informational

Jan

2024

Why Younger Kinksters Don’t Attend Your Venue

My brother quit his job last week after five years at the same company. He loves what he does—he’s in human health services, and the families are great—but he’s been pretty mistreated. His really reasonable complaints have been brushed off, and he was often berated for things not his responsibility. He stayed as long as he could stand it, but when he started to look for somewhere else to work a month ago, he found out his skills are incredibly in demand. He got three job offers, all at least double his current salary—and so he quit.

I often hear my and younger generations criticized for… well, for a lot. But a big one is a “lack of loyalty”. I’ve seen it said we have “no sense of what it means to have a career with a business” and that we’re just willing to pick up and job-hop whenever. I don’t think that’s untrue. But the thing is, it isn’t about a lack of loyalty at all. It’s about wanting to be valued and treated well.

When my brother sent in his notice, the company announced the closure of that branch the next day. Turns out, he was the only reason they were sticking around in that area. Which begs the question, I think: why weren’t they better to him? Why would he stick around? Of course his complaints not being addressed would eventually cause him to leave. And this company decided they’d rather cut services and jobs for a bunch of people than just listen to him. They just… let it die. And let his subordinates blame him, of course.

I see the same thing happening in kink. I’ve been around seven years now, and it seems like any time a venue shuts down due to low attendance, there’s an outcry about how the younger generations caused this. They just don’t care about their community space. They just don’t want to give back and build something good the way people used to. They need to show up for everyone. It’s their fault, and other finger-wagging.

And I think every time… but we do. We do care about community, very much. We do want to give back. We’ve tried to build something good. We’ve been cut down at every turn.

So why would we be loyal? Why would we keep trying with those venues who say it’s a “community space” but don’t value us as community members? Why wouldn’t we go to the places that will instead?

Methodology and disclaimers

Over the last few days, I’ve reached out here, on Twitter, and on Instagram to get personal accounts from those in the Millennial and Gen-Z age ranges on why they no longer go to venues they see as primarily an older crowd. I got over forty answers to this, from people who span a range of genders, ages, and kink roles. This isn’t about one specific place—the responses came from coast-to-coast in the US, as well as a few from Canada and overseas—but they in many ways echoed each other. The reasons we stop showing up? They’re the same reasons. The ways we’ve felt mistreated? They’re identifiable. And none of it is about a lack of willingness to give back.

I’ve compiled the most common themes in these stories below—many overlap—and will mention a few of the important other one-off answers at the end. Anything in quotes is directly from an answer, though bolding may be mine. As this is a note that is sort of arranged as a letter informing older venues of why they’re really lacking in youth attendance, I may use “you” to refer to those spaces, and “we” to refer to people in my age group.

When I posted this, I also got a few unsolicited messages from self-identified Boomer friends (no, no Gen X-ers, actually) who felt they knew the answer to my question and wanted to give their input. They told me how my generation is entitled—“no offense”—and about the trends they’ve seen. But I’m an open-minded little ethnographer so where relevant, I’ve included these answers as well.

I initially expected this writing to be about public venues dying in favor of private home parties, but that isn’t what ended up happening. To this end, “the owner” and “management” should be seen as interchangeable with “host,” “party-thrower,” or whatever version of that fits best.

Finally, though I don’t mention it every time, many of my conversations included an acknowledgment that these issues can happen anywhere, including majority-younger spaces. However, people seemed to agree that they’re much more likely to occur at the older ones.

We don’t feel like our safety will be protected.

“If I avoid an event, it is […] because the event has utterly failed to create a space that feels safe (by failing to exclude toxic or violent individuals)”

Over 85% of the answers I received included some semblance of the above theme. Their failing venues, people told me, were places with “a rep as a rapey space where newbies get preyed on”, where consent wasn’t really valued by the main crowd and violations weren’t handled by the management. 1 in 4 of these answers also included that they felt (or had first-hand experience that) they would personally be attacked and shunned if they were hurt and spoke about it. “No drama” policies were mentioned often.

Sometimes, there were explicit issues with the attendees’ ideas surrounding consent:

“An older Kinkster, apparently a community leader, lectured the crowd about how they didn’t believe in long term abuse or domestic violence. If you stay, you’re consenting and the result is a D/s dynamic, negotiated by your continued presence. Absolutely no one argued.”

The bigger issue, however, was there being no established protocol for reporting consent violations. Since there was nothing in place to follow if a friend of the management violated consent, there was no trust any action would be taken at all.

“The community leader assured us that we could tell them if we were sexually assaulted, but that no one had ever complained of a sexual assault before, because they were so safe. It wasn’t until after I was sexually assaulted that I realized how uncomfortable it would be to be the first drama causer ever who complained about a sexual assault.”

“When I asked what would be done if my assaulter RSVPed, I was told that the venue was large enough that *I* could avoid *them*, and that the owner would use “gut feeling” to deal with any issues arising.”

“Somebody was raped in a private room and the management said that unless there was a witness, they couldn’t do anything. Of course they could do something! It’s their place!”

“No sexual assault policy had been mentioned, so I reluctantly headed towards the community leader, trying to decide whether to tell them about a sexual assault I had experienced a few minutes before, wondering if they’d believe me. When I saw they were too busy having sex to be bothered, and I knew of no one else available to get feedback like this, I gave up and just left.”

The responses also recognized that this is a difficult thing to navigate and that it isn’t necessarily even an age specific problem. “I get that the volunteer community leaders aren’t at fault for this problem,” someone said about an event they used to attend. “I feel for them.” But, multiple people told me, the idea of a “community protected” venue left a bad taste in their mouths. “It doesn’t make me feel safe or valued, in hindsight, being a human shield against strangers’ stalkers multiple times.”

Additionally, people told me they don’t feel their futures are safe when around these venues, with five accounts of people believing they were being photographed while in a dungeon. One person told me “a community leader tried to pressure us into putting face pictures onto our profile, insisting our bosses wouldn’t care if they found them”, and someone else spoke of the owner of a venue alluding to [the younger person’s] sex life when running into them at their restaurant job.

Perhaps this is universal. This same issue is actually something one Boomer told me is an issue with us:

“Kink still isn’t acceptable in most custody cases, divorce cases, work related cases, and some family cases. But the prevalence of people who don’t appreciate that fact has risen. […] The newbies who were more tasters than kinky started making it party central or a casual trial place. […] I really started to get scared when they brought in a much more casual attitude toward discretion.”

Ironically, I discovered while writing this that a majority-older venue local to me has been cavalier with the face photos of many, though I believe this to be primarily a technology/security knowledge issue and not a malicious one (though carrying no less risk).

We experience a blatant disregard for boundaries, negotiation, and our own agency and knowledge.

What did come out as an age specific problem was a blatant disregard for the agency of a young person (most often someone femme-of-center) when it came to their bodies and their kinks at all.

“I don’t want to be in a space where people just come and put their hands on you” or some semblance of that statement was in almost ¾ of my Millenial + Gen-Z answers.

Some of the stories I found absolutely horrifying, though not unexpected:

“My partner shared [a] possible kink. The community leader proceeded to yell out to a random person who shared this possible kink with my partner and told them loudly what they had in common (something extremely vulnerable for my partner to admit aloud). While my partner was occupied with the resulting more intimate than intended conversation with a complete stranger, the event leader asked me if they could try something with me. Before I could answer, they were behind me running sharp nail points over my back. They told me this was a mind fuck because I didn’t know if it was a knife. […] They pulled out a furry thing and asked me to hold out my hand. I wasn’t informed about what could be under a furry thing then. I was still very new to this. Something soft seemed harmless enough. Sensation play, right? I didn’t want to piss this person off who knew where I worked now. I was surprised to feel needles pricking my skin. I wondered who else’s blood I might have just exposed myself to. Did the needles break my skin? No blood, just red marks, but I still felt very uncomfortable and creeped out. Did I need an STI test? I wasn’t sure.”

The people who told me these stories did believe this had to do with a perception from older people of why young people are in the scene in the first place, as well as a perceived “innate knowledge of what [we] want by the older-and-wiser Boomer crowd.” Though not always in terms of consent and boundary violations, the older-and-wiser assumption came up in over half of the answers I received.

“When I first joined, many looked at me, spoke […] as if I’m not here for anything other than reckless fucking. […] A lot of men at my first event held me in a way that I was absolutely uncomfortable with at the age of 18.”

“It seemed as if they believed age automatically equaled wisdom, and therefore I was devoid of any, but my mentor spoke of his mentor groping whatever rope bottom came his way as if it was some hilarious thing.”

“I stopped going to the Power Exchange group stuff because it was 100% cis-het male dom run and they kept mansplaining our kink to us, talking down to the femme organizers, and telling us we would “pick a side because switchiness wasn’t real.””

“It was really hard for me to go to events at specific venues because the majority of people who go have an unspoken air of contempt for me, and it makes me feel out of place. I feel awkward, like a little child. I get it, I’m inexperienced, and I’m young. But I believe we all were this age once, right? […] I got, and still get the “you’re too young to know this” thing.”

A Boomer respondent let me know that they think the younger crowd has “an unrealistic idea that they can just come and not participate” and that they are “too sensitive about permission for everything in a sexual space.” They did not respond when I asked for more information on this statement. They and another Boomer both mentioned they believe the youth have a paranoia over something that’s not an issue.

The “old guard” community is worrisome to us.

A Boomer said: “VERY few younger folks are interested in that lifestyle. That lifestyle is all about service/honor/and commitment. Something that younger generation hasn’t developed an appreciation for yet.”

Millenial and Gen-Zers said:

“When someone tells me they’re “old guard”, I know immediately that they’re about to treat me like meat.

[Assaulters don’t get banned, and] “some of why they might still be allowed to go could be the association with the “old guard” mentality”

“The old guard is incredibly rude to any dynamic that doesn’t look like male/female M/s.”

“I don’t need to call anyone by a title whether they “earned” it or not. That is an expectation in Old Guard mentality that needs to be gone away with. There should be no expectation of hierarchy within kink as a whole.”

“Old guard kinksters are people who I know will never protect me.”

Our scenes get interrupted.

“There’s no universe where I’m going drive an hour and pay money only for a microcelebrity with a following of 10ish to interrupt my scenes needlessly.”

A number of stories pointed to experiences of basic scene etiquette being ignored both by attendees and by venue management. Though not in every case—the above answerer is male—these most often came from female and femme tops.

“I was mistreated, disrespected, and patronized as a young femme top. [..] It got so bad I literally couldn’t do a scene without being interrupted and “corrected” by DMs/random strangers. That’s really why I stopped going. It was super upsetting to my bottoms.”

“A male rigger my height and weight could have his scene entirely left alone, but people would literally step into mine and put their hands on my rope and even my bottom to lift them. They said I was “too tiny” and that I needed the help.”

“As a female topping another female, my play was not taken seriously. Men would gather and shout out suggestions of where I should hit my bottom next, or ask if they could have a turn. Or they’d tell me after what I should do next time. This included DMs. […] It was as if we were giggling sorority girls, not people having a serious power exchange. I never saw this happen with a male top.”

We only exist to be other people’s fetishes.

“There are perfectly nontoxic (usually older) attendees who have a real talent for making either me or my partner feel like a piece of meat by virtue of existing in their presence. That might be nice, if only they could hold off for long enough to say hi, and negotiate something that targeted that more deliberately.”

In addition to the stories in the last section—which I think in many ways aligns with this—I got both direct and subtler accounts of younger people being fetishized. In addition to the personal experience accounts below, there were a handful of stories of youth being used as an advertising factor, where potential attendees are told in visible online spaces that management will find them a “cute young toy”, or the presence of college-aged kinksters was discussed in event descriptions.

Indirect ways people saw themselves as fetishized at majority-older events included:

”Private and vetted” [meant] any girl got a link no questions asked but dudes needed references.”
“They welcomed 2 girls together, but 2 guys would never be seen”
“If the runner who was also the event photographer didn’t want to fuck you they would never take your photo at the event”
“It seemed to be expected that since we were ‘unattached’ bottoms, we would play with their doms.”

Fetishizing things younger kinksters told me were said to their face include:

“I’ve never been with an Asian before.”
“Girls your age like to experiment, but it’s just because they haven’t experienced what an older man can do.”
“It’s good to see bodies like yours here. Your tits are where they should be!”

While I haven’t had this conversation, I think that many of the older kinksters doing this may genuinely think they’re complimenting us. It seems to be part of the perceived over-sensitivity culture. The issue is that when you turn us into advertising, we get the message that you prioritize your own generation’s opportunity to play with young bodies over the young folks’ autonomy.

One of my Boomer responses “the youth of today are more “me oriented” Whats [sic] in this for me?” (He did acknowledge that this was once said about his generation.) Ironically, a common thing keeping us away is that we feel these older generations put themselves and their sexual desires above ours.

We are told we aren’t driven to be a part of the community, but when we are in community, we are not treated like a part of it—we are treated like something for it.

Our identities themselves aren’t respected.

I expected a number of responses would have to do with a lack of willingness from older generations to accept nonbinary pronouns or some expressions of sexuality, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the number mentioning casual (or aggressive) use of the f-slur (and not in a spirit of reclamation). Being made to feel unwelcome as a minority in gender, sexuality, race, and ability were all brought up multiple times.

It doesn’t seem from the answers I got that we necessarily expect immediate total understanding and acceptance, but we do want leaders who will do the work required to figure it out.

“I was there to learn, but was constantly held directly responsible for educating about my identities and/or my partner’s identities. […] I’m here for a break, selfish as that may be.”

When we do try and make things better, we’re met with terrible responses.

And this brings be back to the issue at the beginning. We’re trying. We try to bring up problems, and often suggest solutions. We are then turned away, laughed at, or ignored. “If we complain, we’re snowflakes obsessed with identity politics” was a common theme. I firmly believe that the number one thing that majority-older spaces can do to get younger people in is to show they’re willing to change with their communities. People mentioned how often their local older leaders make fools of themselves when presented with new ideas:

“They give me a laundry list of excuses why they can’t/don’t/won’t. […] Which tells me that frankly, they don’t want to, and they genuinely don’t care. If they did they would take the criticism graciously and implement the solutions. They want to put on airs as if they do and advertise as if they do, but the bottom line fact of the matter is that: they don’t.”

This is where I expect to get the most backlash, because I know how this will be responded to: we don’t agree with their politics (of wanting to be accepted). We don’t agree with their idea of what being violated is. We don’t agree with language changing. Why should we have to? Why do we have to respond nicely and take these suggestions we don’t agree with?

And the answer is, you don’t. But I think it’s telling that companies like Starbucks and Coca-Cola are now featuring indicators of their acceptance of NB identities and the like in their advertising. Don’t get me wrong—it is advertising. But it is an important sign that some of the biggest companies out there have decided that the money of the people who appreciate these things is worth more than the money of those who are against it. If the money and attendance of young people is important to your space, this is important to consider.

Conclusions

“I just can’t find enough reasons to participate. Maybe if the cost wasn’t so high, or I was guaranteed to get something out of it, or the people were genuine, or the leaders cared about more the community than themselves, I would come back.”

Something that is true about younger people—in jobs and in kink—is that we have learned to take care of ourselves. Something else is that a lot of us are very busy. Or we live far. Or we’re ill. Or we have too much student debt and a limited social budget. And that isn’t the fault of older people.

But what it means—at least for me–is you can’t give me any opportunity to say no. I can play at home without getting interrupted, so why would I go to a venue where I know the interruption is likely to happen? I have my own community that supports me and my kinky pursuits, who knows me and loves me, so why would I go somewhere that only sees me as eye candy?

And people learn from experience, and repeated experiences do turn into (informed) biases. And that’s where you come in, older venues who are looking to increase your younger attendance.

Here are our experiences. You own your own spaces, and you have a right to do whatever you want with them, to make the changes and the rules and the culture you’re happiest with. So are you going to do it in a way that makes us want to attend? Or would you prefer to just let it die?

I offer my utmost gratitude to all who participated in this. Should you want to join in on the conversation in the comments of my writings, you can find the original Fetlife post of this one here.

If you wish to be a part of future “research,” be sure to subscribe to my substack. I do also post calls for responses on Fetlife several times before I finalize my posts.

Jan

2024

A guide to submissive-directed/initiated protocol

I mentioned something on a status last Friday about submissive-initiated protocol, and was asked if I could speak a little bit more about it. It seems fitting to offer it this week, when I’ve seen several different pieces up about protocol and rule creation and their importance in a relationship.

I have mixed feelings on that myself. While we have always had a few rituals and protocols, my TPE would work just fine if the only rule my Owner had ever given me was “Obey.” I don’t believe that a laundry-list of rules and protocol make for a good D/s relationship, or that it’s even realistic. But I do *like* protocol, and there are times I’ve found myself craving more.

Despite the dour/strict way my relationship can appear to those who don’t know us, many of the things we do were first suggested by me (often to the joyful detriment of my physical well-being.) I don’t have a codified way of doing this, but I do have a few thoughts on what’s worked and why. As with any other writing of mine (or at all,) this is non-exhaustive and non-universal. I speak only to and from my own experience. Finally, I’ll note that while “rules” and “protocol” mean different things to different people and are not always overlapping categories, I’m using them as such here.

1. Make sure your D-type is already oriented towards protocol.

Okay, so that’s very unhelpful. But if you’re somebody who wants protocol and your D-type just isn’t into it, then you have an incompatibility (and you either accept that, find a compromise, or move on.) Not all D/s dynamics include protocols and rules, and therefore, not all D or s-types will be interested in them. There’s no way to suddenly make a partner who isn’t into the idea of setting, keeping, and following through with rules and rituals excited about that sort of lifestyle. The fact of the matter is this stuff is hard, and it requires an amount of attention and investment from the D-type which can’t/shouldn’t be forced. This guide is really for folks already doing some amount of protocol who for some reason want more.

2. Consider if it’s the right time to add more protocol.

Are you already being obedient regarding what you have in place?
If not, stop. Do not pass go. Work on that. Figure out why that current protocol isn’t a good fit for you, or do what’s needed to implement it into your life successfully. You’re making extra work for a partner who presumably is already trying to work on things like training and consequences, and you’re demonstrating that it isn’t that important to you. Why would they want to have even more to watch you not follow? It doesn’t make sense if something is already failing to add more to potentially fail at.

(Note, I’m not a brat and the brat dynamic isn’t one I understand. It’s a valid dynamic, and maybe there’s a way for people not following current protocol to successfully add more—but I’m not the person to write that.)

What does protocol mean to you, and why do you want more of it?
This need be thought of more in-depth than “it’s hot” or “I enjoy the dominance of it” etc. I think often these answers might come out to be “because I need a concrete way to know I’m fulfilling what my D-type wants from me,” and when that’s broken down, the issue really isn’t needing more protocol at all. In that case, it’s either “my current guidelines aren’t concrete enough” or “I don’t believe that my partner is asking for everything they want from me” or, most likely, “I’m not currently receiving the acknowledgement I need that I’m doing a good job.” More protocol isn’t going to fix these issues. In fact, it may even make them worse; there’ll just be *even more* opportunity for you to feel unsure/untrusting/unappreciated.

So what *are* good reasons for s-initiated protocol?
Any reason that is about serving you, the s-type, yourself. I know that may seem backwards to some. It doesn’t mean that it can’t also serve or please your D-type (it probably *should* at least please them!), but if you’re trying to set up protocol *exclusively* for someone else’s benefit, you are implying that you know both what their needs are and how to best fill them better than they do. You’re also—as previously mentioned—making more work for them, and ultimately you’re setting yourself up for failure when the results invariably are dissatisfactory to one or all of you. (Obviously, this does not apply if the D-type has asked you to figure out a solution to x problem and that’s the reason you’re reading this.)

Examples of reasons for protocol that are for the s-type or for both parties might include things such as:

More opportunities throughout the day to be reminded of roles (though one might consider first why the current ones aren’t enough)
Personal accountability with personal goals or potential relationship flaws
Lack of sexual or romantic fulfillment
A structural fix to a communication problem

3. Bring up the why, what, and/or how of the protocol itself, asking for help/input on what you can.

This is going to depend on your relationship, the situation, your various communication styles, etc. I’m going to give you a few case studies from my life of four different ways this could go. I’ll start with the reason, then tell you how the problems were communicated and the protocol was implemented. I’ll break it down more after.

Reason one: I wanted the safety of Him knowing where I was; I had a tendency to self-sabotage relationships, and I knew I didn’t want to do that here.

This one was simple. I felt unsafe at a modeling job, and afterward decided I wanted my Owner to have a way to track me at them. We’d discussed finding that hot before, and I told Him I wouldn’t mind if there were some way for Him to *always* know where I was so that He could always find me. He researched apps He could install on my phone to make this happen, and installed one until it no longer served us.

Reason two: We both needed to feel more connected to our roles.

When I lived overseas, we hit a road-bump. In response, I considered what I needed to still feel secure in our relationship, and that was to feel owned (some folks might respond to issues by withdrawing the dynamic, which is also valid—just not my choice.) Though my collar was locked on me, I needed an active way of expressing my submission when I couldn’t directly serve Him. I told Him as such, in language along the lines of “I would like more protocol for while I’m gone to remind me I belong to You.” He emailed me the next day with five new rules that would require photographic evidence.

Reason three: I wanted to play/fuck more, but we weren’t because He was having a hard time determining when I was capable of it.

Those two reasons came out simultaneously during a conversation about how my chronic illness has affected my life. When these things came up, I responded first by suggesting that we try the “maintenance spankings” idea. This didn’t fit His personal style, but he suggested I tell Him where I’m at every day so that He could know when I was “up for it,” so to speak. I now always text Him on my way home for the day to let Him know the state of my body/mind, or—if at home—am communicative about pain levels throughout the day.

Reason four: I was struggling with productivity in one of my personal pursuits.

I complained one day about not being able to complete as much as I wanted on a project. He responded saying He wished there were some way He could hold me accountable. I knew the best way would be via monitoring what windows were up on my computer, and so I researched how to do that. Once I came up with the best way, I asked Him for what he thought a reasonable daily goal would be, time-wise. Now He gets an auto-generated nightly report on how I spent my time, and I aim for the goal He set for me.

Notes on the above:
You’ll see there are a few approaches here for each of those items.
1) I explained what I wanted and why. He researched and found the best way how to implement it.
2) I gave a reason of *why* I wanted more protocol; He figured out the what and how I would be accountable.
3) The why was determined by us both during a relationship check-in. I gave one possible what which didn’t fit Him, and then He gave a second what. I figured out how best to do it.
4) I had my own reason why I wanted to be accountable to Him, and figured out how to measure this, but asked for His input on what the specific goal would be so that it placed Him and His vision of what I should be back in control.

4. Follow through/develop these in such a way that they’re self-punishing.

Since these are things I’ve asked for above and beyond His own plans for our relationship, I can’t be upset if He forgets to hold me accountable, at least at first. It would be very easy to do this—and after a certain point, I certainly am not interested in a rule or protocol if He isn’t as committed to it as I am—but until it’s really a part of our routine, I need to continue to personally take the initiative that I did in asking for the rule/protocol. We’re currently in the first week of example four. I’ve sent Him my report every night or explained why I couldn’t, but He’s only reminded me to do so once. That’s okay. I never asked Him to help me share what I was doing, only to help me shape it.

This somewhat goes along with the “only do this if you’re already obedient” thing. It isn’t fair for me to create something that’s ultimately going to cause Him to need to monitor and punish me all the time. The truth is I haven’t needed a punishment for 3+ years, though I’ve no doubt He wouldn’t hesitate were discipline warranted. That said, these protocols work in that they are either unavoidable—the tracking, for instance—or that they are inherently punishing if I don’t follow through, since they’re responsive to *my* needs and desires (see the last section on point 2.) If I can’t be relied on to tell Him where my pain level is, He can’t fuck me. That’s its own punishment.

Endnote: “but isn’t this topping from the bottom?”

IDK. Is it? That really depends on your relationship. Different people do things different ways, and it might be worth asking your D-type if they’re okay with you proposing ideas for protocol before you try it. (That said, I didn’t—and I think there’s always something good that can come out of sharing things you think you’d find hot/romantic/beneficial.) At the very least, I’d say there’s nothing that’s topping from the bottom about sharing *why* you think you need more protocol.

But to me, no, not at all—because it wouldn’t work if my D-type weren’t on top. This works because He’s the dominant one and because of the respect and trust I have surrounding His dominance. If those things weren’t there, it wouldn’t matter that I wanted to implement accountability measures, because why would I care about holding myself accountable to someone I didn’t respect? Why would I want to codify a way to tell Him He could fuck me if we didn’t have the sort of relationship where some days He can just… decide to fuck me? I’m figuring out the details here, but they work because He’s dominant. In the situations where the protocol I’ve suggested hasn’t been to His taste, He’s said so, and we don’t do them.

So that’s my little write-up on s-type-directed protocol. Even in a long-term, TPE relationship, there’s no reason you can’t take charge of your own satisfaction. It won’t be a fit for all people or dynamics, but for those whom this would work for, I think you can only grow from trying it.

What do you think? What are you wondering? Have you done something similar, and has it been successful? Join in on the conversation in this writing’s comments on Fetlife by clicking here.

Jan

2024

Questions and Considerations for Bottoming to Degradation Play

Over time, emotional play has become one of my core kinks. Very few of our scenes don’t have at least some element of degradation, and casual degradation and humiliation is a part of my day-to-day life. It certainly has caused its issues at times, but I wouldn’t want to remove it from our dynamic for the world. It makes me feel Loved. Most of my erotica involves it. *All* of my fantasies do. Often times, I can’t get off without it. Suffice to say, I think about this sort of thing a lot.

I recently read someone’s guide to emotional sadism. In the comment section, many bottoms expressed regret over emotional S&M gone wrong in the past, whether because their partners did not engage in it from a healthy place, boundaries weren’t clearly considered or communicated, or other reasons. My aim here is to create a resource for bottoms to help them think through potential pitfalls before they encounter them.

This is a non-comprehensive list of possible questions you might ask yourself or discuss with your partner when considering delving into emotional play. Sometimes I’ve added examples or other commentary, but it’s mostly just the questions. It’s by no means exhaustive. It also is not at *all* meant to qualify if you personally should or shouldn’t engage in this sort of play—if your answer to a question is something negative, that doesn’t mean “don’t do it”; it means follow the question up with “and am I okay with that?”

What feeling do I wish to come out of this with?
options might include: shame, loneliness, fear, worthlessness, failure, abandonment, guilt
Do I want this to be role-play (my partner says things we both definitively know to be untrue) or do I want this to touch on real insecurities and beliefs?
What categories of degradation are too far, desired, or won’t have an effect?
options might include: attractiveness (physical? personality? smell?), intelligence, worth as a partner, worth in general, capability (of being a good submissive, at your job, to achieve your dreams, etc), aspects of identity (race, religion, sexuality, gender), promiscuity, sexual ability/worth, core values
Am I okay with real-life events being mentioned?
If we are role-playing but my partner says something I believe is true about myself, will I be able to trust that they *don’t* think that? If no, will that undermine my concept of true and false for things they say in the future?
Have there been any recent hurdles with this partner that might affect my ability to see something as play?
If I am feeling ashamed, unimportant, or otherwise lesser in the scene or dynamic, will that affect my ability to communicate if I need things to stop?
Are there reactions that should signal a stop or pause to my partner beyond explicit communication
examples: shutting down, crying, inability to make eye contact, heavy breathing
In some physical scenes, a safeword stops the thing causing the pain. When emotions are involved, the escalation can stop but the pain might not (ever). If I have the ability to stop this in our scene/dynamic, am I able to do that *before* it gets to a point I won’t be able to handle?
How long do I want to sit with the bad feeling(s)? Do I want it made better after (being “built back up”)?
If I need my top to make me feel better after, do I want them to negate what they said/did in scene and tell me it was all a lie, or build me up about other things?
(Personally, if my Owner were to say He didn’t believe the things He told me, I’d start thinking that He didn’t really enjoy degrading me and that would make me feel worse. YMMV.)
What else do I need after? Are there behaviors of mine that might need to be monitored (eating properly, fulfilling goals, communicating, etc) based on what we do? For how long? Will this partner be in my life for that long? Are there other people that can look after these things if they aren’t?
If this scene involves certain activities, props, or locations, they may trigger these feelings in the future. Am I okay with that?
If I do this in public or write about this and people think/know my top really thinks these things about me, will the way they perceive us be bothersome to either of us?
Is my top prepared to handle the emotional labor that may come with my feeling they think x about me? Will they feel guilty if I become afraid of them or their presence makes me feel negatively? Are they aware of that possibility? Will they be patient if it is hard to overcome, or even if it doesn’t ever go away?
Are other relationships prepared to handle the emotional labor that may come with my believing x about myself? If I need extra reassurance or am suddenly insecure in our relationship, will that make them feel negatively about themselves?
Do I have events in the near future that will be affected by my confidence in myself changing? (important presentations, job interviews, performances, first dates)
Am I comfortable being vulnerable in front of my partner? Will I be after this happens? Do I have a support system I can speak to honestly about this experience without fear of judgment?
How might this affect any emotional issues I already deal with?
If this partnership dissolves in the future, will this experience make that harder to handle?
If I begin associating affection or sex with these negative feelings, how will that affect my perception of reality, and how will that affect how I evaluate this and other relationships down the line?
What traits, connections, perceptions ground me to the reality of whatever this relationship is? How will I be reminded/remind myself of them if/when I need to?

Obviously, everyone experiences things differently. Though I hope it goes without saying, emotional S&M can be very hard on a person and on a relationship, whatever that relationship is, and should be carefully thought through—but with the right partner, I think it’s one of the most incredible, intimate, and even empowering experiences to be had. These questions are meant as thought/conversation-starters, not a comprehensive checklist.

Come over to the comments section of this writing on Fetlife to tell us what you’d add!

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 is a BDSM Risk Profile?

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 Should Kinksters Know Their Risk Profiles?

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 to Build Your BDSM Risk Profile

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

A bit ago, I asked for others’ definitions of edge play in BDSM. 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.

“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.”

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.

Methodology and disclaimers

We don’t feel like our safety will be protected.

We experience a blatant disregard for boundaries, negotiation, and our own agency and knowledge.

The “old guard” community is worrisome to us.

Our scenes get interrupted.

We only exist to be other people’s fetishes.

Our identities themselves aren’t respected.

When we do try and make things better, we’re met with terrible responses.

Other answers

Conclusions

1. Make sure your D-type is already oriented towards protocol.

2. Consider if it’s the right time to add more protocol.

3. Bring up the why, what, and/or how of the protocol itself, asking for help/input on what you can.

4. Follow through/develop these in such a way that they’re self-punishing.

Endnote: “but isn’t this topping from the bottom?”

What is a BDSM Risk Profile?

Why Should Kinksters Know Their Risk Profiles?

How to Build Your BDSM Risk Profile

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

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

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

What is edge play as a concept?

What is edge play, specifically?

Why do it?

Conclusions

Housekeeping

Common Themes

Points of disagreement

Conclusions

1) Proper stretching is important for rope bottoms.

2) Flexibility and strength are different disciplines.

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.

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

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

What forms of exercise are even important?

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