Like so many of you, I first became aware of the scene online. A friend from a vanilla channel convinced me to go to a D/s channel with him. Frankly, I was a bit curious, but nothing more. However, once there, I began to ask some questions and I found that something inside of me awoke. It felt right. Even more strange was that I seemed to fall into the submissive role naturally. The strange part was that I am, in many respects, a forceful, pushy, aggressive, opinionated, too often smart-assed kind of person. I am also intelligent, educated (the two are too often mutually exclusive) with an appreciation for many different kinds or art, music, literature, etc. In other words, I am a person who is quite capable of making decisions and managing their own life.
Back to the topic at hand. The friend who first brought me to the channel, whom I will call SL, became my guide, my teacher, my mentor, my Dom and later, my Master. Though he is no longer my Master, he is still my guide, mentor, teacher and most of all, friend. This is an important point because the one you do submit to should always be a friend first, everything else comes later. A friend is someone you can talk to without fear of reprisal. A friend listens and hears. A friend knows there are times to talk, times to listen and times to just be there, to hold and comfort when no words are necessary. Most imortantly, a friend tells you the truth, not what they think you want to hear and a friend expects the same from you.
If it seems that I am harping on this subject, well....i am and I always will. Most of you would not go off to bed with some guy you met in a bar a few hours ago, but all too many are willing to put their very lives in the hands of someone whose fact they have never seen. If you think that everyone in the scene is honest and can be trusted, think again. Abers. Your safe call will also have this information as well as numbers to call if something goes wrong, such as relative, police, etc. If your plans change, notify your safe call immediately. You will also have the name, address and phone number, verified if possible, of the Master/Mistress you are going to meet. If they refuse you this information on the grounds of conficentiality, just remember.....you are supposed to trust them with your life, but they will not trust you with a phone number? Uh uh..nope. Same goes for any of the other safety precautions. Any Dominant who says that such precautions are unnecessary is a dangerous person and to be avoided at all costs.
The initial meeting went well and you have decided on a second one. Now, for the first time, there may be play involved. Of course, you have both talked openly and honestly for a long time and are well aware of each others needs and desires and limits by now...right? You are looking forward to this after months of cyber. You meet, maybe in a hotel or motel, you have another safecall or two arranged and there you are. The door opens, you walk in and drop to your knees just like you always did online. Whoa! Carpet burns! And these darn hotel rooms are so small that there is hardly room for you to bend down and when you do, you hear your knees crack and that touch of artritis flares up. As you remove your clothing, doing the sensual dance that was so easy online, you feel a bit clumsy when you keep running into the bed. to make matters worse, the zipper on your skirt gets stuck. Finally, you are naked and kneeling and the Dominant lovingly ties you up, just like you did online. Except that your shoulders didnít burn online and you didnít keep falling on your face when your ankles were tied to your thighs. You didnít get rope burns on your arms and legs and the knots always opened easily. Your knees didnít scream in agony after an hour either. Then...uh oh...Master shows you the vibrator he has been using in your pussy and you see blood. Damn, your period is early! The butt plugs that felt so wonderful online make you want to run to the bathroom. And the spanking over his knee hurts! It really hurts! How are you going to drive home if you canít even sit down? Oh no! The batteries in the vibrator are running down!
This brief interlude has been brought to you by reality. Do these things happen? You betcha! The point here is that, no matter how wonderful it was online, it never quite works out that way in real life. Of course, just by the fact that it is real life, it is often much better, but there are no guarantees and you canít just type your way into a perfect encounter. Be realistic and be prepared.
Your first consideration should be your own safety. This means not only safecalls, but safe words and safe practices. There are two forms of safewords...the word that you use when everything must stop as you can take no more and the words red, yellow and green, which control the rate of play. Green means you can continue. Yellow means slow down, you are nearing your limit. Red means stop immediately and back down. There are differing ideas about the use of safe words. Some say that to use them means you are not giving your submission totally. Some say that they are useless when the sub has reached ìsubspaceî. There are no absolutes here, but a little common sense goes a very long way.
Any Dominant who says that they control the relationship totally is kidding themselves. Submission is give and can be taken away. That is the choice of the submissive. It is ALWAYS the choice of the submissive. However, a submissive can..and does choose tosubmit themselves completely. This means that the Dominant is responsible for the well-being, safety, the life of the submissive. This is an awesome responsibility and not one to be taken lightly. To do so, the Dominant must know the submissive as intimately as they know themselves...even more so. This cannot be done in a week online. I t cannot be done online at all. It task some people on Undernet about the female slave cin that so many Masters wanted and who turned out to be the man james. Ask the woman in Florida who is still confined to a wheelchair from the beating she got a couple of years ago from her ìMasterî sheíd met online. Ask the young mother in South Carolina who went to a ìTraining Domî in California without telling anyone where she was, who was then forced to become the plaything of this ìDomî and his wife while her frantic husband searched for her. Of you think that being a submissive means you do not have to think for yourself, then you need a babysitter or parent, not a Master or Mistress.
Ok, after all that you still are going ahead and meeting your Master/Mistress. Now what?
First off....there is NO PLAY at the initial meeting. It is in a public place, in the open somewhere. You will have arranged for at least two safe calls and let the Dominant know this. You will know beforehand where the meeting is to take place, including address and phone numkes time. Any true Dominant will admit that. And until that time, the Dominant depends on the submissive to make their thoughts, feelings, mental state and limits known. Safewords are the most obvious and easiest...and safest ways of doing this.
I want to share with you an experience that I had which shows that even safewords are not infallible and the importance of the Dominants understanding and knowledge of the submissive. During a recent session with SL, I was bent over a bed being whipped with a wooden rod. It was extremely painful, moreso than I had experienced before. I was in tears and a voice inside of my head was screaming ìstopî, but I bit my lip and kept silent. To use a safeword at that time would have felt like I was giving up, limiting my submission. I could not use it, yet all I wanted was for the pain to go away. At this point, SL stopped. You see, after more than a year and a half, he knew me well enough to know when to stop. This is the kind of knowledge and understanding that only time, honesty and true affection can breed. I donít want to think about what might have happened had he not stopped.
Another point too often overlooked concerns toys. Again, there are different opinions here, but mine is this. The submissive buys and keeps the toys, especially anything that is inserted into his/her body. In these days of Aids and other STDs, not to do so is like playing Russian roulette. Anything that is to be inserted into your body should NEVER be inserted into anyone elses whenever possible. Ok, there is one exception...no, make that 10..er...11. But you get my meaning, I think. And ALWAYS clean and disinfect everything when finished.
Well, now that I have bored you all to tears or sent you off to the web or your email, I will close here by saying...begging..all of you to please use your heads and the brains you were born with. A little common sense goes an awfully long way online and in real life. You can be your own worst enemy and your own best friend. And remember, no matter who or what you are, you are not defined by your possesions or who owns you. You are defined by the kind of individual person you are. The only person you really NEED, is yourself.
amy kriston aka ^sparrow
September 14, 1997
subNATION
http://www.mouse-works.com/subnation/index.htm
The Importance of a Safety Net
(note: To see amy's answers to this essay please see her discussion that followed. In this section we are also including an essay from POWERotics as a reinforcement.)
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