We’re negotiating a scene. This pretty woman, whom I have known socially but not biblically, reaches over our coffee cups to hand me a sheaf of papers. “I made some edits, with you in mind. There’s my bottoming ‘laundry list’,” she says.
I leaf through five pages in all. They are exhaustive lists of activities and attitudes titled, respectively *Yes*, *OK*, *Maybe Not*, *Hard No* and *Physical Limitations*
Under *Yes* she has, among numerous others, fisting and being fisted, being hit with a soft leather flogger, and kissing. Under *Hard No*, she has listed, with some others, wooden paddles, humiliation, permanent marks. The last sheet notes that she has bad knees, mild claustrophobia, and needs to be fed after a scene since she’s prone to hypoglycemia. A further note states that her preferred safeword–her verbal signal to end any SM activity–is *Litigation*. Good. She’s got a sense of humour.
I grin as I look at the dense print on the *Yes* page. “Think you left anything out?”
“Nope,” she says promptly, “after ten years of bottoming experience, if I’ve heard of it, it’s on one of those sheets. Now that you have the information, what happens next is your choice.”
Feeling like the proverbial kid in a candy store, I study the pages. I have a lot of very pleasant planning to do.

Let’s Talk about Sex-Magic, Baby

There’s a lot to be said against labeling, and I imagine you’ve heard quite a bit of it before. But I’m going to assume that we are all bright enough to realize that the process of taxonomy, of sorting things into groups, is a useful tool for thinking–so long as we don’t assume that any description applied to a person becomes a universally-applied static rule.
Sorting and labeling *activity* is more productive, removing all sticky residue of self-identification, and the inevitable arguments that stem from applying “I am” to words that should safely stay verbs or modifiers. I’m happier speaking of the act of dominating than the identity of master. A fetish is easier to define than a fetishist. Anyone who’s been within earshot of a group trying to define “lesbian” will know whereof I speak.
When explaining BDSM to non-players, I wave my label-maker around indiscriminately. You have to start somewhere, and it’s good for folks to see more labels–more honest, descriptive labels–placed lovingly on folks who are so often branded with one big red one: *Dangerous, Ugly, Laughable Pervert*. With enough accurate, thought-out labels, we approach a rough description of a real human being. Even activities become less intimidating with a name and a how-to tag.

- Kink: word used to describe your erotic activities by people who approve of them.
- Perversion: word used to describe your erotic activities by people who think yours are worse than theirs.

The Acrobatic Acronym: BDSM

An unusually nifty and flexible acronym, BDSM translates to “Bondage Discipline / Domination Submission / Sadism Masochism”. Bondage refers to tying, binding or restricting movement. Discipline means corporal punishment–such as spanking, paddling or caning–and may also include less physical means of correction, such as time-outs, or assignment to difficult or unpleasant tasks. Domination, for the top, is the act of looking and behaving like you’re in control of the scene, issuing the orders and running the show. Submission is the act of lending your power of decision-making to another person for a pre-determined time, for spiritual, recreational, or sexual purposes. Sadism refers to the enjoyment of inflicting pain, ranging from purely symbolic to severe, and masochism refers to the enjoyment of receiving pain, ranging from purely symbolic to severe. Caveat: These brief definitions, while sufficient (barely) for a first introduction, miss many, or even most of the subtleties at play in BDSM.

Why? Why? Tell me Why?

For many, BDSM play opens doors in their self-perception. We play–and play is a good word for it–with the most primal of human emotions. We triumph over pain, turn it into mere sensation. We flirt with fear, we laugh at shame, we learn to trust, we can let go and fly, secure in the knowledge that our play-partner will support us. We follow our deepest sexual urges and play out our most fervid fantasies, with our partner’s wholehearted approval.

Like rock-climbers, we face–for recreation, love or lust–dizzying heights and rocky precipices that make ordinary people shudder. Like ballet dancers, or marathoners, we train, we use our bodies to get to the goal for which we’re striving, and we don’t mind a few knocks along the way. Some of us have turned inward on our search for the spiritual, and find ritual and service a beneficial form of meditation. Some look for the healing that comes when we take old fears and pains and turn them to pride and pleasure.

And for many, including myself, the bond formed with our lover when traveling together, trustingly, to the extremes of emotions–coming back safe each time–is deep in a way I’ll never be able to explain to someone who takes no such risks.

In speaking with my lover, who bottoms for me when we’re in that mood, I have learned a lot. She craves the rush of our play, she enjoys the journey, and she knows I won’t harm her. She knows that I won’t hurry her ride on the sensations of play, that I won’t try to prove my own ego on her soft skin, that I won’t ignore her needs or limits. Awestruck every time, I accept the gift of my lover’s trust, and when we play, we come back refreshed, cleansed, and satiated.

As a top, when I play, I shine a metaphorical light into all the dark corners in my psyche. I have been forced to come to terms some very particular demons–because knowledge and control go hand-in-hand. Having participated in consensual power exchange, I can’t ever pretend that I don’t know what I’m doing if I’m rude, manipulative or cruel. For an experienced top, there is no longer such a thing as accidental sadism.

The Acronyms Continue: SSC

Safe, Sane and Consensual (SSC) is a much bandied-about term in BDSM communities, and its roots are deeply entwined with a concern for ethics and, more to the point, fair play.
-*Safe* means that even when we play hard, we avoid causing true*harm*.
-*Sane* means folks don’t play when they’re angry, intoxicated or otherwise not fully able to determine boundaries, and evaluate risk.
-*Consensual* means that players in a scene have provided each other with *knowledgeable* and *informed* consent, and that every participant has the right to stop the scene at any time through use of a safeword or other pre-designated means.

You Want Me To Kiss You *Where*?

Negotiation is the first step to any scene. Negotiation–a fancy word for communication as means to an end–can range from something as detailed and overt as the narrative at the start of this article, to an implicit flirtatious comment on the matching colours of your hankies, worn in your left hip pocket, and his right.
Negotiation is not solely an altruistic act. Sure, its primary purpose is to exchange information about each player’s abilities, limits, and desires. But really, communication makes for much hotter scenes. Imagine walking into a large library and asking for a book, any book, no matter what subject. How happy do you think you’ll be with your book entitled *101 Uses for Vanilla Extract*? How much happier do you think you’d be if you’d spent some time thinking about what you wanted to read, and then looking for a good, thick hardcover that addresses that topic?

Labels again: Tops and Bottoms and Switches, Oh My!

When BDSM play came out of the closets and out of the dark back rooms of bars, we all began talking about it more. In talking, we found that there are as many types of play as there are individual players. While a masochist craves pain, and a sadist enjoys giving it, a submissive may seek only to please, and a dominant may wish to be served and obeyed. Assuming a submissive is a masochist, for instance (“Ouch! But…?”), is far worse than the whole apples-and-oranges comparison, especially from the viewpoint of the person so mislabeled.

Obviously we needed a catch-all term or two, and so we borrowed “Top” and “Bottom” from the gay sex lexicon. These two terms were used, respectively, to designate the active partner, who was admittedly often on the top of a particular erotic configuration, and the passive partner, who, although usually anything but passive was generally–topographically speaking–farthest from the ceiling.
We BDSM players converted these terms–top and bottom–to mean “dominant, or sadist or sometimes the active partner”, and “masochist, submissive or sometimes the receptive partner”. And as there are many folks who enjoy playing either role, they acquired the somewhat obvious title of “switch”. Then, since it seemed so much effort to import good words, we ended up verbing the nouns, as English speakers so often do. One could, in a convoluted sort of sentence, be a switch, in the act of switching, and be found topping a bottom, and bottoming for a top, all in one glorious three-way scene.

Your Kink Is Not My Kink, But It’s OK.

I’m an active top and a writer of pornography. I’m a member of a few leather clubs, I help run queer SM play parties, and I have a long history of writing, editing and publishing in sex and kink publications. So you’d think that my life revolves around kinky sex, that perhaps I strut around all the time, cracking whips and snapping orders. Yet anyone who knows me even slightly knows the real me is goofy, drinks too much tea, and plays kissy-face with my cats. Yes, I’m a player, a sadist, an experienced top, kinky and all that crap. I’m also–just like everyone else I know–a hell of a lot more, good and bad.
My friends are varied: gay or straight, bi, trans, vanilla or kinky. My non-kinky friends just nod and smile when I tell them things about the kinky side of my love-life. For them, I think, it’s just one more harmless idiosyncrasy in a barrel full of them.

World’s Eye View

In past and even recent history, the popular media has not been the BDSM player’s friend. Morbid stories of SM-gone-wrong, or contrived legal cases against BDSM practitioners are almost the only print we see. Our visual representations are in many ways worse: pathetic, groveling “subbies” with no mind of their own; pompous, leather-sheathed buffoons mouthing trite phrases of domination; self-aggrandizing high-heeled harpies shrieking humiliating commands…. It’s demoralizing to be parodied so cruelly, characterized en-masse as a group of sad, sick, lonely people; the unwashed groin of “normal, healthy” society.

And if you think a bit, it sounds familiar. Until a few years ago, the only lesbian characters in movies were deranged killers, or doomed to die before the closing credits. Just like stereotypical gay male mannerisms are grafted onto Disney’s cartoon villains. Just like (until the American version of *Queer as Folk*) the few hard-won spots for homosexual characters in North American popular media were carefully sexless, obligingly neuter–and no more than caricatures of current stereotypes.

BDSM activities are lately coming and more into the spotlight, with for example Paperny Film’s *KINK* television series (on Showcase, starting April 6, 2001), and with the recent movie *Quills*, which deals with portions of de Sade’s life, and the political forces arrayed against him. In the last decade, author Anne Rice did a lot to popularize pony-play and paddling scenes. Images–good and bad–of queer BDSM are cropping up everywhere. We need our insider’s viewpoint heard, lest *Jerry Springer*’s people be the ones to carry the default message of the dignity and worth of our chosen lifestyle. And with Canada Customs adamant that sexual choices like fisting are dehumanizing (or perhaps simply terribly frightening), it’s high time to come out of our warm, supportive queer-and-kinky ghetto, let folks have the details they need to understand, to not be repulsed or afraid.

Safety, safety, safety

I have found that the kink community leans to an excess of careful, ethical people who work to educate newcomers to the scene in safety, technique, safety, communication, safety, negotiation, safety, and playfulness. We learn to be mindful of the situation, setting, toys and equipment, possible trouble signs; we learn to negotiate our play, assign safewords (the signal to stop), arrange check-ins, and then we learn to crank our empathy up to the highest levels.

We spank, but avoid hitting her kidneys. We bind him tightly, and constantly check his hands for proper circulation. We practise with a riding crop or whip on pillows until we can give our partners the sensation they crave without whacking off their ear in the process. Sometimes we pretend mightily that we are kidnappers, pirates, evil warlords or hunky rogue cops, hold our pleased lovers “captive” and strut about in role–while we surreptitiously monitor all levels of the scene for safety.

Yes, we’re much safer than playing rugby, and yes, there can be some risk in what we do. Just like in rugby, expertise and good equipment make a real difference. And just like we prepare ourselves to play rugby, we do the best we can to stay informed, we make it as safe as we can, then we grab our fellow player by the hand and get out on that field to have fun!

Four Terms (Out of 1000) Defined

Play: the term most used to describe what happens when two or more people get together for the purpose of kinky activities. May or may not include sex as your parents know it.

Flagging: Traditionally, the wearing of a hanky (or two) in the back pocket of your Levis, the colour of which indicates your particular kink. Left for top, right for bottom. For the activity-based erotic shopper, flirtation is thus made simple.

Pain: The non-kinky world makes some strange assumptions about pain. But think for a moment: Do your lover’s nails on your back *hurt* you, in the throes of passion? Do you imagine that masochists groan in ecstasy when they stub their toes?

Safewords – A word, phrase or gesture which will bring a play scene to a halt, or cause it to change direction. Examples: Red, Yellow or Green (For Stop, Slow and Go), or “Peace” to stop a scene.

A note on safewords: I feel that the non-kinky community would do well to adopt them for relationship matters. Imagine having a last-ditch phrase that would indicate to your partner that you’d reached your absolute limit on him speaking *that way* about your mother.

SIDEBAR: SM is not Abuse

It happens often; I’m in a bar, or at a house party, and someone will know what I am, somehow. Some folks are just honestly wondering, I suppose. Perhaps some are threatened by the freak in me. But they come to me, and ask me earnest or hostile questions about my favorite hobby. Suddenly I’m in the awkward position of being the un-elected spokesperson for every kinky person on the planet.

“Isn’t it sick, to cause pain to someone you love? Don’t you feel terrible in the morning? Isn’t it all about degradation and dehumanization? Aren’t you all just abusive, really?”

Now our government is asking the same questions. And making up its own mind. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision on the Little Sister’s case, where depictions of BDSM have been termed degrading *by their very nature*, the doors have been left open for another Moral Moronity jihad on the self-expression of perverts just like me.
Fisting! Spanking! Bondage!
There. I said it. There they are in print, these words that might soon be illegal to write about, or to gather in friendly groups and do, in Canada.

SM is *not* Abuse: I invite you, in the following paragraphs–which owe much to the fine work of Jay Wiseman, and the Lesbian Sex Mafia in NYC–to compare and contrast these two widely divergent sets of behaviors.

SM is done for positive reasons: personal growth and erotic pleasure. It requires the knowledgeable consent of each player, and is often carefully negotiated beforehand. In SM, the situation is controlled. SM play stops immediately when someone uses a safeword, in any scene, at any time, for any reason–physical or emotional. SM players do not make an assumption of the right to control another’s behavior. Players follow guidelines for safe, responsible, positive play, and to act out each player’s desires. After play, both parties feel fulfilled. Good SM play brings players closer together, and is often initiated or requested by the bottom. It is done with the support and knowledge of friends and community.

In direct contrast, *abuse* temporarily satisfies one person’s need to control or hurt. With no rules or agreed limit, abuse is an uncontrolled act, with out-of-control emotions. A victim of abuse has no rights within the relationship, has no control over when abuse ends, and feels used and hurt afterward. The abuser decides what will happen, and does not respond to the needs, desires or limits of the person they abuse. Abusers mistakenly assume their right to control another by virtue of gender, income, or other similar artificial scale.