Input:
 Title: "Learning BDSM Techniques and Philosophies for Novice Tops"

Prompt:

Write an informative and engaging guide for novice tops on how to learn and master various BDSM techniques and philosophies. The guide should cover the following aspects:

1. Introduction: Emphasize the importance of proper learning and understanding of BDSM practices for novice tops, explaining that simply rearing up and snarling commands is not enough without a clear idea of what happens next.

2. Learning Resources: Discuss various resources available to novice tops, such as joining local BDSM support groups, attending demonstrations by experienced players, asking questions, and finding mentors or experienced bottoms willing to show them the ropes.

3. Overcoming Biases: Address the issue of separated populations within the BDSM scene and the benefits of learning from people who are different from oneself. Discuss the importance of not letting one's top attitude get in the way of learning from bottoms.

4. Learning by Experience: Encourage novice tops to try out activities they would like to do to someone else by getting someone to do them first. Discuss the concept of learning topping by bottoming and paying attention to what works and what doesn't.

5. Importance of Research: Explain that this book is not an instruction manual and list several good books to read in the bibliography that will provide information on performing various S/M activities safely and well. Caution against relying on pornography or inexperienced sources for learning.

6. Online Resources: Mention the availability of online resources such as Internet conversations, computer bulletin boards, and forums where novice tops can pick up information and ask questions. Emphasize the importance of verifying information due to the lack of reliable sources.

7. Do-it-Yourself Experiments: Suggest that novice tops try out new sensations on themselves to understand how they feel, such as using clothespins or experimenting with bondage ideas. Remind readers to be safe and responsible while doing so.

8. Practice and Preparation: Encourage novice tops to practice new techniques, such as hitting a pillow with a whip or kneeling on a hard floor, to understand the effects and limitations of their actions.

9. Starting Lightly: Emphasize the importance of starting any new endeavor lightly and gradually increasing the intensity, using examples such as whipping or control scenes.

10. Taking Your Time: Explain the benefits of taking things slow, making scenes ritualistic, and savoring the entire process, rather than rushing through it.

11. Comfort and Safety: Remind novice tops to ensure their own comfort during scenes, as well as the comfort and safety of the environment, including room temperature, lighting, and the placement of candles and toys.

12. Continuous Learning: Encourage novice tops to view each scene as an opportunity for learning and improvement, rather than worrying about what didn't happen or feeling like a failure if the scene doesn't go as far as they wanted it to.

13. Conclusion: Reiterate that while there is a lot to learn, most details will become second nature quickly, and once started, the novice top can look forward to a lifetime of learning new and wonderful ways to play.

Response:
5

HOW DO YOU LEARN TO DO THIS STUFF?

Okay, so youre interested. You have fantasies, youve thought about it, maybe you even have somebody who wants to play with you. So now what? Do you just rear up and snarl "On your knees, bitch" (or "boy," as the case may be)? Well, please dont – until you have a clear idea about what happens next.

How do you learn to do all this complex, sexy, arcane, and potentially dangerous stuff? How to tie someone up, preferably without damaging their nerves… how to build a structure that keeps your D/S connection hot and healthy… how to give someone a flogging without breaking any bones… how to give commands in an obey-me-now tone of voice… how to use an enormous range of implements to inflict all kinds of different and unimaginable sensations, and be deft enough not to drop any of them on your own toes, and still feel like a top?

For the novice top, there is a lot to learn. Start by giving yourself permission to be ignorant: it is not a crime to not know something. And even though your fantasy top may be omniscient, you are going to have to get down and learn. The more you can learn, and the more you are willing to learn, the better a top you will be. We feel sure you can have fun while you are learning to do all these wonderful things – we sure do.

If you live in or near a city that has a BDSM support group, join it. Support groups regularly put on demonstrations by experienced players of various skills, like flogging or play piercings, where they talk about the safety information and show you what to do. At such groups, you can also meet and ask questions of experienced players, or perhaps join forces with another learner to share experience and support each other in your explorations. You may find a mentor. You may find an experienced bottom who wants to play with you and is willing to show you a few things.

Unfortunately, as the BDSM scene grows, we are seeing more separated populations emerging. Support groups now are often targeted to very specific members: gay men, dykes, heterosexuals (with bisexuals and transgendered folks welcome to some degree in most if not all of them), with even smaller groups for crossdressers, fetishists and the like. While it may be nice to be able to join a support group exclusively composed of people like yourself, we mourn the loss of diversity. When we were coming out, we learned so much from people who were different from ourselves, and we miss the sense of a larger community and the stimulation and adventures we encountered.

Please dont let your top attitude get in the way of learning from your bottom. The bottom knows these sensations and emotions from the inside, and knows more than anyone what works and what doesnt. Also, tastes and limits vary from bottom to bottom, so even when you become experienced youre still going to need to find out what works and doesnt work for each bottom you play with.

If you have friends who are seasoned players, you can try out activities you would like to do to someone else by getting someone to do them to you. A friend of ours learned massage by getting a lot of massages and remembering what she liked: you can learn topping by bottoming, and paying attention to what works, and asking the top questions afterwards if you were too distracted (or happy) to pay attention to the technical details. Its not uncommon for dominants to learn their craft by serving under a more experienced dominant for a prearranged period of time, often six months to a year; this way they can start by learning what submission feels like, move onward to assisting the dominant during play with other submissives, and eventually "graduate" as experienced dominants, ready to take on submissives of their own.

What, you say, me bottom? But Im a top! (Dossie once had that last sentence printed on a T-shirt as a present for a top of hers.) Some people hold that it is not possible to become a good top without bottoming, without direct personal experience of the sensations you like to inflict on others. We do know good tops who never bottom, but we find them to be the exception rather than the rule. Most good players, both top and bottom, have some history of switching, and many identify as switches.

Weve told you already that this book is not an instruction manual, and we have listed several good books to read in the Bibliography that will tell you how to perform various S/M activities safely and well. Be careful when reading books, especially pornography – many books are written by people with little or no experience, for fantasy purposes only, and you cant learn how to do the real part from them.

People all over the world join in conversations on the Internet or on computer bulletin boards, where you can pick up a lot of information and ask questions – but please remember to check things out because you have no way of knowing whether your source has real experience or is just dreaming. Here in San Francisco there are publicly advertised classes on BDSM techniques and philosophies from basic through very advanced; other cities have similar institutions. More sources of information are listed in the Resource Guide.

DO IT YOURSELF. Another resource for learning about new sensations is yourself. Try things out on yourself and see how they feel. Put a clothespin on the web between your thumb and your forefinger to find out how intense the sensation is, or put it on your chest, or your nipple, or…. If the sensation seems too intense, see if you can eroticize it by masturbating. Does this change how it feels? Are you still reading this book?

Oops! We got carried away. Here we were telling you about trying things out at home. What we meant to say is that we want you to practice hitting a pillow with your new whip till you can hit the same spot with all the tails together every time, experiment with bondage ideas to find out if a particular sash, belt or rope will cut off circulation or abrade the skin if you yank on it, kneel on a hard floor for a period of time to see what parts of your body feel strained or uncomfortable… in short, do your homework.

Start any new endeavor by thinking about what you are doing. With a new whip, for instance, think about what parts of the body have enough padding to strike safely – the ass, thighs, shoulder muscles and other well-padded parts with no exposed underlying organs can be struck with most kinds of whips, whereas backs of knees, faces and necks can only be tapped lightly… get the idea? And each person has different sensitivities on different parts of their body. How will you find that out?

A basic rule of starting out doing anything new: you cant go wrong by starting out very lightly and working on up. Dossie remembers:

> When I was a real neophyte, at one of the first occasions where I saw experienced people play, I was watching two leathermen, dressed head to toe in black leather with nickel studs gleaming everywhere, aviator sunglasses – I was completely intimidated. They were the most menacing-looking human beings I had ever been in the same room with. The top had a riding crop, and the bottom bent over a table, and I expected mayhem. What actually happened was that the top took the crop and went tap tap tap as lightly as rain over that bottoms ass. He made the skin flush with the lightest touches, bringing the blood to the skin, very patiently. I watched the bottom slowly become engaged in the sensation, swaying slightly, breathing deeper, getting turned on, all while the crops touch was very sensual, very light. Very gradually, the top began to hit a little harder. As soon as the bottom began to jerk a little at the blows, he held steady and set up a rhythm for a while, not increasing the intensity, just staying right where it was beginning to hurt. I watched the bottom become entranced. Again and again, the top increased the intensity by just one notch, and the bottom became more and more responsive, both of them obviously in perfect communication with each other, almost as if they were dancing. Eventually, the top was striking with all the force he could muster, and the bottom was thrashing and yelling with wild abandon – they stayed there for a while too, savoring the experience as long as possible before it was time to come back down.

Its tough to go wrong by starting light, and some of the best floggings and canings start out as sensual scenes. Some may stay sensual, enjoying the dominance and control and the sensation without a need for intense pain. But however far you are going to go, starting any sensation at the lightest possible level allows the bottom to work his or her way into it as it allows you to get accustomed to the implement, work into a rhythm and get your aim adjusted so that if and when the scene escalates to a more intense level you will have, essentially, practiced.

Same goes for scenes that are more about control than sensation. A scene can go badly awry if the dominant starts right off the bat giving orders that she knows are going to be emotionally very challenging to the submissive. We recommend starting with the easy stuff. Of course, what feels easy is going to vary from one submissive to the next – you need to find out about such things during negotiation – but many dominants start scenes by having the submissive remove her clothes or assume a certain position like kneeling. As the submissive begins to relax and become a little entranced, you can add more challenging forms of control.

Helpful hint number two: take your time. A fantasy top may dash in and tie up his or her victim in three seconds, but thats fantasy. What is actually very sexy is to put someone in restraints very slowly, in a ritual pace, so you can savor the entire process, and have enough time to get the knots right without fumbling. Take your time approaching your bottoms body – just because he is all tied up doesnt mean you should leap on his or her genitals with little glad cries and no foreplay. Spend some time touching skin; it will bring you into synch with your bottom and take him further down into bottom space. And when you do get to the erogenous zones, take a lot of time. Enjoy yourself. After all, your bottom cant stop you, right?

Another hint: get comfortable. If you are going to spend a nice long time doing something exquisite to another persons body, you dont want to have to stop because your back hurts, so be aware of the position you are in when you start up and make sure its going to be comfortable for a while. Some tops wear weight-lifting belts to protect their backs when they play, others recommend shoulder-stretching exercises before doing a flogging.

And dont forget to make the room comfortable. You might be wearing more clothes than your bottom, and you might also be moving around more, so remember that naked people who cant move get cold, and turn the heat up. Floggers create a wind chill factor, so turn the heat up even further – you dont want your bottom distracted by the wrong kinds of discomfort. Check to make sure lights are not in your or your bottoms eyes (unless youre doing an interrogation scene), and make sure candles are safely placed where you arent going to knock them over. Have towels, rubber gloves, condoms, lube and whatever toys you may be using laid out where you can reach them without losing contact.

A final suggestion: when it starts getting good, when you start getting response, when your bottom starts breathing hard or maybe writhing a little, that means that you are doing something very right and you should keep on doing it. Many people make the mistake of speeding up at this point, or hitting harder, or otherwise upping the intensity, which can immediately take the bottom beyond the place where she was having such a good time. Youll develop a feel for when its time to turn the volume up another notch – and stay with that another while – and this is how you can get to spend a very long time having lots of fun while you work your way to Nirvana.

And if you only get partway to heaven this time, please remember that there is always the future. You can choose to worry about what didnt happen in a scene, and if you wish, you can feel like a failure if the scene you play today doesnt get as far as you wanted it to. But those two leathermen we described earlier had almost certainly played before and not gotten anywhere near that far. So value the pleasure you had today, and have confidence that you have also gained knowledge and expertise that will take you further down the road the next time you play.

As you can see, there is a lot to learn, but be reassured that most of the details will become second nature to you very quickly. The examples listed here are not a complete list, but a few ideas to get you started. And once you get started, we hope you will have a very good time learning new and wonderful ways to play for the rest of your life.


Input:
 Title: "An Anonymous Rubber Fetish Encounter at a Party"

Prompt:

Write a descriptive and sensual account of an anonymous encounter between two men at a rubber fetish party. Focus on the non-verbal communication, the sexual tension, and the exploration of each other's bodies. Include the following elements:

1. Introduction: Set the scene at a rubber fetish party where the main character feels a bit out of place in their standard-issue leather vest and Levi's. Describe the initial encounter with a stranger who gives them the "come hither" look.

2. Building Tension: Detail the non-verbal communication between the two men, including nibbling on the neck and dry-kissing. Emphasize the main character's intuition and their ability to correctly guess what the stranger likes.

3. Exploring the Rubber Suit: Describe the main character's fascination with the stranger's one-piece latex suit, focusing on the sensation of touching and slapping it. Mention the zipper down the front and the exposed hairs.

4. Mutual Pleasure: Write about the main character's actions, such as kneading and pinching the stranger's flesh, slapping his inner thighs, and pulling a condom out to demonstrate their arousal. Include the stranger's reactions and participation in the scene.

5. Comic Relief: Add a moment of comic relief, such as trying to put a condom around the main character's nuts and failing.

6. Intensifying the Scene: Build up the intensity of the encounter by describing the main character's actions, such as squeezing the stranger all over and slapping his dick with the backs of their fingers. Include the stranger's reactions and the first time either of them speaks.

7. Mutual Masturbation: Write about both men showcasing their arousal by masturbating in front of each other. Include details about the stranger's large dick and the main character's dominant attitude.

8. Oral Sex: Describe the main character giving oral sex to the stranger, focusing on the unique aspects of the encounter, such as biting the head of the dick through the condom and tickling the stranger's balls.

9. Climax: Detail the build-up to and the release of the stranger's orgasm, including the main character's dirty talk and the stranger's reactions.

10. Mutual Satisfaction: Write about the main character's own orgasm, despite not normally being able to get off by being jacked off through a condom. Describe the aftermath of the encounter, with both men being happy and no longer horny.

Response:
interlude 2

A scene at a party, played by our friend Bill and a stranger.

We dont say a word. Weve never met before. Were just two horny guys at a sex party. He wanders into an empty room, giving me that "Come hither" look recognized by queer men everywhere. In the room, he is seated on the couch, legs spread, touching himself through the one-piece latex suit covering his trunk. It has short sleeves and legs.

This is a rubber fetish party, my first. I feel a bit inadequate in my standard-issue leather vest and Levis. I lower my face to his. My intuition is working tonight. I correctly guess that he likes being nibbled on the neck – prefers it to sloppy, wet kisses. He writhes beneath me. I press one hand firmly into his pectorals, pinning him as I nip into him more intensely, lips covering teeth. His breathing deepens. My fingers massage the hot latex suit. Theres a zipper down the front. I pull it down to the spot between his broad pecs, exposing a splay of scattered brown hairs. He looks up at me – large brown eyes. I kiss him dryly on the mouth. We begin dry-kissing. Our breath is hot.

I reach inside the zipper, kneading and pinching his exposed pectoral flesh. It feels like Im invading him, molesting him. This makes my dick jump. I notice through his jumpsuit that Im having the same effect on his. I slide my knee up to his balls and press as I pinch his nipples through the latex. I start slapping his inner thighs. Theyre also warm from the latex, and it feels so good.

I remove my vest and pull the front of my black T-shirt over my neck, exposing my chest. I place his hands over my largish nipples, and we begin tugging each others nipples, his still covered in latex. I begin slapping them with my hands. It feels so satisfying to slap this boy through his hot, tight rubber skin. I take my dick out, fully hard now, and slap it against his thighs, which makes it even harder – it almost hurts.

I pull a small bottle of lube out of a pocket and squeeze some onto my dick. I jack it off in front of him, slapping it against my outstretched palm. I open up a rubber and squeeze some lube into it, wiping off my sticky hand and rolling the affair down my swollen shaft. I put it up to his lips, and he hungrily gobbles it down. My knee slides to his groin again, and I stroke his fine brown hair. Usually I dont much like condoms for sucking dick, but in this scene, its become one more piece of latex to fetishize. I pull out another one and try to place it around my nuts. This provides us with some comic relief as I, then he, try to trap the stubborn balls unsuccessfully. Finally I shrug and we laugh a bit.

He looks so fucking hot in that fucking suit that I start squeezing him all over as if hes the last guy Ill ever get to touch and Im trying to carve the experience into the deepest corner of my brain. I want to rip him out of his kinky rubber armor, and yet I want to keep him trapped inside it forever, all tantalizingly displayed and hot to the touch.

I squeeze his well-developed biceps and broad, fleshy shoulders; run my fingers through his beautiful hair; squeeze his pointy nipples and his love-handles, and finally his hot, hard dick. I begin slapping it with the backs of my fingers, gently at first, worried that Ill slap too hard and take him out of the scene. But he obviously likes it, so I slap harder and harder, squeezing his ample balls. I hold his balls and gaze intently into his eyes. His nostrils flare.

Out of nowhere come the backs of my fingers, slapping him lightly across one cheek. The eyes widen. I kiss him dryly on the mouth. Then again. Slap. Kiss. Slap. Kiss. I feel surges of blood through his clenched balls. "Take it out," I hiss. Its the first time either of us has spoken in ten minutes of anonymous sex. He scrambles to comply, sitting up and beginning to unzip. "Slowly," I say. "Turn me on."

I grab my rubberized dick and jack off, pinching my nipples, both of us now showing off for each other. He slides his fingers down his stomach slowly, pulling the zipper to its end. He gingerly pries his moist cockflesh loose from the clutching rubber sheath, then the balls. He raises his eyebrows, gesturing toward my lube. I hold up the bottle and squeeze some onto his fingers. He works it onto his expanding dick. I draw closer and slip my hands under the open suit and really work his nipples now. His dick gets enormous

– this kid has a dick that I cant get both my hands to cover.

I hand him a condom. He takes it out and I squirt a bit of the lube into it. He rolls it down his sticky dick, where it barely reaches bottom. Then I kneel between his knees and take it in my mouth, biting the head between my teeth and tickling his balls. Hes working my nipples just the way I like, and soon the whole hot tube is throbbing down my throat and Im biting him on just the other side of the condom, near his nuts. I can tell hes amazed, like not too many guys can do this to him. And Im certainly not one of those tops who thinks that cocksucking is the station of the bottom. Quite the contrary – I use my dominant, forceful attitude to get boys like this one all hot and bothered, and then show them what a champion dick-chomper I am once their dicks are really stiff.

So I milk this groaning boy for maybe three minutes with my well-trained throat muscles, and then I begin jacking him off with both hands. He wants some lube, so I give him the bottle again, and he starts jacking off my condom-clad cock with his sticky hand. I grab his dick near its base and start slapping it into my palm. I feel a new tension building in his thighs, and as I slap and jerk his dick, I mutter, "Yeah, fucker. That dicks gonna shoot. Gonna fill up this rubber with hot cream. Gonna dump your fat load into this tube. Gonna slap it around till you fuckin come, rubberboy. Gonna tickle your fat balls till you squirt –" And then hes doing it, twisting and gasping, that big boner of his making that little nipple on the condom tip very full indeed. I tickle him under the ridge until he cant take any more. I stand, stretching my cramped legs, figuring that will be all, but he reaches out and grasps my still-hard dick, jacking me off.

Now normally, I could never get off by being jacked, much less through a condom, but Im so turned on that in two minutes Im bellowing and spurting my load into that rubber, amazed, my entire body trembling. We catch our breath, staring at each other and grinning like idiots.

Soon we will get up from this couch, shed our jizz-filled condoms, wash up and quickly become separated by increasing numbers of people, miles, hours, days – but right now were just two blissed-out guys, happy to be in this room together, no longer horny.


Input:
 Title: "Soaring Higher: Enhancing BDSM Scenes through Intuition and Attentiveness"

Prompt:

Write an informative and engaging chapter for a BDSM guidebook, focusing on the importance of intuition and attentiveness in creating intense, intimate, and transcendent scenes. Discuss the role of technique and how it becomes second nature with experience, allowing tops to focus on the emotional and visceral aspects of BDSM. Include the following elements:

1. Introduction: Begin with a quote from Edward Gorey about the inability to fully explain a performance and the significance of what remains unsaid. Explain that while it's impossible to guarantee life-altering, soul-merging scenes, there are factors and concepts that can help lead to such experiences.

2. Getting Technique Out of the Way: Draw an analogy between learning to drive and learning BDSM techniques. Explain how, with experience, the details of technique become automatic, freeing up mental space for the less intellectual, more visceral joys of BDSM.

3. Staying Open: Emphasize the importance of emotional openness for both the top and the bottom during a scene. Contradict the idea that tops should remain cool, withdrawn, and withholding, and argue that these intense experiences are fundamentally collaborative.

4. Paying Attention: Discuss the various cues that bottoms send during a scene, such as muscle tension, breathing patterns, and posture. Explain how these cues can help the top gauge the bottom's state of mind and adjust the scene accordingly.

5. Intuition and Where to Find It: Define intuition and explain its role in enhancing BDSM scenes. Discuss the concept of "expert mind" and how it can hinder intuition, and recommend cultivating "beginner's mind" to access intuitive wisdom.

6. Real-Life Example: Share a personal story of a successful, intuitive BDSM scene between the authors, highlighting how the top was able to follow the bottom's unspoken desires without prior knowledge of them.

7. Conclusion: Encourage readers to experiment with the concepts and techniques discussed in the chapter, emphasizing that practice will make the process smoother and more effective. Acknowledge that some readers may find these ideas too "New Age," but argue that the best tops universally use these concepts, whether consciously or not.

8. Note: Include a reference to a relevant book on intuition, such as "Intuition Workout: A Practical Guide to Discovering and Developing Your Inner Knowing" by Nancy Rosanoff.

Response:
6

SOARING HIGHER

"All the things you can talk about in anyones work are the things that are least important…. You can describe all the externals of a performance –everything, in fact, but what really constitutes its core. Explaining something makes it go away, so to speak; whats important is whats left over after youve explained everything else." – Edward Gorey

If youve been topping long enough – and if youre very fortunate – youll sooner or later have a scene in which you and your bottom seem in perfect synch, sharing an experience that feels like your hearts are wide open and blending their heat to create a white-hot conflagration of intensity, intimacy and transcendence.

And if youre like us, the first thing youre going to think after the scene is over and you and your bottom are collapsed together in a panting sweating sated heap is "Oh my god, that was phenomenal, how can I get more of that?!?"

Well, we cant promise to teach you the magic trick that will turn all your scenes into life-altering, soul-merging epiphanies. But both of us – lucky us! – have had enough such scenes, both as tops and as bottoms, that we feel able to share with you some of the factors and concepts that can help lead you in this direction.

GETTING TECHNIQUE OUT OF THE WAY. When you first learned to drive, you had to think about every move before you made it. You had to remember consciously to check your mirrors, work the clutch and the stick, set the handbrake and do a million other little tasks – it made your head spin. But now that youre an experienced driver, you do all those things without consciously thinking about them – its not that youre driving less well, its that the "driving" part of your mind has gotten so much into its groove that its moved into a part of your brain where it doesnt need constant attention.

Technique in BDSM – how to swing a flogger, where to place the knots, how to phrase a command to sound firm instead of whiny or harsh – is a bit like that. When you first start topping, youll often feel like there are a million things to remember at once (and youll be right: there are). The need to concentrate on all the myriad things youve learned about technique and safety, plus the limits and desires youve negotiated with this particular bottom, will fill your head so completely that there wont be room for too much else.

But as you grow more experienced, the details of technique become like the details of driving: you still know how to do them, and youre doing them well, but theyre not occupying much of your conscious mind. Its at this point that you may find yourself able to open up to the less intellectual, more visceral joys of BDSM… and you may find yourself having experiences of "just knowing" what to do next, or being able to anticipate your bottoms desire or fantasy without being told, or automatically falling into the exact rhythm and force needed to send you and your bottom both to heaven.

So lets say youre experienced enough that you dont have to spend a lot of your conscious effort fussing with technique. What are some of the ways that you can use to rocket yourself and your partner(s) to another planet?

STAYING OPEN. This is the biggest and most important tip we can give you. A lot of tops have the idea that their job is to remain cool, withdrawn and withholding, to share no emotion and to show no turn-on. If this is your topping style, go for it – many folks prefer this kind of scene, in which the top is the heartless administrator of control or sensation and the bottoms job is simply to receive.

But weve found that the experiences weve been describing here are fundamentally collaborative – which requires that the top and the bottom remain emotionally as open as possible. A contradiction in terms? No, not really.

As you top, pay attention to whats happening in your own body and heart. Do you feel savage and merciless? Giggly and playful? Wildly turned on? Deeply moved? Do you feel like grunting or laughing or crying or coming? None of these feelings or actions are "inappropriate" for a top; weve both felt them many times, separately and in combination. And when we share those feelings with our bottoms, when we let them know how happy or fierce or turned-on they make us feel, our bottoms can join with us, and our feelings can synergistically multiply to a crescendo of sensation and emotion.

And when we stay open to whats going on inside us, we can also stay open to whats going on outside us – in the environment around us, within the boundaries of the scene, and in the hearts, minds and bodies of our bottoms.

PAYING ATTENTION. Even the most stoical of bottoms sends a constant stream of cues – signals that let you know whether shes floating along happily or struggling to keep up, eagerly awaiting her next command or on the verge of rebellion, wanting more or white-knuckling it to tolerate what shes already receiving, wishing youd hit her here instead of there.

Heres a list of the cues we like to look for to tell us what we need to know about our bottoms state of mind:

• Muscle tension. Someone whos having a good time is generally relaxed and loose; someone whos struggling is probably tense and stiff. Watch your bottoms muscles, especially those in the places where people tend to store tension – neck, shoulders, belly. Is his face relaxed and serene, or squinched up in a grimace? Are his hands clenched into fists? If you see muscles that are tight, quivering or bulging, your bottom is probably struggling to keep up with you and may have to safeword if you push too much harder without a break.

One big caveat: Impending orgasm often looks a lot like intense pain, and if you dont know this particular bottom well, it can be hard to tell the difference. You could try just asking, but that might spoil the moment. Or you could try a bit of sexual touching – if thats part of your agreements – and see what kind of response you get.

• Breathing. Relaxed people breathe deeply and slowly, from their diaphragms. If theyre making noise, the sounds tend to be deep moans or growls. Tense people breathe tightly and rapidly, high up in their chests, and their sounds are often high-pitched screams or whimpers. If youve ever hurt yourself, you know how you breathed during the pain – you probably were using a lot of short little high breaths. But this kind of breathing is not what you want for your bottom; a bottom whos breathing like that will hyperventilate (getting too little oxygen and throwing off too little carbon dioxide) and might panic.

So, how do you get your bottoms breathing slowed down so that she can relax? Some tops like to simply use the word "breathe" to remind their bottoms to take it easy, but we find that using words in the heat of play can distract a bottom from the wonderfulness of what youre doing to her. A trick we like is to establish contact with your bottom – eye contact and/or physical contact: Janet likes to place the palm of her hand firmly and gently on her bottoms chest or the center of her back. Then simply breathe in the rhythm you want your bottom to breathe, perhaps a little noisily or emphatically. Most bottoms will instinctively begin to breathe with you. Since breathing in synch, especially during eye contact, is often taught as a tantric exercise to achieve greater union, this strategy may also bring you closer to the heights youre trying to achieve.

Bottoms also reveal a lot with the sounds they make. Happy bottoms hum, babble, giggle, growl, purr, moan, and "sing" – a beautiful smooth multitoned melody that goes up and down as the sensation rises and falls. Bottoms who are nearing their limits scream, shriek or sometimes snarl or curse. An experienced bottom may be able to tell you ahead of time which sounds mean what.

• Posture and movement. Watch your bottoms body. For example, if hes leaning or arching into the sensations youre giving, thats a reliable sign that hes with you and ready for more. If hes flinching or drawing away from the sensation, it might be time to back off a bit – and then later, when hes more relaxed, you can take the play up another notch if that feels right.

Bottoms who are beginning to become entranced may show it with rhythmic movements of their bodies. They may "dance," shifting back and forth from one foot to another or even bouncing up and down. Their hips may undulate back and forth, or from side to side. Their heads may nod or shake. They may also throw off excess energy by shaking their hands as though they were shaking water off the ends of their fingers, grabbing the bondage and yanking or rattling it, or stamping their feet.

If your scene is about control rather than sensation, watch for posture. A submissive who is proudly and happily under your command will show it with a proud carriage and springy step. An entranced submissive may move slowly and dreamily, but purposefully. A reluctant or unhappy bottom is likelier to slump and trudge. While we cant tell you what to do about those situations, its always best to know your submissives state of mind so you can act accordingly.

These are just a few of the ways that you can observe whats going on with your bottom so that the two of you can fly higher and farther. But what of the perceptions you may sometimes experience that arent observable – that you somehow "just know"?

INTUITION AND WHERE TO FIND IT

The best definition of "intuition" weve heard is "the ability to know something without knowing how you know it."1 You may have experienced intuitions in your day-to-day life – a sense that someone you just met isnt what they seem, or that you shouldnt turn around that streetcorner, or that something wonderful is about to happen to you.

Many people feel that intuition is simply your subconscious mind gathering clues that your conscious mind is too busy to grasp. Others think its a genuine paranormal phenomenon. We dont really know, or, for that matter, care – as long as it works for us, both outside our scenes and in them.

We cant teach you how to get intuition – you already have it, to at least some degree. What we can do is teach you how to find it within yourself and use it to read your bottoms physical and emotional states for bigger, hotter scenes.

Intuition, of course, has its limits – even the professional psychics who find lost children for police departments are the first to tell you that theyre right less than half the time, and much less often when the intuition involves someone close to them. So while we love and encourage intuition, we want to emphasize that while youre in scene space, its very easy to get your intuitions mixed up with your own desires and fears. Serious mistakes can get made this way: its not a good idea to follow your intuition to grab that cattle prod and press the button with no previous negotiation.

But when it works, it can really work – as we discovered together recently:

You know how in your fantasy certain things happen in a certain order, almost like a ritual, very specific and detailed? Some of us embroider the same fantasy over long periods of time, creating a rich tapestry night after night, our personal and very private bedtime story.

We played a scene together recently that was a true mindblower. Now your authors have been playing with each other for ten years, and certainly each knows a lot about what the other one likes. But this time, with Janet topping Dossie, Janet managed to do Dossies fantasy (which Dossie had never told her), item by item, in order, down to the smallest detail.

Dossie says, "It took me a while to realize what was going on – at first, it just plain felt good, and entrancing, and very right. Like somebody humming an old song youve loved for a really long time. We were well into the scene before I got it that something amazing was going on. I didnt say anything – not on purpose, more because I was so absorbed in the play that it would have been ridiculous to interrupt. And who would want to anyhow?"

Janet says, "I was startled and a little bit freaked afterwards when Dossie told me what had been going on. I had no sense of the scene being anything special. In hindsight, I could see that some of the things Id done werent in my usual repertoire, but at the time they just felt like inspirations – like I was simply putting this toy in that orifice, and tying that body part in this position, the way I always do. It was wonderful, of course, but playing with Dossie just about always is… and it didnt seem any different than that."

The scene was fabulous and emotionally profound, but, curiously, not more fabulous than other scenes we have played. And, notes Dossie, the feeling was different: in the fantasy, the culminating moments are tremendously romantic. But weve never had a romantic relationship, rather a solid and loving friendship… and that didnt change. Maybe that was the biggest surprise, to play a scene that was perfectly psychic and still feel like the same two people afterward.

So what do you do when you feel a sense of what to do next but arent sure? One possibility is simply to ask, either in words (you may need to step out of scene space to do this if your scene has a strong D/S element) or by holding up a proposed implement for the bottom to see and agree to. Another, probably more useful, is to try just a little of whatever your intuition is telling you, then use the observational skills youve already learned to see how your bottom reacts.

So, now that weve given you all these warnings and cautions about intuition, how do you discover yours? To answer that question, wed like to refer to a concept that the Buddhists call "expert mind." Expert mind is the part of you that stores facts, makes decisions, thinks about what happened in the past and projects what may happen in the future. Without expert mind, you couldnt function in the world at all and you certainly couldnt be a top – youre using your expert mind to read this book, for example.

But when youre seeking intuition, you have to move expert mind to the back of your consciousness, letting it guide your actions in the same way that it guides you when you drive a car. Expert mind is the enemy of intuition – it tells you things like "youre wrong," "you know better than this," "nobody else does it that way" and our personal favorite, "real tops dont do it this way." What the Buddhists recommend for finding your intuitive wisdom is "beginners mind," in which you approach everything as though you were doing it for the first time.

So: try to focus on the moment. Trust that expert mind will be there to guide you through the technique parts, and open yourself up to your perceptions of whats going on right now, right here. You may have to stop for a second and adjust your focus. Take in your own body, your bottoms body, the room, the sounds, the smells, the light – everything in and around you right now. If you know any guided relaxation techniques, use them (and if you dont, allow us to recommend a good yoga class). If you simply open yourself up (remember, we talked about this earlier) and perceive whats going on, you may start to receive messages. Beginners are always learning something new.

For some people – Janet is one – the messages come as lights and colors. "I see a kind of glow from a certain part of my bottoms body, or from a particular toy," she notes. Others may feel a part of their own body twitching to move in a certain way, or may hear a hum, click or other sound coming from the place, action or toy that needs their attention. Some actually hear a voice, their own or someone elses, telling them what needs to happen next. Or maybe its just an urge to do something – to give a certain order, to place the bottom in a certain position, to say a certain sentence. When you get such a message, proceed slowly and gradually, as we told you earlier. If your bottoms response is enthusiastic – congratulations, go for it!

If you get nothing, dont worry about it; you can always try again later. Although the process of seeking intuition sounds clunky and awkward as we describe it here, with practice it gets faster, smoother and more effective.

To many readers, much of this chapter will sound too New Age for words (one of Janets regular partners, a highly intuitive body worker and martial artist, says indignantly, "I dont do woo-woo shit"). But in our experience, the best tops pretty much universally use these concepts and techniques, whether they do so consciously or not. We encourage you to at least give these ideas a try and see what can happen to your scenes – theyve certainly created some amazing play for us!

NOTES

1 Intuition Workout: A Practical Guide to Discovering and Developing Your Inner Knowing, by Nancy Rosanoff. Aslan Publications, 1991.


Input:
  Title: "BDSM Ethics: Consent, Respect, and Confidentiality"

Prompt:

Write an informative and engaging chapter for a BDSM guidebook, focusing on the ethical considerations and responsibilities of both tops and bottoms in the BDSM community. Discuss the following elements:

1. Introduction: Emphasize the importance of ethics in BDSM, as players explore their psyches and venture into uncharted territories. Explain that players should enter scene space with the highest ethical standards to ensure safety, respect, and trust.

2. Consent: Define consent as an active collaboration for the pleasure and well-being of all parties involved. Explain that consent is specific to each scene and can be withheld for any item on the scene agenda. Discuss the importance of honesty in consent for both tops and bottoms, and the potential consequences of dishonesty.

3. Respecting Limits: Emphasize the need to respect and honor the limits of both tops and bottoms. Explain the potential consequences of disregarding limits, such as feeling belittled, cheated, or concealing one's own agenda. Encourage players to negotiate scenes in good faith.

4. Confidentiality: Discuss the need for confidentiality in the BDSM community due to the potential risks of disclosure, such as losing jobs, housing, or custody of children. Explain that confidentiality may be violated in cases where there is significant danger of harm to any person, but gossip should not be used as a weapon against other players.

5. Boundaries and Blaming: Define personal boundaries and explain their importance in understanding when it is appropriate to violate others during a scene. Discuss internal boundaries and their role in maintaining sanity and identity. Address the issue of blaming and its negative consequences, and recommend a nonjudgmental approach to conflict resolution.

6. Hearing Feedback: Encourage tops to follow up with bottoms after a scene to check in and make sure everything is okay. Explain the importance of listening to feedback without getting defensive, and apologizing when necessary to maintain friendships and clear up misunderstandings.

7. Respecting Persons: Emphasize that tops and bottoms are both complete human beings deserving of respect, and that their needs, wisdom, and opinions are equally important. Discuss the importance of valuing the gifts that tops and bottoms bring to each other in a scene.

Response:
7

BDSM ETHICS

When we play, we give ourselves and each other permission and encouragement to explore the further reaches of our psyches and to adventure bravely down the path of the forbidden. We open ourselves up to the unknown on the dark side. And when we are open, we are terribly vulnerable.

So, in order to be open, and to be safe and healthy while we play at violation and betrayal, we believe that all players should enter into scene space with the highest of ethics, and a firm commitment to respect and honor the courage and the vulnerability that we all, tops and bottoms, bring with us into a scene. We see a scene as a special and sacred space: it is critical that we respect the trust and integrity of each individual in it.

CONSENT

Full consent in S/M, or in any other manifestation of sexuality, requires an active collaboration for the pleasure and well-being of all persons involved. We come into our play with the intention of actively supporting each other in exploring sensation, danger and vulnerability.

Consent to any scene is very specific: we consent, tops and bottoms both, to every detail, and we can choose not to consent to any item on a scene agenda.

Honesty in consent is mandatory for both tops and bottoms. You can easily understand what can happen if an eager-to-please bottom consents to some violent assault that they really dont want, and you go ahead and they hate it. Your safety and competence as a top are violated, and you are faced with a freaked-out or angry bottom through no fault of your own. As a top, if you consent to play a scene that you really dont feel good about, and you dont share your reservations, and you dont somehow magically get into it after you begin, then you can wind up playing an awkward and "cold" scene, with little or no connection to your bottom, who can wind up feeling abandoned, abused and violated.

Consent is only meaningful if it can be withdrawn without risking undue criticism, judgment or rejection. If a bottom or top tries something in a scene and it is genuinely unpleasant to them, they have an absolute right to interrupt a scene, renegotiate the agenda, and to have their concerns heard without blame. Respect for consent is mandatory.

RESPECTING LIMITS

Respect and honor your bottoms limits. Respect and honor your own limits. Respect means nobody gets put down or belittled, top or bottom, for whatever limits they may have. Looking for loopholes in a bottoms stated limits is cheating, as is concealing your own agenda with half-truths or omissions. "Well, you didnt say I couldnt shave your head" is not a substitute for consent. Ethical players negotiate scenes in good faith.

CONFIDENTIALITY. In recent years, due to the energetic work of members of our community, kink has become less stigmatized, and some of us may not feel as great a need to keep our sex lives in the closet as others. This is wonderful progress, and we look forward to the day when none of us needs to walk through the world fearing oppression if our secrets were known. However, that time is not yet here, and many of us could be at tremendous risk if the wrong people – our landlords, employers, students, parents, children – were to find out about our interest in BDSM.

So we still need to keep information about others that we acquire at support groups and play parties confidential. Do not assume that just because you are totally uncloseted, everyone else should be. Do not assume that because a player is well-known in the community that the person has no closets – we know players who use assumed names because outing might jeopardize important parts of their lives like joint custody of their children. Do not assume that you know what another persons requirements for discretion are, or that another person lives his life as openly as you do – just protect everybodys privacy.

Are there exceptions to confidentiality? Yes. We can look to the legal and ethical standards of medical and therapeutic confidentiality for guidelines: it is acceptable, and at times even required, to violate confidentiality when there is significant danger of harm to any person. If a person assaults you, you dont keep it a secret, you call the police. Gossip may sometimes have an unpleasant but necessary function within the community to warn others of players who in your experience are in some way dangerous. (It is not ethical, however, to badmouth a player simply because you dont like them or are angry with them.) We try to balance negative gossip with "goodmouthing": making a point of introducing people to each other with full regard for their prowess, and letting others in the community know when a player does something wonderful.

BOUNDARIES AND BLAMING

Any problem in ethics, including the complex dilemmas we may run into when we pretend to be unethical, can be clarified by looking at it from the point of view of boundaries. Personal boundaries are found wherever we understand that I end and you begin. Within the boundary of scene space, our personal boundaries will probably be very different than they are in the outside world… so when I know which boundaries are in effect right now, I know when its the right time to violate you.

People also have internal boundaries that tell us what state of consciousness we are in. For those of us who play a number of roles – top, bottom, Doctor Mean, Dracula, little boy, baby girl – we open and change our internal boundaries to get in and out of role, often unconsciously. The more conscious we can be about this, the safer we will be, and the more adept at getting into (and back out of) the role we want to play right now.

Internal boundaries tell us the difference between a thought, a wish, a fantasy and a dream. For the S/M player, the boundary between fantasy and reality is all-important: it is how we maintain our sanity, and how we maintain our identities as big bad mean ethical loving sadists.

Blaming, a special case of bad boundaries, consists of refusing to own and take the responsibility for our own stuff, our feelings, dilemmas, and actions. Of course, occasions in which a problem is truly one persons fault do happen, and need to be respected… but we believe most problems that crop up between people actually belong to both or all of them. When we blame, we fail to shoulder our part of the burden; we project the responsibility for whatever is wrong onto another, usually to protect ourselves from feeling terribly guilty or anxious. When we blame, we also disempower ourselves – if its all your fault, then I must be impotent.

So we recommend that you approach conflict that arises from play (or any other relationship, for that matter) in a nonjudgmental mode. In our culture, you can observe many people attempting to resolve a problem by discovering whose fault it is (the comic author Fran Lebowitz says "It isnt whether you win or lose, its where you lay the blame"), as if most of our dilemmas were caused by somebody doing something wrong. In S/M, we can make tops wrong by accusing them of anger, attitude or abuse when a scene doesnt work out well. We can make bottoms wrong by accusing them of being needy, resistant or smart-ass.

Blaming may alleviate our anxiety on a short-term basis, but in the long run resolves nothing. If, on the other hand, you can put your judgments aside and operate on your own feelings while you listen to your partners feelings, you may be able to come to an understanding that keeps you in sympathy with each other and empowers you to take care of the problem so you can continue playing and having a good time.

HEARING FEEDBACK. Good post-scene etiquette is for the top to call the bottom within a few days of a scene to check in and make sure everythings okay, and bottoms will respect you and feel well cared for when you do. Mostly you will hear flattering feedback that can be a big help if youre feeling a bit uncertain, guilty or low. This is also an occasion to ask the bottom if there was anything in that scene that she would change, or do differently in the future. This is how you make space for your bottom to tell you about that little bruise in the wrong place, or something that was sharp or harsh or otherwise not optimal for them. Our experience is that bottoms often tell us what we could have done harder or longer or louder or stronger. Greed is a wonderful thing in a pig slut bottom.

Sometimes you will hear from a bottom who is unhappy or distressed about part of the scene, or some of the things you did. When this happens, it is important, and difficult, that you not get lost in your ego. That ego may be screaming "But you writhed and squealed, I was sure you liked it, I felt like God Almighty, whaddaya mean you didnt like it!" And you need to put your ego aside and listen.

If your bottom is a good communicator, with any luck she will offer negative feedback without a lot of blaming, in a supportive and nonjudgmental manner. But everybody is not well-versed in communication skills, and when something goes wrong in a scene bottoms are often genuinely frightened or even a little freaked – so you may wind up with complaints coming at you like arrows, from a person who is seriously upset with you.

We do play with scary imagery, and it sometimes happens that a bottom is so frightened by a scene that she feels unable to communicate directly with the top – so you may find out through a third party, or, worse yet, a public accusation. Most of us have a hard time not getting defensive when someone is angry with us, and we may be justified in that we can blame the bottom for blaming us, or for failing to talk to us directly, or for gossiping. And even when you are right, defensiveness and counterattack will still only make the problem worse.

We feel the best thing for you to do in this situation is to listen to the bottom who is upset with you, and hear her out thoroughly whether you agree or not. Be aware that this is happening because the bottom feels bad – hurt or scared or whatever. By being willing to listen to that persons feelings, you validate them – and that might solve the problem right there.

If you feel you did something wrong, the best thing to do is own it. Remember that apologizing wont make you less of a top. And if you dont feel you were wrong, you can still say youre sorry that someone feels bad, or that something you did left them feeling bad. Apologizing wont make you wrong either: you are sorry that they feel bad.

Most often these conflicts arise from misunderstandings rather than malice. When you listen, and when you express your regrets about a play partners unpleasant experience, then that person may become willing to listen to you, and the two of you are in a good position to clear up misunderstandings, and stay friends.

RESPECTING PERSONS

Tops and bottoms both have identities beyond the roles they play in scene. We understand that tops and bottoms are both complete human beings of equal stature and importance, deserving of respect. Their needs are equally important, their wisdom is to be regarded, their opinions worth hearing. When bottoms play at being degraded, do they truly become less than their tops? We think not.

BDSM works best when bottoms honor and value the gift the tops bring to them, with respect for the hard work and personal vulnerability that is involved. And it works best when tops honor and value the gift the bottom brings: the bottom power that fuels the trust and belief which transform us into tops.


Input:
 Title: "Effective Communication and Consent for BDSM Tops"

Prompt:

Write a comprehensive guide for BDSM tops on communication skills and setting boundaries during scene negotiation. Discuss the following topics:

1. The importance of sharing information with your bottom before a scene, including their limits, needs, and fantasies, as well as your own.

2. Strategies to encourage bottoms to express their desires without feeling embarrassed or ordered around, such as writing letters, sharing fantasies outside of scene space, or using positive reinforcement during scene negotiation.

3. The use of "I-messages" instead of "you-messages" to avoid blaming and promote open, honest communication.

4. Addressing neediness in scene space, including setting boundaries, insisting on direct communication, or negotiating scenes that include neediness or dependency.

5. Dealing with unresponsive bottoms, or "black holes," by asking for the response you want, modeling turn-on, and instructing your bottom in the kind of body language you desire.

6. Activities that require special consent, such as sex, marks, pain, humiliation, phobias, and high-risk play.

7. Emphasizing the importance of tops knowing and respecting their own limits, including a suggested exercise called "Yes, No, and Maybe" to help clarify desires and boundaries.

8. Making room for your own needs and desires during a scene, and negotiating this with your bottom.

Response:
8

ON YOUR MARK… GET SET…

COMMUNICATION SKILLS FOR TOPS. To get ready to do a scene, you first need to share some information with your bottom, negotiating the specific details of what you are and are not going to do. Ideally, when youre done, you will know what your bottoms limits are and your bottom will know what your limits are. You will have also exchanged some information about what turns each of you on and some ideas about what you both might like to try – knowledge gleaned from fantasies or scenes you have played in the past. You should each have a clear idea of each others needs – those parts of play that are so essential to you that without them the scene would not be worth doing. Everybodys needs are valid, everybodys needs are important. Including yours.

During a good negotiation, you will also share some wants – things that you and the bottom know that you like or would like to try. Think of the wants as the ingredients from which you will construct a fabulous dinner: how much easier it is to cook when you have lots of ingredients to choose from! Obviously, youll want to collect all the wants you can get from both of you. But thats not always easy to do.

GETTING THE INFORMATION YOU NEED. When a bottom tells a top what she likes, it can feel like ordering the top around, which doesnt fit with many players fantasy roles. Furthermore, many bottoms are embarrassed by their fantasies, and plagued with the belief that whatever it is that they want, it must be too much to ask for. A professional dominatrix of our acquaintance once got so frustrated with a client who would say only "I only want to please you, Mistress," that she told him facetiously, "Then give me the money and leave; Ill go to a movie."

So how do you get that information without getting out the rubber hose (yet)? There are many ways to support a bottom in expressing his or her desires. Just knowing that you want this information gives your bottom permission to share it. Sometimes it is easier to deal with this information outside scene space, so many tops instruct their bottoms to write a letter expressing their desires and stating limits. In person, but not in scene space, sharing fantasies and ideas can be fun once you both get into it; you can always start by sharing some interest of your own and then inviting your bottom to contribute.

In scene space, you can order your bottom to communicate and make it part of the play. So your bottom is embarrassed? Goody. You can tie him up and wait until he speaks – and you can wait a long time, if thats what it takes. You can offer positive feedback: "Thats hot, I like that, what a good idea, mmmmmm nasty!"

If you and your bottom are in an ongoing D/S relationship, you may need to make special arrangements so that you both can feel free to discuss your desires and fantasies outside your usual roles. E-mail or other written communications might work for this. Or you can establish a special code word to mean "I want to talk to you person-to-person for a while." Or pick a set time every week for such discussions. Whatever fits for you will probably work, but we think its a good idea to make some kind of arrangement in order to support both dominants and submissives in being able to freely and honestly express their wants.

Bottoms generally like it when tops say what they want: "I want your ass right now, I want to bend you over that table, I really want to see you on your knees in front of me, what a sweet sight."

If this is your first time with this partner, do remember to inquire about limits, pain tolerance, safer sex, physical limits like asthma, history of abuse or trauma, contact lenses, muscle and joint problems that might make some positions uncomfortable. Experienced bottoms should know enough to tell you their limits without prompting, but not all bottoms know enough to figure out all their limits without ever having tested them. Regardless of your bottoms experience level, if you ask it makes it easier – the bottom doesnt feel so much like she is sitting there with a long list of "dont do this and dont do that," in danger of falling into terminal negativity.

I-MESSAGES. We have talked before about the damage done to hot play by blaming. Here we would like to introduce an alternative borrowed from the couples-counseling literature: the I-message. Communications experts note that we often speak in you-messages, like "You are making me angry, you should be different, you always give me a hard time when I want to have fun, you never want to do what I want." The you-message almost always sounds like an accusation or an attack, and the person to whom it is addressed most commonly becomes defensive and tries to explain themselves and why they are not wrong. When they do that they have stopped listening to you.

The I-message basically means I share something of my internal reality, my feelings, my desires, my thoughts, my beliefs, like: "I feel angry, I would like something to change, I want to have fun, I want to find some things that we both want to do." The I-message is clearly about our own stuff, and once we make it clear that we can be responsible for our stuff and willing to take the risk of sharing it, our partners become free to own their own feelings and problems and desires, and to speak their own truth, from their own tender places near the heart. And we are fond of exposed tender places, arent we?

NEEDY BOTTOMS. Sometimes our roles get in the way of good communication. As tops, we have permission in scene space to be mean, nasty, intrusive and overpowering; similarly, bottoms may go into their own emotional spaces and become childish, dependent, needy and clinging. In real life we often respond to neediness by closing our boundaries and pushing people away, perhaps becoming annoyed and judgmental in the process. In BDSM, while ideally we both get to open our boundaries in a sort of controlled codependence that would not be acceptable in real life, the urge to withdraw in response to neediness can still be strong.

So how do you find a more constructive way to deal with neediness in scene space? First, you get to have limits. So as a top, if you really hate a particular kind of play that makes your partner seem uncomfortably needy, you can choose not to play that kind of scene.

If you feel pressured by indirect hints, you can insist that the bottom ask directly for what she wants. This can actually be healing: a person who uses neediness and manipulation may have grown up in a family where there was no straightforward way to get his or her needs met (she learned this behavior somewhere, right?), so getting positive strokes for asking for what she wants can be a wonderful revelation.

Or you can negotiate a scene that includes neediness or dependency by making an agreement that the bottom will bring in the independent self when asked: "I want to talk with the grown-up now." It may take a few moments for the bottom to switch states of consciousness, but the ability to switch from roles to reality is worth developing – practice makes perfect.

BLACK HOLES. "Black hole" is a terribly rude name for bottoms who do not put out enough visible response for you to feel confident that you have any idea what is going on with them. They may or may not be having a good time, but their demeanor is so impassive that you cant tell. And if you cant tell what does or does not work for this bottom, without feedback, how can you know when it is safe to proceed? Response is the tops safety information, and it is also the tops reward. This is our theater, and the bottoms response is our applause.

Itstempting to deal with unresponsive bottoms by judging – this person is a lousy bottom, and I wont play with him or her again. But what if you like this bottom? What if he is your friend? Your lover?

Is there anything you can do to make this bottom responsive? Remember that nobody is born knowing how to do this stuff, and anybody can learn. In The New Bottoming Book, we discussed the process of getting a scene off the ground and of finding your turn-on as a bottom, and we recommended acting "as if." If a bottom breathes hard and works his body, he will actually get more turned on, and provide feedback for you to play against. It doesnt hurt for the top to model turn-on and interest too – think of all that wonderful gay male porn where the top is always saying "Oooooh, yeah!" in throaty tones. You can breathe hard and grind your groin against your bottom, for example, to get you both turned on and set a good example. Snarl a little.

And you can always ask for the response you want. Janet says that her bottoms tend to respond with enthusiasm when she leans in close and purrs in their ear, "You know, it would really turn me on to hear you scream…"

Back when you were negotiating what you were going to do in this scene, perhaps you remembered to ask some questions about how this bottom gets turned on. Suck on the neck? Blow in the ear? Spit in the face? Its always reassuring when you know what to do.

You can tell a bottom, even without leaving role, that you need more response, that you cant tell if the scene is working or not. Dossie remembers:

> The first time I topped at a party I was flogging a woman I didnt know very well, and wasnt sure if it was okay to hit harder. I didnt want to interrupt the scene to ask, especially because there were people watching, and then I got a great idea. In my best mean voice I growled, "If you want me to hit you harder you better get that ass up there where I can get at it!" And she did, and I did, and it was great.

So this bottom knew how to get what she wanted – and, for that matter, that she could reduce the intensity by pulling away. Thus you can instruct your bottom in exactly what kind of body language you want to hear.

ACTIVITIES THAT REQUIRE SPECIAL CONSENT

Disagreements and hard feelings sometimes arise between players when one player takes for granted that it is okay to do something that the other player assumes should not be done without ascertaining consent prior to the scene. This happens in the vanilla world too: a good example might be anal penetration, for which an unspoken etiquette dictates that you find out how your partner feels about his or her asshole before you plunge in and yell "Surprise!"

BDSM opens up the potential for an enormous range of activity, and what is bread-and-butter ordinary for one player might be something the other person has never heard of. A difference of opinion in this area may get discovered in an atmosphere of extreme adrenaline rush, which can make it difficult to maintain emotional equilibrium. So allow a moment to come down, and please remember that these are not occasions for fault and blame, but for understanding differences in customs and desires.

We will present here a list of things that some people might think would require specific consent – with the proviso that just about nobody would agree with every single item on our list. Still, we think that if youre not certain about consent, you have to ask.

> • Sex. Some people take for granted that a scene will include something resembling genital sex or orgasm-producing activity, and will be very disappointed if they play with someone who does not have that as a given. Others see their play as something distinct from sex. So you have to ask.

> Even if you and your partner have agreed to be sexual, you need to agree on what kinds of sexual behaviors are OK – assplay, as we mentioned earlier, is one common limit. People also make assumptions about safer sex that are better to negotiate: for instance, there is wide difference of opinion about the relative safety of oral sex, and a lot of disagreement in some heterosexual and lesbian communities about whether safer sex is important at all. (Just in case you couldnt guess, we think it is.)

> • Marks. Temporary marks, like bruises or welts that last a few days, are common occurrences in S/M. However, some people – such as those with vanilla partners at home – might have problems with them, so its probably a good idea to ask about marks before you haul out the cast-iron cane. (A gynecologist once asked Dossie if she got those bruises riding a horse – Dossie responded, "No.") We strongly recommend that you never promise a new bottom you wont leave marks, because different skins react very differently to the same stimulus and you can never know for sure how this bottoms body will react.

> Cuttings or piercings intended to be temporary can sometimes leave marks that last a lot longer than intended, so even if someone gives you permission to open their skin its not a good idea to carve your initials on their ass, or indulge a taste for silly graffiti. The skin should probably not be opened at all without consent, and deliberate permanent marks must always be negotiated.

> • Pain. Its easy to assume that any bottom enjoys pain, so we will remind you that Dossie did not play with pain for her first several years in S/M: pain is an acquired taste for a lot of folk. We are both very happy that weve acquired it, but would still look askance at someone who would inflict intense pain on us without some reason to believe that we would enjoy it.

> • Humiliation. For some bottoms, feeling embarrassed, humiliated or even degraded is a pungent erotic thrill, and for others its an infuriating insult. And to make things even more complicated, different people feel humiliated by different things: for one man, crossdressing is acute humiliation, while for another its fun costumery. So if your bottom tells you that he loves or hates humiliation, be sure to find out what kinds of humiliation he loves or hates.

> • Phobias and turnoffs. Many of us have one or more psychological phobias, images or associations – rape, slavery, prostitution, child abuse and Nazis are common ones – that make us so unhappy or frightened in the real world that we do not wish to play with them in S/M. Some people have serious phobias about needles, fire, electricity or blood, and may not be sophisticated enough to know that these can be S/M activities: we do play with fear, but we do so consensually. Few people assume an easy comfort level with shit, and piss is more accepted in some communities than others.

> • High-risk play. Some forms of play have much higher risks of injury or death than others. Breath control and electricity can stop hearts, sometimes permanently. Firearms play, no matter how careful you think youre being with an "unloaded" gun, can go tragically wrong, as can playing with real-world danger like speeding cars and skyscraper balconies. And then theres play with serious social risks, like getting caught by your mother. Play involving drugs or alcohol impairs bottoms perception of damage being done to their bodies, and reduces tops judgment and inhibitions. Theres room for difference of opinion about the thin line between "very risky" and "too dangerous to do at all" – but if youre playing anywhere close to that line, we think your play requires both partners explicit consent, and a lot of planning for safety.

> • Limits of scene space. Scenes that expand the agreed-upon limits of scene space require special consent – for instance, inviting other people to join a scene should be checked with your bottom, because if you get your bottom all tied up and hot and bothered and then introduce your three friends who just arrived, she might get a little outraged. You also include additional, nonconsensual participants if you play visibly in public, like if you chain your bottom to a parking meter and go inside for a cappuccino. It is very important to have explicit consent if you want to record a scene in photos or on video or audiotape: many people have strong and valid limits about pictures of themselves in extremely embarrassing positions possibly being seen by other people.

> • Emotional limits. Scenes likely to evoke profound emotional conflict require special consent, both from the bottom and from the top. Such scenes may involve abandonment, betrayal, extreme humiliation, regression to child or baby states, and real-world emotions, especially anger. These are all "button-pushers," and can evoke much more extreme responses than you bargained for. We find it particularly important to agree that we will not take anger we have about real conflict into a scene – even if you and your bottom are in a relationship in which you have the right to punish him, its generally not a good idea to punish in anger.

LIMITS FOR TOPS

As tops, we have the same responsibility as bottoms to know our own limits. We can start by being honest about what we want and what we dont want. A good exercise to clarify this is called "Yes, No and Maybe." Make a list of all the sexual and BDSM activities you can think of, and then divide them into three categories – yes, no and maybe. Yes is what you know you like, no is what you know you dont like, and maybe is all those things that might be hot if the time were right, or you were really turned on, or you could get someone who already knows how to teach you. This exercise can be fun to do with your partner or in a group – but if you feel that to be a real stud top you ought to be ready for anything, maybe you should try it alone the first time so you can be honest with yourself. On your yes list you will probably find plenty of things you like, and the maybe list promises plenty of hot stuff to explore. Respect your own no list as you would your bottoms.

It is particularly important to know and honor the limits of your knowledge and skill. It can be embarrassing if a bottom approaches you with a new eight-foot bullwhip and wants you and only you to crack it over his or her ass, forcing you to admit that you have no idea how to operate that thing. But remember, it would be a lot more embarrassing if you tried to do it and failed, and even worse if you wound up injuring the bottom – a very real possibility, as throwing a bullwhip is dangerous and requires a tremendous amount of training and practice.

If your fantasy of being a top requires you to be all-knowing, thats a fine fantasy, and you still have to know your limits. Good bottoms will respect your honesty – at least, if we said wed never done something before and were feeling uncertain about it, and a bottom said "Aw, cmon," we would wonder a lot about that bottoms respect for safety.

MAKING ROOM FOR YOUR OWN NEEDS. Where do sex and physical stimulation for the top fit into your scene agenda? Many of us have some difficulty feeling like a big bad top when we are on our backs with our legs in the air squealing in ecstasy. Some tops like to focus on what they are doing to the bottom during the scene, and arrange for their own orgasm afterwards. Some of us top first, then switch to the bottom role to get stimulated. Some of us order our bottoms not to touch us at all during a scene because it is distracting.

Heres an intriguing script for a switching scene that was negotiated by a top who had a yen for some downtime:

> A hapless bottom has been kidnapped into the harem of hte Sultan Of Whatever to be trained as a pleasure slave. The training begins with innocence violated, our heroine bound and chained, helpess to resist the sensual invasion of the skillful slave trainer, etcetera. Then, somehow, the erstwhile slave escapes and manages to tie up her master, and (with a surprisingly active imagination for such an innocent maiden) takes her revenge by winding leather cords tightly around his cock and balls, and hanging weights from his scrotum with mean little clothespins.

> Then, the evil slave master gets loose and again, our poor heroine is bound, subjected to terrible punishments and thoroughly ravished, to the satisfaction of both the players on this private stage.

> Who says you cant have your cake and eat it too?

You can make a space during your scene for your own stimulation, and you can negotiate that with your bottom. For instance, you might like a butt plug in your ass and a vibrator on your cock or clit while your pleasure slave pulls on the chain between your nipple clamps – so why not? Bottoms may or may not have access to a whole lot of initiative while they are in role, but most of them are good at following directions. So make a clear agreement with your bottom before the scene starts, untie your bottom and order him or her to molest you in your favorite way when the time is right, and remember that your bottom, just like you, might need to focus on what he is doing to you – so this might not be the best time to yank off a clamp while your tender parts are between his teeth. Or then again..


Input:
Title: "Exploring Dominance: A Novice Top's Role-Play Scene"

Prompt:

Write a narrative from the perspective of a novice top named Akasha, who experiences a strong desire to dominate her friend Richard in a role-play scene. Include the following elements:

1. Akasha's internal struggle with her dominating thoughts and fantasies.
2. Her phone conversation with Richard, expressing her desires and setting up the scene.
3. The initial meeting at a café, where Akasha plays with power dynamics by feeding Richard.
4. The transition to Akasha's room, where she assumes a dominant role and uses various restraint devices on Richard.
5. Akasha's execution of a series of short scenes, exploring different power dynamics and desires.
6. A detailed description of the final scene, in which Richard is handcuffed and Akasha role-plays his execution, building tension through sensual and emotional overload.
7. Akasha's emotional release following the scene, expressing feelings of guilt and the need for reassurance from Richard.
8. Akasha's reflection on the exhausting nature of the dominant headspace and the recovery process.

Response:
interlude 3

A role-play scene, played by "Akasha," a novice top friend.

I woke up with great difficulty and realized my mind was full of thoughts of domination, weird fantasies about devices that I did not own but wished I did. I thought of my friend Richard, and a wonderful night we had shared many months before.

I called him and found him still in bed. I said, "God, I am really having a problem today."

He shifted in his sheets, I could hear it, and said, "Hungry?"

I was doodling, cracking pencil leads and then throwing them away. "Yes," I said, and I was sort of half shaking, just wanting to make him beg on the phone, make him get out of his warm bed and kneel down, make him whimper, do anything. But I wanted more, so I held back and asked him to see me.

He half moaned and sighed, yawned again, and told me he had class that night. I told him to meet me afterward. He paused, and I felt like I was going to die.

"Richard, please. Im going crazy. Do this for me, OK?"

"You want to hurt me?" he said softly, making me face it. This was back when it was still hard for me to accept that I enjoyed making men suffer.

Its difficult to describe what a day like that feels like, waiting for the hours to go by, trying to concentrate on work, going one step at a time. When I am in that mindframe I can smell everything in the air, I can feel mist against my face in the cold air. The moon is more illuminated, the sound of my feet in puddles as I walk somehow thrills me with a feeling of authority.

I arrived at the cafe a few minutes early and waited in the lobby. Richard arrived a few minutes late. When I stood up and hugged him he laughed softly into my ear, "Howre you doing?"

I just moaned and started fingering his hair, tugging at it a little. We parted and I looked at him again, blinking. I felt weak, numb. I wanted to take him by the hair and force him to his knees. Instead I said weakly, "You probably havent eaten yet. Can I buy you dinner?"

When his food arrived I stole his silverware and he laughed. "Im serious," I told him in a low voice. "I am feeding you this entire meal."

His eyes searched around the room and he lowered his voice, "Come on, people will see. We can take care of you when we get home. Let me eat."

Any other night I wouldnt think twice about him eating dinner across from me. But in that mood, on that night, I wanted to be the one feeding him. I wanted to make him part his lips each time I lifted the spoon. I wanted to make him beg with his eyes for more, or look at me longingly. Or I wanted to force him to do it.

I leaned over the table and we argued a bit about it, finally compromising in that I would feed him the first few bites and then let him finish. Knowing that he hated doing it but would submit to it for a few minutes was enough for now.

When we got into my room he sat on the edge of my bed then finally lay down, spreading his arms out and sighing tiredly. I slid down and moved on top of him, moving my hands up to his wrists and holding them down there. His eyes flickered open and he stared at me expressionlessly, waiting.

I consider it true, deep headspace when I am capable, without hesitation, of exercising acts of cruelty or power as if they were second nature. These are things that I would never do in a normal state of mind. On that night I slipped into it relatively easily, maybe because I had been lingering around the edges of it for so long.

I set up a series of short scenes, because my appetite was varied and I wanted to satisfy it all. Sometimes I want total resistance, sometimes I want fear, sometimes I want pathetic, eager submission. That night I wanted them all.

I used every single restraint device on him that I had, in every position I could imagine. I kept a hand over his mouth most of the night and wrestled him to the ground three or four different times, ordering him to feign resistance until I hurt him into submitting.

I roleplayed kidnapping him, interrogating him, seducing him, and fucking him. I had an orgasm just from the way he felt against me as I took him against his will, one hand holding his head back by a fistful of hair and the other over his mouth to muffle his protests.

For the grand finale I put him in my chair and handcuffed his wrists behind his back, taking my wall mirror down and putting it behind him so I could see his wrists and enjoy the way they looked while still facing him.

I put water in his hair to simulate sweat and messed it up, tied his ankles together, and told him I was going to kill him.

He put his head down solemnly and I walked around a bit, touching his skin gently, telling him how pretty and helpless he looked. He shifted, and struggled uselessly, then lifted his head to me and looked at me with his teeth clenched, saying "You have to let me go. Dont do this to me."

I leaned down and held his face in my hands, putting my lips close to his, licking them gently. "Kiss me goodbye, my tortured slave."

He shut his eyes and leaned forward to kiss me, hungry, passionate, as if to seduce me with his mouth and tongue. This kiss was long, desperate, and when I broke from it he was breathing hard.

His eyes were pleading, yet strong. "Im not afraid to die," he said softly.

He always knew the things to say. He was begging, yet he was strong. He was submitting, but he was still powerful. He amazed me.

We had played these execution scenes before so I didnt need to give him any instruction. He was to pretend he had about three minutes left to live, locked in some airtight chamber or given some poisonous gas, and he was to struggle yet remain brave until the moment I came to save him from his fate.

And he really knew how to play it. Perfectly, yet differently every time. The way he pulled at the handcuffs, letting them cut into his wrists as if it didnt matter,. The way he threw his head back to breathe with such pained difficulty, the way he looked at me through wet bangs with desperation, his lashes damp with tears.

I felt so close to orgasm, but it was a different sort of satisfaction. I just watched, emotionless, as his struggles became weaker and his breathing more labored.

Then it hit me, at once, it was like a sensual overload, like an orgasm but of the mind. I shivered, I felt a cold sweat on my body and suddenly I wanted to cry, I thought, "God, what am I doing to him?" I unfastened him quickly and slid into his arms, shaking, telling him I was sorry. He laughed softly into my ear and told me it was okay, that he was acting, and that I neednt feel bad.

But feeling bad makes me feel better, so I spent some time crying, letting him reassure me. We lay down in the bed together and eventually fell asleep after I had sufficient reassurance.

Waking up the next morning I felt a different kind of exhaustion. Its impossible to explain how much dom headspace rips the energy right out of you. Sometimes it takes me days to recover.