and they are probably not sterile.

  Do not use naso-gastric catheters that are sometimes available in leather stores. A rose may be a rose be a rose, etcetera, but a catheter is not necessarily a catheter. There are several reasons for avoiding them, but the best is simply that they aren’t as flexible as urinary catheters. Remember that roller-coaster ride?

  While doctors use solid rods called sounds to work in the urethra, in untrained hands they can be extremely dangerous. If you must play in this area, I recommend passing up anything except the basic urinary catheter kits.

  Finally, if your submissive has a history of bladder infections, of venereal diseases like gonorrhea which affect the urethra, or of kidney stones, catheterization is not for the two of you.

  You will need the following equipment: sterile gloves, Betadine solution, sterile water, catheter kit with a 5-cc syringe, paper tape and a small sterile packet of KY jelly. Some of these items will come in the catheter kit; some you will have to find on your own. You should check if your submissive has any allergic reaction from the paper tape by having him or her wear it next to the skin for a few hours.

  First, you must open the catheter kit and open the package of KY jelly and drop a large dab onto a one of the gauze squares in the kit. Do not let the outside of the KY package touch anything in the kit.

  Next, you must put sterile gloves on and take the folded, sterile, paper towel from the kit and put it at a convenient place so that there is enough room to put the catheter on it. With a female submissive, it is best to have her legs spread widely and work between them. With a male, work from one side with the toweling next to the hip.

  Next, it’s time to sterilize the area. This means, with a man, grab the cock. Remember that the hand you do this with is now not sterile, and it shouldn’t touch anything that is sterile throughout the rest of the procedure. Wipe the entire length of the cock, paying particular attention to the tip, with gauze soaked in Betadine. Spread the lips of the urethra and wipe inside. Do not force the gauze into the opening, just clean the area. Then, repeat the whole process with another gauze soaked in sterile water.

  With a woman, it means spreading the labia with one hand, which is now not sterile, and keep it open. With the Betadine-soaked gauze, you must first wipe one side of the clitoris and urethra, then wipe the other side and then wipe the center. You need to repeat this procedure with another gauze soaked in sterile water.

  The remainder applies to working with both sexes. With your sterile hand, take the catheter and hold it about one inch from the opening of the urethra. Make sure you have found the opening of the urethra. You do want to go into the right hole. With your non-sterile hand holding the outside of the KY packet, generously lubricate the tip of the catheter. You should use lots of KY. It’s cheap.

  Now you can gently begin to insert the tip into the urethra. Your submissive will feel a slight stinging feeling at this point. That is normal. Continue to insert it until you see drops of urine coming out the end; that indicates the catheter is in the bladder. Next you must take the 5-cc syringe and place it in the special tubing for the balloon on the end of the catheter and inject 5 cc of sterile water. This will inflate a tiny bulb on the end to hold it in place.

  You can remove the tube by deflating the bulb and sliding it out.

  Generally, people use catheters to drain bladders for golden shower-type activities. However, some use the catheter to put fluid into the bladder. Obviously, this fluid must not interfere with the bladder’s normal function and must be completely sterile.

  The best material, I am advised, is an isotonic solution, such as normal saline, which can be purchased at a drug store. You should not open the bottle until you are ready to use it. The contents must remain sterile. I once heard about a less than attentive dominant who put ordinary ice cubes into the solution to chill it. Obviously, it never occurred to her that the ice cubes were not made with sterile water. If you want a chill solution, chill the whole, unopened bottle in the refrigerator.

  To transfer the solution into the bladder, you will need to get a “Tomey” syringe. It looks like a huge hypodermic needle, but the opening at the top is wide enough to fit snugly on the end of the catheter.

  Gray’s Anatomy reports that a healthy bladder should be able to hold a pint of fluid and that women have slightly larger bladders than men. However, I wouldn’t want to push things past a cup or so.

  You must allow the existing store of urine to drain out, attach the Tomey syringe to the catheter and slowly and inject the solution. If there is cramping, stop and wait until it subsides. If it does not, you have reached the limit.

  A word of warning, while an occasional inflation may not be dangerous, if it is done often, the submissive may develop a flaccid bladder which could require medical intervention. Moderation, as with all else, is the keyword here.

  Branding

  If you ask most people who have seen or read The Story of 0 for a list of the hottest scenes, and most of their lists will include the branding scene at Anne-Marie’s. The slow buildup, the glowing coals, the white hot iron and the agonizing scream all combine for an overwhelmingly erotic effect.

  However, in real-world BDSM, branding is an exotic subspecialty rarely practiced outside a relatively small group. It is both dangerous and permanent. While it is difficult and expensive to remove a tattoo, it is almost impossible to remove a brand. Much of the material in this section comes from Raelyn Gallina of Oakland, California, who is an expert at branding and piercing.

  When most people think of branding irons, they visualize those heavy, cast-iron monsters used by cowboys on non-consenting cattle. Human brands are more delicate. They are made of sheet metal, such as coffee cans and heating duct material, and they are something like cookie cutters. The iron doesn’t have to be very thick because the brand spreads over a period of months and will eventually be four or five times the thickness of the metal.

  If a burn goes completely around a piece of skin, the entire surface will turn to scar tissue because the encircling burn cauterizes all the capillaries feeding that section of skin. Therefore, the branding irons should be made without closed loops. For example, Q’s and O’s should have openings at either the top or the bottom, and the vertical part of B’s and P’s should be separated from the curved part by a strip of heathy skin.

  While your submissive may desire to wear your initials as a gesture of subservience, it is incumbent upon you to overcome the, admittedly intoxicating, feeling of power, and refuse. There is no guarantee that this relationship will last forever. Because submissives give us their power, it is our duty to look out for them and protect them from their own folly. A geometric or symbolic symbol may be more appropriate in the long run.

  Brands should never be placed on any part of the body where major blood vessels, bones or nerve clusters approach the skin. Nor should they
be where the skin is being constantly bent or where clothing is going to rub against the brand. Remember, this is a burn. It is going to take several weeks or several months to heal. A moment of pain is exciting, but three weeks of it can become tedious. If it stretches to a couple of months of pain, well, nobody can stay hard for that long.

  Curved areas should be avoided for aesthetic, rather than physiological, reasons. It is difficult to apply a brand properly on, for example, an upper arm. While highly experienced branders can roll the brand so that it is a consistent depth throughout, even they occasionally find that, after they have done a brand on curved skin, the middle has gone too deep while the edges have barely touched the skin.

  The first stage in making a brand is to draw the design on a piece of graph paper exactly as you want it on the submissive’s body. Don’t forget that the branded lines will spread. A delicate precise design with a lot of narrowly spaced lines will most likely end up as an ugly lump of scar tissue.

  The branding iron is made from that design. Because of the necessary breaks to avoid enclosing an area of skin, it is not unusual for a single brand to be made from a number of small irons.

  There is no need for a complex branding iron with an attached handle. The most common approach is to use a pair of a locking pliers as a detachable handle. Hemostats are not recommended because their tiny grasping areas preclude a good grip on the hot metal and because they tend to conduct heat too well. The idea is to brand the submissive’s body, not the dominant’s fingers.

  Once the set of irons is finished, branders should practice in exactly the place where they are planning to do the actual branding with exactly the same equipment.

  A professional should be adaptable, but the middle of a branding scene is no place to have to be dealing with surprises. They may use wet leather, potatoes or a notepad of paper. The notepad has the advantage of allowing them to check precisely how deep the brand has penetrated.

  Because branders are not dealing with a thousand pounds of steak tartare on the hoof, they only need to go in about 1/16th of an inch to make a very permanent scar. Holding the iron against the skin for one second is often enough.

  Before having the brand done, you must draw the design and transfer it to the submissive’s skin.

  First, you can trace the design you made on the graph paper onto a piece of tracing paper.

  Second, you should turn the tracing paper over and put it on a blank piece of white paper so you can see your original tracing clearly.

  Third, you can retrace the design (now reversed) on the back of the tracing paper with a transfer pencil like an ink pencil.

  If the area to be branded is hair-covered, you should shave it or have it shaved. Then, have your submissive stand so that the skin will be “hanging” properly. A person wears his or her skin differently when sitting, standing and lying down because of the pull of gravity and the tension on various muscles. You can put a coat of Mennen stick deodorant on the area to be branded, and place the tracing paper on the coated skin with the negative side down and press along on each line with your finger.

  Most branders recommend having a few assistants present at the scene itself. The submissive should be held down as well as tied. Not only are people more adaptable in restraining a struggling figure but the touch of humanity has a soothing effect that no leather cuff can match. The brander may also have someone heating up the next part of the set of irons while he or she is making a part of the brand.

  The submissive should be secured horizontally. Each component part of the set of irons needs to be heated red hot just before it is used. The person doing the heating should aim a propane torch so that the metal heats from the gripper outward to the branding edge.

  Healing will be a lengthy process. Each brander has his or her favorite technique to make the burn heal safely. You should make sure that your submissive follows it to the letter.

  A branding iron is almost guaranteed to be completely sterile. However, the wound can become infected later. If cloudy pus comes from the wound, redness or black marks appear, or if the skin becomes hot, a doctor should be contacted immediately.

  As I have written, a branding is a serious, serious piece of business, and it should be done only be trained, experienced people. However, I offer the following as an example of how you might be able to satisfy the need in a safe and sensible way.

  A number of years ago, a submissive begged me for a branding. At that time, I had never even seen a real branding, and I was certain that I had neither the skills nor the interest to make such an experience work.

  Consensuality is a two-way street, and I firmly refused. However, she was lovely and quite persuasive. I was beginning to appreciate the feelings of Adam when he entered the first not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity plea, “Lord, the woman tempted me.”

  I never agreed to do the branding, but one day after she had been firmly tied to the bondage table, I brought out a small hibachi. On it was a branding iron with my initial “W.” I had borrowed the branding iron from a set used for branding steaks as rare, medium and well-done.

  As the iron heated, I played with her a bit with various toys, but whatever I did, her eyes rarely strayed far from the red-hot iron. Occasionally, I took it from the fire and held it close to her thigh while I pretended to evaluate whether the temperature was suitable.

  She could not take her widened eyes off the steel block and the colors that chased themselves along its surface in response to the heat-roiled air. Time after time, as the tiny hairs on her skin writhed in the radiated heat, I pronounced, “Not yet, let’s let it get a bit hotter.”

  Finally, when it was almost white hot, I said, “I think it is ready. Do you really want to go through with this?”

  She gulped, speechless, but nodded vigorously.

  I blindfolded her and then washed her thigh with some very hot water. When she felt the touch of the washcloth she arched and hissed through her teeth, but I said, “I have to make sure it is completely clean; we don’t want any infection.”

  With that, she laid back, but every muscle in her body was standing out in sharp relief.

  Then I took the branding iron and held it close to her thigh so she could feel the intense radiated heat. As the skin below the iron became a brighter and brighter shade of red, I asked, “For the last time, do you want to go through with this?”

  Again, she nodded.

  With one smooth motion, I put aside the branding iron and pressed hard on the reddened, heat-sensitized skin with an ice cube I had concealed in my other hand. Her scream was ear-splitting. She completely lost control of her bowels and bladder and passed out cold.

  When she recovered consciousness, I had draped a white cloth over her body (and cleaned up most of the mess). She was almost incoherent in thanking me for what she called the most intense experience of her life. However, when I released her hands and she lifted the sheet, she was completely dumbfounded. I explained what had happened and pointed out that I had never promised to brand her.

  Her reaction was a mixture of relief and resentment. I did notice, however, that for the next few days, she would gingerly touch her thigh with a hand as if to check that, indeed, she was not branded.

  Some Special Relationship Issues

  Contracts of submission

  While a contract isn’t exactly what we generally call a toy, drawing up, signing and living under a contract of submission can be an exciting experience. While they are obviously not enforceable in court, contracts do have a very practical function: they clearly spell out various rights and responsibilities of each member in the relationship and require both individuals to think about them. They also allow you to define the universe in which you want to live, a created reality.

  Clauses usually include:

  The duration of the contract

  Restrictions on where and with whom the submissive (or either) can play

  Limitations on the forms of bondage and discipline used

  Sexu
al activities permitted

  Types of behavior required for, conduct of and/or work to be done by the submissive

  Safewords

  How the contract may be terminated or modified

  Most sample contracts like those in The Leatherman’s Handbook II and The Lesbian S&M Safety Manual strike me as a bit too one-sided. They certainly spell out what the submissive owes to the dominant, but the dominant’s duties are considerably more vague. Part of this, I suspect, is because these are sample contracts and, as such, contain more than a bit of fantasy. To give you some fair and realistic models

  I am reprinting, in the appendices, two actual contracts between couples who are active in the BDSM scene. I think you will see the degree of give and take that was necessary to work out these agreements.

  Polyamorous play

  “Polyamorous” is another of those cloudy words whose meaning seems to change depending upon whom you are speaking. In the simplest form, it means having several partners for sensual play, and as such, it really doesn’t fall under the BDSM umbrella with the same certainty as, let’s say, flogging or bondage, but I’m including this section for two reasons.

  First, successful polyamory shares a number of precepts with BDSM including consensuality and open communications. Second, there is a persistent belief that almost everyone in BDSM is polyamorous. I’ll address the second one first.

  After many years in the public and private BDSM scene, it’s my firm belief that the majority of people who practice BDSM do so in the confines of a monogamous relationship. There are two facets of BDSM culture that tend to obscure this.

  First, polyamory is relatively accepted in this subculture. No one raises an eyebrow when a domme arrives at a party with two slaves on a leash or when a dominant invites a submissive to join him and his partner in a three- person scene. It’s accepted as part of life, and for that reason, it’s done openly and above the board. To people arriving from the vanilla world where such liaisons are generally condemned and therefore conducted covertly, it seems that “these people are everywhere.”