informational

Jan

2024

When it comes to your body, seek experts for things you need experts in.*

Most of Fetlandia are not medical professionals.

Even if they are—because I know some rather excellent humans who are exceptions to that—they’re more than likely not your medical professionals.

And what this means is they aren’t qualified to give you the important information you need about your body and safety, no matter how much they have experienced, how visible they are, or how long they have been around.

I get a big ol’ frowny face every time I see someone pose to strangers online: “Can I do x during my wife’s pregnancy?” or “Is y safe with implants?” They can’t tell you these things. Your friends can’t. I can’t. And your kink presenter more than likely can’t, either.

The examples aren’t always that extreme, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less dangerous. Asking your friend “what stretches should I use to help this muscle pull?” or “am I strong enough to do this activity?” or even “is this how this is supposed to heal?” isn’t fair to your body, and it isn’t fair to them, either. When you do that, you put people in a situation where—if they give you advice you take, and then you end up permanently injured—they might feel responsible for your life. Not cool.

It’s frankly disturbing to me how often I’ve personally experienced this from people on this site. Yes, I’ve bottomed for a number of things, and I have talked to people who’ve bottomed for a number of things, but I can’t tell you if your body is up for that, and I can’t tell you if your recovery is normal. If I do that, maybe you don’t go to the doctor when you should, and then that’s on me. (And more than likely if you’ve ever asked me that question, I have indeed told you to go to a doctor even if I wouldn’t.) And yeah, I feel comfortable leading others in the stretching routine I use and talking about why it is the way it is, but that sure doesn’t mean I’m trained to teach you yoga.* And I can commiserate with you over chronic pain, but I can’t tell you what yours comes from or how you should treat it. I’m not qualified to do any of that, and you deserve more.

Now, what I can tell you is my own experience. I can tell you if something is in my risk profile and how I decided that. I can talk about what I’ve learned and how I’ve learned it. I can show you the routines and tests I personally use. I can share my experience with chronic pain and hypermobility spectrum disorders and tell you about how I got diagnoses, what has and hasn’t worked for me, and what I think of various doctors. But that’s about the extent of what I can do, or what anyone here should be doing. Don’t get me wrong: those conversations can** be super useful, affirming, and educational for everyone in them. They also aren’t even remotely equivalent to what a professional can do.

When you need an expert for something, ask an expert. Don’t ask a Fet forum. Don’t make it your status. Don’t text your buddy. And to take it a step further, ask an expert in the thing you’re wondering about. You probably wouldn’t ask your English professor friend to do your taxes, and you most likely shouldn’t ask your rope instructor, talented as they may be, to teach you fire play. Don’t put that burden on other people. Don’t take that chance with your body.

You only get one of these skin bags, just like anyone else. There are people out there who have studied and trained in the questions you have. They did that to help people. Seek them out.

And if you are answering these kinds of questions based on your personal experiences alone and posing it as fact?
Stop.

*The tea is that yoga studios pay the bills with yoga teacher training classes, many of which have no application process, and your yoga teacher also might not be well-trained to teach you yoga. But that’s another rant for another day.

**Emphasis on can—people with chronic illnesses often become others’ de facto medical information booklets, and it is pretty unfair/exhausting to ask people to explain what sucks about their health and why all the time.

Jan

2024

The Risk Profile: an alternative measure for safety and comfort in play

I recently got to collaborate with the Bound-Together blog to share a version of this writing off-site. You can check it out here!

I first heard the term “risk profile” a few months back, and never really was given a solid definition of it. “That’s not in my risk profile” was something I took to just mean “I’ve deemed that too risky for me”, which I think most would probably say is fair. But the more I’ve thought about the way I approach my comfort level in play, the more I’ve found that the term fits, and it fills in the blanks my lack of explicit limits or safewords leave for people. So in discussions with some other bottoms who are like me recently, we started to operationalize it a bit more.

Safewords are easy ways to help play stay inside your comfort zone, but there are many extremely valid reasons that people might not want to use them. Maybe you’re like me, and the sort of power exchange you need in your play must preclude you having any of that decision-making power. Maybe you’re unlikely to actually use your safeword, or you know you’d use it too soon and be disappointed in yourself afterwards (not that there’s *any* reason to be), or you don’t think you’d know what constitutes enough of an emergency to stop the scene. Hard limits are adjacent to what I’m about to discuss, but they aren’t perfect either: most folks use them to list kinks and implements they aren’t okay with, but there always might be things you haven’t thought of. Not all people use the same implements in the same ways, so what is a hard limit with one could be a yes please with another. And, as I once read somewhere here, hard limit lists frequently become check lists; keeping one for me became “I’m afraid of this,” which isn’t the same as “I don’t want to do this,” and these traditional lists eventually were too, well, limiting.

Enter the Risk Profile: a method of determining what one does not want to happen in play that I believe is simultaneously more comprehensive and more permissive of experimentation in scene.

What

I will define the Risk Profile broadly as a set of parameters encompassing the things in one’s life that, if lost, would cost more than the opportunity that play provides. What you are not willing to risk. As I go more into this, that will make more sense. These parameters will, of course, be wide for some and narrow for others. They’ll look different and how they come out in people’s play will vary. **They focus on end result, not in-play experience.** They may include such items as ability to engage in one’s work, interact with family, or maintain mental health, among others. Someone who works as a professional model would have a different risk profile from someone who works in a call center, and so forth. Since I write, I’ll be using that as my example in this post.

They are *not* a list of kinks or tools that are off limits, though they might include them. They are not a list of “things I don’t like”. I am speaking to a particular subset of person with this, who may *want* to be put in experiences they don’t like or that even make them feel like they’re unsafe, even if they aren’t–though there’s no reason someone couldn’t have a hard limits list in addition for more coverage, if that isn’t their style. They are not necessarily a substitute for a safeword—a safeword can be used with them, or not. They aren’t as broad as “I would not be okay with paralysis or losing cognitive ability” and I’d recommend you just not play with people who you think wouldn’t already know something like that.

Why

Defining particular categories or health elements one is not willing to put in jeopardy does a few things over the other failsafes.

The risk profile allows for inclusion of limits one might not have thought of. “Being able to write” as part of my risk profile gives my top more information than “no bending fingers back”. From that, they can also determine that needles under my fingernails would be an issue, even if I hadn’t thought to say that. At the same time, it means I don’t have to approve everything that will be done to me, which would make a scene not enjoyable for me personally.

The risk profile allows for the bottom to better vet a top’s knowledge and skills. We often see somebody do one thing at a high skill level and assume they are well-versed in others. With my writing example, I could toss out potentially (not necessarily) irrelevant knowledge such as how long somebody has been in the scene, and narrow it down to “can you tell me which nerves connect to the wrist?”

The risk profile allows for prioritizing of first aid. It is impossible to plan for every emergency or to know how to fix every problem. It simply is. But, having determined my risk profile, I can educate myself as to tests to make sure nerves are not being damaged, as well as create (as much as possible) a plan of action as to treatment if things do go wrong.

The risk profile helps both top and bottom determine when a scene has to end. For those of us who don’t like to or can’t use safewords, this clarifies what an actual emergency would be. I don’t actually want a scene to stop immediately, even if I say otherwise in the moment, because I feel like I might vomit–but I do want it to stop if I can’t move my fingers. Additionally, having focused medical knowledge about such things has allowed us in a real-life example to address just the portion of a scene affecting my hands without slowing down the rest of it, as opposed to stopping everything in order to figure out the cause.

The risk profile gives the parameters in case of surprise CNC scenes and similar. For those open to scenes that they don’t negotiate everything into, the risk profile allows a top to easier think about what they’re going to do without asking leading questions that might give their evil/creative (and therefore not on a typical limits list) plans away.

How

This is fairly simple, in theory. There are only three steps.

1) Determine the things in life that, if lost, would cost more than the opportunity play provides.

Consider emotional and physical health risks that are particular to your body, jobs, hobbies, values and beliefs, family and romantic relationships, among others.

2) Determine what specifically you need in order to maintain those things.

In terms of writing, I need to be able to type, I need to meet deadlines, and I need to be able to think and create. That’s fairly straightforward. If I can’t go out for a week because I have a black eye, that isn’t outside of my risk profile. A singer, for example, may need to avoid screaming in the week before performances so as to not damage vocal cords. Someone who puts raising their children in their risk profile may need to include more, such as the ability to drive them to day care, lift them into their high chairs, not have marks visible to them, and not be in such a state of drop that they couldn’t avoid letting on that something was off. Depending on mental health, this might include taking a pill at a certain time, not having restrictions on food, sleeping comfortably. This is all highly individual.

Again, pretty similar to a hard limits list in many ways, except that it focuses specifically on end result.

3) Codify it, if that’s helpful to you, and talk about it.

Just as you would any other negotiation. I’ve never had this discussion explicitly, but I live with my partner and He knows what’s important to me. I had to say at some point “hey, when x happened, I wasn’t able to write because of the pain” and I feel fairly confident He isn’t going to do x again in the same way or with the same force. You could also, of course, discuss it in certain terms. You could write it down, particularly if you have non-obvious skill requirements, and have that list to share. You could just use it for your own information, to help you focus your own knowledge acquisition as a bottom.

And I should say that tops can have this for their bottoms, as well—my Owner generally won’t risk anything that is known to put my bad shoulder out of commission for a day, even though I’d be okay with it in a lot of cases.

And there you go. That’s the risk profile. My framework of it, at least.
This isn’t something you sit down and do in a few minutes. I run a two-hour workshop on it (insert “sign up for my substack to get notified if i’m giving one!” here) and that’s just the getting started part. This is a process that you spend time on, over many many days and weeks and months, and that you revise as time goes on. And then you do research about the possible risks of the kind of play you like, the medical information you need in order to protect those things that you can’t risk, and so on and so forth…

I am not even slightly pretending this is a perfect system. It isn’t comprehensive, just a way to be *more* comprehensive. You might have this as well as a hard limits list of things you just don’t like, and you might also use a safeword to mark any stop at all; this just allows coverage of what you haven’t thought of. Making it clear you want to avoid anything that would produce x result doesn’t necessarily mean x result won’t happen in a worst case scenario, but it does mean you can prioritize that over other results (in the case of two non-life-threatening injuries, that is. Of course you should always prioritize things such as long-term unconsciousness and drops on heads first.) It doesn’t account for all that could go wrong, but it will tell you what emergencies you want the top to have a more than basic knowledge of. And it won’t stop consent violators—but your limits list and safeword weren’t going to do that, either.

And for those of us who do want to play not knowing what our tops are going to do to us, without any way out, maybe this helps give them more information so that we can both be successful. Maybe it helps us to up our own medical and play knowledge, or to narrow down what criteria we use to figure out who we can and can’t play with. Maybe it helps us determine what’s an important no, and what’s just an “I’m scared.” Maybe it helps us, even a little bit, mitigate our risk.

Join the conversation on this post in the comments on Fetlife

Jan

2024

In Search of a Definition of Edge Play

“You know that meme from The Lion King, where Mufasa is showing Simba his realm? “What’s that shadowy place over there?” Well, that shadowy place is where edgeplay happens.”

A bit ago, I asked for definitions of edge-play. Like with the definitions of CNC, I’ve tried to compile them and look for some trends to see if edge play can be used as a universally understood term.

What is edge play as a concept?

Point of agreement: It pushes limits
Most people stated edge play pushed limits, and most of those named those of the participants. Therefore, the majority consider edge play to be highly individual. Responses included:

“play that is on a border (either nerve-making, risk taking, or basically outside of the comfort zone) for at least one, if not all, of the participants. Since everyone’s comfort borders are widely different, what some people consider playing on the edge may seem mundane or pedestrian to others”
“play at your own personal limit which has intent to push those boundaries”
“whatever the participants think is near the limit of what they think is acceptable risk.”

Point of confusion: It has a heightened risk of harm
It seemed generally agreed that edge play means that there is a chance of some form of harm—not all specified, but about half as many of as those who said physical harm also said emotional harm. Legal risk (eg in the case of extreme exhibitionism) got a mention as well. Several noted that the risk of harm may be to the bottom or to the top.

Given that these answers were so common, I tried to push people to give me a bit more. I wanted to know how much risk, and what the “common level of acceptable risk” even was. For example, when presented with the answer of edge play including risk of “immediate and irreparable damage or death,” I tried to ask folks if slapping then counts as edge play since it can in rare cases permanently burst eardrums or detach corneas (note: I Love slapping; I’m not trying to scare you away from slapping. Simply making a point.) Still, I couldn’t really get answers for this besides just that edge play is simply riskier than what “most kinksters” consider normal. I also couldn’t get an answer as to what most kinksters consider normal, besides “whatever people consider the norm.” One answer did quantify as a “50/50 shot of either being enjoyable, or causing/resulting in some sort of psychological or emotional harm.” (I have a feeling this kinkster might have meant to include physical, but it was not technically in the definition.)

Point of contention: how is harm caused
Many answers did refer to edge play requiring an experienced player, but two definitions considered playing with an inexperienced person to be edge play. Technically speaking, this *would* seem to fit the definition of a heightened risk. These statements also received arguments back, comparing it to blaming a snake for biting when you step on it.

One answer stated that in some edge play, notable and irrepairable harm may be intended, and that scars and the like “aren’t a bug, they’re a feature.”

Point of contention: knowledge of risk
Some answers included things such as

“It’s something you need to go into with a total acceptance and understanding of what can go wrong and there are plans in place just in case the worst happens.”

whereas others stated that part of what qualifies something as edge play is the *lack* of ability to fully understand what can go wrong and that the risks *can’t* be well managed, garnering definitions as

“this might become something we don’t want it to be”

and

“I do not think that I will be physically or emotionally “permanently damaged” by having to listen to {emotionally triggering music} during play. On the other hand, I don’t know WHAT it will do.”

What is edge play, specifically?

These answers ranged from the abstract

“Play that would be beyond the hard limits of most kinksters”
“play that objectively requires special precautions”
“Things that “if I were writing about, I would place a content warning”
Scenes that “are the focus of kinkshaming”

to the more concrete. Specific kinks named one or more times—though I don’t believe anyone naming these meant there aren’t others—were fire play, branding, “anything involving blood,” play involving bodily fluids, sutures, cutting, sharp metal or glass, stun guns, take-down play, abduction play, interrogation, breathplay, waterboarding, rape play, race play, public exhibitionism, humiliation/degradation/fear, and prolonged scenes that go beyond exhaustion.

Why do it?

These are always my favorite definitions. Answers here included…

“The goal may be to overcome some barriers that players want to face or to feel strong or to experience a deep trust bond.”
“It’s the thrill of danger, challenging bodily harm and cheating death (that bastard).”
“it’s like looking over a precipace. You feel your stomach drop, you feel fear, you feel like you have a very tenuous grasp on your sanity. It’s something that, if you let go, it could be life ending or disfiguring or cause scarring, both internally in your gray matter, and externally. It’s a moment of danger. It’s a moment you look inward and say, “Come get some.” Then you jump.”

Conclusions

This study resulted in a lot less variety than the CNC one; the only conflicts were really on whether or not playing with an inexperienced person = edge play and whether edge play is something requiring knowledge of all risks or something where that is impossible.

It does seem to me “edge play” is a term that can be pretty universally used to mean “heightened risk”. What seems less clear is where this threshold is. Risk of what? Heightened for whom? How much risk? I imagine that were we to define this further, many people might have to reclarify what they consider to be edge play (see my slapping example from before).

It is my own belief that pretty much anything we do carries at least some level of irreparable damage of some form. I can think of nothing in BDSM that does not. For me, edge play is a useless term for that reason. Anecdotally speaking, I have actually personally heard of many more injuries from things people consider more on the vanilla 50 shades-y side of things (such as simple bedroom bondage, slapping, and flogging), simply because people assume they are easy/simple and don’t think they need to look into how to do what they do or what risks to be prepared for. On the other hand, those I know nailing each other to crosses, suspending with barbed wire, and so forth are—not always, but mostly—probably the safest players I know (despite getting infinite numbers of folks in their photo comments insisting otherwise) because they are practiced, well informed, and generally not fucking around. I’d like to see us start treating all play with the same level of regard we would edge play. Consider: what precautions would you set forth before engaging in what you think is edge play for the first time or with someone new? Vetting the top? Researching risks, or learning how to do it for yourself if you’re a bottom? Creating a contingency plan? Talking to others who have experience engaging it? Something else? Now, ask yourself: is there a good reason you don’t do that for other sorts of play?

As with anything else in what it is we do, bottoms and tops do need to communicate as to their general level of “acceptable risk” and share anything they know about the risks of the activity to the other in order for all players to be fully informed—to the extent that that is ever possible.

Housekeeping

Please note these are quotes taken from some of the definitions. I was not able to include all of them in a logical fashion. Sometimes, multiple quotes may come from one answer. If you’d like, you can read answers in their original form on Fetlife here. Should you want to join in on the conversation in the comments of the analysis, you can find the original Fetlife post of this one here.

If you’d like to be included in future research surveys, please subscribe to my substack, where I’ll send out calls for responses. I do also post these on my Fet profile, but this can be harder to see in the time you need to respond by than one in your email.

Jan

2024

In Search of a Definition of CNC

Somewhere in between all the other things I find time to do, I’ve written a class on Negotiating and Communicating for CNC.

To this end, I asked in my planning for folks to give me definitions of CNC that didn’t involve the words “consensual” or “non-consent”. I was fascinated by the responses that came up: all of them were somewhat different, some with great deviation. For posterity’s sake/because I think it might be interesting even to folks who wouldn’t take such a class, I’ve tried to sort them some here to give a better picture of those answers.

Common Themes

A focus on trust:

“CNC is an informed and conscious choice to trust yourself, body and soul, to another person or persons.”
“It’s giving all of yourself to someone else who could destroy your inner workings and your body and trusting them not to.”
“Complete trust in a Dominant or top, taking into consideration a personal willingness to suffer and/or push boundaries”
“Using trust as a way to add fear and intensity to play.”
“putting your life in someone else’s hands”

A focus on giving up choice:

“One (or more) partner waiving the right to choose and empowering another to act or choose in their place.”
“one person abdicates the ability to give or remove consent.”
“Abdicating responsibility for oneself/one’s choices within a framework of care and regard.”
“the enthusiastic giving up of power and choice to another for an agreed upon amount of time”
“two (or more) people agreeing to engage in either a single event or ongoing relationship where the recipient of sensation offers complete decision making to the giver of sensation”
“I don’t eat, buy or drink anything without permission, ever; I don’t have any choice over where I live or what job I have. I’ve given up power over my existence. That’s more TPE to some folks, but to me they go hand in hand.”
“Choosing to give up your ability to say no in order to gain the power to scream it.”

An inner experience:

“It’s a feeling that I exist solely for his pleasure. It’s that belief within”
“It’s not being allowed to say no. It’s wanting to never say no.”
“Jesus, take the wheel.”

Points of disagreement

Roleplay or Reality:

“All parties agree it is okay and desirable to do something to one of them that they ACTUALLY DON’T want. (Possibly for experiencing force, disgust, shame, humiliation, or violation. Possibly for demonstrating service, commitment, loyalty, submission. Etc)”
“It doesnt matter if I want to because I made an earlier commitment that I would for this person, and I understood and agreed to the risk of having to do something I might not like”
“it leaves less to chance than your average vanilla sexual encounter, but gives the illusion of less control”
“I want to but I’m pretending I dont want to because doing so is arousing to at least one of us. (sometimes but not always rape play, sometimes just being bratty)”
“To edge closer to that headspace I would need to really believe that I had zero say in what was done to me.”

Safeword or Limits Use/Lackthereof:

“Allowing your partner to take as much pleasure from your body as they desire in any way they desire, whether it be pain, mind fucks, sex, etc without the security of a safe word to stop the act.”
“Play where, with the exceptions of safe words, the Dominant takes as they wish within the negotiated limits, with the appearance of breaking consent through force, coercion, etc.”
“it’s possible to use a safeword in CNC, but it’s “advisory.” As Captain Barbossa might say, “It’s more like…guidelines, than actual rules.” The safeword can help the top determine where the bottom is, but the top has the option to ignore it.”
“Agree to a clearly defined structure within which your disagreement is immaterial; for pleasure or purpose.”
“Based on information exchanged before, knowing exactly when “No” means “Yes pleasee”, and acting on it.”
“Any play eschewing “no” or “stop” as a safeword, or ignoring pleas of discomfort or refusal and “going for it anyway”
“Engaging in a limited negotiated scenario in which a person openly allows another party or parties to proactively ignore any objection or refusal so that the party or parties may proceed at their own discretion through completion of said scenario.”

What does it encompass?

“Forced aggression”
“Rape play”
“Sleep play/intoxication play”
Not sleep or intoxication play: “CNC loses that first “C” when the person is no longer able to communicate in any sort of way.”

Conclusions

All of these answers being a little different, it is clear to me that—while I believe this is necessary in bringing up *any* sort of play for the first time—defining terms is of the utmost importance when discussing entering into some sort of CNC. Saying CNC is not enough. What this is needs to be approached through open-ended questions.

A top I spoke to about this advised being on the same page about “what the bottom wants to experience,” and that seems the best possible discussion to me. Is it about giving up all choice? Is it about aggression? Is it about the ability to fully act as if it is something they don’t want to do (even though they do) without being stopped? Do they want the experience of feeling total devotion? Any of these could be the answer (or very much *not* the answer), depending on the person.

It seems especially important those interested in CNC discuss
1) whether or not anything will be used as a safeword, and
2) whether or not the activities engaged in should be ones that the bottom really doesn’t like or activities they’re okay with, just with the illusion of force/manipulation/coercion behind them.

Housekeeping
Please note these are quotes taken from some of the definitions. I was not able to include all of them in a logical fashion. Sometimes, multiple quotes may come from one answer. [If you’d like, you can read them in original form on Fetlife here. Or, if you want to join in on the conversation, you can do so in the comments of the original posting of this analysis on Fetlife here.

Discussion is okay; value judgement and kink-shaming will not be tolerated on this post. I understand some folks feel that playing without a safeword or limits or playing intoxicated is abusive; I expect you to understand and respect that other folks do not agree.

Want to be included in future research surveys? Follow me on Fetlife or, to be sure it doesn’t get lost, subscribe to my substack here.

Jan

2024

Four Things You’re Getting (Kind of) Wrong about Stretching

1) Proper stretching is important for rope bottoms.

Yep! And all other bottoms, and all other people. Especially in terms of pain processing, stretching teaches your muscles to handle discomfort and stop tensing up so easily. But more than that, in any case where you’re going to be holding some position—be that bending over something, holding your arms up on a cross, or whathaveyou—you risk your muscles stiffening in a way that causes Bad Pain. Stretching will reduce that risk. Not to mention, if you’re like me and are a flincher or sudden-twister when hit with something particularly hard, you want that range of motion already warmed up.

Tops, you probably don’t need to be doing any sort of serious flex work, but you’d do well to warm up your wrists and shoulders. You don’t want those to tense or tire out in the middle of throwing a bullwhip. I know 99% of you do not do any sort of warm up or care about any of this, but if you happen to be reading this and find that your arms are sore the day after a scene or that you’re stopping for your sake and not the bottoms, maybe try it. Again, nothing extreme: these simple mobility drills will do you wonders.

2) Flexibility and strength are different disciplines.

Yep! And they also are essential to success in the other.
Flexibility and strength training go hand-in-hand. When you stretch and can’t go any further, it’s because the muscle has contracted to stop you, knowing it lacks the strength there. That’s your end range-of-motion, and the muscle needs to become stronger there in order for you to actively engage it and push further. Strength also builds stability around joints, which is particularly important if you’re hyperflexible.

A quick way to test if your strength can support your stretching is to test your active vs passive flexibility. Lying on your back, kick one leg up, grab your ankle, and pull (gently, as I assume you are not warmed up) it to your personal end range—where you feel a pull, but not pain. That’s your passive flexibility. Then, let go but *try to keep the leg in the same position*. You’ll need to engage those muscles to hold that there. That’s your active flexibility. It’s going to go down a bit, of course; your passive will always be stronger than your active–but if you have a vast difference between them, you might want to work on strength. You don’t need to grab a barbell or anything, though that’s fun too. You can do what you were just doing and work on holding it. (That’s the very incomplete crash course on how to increase your flexibility, by the by: bringing your mobility to its end range on a regular basis.)

This point particularly pertains to rope, in that rope often acts as that hold at the bottom’s passive end range-of-motion. If their active is not the same, they are going to develop fatigue and need to come out of that stretch much faster.

3) I saw this person in this crazy shape. I’d get injured if I tried to do that, but they are super bendy so it’s fine.

Maybe! There are a lot of talented bendy circus-y strong bottoms out there. But it’s also quite possible to be able to get down into the splits or go into a backbend and be doing it in ways that are incredibly unhealthy. Proper form is important, and many people find that when in a flexibility class following an instructor’s alignment cues they suddenly can do less than what they thought. Your body being *able* to do something doesn’t always mean it *should* do the thing. One place you can really see this is with backbends—check for ribs flaring out, or for a sharp angle in the bend, as opposed to a smooth curve. This happens when your lower back is overcompensating for a lack of extension in other areas, which is going to put extra pressure on your spine eventually leading to injury. In a bridge pose, you also might see shoulders that are not above wrists/bent elbows. I recently uploaded a “before” photo of a backbending pose, and in it I can see the sharp bend mentioned before, because my thoracic (upper back) mobility isn’t quite there. It’s very possible that when I upload the end image in another two months here I’ll have *less* of a bend—but if that is the case it will be a healthier one that I can continue to work on, as opposed to one that will likely eventually harm me. All this to say: people may be able to get into crazier shapes than you, but they might also be setting themselves up for more injury. When you start bending healthily, you may appear to “lose” flexibility, but all things come with practice.

(Note: If you’re actually training your flexibility or want to assess your backbends, you can see the sharp angle I was referring to here. On the other side of things, you can see a beautiful rounded backbend where the spine is bending evenly across the board in this photo of Fet’s very own @RopeKitteH.)*

3) You should always stretch before a work-out, or before a scene

Maybe! But not if it is the first thing you are doing, especially when you wake up. Stretching is not a warm-up. I cannot reiterate that enough. Stretching cold muscles is the best way to pull them and be totally out of commission. The first thing we do in contortion class, for example, is run a few laps—but if you aren’t setting up for an exhaustive flexibility-based work-out, anything that ups your heart rate is fine. You want to increase your body’s muscle temperature, which will make your muscles more pliable and therefore less likely to tear in ways you don’t want them to. Take a brisk walk around the dungeon to see what’s going on and wake your hips up from sitting in the car. If music is on, dance a bit. Anything but jumping right into it. Working on your active flexibility in order to increase flexibility overall, as per number 2, should never be done before a scene or at the beginning of a work-out. Which brings us to…

4) Holding yoga poses is a great way to stretch.

Point the first: I so often see bottoms, generally rope bottoms, doing full splits, forward bends, etc, and holding them before a scene. Depending on your goals, this may not be the right way to prepare. In fact, research would show that holding static stretches does absolutely nothing in terms of injury prevention(1), though that isn’t to say it isn’t useful for increasing flexibility. On the other side of things, *dynamic* flexibility significantly reduces risk of injury(2) (noting, of course, that these are studies on athletes—as you might imagine, not a lot of research on this exists pertaining to kink!)

What is dynamic flexibility? That’s what you’re going to find in a yoga flow. You move your body in a controlled way, increasing your range of motion a little each time, without ever holding anything taut. Flowing back and forth in cat-cow is one a lot of people know. I like to do a fan-kick type motion in and out to warm up my hips. They can simply be shoulder rolls. Antranik’s videos on these (not to mention his whole site) take you through a great deal, and you can choose according to what will be most useful for you.

Point the second: Yoga is a fantastic discipline, but it is a practice that is focused on many things—the mental/spiritual, strength, balance. Your flexibility likely will grow in a yoga class, but if that’s your end-goal it isn’t going to be nearly as efficient as other things. If you’re looking to train your flexibility, I recommend seeking out your local circus school.

Point the third: Doing crazy stretches might be impressive, but it isn’t going to be helpful before your scene. Stretching can easily create micro-tears in your muscles—which is fine; that’s how they grow, and those generally go away in 24-48 hours—but it isn’t what you want pre-getting hurt. What you want to do is limber up. That is, bring your body to your normal range of motion, but do not go past it as we tend to when pushing in a static hold. I’ll point you once more to the mobility video I referred tops to above. This is what you want; more on the side of limbering up than stretching.

I hope that all made sense. I’m never quite sure how to write conclusions to this sort of thing that don’t sound like a high school essay, so I’ll just say that I am not a medical professional nor am I an expert in this—just sharing the things I’ve learned since beginning seriously studying flexibility. If you’d like to join in on the conversation on this writing on Fetlife, you can do so by clicking here. I do occasionally give flexibility workshops, which you can best find out about by following me on Fetlife and/or subscribing to my newsletter (and by asking your favorite event hosts to schedule a class with me! (-; )

(1) Pope, Rodney Peter, et al. “A Randomized Trial of Preexercise Stretching for Prevention of Lower-Limb Injury.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, vol. 32, no. 2, 2000, p. 271., doi:10.1097/00005768-200002000-00004.

(2) Labella, CR, et al. “Effect of Neuromuscular Warm-up on Injuries in Female Soccer and Basketball Athletes in Urban Public High Schools.” Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, vol. 166, no. 1, Jan. 2012, p. 73., doi:10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.1477.

Jan

2024

We SHOULD talk about fitness and bottoming—but we need to do it better.

There’s a lot of talk right now about bottoming skills, and one complaint I keep seeing is how much focus is given to “physical fitness” as the gold standard of bottoming: how much that contributes to Western stereotypes of beauty, how that rebels against things we now know about difficulties and dangers of weight loss, etc. I will admit, my own class on pain processing does have a section emphasizing that regular exercise may contribute to ability there, so in light of all the recent discussion, I’ve been doing some thinking on this—and I think the problem is not talking about fitness and bottoming, but the way in which we are doing it.

I do believe fitness can be a very important element in a bottoming toolbox, but I think we need to hold these conversations and mentions in classes to a higher standard. I want to address a few of the things I think we should focus on, and a few of the things we can do better at. After, I would love to hear some of your thoughts and additions, and am very open to hearing the ways in which what I’m saying may be problematic. I do want to note that am coming from the standpoint of someone who has the time and resources to focus on this, and that isn’t universal. On the other hand, I also have chronic pain and injuries (not to mention medical debt) now that—while I cannot confirm—may have had something to do with not thinking about any of this at the start of my kink journey, so I think it’s an important thing to prioritize when possible. But we should keep in mind that the ability to eat healthily and go to gyms or join fitness classes is means-dependent.

Finally, before I start, we all should ask if what I’m about to say is even important or relevant to being a bottom. No. It isn’t. I would love for us all to eliminate terms like good bottom, talented bottom, what makes a better bottom, etc. Bottoming means lots of things, and it may have nothing to do with endurance or ability. At the heart of what we do are people. If you are having the connective scenes you want and avoiding harm, who cares?

That said. If you are a person to whom those things matter, or who might be interested in becoming more in tune with your body, here are some of my thoughts.

What forms of exercise are even important?

Go on Pinterest and search fitness. You’ll find lots of better beach body formulas, tricks for eliminating hip dips (spoiler: would need to change your skeleton in most cases) and toning your inner thighs (spoiler: can’t do both that and get a big booty, friends. Quads are hot, yo.) Outside of frequently just being ineffective fitness programs, we need to be careful of not saying these visual elements are what make a “fit” bottom or assuming someone is one just because they fit that body type. Here are a few things I think “bottoming fitness” should really focus on:

Awareness and knowledge of proper form and muscle activation in exercise. General practice in intentional movements will help body awareness become second nature to you. It will help you to learn more about good pain vs bad pain and what you should and shouldn’t push through; it will help you notice if you are holding muscles tight as a stress reaction in a way that causes you unnecessary discomfort; it will help you know on a daily basis what muscles are working, which are connected, and how that might impact what you should and shouldn’t do that day. And of course generally help prevent injury, as well.

Endurance and breathing. Regular exercise, done correctly, should teach you to breathe in moments of stress and tension. It gets you used to holding a higher heart rate for longer, which I believe helps you to regulate your own fight/flight response and “last longer.” It may help you train yourself in “pushing through the pain.”

Strength training, particularly around joints. We bend over, kneel, and stretch our arms above us on a cross. We need to help the places we hinge hold strong for the things that we do—particularly the shoulders and hips, which have the highest mobility and lowest stability. Sure, many can do these things without ever having built up their muscle strength, but what happens when you’re fatigued? If you find yourself having to stop scenes because of general aches and pains, maybe this is part of the problem. What if you slip? What if something hits the wrong way at the wrong force? Strong muscles around joints act as shocks, making you less likely to dislocate something. And I hope that when it comes to rope or stress position play, why this is important goes without saying.

Stretching correctly. For both rope bottoms and others, stretching is really important to avoid strain, cramps, and injuries—but doing it too much or in the wrong ways can cause them. Learning to stretch (and I do mean learning) as a fitness activity will help you understand the way your body can, should, and shouldn’t move (particularly important for rope, wherein you may want to tell a top how far your leg can extend for a sustainable amount of time before they start cranking it up there). It’ll make for healthier joints, which is good for all the reasons mentioned above. It creates better stability, balance, and posture, and it’ll raise your energy and lower your tension levels—which may help prevent you from having to stop a scene due to holding your muscles too tight and having pains that are unrelated to your scene.

What can we do better at when discussing fitness and bottoming?

It should be obvious by now that I don’t think we should avoid saying exercise can help you as a bottom–but that doesn’t mean that we’re doing it correctly. It’s important to note, whether as an educator or simply talking to friends, what might do more harm than good. Here are a few things I want to see more when this topic comes up.

Not stating what fitness is or looks like. Anyone remember that awful article that specified that a good bottom could do like, this and that type of plank for this long, this number of pull-ups, etc? Nope. Different bodies need different things. Further, discourage using ‘fit’ as the antonym of ‘fat’. Weight has very little to do with fitness (particularly since muscle weighs more than fat). When you talk about “being fit” as a bottom, talk about the reasons for doing it: stamina, injury prevention, and body awareness. Sure, many of us work out for aesthetics, and that’s fine too, but there is no reason that needs to be relevant to your kink.

Teaching about actual stretching health at the myriads of bottom flexibility classes. It isn’t enough to just go and show a bunch of stretches that feel good to you. We need to teach the difference between static and dynamic stretching, and that static stretching should not be done as a warm-up if you have been inactive. We need to talk about the difference between stretching and limbering and teach people that they shouldn’t do flexibility work-outs that cause micro-tears right before their scene. We need to teach about end-range of motion, what affects what muscle group, and so on–not just what is flexy and pretty.

Being upfront about limitations in expertise. If you have not gone through yoga (or whatever it is you’re leading) teacher training, this needs to be made explicit, and you should not be offering people modifications for injuries and ability level. I’m not saying it isn’t okay to teach these things–but if you’re painting yourself as an authority of this sport/activity, people might come in expecting you can deal with their unique situation, and you can’t. You can not. If you haven’t studied something with an expert (reading a lot online doesn’t count), learning the way that bodies other than yours work, then just mention you’re speaking from your own experience and cannot to others. I’d even suggest going as far as to put a disclaimer that those with any injuries or limitations should speak to a doctor before doing x. (And on the flipside, at this point I’d just say you should never assume someone in the community teaching any form of physical activity has any formal training until told otherwise and need to take everything they say with a grain of salt (myself included.))

Talk about fitness for tops, too. Joint health is *very* important for tops in both impact and rigging, and bettering their body awareness skills and knowledge of muscle groups will help them to be safer with their bottoms (and meaner, if so inclined.) When we mention it in a class meant for both sides but direct it only towards the bottoms, we’re passively reinforcing the idea of “a good bottom is fit” as opposed to “fitness is important.”

Focusing on injury prevention over ability. There need to be more classes and mentions of fitness focusing on common injuries that could be preventable (dislocations, strains, to some extent falls). That’s infinitely more helpful to kink than how deep your backbend is (and should even help someone be safer in their backbend, if that’s something that’s important to them!)

Speaking in terms of risk awareness. Finally, we should approach this as a tool and not a necessity. There is nothing inherently wrong with frequently being tied or standing in tough positions or whatever with absolutely none of this as a part of your life. It may, however, be more of a risk. That’s how we should recommend fitness: this is something that might make you less likely to get injured in a scene and more able to recognize what is or is not going on with your body. If it’s not your jam, that’s cool, just know it’s something that could affect you.

In quick summary, fitness is important—for both tops and bottoms—particularly when it comes to preventing our bodies from cramping or becoming stiff, which might end a scene prematurely or even lead to injury. It also can help you become more in tune with your body and more aware of how things should feel. It should be brought up in bottoming classes and it should be taught—but with language that considers what we really mean when we say “fit,” with honesty as to our own experience and body-knowledge, and with a focus on the reasoning behind it.

Health looks like a lot of things. Physical fitness, whatever that means, is one of these things. It isn’t the only, and it isn’t a must–but I don’t think we are doing anyone a service by avoiding it completely.

If you are a top here, I encourage you to check out this Fetlife post on physical health for riggers.

If you know of other similar resources, let me know. I’d actively like to add more.

Interested in having more bottoming education in your area? Check out the List of Bottoming Classes and consider hiring one of these fine folks or suggesting your local event do so!

Many thanks to just_bird, a fabulous physio-in-training who helped me fact-check and add a few things to this. If you want to join in on the conversation in the comments on Fetlife, you can do so by clicking here.

Jan

2024

The Making of a Masochist: coda to “Changing Your Relationship with Pain”

[This was imparted directly from my class notes; please forgive typos or things that don’t make perfect sense at the moment.]

A few years ago, I wrote Changing Your Relationship with Pain, and I’ve been lucky enough to present on it a time or two since then. At a class in the fall, I was approached after by a kind gentleman who said, “Okay, you taught us how to process pain, but how to I learn to enjoy it?” I didn’t have a good answer for him, and have been thinking about it since–how I perceive my Owner as reinforcing my masochism, how I see others doing/not doing it, and so forth. In the initial writing, I put that actually, I can’t make you a masochist; I can just teach you to process better. I think I have an answer now, or at least something to try.

In thinking about classical conditioning, we work to create responses that are automatically associated with a stimulus. Pavlov rings a bell when the dog gets food, and eventually, it salivates by the bell alone. Pavlov doesn’t ring the bell after they eat. If he did, they would associate the bell with feeling full.

I think where most people go wrong with this in inducing masochism is in giving rewards.

This isn’t to say that rewards aren’t an important part of many of our dynamics; they are. But they won’t achieve this particular effect.

Whether the intention of a scene you set earlier is sexual, pride, etc, there’s a desired outcome, and far too often we give that outcome as a reward, by which we mean after the scene. “Endure ten zaps with the cattle prod, and I’ll give you an orgasm.” “If you stay in that position for two more minutes, I’ll be very proud of you.” That’s great, and can be a great dynamic and is definitely a way I play a lot—but what it is teaching your body and brain is that the reward comes from being done with pain, when what you really want is for your brain to see them as the same thing. To that end, I think the best way of getting there is to ensure that the reward (whether that’s sexual, romantic, a “you’ve pleased me,” “you look so hot right now,” or whatelse) happens at the moment right before and continuing into during the highest moment of the scene. That whatever causes the good feeling you want out of a scene happens at what would normally be the hardest to endure. Eventually, this should turn the hardest thing into the good feeling. And as per what we know about conditioning and when it works best… these rewards should be a random, not-all-the-time guaranteed thing. Now, work within the confines of your dynamics and limits, of course. But that’s what makes sense based on the science.

I’m not a psychologist; I’m not even a sadist. I can’t guarantee this will work for you. If you’re a bottom looking to increase this, this might seem like something strange to communicate in your negotiations. But maybe, just maybe, it’s something to try.

Jan

2024

Thoughts on Fighting Codependency in Kink

I want to start off by saying I feel HEAVILY disqualified to write this. I am naturally codependent. That’s maybe why I’m writing it. The other day, I re-read something I had on this and got really depressed because oh hey, I’d fallen into a lot of the old behaviors. I guess this is a way of organizing some of those thoughts and reminding myself I know what to do and am capable. I am not a mental health professional and this should just be taken as my personal thoughts above anything else.

The other reason is because I read something the other day about building self-confidence in submissives and there was a point about giving them self-improvement tasks and praising them for completing them and guys, that’s really bad. So I’ve been thinking about this since then. I’m not even gonna try and be short with this one, btw, but I’ll bold/headline important stuff for skimming.

The thing is, those of us who are codependent don’t have anything wrong with us. We have—and want—super-close, super intense connections. But there’s a problem when it causes people to become controlling, or fearful, or feel unworthy, or even to enable the bad/addictive behavior of the other by breeding shame and an expectation that they *will* mess up. I didn’t realize I was codependent until about eight months ago, and working on it in therapy has made me happier, more stable, and stronger in relationships (romantic and otherwise). And obviously, it’s a process. Probably always will be.

What is codependency?

Codependency is a dysfunctional way of being based in self-neglect, not just two people who depend on each other. Once more: codependent is not the same thing as interdependent. Interdependence is healthy. Codependence means you derive your self worth from fixing other people’s messes in a way that may actually enable them—it originated in AA referring to relationships who were covering for their addicts at work, making them feel better about slips without ever acknowledging it needs to stop, etc.

Codependency is putting so much value on “fixing” the other person that you ignore your own boundaries, neglect your own interests and needs, and when you inevitably cannot make it perfect because you are not in control of another’s actions, having spiraling self esteem. Everything else in life falls away in favor of some kind of impossible level of caretaking, and it is self destructive for both people. It’s a bad state of mental health. For many people it causes anxiety around doing right by their partner all the time, or things like always being depressed when a partner is depressed.

Lots of things can cause codependency. You may have developed a codependent personality as a response to excessive dishonesty, neglect, shaming in your relationships (not necessarily from the relationship you’re exhibiting it in). You may have been a “golden child” or otherwise lived with unrealistic expectations. It may be connected to anxiety, bipolar, BPD, or other things that make you feel things intensely and have a hard time understanding others who don’t. Or you may just have a naturally codependent personality. It may be none of the above.

To some extent, all power exchange is codependent. Actually, all relationships are. But there’s a healthy limit. Here are a few things that fall under the umbrella:

feeling responsible for other’s behavior. They’re doing this because I didn’t ____. If I _____, they’ll behave this way.
basing your value on how much you can help others—this was/is one of my biggest things.
feeling uncomfortable when others want to help you
trouble speaking up about your own needs and interests
basing your behavior on the prevention of abandonment
telling other people things are okay when they aren’t

A few traits that I think are particularly prevalent in power exchange:

putting the well-being and interests of others first/actively denying your own
asking permission for things you need to do to function
needing to know every little thing the other is doing
excessive care-taking

Ways to Fight Codependency in Power Exchange

This is by no means exhaustive. These are just some of the things I’ve been identifying that have red flashing lights around what I’ve learned about codependency recently.

Careful with self-improvement dynamics. I do believe that all relationships should want the other person to improve. I also believe that if you learn to do a healthy thing when told, you won’t do the healthy thing when not told. I wrote once about how, even though I live to write, when I became used to my Owner commanding me when to go write I stopped doing it on my own and began to wait for His command/feel uncomfortable doing it without one, or even purposefully not do it out of depression/anger/I don’t know what that He didn’t. I’ve seen this applying to others with working out, journaling… lots of things. Because of this, I really, really caution against micromanagement without careful guard against this. Self-improvement dynamics are great, but there are other ways to do it.

Express a desire for and general praise for doing things, without becoming too specific. There is a time for this, but it’s the difference between “try hard in class today” and “go and spend fifteen minutes on your flash-cards.” I think that one allows for the other person to develop their own healthy habits, while the other teaches there is one right way to do things, and doing it in another way may displease your partner. Obviously, I’m applying this specifically to self-improvement and things they’re doing for themselves, not “make my coffee in this specific way” and similar.

Choose things to do that are 100% unrelated to your partner’s desires for you. This doesn’t mean ignoring the things they want you to do, but developing other things that are not based at all on their desires. Goals completely of your own. Sometimes, it’s best to not even tell them about it, if your dynamic allows for that. That really helps in learning to not require approval all the time.

Use mindfulness and cognitive rerouting to consciously rephrase your behaviors. It can still be something that affects your partner, but see if you can think of the things you do and then add reasons which include the words ‘I’ and ‘me’. See the difference between “I’m working out for Owner” and “I’m working out because it makes me happier and more stable, which makes my life and relationships better,” or between “I track my the calories of my submissives” and “I keep an eye on my loved ones’ eating habits because I want to keep myself surrounded with healthy lifestyles.” If any of your reasons include “because if I don’t” (not punishment based but “if I don’t do this, they do behave this way” reroute or eliminate that immediately.

Accept some amount of powerlessness; respond accordingly. Listen, I’m not saying you left side slashes don’t have control. You do. I’m in a TPE, I get it. But there’s something a mentor told me in high school (typical teenage boy being stupid, typical girl pining over it) which has really stuck with me. She said,

“I believe people do what they want. If he wants to do something, he’ll find a way to do it. If he doesn’t, maybe he doesn’t really want to.”

This is actually similar to something my Owner told me once, back when we were first meeting. I’m probably not getting this exactly right, but it was something like: imagine Brad Pitt/J-Lo/whoever asks you on a date. You don’t say “let me see how I’m feeling” or keep them waiting that night because a friend wants drinks. If you really have another commitment, you offer a different time to do it. If you don’t, it’s quite possible you didn’t *really* want to. And we should all value ourselves as much as Brad Pitt.

This applies to submission, too. If someone doesn’t obey something (I’m excepting brat/funishment dynamics here) they probably just didn’t want to do it enough.

Don’t accept or enable forgetting as an excuse. If they want to follow protocol enough and know they might do that, expect them to write it down. I’m not a top, so I can’t speak too much to this. On the other side of things, though, if your partner – D or s – does something that hurts you and says “oh, I didn’t mean to,” that just isn’t true. Maybe they didn’t know it would damage the relationship, if you haven’t told them before, but they *did* mean to. We’re in control of our own actions. Starting to think “well, what can I do to make them want to do/not do x in the future?” is dangerous.

Communicate your boundaries and needs, and decide what breaking them means ahead of time. It’s really just the same as good discipline dynamics. “I need this in my relationships, and when I don’t get it I feel this way. If it does/doesn’t happen, here is how I will respond.” If they continue to do/not do the thing, well, decide what you do in a relationship where they don’t care about that. Decide before it’s done/not done, and stick to your decision on your next step. Don’t accept excuses if alternatives or plans to fix the issue aren’t given.

Don’t expect what you don’t say, and don’t expect of yourself to get it all right. You do not have the power to communicate telepathically.

And finally,
You cannot fix your partner’s depression. Do not try. It is not your fault or responsibility.

Things that aren’t Power Exchange-Specific

Don’t blindly support your partner. How often do I see submissives going around fighting their left slash’s battles, or smiling and nodding while looking uncomfortable? Or the left slash going full bodyguard on everything that is said about their partner? Support your partner in the things you support them in. If that’s their every move and opinion, great! But it doesn’t make you a bad person if it isn’t. You don’t have to disparage them. Like, please don’t. But insist on your ability to have your own thoughts, or at least don’t agree with things you don’t agree with. Along with this, try not to make assumptions on one person in a relationship based on what the others do. Practice knowing that people are individuals.

Disentangle your events, friendships, and so forth. I’ve been going to a local slosh every so often, recently, something I wouldn’t have done a year ago. My partner isn’t really into the slosh environment. What I’ve found so weird is that every time I go, three or four people say to me “where’s Emm?” like it’s really weird that I’m out without Him. That’s a problem. As long as you aren’t keeping secrets, do your own thing. Let people in couples do their own thing.

Don’t be in relationship styles that enable this behavior in your life. For some it is monogamy, for some it is poly (or a specific brand of that i.e. hierarchical). Or it might just be a specific person. If a relationship makes you say “I have to do everything right or I’ll be abandoned in favor of somebody/something else” instead of “we care about each other, we both chose to be here, and we’ll work on things together” then it may not be right for you.

Take responsibility for picking yourself up. Have an aftercare plan for yourself. Definitely do expect partners help you with the immediate getting water, blankets, cuddling/threats or whatever you need there, but also plan for yourself by doing things like not scheduling big events after play, avoiding news/people that you know will upset you, having good food around. (This applies to D type drop too but I don’t have the insight for that. Feel free to post ideas in comments!)

Get a therapist. Get therapists. Get them separately. Couples counseling has its place, but I believe everyone can benefit from individual therapy as well. If there are issues, examine your own role and reactions apart from your partner, and with a professional. Seriously. I never imagined it could help so much. Make it a New Year’s Resolution.

What if you want a codependent relationship?

That might sound completely ridiculous to some of us, but it’s also really present in kink. People who are in CG/l inherently WANT a relationship based around some amount of care-taking. There ARE people whose idea of dream power exchange involves micromanagement. I DO want to be around and share lives with my Owner as much as possible, and be what He desires me to be.

Okay. So that’s where we stand, then. I’d bet it’s more common here than not. But be aware of it. Know that might be unhealthy in many situations, and keep it something you want and are happy to be doing and not something you depend on for your self-esteem. Don’t let it become your default in your other relationships. Choose it.

As stated at the top, I don’t know what I’m doing. Who does? But I hope my thoughts can help someone. If not, dissecting this a bit today helped me, at least for now. It’s a process. It’s a conscious thing. I’m workin’ on it.

If you have other suggestions or know more than I do, I hope you’ll join in on the conversation on the in the comments of the original Fetlife post here.

Jan

2024

Changing Your Relationship With Pain

NOTE: This is a highly condensed version of a class I now teach. It has been slightly edited recently, but is vastly in need of more.

Since joining the more public fetish community, I’ve frequently received messages–first, from people who’d seen me scene in public, then from people who’d seen pictures of me post-scene on mine or another’s profile—asking how to get through those tough scenes. I’ve decided to compile a few of the responses I give. I hope some of you find it helpful.

I cannot teach you to be a masochist.

I came to the scene and my relationship already craving pain and destruction. It’s hard-wired in my brain. There’s a reason the DSM once considered masochism a mental disorder (though this in itself is problematic). Since the initial writing of this post, I have thought about one idea, but I don’t know how it will work for folks in actuality.

Some things to note about this:

Being a masochist does not mean that I don’t feel pain.
I definitely feel pain. I definitely suffer. I definitely scream and cringe and hurt. I just like it. I also usually have a ‘switch over’ moment where I stop hurting and start coming; sometimes it is after one hit and sometimes it takes a lot longer.

I don’t think I have a high pain tolerance.
But I’m frequently told otherwise. What does this mean? It means if you’re feeling like you “don’t take enough” because of the way you do or don’t mark, the length of your scenes, etc, it’s pretty possible that actually, you’re taking a lot more than the average bear. Imposter syndrome is alive and well in kink. We have a tendency to think we aren’t doing as well because we are on Fet, seeing pictures of cool scenes and awesome marks. But think about it–if people aren’t doing cool scenes or come away with no marks, they aren’t posting it. Don’t fall victim to that availability heuristic.

@AccidentalFlirt adds: “pain tolerance is not a competition… you shouldn’t aspire to be able to take pain in the same way that someone else can. You should only aspire to take as much as YOU can… and that tolerance level changes.”

Being a masochist is not required for a D/s relationship.
You can learn to take pain without enjoying it at all physically and enjoy the service aspect. In fact, a D/s relationship doesn’t have to include pain at all! If your top-y person wants you to enjoy pain and you just really, really, do not – you may just be mismatched. Sorry, just like one might be mismatched in terms of libido, religion, politics, or anything else, if that’s an important aspect of the relationship to you or your partner, that’s something to consider.

As I’ve taught and worked with this material for a while now, I’ve come to realize that all the advice I give comes down to one main thing. If you read nothing further, I hope this will help.

My number one tip is this:

Learn what pain you might be able to and what pain you shouldn’t continue with.
Knowing what you actually shouldn’t handle may help you to remind yourself “this is okay.” Generally speaking, though there are always exceptions, Bad Pain may be in the joints, a very specific location, not where you expect it (being hit in the thigh but feeling pain in your stomach), cause stabby breathing, does not decrease with breaks, or involve a sound, among other things. Good Pain in my experience is muscle or skin pain, comes in ‘waves’ as you adjust, throbs, and is where you would expect it to be. You are unlikely to get compartment syndrome. Bruises over bruises will not cause a pulmonary embolism. “Hitting over the kidneys” is rarely a thing to be concerned about (much less actually over the kidneys). Reading, going to classes, and the like—information meant for both tops and bottoms—is so important. The more you know, the more you can get out of your head. (That is not to say all resources are good resources, so read as much as possible and compare notes. I’ll take this moment to express my hate of the totally false endorphin load article that says they are released in levels and gives instructions as to what will make that happen and what each will do. Fuck that writing in particular.)

Additionally, prepare your body best to avoid these bad types of pain. Warming up is the best way to do that. I have a post with some information on how to do that properly here (hint: it isn’t yoga, probably.)

When you feel you are fully informed and can determine if the pain is something threatening to your well-being or not, you can better take a step back in the moment and say, “Oh, okay. Body, you aren’t in mortal danger. I can calm that fight-or-flight response. I can stop breathing heavily and screaming, because that is a reaction to being harmed, which I am not.” Your body doesn’t know I want this, it only knows if the ways you are reacting are the ways that you react to danger. I believe that the majority of the advice I can give you comes down to don’t cue your body to panic if it doesn’t have to.

The rest of the thoughts:

This post is designed for bottoms, so I can’t offer you techniques as far as impact, warming a bottom up, etc. I do have recommendations now on helping aid those on a mission to masochism. I also believe knowing the sorts of things I talk about here and attending other bottoming education classes will only help tops to become a better top.

Play with people that know you.
And that means that if you aren’t playing within a relationship or a situation where your partner knows you well, you need to get real good at communicating what you like and what your cues are. Shaking may be a sign of shock for one and a sign of extreme pleasure for another.

Know how your partners play.
Watch them. Ask them. Some sadists like to get the most out of only one implement. Some like to go in waves with breaks in between, starting at a warm-up level again each time. My Owner tends to escalate in terms of implement and strength throughout a scene. If you aren’t sure how to handle pain, it will help you to know how things are going to go.

@Miss-Sammi adds: “keep in mind, that each person wields implements differently. What might be a NO GO with one play partner, maybe a OH YES with another.”

Only play with people you’re capable of being completely honest with.*
Before, during, and especially after play.

Okay, now that that housekeeping is done, I’ll get down to the nitty-gritty. Here’s how I “handle” pain.

The Mental

Set an Intention
This is, as far as I’m concerned, the most important tip – and I offer no apologies if it sounds a little woo. Know your scene’s intention. How? Discuss it ahead of time. Know what both you and your play partner want to get out of it. Listen to the cues from your top, the little tidbits hidden in their talk about wanting you to suffer for them, or wanting to make you come. Play with people you know really well. Know, and know well, why you’re doing this scene. This could be for yours or their sexual pleasure, to serve by suffering, to serve by having a really great, connected scene, to go to the point of destruction for humiliation or the rebuild after, or any number of things. Figure it out – and then put that intention into a short, repeatable phrase. You can now repeat this with every strike, or when the pain gets to be a little too much. For me, this phrase might be “I am His,” “I will make Him proud,” “I am safe.”

Here’s a fun fact: your brain is easy to trick! If the scene is about giving you any sort of pleasure from pain, you can oftentimes get there by repeating to yourself something along the lines of “This is hot. I love this.”

Personal example: last week, my Owner took me for a whipping. It became very clear to me early on (from His body language, His urgency to start the scene, His words, and the way He used the whip) that this was not a scene about my pleasure whatsoever. This was about Him wanting to whip me, and for me to suffer from it. Period. This was about serving my sadist. My mantra for this scene was “this is for Him.”

Count down in small numbers.
If you’re going to be hit 200 times (or, more likely, at least in the scenes I do, some large but unplanned and unknown number), it doesn’t do well to think “I have AT LEAST 199 strikes left!” But you can always, always count to ten. This is another brain trick. Maybe you’ll be doing it 20 times. But you still have a small victory every tenth strike (or thirty seconds, or new position, if you’re doing some sort of non-impact play.) Like the mantra, this also gives you something else to focus on.

Smile.
Make a conscious effort to do so. Similar to the “I love this” placebo effect, you may be able to trick your brain into pleasure.
It’s also really sexy.

@Bloodybuzzard adds: “Laugh! If at all possible, giggle, chuckle, laugh. Find something amusing and laugh. It can alter your perception of things going on and there’s good medicine as well as endorphins in laughter.”

Stop aiming for bruises.
Seriously. A good half of my messages on this are people from both sides of the slash asking how to cause deeper bruising. Yes, some strikes and implements are more likely to bruise, but this depends much more on body composition and what you’ve been putting into yourself than that. It is NOT a reflection of how hard you played. Expecting it to be sets you or your partner up for feelings of failure and disappointment. Besides, if you play frequently, your body will learn to bruise less or build up “leather butt” – so the lack of color can be just as much of a trophy.

React.
Whatever that may mean for you. Holding it in will distract you from your real focus. Alternately, don’t. Sometimes consciously realizing “I don’t have to scream right now” and stopping will shut down the trauma response and switch you over to enjoyment.

@Passioned adds: “My tolerance is so-so prior to breaking down, and then once i start crying and sobbing it increases. i think it’s because once my Dom “breaks me” in the way that i need to be broken, i “give in” to the pain wand start embracing it without feeling shame about it.”

Remember why you are there.
Related to intention, consciously reminding yourself every so often that “I want to be here” can do wonders to calm down the trauma response that our brains default to.

The Physical

Learn to breathe.
Don’t assume you know how.

Practice taking a big breath for a second. Your stomach should be going out more than your shoulders are going up. This kind of breath is one that goes through your diaphragm. It maximizes the oxygen intake into your bloodstream and calms down your fight-or-flight response. It’s also very hard to do this properly quickly – if you’re breathing through your diaphragm, you can’t hyperventilate. If you breathe in a way that expands your chest over your abdominals, you’re making your life harder in every way. Stop it.
(If you don’t know what diaphragmatic breathing looks like, ask any singer.) I also find it helpful to breathe in the opposite direction of what is happening–exhaling as a needle slides *in* to my body, for example, or inhaling as I am hit (a forward motion).

Treat your body well pre-scene.
Treat your body well all the time. But especially if you’re going to get beat up, you need to eat protein and good sugars that day and drink water – so you don’t pass out, among other things.

Exercise, if that interests you.
Yep, this goes with the above, but there’s a secondary reason. Ever experience the “hump” in an aerobic exercise where you think you can’t do it anymore, and then you get past it and have a “second wind”? Get used to getting past it – and pay attention to what you do to get past it. This, too, is a form of “pain tolerance” – as well as an overall way to increase endurance. See here for more information on doing this correctly.

Negotiate for current-day body awareness.
When you negotiate, do not just include ongoing injuries. Take a second to check in with your body *that day* and communicate where it’s at. Have you been walking for a while, leaving your upper thighs more sensitive than usual? Are you tired or in an emotional place? This is important for your top to know. Give them the tools to help you. (If you aren’t good at body awareness and communication, may I humbly suggest my workbook? It’s got a whole section with exercises to work on this.)

Sexual pleasure, if that interests you.
Your brain automatically chooses pleasure over pain. Some people can take more pain while being sexually stimulated in some form. Careful, though – getting all the way to orgasm is a risky business. It’s gonna take you out of your head and screw up your breathing. Your pain tolerance may be zapped post-orgasm. But then, your sadist may know that…

Play more often.
Just like anything else. Of course, I’m assuming you all are rational people who are going to play because you WANT to play, with people you want to play with, and not just for the sake of increasing your tolerance for someone else. Like anything else, this takes practice. Last year, I left the country for four months. I knew when I got back, my first scene would be Hell.
(Awesome, awesome Hell.)

@acrosub adds: “Try thinking of each strike as a massage, feel the energy and immediately absorb it into your body. Let it sink into your muscles and breath it through your body. It dissipates the pain quickly.”*

[Note: I’ve found that the way for me to do this is to imagine the pain as a firework bursting across my body and spreading out.]

Untense your muscles/try a different position.
Actively take a deep breath with your shoulders up, and then release them fully. Stop sticking your neck forward. Swing your arms a bit and squat up and down during breaks to make sure you aren’t holding your muscles tight or your knees locked. I recently discovered that I enjoy pain significantly more while standing rather than on a spanking bench, presumably because how it keeps me from tensing my muscles in anticipation (since said muscles are in charge of keeping me upright.) Sometimes a small adjustment can change a feeling entirely. If where you are and what you’re doing isn’t working, don’t be afraid to try a small change like this rather than ending a scene.

All right, that’s what I got. I mainly wrote this to link to people who message me in the future, but please love and share if you find it helpful. I teach this as a class occasionally, so do check in on my newsletter if you want to hear when I’m teaching it next, or ask your favorite event organizer to host me! And please, do add your own strategies in the comment section on Fetlife! Happy hurting!

Jan

2024

What You Must Know About Yourself Before Pursuing a Power Exchange

This morning, a friend of mine got in touch about her fears over a first meeting. She told me that she would be going to his house after coffee to show her devotion and start her training, and wondered what that meant. I got worried. I got scared. I told her I thought that was moving too fast, and she told me something I fear many people in her position go through:

All I really wanted to do was meet for coffee and see if met at an intellectual level, ya know? I want someone that appeals to my intelligence and not just my sexual needs. […] Sometimes I feel like I have to just comply and can’t say what I really want to do or want to say. I’m so afraid of upsetting people.

We talked it out and she told him her fears, and he responded favorably. But as a passionate advocate of bottoming education and personal responsibility, it got me thinking about how we approach the beginning of a power exchange.

There are a million resources on figuring out what somebody else wants, and almost all of them come down to “talk to them.” But what about on the other side? What do we need to know about what we want?

Here’s what I came up with. The base-line, if you will:

What You Must Know About Yourself Before Pursuing a Power Exchange

What You’re Looking For

And I mean in the relationship, not the person. On some level, you have to know what you’re seeking. I think it’s helpful to approach this in terms of an objective – something that fills in the blank of “I want to __________.”

Examples: I want to…

play a few times.
submit platonically.
have my knob slobbed on.
fall in Love.

This can be varied and all answers are valid, but it can’t be “we’re just going to meet and see what happens.” Maybe you’re open to all but one of those. Maybe you want something else entirely. Maybe you know exactly what it looks like, or maybe you know exactly what it *doesn’t* look like.

You don’t have to ever say it to your potential partner, but knowing what it is will help you figure out the rest of these categories. That being said, saying it – which will often provoke a response of their objective – or straight out asking what they are seeking can often help you decide early on you are not a match. If you say “I’m seeking a partner for the long-term” and they’re just looking for a fling, getting that out of the way before either of you invest time can save a lot of trouble later.

What Your Needs Are

That is, what you need from a person who can fulfill that objective. Not your desires or interests or your needs from life, your absolute needs as to what a person with whom you can _________ will look like. These needs may well differ with different objectives, if you have more than one.

These need to be defined in *actions* and not identities. Saying you want somebody who is a male dominant is fine, but won’t help when what you’re actually looking for is a 24/7 rope sadist with a big muscles and a penis who wants to make you a better person and will hold your hand when crossing the street (the person, not the penis. Probably. I don’t know your life.)

They fill in the blank “I need a person who is able to…” and may include things such as

allow me to explore with other partners
share my religious beliefs and practices
give me daily attention until all marks fade
not contact me again after our encounter is over
be mutually physically affectionate
meet a certain physical requirement
have no other emotional connections
relocate to me

It is *your* responsibility to make sure that anything that is an absolute need is known. If the person you are seeking to enter a power exchange with cannot fill them, it is not a match – and this is okay. It is okay to be particular and to refuse to continue with someone who does not meet your needs, as long as you are honest. Vocalize your dealbreakers. Be picky. What is not okay is assuming that just because someone appears to fill your need that they always will. If you do not make your needs known, you cannot blame a person who stops meeting them.

What You Will Not Do On First Meeting

And this is where my conversation with my friend becomes very important. What does “come over to show devotion and start training” mean? If you aren’t ready to ask – or if you aren’t entirely trusting of the answer – you have to set ahead of time what your boundaries for *yourself* are. What you are not willing to do on the first meeting could include

go home with them
be alone
meet their other partners
put on a collar
have intimate relations without permission from other partners
have anal sex

and anything in between.

This is not negotiating for a scene, where many will tell you you should negotiate what you *will* do. Sometimes you know what’s on the table ahead of time, but moments can be intense, things can progress, and chemistry isn’t always easily predicted. That’s why you have to know where the boundaries are. What would you certainly regret after if your partner – or, more likely, you yourself – coerced you into doing?

Again, this isn’t something you *have* to communicate before said first meeting, but I think it’s helpful. A quick “hey, can’t wait to meet you! Just so you know, I’m not okay being alone the first time I meet someone” can a) give them the chance to determine you can’t meet their needs and stop, b) ensure they don’t take it as a personal reaction if they try later and you say no, and c) help *you* to hold yourself accountable for the decision you made.

What You Are Not Willing To Do, Ever*

Call these your power exchange hard limits. This is a way of determining if you can fit what the other person would put in their “What My Needs Are” list. These may include things such as

have a relationship that doesn’t include sexual interaction
have children
live in a 24/7 lifestyle
break up with my SO
submit

*Okay, so maybe this isn’t as absolute. We have a joke around here about my hard limits list becoming a checklist, and there are things my relationship started with that would be on this list today. This happens. These things are very changeable and therefore shouldn’t necessarily be dealbreakers, but if you have “rape play” on your do-not-ever list and your potential partner has “bottom frequently for brutal consensual nonconsent scenes” on their what-I-need list, you may run into some trouble.

How You Will Keep Yourself Safe

So you’ve answered these questions. You think this person and you have objectives that can work together, that they may be able to fill your absolute needs. You have told them what you won’t do on your first meeting and you know what you won’t do ever, and you’re going to stick by these things. How do you make sure the start of your power exchange goes well? Here are a few things to consider.

Are you in an emotional place in your life where you can handle it if things do not work out… or if they do?
Have you communicated anything you need from them on first meeting to fill your objective, including anything from STD panels to partner permission?
Can you provide your *own* birth control of choice if sex is on the table?
Is your phone charged?
Do you have any self-defense skills or tools you deem necessary? (Protip from the prozone: while you should always be able to protect yourself in whatever way feels most comfortable to you, if you’re going to meet somebody and are thinking “I need my knife, mace, and a review on pressure points to feel secure,” they may not be the right person to meet.)
Do you have a safe call, a designated person who you will check in with with your location at a designated time, who knows steps to take if you do not do so?

And to my friends I’ll say now, if you have no one in your area, if you have nobody you trust not to judge you – reach out. I’ll be your safe call. Even if somebody seems like the height of morality, the first few times you’re with someone new, always do this. There is no good reason not to.

There’s a level of soul-searching that is constantly needed in D/s, in sex, and in dating in general. This, to me, is the level that needs to be reached before ever seeking to start a power exchange relationship. Of course, there are many things that will come later – negotiation of protocol, of interests, of the dynamic and how it will progress, of physical ability and health, and so on – but first, you have to seek to start. And before you do that, these are the things you should know.

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