The New Bottoming Book Read online

  We have also met tops who want to dispose of safewords for certain scenes, such as punishment scenes (“How can I push limits if my bottom’s just going to call safeword on me?”). We strongly suggest that you not allow this to happen with you. A possible compromise might be an agreement that you will do your best not to use your safeword because of intense sensation, but that you still have it in place if you need it due to extreme emotional distress (such as unexpected age regression or violent rage), an awareness of damage to your body, physical illness, or similar emergencies.

  Playing without a safeword may seem like a hot scene – that’s the fantasy – but the reality is that in consensual BDSM there are always safewords or safeword-equivalents. They may be subtle, or based on a couple’s knowledge of each other, or they may be normal speech or messages in the code of bottom and top roles, but they still function as safewords. When no form of safeword has been agreed on, the bottom has to resort to shrieking “Stop this scene you are a crud I hate you stop NOW!” to get the point across. We think safewords are a more civilized choice.

  We have met players who structure scenes by playing heavier and heavier until the bottom calls a safeword. This is not an appropriate goal for a scene: for most bottoms, using a safeword is associated with feelings of failure and shame. Most of us would rather end a scene by succeeding in taking some intense and difficult stimulus. Then everybody feels like a winner. Besides, any fool can do things to you that you don’t like – why bother to play at all?

  We hope it never happens to you that you have to call safeword because your top has purposefully and maliciously violated a limit. But if it does, there may be no point in trying to continue the scene; trust has been broken. It may or may not be worthwhile to spend some time later in non-scene space trying to explain your feelings to this top, in hopes that he will learn something from the experience. Or you may find that later, when you’re not in role and not under stress, you no longer perceive the top’s actions as malicious – in which case you owe him an apology.

  But the vast majority of safeword situations fall under the “shit happens” category: something has gone wrong that neither the top nor the bottom could have reasonably predicted, or one partner has made an honest mistake. In this case, it is usually both possible and realistic to talk through what happened, agree on a solution to the problem, and proceed with the scene. You’ll find it requires much less time to get back into the same space and level of arousal then it took to get there in the first place. Dossie remembers:

  The first year I did S/M with a partner, every scene we did ended in a safeword from one or the other of us. We were new and very nervous, and when one of us safeworded, we would throw all the toys and bondage stuff off the bed, have something to drink, agonize over whatever went wrong this time, despair a little, and then realize that we were terribly turned on and fuck like crazy amidst the abandoned piles of ropes and chains. It took us a long time to realize that these weren’t failed scenes – they were successful ones!

  CHECK-INS. “Check-ins” are a way for tops to take initiative to see how the bottom is doing and stay in touch with what’s going on. Consent can thus be reaffirmed throughout the scene without breaking role. Consider, for example, asking a bottom to kiss a whip or other implement: it lets the bottom know what is proposed, giving him or her the opportunity to question or object, or consent with a kiss. Threats of scary or new activity are also sexy, and offer a chance for the bottom if necessary to say “I don’t think I’m quite ready for the steel bullwhip tonight, sir or madam.”

  Check-ins are necessary to stay in touch with what’s going on, especially when the activity places the top in a location where she might not be able to hear words or read facial expressions, or when the top has reason to believe that the bottom has “gone under” to an extent that taking initiative may be difficult. Overly frequent check-ins can be irritating: when a top asks you if you’re okay every thirty seconds, you can come to feel that your top’s need for reassurance is disrupting the play. However, tops should not be forced to carry on with no reassurance whatsoever; then they might not feel safe to go as far as you want them to.

  A top can check in with questions like “Do you remember your safeword?” or “Are you still with me?” Partners can agree on a check-in code similar to a safeword – the “two squeezes” check-in, in which the top squeezes the bottom’s hand twice to check in, and the bottom squeezes back twice if he is okay, is growing in popularity.

  CAN YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND? Some players believe consent should never be renegotiated “upwards” mid-scene, because when people are excited they may decide it would be great to do something that in a cooler moment they would regret. You are always entitled to withdraw consent if you have changed your mind about a proposed activity – you may have tried something new and found it didn’t work, or you may have reacted in a way you hadn’t expected.

  Some feel that it’s okay to renegotiate consent when the situation is very clear. We’ve both had experiences in which “very clear” has sounded like “Yes! Push that limit! Do it now! Yes, please!” And that can indeed work very well at times, and we don’t want to argue with inspiration… but, if there is any doubt at all, please include the activity in future negotiations rather than trying to include it in that session. Remember, there is always the future, and play that is worth doing is worth waiting for.

  The watchword for these kinds of decisions is “know thyself.” The more you can be honest and accepting of yourself and your desires, the easier it is to make sane decisions about how to achieve them.

  AFTERWARDS. Many good players also set up a time after the scene to review what happened, what worked, what didn’t, who wanted more of what, and so on. Maybe the next day, maybe over brunch, maybe a phone call during the week – anytime but directly afterwards. Right after the scene, objectivity is not possible.

  Some communicate in person, others by e-mail – some dominants require their submissives to maintain a journal which the dominant can access.

  However you choose to organize this discussion, remember to include praise for what you liked, and approach any concerns or difficulties without blame. None of us are psychic enough to prevent misunderstandings, and so we have to figure out more mundane ways to let each other know what’s going on. In a friendly and cooperative manner, share what you liked, and what you might have liked different. Give your top a space to share her experience as well.

  If you make this a regular practice in your play, you will rapidly learn to collaborate to create scenes from your wildest fantasies!

  4

  THE BRIDGE TO REALITY

  Most people’s first bottoming experience does not take place in a bedroom or a playroom or a dungeon. It takes place on an absolutely ideal, perfectly decorated and populated stage: inside their minds. That was our first bottoming experience, and we bet it was yours too.

  On that mental stage, we are graceful and gorgeous, our tops do exactly the right kind of perfectly awful things to us, and the perfect toy or piece of equipment magically appears at just the moment we need it and disappears again when we’re done with it.

  Yet as perfect as that stage is, most of us sooner or later hanker to step off it and into something a bit more, shall we say, immediate. We want to connect with real partners and experience real sensations. This chapter is about how to step across the chasm between our fantasies and our realities.

  WHERE ARE YOU STARTING FROM? Both of us started out with solo and rather lonely fantasies, feeling like we were the only people in the world who had thoughts like ours. Dossie struggled to reconcile her fantasies of kidnap and captivity with her feminist beliefs. Janet had a hard time figuring out how a nice girl like her could be hankering to wallop perfectly innocent backsides. Eventually, we both hooked up with folks who helped guide us to recognition that there were safe, healthy and ethical ways to enact our fantasies without taking or giving up any more power than we wanted to.

  Sad
to say, many people still struggle in isolation with questions like ours – although it’s certainly a much easier and more informative world in which to be a pervert than the one we came of age in.

  Today, many people pick up an erotic or educational kinky book or magazine, and find that something in them responds to the thoughts or images they discover there. Some may learn about their local educational or support group through an ad, a booth at a street fair, or a public demonstration of some kind.

  And then, of course, there’s the Internet. We think it’s safe to say that as we write this, the ‘ Net is by far the greatest single point of entry for new players into the BDSM scene. (In the first edition of this book, written a decade ago, there is one paragraph of information about the ‘ Net. How rapidly the world has changed!)

  Whatever your point of entry, we think it’s safe to say that you’ll experience some rude shocks as well as some blissful revelations as you cross the threshold into real-time play with a flesh-and-blood partner.

  ABOUT tHE ‘NET. Whole books have been written about sexuality and the Internet – it may well be the cause of the most radical shift in sexual thinking since the advent of reliable birth control. One of your authors is a dedicated ‘Net geek, the other uses it only when absolutely necessary – but each of us has been part of the leather scene for well over a decade, and know our way around pretty well by now. If you’re new or just learning, we think it’s a pretty good idea for you to get on-line and begin exploring. However, there are some pitfalls as well as many benefits to on-line exploration, so we’d like to give you our thoughts about what you might expect from the many different venues available through your friendly household computer.

  In some ways, the Internet is not much like reality at all – one of our friends says, “The ‘Net bears about the same resemblance to real life that television does.” But, like TV, the ‘ Net affects real emotions and addresses real issues, and is an important mode of interpersonal communication for a huge and growing number of people.

  Electronic interactions are like real-world ones in some ways. Although a cyber-scene or discussion may not leave you with bruises or welts, they can affect your emotions and relationships in many of the same ways that real-wo rid play might. The skills you’re learning elsewhere in this book – negotiating your needs and wants, setting your limits, getting to know your tops before you play with them, going slowly, checking in afterwards, and so on – are just as necessary when your scene takes place on a monitor as they are when it happens in a dungeon. We’ve both heard many unhappy tales of bottoms who thought that just because their play was virtual instead of real, that they didn’t need to take good care of themselves… and who found out otherwise when a scene left them feeling surprisingly used, upset, unseen or generally stomped-on.

  Virtual play enables its participants to connect and mirror their fantasies in a kind of feedback loop not available in the “real world,” often leading to startlingly intense fantasy gratification. The reason we put “real world” in quotes is because in many ways cyberplay is real: the shared fantasy is a real fantasy, and the physiological response in your body is very very real… so in some, but not all, ways, the universe you create in your head and manifest through your keyboard and monitor is just as real as the one you’re occupying now.

  On the other hand, many of the people playing in cyberspace have little or no experience in real-time BDSM. This absence of “reality checks” sometimes means that it’s easy for them to get unrealistically caught up in their roles, enacting the impossibly controlling and arrogant dominant, or the cringing and servile submissive, without much recognition for their own or their partners’ real needs or limits. If you find yourself in an Internet environment where it seems like bottoms aren’t valued, or are treated rudely or disrespectfully, we assure you that there are plenty of other places to hang out – the ‘ Net is a huge and varied universe. Leave, and let the other folks there know why you’re leaving – some of them might just decide to follow you.

  One final warning: one of the down sides to cyber-interaction is a lack of accountability – the ‘ Net lets you play however you want, with little or no chance of your actions ever being connected with your real-world self. Good people use this opportunity to explore roles, scenes and characters that may be too scary or unrealistic or embarrassing to enact in reality. Bad people can use it to stalk you, threaten you, insult you, tell people untruths about you, or reveal information about you without your consent. We suggest that you be as careful about who you associate with on-line as you would be in real life, and be especially careful in sharing information about your name, location or life situation, unless this is information you’d be comfortable having the whole world know about you.

  Now that we’ve talked about the scary part, let’s talk about the good part – the Internet offers a wide world of information, support, friends and possible play. But the ‘ Net is a huge jungle of websites, mailing lists, newsgroups, chatrooms and other venues… so how do you get started?

  A LOT of people exploring kink on the Internet get started looking at sites on the World Wide Web. These sites resemble magazines in many ways; they may feature pictures, text, and sometimes even video and audio, and they allow you to move from one page to another as your interests dictate. They are appealing to many beginners because you don’t have to participate in anything to look at them: they are very anonymous, although many do require paid membership, or ask that you register with a relatively inexpensive service which confirms that you are old enough to look at sexually oriented material.

  Some may be porn sites, intended purely for sexual stimulation. Others might be informationally oriented, with articles about various aspects of BDSM, and links (connections that you can click on to go look at something else) to other informational sites. Some might belong to a manufacturer of sex toys, publications, or fetish clothing, and still others are maintained by support and education groups for BDSM folks. Since the Web is essentially unregulated and chaotic, the only way you can tell what kind of site you’re looking at is to use your own common sense – if it seems to be mostly there as a sexual turn-on, it’s not intended as a source of realistic advice and ideas.

  Information on the Web, or for that matter anywhere on the Internet, is only as good as the person who put it there. Don’t take any advice from a single source. Look at several websites, and discover for yourself where they agree and where they disagree: the points of disagreement may be issues that you’ll want to think about and explore carefully.

  ANOTHER way to explore the Internet is in chat rooms. These rooms enable you to converse in real time (just like an in-person conversation, except typed onto a screen) with other folks who share your interests. Chat rooms tend to be sorted by sexual orientation (special rooms for female-dominant/male-submissive players, gay players, etc.), sexual fantasy (rooms that explore the male-dominant culture described in the “Gor” fantasy novels by John Norman, rooms for men who enjoy being treated as “sissies,” etc.), support (rooms for people married to non-kinky people, for people overcoming abusive backgrounds, etc.), or location (rooms in which people who live close together can get to know one another). There are also many general get-acquainted rooms in which everybody can mix freely.

  Chat rooms can be great fun, and a terrific way to meet kindred spirits – either for on-line interaction, or in person. However, be aware that many of these rooms have special protocols, such as ways in which submissives are expected to address dominants, which are not necessarily typical of real-time kink interactions. If you want to hang out in a chat room, learn and use the local conventions, but don’t assume that anyone outside the chat room will use or appreciate them.

  People often “play” in chat rooms, sometimes only in words (“I fasten the collar around your neck and stroke your silky hair”), sometimes by giving the submissive orders that can be followed at home.

  Janet once did a chat room scene that led to new insights for h
erself, her partner and several onlookers:

  I knew and liked my friend C – a male top – from many online conversations in the past, but we’d never actually played, in reality or on-line. But one night we were in an open channel, with quite a few people exchanging conversations around us… and, well, one thing kind of led to another: we wound up exploring a lengthy scene that was his first experience ever as a bottom.

  In lustful, stroke-by-stroke detail, I described myself shaving his backside, sensually applying the warm lather, deftly slicing through it with the edge of my safety razor, exposing stripe after stripe of fresh pink skin until his butt was smooth and glowing. He, in his turn, described the slippery creamy lather, the cool feeling as the hair and foam were stripped away, the vulnerability of his new hairlessness. Then, when we were both thoroughly turned on by the shaving, I informed him that I was strapping on my “dick”… by this point, everybody else’s conversation had pretty much stopped; they were mesmerized by C’s and my scene. I described the thick glob of lube I put on my fingers and used to probe his butthole. Then, each of us took turns describing our sensations as my relentless dildo took possession of his freshly denuded backside. I described the rhythmic pressure of the dildo flange against my mound, and how it was driving me closer and closer to orgasm… he described the relentless pressure against his prostate, the intensity of my thrusting, the feeling of being totally possessed… and eventually, in cyberspace (and perhaps in real space as well) we both reached orgasm.