Practice

Introduction

If you have read Part I then you may remember the conclusion:

In short, a BDSM relationship is a consensual brokering of power between two or more people, and works optimally in the presence of trust.

This rather rarefied statement may leave some of you with questions. Questions like: “Okay. Now what?” This article is intended to be a small survey of Now What? It is meant to be suggestive rather than comprehensive.

Some of the activities mentioned here are fine for the novice, but some are the province of the expert. I’ll try to be clear which are which.

In what follows, I’ll be using the term dominant or dom to refer to the person who is accepting power and submissive or sub to refer to the person yielding power.

Let’s start by breaking down the BDSM acronym. It consists of three two letter sub-acronyms:

B&D - bondage and discipline
D&S - dominance and submission
S&M - sadism and masochism

We can break B&D apart and talk about each separately. We won’t be able to do this with the other two pairs, D&S and S&M.

Bondage

Over the past decade, scenes containing bondage have been appearing on main-stream television. It is almost exactly the same scene repeated ad nauseam. A woman ties a man spread-eagled (one limb to each corner) to a bed with scarves, neckties, or, sometimes, handcuffs. What happens next is invariably either: she leaves him helpless OR we get a cut to another scene. Let’s avoid the obvious questions and stick to the point. A spread-eagled tie is a good starting point for a beginner. It’s very easy to do. It makes the subject helpless, while comfortable, with good access to most of the fun parts. But, never, and I do mean never, go away and leave your subject bound. You made them helpless, so it’s your responsibility to take care of them. Here are some other guidelines for bondage safety (and BDSM activities in general):

For the dominant:

Throughout the scene, ask your submissive how they are and really listen to what they say.

Check circulation often. If you’ve bound your submissive’s wrists, are the fingers cold or, worse, turning odd colors?

Pay attention to your sub’s breathing.

Evaluate their mental state. You should be looking for excited, not terrified.

If you are using anything that locks (handcuffs or leather restraints that can be locked with padlocks), check that you have the keys before you lock anything. Never assume that the keys are where you left them. It’s also a good idea to keep spare keys somewhere safe, but accessible.

Be prepared to release your submissive quickly — if you are using rope, this means having EMT shears handy. If your plan is to use regular scissors or a knife, can you do so without injuring your friend? If they are in distress, they may be thrashing around, making it hard to get to what you need to cut without endangering what you shouldn’t cut. EMT shears have a blunt scooped point that is idea for getting between the skin and the rope with little risk of hurting the sub in the process.

For the submissive:

Don’t play with people you don’t trust. Especially, in private. Be smart.

If you are someone who likes to role play distress, safewords are for you (see below).

Try to communicate clearly with your dominant. If you are not sure you are going to like something, but are willing to try it, say so. You have hard limits, communicate them. Your dom is in control, but only inside the boundaries you set.

It’s not a bad idea to do your own research on bondage safety. Wikipedia has some good notes on this topic.

You’re a dominant, you have a submissive, and you want to to do some bondage. What can you use to do that?

Rope: Rope bondage can be a very complicated subject. There are some good books on the subject. Two Knotty Boys write some of the best and also have some helpful videos on their site. Shibari You Can Use: Japanese Rope Bondage and Erotic Macrame is also excellent, and can be found on Amazon. There are also some good video tutorials on the Twisted Monk website.

Leather: If you are a complete novice and you have a little cash to spend, I recommend leather restraints to start. Stockroom and eXtreme Restraints are two good places, but The Church of Sinvention has the highest quality leather restraints that I’ve ever found. I’d also like to mention Axovus because they have some rather unusual things. Don’t go crazy at first. You should be able to find a set of good wrist and ankle cuffs for about $100. I’d start with just that and some straps or rope to fasten the cuffs to each other or something else. If you don’t have, or don’t want to spend, the $100, you could make your own, like I did when I started out. There used to be a place on the web with comprehensive instruction for making leather cuffs, but it’s gone now. You could go into a leather supply house and poke around and figure it out for yourself. I suspect that by the time you buy all the required tools, you’ll end up spending as much or more as buying some, but you get the cuffs and the tools. The more items you make, the cheaper each one becomes.

Chain: I would never use chain by itself, but it works well with lockable leather restraints and some small padlocks. It has a very nice medieval feel and is very secure.

Tape: There are some kinds of tape specifically designed for bondage. I’ve tried them and I don’t care for them. I would never apply any kind of regular tape directly to the skin. Taping your submissive’s legs together at the ankle while they have jeans on would be a very effective means of making them helpless, except, they have jeans on, so there’s not much you can do with them. But wait! You have your EMT shears, don’t you?

Belts: The first thing I ever seriously tied a woman up with was old Karate and Judo belts. Every time you buy a new Gi (the uniform) you get another wide, white cotton belt. After a few years of study, I had four or five, and she had four or five. Those belts are perfect beginning bondage gear. Consider cargo straps, Yoga straps, regular leather belts, and so on. Be careful of anything stretchy like bungee cords as the danger of cutting off circulation is pretty high.

Handcuffs: Yes, they are quick and very secure, but they are not as comfortable as leather or rope. I own a pair, but I don’t use them that often.

Furniture: You can buy furniture specifically designed for bondage. From stocks that restrain all by themselves to benches, crosses, and bed frames that are designed to give you a lot of possibilities for how to tie up your submissive.

There are a lot more things you could use, but be sensible.

Now that you have some idea about what you need, I want to say a few words about how to restrain your submissive. I already mentioned the spread eagle. Here are some more ideas and some cautions.

Wrist to wrist, ankle to ankle: Simple, basic, effective. You can move the submissive around. Flip them face up or face down. Spread their legs at the knee to get to some fun bits and so on. The wrists could be in front or behind. If you leave enough slack in the binding between the wrists, you can even move it front to back as you like, by having the submissive bring their knees to the chest and sliding the wrist binding over and pulling the feet through.

Wrist to ankle: A little bit more than basic. The submissive can be on their back or face down with their ass in the air. It’s fun either way. Watch out that there is not a excessive strain being placed on the wrists.

Chair(s): Tying someone to a chair can be a lot of fun, but it’s a bit disappointing in that you can’t get to the genitals. I found a solution to this problem: take two chairs, set them side-by-side, and tie the back legs together. Then tie the front legs together through a one foot piece of PVC pipe. This gives you a double wide chair with a V split in the seat. When I tied my submissive to that, positioned right over the split, oh boy! Fun was had by all.

Two Doorways: An intermediate technique. If you have two doorways that are in separate walls but close to the same corner, you can do a standing Y or X which is very nice for flogging. In the first (Y) the arms are up and out to the sides with the feet together and the second (X) is the same but with the feet apart. You need over-the-door tie points which you can buy, but I made my own. The idea is to have something you can hang over the open door that provides a secure tie point when the door is closed. I made mine with some flat nylon webbing and a couple of carabiners. Take a piece of webbing about a foot and half long, fold it in half and make an overhand knot so that you have a loop about six inches long. Knot the free end over and over as close to the first knot as you can to make large bulky knot. You can trim off the excess free ends if you like. Thread the carabiner through the loop. If you don’t have a carabiner, you could tie a close metal ring on using a lark’s head knot. To test your work, open a door and drape the loop over the top with the carabiner or ring on your side and the knot on the other. Try to close the door. If it won’t close, the webbing is too thick. If it will, pull down on the carabiner. If it pulls off over the door, your knot wasn’t bulky enough. If neither one of these things happened, you have success. You need two of these to do the Y tie. The rest is obvious. For the X you either need four tie points or two and a spreader-bar to hold the ankles apart. Caution: arms up and to the sides gets tiring quickly. The more tension you put on the arms the faster your submissive will tire.

Suspension: When I saw my first picture of a suspension, I thought “I have to do that someday!” That was decades ago, and I still have not done it. Why? It’s very, very advanced and dangerous as hell if you don’t know what you are doing. A restrained person could be seriously injured or killed by even a very short fall that they can’t cushion. Circulation problems, nerve damage, and damage to the joints are all possible. Finally, I’ve never had anything available that I’d trust to bear that much weight in such a critical application. I suggest we leave this one to the professionals unless you can get some really good instruction.

There’s a universe of possibilities out there. I hope you will find some of these ideas useful and take the cautions to heart.

Discipline

Why the B gets hooked to the D in the BDSM acronym has always been a mystery to me. Bondage is not related to Discipline in the same hand-in-glove way that Dominance is related to Submission or Sadism to Masochism. It had to be somewhere though, and I guess this is the only place it could be.

In short, discipline is the practice of controlling overt behavior through the enforcement of rules via punishment. The rules could be about anything: how the house is kept, behavior in public, care of property, and so on. This is the one area of BDSM where my knowledge is weak because it just doesn’t interest me. My submissive is capable. In some ways and areas, more capable than I am. Perhaps if I, as a very experienced dominant, were taking on a twenty-year-old know-nothing submissive, I’d see the point. This is also the place where BDSM comes out of the bedroom and injects itself into the rest of life. For me, BDSM is the spice that makes for great sex and great sex is the glue that binds together a great relationship. So, what do I do when I come home and kitchen is a mess, there’s no food in the house, and I have no clean clothes for tomorrow? I do the dishes, go to the grocery store, put some things in the washer, and probably cook dinner. She’s busy, not lazy. That is not to say that I don’t threaten to give her a good spanking when she gets home — a threat I might even follow through on — but it’s only play for us, and I’m just as likely to rub her shoulders or feet and bring her dinner on the couch instead.

I’ve confessed my ignorance and I’ll continue with apologies in advance for those I’m about to offend. You have a submissive and you’d like to train him or her. The details of that training are up to you to work out with your sub. Your motivations fall somewhere on the spectrum from I love my submissive and want to help them be a better person to I’m a total control-freak and I get off by being in control. Let’s call these the light and dark sides of discipline, and understand that every dominant is some mix of both. I’ll even admit to the possibility that someone could be a total control-freak who loves their submissive and wants to help them be a better person. It’s a little freaky, but possible.

Let’s speculate briefly on the motivation of the submissive.…

Ouch, that makes my head hurt! The best I can do is this: if I were someone who lacked self-confidence, it would be nice if someone I trusted could tell me if I were doing the right thing or not. Or maybe, just tell me what to do much of the time. Perhaps this is the light and dark side of discipline from the submissive side? A spectrum from I’m occasionally unsure of myself and it’s nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of to Just tell me what to do, all the time!

Rewind a bit. You are a dominant with your motivation for doing discipline and you have a submissive who has their motivation for accepting discipline from you. I can’t tell you what to train for, but I can give you some general advice from the perspective of someone who has studied and read a lot about psychology. Be prescriptive rather than proscriptive. That is to say, it’s better to encourage the behavior you want rather than only discourage the behavior you don’t want. To the extent that you are a Sith-dom/control-freak, this might take all the fun out of it, but this is the basis of successful Jedi-dom mind-tricks.

How about a concrete example? Suppose your sub is a chatter-box, who doesn’t listen to others when they talk, monopolizes the conversation, and says things that make you embarrassed to be associated with her because she’s just not listening. If it were me, I’d be on board with the discipline in a big hurry. A Sith-dom proscription might be: “When we’re with friends, just keep your mouth shut, unless someone asks you a question.” The Jedi-dom’s prescription might be something along these lines: “Listen. Respond only when you’re sure you know what the person is saying. If you don’t understand, ask for clarification. Add to the conversation, don’t take it over.” Both approaches can work, but since they actually have different goals, it’s really hard to compare them. All other things being equal, I’d expect the light-side approach to make for more happiness.

Dominance and Submission

These two topics are closely related since you can’t have one without the other. In my opinion, this is the purest expression of the power-exchange. It requires nothing but the consenting parties. One dominates and the other submits. This can happen either as a part of a lifestyle where the D/s is always on. Or it can be contained in scenes in an on/off fashion. Some of the common threads in what follows are humiliation, mind control, and roleplayed non-consensuallity. Bondage often has a part in D/s activities.

What are some of the activities used to express a D/s relationship? There are too many to come anywhere close to listing them all. I’ll try to hit some of the highlights.

Marking: In what seems to be more of a lifestyle activity, some dominant’s mark their subs as a means of expressing ownership. Tattoos and piercings are permanent or semi-permanent markings. Branding and scarification are more extreme means. All four of these marking techniques should carried out only by experts. I give special mention to some other marking behaviors below.

Collaring: This is the archetypical marking behavior. Typically, the dominant procures or even makes the collar and the submissive wears it as a means of expressing an “owned” status. Sometimes the collar is not even a collar. It could be a neck-chain, bracelet, anklet, or some other item. It may lock or it may not. I think the internal aspects are more important the external ones. If you see someone wearing a collar, you cannot assume you know what it means. There was a clerk at a store I frequent that had a heavy bit of chain around her neck fastened by a decorative padlock. Every time I saw her she was wearing it. Was it fashion? Or was it a mark of an owned status? (I haven’t seen you there in a long time. If you read this and recognize yourself, drop me a line. I’d love to know. You inspired the character Janice in Dragon of Vengeance. Thanks.) The rituals and etiquette surrounding collaring are complicated and the reader can learn more on the net. Again, Wikipedia may be a good place to start. See Collar .

Removal of Pubic Hair: Making your submissive remove their pubic hair, or doing it for them, is a special form of marking behavior. Shaving and waxing are the two common techniques. See Sugaring for some information on the technique I consider the best. Acomoclitism is the technical term for a preference for hairless genitals.

Slave Play: This is a straightforward kind of roleplay where the sub is treated as a sexual or menial slave. The slave may pretend to be willing or unwilling. This is different from actual slavery which has nothing at all to do with BDSM since it violates the central tenant of consent.

D/s Roleplay: Here I include all sort of roleplay where the dominant takes on a superior role and the submissive takes on a subordinate role. Examples include kidnap, rape, principal/student, and boss/secretary. “Escaped Prisoner and the Warden’s Wife” comes from a MASH episode (I think) from about thirty-five years ago. There’s nothing new under the sun, kids. Start slow with D/s roleplay; it can be surprisingly intense.

Animal Roleplay: A more extreme form of roleplay wherein the sub is transformed into an animal. Cat, dog, and pony are the most common animals used in this way. Animals are often harnessed or collared, but don’t confuse this with the collars talked about in the section on Collaring, that’s a very different thing. Cats and dogs can be led about on leashes, fed, trained, or punished. Ponyplay can get very elaborate with harnesses, headgear, footgear, carts and training apparatus. And yes, dominants do have sex with their animals. For more information see Animal Roleplay.

Forced Feminization: Another form of transformative roleplay where a man is transformed into a woman. I suppose Forced Masculine-ization could be somebody’s kink but I’ve never heard of it. It seems that the gender barriers are asymmetric in their permeability. More information is available at Feminization.

Forniphilia: A form of sexual objectification where the submissive is transformed into furniture or some other kind of object. This can range from the dom putting their feet on the back of the sub kneeling in front of the couch, to highly elaborate forms where the sub (or subs) are incorporated into furniture or onto/into vehicles or other machines by strict bondage. The term was coined by Jeff Gord and the House of Gord is a good resource for more information on the extreme forms of this activity. The Wikipedia page Forniphilia has some information and links.

Lick My Boot, Baby!: Classic self explanatory D/s play. I recommend clean boots treated with bio-safe products. Maybe your sub can do your boot care first?

Clothing: Clothing can be a means of domination. Corsets. Latex or rubber catsuits. Chastity belts or devices. High heels. Anything that could be locked on so that the sub cannot remove it themselves.

Clothing, Cutting, or Ripping: Ripping or cutting your sub’s clothes off is great fun and a wonderful means of domination. It’s probably best if you get your sub the outfit. “I bought you this dress. Put it on …, but don’t get too attached to it.” The alternative could be, “You bastard! That dress cost $500!”

Gags, Blindfolds, and Earplugs: Sensory and speech control are often used in D/s play.

Collar: Collars aren’t only used for marking or in animal play. They are in and of themselves a good D/s tool. Especially a locking collar.

I want to say a few words about the following three concepts because they underlie a lot of the activities above.

Humiliation: Erotic humiliation can arouse powerful emotions for both the dom and the sub. This can be achieved verbally, through name calling (the dom calling the sub names or making the sub repeat back such names). Or physically by positions such as kneeling or placing the foot on the head or chest. It can be done privately or in public. When done in public, it is more powerful, but great care must be taken so that it does not spill over into abuse. For more on this topic see Erotic Humiliation.

Erotic Mind Control: Since D/s is about control, what’s better than being able to do it with your mind alone? Obviously, this would be roleplay. Although, hypnosis pushes the edges of this boundary. Look Into My Eyes by Peter Masters is a good book on the subject of erotic hypnosis. I see that he has another book on _Control_ that I haven’t read. It’s on order and I’ll update this after I’ve studied it. There is a mind control essay that might be helpful even if it’s a bit hokey.

Non-consensuallity: For this to be a proper part of BDSM, it must be roleplayed. Otherwise, it’s simply criminal. Rape, kidnap, and extortion are all common themes roleplayed in this area.

Sadism and Masochism

These two topics are so closely related that they have been jammed together into a single word: sadomasochism. If you consult your dictionary, sadomasochism is about pain, suffering and humiliation. It seems to be a common view inside the BDSM community that S&M is better described as being about sensation because otherwise there are some activities that don’t have a home. A vibrator doesn’t cause pain, but can you torture someone with one? Oh, yeah!

With most S&M activities, there’s no way to really learn them except through hands-on experimentation. Go slow at first, and check in with your partner often. You will find that their limits shift over the course of the scene especially if you mix these sensations with sexual stimulation. Rhythm is critical. Hit a peak, then pull back, wait a while, and then hit it again.

There are so many means of dealing out sensation that I can’t hope to do more than touch on some highlights.

Punch, Pinch, Bite, Suck, Lick, Scratch, Squeeze, Poke, Slap … All those things you were not supposed to do to other children when you were small. The beauty of these is that you always have the tools. The intensity of sensation is very easy to control and the variety is vast. Go easy with the punching and always direct it into a big muscly place. The butt is the best. It can take a lot, and even moderate to hard force feels pretty good. Light punches to the trapezius work, but avoid the shoulder blades. In fact, always avoid hitting bone.

Tickling: Some people like it and some don’t.

Impact Play: This is a classic S&M activity where the dom strikes the sub, usually repeatedly. This activity sub-divides into a number of acts depending on what the dom uses to strike the sub and where. This article Impact Play has some useful information and important cautions. The Flogging Basics external link looks useful. Start slow and be sensible.

Single-tailing: A single tail whip has a single fall or tail. Some times this is referred to as a “bull-whip.” Singling-tailing is for experts only.

Flogging: A whip with many falls or tails is called a flogger or sometimes a “cat.” A “cat o nine tails” should have nine tails, but often doesn’t. A suede flogger with many short tails makes a good beginners flogger. Be sure to read my caution about cleaning floggers in the Miscellaneous section below.

Caning: A cane is a long, thin, flexible rod. For me, the best thing about a cane is that I can use it on her breasts while I’m giving her attention with my tongue between her legs. Spanking: Striking with the open hand, usually on the buttocks or thighs. You can vary the sensation by changing the configuration of your hand. A cupped hand feels different from a splayed one.

Genital Bondage: The practice of applying rope or cord to your sub’s genitals. It’s bondage because you use rope, but it’s not because it’s not meant to restrict movement. It’s meant to induce sensation. With a woman, you can put the lines between the labia. With a man, you can wrap the base of the testicles and penis. For a man, the sensation is … indescribable. Check circulation often. See Crotch Rope for female genital bondage.

Breast Bondage: Another bit of bondage that isn’t. The idea is to create sensation by wrapping the breasts tightly. The simplest technique is to wrap one or more times around the chest and over the breasts. Some Shibari techniques are quite elaborate. You can generally do more with larger breasts than smaller, but size doesn’t really make that much difference. Again, check circulation often. See Breast Bondage .

Nipple Torture: Use clothespins, nipple-clamps, or snake-bite suction cups. These are great targets for pinching, biting and some light caning and flogging. See Tit Torture .

Waxing: Dripping hot candle wax on your sub sounds cruel, and it can be, or not. Here are some tips to help you adjust the sensation. Beeswax melts at a lower temperature than paraffin. The farther the wax falls, the cooler it is when it hits. Start high and work your way down until you get what you want. Never in the face. See Wax Play.

Erotic Electro-stimulation: Is the practice of using electrical devices to provide stimulation. From an S&M context electro-stimulation can be either directly erotic or not, depending on the kind of power source used:

Erotic Electro-stimulation Power source: These are devices that are designed to produce a directly erotic stimulation. Electrodes are either inserted vaginally, anally, or strapped to the penis. This is on my something I might want to try list, but is muted by the fact that “Electro-stimulation can cause tissue damage or even death if misused.” ErosTek is the company I will use if and when I get there. Check out their Guide to E-stim and their Buyer’s Guide. These devices are not cheap, you will spend $300 to $500 just for the power unit. You will also need at least one electrode and cables. There is some optional software that looks interesting.

TENS: Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation units are inexpensive battery powered electrical devices that deliver pulses of current. Most have a low frequency setting that causes muscle contraction and a higher frequency setting that does not. Please read all the cautions that come with your unit. There is some safety information here TENS. I use mine from time to time. One interesting technique is to put one electrode on your sub near the place you want to stimulate and the other electrode on the back of your own hand. Now you have electric fingers!

Violet Wand: I’ve never used one of theses. They are very high voltage and very low current devices that can produce bright violet sparks, thus the name. See Violet Wand for more information.

Do It Yourself Power Unit: Unless you are a Biomedical Engineer, this is just crazy talk.

See Erotic Electrostimulation for some general discussion about erotic eletro-stimulation, the various kinds of units, and some safety information.

Fucking Machines: This is exactly what it sounds like. I’ve never used one, but a friend told me that they are great. It’s on my list of wants. FuckingMachines.com has about a dozen different models for sale. I have my eye on the Black Magic XL. You might ask: Why not just do her yourself? Because, if the machine was doing the work, then I could focus on doing other things to her at the same time without getting distracted by my own pleasure. Besides, the machine can last longer than I can.

Miscellaneous Topics

Safewords: The idea behind safewords is that they provide a means of unambiguous communication during a scene. They should be words that won’t normally come up. At the very least, you need a word that means stop and listen to me. What’s even better is a multilevel system. The easiest one of these is the stoplight system. Green means “Yes, I like that. Do more.” Yellow means “Stop doing what you are doing, but don’t stop the scene.” Red means “Stop the scene; we’re finished.” See the Wikipedia Safeword page for a good discussion of this topic. If you use a gag, you should augment your safewords with safe-gestures as well.

Topping From the Bottom: This phrase describes the situation where the submissive tries to exert control through verbal or non-verbal communication during a scene. It is generally considered a very bad thing. Perhaps because we have a very egalitarian relationship, or maybe because I’m very secure in being the kind of dominant that I am, I don’t see it as a problem at all. Sometimes I want to play, I haven’t had any time to think of something fun to do, I’m winging it, but I’m not getting any ideas. She’ll make some kind of suggestion, and I’ll either go with it, or it could trigger a different idea and I’ll go with that. We don’t generally do much negotiation ahead of a scene, and so if anything needs to be negotiated, it has to be done during the scene.

Consent: Here are some things to think about with respect to consent.

Consent is only significant between parties of equal — for lack of a better word, I’ll say — rank. Consent between a minor and an adult, between a prisoner and a guard, even between an employee and a boss, can be held meaningless legally.

Consent given can be withdrawn. Consent today is not consent tomorrow.

Consent given by a person who has not been made aware of the risks involved may be meaningless.

Properly obtained consent may not be enough to protect you if you injure or kill your sub. Even if it is an accident.

Consent

Flogging and Disease Awareness: At a recent talk given by a member of the local medical community, I learned the disturbing fact that Hepatitis C can persist on surfaces, and that standard means for cleaning surfaces may be inadequate for safety. Flogging can cause tiny breaks in the skin that are almost unnoticeable. Leather floggers can be very difficult to clean without damaging them. This all adds up to a dangerous situation for our community. The danger of transmission may not be high, but how safe do you want to be? In my opinion, the best solution presented at the talk was for subs who play in the community at large, to obtain a selection of tools for doms to use on them and only them and to refuse to play with doms who wouldn’t agree to use those, and only those, tools.