For some reason, that feels a bit hard for me to admit openly to the BDSM community. It seems like it’s almost expected that people be into it — I mean hell, it’s the first letter in BDSM!

I’ve heard others say that they like bondage because it puts the partner completely at their whim. I like having my partner completely at my whim without having to rely on her being tied up to do it. I love struggle play. It’s much, much more fun for me to wrestle my partner to the ground and pin her so that I can do what I want even as she struggles, than to immobilize her so that she is incapable of fighting back. Some tops aren’t strong enough, or well-trained enough (martially speaking), to utterly physically dominate someone in this way — or at least, not without the other person losing the struggle on purpose, anyway. And I can completely understand that for those people, bondage is their only option when it comes to physically dominating someone.

But me, I want her to be able to (try to) fight back. I want her to feel, viscerally, that I am dominating her and there is nothing she can do to stop it*. I want to see that realization wash over her, and for her to try denying it even as she knows it, and then eventually give in. And then I want to put her in more pain, different pain, to where she forgets all over again and tries to struggle again.

That is the sort of domination that gets me off.

What I don’t like is the idea of taking 15 minutes to tie a girl down while she sits there cooperating. I love how shibari looks as an art form, but I guess the part of my brain that is into BDSM doesn’t have the patience for it.

Cuffs I’m okay with, but if we’re just talking about my enjoyment, I still prefer not to use them. But that said, it seems like lots and lots of people are into bondage (rope and otherwise). So I feel compelled to at the very least learn and become expert at some basic ties that are quick to put on. I realize that, from a psychological perspective, some people need to be tied down to feel completely powerless. And I definitely do want my partner to be enjoying herself too.

Also, I realize there are some situations where it’s not possible to personally physically restrain someone while having a scene. For instance, I can’t hold someone down and hit them with a 6-foot bullwhip at the same time (not unless I hit them with the handle, anyway). In those cases I still prefer my partner to be free of bonds, but if I’m going to go so hard that they need support to continue standing, I’m fine with cuffing them.

If you’re a bondage aficionado, what do you get from it? The art/aesthetic pleasure? The immobilization/power factor? Something else altogether?

* Other than calling red, of course.

So, where is the line between BDSM and abuse? What it really boils down to is the intent of the top. If the top has the wellbeing of the bottom in mind, then it is not abuse. If the top really couldn’t give a shit about the bottom or hir safety, then they are being abusive. While we might roleplay degradation, if the so-called top really doesn’t care about the bottom then it’s not BDSM, period. Even in a TPE situation the master should care for their slave — if the slave is property, they should be a prized possession, to be cherished and taken good care of. In regards to abuse, I heard the sentiment expressed, “That (abusive) guy cared more for his car than for his girlfriend.”

However, intent is an internal thing — looking at a situation from the outside (or even as the potential victim), it can be nearly impossible to decipher. So personally, I like to use the distinction of hurt vs. harm. Hurt is what we do in BDSM play — be it pain of a physical nature like that of the singletailed wihp, or pain of a mental nature such as humiliation and degradation play. However, this is pain of a temporary nature. If the top is doing something that causes the bottom harm, then it’s abuse.

So what is harm? When I say harm here, I mean making a person weaker. Physically, making them disabled (e.g. purposefully wrenching their arm out of its socket, causing a permanent physical disability). Mentally, making them less able to successfully interact with the world at large (e.g. robbing them of their sense of self-esteem and self-worth). I’d even go further to say that any good top should seek to make their bottom stronger as a person — stretching their limits, helping them overcome fear and anxiety, making them better able to cope with the world.

If you think a friend is the victim of abuse, my advice is to not step in directly, but to continue to be there for them, even if they say they don’t want you around. Abusers often cut off their victims from their friends, so if it is an abusive situation, then you could be their only lifeline. However, taking direct action like calling the police on the abuser has often ended in tragedy for the victim. The abuser goes to jail for a few weeks or months, gets out, and takes revenge on the victim. Not a pretty story.

As a closing note, I’d like to take a moment to point out that mental abuse is far more insidious, and (from what I’ve seen) common, than physical abuse.

Being young does not mean that one is immature; it means that one is more likely to be immature. Conversely, neither does being older mean that one is mature. There are plenty of 40-somethings out there with the mentality of teenagers.

I’m young, and I apparently look even younger than I am*. I’m sure I’ve been the subject of age discrimination in the lifestyle, but I honestly have no problem with that. I am very forthright in what my level of experience is, and in that I am always looking to learn more — and I will be learning more so long as I draw breath. I think that respect should be earned, and I have no qualms with earning it from others, given a chance.

But to again flip the coin over, I also do not extend automatic respect just because someone has been in the lifestyle for several decades. I do tend to give a more leeway to those in the leather lifestyle that have earned the title of master, but I liken that to someone with the title of master in martial arts. At the very least, they (ostensibly) have a lot of experience. But someone not in the leather lifestyle who introduces themselves as “Master Suchandsuch” does tend to turn me off immediately. Sort of like those I mentioned in my last post, the dominants/masters online who use capital letters when referring to themselves (e.g. “I am a twue master, and My slaves all know it and bow before Me”).

* At the first munch I went to, asking my age was one of the first questions out of several people’s mouths. My response was always, “Guess first, and then I’ll tell you.” The numbers that most guessed were about 7 years too young.

In a lot of the more serious dungeons, there is no alcohol allowed. The secondary issue with that is that would require a liquor license in most places too, but nonetheless, most serious lifestylers agree that drinking and BDSM don’t go together.

I’d thought that most, in fact, were teetotalers when it came to drinking and playing.  And while some definitely are, the more I talked to people in the community, the more I found out that this wasn’t true. A friend of (who is an experienced dominant) had a few drinks when we were at dinner before playing in the dungeon, and I was a bit surprised. She told me, “A drink or two helps me to loosen up some.” She’s deadly accurate with a singletail whip (or with two at once!), and who am I to question her judgment?

And the more I paid attention, the more I saw this philosophy in other experienced players. Now, it was generally when they were playing with someone they were already experienced with, which is important to note.  And that also brings me to a…

Caveat! I am not saying that you should drink and kink. I am saying that from my personal experience, one needn’t be of the philosophy “if you’ve had a single drop of alcohol then you can’t play for the night!” I myself have played when I was too close to that edge, and better safe than sorry as they say.

In fact, my “too close to the edge” incident happened recently. It was at a gothy event that had some BDSM on the side, and with my girl not there and me without my equipment, I wasn’t planning on playing, so I had a few drinks. Then an opportunity planted itself firmly in my lap. There was a girl at the event that I’d wanted to play with for some time, but the timing was never right. Speaking with her there, it seemed that she had wanted to play with me as well. A guy standing next to us offered his flogger. I’m a pretty good self-judge, and I knew I hadn’t had enough drinks in me to lose accuracy. And the flogger, like the girl, was very well put together. So I couldn’t resist.

What I didn’t account for was that the flogger was weighted very differently than I was used to — it had longer falls, and a longer handle. My floggers are generally balanced right around the neck, this one was balanced further down the handle. So there were a few times that I wrapped. Which grates on my nerves like fingernails across a chalkboard. It screams amateur, and I am better than that.

The girl graciously told me afterward that she hardly noticed, and that it was a great scene. But you see, I’m a self-perfectionist. Also, what if I had had more drinks? Would I have passed up the opportunity in favor of caution? I think I would have, but I can’t really say.

This weekend I will be attending Frolicon, where there will lots of alcohol, and lots of play going on. I generally only make a mistake once, and I won’t be making that one again.

And though I talk about this from the perspective of a top, the same is true of the other side. If you feel worthless unless you have someone to serve, that is not healthy. While the lifestyle provides a good outlet for filling that void, it can also be used as a band-aid to cover up deeper issues that need direct attention (and possibly even therapy).

Just to make it clear, I’m not saying that if you don’t feel complete without dominance/submission being part of your life then there’s something wrong with you, or you have no self-esteem.  I’m saying that if you measure your worth (consciously or subconsciously) by the presence of someone filling that role in your life, then you should ask yourself if your use of BDSM is feeding  the problem rather than solving it. I strongly believe BDSM is a healthy way for many people to work through issues, but that’s not to say that all people engage in it in a healthy manner.

Of course, the same is true in the vanilla world. Again, self-esteem that is absent without the love/affection/attention/approval of another isn’t self-esteem at all. And here I would like to say that you, dear reader, are a worthwhile individual of your own accord, with or without a partner, in the BDSM world or otherwise.

What I engage in is really more of “oxygen play” than breath play — coming from a martial arts background, I know a variety of chokes, and in martial arts they are split into two categories: blood chokes and air chokes. Blood chokes (like the sleeper hold, also known as the rear naked choke) cut off the flow of blood to the brain, whereas air chokes cut off the air supply to the lungs (which eventually cuts off the supply of oxygen to the brain). Blood chokes are far and away my favorite, for a couple of reasons.

First, blood chokes are much safer. Air chokes, which generally put pressure on the trachea, can cause damage to the trachea if there is too much struggling or if you apply the choke too hard. With blood chokes, unless you’re incredibly strong and using all of your strength, it’s unlikely that you’ll cause any damage even if you put the choke on very hard (assuming you let go once the other person goes limp).  According to Knight’s book Forensic Pathology, there is an expert consensus that it takes a minimum of four to six minutes to start to do permanent brain damage with a completely effective choke hold. So when you’re talking about 10 seconds or less, you should be well within the safe zone.

Second, the effect of a blood choke is almost immediate – you can choke someone to unconsciousness in easily under 10 seconds, whereas with an air choke it could take a minute or more. This can be good and bad, depending on what you’re going for. With an air choke, that leaves more time for panic (if that’s what you’re going for), but also more time for struggling, and more opportunities for an accident to occur. I don’t care how bad a girl she’s been; crushing her trachea is not appropriate punishment!

A note about blood chokes and unconsciousness: there are several levels of unconsciousness, and a properly applied blood choke will put someone into a basic level of unconsciousness quickly. So quickly and easily that you might think they’re faking. Trust me, they’re not. And while you can safely apply the choke for a while longer after this — maybe an extra 5-10 seconds — their body will reflexively go into panic mode, and even though they’re unconscious, they will thrash about. While this isn’t particularly dangerous for them if you have them secured (and assuming you don’t apply the choke for a long time after that), it will cause them to come back to consciousness more panicked, and generally with a splitting headache to boot. I’ve made this mistake before, so please learn from my mistakes!

Also, choking to the point of unconsciousness is (of course) not the only option, nor one I necessarily recommend. It takes a huge level of trust from the bottom, and a fair amount of knowledge from the top, to safely do that. Engaging in carotid chokes that do not end in unconsciousness (i.e. are only applied for a second or two) also gives that feeling of power exchange, the moment of panic, the building of trust.

*    *    *

The other night, I talked some with my girl about breath play, trying to find out what she gets from it. I highly recommend that you talk with your partner about these sorts of things, by the way — not just breath play, but your SM relationship in general. Getting a peek into your partner’s head helps you know them better, which strengthens the bond, and also makes play more fun. Knowledge is power, after all. *grin*

For her, there are several elements. There is the element of struggle, which is enjoyable for her. She is physically strong, and also grew up with two brothers, so she’s used to wrestling. She also has dated far more women than men, and even the men she’s dated she’s been able to physically best them in such situations for the most part. So she’s used to winning. For me (a skinny guy) to be able to physically overpower her when she’s really trying gives a certain edge to it; she’s not roleplaying and pretending to let me take control over her, I am physically taking control of her in a very real way.

There is the physical element as well. Breath play makes orgasms more intense. This is no doubt why so many deaths from auto-erotic asphyxiation occur. I’m not sure how much of this is purely physical, and how much psychological. I can say that even clasping a hand around a partner’s throat and applying light pressure has seemed to make their orgasms more intense. Note that this experience is always with people who welcomed it though — it’s absolutely not the sort of thing you do without discussing it first. But I don’t need to tell you that. You are all negotiating before scenes, and all you tops that want to engage in breath play are asking if it’s okay, right? Good, I thought so!

But the biggest aspect is trust. Once I lock in a choke, there is the moment of panic. She knows that she is completely powerless, at my whim. And though there is that survival instinct screaming in her brain, she also knows that she is in no danger. It’s exciting; it’s a rush of adrenaline; it both requires trust and strengthens it.

And then when she comes to, there is that split second where she doesn’t know where she is, what’s going on, or what just happened. Fear. Confusion. But she sees my face, feels me against her, and she is immediately at ease. The contrast from one extreme to the other makes it all the more significant.

From my end, it’s the exact same from the other side of the coin. It is an amazing feeling of control, and it feels good knowing that someone trusts you to that extent. You can see it, and feel it. In this day and age of emotional repression and distancing, it is beautiful to be able to form a bond that close, and in doing this sort of thing, you experience how deep of a bond it really is.

Though all SM activities require trust, I think that breath play, and especially breath play involving carotid choking to the point of unconsciousness, requires a different level of trust. If the top were to do something wrong, by accident or on purpose, it could more easily and quickly result in death than with any other SM activity that immediately comes to mind.  The worst-case scenario, no matter how unlikely, is still pretty extreme. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that Jay Wiseman is against it.

For me, the risks are acceptable; my girl is more likely to be injured or killed out driving than while in my arms’ crushing caress. It’s a risk that each person involved has to weigh, but some people see it as unquestionably too dangerous to engage in, and I personally disagree vehemently with that notion.

Of course, I’m not the only one that struggles with this, and it’s not limited by any means to males or sadists.  My own bottom feels guilty for asking for pain.  My friend Clarisse went through guilt and horror and shame when she realized that she was into BDSM. For bottoms, there is the stigma that only crazy people want pain, and for female bottoms there are additional stigma — you’re reinforcing an abusive stereotype, you’re going against everything feminists have worked to give you, etc. Man, don’t get me started on that feminist one. Feminism is about equality and women having the same choices men do, so maybe not all women want to be doctors and corporate raiders, dig? Damnit, I got started. Okay, reeling it in.

In any case, I find that this often is a barrier to play at home. As if leading busy lives with often-conflicting schedules weren’t enough (which is worthy of a post on its own), she feels like she’s bugging me if she asks for a spanking, and I feel like an Evil Guy (in a bad way) if I tell her I want to give her one.

But in the dungeon, or at a club, that’s not the case.  Maybe part of it is that in those places I’m more in uniform.  Maybe it’s just that I associate BDSM activities with those places, so it’s easier to get into my headspace.  Maybe it’s less of a jump than it is at home — the difference between transitioning from watching television to spanking, versus leading her to a bench and bending her over it.

My mentor has made a few suggestions to overcome this, and we’re trying some things to see what works for us (for example, “I think I’m going to go to bed early,” usually equals, “I want to play (or have sex); follow me if you do too.”).

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not believe in black and white; I see almost everything as a gradient.  For example, I think that the hetero-/bi-/homo-sexual distinction is very crude and not representative.  I’m a guy, and maybe I would never even be able to recognize another man as attractive. Perhaps I can recognize other men as attractive, but not ever want to kiss one. Maybe I’d want to kiss other men, but only rare men on rare occasions.   Et cetera, all the way down the line to the other extreme.

I also see informed consent as a gradient. Actually I see it as two gradients; a dual-axis system, if you will: how informed one is, and to what extent their consent is valid. The informative axis is easy to understand, I think. If you’re involved in a flogging scene, maybe you know absolutely nothing about it, or maybe you know that it’s bad to get hit in the head or in the kidneys, or maybe you know that and are familiar with the concept of “wrapping” and correct target areas and how fast is appropriate to build up and good/bad physiological responses.

But what about the consent axis? Obviously, if someone is unconscious, then they aren’t able to give consent. If they’re drunk or high on drugs, their consent is not valid. But what about if someone is high on endorphins after a good scene? What if they’ve had a single beer?   Okay, many people will say even one beer isn’t a grey area and is unacceptable, so what about one drop of wine? Two drops? What is the BAC line that you draw, and is it different for different people? What if a submissive is new to the scene and undergoing “sub frenzy?”

In this article about the legal dangers of rough sex, “Steve” (a sadist in the lifestyle) further breaks down consent into three areas: consent before, during, and after.  He says that if he gets two out of three, he’s happy.  I think that’s a little callous, and one should always shoot for three out of three, but I can see his point.  If you’re negotiating a scene, doing everything you should as a top, and during the scene you do everything you should as a top, what happens if the bottom has regrets the next day, or the next week?

To further muddy the waters, various articles and books on BDSM also talk about “seducing” consent.   The book Flogging by Joseph Bean says that even within a scene, the top is constantly seducing consent from the bottom and then “spending” it.   One of the things that gets a lot of tops off is pushing the edges of boundaries.   That’s true of me personally; I think of BDSM as an experience of enlightenment and discovery as well as something viscerally fun, and in my role as a top one of my higher-level goals is to help show the bottom something new about themselves.   To show them that they’re stronger than they thought, or that they like this thing that they were uncertain about, or that crying can be liberating, or… well, you get the picture.   So even on the end of the gradient that most people think of as unquestionably acceptable, we push the edge of consent.

So in what ways is it ethical to manipulate someone into expanding their consent?   What if someone is pretty sure that they won’t like something (or if it’s one of their hard limits), but you convince them to try it?  I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard of bottoms having something as a hard limit, but it later becoming their favorite thing.

Okay, so what’s the point of all of this? The point is, there’s no black and white with consent. Some things we can look at and say with certainty, “That was/wasn’t valid consent.”   Maybe you have a system or heuristic that you could give a solid “consensual/non-consensual” ruling for any given scenario, but I’ll bet you I could throw a few at you that would make you indecisive.

Further, I think a lot of people in the world of BDSM see the idea of consent as a panacea to all questions of the morality of our lifestyle.   What is consent to you might not be consent to me, or to the legal system (and here again I’m resisting the strong urge to go off on a tangent about BDSM in the law in America).   And consent, even if given in a valid way, can always be retracted. My dear friend Clarisse blogged about that very topic.

What exactly does it mean to be a service top?  How is it different than being a “normal” top?  Part of the whole point of BDSM is that everyone gets what they want.  If you’re only concerned with your own needs and desires, then I pity the bottom who gives themselves into your trust.  From The Loving Dominant:

Do you get as much pleasure or more from erotically exciting your partner as from your own enjoyment of the sexual act?
If this is true, then you are likely to be a good dominant.  The essence of this kind of play is to take another’s power and then use it for mutual pleasure.

And then a bit later it goes on to say that it’s well and good to have fantasies about truly nonconsensual activities, but “what separates the civilized from the uncivilized is how tight a leash we keep on [those fantasies].”  I do realize that some bottoms get off on being made to do things they truly don’t want to (or having such things done to them), because the charge they get from pleasing their top overpowers their distaste.  I don’t oppose that at all, and in fact I think it’s a beautiful thing.  But it’s not for everyone, and I don’t think it’s fair that it be the de facto expectation of all bottoms.

So to come back to the question: what’s the difference between a top and a service top?  Not much, in my opinion.

Granted, to do every single thing the bottom wants and nothing outside of those parameters is a little confining, but I think that a creative dominant can find ways to make things interesting and unpredictable even when doing that.  Someone acts as a service top whenever they let the bottom have more direct control over what’s done to them.  I phrase it as “acts as a service top” because I think it is another way of playing, not a way of being.  I am friends with a man who has worn the title of Master for longer than I’ve been alive, and on many occasions I’ve seen him act as a service top, especially when introducing new people to the lifestyle.  But I don’t know of anyone who would refer to him as a service top, least of all his slaves (and not just for fear of reprisal, either!).

So is it actually a bad thing to be a service top?  Does that actually make one less dominant?  Would you call a professional dominatrix less dominant because she gives someone what they want?

Or is it?

When I first started thinking about this, I had heard people in the past talk about how giving oral sex is a sign of dominance. The first time I heard it, I was sort of confused as to how that could be. But then I thought about it a bit more, and it started making more sense.

When you’re giving oral sex, you are the one in control (exceptions to be noted later). You decide what the other person feels, how intensely they feel it, when they come. You can bring them to the edge, and then back off. You can tease them how you please. All of these are very dominant things, leaving you as the “giver” in control. I’ve known some people unable to come from oral sex because they have a problem letting someone else have that power over them.

On a related note, in an S&M sense (as opposed to D/s), the top is the one creating the sensations, and the bottom is the one that experiences them.  Though this might or might not involve any sort of overt power exchange, the top is definitely the one in control (safe-words and so forth notwithstanding).  And in this case, performing oral sex would correlate to the activity of a top.

But on the other hand, performing oral sex can also be a distinctly submissive activity.  It can be looked at as giving service to another.  Being between another person’s legs — not that that’s the only way to suck a cock or orally ravage a cunt, mind you — is a fairly submissive physical position.  Additionally, it’s definitely possible for the receiver to be the one in control.  For example, if a guy has a girl’s hair wrapped around his fist, and he’s shoving himself down her throat* fucking her face, then I don’t think it could be argued that she’s the dominant one in that circumstance.

So, my answer to the question is: it depends.  It can be either, or neither, depending on how you’re doing it.  Dominants shouldn’t feel less dominant because they have the desire to give — I myself identify as a dominant, but I do so love to eat a girl out.

* Guys, do get previous consent before ever attempting anything like this, ‘kay?