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The idea of informed consent is one of the core principles of BDSM. It’s in the two most common acronyms, SSC (Safe, Sane, and Consensual) and RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink). Without consent, what we do is immoral and illegal — well in many places, what we do is illegal even with consent, but I digress.

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.

Filed under: Thoughts by Sammael
Tags: « consent - gradient - law »
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I made a post discussing whether giving oral sex is a dominant or submissive activity.  A concept somewhat related to this, which I’ve been mulling over lately, is that of “service tops.”   This is a term that means a top that is in service to their bottom, doing exactly what the bottom wants, and nothing else — allowing the bottom to “top from the bottom,” as they say.   It’s generally used in a derogatory manner (in my personal experience, anyway).  I’d like to examine the concept a bit more.

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?

Filed under: Rants, Thoughts by Sammael
Tags: « dominatrix - service top »
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Okay, so this one isn’t exactly BDSM-related, and it’s from a while ago (I just now saw this post laying around in my drafts folder) but I still find it noteworthy.  Researchers in London claim conclusive proof that the idea of a G-spot is subjective (which is basically saying that it doesn’t actually exist).

I’ll preface this by saying that I have not seen the actual study, so I can only base my opinions off of the little information given in the article.

In a nutshell, it seems like they just asked a bunch of twins (fraternal and identical), “Do you have a g-spot?”   This is horrible research methodology.  It’s like going to 1920s households and asking the women if they’ve ever experienced an orgasm.   “A significant number of women said that they had never experienced orgasm, therefore we conclude that the female orgasm does not actually exist.”

If you’re serious about this, how about you start by doing some research on female cadavers?   Map out nerve endings, that sort of thing.

To play my own devil’s advocate, I see the point of this study.   I get the impression that the people behind this study believe that many women don’t receive pleasure in that way, and feel like there must be something wrong with them.   Personally I think in most cases that’s most likely because their partner doesn’t know how to properly stimulate it, but that’s neither here nor there.  The study is meant to say, “There, there. It’s okay.  No pressure.” (Pun intended.)  But if you want to say that, then just say it. Don’t try to prove it with bogus science.

Filed under: Educational, Rants by Sammael
Tags: « g-spot - research »
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At first blush, it seems like giving oral sex is a submissive activity. You’re giving pleasure to another, and it’s as simple as that.

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?

Filed under: Thoughts by Sammael
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Okay, I know I haven’t posted in a while, but… FetLife.com is doing a “Sit on Kinky Santa’s Lap” promotion and giving away nearly $25,000 worth of kinky toys and equipment. So if you haven’t already, get on there and fill out your kinky wishlist!

Filed under: Goings-On, Miscellaneous by Sammael
Tags: « fetlife »
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I am a very accepting person — my philosophy is, “If it makes you happy and is done with the informed consent of everyone involved, then wonderful!”  However, there are some things that I think are flat-out wrong even if they make one happy.  One of these things is some people’s idea of the ideal master/slave relationship.

On various online BDSM forums, there are discussions about what it is to be a slave.  Like all things, I think that some people take it too lightly, and some people take it way too far.   To whit: there seems to be a philosophy among some that “the only need a ‘true slave’ has is the happiness of their master.”  I think this is utter bullshit, personally.  It’s fantasy, not reality.

To take an extreme example: a master decides to put their slave in a hole for the rest of their life with absolutely no human contact (not even with the master), and only the barest essentials necessary to live.   But could someone truly be happy in this situation? I don’t think so, and if it were possible, there would be something seriously, seriously abnormal (read: broken) in the slave’s brain chemistry.

Everyone has emotional needs.  Any master that enters into a relationship wherein he only considers his own needs and desires, and not those of his property, is an abusive person and not a master, period.  I don’t care if that’s what the slave wants — the slave is psychologically damaged, and that does not excuse the master’s abuse, any more than “consent” excuses the behavior of the Craigslist Cannibal (which I find simultaneously mind-boggling, and hilarious).

I realize that this is a dangerous line to tread.  Similar justifications have been used in the legal arena to make all BDSM activities illegal, even though they are between consenting adults.  The argument goes: if they consent to that sort of thing, then they’re obviously not in their right mind, and therefore cannot legally give consent.  But most of us in this lifestyle are perfectly rational, non-traumatized individuals capable of giving informed consent.  In fact, I’ve read about independent studies that show that your average BDSM practitioner is actually more psychologically healthy than your average ‘nilla.  However, I think that anyone who consents to the level of abuse I’m talking about above is not at all mentally healthy, and I would challenge anyone to prove otherwise.

Filed under: Rants by Sammael
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It seems to me that in any lifestyle, or hobby, or philosophy, many people tend to think that their way is “the right” way. If you’re doing something differently, it might work for you for a little while or a long while, but if you did it their way, then you’d definitely be better off. I suppose this is sort of related to my post “Your Kink is Disgusting! (But Mine is Natural).”

I will preface this with the fact that I am fairly inexperienced when it comes to the ways of the “old guard” and the leather lifestyle. I can only write about the interactions I’ve seen, and even that with the caveat that these are some general observations, and I’m not saying everyone involved in either “camp” thinks or feels this way. Also, this post isn’t directed at anyone in particular.

A lot of people from “the newer generation” (folks in their 20s and 30s in the lifestyle) seem to look down on the old guard ways as overly structured, outdated, nonsensical, and/or inapplicable to today’s world. And by the same token, I get the impression that a lot of people from the old guard tend to look down on anyone who doesn’t follow their ways as disrespectful, a “dabbler,” and/or simply childish.

No one path is right for everyone. Each person has to do what works for them. For some, for example, it makes a lot of sense that you should be a bottom/submissive before you become a top/dominant. You gain first-hand experience, more intimate knowledge of what the effects of certain tools or actions will be. You learn how the submissive/masochist thinks, and you gain insight into how to bend their body or mind to your will when you “graduate” to the other side. For others, that philosophy is simply wrong. Acting out the part of the sub won’t give them any more insight into the submissive’s mindset because they simply can’t think like a submissive, even if they forced themselves to act as one. Feeling pain wouldn’t give them a better view into the masochist’s mind because they inherently dislike receiving pain, and can’t understand the subtleties of sadism any better by being on the other side of it.

And as an aside, it’s just as easy to be a disrespectful snot, or a sensible person, whether one is old-guard or new — I’ve personally seen very little correlation there.

To me, the situation is analogous to that of the Christian-hating atheist, or the lesbian that looks down on bisexual women. There is an inherent hypocrisy there. Though it is, of course, natural to form stereotypes. Every last one of us uses stereotypes on a regular basis. We’d be pretty naive and unable to function in life if we didn’t do that.

Stereotypes are a good thing. Biases are not.

The distinction may seem subtle, but it’s not — the difference is in how open your mind is. If you have a stereotype, you might form a preconceived notion that that guy is probably a hardcore, high-protocol, gay male because all you know about him is that he’s in the leather lifestyle. And that’s fine. But if, in interacting with him, you observe evidence to the contrary and dismiss it or ignore it, then you are being biased. As the saying goes, “Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open.” (I’ve heard that quote attributed to Frank Zappa, James Dewar, and Anthony J. D’Angelo.)

So all of this is, I suppose, a long-winded way of saying that I wish fewer people in the lifestyle (and in general) were biased. Most of the people I’ve met are open-minded, but it seems like a few get stuck in the rut of, “My way is the One True/Best Way.” I think that philosophy is bred of insecurity, that it leads to ignorance, and that it is a huge barrier to personal growth. Of course, I also realize the inherent hypocrisy in my saying that — damn paradoxes!

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It seems that it is a common thing among bottoms and submissives to naturally wish they could give more (“giving more” meaning take more pain in the case of bottoms).  Being a sadomasochist, I’ve experienced it from both sides of the coin.  Yet still, it’s somewhat confusing to me.

When I take pain, it’s to find release.  When I took a singletail whip to the navel and nipples, it was more a process of breaking down and rebuilding.  That was the furthest I’ve been pushed yet, and ironically it was also the first time that I felt like I couldn’t take “enough.”  Not as much as I wanted to be able to take, not as much as I felt the one holding the whip wanted to give.

My own bottom has been expressing lately that she doesn’t feel like she can take as much as she used to be able to, or as much as she wants to.  I get the feeling that she doesn’t believe she’s fulfilling me in that way, though I do my best to reassure her that’s not the case.  Would it be fun to play with someone who could take everything I could possibly dish out?  Well, the idea seems exciting, but realistically speaking, such a person doesn’t exist.  And even if they did… would it make me feel any more fulfilled as a sadist?  I can’t answer that for sure one way or the other.

But I think that pleasing one’s top/dominant is only part of the equation.  A big part of masochism is pushing one’s self.  Expanding their limits, reaching those plateaus and overcoming them.  I can only speak for myself, but I am my own greatest critic, and I think the same is true of many — we hold ourselves to higher expectations than others do.  I don’t ever expect to be satisfied with my progression in BDSM or anything in life.  For me, self-satisfaction breeds complacence, which is poison to self-progression and evolution.  I want to grow, to learn, to evolve, to get better every day of my life.

So in that sense, I think it’s healthy to want more.  And I love that she wants to give more, but I don’t want her to feel that I need more — that she isn’t enough.  I feel very completed by what she gives to me, and by what I give to her.  So sadists, let your bottoms know what they mean to you.  Without them, many of us would be expressing these urges in unhealthy ways.

Filed under: Uncategorized by Sammael
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Would have posted this sooner, but I wanted to get permission to use the picture below first.

Last weekend I went to a demonstration on medical play, focusing on needle play, medical stapling, sounding, and electro-stimulation. Some of what I saw there I was familiar with, a lot of it I wasn’t.

General safety note with everything mentioned here: use gloves with any form of play that could involve bodily fluids like blood, and make sure your equipment is sterilized.  In many cases, alcohol is not enough.

I’ve always been interested in sounds, for example. The very idea of, to put it crudely, sticking a metal rod down your pee-hole, does seem at first glance like it would be painful. But from all accounts I’ve heard, it’s not. Granted, I’ve only heard experiences from men, since it doesn’t seem to be a common thing to do with women. The word “intense” is frequently used, and when the demonstration guy was asked to describe it, that was about the only word he could come up with (it was his first time experiencing it). That, and that it felt good.

Technique-wise, with a sound you generally want to have the “equipment” (both yours, and the guy’s) lined straight up and down, perpendicular to the floor. Use plenty of lube, make sure your equipment is sterilized — via an autoclave if you have access to one. I understand that you can actually use a pressure-cooker as well, but I am not versed on the details of that. The mistress doing the demonstration says that she actually likes to use polysporin as a lubricant, since it has some antibacterial stuff in it just for extra safety. You start out with the smaller rods, support the cock in your hand, pull at the sides of the head to open up the urethra a bit, then insert the sounding rod slowly. Once it’s in an inch or so, you can pretty much let gravity do the work — never push/force it in.

There is a little valve at the base of the cock, which is the opening into the bladder (the Cobb’s Curve). You can sort of feel it out — it’s a little bump in the urethral passage at the base of the cock. It’s easier to feel it out if the guy is hard, apparently. Generally speaking, don’t go past that. It won’t be a problem if the guy is lying down because of a natural curve there that will prevent the rod from going too far. You only really need to be concerned with that if the cock is pointed down toward the feet. That’s pretty much all there is to it. You can slide it in and out in slower strokes, and/or twist it in your fingers for extra sensation/stimulation. Generally the guy will go soft within a minute or so of sounding. Our demonstration guy never got hard. Being on a table with a spotlight on him and a roomful of people watching, with the mistress’s help being some light fondling and the command, “Get it up,” I highly doubt that I would have been able to either.

The medical stapling was interesting. Medical staples, for those that don’t know, are like normal staples, except the ends curve in toward each other when they go in. I got a few in my arm just to feel it, and it felt like a pinch — not even a hard one at that. In addition to the obvious SM use, they are also good for decorative play — you can run ribbons under the staples and make designs. Similar to corsets done with needles, except medical staples are a bit less prone to being fucked with, so when doing them in a public place (the dungeon, a convention, whatever), you don’t need to be that careful. If you bump into someone or something, no big deal. I don’t think I could ever personally do needles from the bottom end (no huge desire to do them from the top side either), but I do think I could do medical stapling.

As an important note, medical staples do require a special instrument to remove.  So don’t go and get yourself a medical staple kit without one.  It’s a very simple thing, but I definitely wouldn’t try removing one of those suckers without it.  As it was, one of the staples caused some bleeding with me, though the others only caused some little pinpricks of blood.

And speaking of needles, that was also demonstrated. The basics are pretty obvious — the larger the gauge number, the smaller the needle (so a 14 gauge is pretty thick, 22 gauge pretty thin). The smaller the needle, and the more shallow you go, the less it hurts. I did learn that needles are a bit different than most SM play, in that the endorphin rush is almost immediate. The demo pincushion said that by the time the second needle goes in, she’s usually already flying in sub-space.

I wasn’t there for the electro-stim part of the demonstration (had somewhere else to be), but there was a bit of playing with a TENS unit earlier with the medical stapling. You can attach it to the staples for extra fun. You could also use it with a sound. Just remember, when dealing with anything that goes inside, the electrical sensation will be about 10-20 times as powerful, so start out really low, and amp up slowly.

I like going to demos like that — even if you know about the subject matter at hand, you usually learn something new anyway. And at the very least, you can share experiences/knowledge with others.

Filed under: Educational, Goings-On by Sammael
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I’d like to think that I am a very tolerant guy. My opinion is, “If it floats your boat, and isn’t hurting someone else, then great!” Doesn’t mean I’m into everything, of course. For example, fecal play is on my list of “squicks.”  But if you’re into things like 2 girls 1 cup, then great!  There are other people out there who are into it too — and if not, just put it on the Internet, and then there will be other people into it even if there weren’t before.  The Internet is amazing like that.  How else would we get shitting dick-nipples?  I would advise any sane person against clicking that link, by the way.

But what confounds me is when someone into one thing makes a judgment call on someone into another thing.  “I love it when my partner dresses up like a little girl and sits on daddy’s cock.  What?  You’re into play rape scenes?  That’s disgusting!”  And the wording is important here.  It’s one thing to say, “That disgusts me.”  It’s another to say, “That is disgusting.”  The latter implies a judgment call on the activity itself.  I again go back to part of the definition of squick in the ever-useful Urban Dictionary:

Stating that something is “disgusting” implies a judgement that it is bad or wrong. Stating that something “squicks you” is merely an observation of your reaction to it, but does not imply a judgement that such a thing is universally wrong.

It seems that a lot of people are unable to draw the distinction though.  As if because something isn’t for them, then it must universally be wrong.  This is especially ironic in the BDSM lifestyle, where I’ve seen it more than I would have expected.

I think a similar phenomenon is when people are in a debate, and refuse (or perhaps, are unable) to see that the other person has a valid point even though it conflicts with theirs. It seems that few people are capable of saying, “I see your point, and I understand why you believe that, but I still disagree.”

Filed under: Rants, Thoughts by Sammael
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