by Morpheous
Outside the Boundaries and Emotional Landmines
Being able to communicate with your partner and also listen to what her needs are is the basis for negotiation. If you are a well-balanced person who can negotiate what your limits are and have them respected, all the while being able to get your needs met and your partner’s needs met, this will set you up for more advanced, kinkier play down the road. But what if your kink, the thing that really gets you off, is past the limits of your partner? What about fantasies that are beyond reality, such as sex with aliens or other unrealistic fantasies that will probably never be actualized?
Even in the best of circumstances negotiations can be tricky. How do you tell someone your most deeply held desire when he only has half his attention on you because the kids are in the other room jumping on the couch or arguing over the Wii controller? When is the right time to bare your soul and expose the deepest fantasy you have always wanted to share but were afraid to? Setting up the right time to talk about what you like and want and being able to listen effectively to your partner requires that you pick the right time and the right place to discuss it, without distractions. If someone is going to share their deepest, darkest secrets with you, don’t you think they should have your undivided attention? It might be a desire that is commonplace to you, but for someone who is confessing or giving voice to their secret desire for the first time, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to share. I am going to assume you are well past the “newbie” stage. Maybe you have seen something new or there is something that has come up for you while you’ve been exploring, something you didn’t even know you were curious about until you saw it demonstrated at an event, heard it talked about at a munch, or watched it online. That happens all the time—when you first get kinky, you are just starting to scratch the surface of your desires. Digging in deeper, after you have established trust and communication with your partner(s), is when the real fun begins! It is time to explore all sorts of nooks and crannies in your psyche and you want to know your partner is going to be along for the ride. Oftentimes your partner might not be into what you really enjoy and don’t worry, it happens. It might be beyond his comfort level—say, having a single-tail whip used on him, or indulging in messy food play. There are things you can do to approach this:
Find someone else to do it (with your partner’s consent and boundaries in place).
Get there together. Sometimes bringing in a friend who is more experienced to demonstrate or show you the ropes can be a great way to ease both of you into something new, and then you both go on to explore.
When you play with bondage in the pool, use nylon rope and don't be too rough.
Sometimes all a girl needs is a black pair of heels to be irresistable.
Avoid striking someone on his joints or bony parts. Stick to the fleshy areas like the bum, upper thighs, and upper back.
There is also a popular trend in sexual therapy popularized by Austrian sex educators Professor Bernhard Ludwig and Dr. Ulrike Brandenburg that concentrates on two key points in human sexual relationships that I feel work very well for Kink: the negotiated favor and “If you don’t feel like sex but your partner does—try it anyway.”
The good doctors feel you can bargain with things that aren’t even sexual in nature. It doesn’t have to be “an evening of spankings for an evening of ball gags.” If you knew you would be able to hog-tie your partner and spend an evening trying out all sizes of butt plugs and other fun things that go into squirmy people—would it be worth doing it to her if you did the dishes or took the dog for a walk ahead of time so she isn’t stressing about these tasks? Men are very direct with our approach—stimulus/response. Women on the other hand need more time and their foreplay can start from the time you finish until the next time. Create a comfortable environment and you may have her purring in your hands.
The next point they stress is that we don’t always feel like sex. Sometimes we feel just “meh” but our partner is horny and ready to go! In a way, isn’t it flattering to know that you just hanging around in your jammies and eating chips on the couch while watching TV can get him hot? Take it as a compliment and get naked together and have some fun! Look at it this way: you don’t like working out, but once you get your gym clothes on and push some weights or run some laps, you usually feel wonderful afterward and glad you did it; most of the time, anyway. The same goes for playtime and sex. Once you get into something or someone you usually have a great time. Keep in mind this is only applicable if you are ambivalent and could go either way; I am not condoning nonconsensual pressure. Consent is key!
Before using hot wax, rub lotion all over the skin.
Kink Fatigue
When you are getting kinkier, you might find old interests falling by the wayside and other times you might be stuck in a rut. You know the kind, where you both enjoy the same things over and over again and you both feel you want to learn some new things. There is a solution—the kink conference. There are a great many kinky conventions across the world. Lots of us Kinksters, including me, attend to both teach and learn how other Kinky people do things. And we can pick and choose what we might want to add to suit our relationships best, or even enhance them. For many people who are excited about exploring and evolving in their relationships this is an exciting time. I love attending conventions and workshops, both as a presenter and as an attendee. I find that the more I learn and grow on my own, the more I realize other people do things differently and similar and sometimes with just a bit of a tweak to what I do and that helps my own playtime evolution. Whenever I think I have seen or heard it all, someone comes up with something exciting and new. That is part of the excitement—BDSM (in its conventional terms) and power play has been a part of the human experience for thousands of years, but the Internet has brought it to the masses in the past fifteen years. The organization and acceleration of its distribution is currently in a golden age, one that I revel in, and I look forward to seeing what will happen next.
They say there is nothing new under the sun; only the way YOU do it is different. At Kink events you will witness a lot of things in workshops and demonstrations and will probably want to incorporate some of these into your relationship. However there is so much that happens at an event that there is a definite sensory and cognitive overload. When you get home and try to incorporate these new things into your relationship, some things work, some partly work, and sometimes none of it works and feelings get hurt and the emotional stability of the relationship becomes shaky, with each person feeling the other is at fault. New techniques can cause instability if not introduced properly and within the correct context. Emotions can run high when rules change and reactions can become overreactions, which then cause an even bigger chasm in the communication between two people. This happens. It isn’t just YOU. The process of introducing new concepts and ideas and changing some established patterns isn’t something to be done on a whim with your Kinky partner. But sometimes they are necessary to avoid Kink fatigue—to keep things exciting and fresh. There are other times when we find something new and love it so much we focus only on it and in doing so, cause it to fail instead of thoughtfully negotiating with our partner and figuring out how to make it work effectively.
Facing Page: Chains can help keep your sub exactly where you want them.
Skintight latex is fabulously sexy whether you're wearing it or just lucky enough to watch.
Know who you are playing with.
What do you do when things go sideways and don’t work out like you assumed they would? If you are the one responsible for introducing the new technique or rule or whatever it is you want to do differently, and your partner tried her best, you have to be willing to admit that something isn’t working and talk about it in a context away from your Kinky lifestyle. Move outside the dungeon or bedroom—having a neutral place to discuss the issue like adults is going to help bring both of you closer. If you are accountable, admit it and try to figure out what the next steps are you
should both take to make the new play work. Being willing to say, “Hey, I was wrong, I thought this might enhance what we have but it clearly isn’t working for both of us. Let’s talk about what we can do to either salvage it or chuck it,” will make your partner respect you more than if you just said nothing and let it chip away at the trust you have both built.
As time passes you will likely want to go deeper with your D/s relationship. You might want to explore the Mistress/slave aspect of ownership and this takes an enormous amount of trust and a leap of faith based on you both having a solid idea of where you want to go with your relationship and how that perceived power imbalance will work. However, there are pitfalls that can throw the other person off balance, cause hurt and confusion and sometimes derail the relationship. How do we successfully deal with fundamental changes or introducing new elements into a relationship without the other person feeling compromised or betrayed? We will attempt to answer those questions in the following chapter: Roles Taken Further.
Use a variety of instruments on your slave. She deserves it after all!
Five Key Points for Advanced Negotiation with Your Partner:
Talkwith your partner about both your needs on a regular basis to keep communication fluid and dynamic.
Be willing to see the other person’s side.
Learn the three types of negotiators—Aggressive, Passive and Ingenious.
Recognize when to make concessions and when to stand firm.
Be open-minded enough to try something your partner wants as long as it doesn’t compromise your safety or security.
Chapter Three
* * *
Roles Taken Further
Not everyone is lucky enough to understand how delicious it is to suffer.
—Katharine Hepburn
What is the difference between fun bedroom games and a lifestyle choice? How do you know if you are ready for a Master/slave relationship and are capable of maintaining it through the endless detours, emotional demands or maybe even geographic location issues? Some people see M/s as the ultimate level in any sort of BDSM relationship, as if the Dominant and submissive should be constantly working toward a goal of a Master/slave relationship—and for many that is an ultimate goal. Others enjoy occasional role-playing bedroom romps or some D/s in their lives; there is a clear difference between that and a formally structured M/s relationship. In this chapter I will try to help you figure out what you ultimately want for an M/s relationship—are you looking for a play/part-time relationship or a full-time M/s relationship?—and how to negotiate that goal with someone you care about.
The clear delineation between bedroom roles and M/s can be explained easily enough. In a light D/s or kinky structure, roles sometimes drop when real life intrudes in ways that can ruin your sexy time, e.g., picking up the kids from school, finding out the dog just threw up all over your new rug, or maybe an incident involving your mother, a lasagna and a surprise visit on a Tuesday night while you and your partner are dressed up like the Gimp from Pulp Fiction (don’t ask, my mother was traumatized for a month). The roles you and your partner use and play with can be dropped at times of crisis when you both put on your vanilla faces and deal with those issues and crises and the vanillas of the world never need to know what it is you like to do in the bedroom. This works well for lots of people who prefer to turn their D/s roles on and off as the situation requires. Other people feel a calling toward a full-time Mistress/slave relationship and the structure that it entails. This lifestyle choice is one where you let the essence of your role define how you conduct yourself with your partner. As a couple or poly family (more on poly in the next chapter) you use your roles to help define your boundaries as a full-time M/s dynamic. Time, distance and opportunities might be cause for a M/s relationship being only part-time or play based. I have been involved in a couple of long-distance relationships with slave-oriented people over the years and while we were only together part-time because of the distance, every time we got together it was a full-time M/s relationship. Let me say that again in case I have confused you, it confused me at first: you can work on your M/s dynamic in a part-time capacity if you are apart, but every time you are together you are full time. This would be considered a play-based M/s relationship. How they act and react to your needs as the Mistress during the time they are with you can bring a lot of fulfillment to their role and to yours. Rituals can help you both stay connected and deepen that connection as a play-based relationship, especially if distance is the largest hurdle to overcome. Once you have figured out if you desire a part-time or a full-time M/s relationship and you are developing it, let me encourage you to value discretion in public. Our goal is not to make the vanillas uncomfortable in everyday society with our dynamics; you don’t have to let the world know you are in a Master/slave relationship, but in everyday situations where immediate decisions are needed, the slave always defers to the Master or Mistress.
Facing Page: Bad puppy boy!
Giving yourself over completely to a mistress can be intimidating, but also infintely rewarding.
Bruising time can be reduced by using Arnica cream.
Are You Ready to Move into a M/s Relationship?
Picture this: you have been involved in a long-term kinky D/s relationship. In the beginning things were exciting and hot but after a year or two your interest has waned. Things you both were really excited about and would get naked in a heartbeat for now have lost a little bit of their sparkle. How do you regain that feeling of excitement? How do you put things back on track so you can both move to the next level of a M/s relationship? In the last chapter we looked at more advanced negotiation: how to communicate your desires to your partner and understand what theirs are, even if they don’t sync up. When you have someone you feel is ready to explore a M/s with you, the foundation of your dynamic should include the following:
If you do needle play, keep your sharps container nearby for proper disposal.
The ability to trust
The ability to negotiate with compassion
Inherent respect for yourself and your partner
The ability to see challenges as a learning opportunity
The ability to creatively set scenarios and activities
An understanding of protocol, etiquette and manners to help guide each other
It doesn’t seem as if M/s has the exclusive rights to these points, does it? Wouldn’t you value almost all of these in a vanilla relationship?
I don’t know if anyone can truly know if they are ready for a Master/slave relationship until they embark upon one. Ignorance is bliss for those who jump into it without thought, but I knew I had to overcome emotional walls I’ve put up over the years in order to truly commit to it. I opened my heart to it and let my guard down, and embraced the unknown. The trust and vulnerability involved are arguably my biggest kinks. It’s what I get off on the most about this type of relationship; in my opinion, without it, there is no M/s dynamic.
For some there is a strict line between “play” and regular life; the two never cross, they don’t mix, they get turned on (and off) like a tap. My world doesn’t work that way, I’m a service-oriented slave and that’s just who I am. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t stop in Walmart to kiss Master’s boots, but the dynamic is there. It’s everywhere I go. This is how I demonstrate my love for the dynamic, not a mask to wear on weekends.
—Elle, Lifestyle Slave
What do you need to know about a M/s relationship? First of all the roles should help define and enhance your life rather than control it. You might really enjoy the structure it brings to your experiences. If you are unowned, not having a Master doesn’t make you less of a slave. In fact being a single submissive or slave gives you the opportunity for growth—to sharpen or pick up new skill sets that will enhance your Mistress’s life when she finally does find you. Likewise if you are a Mistress in search of a slave you can use your single life to sharpen your skills by taking classes or networking with other peop
le in M/s relationships to pick their brains and see what works and doesn’t work for them. Some very good friends of mine, a M/s couple, took a long time to explore and figure out what they wanted in their M/s relationship. Their M/s structure evolved at a rate that was comfortable for them. They started off as a Dominant and submissive and as they learned and grew together they started tapping other people in the scene about what M/s structures worked for them and why. Growing and learning together with what the Mistress knew she wanted and the structure that she wanted to have in place gave them both time to work up toward their ultimate goal of M/s. It has taken years, and they are constantly evolving as they continue to explore together. She serves her Mistress exactly as the Mistress desires and all of her decision-making ability is deferred to the Mistress. There are daily and weekly protocols that the slave follows with punishments handed out if she fails in her duties. When you are ready to explore this type of relationship, consistency in your behavior and expectation is key to ensuring you build a strong foundation for both of you. The Master or Mistress is in charge of creating the structure, environment and parameters, and the slave is responsible for serving to the best of her ability.