A new thing to try...

I had a fairly long conversation yesterday with one of my old friends. We'd lost touch over the last year or so, but when she had surgery recently and we had gotten back in touch. We actually dated for a while, many years ago  - 18 years ago? Wow... - before she moved away; and have hooked up more than once since then both when I was near her on business, and when she has  visited me here. She was, in fact, also one of the first people who was ever my submissive. Maybe at some point I'll ask her to give me her thoughts on being a submissive, and why she isn't any more... But that wasn't why I brought her up. I bring her up because of yesterday's conversation. Specifically, while talking with her yesterday, she brought up her... Research partners from earlier in her life.

When we say “research”, in this case we mean trying out sexual practices… Or perhaps a more accurate term is “practicing”. To paraphrase her slightly:

The second one, we had a longer term agreement.
We would try out things we read about together.
Get feedback.
Figure stuff out.
Techniques mainly.
I basically blew him once or twice a day until I got great at it.
We worked on where it was ok to put his hands while I did it.
We worked on where I should put my handswhat he should never ever eat beforehand.
Ever.
We tried out different locations in the apartment.
Putting the pillows certain ways...

The conversation went longer than that, obviously… But I found the conversation fascinating. I spent a fair amount of time over the days since, and how it may have - or could - relate to other people I know. My circle of friends and acquaintances includes people from the most innocent, vanilla, virginal girls and boys you could hope for all the way through to what can only be described as "kinky perverted sluts"... And yet with just about every person I've ever discussed sex or kink with, I've seen blind spots... Things they were interested in but never explored, things they hadn't even considered but ended up interested in, things they didn't realize they desperately needed to avoid... Having a safe place, a safe person, to just explore things.

A number of people I know (the more conservative ones, at least) would immediately make the mental jump to "SLUT" and "WHORE", but to me it's just such a rational response. Sex is one of those areas with an enormous potential to turn bad; look at the mess surrounding things like erectile dysfunction. Being good or bad in bed, or even just inexperienced, can have a major effect on one's self-confidence, one's self-respect... And relationships are not inherently the best place to explore this because of the pressure involved. Even some of the most open and relaxed relationships can impose huge pressure and expectations on the people in it - even if the pressure is entirely self-imposed. A relationship specifically with the intention of exploring how things work, how to do them, trying them out could offer a lot in that direction.

I suppose the biggest problem there would be finding a problem with whom that type of relationship is even possible. Most people, I think, aren't really equipped for a no-strings-attached relationship - humans are too good at attaching the strings whether they intellectually know it's not what's happening or not. But that's a whole other topic for another day.

One of the things about BDSM is that it's very imposing to people from the outside. Ignoring the stigma and the fear and all of the baggage that arrives with the whole topic, it can be a very scary area to get into. It's all about whips and chains and spanking and handcuffs and masters and slaves and sadists and ropes and dungeons and... Well, any number of strange and frightening things. It is, in fact, a place where only in the rarest of cases will two people actually have the same desires and experiences, which makes it all worse. BDSM and Kink are areas where you can go a lifetime and never find a person who actually agrees with you on everything, and that makes it - sometimes - a very lonely and isolating place.

There is community in BDSM; there's "The Scene", groups of (approximately) like-minded people, all over the world; there are munches; there are dozens of major websites and scores of smaller ones; there are hundreds of pundits, professionals, columnists, bloggers, authors, and speakers... And yet when it comes down to it BDSM and kink are incredibly broad, incredibly big, incredibly imposing.

And there is a lot to be scared of. Not only are there an incredible number of things to try, but some of them are dangerous. Safewords aren't something to be scared of, but they are something to take seriously - they're there for a reason. People can be - and have been - hurt, injured, scarred, and killed by their kinks. This is part of what gives the entire culture such a bad name... And yet at its heart, it's still all prejudice - after all, the most dangerous thing most people do every day is drive to work.

So I guess this is my advice to all of you out there: take my friend's idea, above, and apply it to BDSM. Don't jump in with both feet; don't let it scare you or overwhelm you; try. Find someone you can trust, and just try one small thing. Something stupid or silly. Eat dinner wearing handcuffs. Watch a movie on the couch with a butt plug. Intentionally add one small thing to your sex life each day or each week - something different - and instead of letting the entire idea scare you, find out whether or not it works.