Tabs

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Spitting out "Safety" in a Kinky Context

I hear and read these "safety" comments.Most of them seem superficial, weren't worth the time to read and are missing more important less superficial things.

It is cool when I attend an advance rope class and within 30 seconds because everyone else has been doing rope, we get over in a minute the agony of what to discuss about safety. 

What I wish people would talk about doesn't happen which leads me to believe people are throwing up safety comments to somehow convince others they know what they are talking about. Given this particular behavior is a common part of my life, it annoys me.

I try to understand and continue to engage in listening or reading in the kinky world but it often goes into the weeds, pops up with misinformation or people start hand waving away the issues. If they aren't listening then it isn't worth the effort to communicate. It doesn't matter if it is a FetLife thread, a hallway conversation at a kink event or on some kinky mailing list.

Little actions like having EMT scissors on hand don't imply things are safe in kinky hot sexual situations.It is just a tool lying on the floor or stuck in someone's clothing. There is when and how to use it.

Rope Around the Neck

For example, on a tamer bondage mailing list, I responded to a comment about playing with rope and rope around the neck. The complete response and context doesn't really matter. The important part is what I said in the middle:

The real question is do you know your partner? Do you know when they have a face that says things aren't going well? What is their happy face? What is their look when they are floating and not thinking?

Do you understand when you are floating and not thinking?

My advice is to start off slow. Communicate frequently. Learn what your ropes are doing and what isn't good. Don't leave the person tied alone. Have EMT scissors handy (don't want pointy normal scissors or knives used in a panic situation).

When the communication is more subtle and less verbal and you have learned what ties are slipping and doing bad things, advance your play.
and then
Play, communicate and learn. Advance your play....
The thread quickly went off into the weeds.One reaction was about the dangers of "breath play" and name dropping happened. Another reaction was "thanks for the information". When I tried to clarify the breath play issue, it went off into the weeds about my use of the phase "edge play".

I stopped sending things into the mailing list.

Meeting in Private

Yet again I read a thread about "first meeting in private". My read of it was that some woman was being bullied by some man to meet in private for the first time face to face. The replies by many was that this was a bad sign or a "red flag". Others however argued "why not?". I commented that there is risk to both people meeting like this with the man possibly getting a variety of criminal complaints filed such as assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, etc.The gender is really unimportant but male "top" and female "bottom" is the common situation.

At some point in the middle of the thread, some male started throwing around the term "fear mongering". He was discounting this issue. I wasn't happy reading his profile either. There is an educational disconnect from my read.

Yet again the issue boils down to communication, situational awareness and how good you are in judging people. If you can't read people and don't know them, stay away from private or highly controlled situations until you know them better or know their reputation better. Heck they could be telling you they are someone else that has a great repurtation and until you meet them, you will not know if they are actually that person!

Of course there are ways to mitigate meeting in private the first time. One was mentioned and nothing much said about using a "safe call". Another one I advocate is meeting with a common friend. There are other solutions.

The clueless and the predators are in the majority online.

Hand Waving with "Safe, Sane and Consensual

The phrase "I am Safe, Sane and Consensual" kills me. You are? Really? Prove it!

I read comments about SSC, RACK and other things. It almost seems like people are selling something with these comments.My read is "Play with me! If I mess you up, it will be your fault!"

If they are throwing out terms like "dom", "sub", "SSC", "consent" and other things without any form of real communication and understand of what each side needs and wants and doesn't want, it is a bad sign.

If you get this far in my blog, please read the blog entry "ABC's of Abuse and Kink" by Silverdreams.She is a good soul, a good friend and knows her stuff in the Boston BDSM scene.


My Care, My Concerns and People who are Important to Me!

My first concerns are about general trust and who I am playing with as a top. I have similar concerns about others who play as bottoms. The key element is the people who don't get it or our "out to get" something besides having kinky sexual fun. Silver dream has a wonderful post about these "don't understand" issues with her post "Running Standing Still".

I don't want to be accused of assault, sexual assault, rape and kidnap. I don't want to be at events where "minors" are present which in the state of Pennsylvania can be under the age of 21 or in the state of Ohio can be under the age of 19. I also don't want friends and new people hurt, raped, damaged permanently or killed by the posturing fools.

SSC: Safe Sane and Consensual

I see this term thrown around constantly like it is something that will make the world a better place. It is used as a reason for why good things will happen.

The thing is that the origin of this term has nothing to do with this. It is a slogan to explain to the mainstream that someone beating another person's bottom is "okay" in a sense. There isn't anything inherently wrong with enjoying or providing pain. There isn't any mental health issue or other issues. Check out this web page on the Leather Leadership Conference folks on "SSC".

RACK: Risk Aware Consensual Kink

This is another hand wave of sorts. I can't find a copy of the original posting but it is attributed to Gary Switch in various places and his comments can be found in various web sites such as this "Origin of RACK: RACK vs. SSC"

I appreciate the value of RACK. It is something to strive for but it isn't clear to me at all when someone has achieved the state of being ":Risk Aware".

I drive to work all the time doing more then 10 miles. I have no idea what level of risk I am taking by doing so. I am aware that the first and last mile have the higher risk factors, the more you drive has a higher risk factor, living away from a city has a higher risk factor and certain states have high risk factors. Spending time and energy to be aware of the current evolving understanding of those risks isn't going to stop me from driving. One can easily Google traffic stats and find this stuff.

PRICK: Personal Responsibility, Informed Consensual Kink

This is a term I subscribed to if I understand it correctly. I am not really trying to label things so deep diving into it is not something I have done seriously. It isn't clear who coined this term but it seems to have been around since 2009.

Some definitions of PRICK seem to be the same as RACK, one I found is "PRICK essentially encourages each participant to take responsibility for his/her own actions, as well as being informed (aware of) the risks involved."

In the end, I take responsibility to make sure what is happening with who I am playing with and more importanty myself! I don't play when I am upset and I stop play when things have gone in an unexpected and unclear direction where I am worried. Sometimes those unexpected directions are as simple as my not being able to "read" who I am playing with. I pull back.

Rope Bondage

Going back to that thread I was trying to be helpful on. Well, eventually someone said
Rope bondage is safe ....
This was in reaction to my expression that rope in my book is edge play. It was a muddled discussion since everyone had different definitions of "edge play" and had different definitions of "rope play". I stopped at that point.

I have no idea whether they were thinking about simple wrist ties and adding elements like water that make the rope swell, become tighter and impossible to untie without cutting. There was mention of suspensions and the like. Way too much hand waving all over the map for my taste.

Rope can be used in many many different ways. A ground position when moved to steps can cause the same effects as an inversion with the head down. Rope can be around the eyes, the mouth, the nose, the entire body and so forth causing a variety of risks. If a gag can become lethal with breathing problems, gag reflexes and with other things like vomiting, rope has even more risks.

Some resources on the web for consideration:

My Concerns

The safety yapping about "SSC", "RACK", "PRICK" and so on doesn't change the risk of people who don't get it, are abusers, haven't a clue or simply don't care. I worry about being mixed in with this chatter.

I have a solid background in renovations, mechanical systems, physics and other areas. I can size up a hard point pretty well in a short amount of time. If I am puzzled, you will see me doing things that may make no sense like walking to the side of a room and looking up or pounding on something to listen to it.

If I still have doubts, I will hang my suspension rig and then hang on it trying to bounce. This is the "big old boy" test. It is a imperfect and poor testing but can give significant clues about structural integrity. It will not tell if something else is happening that will invalidate things like someone moving furniture upstairs, train causing vibrations that comes by later, etc.

Another thing I do is look around at the surroundings, the people and try to keep vigilant. Everything is dynamic and if I don't understand something from my street wise smarts then I hold back and try to address it.

This is just the start. I haven't even gotten to the rope, who I am tying, how I am doing mentally and other aspects.

I filter through immediate risks pretty quickly in my head. I don't explain that thinking. I boil what could take 3 or more hours down to 10 minutes and keep some type of communication active during play. I am present in the scene with who I am playing with. If not, I don't play or stop playing.


The labels don't work for me. All I have is my efforts to be honest as I can be, balance my kinky needs that are risky against safety and work to be a positive contributing member of the community. I make mistakes. I own them.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Fun Get Together

Like a bad movie in production for months, I ended up stepping in at work and undid edits, made new edits and other changes to get the product out of the door. Everyone was following my lead and upper management was blasting me with communication requests because of their angst. It was a total drain on me with 12 and longer hour days. When it was all done, I had done in about 2 weeks about 3 weeks worth of work and communication.

I took it easy for the next week. It was good since Raven had a bad cold and sure enough. I came down with the nasty bug too. Raven ended up doing well and I extended my time off from work. In the middle of this coughing and so on she was commenting about friends coming in from out of town. I wasn't really paying attention and she was off doing school work.

The weekend came, I was feeling better and head down to her place very late. Still weak but managing, the people start arriving. It was great. We chatted about kink, silly stuff like clitter glitter and other things until past 4AM.

The next day we took it easy. I don't have any idea when we awoke other then there was six naked bodies sleeping in one room in pairs. It made me smile. People were having fun talking, biting, kissing, licking, sucking, beating and other kinky stuff. This was all happening while I was mumbling about coffee, making it and trying to wake up.

I think later on I fell asleep in the middle of the floor. By time I awoke, it look like an adult toy shop had exploded over the place and people were talking and yapping. I don't quite remember what happened later on other then we mixed in more play, me doing some inverted suspensions, photography and diner.

Some pretty rope marks
Diner was good. I started with a "Patron Perfect:" margarita and everyone followed suit it seems. Raven tormented me by getting some ice cream desert which I am allergic too.

Somewhere past midnight, I took one person home so they could work. The next day, we chatted some more, did some more fun and said our goodbyes to everyone.

Raven and I headed to my place. By the end of the drive, I was a zombie and dreading Monday.

Play hard. Work hard.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Questions, Poly & D/s

The plan was simple, I would in about two weeks take Friday off and have a long weekend spending it with a friend who I adored, loved playing with and had been talking to my other partners about.

Well in a short time, things got very complicated at work, at home and elsewhere. It happens. It is normal and comes with my life. The complexity hit early. For example, I got a surprise meeting invite a couple of hours before Raven needed to catch her flight to see her new lover. I suspected this would happen and was so happy Batty and Raven worked out the logistics of getting her to the Airport.

The next bump hit hard. I was working non-stop up to when I was suppose to take the next day off. Discussions started to happen about me working while on vacation. Ugh! As luck and politics would happen, things fizzled. Thank goodness.

At the same time, my friend's life had some twists and turns. When I woke up Friday, I took my time packing, doing some work, getting a haircut before hitting the road. I wouldn't see her for a while.

Face to Face

I had questions for her. I had been thinking about them for weeks. I was also doubting my grasp of reality. My heart was racing forward and I was trying to keep myself in check.

I have a long list of relationship screw ups and disasters. There is a huge range. Some are the ones related to ending a relationship, the lies said to avoid the truth like avoiding calls or "been busy". Some are the ones related to going too fast, coming across as too much, smothering and a list of other mistakes. Some are mistakes from simply lying to myself about who I am and trying to be something I am not.

I needed to see her, face to face, watch her eyes, her lips, her smile, her body and be touching her as we talked. There was no way I was going to do this in email or over the telephone where so much information is lost between two people.

The Questions

She found me at the hotel pool. I gave her a kiss without soaking her with a wet hug. I toweled off, put a shirt on with my wet shorts and we went off to the hotel room. I had to laugh since I ended up leaving a puddle in the elevator.

It was fantastic to see her. I stripped out my clothes and toweled off some more and then we cuddled and kissed. With me naked and her fully clothed, I said "I have some questions" and she replied "I do too". It made me smile.

I told her I was avoiding asking her one and she asked "Why?". Wow. Good question.

The mystery and hope that exists before asking a question is wonderful. It is part of my kink and intimacy to learn about someone non-verbally, learn about each other especially in a dominate/submissive context. Mmmmm the wonderful mystery, excitement and thrill.

Asking the question and getting the desired answer is wonderful. Getting the undesired answer or something else can pause things and require more pondering and new understanding. Either answer defines the relationship better but it is a shame to lose the mystery, the excitement and hope. The cool thing is that there is so much to learn and explore so it is time to ask away.

We talked about our relationships. We talked about the label "poly" and what happens in a group setting and when alone. We talked about schedules, communication and our crazy lives. We talked about sex, some kink and D/s stuff. We talked about the rest of the time we could spend together. It was fun to chat, answer each others questions, learn about the other as I slowly stripped her, kissing, cuddling, touching and caressing her.

Mmmmmmmmmmm love my new partner, rope slut, playmate and girl all rolled up in one. I am her slut and she is mine.

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