Playing Well With Others (35 page)

Core of Your Kink

As you examine your yearnings and negotiate them with yourself, ask yourself if there are any common threads connecting your desires. Do all of your fantasies involve sensuality, connection, or feral energy? Are you hungry for touch, surrender, or control? By becoming aware of the core of your kink, you expand on the possibilities for play, think “outside of the box” and find new territory that will still get your juices flowing.

Partners

When you proceed to negotiating with your partners, consider the specific nature of the partnership in question. Negotiation with a spouse of twenty years will probably look different from negotiating with a play partner who has been an occasional part of your life for a few months. And both of those will look very different than negotiating with someone you’ve met in the hallway of a kink convention and who happens to pique your interest.

Not every partner will respond the same way to negotiating, or to incorporating a new form of play. Consider watching a movie together that reflects a facet of your desires (see
Appendix 4C
) and gauging their reactions, or sending them tantalizing tales that may pique their interest. For some, a direct approach would rock their world. For others, coming on strong would freak them out. There’s a big difference between “I have been seriously fantasizing about fisting you!” and “I saw something really sexually intimate online and was curious if I might be able to explore the idea with you.”

I’m an “Out Loud” processor. I use all manner of social media to communicate my thoughts, and sometimes this “crowd sourcing” is an amazing way to reduce my feelings of alienation. I was VERY shy about confessing my curiosity about pony play, but when I worked up the nerve to share that with a small circle of online friends I found several who were as shy as I was, also looking for support - and tips on buying pony gear.

Friends and allies

It can be very useful to communicate your desires and interests to your friends. They can often provide emotional support, references, and recommendations when you are exploring new territories. If you are doing complex multi-player scenes or ones that may need extra aftercare, your friends can be invaluable. Friends might be willing to

• Participate in a group scene.
  

• Act as a spotter or backup if you are playing with new folks.
  

• Provide aftercare.
  

• Help maintain safe space for big scenes.
  

• Be a point person for post-scene check-in.
  

Friends and allies can be there for security, support, or as a sounding board for processing — but only if you ask them, and only once they consent. Surprise brain dumps or unscheduled hours of emotional processing can tax a friendship, so don’t assume that your friends are willing to take that responsibility. Kinky sex is about consensual exploration, including how we interact with our allies. Don’t take your friends for granted. Do ask for help, do check in while doing so, and do express your gratitude when people are there for you.

Strangers

Every friend was once a stranger. However, just because that person with whom you chatted at last week’s munch shares your mummification and caning fetish does not make them your new best friend for life and a perfect match as a play partner.

Here are some suggestions for methods and tools that folks in the kink communities may use when vetting new partners, or playing with people they don’t know well.

• Asking them for personal or character references.
  

• Requesting references from other play partners.
  

• Verifying the references these people provide.
  

• Inquiring among your friends about a potential play partner.
  

• Watching the potential play partner playing with others.
  

• Meeting in public, in a neutral location, to get to know them a bit before playing.
  

• Playing in public until you get to know them better.
  

• Keeping play on a basic level when first playing. (For example, being inescapably bound and gagged means your options for communication and reasserting your control are severely limited.)
  

• Obtaining a play-partner’s legal name and running it through registered sex-offender lists (available online).
  

• Having a spotter or trusted voyeur who is empowered to intercede if negotiated play does not go as planned.
  

• Building security systems such as a “safe call” — someone apprised of your date’s legal name, address and phone number who will alert authorities if you do not contact them within a certain timeframe. If you have set up a safe call, make sure to follow through — failure to do so may lead to an awkward encounter with law enforcement.
  

• Building a friendship over time before playing.
  

No system is perfect. Some of these may make sense for you while others leave you cold. We strongly encourage you to think for yourself about your own concerns, and what approach to personal safety and accountability might be optimal. Entrusting someone with our bodies, hearts and minds is a powerful act, and one that should be taken seriously.

Dominants and tops: these cautions are for you as well. You too can be at risk: a new partner might become obsessive, retroactively revoke consent, experience “buyer’s remorse” about a scene days or weeks later, or even become violent during a session. If you’ve played in private, it is your word against theirs should they experience a change of heart, or should things go off-track. While there are no guarantees, some of these precautions can help to reduce the risks associated with playing with a new partner.

Pay close attention to your gut instincts. Unconscious information that manifests in the form of uncertainty, discomfort, or fear is often the body giving us a signal that we might be better off not engaging with a particular person. You likely have some experience taking care of yourself in the default world; don’t leave these skills at the door when you enter the play-space. Regardless of your chosen role, self-care, self-respect, and self-awareness are vital to keeping yourself safe as you learn and grow.

When I have negotiated from a place of desperation or emotional hunger, I really wasn’t negotiating - which has gotten me in some tight spots. This includes negotiating when depressed, feeling anxious, or having recently ended a relationship.

What And Why To Negotiate

We each negotiate for different reasons. For some, it is a chance to gain intimacy with a partner by exposing their core desires. Some negotiate in order to maximize the chance that a scene will have a pleasurable, positive outcome for all involved. Some do it to share important information before they play, or to flirt voraciously. There are those who will want to talk about their sexual history as part of the negotiations, while others will not.

Share as much as you can of the truth about your joys, desires, fears, passions, limits, boundaries and capacity as you negotiate. This increases the chance for a mutually pleasurable experience. We advise doing your negotiation from a mutually empowered place, while you are clear-headed. This process lowers the likelihood of later resentment from feeling manipulated during the negotiation process. If you’re feeling pressured to say “yes,” even though your gut is balking, you cannot protect yourself and your best interests. No matter how you choose to share your truths, you are ultimately responsible for yourself and your journey. Empower yourself to communicate, and you empower yourself for success.

YESes and fantasies

Our YESes are things we long for, strongly desire, and are excited to experience. They are not our “Sure, that would be okay” items — they are the stuff on our “HELL YEAH!” list. If we share our real YESes, we increase our chances of manifesting this joy. If we never share our YESes, we never have the chance to be heard.

Just because you say yes to one type of kink fantasy or desire does not mean that you want to say yes to everything. Sure, you might have a hot abduction fantasy . . . but that does not mean you want that hot abduction scene served up with a side of stringent bondage and a dollop of deep humiliation. Consider whether your partner shares your YESes and fantasies with you. Listen to what they are actually sharing, and try to avoid layering on your own desires, or reading additional elements into their fantasy without checking in.

One of two times I’ve had a scene seriously derail was when a friend decided to surprise me with an additional element to a scene we’d planned. I was prepared for us to do a pretty heavy humiliation scene - I was not prepared for my friend to add a hardcore interrogation element to the scenario. On top of that, intense physical sensation and a marathon session resulted in my emotionally losing track of myself in the scene, experiencing a difficult mental disconnect, and the scene going far off the track of what we had previously negotiated.

Some of our fantasies are best left firmly in the realm of fantasy. Others burn within with a craving for fulfillment. Still other fantasies are ones we wish to revisit again and again, and which never lose their appeal. As you negotiate and share your YESes, remember to share your passion and excitement — even in the midst of nervousness and trepidation — with your partner.

Fantasies and YESes are different things. Sometimes a fantasy is just a fantasy. Just because your partner shares a fantasy does not mean they want to do it. Make sure to actively gain consent before surprising your partner with that gang bang, or showing up at their flat dressed like a clown — they may not have actually wanted it to manifest in reality.

As you ponder your YESes, consider also what you need to succeed. Will your scene be a downer if you are not touched with bare hands by your lover? Would words of praise from this new play partner help you fly? Do you crave detailed feedback after the scene in order to feel secure that it all went well? By being aware of our core needs and sharing them on our YES list, we increase our chances of hitting it out of the park.

Definitions and language

Clarifying our own personal definitions during negotiation can help us avoid misunderstanding: water sports might mean a lively game of “Marco! Polo!” or a hot piss play scene. By being clear about what we mean, and the source of our desires, we can deepen connections and get everyone on the same page.