Thoughts: Safe Words

I’ve briefly discussed this topic before, in my post about contracts but I wanted to discuss it properly, too. Firstly, because there is no consensus about whether you need to have safe words in the BDSM community and secondly because I want to help people understand what their purpose is so they can decide if they’re right for them.

When people tell me that they don’t have safe words, it makes me uncomfortable. They often say that they don’t need them or that they know each other very well but it just causes me to worry. No matter how well you know a person I think it is important to have safety measures, just in case. Even if you know how much their body can cope with on a normal day, there is no guarantee that it will cope with that the same way each time. Moreover, if you try something new and your partner can’t communicate with you, it can cause issues for you both. I would strongly recommend that you have safe words even if you don’t use them all the time.

For us, there are quite a few types of “safe word”, though most are not spoken. I don’t actually use my safe word when we play because I just don’t feel comfortable with vocalising something that could completely stop what’s going on. Generally speaking, I don’t ever want things to come to a halt; I just want a moment of his time to let him know what’s wrong. I’m lucky in that Daddy usually has a good idea of what I can and can’t take so he always finishes before I get pushed to the edge of my limits. If this changes and I need play to stop immediately I will use my safe word, but until that point I will use gestures or movements instead.

So, what are these safe words, gestures and movements?

Thoughts: Orders

In some D/s relationships, the submissive is given a set of tasks to complete every day (or every so often) by their Dom. These tasks can be as simple or as complicated as the Dom chooses, and they are not always to do with sex either. They can range from everyday tasks such as “do the dishes” to more perverted demands, like “go around to your local shops wearing a very short skirt and a vibrating egg inside you”. What the tasks are and how many of them there are is left entirely to the Dominant’s discretion. The submissive must then do them, if they wish to keep their Dominant happy.

There are lots of other factors that come into play with said tasks, like what day and time they are to be completed, whether photographs or other evidence is needed to prove they were completed on time and so forth. It often depends upon the agreed-on dynamic between the partners whether such tasks are acceptable or unacceptable, regardless of their content.

In my own D/s relationship, we do have tasks and it is outlined in part of our contract. However we call them “Orders” instead.

Thoughts: Contractual Considerations

I’ve been meaning to do this post for a long time. Daddy and I have had a few contracts now, for various reasons. We recently wrote a third contract and in order to do so, I looked over the older contracts as well as my FetLife account to find a list of things we had thought about.

To me, a contract is a very important thing. It means more than I thought it ever would, though we don’t always follow it to the letter. We use our contract a little more as a guideline at the moment because that is how we like it. We have tried being more rigid with rules and rituals to follow but that wasn’t necessarily the best option for us. Keeping things simple has been better, because it allows us a certain level of adaptability depending on our moods at the time.

If you’re thinking of entering any kind of BDSM contract, I would like you to read this post. Though you don’t have to have all the things in it that we have, a guideline to work from or brainstorm on will hopefully be useful to you! If you do happen to find this post of use for you and your partner I would be honoured.

Thoughts: Family and Kink

This post is inspired by Blacksilk’s Family Planning post. Thank you for making a post on it and saying it would be alright if I did as well! The concept was interesting to me because it’s pertinent to the way I deal with my own family and practising BDSM while I do sex toy reviews. Sometimes it is difficult to hide. My Daddy doesn’t have this issue as much because he simply doesn’t need to – his family generally are very accepting of anything.

With my own family, I have a lot to hide. The majority of them are prudish and won’t discuss vanilla sex, let alone anything less ‘normal’. I suppose it could just be that they like their privacy or find it strange to discuss with other family members but it makes things awkward for me quite a lot. When your main pastime is something you can’t discuss, it makes you seem avoidant and anti-social even if that isn’t your intention. You seem like you do nothing but mess about so they can’t take you seriously when you say you’re busy. Plus it makes explaining the amount of packages you receive uncomfortable, moreso when you are poor and your family get curious about what is in them and who sent them.

Thoughts: Depression, Meds and Orgasms

The idea for this thoughts post came to me while I was masturbating and looking at Twitter. The lovely Epiphora was tweeting links to her blog about her experience on Zoloft and it reminded me of my various experiences on meds. I never really wanted to make this blog about my mental health problems because part of the reason I started it was to take my mind off everything around me.

Another reason is that I thought that the information I would divulge would be too identifying for those who knew me but did not know about my BDSM/sex inclinations. I’m still worried that will be the case but I think sharing this experience is more important than hiding who I am. It doesn’t hurt either that today (10th September) is World Suicide Prevention Day and so this post is timely.

Warning: May be a trigger for those with similar experiences. Mentions bullying among other subjects. Extremely long and personal.

Thoughts: Regarding Limits in BDSM

The longer I study BDSM and get more into the scene, the more hard limits I find I have. This isn’t due to my resolve and open-mindedness becoming limited but due to the overwhelming amount of knowledge I am gaining in the field.

A lot of places, books and people will tell you that the best sub has few or no limits at all. I don’t think this is the case. The fewer limits I had, the more naïve I was and the more at risk I was of putting both myself and others in danger. I felt like I had a firm idea of what I wouldn’t do but looking back I now know better. In my opinion, the best sub is an educated one. Not necessarily an experienced one but one who has a good grasp on the range of things out there and who is willing to say they have limits. Age, gender, orientation and race have nothing to do with this.