A short story/rant about safety

I find that I respond much better to questions than just randomly going on about myself. I like to teach as much as I like to learn so I think I will recount for you a couple of things I have seen recently in the online kink community. Some of you may find these types of things normal while others will think the same way I do. This has to do with what a good friend of mine and I saw in a chat room that specializes in kink scenes etc. We noticed a particular scene going on in the scroll in which an individual violated a rule that exists for health reasons. In his text based scene he switched from anal penetration to vaginal without a thought. Now being a biologist this bothers me for several reasons, one there are a lot of flora in your intestines that could cause problems if they managed to colonize other parts of your body, and two that just seems a little gross, in this case my problem is more one than two. This particular act spawned a rather heated conversation inside the room and in the end resulted in me being asked to give a safety talk based on by biological background. This talk would take place through a group called sanctuary.

Before I go into that much let me start by saying a couple of things about my views on the rules of BDSM. As much as I like that BDSM is becoming a little more main stream it has also brought with it some interesting things. I feel like it has created an influx of people into the lifestyle many of whom don’t take the time to learn to be safe before they jump right in. That said, I know many people will argue with me when I say there are rules to BDSM. I don’t think they are more than a handful of rules, so the rest are not so much rules as guidelines, but when you start into the life there are some things that you should regard as rules. The core of the rules is that your submissive should always be safe, when I say safe it is a relative word because many of the things you engage in during a BDSM scene can never be 100% safe. So when I say safe I mean that if you are engaging in something during a BDSM scene you need to know all of the things that could go wrong and how to avoid/prevent them, and more importantly what to do if they do go wrong. I personally think that every dominant should be trained in CPR and first aid, but this is especially true if you are dealing with things that would be considered edge play. If you want to get into things like electrical play, know the instruments you are using and what parts they are safe to be used on. Learn rules like never play above the waist or never run electrodes in a way that makes current run through the chest or your partner. Once you know these rules and know the reasons why they exist, then and only then, should you ever even think about bending or breaking them. This is a personal pet peeve of mine; you should never break these rules with a first time partner. There are so many things that you don’t know about them that could create problems in simply play let alone risky things. What if they are taking medications that make them more prone to bleeding? Well then your flogging or caning session could result in some serious problems. What if they have a history of problems with their wrists? Well you might not want to tie them certain ways. Those are simple things that so many scenes cover, if you are into electrical play what if they have a pace maker or something about them makes it so they can’t deal well with electrical current. You see my point? Now that said this isn’t designed to scare you off of doing the things you enjoy. I merely want everyone to know what they are doing and why. In the end it only takes one bad scene to ruin a submissive, or for that matter a dominant.

Well you have now received the short version of my safety rant. Feel better? Now onto the safety talk.

To be completely honest, I was nervous when I was sitting there preparing what I would say and how I would control the stream of comments question and statements from all the people attending this talk. Many of them had years of experience in the lifestyle, most of them had more experience than I did. So as you can imagine I was a little intimidated. But, I knew where my strengths were and what I had planned to focus on so I was just going to let it rip and see what happened. I started the evening off with some general safety questions that led to a range of topics from good places to strike, to the health concerns with switching places of penetration. We covered a little bit of everything that night, I was surprised how anxious these people, some of whom had 10 plus years of experience in BDSM, were to hear what I had to say and learn what they could from me. I wish all members of the BDSM community were so open-minded. I imagine that many of the “serious” players are, but there are some that are not. Ok well I am not sure totally where I was going with this post maybe it was just to point out some things that I wish there were more of in BDSM communities.

In closing I would like to say that dominants should never be afraid to be wrong or to admit they don’t know enough about a topic to do it safely. No person is ever perfect. No one has infinite knowledge and wisdom. I hope that nothing goes wrong in any of my scenes but I know that I am equipped enough to handle it if something does. To the submissives out there, you should never be afraid to question a dominant, if they don’t deal with questions well then that should be your first red flag and I would suggest marching the other way as quickly as your legs can carry you. In the end BDSM has a bad image because people don’t know the truth behind what we do. They don’t understand that most of us are very conscious of our partners and that in many cases, like my own; we love our partners very deeply. The truth is that it only takes one bad scene to be caught in the media for people to become afraid of all of us. So please for your sake as well as mine know what you are doing, know what is safe and how to be as safe as you can, know what is legal in your areas and what is not. In general just keep yourself informed, you will be happier, your partner will be safer, and then community will be better off for it.