How to Be Kinkier: More Adventures in Adult Playtime Page 7
Timing Is Everything
A relationship with just one other person can be a juggling act at times, and when you introduce others it can be tough, just from a time management angle. Obligations such as your job, children or charity work can put a lot of demands on your time; how can you carry on a relationship with more than one person on top of all the obligations you already have? If you are going to work on incorporating polyamory into your life, you will definitely need an iPhone, BlackBerry or other smartphone with a scheduling app. Time management is one of the most valuable skills you can develop when exploring this side of yourself. Figuring out what you truly want from your partners and being able to prioritize those people and activities will force you to sharpen your planning skills. Showing up for your date on time tells someone that you not only respect her but you respect her time as well. Blowing her off because something “better” comes up is disrespectful. Sometimes you will have to make difficult choices about how and with whom you spend your time. No one wants to hurt someone’s feelings because “My slave and I are going to dinner,” and this is where simple etiquette and manners come into play. If you have a date with one person all set up and then bail for another, “better” offer that comes along, you are telling that other person that her time isn’t nearly as important as another’s and that is hurtful. If you don’t have time to spend with someone who is engaging and valuable, then don’t make the date in the first place. We can’t always spend all the time we wish with others. Careful planning and knowing your own limitations will communicate to others that their time is valuable and treasured by you.
Facing Page: The sound of a well-made paddle hitting a gorgeous ass is always a huge turn on.
If moving to a new apartment, choose an end unit to save your neighbours from the noise you are going to make during kinky sex.
Where Does It Fit in BDSM?
There are a multitude of challenges to polyamory when it is framed in a BDSM context, and for this reason there are questions that you should be asking yourselves and discussing together long before they become issues. For example, what if you are collared to a Master that you have pledged your undying obedience to, and he decides to add a second slave to the household, much to your surprise? What if the Mistress decides that you are both poly now and you are going to have to learn to live with it whether or not you are comfortable with it? How will you deal with someone else vying for her attention? Did you give your undying devotion to him only to recant when it became inconvenient or uncomfortable? What if you are a Mistress who desires to cuckold her husband and then learns that he is uncomfortable with being made to wear a chastity device and sit in the corner while his wife takes another lover to their bed? What if your own values develop in such a way that you are not the same person as when you began a relationship? These are important issues that will arise and the best way to resolve them is by making your expectations known in the very beginning. What does your polyamorous relationship look like to you, and to your partner? In a Leather family or BDSM dynamic it is no different. Discussion has to happen long before the decisions are made. That said, polyamory can bring a lot to your kinky relationship where there is a strong emphasis on a power dynamic based on a hierarchy. This can be beneficial for the new person invited into the relationship who is being exposed to more experienced partners. Being new, it is okay to ask questions and make it clear that you are still learning. The more experienced people in the relationship have all been where you are and typically will be happy to help you along your learning curve. Joining a couple or a triad or a leather family, you will find there is the opportunity to taste many experiences with a support system well in place. The newcomer can not only expand his or her boundaries but can integrate the polyamorous model and understand it by having others to discuss it with. Having someone more experienced to say, “I understand you might be apprehensive and that is okay, but if you would like to try this activity I will go slow and you can use your safeword at any time. Plus our other partner(s) will be here to help you through it,” can provide you with a sense of security: everyone involved has a role to play when a new activity is introduced in playtime. It is very reassuring to have someone there to (literally) hold your hand the first time a Dominant introduces a new sensation that might push your comfort level.
1 First you will need a lovely and willing victim! 2 And you will need the following: 1. 70% or higher isopropyl alcohol. I prefer 91% because there is less water content and when the spark is applied there is less chance of burning from the steam that is created when the water vaporizes. 2. Fire cups of various sizes—you can typically find them in larger cities’ Chinatown sections and they are quite inexpensive. The larger the cup the greater the suction 3. BBQ lighter OR locking forceps with cotton balls. I like a BBQ lighter because there is less fussing to get the flame going. 4. A candle if you are using the forceps with cotton ball method to hold the flame. 5. Eye dropper and a small dish. It is important to keep the small dish of alcohol away from where the action is. Plus a damp towel on hand is ideal for safety if you need to smother the flame.
3 First, make sure your victim doesn’t have any lotion on their body. Before playing, tell them that after they bathe they shouldn’t apply any creams, lotions or perfumes to their body. Pour out a small amount of isopropyl alcohol into a dish—a very small amount. This is so that your larger bottle doesn’t evaporate while leaving the cap off. Close the bottle and put it aside. You don’t need more than two capfuls at a time in the dish. Take the eyedropper and drip 2 drops into the fire cup. Turn the cup slightly sideways and apply the flame; it should catch fire, and hold it for a few seconds. A few seconds is all you need. Note: if you find that your flame is blowing itself out with a soft “poof” sound, you are using too much alcohol. The difference between 2 and 3 drops can be too much can be huge depending on the size of the cup. Some people like to wipe the inside of the fire cup with an alcohol swab but I find that 1 or 2 drops in the bottom is sufficient. 4 As soon as the fire catches, you want to quickly place the cup face down on the skin. The flame will eliminate the oxygen from the cup but only for a moment, you have to be quick but don’t rush so much you stumble. Smooth, firm and confident movements are going to make you a sexy superstar. 5 While these images demonstrate in a step by step manner how to do this activity, and with safety foremost in our minds, they are in no way substitutes for actual hands on learning. Fire is dangerous play and you should find someone experienced in real life that can show you in person the safest way possible for you to engage in these activities. These pictures represent what is possible, after you have become proficient.
6 When the mouth of the jar is placed quickly face down on the skin, the resulting vacuum will suck the submissive’s skin up and into the jar, forming a tight seal. If it isn’t stuck firmly, then you weren’t fast enough with plopping it down on the skin. Don’t wait for the fire to burn itself out before placing it on the skin; it will extinguish itself when the seal is tight. Sure it is a bit scary but scary is fun as long as you have a real life person to walk you through this until you gain proficiency and confidence. 7 Then you can start adding more cups! As you can see in this picture, the flame is strong and blue and our top, Bri, is about to push it down on the skin quickly… 8 Get it to look like this—it has a nice tight seal. (That’s what SHE said!) Playing with cups all over the area is fun and exciting. You want to look for the less boney areas—don’t try doing it on a hipbone, it will fall off and break on the floor. 9 Soft, fleshy areas of the body are perfect, and as your bottom gets used to the sensation you can work towards more sensitive—and more fun!—areas of her body.
10 Yum, more cups please! The cups can be left on while the skin turns red inside it. Let the cups sit there, slowly sucking on your submissive. Let it torment them in a fun way. If done right, the submissive will have some lovely bruises for a few days after the scene.
11 For the larger areas such as the belly, back and thighs, you can start using
the larger fire cups. You still only need 1-2 drops of isopropyl alcohol to light up the cup. 12 A strong blue flame is ideal. 13 Have fun with fire cupping. The longer you leave them on, the more torture it will be for the submissive. When it is time to remove it, hold the cup firmly and push down with your finger along the edge to break the vacuum seal. Don’t massage or rub the area, as the submissive’s body will readjust as the marks form.
Don’t forget to put the Do Not Disturb sign on your door when staying in a hotel. Or you might suddenly make a new friend. Or two.
My preference for exploring polyamory shifted quickly from more traditional social relationships during a brief relationship with an open-minded, younger girlfriend. She spoke matter-of-factly about her own polyamorous nature and a desire to explore a budding interest in Leather kink with a dominant and submissive dynamic. Fear and attraction, the true power couple, kept me curious, turned on and scared. Bit by bit the foundation of what I had come to know about healthy relationships and sexuality as informed by the psychotherapeutic and second wave feminist models was crumbling. I was coming out a second time–first as a dyke at thirty-five and again to kink and polyamory at forty-five. While topping or observing play, I was able to see how kink and poly can intersect in a variety of ways for couples and single players. I became less afraid of poly knowing that I could control where, when and in what context I experienced it.
—Selina, Dominant
Facing Page: The Sybian can be used to tease your slave—and also to give her forced orgasms that she won’t forget.
A well-placed zipper can open up a whole world of possibilities.
Water play can bring about some very strong feelings for both sub and dom.
As a Dominant, I have found that utilizing the structure inherent in a BDSM–based power relationship can facilitate polyamory more easily than other models. Kinky people have a long history of discussing and communicating about issues and activities and then framing them into a hierarchy of expectations and duties. In my first poly relationship, I was with a partner who was a Switch, and we invited a submissive to join us. We had no resources to draw on, no support groups, and it was up to me as the Dominant to figure out how to keep both of them satisfied and happy with the arrangement, while still being fair and having my own needs and desires met. After a few bumps and bruises along the learning curve, we discovered that writing out clear expectations in a submissive contract between myself and her smoothed out the problems we were having, since there were very specific expectations outlined. Submissives deal very well with structure–create it and use it to help them feel secure in their place.
Choosing the outfit you want your submissive or bottom to wear before a big fetish party will make him or her feel happily controlled.
Open Relationships and Swinging: Casual Partners Versus Primary Partner
This is an area that can work one of two ways: really well or really poorly. There isn’t a lot of middle ground. This is a characteristic of all these different types of relationships and can be a great opportunity for everyone involved to stay on track with physical and emotional feelings.
Something that will become an issue for your poly relationship is learning to juggle all of your partners’ needs and wants. We become involved with people for the joy and love they bring to our lives and they deserve to spend time with us that is nurturing and respectful. When we introduce a new partner into a poly relationship, we still need to be conscious of continually nurturing the other relationships we are involved in. New partners can be exciting and fun and it is easy to get lost in the thrill of a new partner but all of your other partners are very important and you don’t want to jeopardize those relationships just because of a new shiny toy. I always say, like your play, but love your partner. You might have a partner who really likes something specific that you aren’t into or can’t provide; for people in open relationships, play is just “play” without emotional entanglement. The partner you have nurtured longest is a very important person in your life and there is a reason you have chosen to be with that individual: he or she has qualities that you adore and desire so much that you want to be in a relationship with them. Once you have set boundaries that you are both comfortable with, any exploration outside that relationship needs to honor those boundaries for the health of the relationship. When I play privately with new people, I like to include my other partner so that we can both share the experience. There is something delicious about sharing another partner with the person you love. Using the extra person as a complement to your playtime can be wonderful, provided that everyone is on board. Playing together with a new person is not the time to push your primary partner’s boundaries. You have to have the talk about boundaries long before all of you wind up in the dungeon together. Sometimes in the heat of the moment people can get carried away, but I caution you to not let that be an excuse for selfish behavior. You can’t say, “Sorry, but that was so hot I couldn’t help myself.” That would be a clear indication that you can’t respect boundaries and if you can’t, then perhaps you shouldn’t be playing with kinky sex. We want to honor and trust our partners and trust is a vulnerable thing that can be lost in a heartbeat.
Speculums can be sexy!.
When I play one on one with a new partner, I reassure my primary partner that I love and care about her and that nothing is going to get in the way of our emotional relationship. People in open relationships tend to gravitate toward the swinging community more than closed poly people do. I have noticed that the swinging community and the kinky community are enjoying much more cross-pollination than ever before. As little as ten years ago they seemed to be polar opposites, with the kink community not interested in swapping or sharing partners. Over time, though, more and more of the sexually adventurous have crossed back and forth, building bridges out of sexual hedonism. Swinging relationships tend to be based on sexualized encounters without the emotional connection, and that can work out well for BDSM kinksters where a couple might be emotionally monogamous but sexually open. I like to think that lately the swinging scene has helped the BDSM crowd loosen up a bit and the BDSM crowd has helped the people in the swinging scene define boundaries and limit more. In one camp you have a group devoted to hedonism and in the other, control is the priority. This exchange of ideas about how we do things has been great in making people more thoughtful about their actions.
Don't just get stuck inside—try rope bondage in lots of different places.
1 Shackles should be the right size. 2 This style uses a turn key. Slip the end through and turn the key counter clockwise. 3 Put the turn key in and turn it clockwise to release the shackle end and fasten it about the wrist. 4 Turn the key counter clockwise to remove it end and fasten it about the wrist. 5 Voila! one captured slave.
Fantasy can enhance reality but it isn’t a replacement.
Emotional Ties That Bind
In all of these relationships, and especially with poly, you are going to be dealing with multilayered dynamics. Let’s look at the issue of emotional safety in poly and open relationships, which have some crossover. If you are a swinger and also feel that any of this discussion of emotional issues has applications to your life and relationships, take from it what you like! In any relationship involving more than one other person, it can be tricky at times to keep everyone on the same page and at some point someone is going to feel hurt or slighted.
The most obvious issue is jealousy. Can people in poly and open relationships experience jealousy? Of course we can. Jealousy is a natural reaction that we have when we feel threatened or insecure. It can be a powerful emotion that arises from many different situations, not just in a poly relationship. In this chapter I am going to focus on jealousy that is situation-specific. Someone might have a very low jealous nature or none in a particular situation and then suddenly have it flare up in a situation outside the norm.
I have a pair of lovely friends who are poly and who both have lovers outside their relationship. They ma
nage their time well, making room for the other loves in their lives, but they try to share certain acts with each other that they don’t with their other partners. One of their special activities is ice-skating together. Hang on…ice-skating? Why the heck am I talking about something as vanilla as ice-skating in a book on how to be kinkier? How does ice-skating relate to any of this? Stay with me for a moment while I explain. As children growing up at either end of the country they enjoyed figure skating and playing hockey with the people close to them–family and close friends. They had such fond memories of it that when they met and fell for each other they realized that they both shared a love and passion for the activity and it dovetailed beautifully with their attraction to each other. It was something that connected them on an emotional and physical level. It was one of those special activities that we share with our partners when we date and spend time together–it could be bowling, discussing books or fisting each other on a Friday night at the local pansexual bar. Then one weekend one of them couldn’t make their ice-skating date and without considering much about the situation the other partner, who still wanted to go, invited her other lover along because she felt it was a fun activity she would like to share with someone close to her. When the first partner found out, he was confronted with feelings of jealousy, as in “How can she go skating without me–that was for us!” He felt hurt and left out. Insecurity and jealousy welled up inside him and he was having a hard time processing those feelings. Neither of them had ever talked about going ice-skating with others; perhaps they thought it might never come up or they each assumed that they were both saving it as an activity just for them.