All forms of sensory deprivation can be both sexy and entrancing, and can get the bottom, and vicariously the top, into a transcendent state of altered perception where the lightest touch can feel like a miracle, and a sexual stroke becomes the only event in the universe.
DOMINANCE AND SUBMISSION
THIS is an incredibly broad category that can include all forms of giving up or taking power, from an hour of teacher/schoolboy roleplay to a deeply felt owner/slave relationship that lasts for decades. What all the scenes we’ll talk about here have in common is that they draw their heat from recreating the power-over situations of the real world, but in ways that feel safe, sexy, growthful and enjoyable for all concerned.
In order to play safely with power, it’s important to have a clear understanding of where the power disparity between you and your top begins and ends. Are you doing it for the duration of a scene, for a day, for a weekend, a month, a year? Will the dominant’s power end at the dungeon or bedroom door, or will it extend into other parts of your life like your work or relationships? What kinds of power do you want to give to your partner, and what kinds do you want to keep for yourself?
We have seen players come to grief by assuming that the only “right” way to play with power is to give as much of it away as possible – they leap from “Hi, my name is Susie” to a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week owner-slave relationship with no intermediate steps at all. Later, they discover that some aspects of this kind of relationship don’t work for them or their owners, but they don’t believe that it’s okay to just change the rules of the game they are playing. So they struggle to achieve the impractical, and both lovers wind up feeling like terrible failures for not having lived up to an ideal that isn’t a good fit for them.
We suggest instead that you start by giving your dominant one or two pieces of your power in areas of your life where you already feel pretty secure – the power to place certain sexual demands on you, to give you certain sensations, or to require you to perform certain duties, for example. Then, when that’s gone well for a little while, you can experiment with adding to what’s already working. That way you have a pretty good chance of success with each power exchange you try… which we assure you is a lot more fun than feeling like a failure at your own fantasy!
We think it’s a good idea to ask for what works for you, rather than trying to force your submission to fit into a pattern created by other people to fit their needs and not yours. One submissive woman of our acquaintance describes her D/S script like this:
I want to be a good girl. I want to struggle heroically to get everything just right. And I want my top to make that hard for me – so I can feel that I’ve conquered incredible odds.
We’re afraid we’re going to disappoint some of our readers when we emphasize here that submission is not a “cure” for a life that seems out of control, and it should not be a way to avoid the hassles and tribulations of life as an adult in the 21st xcentury. We’ve certainly had such fantasies, and maybe you have too – life is often difficult and complicated, and the urge to dump all your problems in the lap of an all-knowing and omnipotent top can feel very strong indeed. But we don’t think a loving erotic relationship can or should take the place of human growth and responsibility. If you are having trouble with your life, work toward straightening it out – perhaps with the help of a good therapist, credit counseling service, employment counselor, substance abuse clinic or whatever other professional seems appropriate – and then you’ll have a real gift to give to the lucky dominant who’s fortunate enough to own you.
So, what are some of the kinds of ways in which people play with the exchange of power?
GIVING SERVICE. Some dominants and submissives enjoy power exchange that include some aspect of service – the submissive gives some kind of valuable effort to the dominant. This may be sexual service, personal service such as massages or pedicures, house service such as cleaning, cooking, butler or handyman chores, or outside-world service – Janet once met an investment-counselor slave who had made his mistress a very wealthy woman.
Bottoms who enjoy giving service may find it erotic, or fulfilling in other ways that often have to do with competence and caretaking. For them, it is a good way to show their respect to give energy back to the top, and to clarify roles.
The most important thing to remember is that if you have agreed to give service, give it wholeheartedly and excellently. Almost nothing annoys a top more than the bottom who decides that the task he agreed to do isn’t erotic or fun and thus slacks off – except perhaps the bottom who does it wrong intentionally in order to get punished. This isn’t a service scene, it’s a SAM (smart-assed masochist) or resistance scene and needs to be negotiated as such. Otherwise, you are guaranteed to disappoint or piss off your top… and a competent top won’t punish you, she will send you away and refuse to play with you again without serious renegotiation.
If your dominant wishes to train you to perform the service in the way she likes best, recognize that the time she puts into training you is an investment toward your future value as a submissive. Accept that training with gratitude and eagerness.
Do keep in mind that service-givers get to have limits, and to ask for what they want, too. If you eroticize the simple act of doing your top’s dishes, that’s great – but if you don’t, be sure to ask for what you do want, or you’re likely to wind up frustrated and with dishpan hands.
DISCIPLINE, REWARD AND PUNISHMENT. “Discipline” as a codeword for flagellation is, perhaps unfortunately, well established within the leather community, particularly as part of the phrase “bondage and discipline.” As a result, players sometimes get very confused when trying to distinguish between erotic “discipline” (e.g., spanking, whipping or flogging in order to create pleasure for your dominant and/or yourself) and discipline which is actually intended to exert control and/or shape behavior.
Within the context of a dominant-submissive relationship, it is pretty much axiomatic that the dominant will have the right and the desire to control some aspects of the submissive’s behavior. Discipline in this context has a much broader meaning, and includes a variety of feedback mechanisms, including reward as well as punishment. Some players, for example, distinguish between “good-girl spankings” and “bad-girl spankings” (or, of course, “good-boy/bad boy”) – the former includes lots of warmup and plenty of affectionate and/or erotic stimulus, and might be used as a reward; the latter is harsher, is designed to communicate the dominant’s genuine displeasure, and is used to punish for an infringement of rules or agreements.
Some submissives are so distressed by punishment that it can shatter the bond of trust between the partners. Others are so turned on by the whole idea that it becomes reward and works in the exact opposite way from its intention. For others yet, the mere knowledge that they have disappointed or displeased their dominant may be enough to dissuade future undesired behavior.
Many bottoms build a whole fantasy structure around the idea of getting punished (Janet is one). A great deal of S/M literature, particularly flagellation literature, revolves around punishment scenes. There’s no question that getting punished can be a marvelously healing way to play with the powerful emotions of guilt and shame.
In the real world, punishment is not intended to be erotic. We feel that the only place non-erotic punishment has in the BDSM world is in a full-time or ongoing dominant-submissive relationship: if you don’t own me, what right do you have to punish me?.
For those of us who love to play with punishment but aren’t comfortable with being punished for real-world errors, what’s a safe way to do it? It can sometimes work to punish for little transgressions like forgetting to pick up the laundry… they’re lighthearted enough not to cause too much trouble. We also know some tops who punish their bottoms for saying self-deprecating or self-hating things: “I heard you put yourself down, and you’re in serious trouble!” The underlying tone of love and concern in such an action seems to us to have a healing v
alue.
A very safe way is either make up something you’re supposed to have done and play it out as a script (the “caught smoking in the boys’ room” kind of thing), or ask your top to punish you for mistakes made during the scene. Some tops enjoy giving the bottom an impossible task (“hold this cane in your mouth and don’t drop it while I make you scream!”), knowing that she will fail and thus “earn” the punishment, a deliciously shameful feeling. Such punishments can be very erotic and great fun – a chance to sin, atone and be forgiven, all at once.
CONTRACTS. If you and your top are in a committed relationship that involves frequent authority play, you may wish to define both of your obligations, limits, commitments and rules in a spoken or written contract. The most common form of agreement is a master/slave or mistress/slave contract.
Do not enter into a contract frivolously. Yes, a piece of paper defining you as owned chattel is a hot fantasy – but it represents a tremendous moral, if not legal, obligation. If you do decide to enter into a contract, we strongly suggest it be for a pre-defined length of time, perhaps no more than a month to start with. At the end of that period of time, you and your top can re-evaluate and refine the contract and, if you like, extend it for a longer time. We also suggest that, human memory being the frail thing it is, your contract be written rather than spoken.
Some of the subjects your contract should define are the bottom’s and the top’s duties, rights and obligations, the top’s authority, the nature of both partners’ sexual and social commitments to one another, and both partners’ needs and limits – too often, contracts define the slave’s responsibilities and limits, but not the owner’s. Your contract should definitely include some provision for how you will deal with disagreement. We also suggest that your contract include clear definitions of when the two of you are entirely in role or partially in role – for example, it’s a good idea to reach some understanding about when your owner does and does not prefer to be called “Master” or “Mistress.”
Many contracts require one or both people to write in a personal journal at certain times: daily, weekly, monthly, or perhaps after a scene. The journal is a “free zone” where the dom or the sub can speak their minds without fear of judgment or reprisal. Usually, the other partner may read the journal: this can be a way to communicate things that might not fit into the roles.
Do remember that no contract can cover every contingency, so you need to build in some wriggle room. One creative contract we read gives the slave a certain number of “get out of jail free” cards per month – a limited number of occasions on which the slave can break certain rules without reprisal. Neither the contract nor the relationship can possibly control every aspect of your life, and it’s not possible for you to have no control whatsoever – you still need to breathe for yourself, and otherwise be responsible for your own life. The contract does not exist just to turn you on; it represents a serious commitment. Enter into it with the same care and forethought you would give to accepting an employment contract. The rewards of a master/slave contract lie in the deepening of roles, an intense security in those roles, and an ultimate feeling of belonging: you must be very valuable if your beloved wants to own you!
PAIN (THE GOOD KIND)
A LOT of play centers around the generation and enjoyment of pain, commonly brought about by whips, paddles, canes, hot wax, the placement and removal of clips or clothespins, and many other techniques. We don’t believe that masochists are very different from other people, but rather that most people are physiologically equipped to enjoy masochism if they so choose.
Many people see pain in S/M as a “punishment” and are surprised to discover that pain can be immensely rewarding in and of itself. (Or, in the words of a novice we know while receiving her first caning, “Why do I like this?”) One of the rewards lies in the body’s defense against pain. When our bodies perceive a painful stimulus, they respond by producing neurotransmitters called “endorphins” that are chemically very similar to morphine. Endorphins generate a “high” that is really an altered state of consciousness, and can change the way we perceive pain so that the experience really becomes pleasurable. At least, that’s what we think happens: this is a theory that fits our experience, and the medical establishment is very unlikely to subject this to scientific research, so we just have to believe in our own sensations.
Pain can give you an “excuse” and open up a pathway for emotions that are too strong and frightening to let loose in other contexts. You may experience a state of catharsis in which you feel terrifically powerful. Dossie may turn into a tigress and growl and snarl a lot. Janet perceives herself as absorbing the energy of each blow and transmuting it into strength and power. These are just some of the cathartic and empowering ways in which pain may equal pleasure.
Pain in S/M doesn’t mean just any old pain. We don’t enjoy stubbed toes any more than anybody else does. Stimulations are carefully chosen to feel both right and tolerable. And we like to create an environment that feels safe so that we can let intense stimulations in without tensing up or panicking. So when you read our suggestions for painplay here, you can see them as examples of types of pain that other players have both enjoyed and felt safe with.
Start easy with any new stimulus, and build up gradually so you can become familiar with the sensation you’re dealing with. For many players, context is everything: in the words of one friend of ours, “Any fool can hit me with a two-by-four – but it takes a real genius to make me like it.”
Most pain scenes begin with a warm-up, such as a sensual flogging, to give the body some stimulus and time to build up endorphins, which takes about twenty minutes. Experienced bottoms become adept at bringing up the endorphins, and might warm up much faster. You can tell you are warmed up when a stroke that hurt too much five minutes ago doesn’t hurt enough now.
Please do remember that in changing your perception of pain, you may also lose your normal way of knowing when your body is being damaged. The top must keep a close eye on physical safety, because you may not be able to. Tops may also find that as they hit harder and harder in response to your increasing excitement, their control and accuracy may diminish. We suggest that tops in these scenes regularly check the red marks on your hide to make sure that whips are landing on well-padded body parts.
When you come to the place where you actually want things to hurt more, you are ready for really intense stimulation. Now is the time for your top to break out the sting-iest cat, or the heaviest canes and riding crops. An excellent stimulation for the “pain slut” is a brief, very intense pain followed by some recovery time, during which the bottom can actually feel the endorphin release: many bottoms go down with a scream and come up giggling. We especially like canes for this.
It may help you to know that there is an end point, so you can choose to stretch yourself to handle a greater intensity as long as you know it’s not going to last forever. So a caning scene might start out at one at a time, then the top might suggest three at a time, then maybe five… always with the reward time in between, so it becomes like going on the roller coaster, getting off staggering, and getting back in line to go round again, and again, and again.
Another way to do a pain scene is with clothespins or any other clip or clamp that will hold a pinch of skin. Clips can be placed just about anywhere you can pull up a pinch of skin. Sometimes a clip gets put on a particular spot that is intolerable, maybe because there is a nerve there. It is normal and acceptable to request that an overly painful clip be moved to a better spot, often only half an inch or so away.
The interesting thing about clips is that they hurt somewhat when they are put on, and then that spot gradually becomes numb as the circulation is reduced. The most intense sensation comes when the clip is removed, gently or harshly, and blood flows back into the area. (Clips with teeth or ridges should not be yanked off.) So putting the clips on becomes the warm-up and taking them off is the roller coaster… frequently with a bit of sexua
l or affectionate touching during the break between clips.
As in a caning scene, the bottom may want some resolution time after each clip is taken off. This time may be an excellent opportunity for some sensual touching or sexual stimulation between the moments of agony. A particularly nasty way to intensify the sensation of clips being removed is to tie them at intervals along a cord so you can yank several of them off at once; these are called “zippers.” What we like about zippers is the contrast between the flash of excruciating pain as they come off – pain that’s over so fast that by the time we realize it happened, we’re already screaming – and the intense endorphin rush afterwards, that often leaves us giggling uncontrollably and feeling very silly.
Other pain sluts prefer long, slow-building, intense pain, without the roller-coaster effect. Clips can give these bottoms the unremitting sensation they need. To build intensity, the top can pull on the clips, weight them or attach them to another body part with tension in the attachment; she can also twist them or use fingers to stretch the skin on either side of them. Removing a clip and then replacing it on the same spot is extremely intense… replacing it with a heavier clip is even more so. Yanking a clip off is a “jolt” of pain that may not work as well in this type of scene, since it may interfere with sustained slow build-up.
WHIPS. The impact of whips on flesh can provide an immense range of sensation – from gentle and sensual, through deep massage, all the way out to full-tilt-boogie thrash-and-scream intensity. So if you have never tried them, the first thing to know about whips is that they don’t need to hurt at all. Soft doeskin and glove-leather whips can be purely sensual, or can thump like a firm massage, or warm up skin to make it rosy and sensitive with no pain.
Dossie recalls:
When I first came out into S/M, I had very negative feelings about whips. I am an abuse survivor, and the idea of being hit made me a little sick to my stomach; my fantasies were about bondage, intense sensation and nonconsent. I remember at my first Janus meeting tremulously asking the assembled scary-looking leatherpeople if I could be into S/M if I didn’t want to get hit. They gave me good support, and agreed that I could. My first experience with a whip, more than a year later, was actually with a belt, administered by a top who understood how scared I was – and was I surprised! This didn’t feel bad, it didn’t feel like punishment, it felt nothing like the abuse I had known – it did feel intensely warm, sensual and deeply sexual.
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