First, this site is not meant to teach you the “right way” to play. Nobody can. There is no such a right way. Everybody is different, every couple is different, every person's likes or dislikes are different. You must talk to your game partner, negotiate, play, and negotiate again while discussing the results of the last scene. Practice and experiment. Try new things and enjoy what you’ve learnt.
The only thing we are trying to do is sharing what we know, so you can have your own ideas. Don’t accept us, or anybody else, telling you what you can or can’t do. Most people think that BDSM is the wrong thing. We are supposed to know better.
Second, if you are new to the scene, you can get awed by the language. As any other human interest, the BDSM community has developed a jargon of their own, with specialized technical meanings.
If you came here because you enjoy receiving a couple of playful slaps from your partner, don’t flee from the site when reading about whips, masochism, sadism, dominant, submissive, and the like.
Remember that it is just jargon, and don’t rely on the meanings or feelings that the words evoke in you.
If you like to receive that couple of slaps, you are, for us, a "bottom" or a "submissive". But only referring to the scene. It doesn't mean that you are a submissive in real life.
Women, especially, have trouble accepting the word "submissive". Having been dominated for so long in most of history and traditions, barely avoiding to have to submit today in the more advanced cultural groups, and knowing that most women are the property of her father and husband to be used and beaten in the rest, (and we are speaking on cultural groups, and not on countries, because no country is free from this problem) women cringe at the thinking of being thought as submissives.
Don’t worry. To be a bottom or a submissive during a scene is not the same as being submissive on your normal life, no more than being a top or dominant in the game means that you are bully outside it.
And may be you are not even a submissive in the scene, because you think that you’re not playing a scene, you are just receiving some slaps on your bottom. It’s ok for us, maybe you are right. But let us call the one who receives the slaps on the bottom or sub, and the one who gives them the top or dom, as is usual in the BDSM community, and please don’t think that it is demeaning, because in our games it is not.
Another problem are the words sadism and masochism. As we are explaining in another article, the words have been imported from the psychologist’s jargon, and with a different meaning. The psychologists found that some people seemed to enjoy giving pain or humiliating the others, and that are aroused by the others suffering. Maybe it is true, but has nothing to do with BDSM.
What we call a sadist is a top that enjoys hitting on a partner that craves to receive the blows and that is not suffering, but enjoying the experience. The fact that the “victim” enjoys being “victimized” would defeat the original purpose of a true sadist.
The BDSM “masochist”, on its side, is enjoying being hit or humiliated, but in a carefully controlled environment, with a person s/he trusts, and during a defined timeframe. And probably s/he is not enjoying the pain, is enjoying the game’s environment. So, for us, a masochist is a bottom that enjoys being dominated, hit and/or humiliated.
For both, it is but a enacting a fantasy, in a game that has clearly defined rules and strict limits. That’s all.
And the same for the rest of the jargon. Don’t get overwhelmed by the words. Just enjoy what you like.
Third, BDSM tries to cover too many different games. What has to do the fact of you enjoying a couple of playful slaps with some girl being hung in the air by her breasts, or with somebody that likes to be branded with a red hot iron? Nothing, nothing, nothing. BDSM tries to cover too much for any single person.
We are on your side here, and the site is not about all of BDSM (maybe it is not about BDSM at all), but it is about spankings, and the like. Not that the other games are wrong, they just don’t fit our tastes. And this site is just about what we enjoy.
If it is consensual (and that is not negotiable), it is ok, or, at least, it’s none of our business. Safe and sane have different meanings for different people, and that’s ok also. And not only in BDSM. A guy jumping from a ramp with a bike, and flipping on it backwards while on the air, is not playing it safe or sane in our book. It’s his problem (and his neck), anyway.
We have our limits, and you have yours, and the guy on the bike has his. And life is that way.
Of course, not only we don’t enjoy everything, we feel some things are wrong, endangering somebody’s life is not acceptable for us, as it is not hurting somebody. Our definition of what we think is right is on the article on safe, sane and consensual, and even though, we like just some spanking and bondage, and not any other practices no matter if they are safe and sane.
Fourth, even when BDSM games can be played in casual encounters or with professionals (as sexual intercourse is), it is frequently played by closely related couples. They are just another way of touching the other's body and the other's soul, of intimate sharing, a kind of rough caressing. They are a way of giving yourself fully to the other as a present, or accepting the other person as such. It is about caring for the other, knowing that the other cares for you, and enjoying together, as any other close relationship is. They are not related to actual violence, abuse, misuse or taking advantage of the other. If you don't understand this, or what safe, sane and consensual means, you don't understand what our game is about, and you probably will not understand why somebody can enjoy it.
Enjoy the site, take from it what you like, adapt it to your tastes, and don’t let words bother you, that words are just that. Your thing is your thing, and that is ok.
Published: 05/22/03