Playing Around A Short Introduction to Kink for the Curious Charlie Hale Copyright and Licensing Copyright c Charlie Hale 2013. This version of the book was compiled on January 8, 2014. This book is provided under the CC BY-NC-ND license: You can share it as much as you like, as long as as you don’t modify it or use it for commercial purposes. Further details on the CC BY-NC-ND license can be found here: http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ If you feel like tipping/donating1, you can use my paypal email address ([email protected]) or, if there’s some other way you’d like to throw money at me, send me an email and I’ll try to accommodate it. Charlie Hale Charlie is a blogger and activist for LGBT/QUILTBAG, feminism, BDSM and polyamory issues. They’re a Computer Scientist, pervert and all-round nerd. Email [email protected] Primary Blog Feminist Halestorm: http://www.charliehale.net Tumblr Feminist Halestorm Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.charliehale.net Twitter @C Halestorm: http://www.twitter.com/C_Halestorm Credit Xandra George The main editor for this book. Thank you for nagging me to write, editing, and providing encouragement and cuddles. Max Watson Thanks to Max Watson for being an incredibly pedantic editor. 1Someone, on being shown a draft, declared “let me give you money!” and I was very confused. 2 Contents 1 Introduction to Kink and BDSM 5 1.1 BDSM? ................................................ 5 1.2 Jargon ................................................. 6 1.3 So - What Are You Into? ...................................... 7 1.4 Dominants and submissives, Tops and Bottoms, Switches and More. ............. 7 1.5 Bedroom Play and the BDSM Scene ................................ 8 2 Doing It Right! 9 2.1 Consent and Communication .................................... 9 2.1.1 Consent ............................................ 9 2.1.2 Communication ........................................ 10 2.1.3 Negotiation .......................................... 10 2.2 Safety ................................................. 10 2.2.1 Learn about your toys .................................... 10 2.2.2 Safety equipment ....................................... 10 2.2.3 Plan for the worst ...................................... 11 2.2.4 Safewords & safesigns .................................... 11 2.2.5 Safer sex ........................................... 11 2.2.6 Playing while drunk or under the influence of drugs ................... 12 2.3 Pain: Hurt and Harm ........................................ 12 2.4 Types of Pain ............................................. 12 2.5 Aftercare ............................................... 13 2.6 Your Kink Is Not My Kink ..................................... 13 3 Ideas and Activities 14 3.1 Bondage and Restraints ....................................... 14 3.1.1 Basic bondage safety ..................................... 14 3.1.2 Cuffs .............................................. 15 3.1.3 Rope .............................................. 15 3.1.4 . and after they’re restrained? ............................... 15 3.2 Roleplay ................................................ 15 3.2.1 Roleplay basics ........................................ 15 3.2.2 Ideas .............................................. 16 3.2.3 Costumes and props ..................................... 16 3.3 Painful Things! ............................................ 16 3.3.1 Impact play basics & safety ................................. 16 3.3.2 Spanking ........................................... 17 3.3.3 Paddling ............................................ 17 3.3.4 Flogging ............................................ 18 3.3.5 Caning ............................................ 18 3 3.3.6 Pegs and clamps ....................................... 19 3.4 Less (or differently) Painful Things ................................. 19 3.4.1 Sensation play basics & safety ................................ 19 3.4.2 Temperature play ...................................... 19 3.4.3 Being nice and fluffy ..................................... 20 3.4.4 Pinwheels ........................................... 20 4 Further resources 21 4.1 Books ................................................. 21 4.1.1 General reading ........................................ 21 4.1.2 Rope bondage ........................................ 21 4.2 Blogs and websites .......................................... 22 4.3 Shops ................................................. 22 4 Chapter 1 Introduction to Kink and BDSM You would expect that the success of Fifty Shades of Grey and the springing up of a thousand different copycats would be considered a good thing by kinksters. After all, it means that BDSM is more socially acceptable and that more people than ever will be discovering their interests in kink. Not so much, however: the general consensus of people in the BDSM community is that Fifty Shades of Grey portrays BDSM badly and - more importantly - exposes people who may be interested in experimenting to unhealthy and dangerous ideas about how to go about it. That is what this book is about. If you are reading this, you probably have some sort of interest in experimenting with kink - perhaps you yourself have read Fifty Shades of Grey or similar and found yourself intrigued, or perhaps you’ve caught yourself fantasising. Whatever the case, this book will serve as an introduction in how to - and how not to - get into kink. Misportrayals of kink are depressingly common and I recommend you try and put any information or ideas you have about kink from mainstream sources out of your mind. This book isn’t for experienced BDSM practitioners - I do oversimplify and skim over things in places, so please don’t come and burn my house down! On the other hand, if you wish to comment on or correct something (or, indeed, tell me how wonderful it was) you can find my contact details at the start of this book. This book comes in five main parts. This is the introduction which goes over basic concepts and def- initions. Chapter 2 is all about doing it right - that is, safely and consensually. Chapter 3 talks about some things you might want to try out some time. Chapter 4 is a list of other resources that you can find information in. Disclaimer: While I’m trying to provide information about how to experiment with BDSM safely and consensually, the author accepts no liability for any fuck ups. 1.1 BDSM? While BDSM technically stands for Bondage and Discipline, Domination and Submission, Sadism and Masochism, it actually encompasses a huge number of activities that are “kinky” - you probably have some ideas about what this entails: whips, chains, cages, rope, spanking, leather, PVC, etc. A range of. unusual activities which consenting people participate in for mutual enjoyment. You may get bored of me saying this throughout this book (especially in section 2.1), but it’s absolutely essential: if all parties are not consenting to what is going on, it is not BDSM; it is unethical, abusive, and illegal. Before we go into more specifics, let’s look further at what “BDSM” actually means - the acronym is a funny one - it consists of three different acronyms in one: B&D - Bondage and discipline. Bondage - Enjoyment of restraining and/or being restrained. This can be done in a number of ways: handcuffs, leather straps and cuffs, rope, bondage tape, chain and so on. 5 Discipline - A mental and psychological aspect of BDSM. Refers to enjoyment of giving and following orders. D/s - Domination and submission - Enjoyment derived from consensual exchange of power between partners. Typically, one partner takes the submissive role; and the other, the dominant role (see section 1.4) - this can be for a short period of time for a scene or over a longer period of time in a more permanent arrangement.1 S&M - Sadism, masochism or sadomasochism. Sadism - Enjoyment from giving2 pain to a consenting partner. Masochism - Enjoyment from receiving pain. Note that this (usually) doesn’t refer to enjoying everything painful: for instance, it is the very odd masochist who enjoys stubbing their toe. Some people think of this as “feeling pain as pleasure” - which is not necessarily true3; most masochists still feel pain as pain but nonetheless enjoy it in kink scenarios. This is discussed further in part section 2.3. 1.2 Jargon Over the course of this book, you’ll probably run into a lot of new terms - or terms used in different ways than you’d hear in vanilla-land4. Here are some of the basic terms: Vanilla - A non-kinky person. Example: “Make sure you dress in street clothes, don’t frighten the vanilla people.” Kinkster - A kinky person. Example: “I’m meeting up with a couple of kinksters this weekend.” Play An kinky activity. Often “play” is appended to a word to talk about a specific activity: as in “waxplay”, “knifeplay”, “petplay”, etc. Examples: “Oh yeah, Bob and I have played together” and “I’m interested in doing some fireplay.” A scene - A session of BDSM play. Example: “That was a really great scene!” The scene - Confusingly, “scene” can also refer to the BDSM community. (See section 1.5.) Example: “I’ve met some great people since I’ve been on the scene.” Toys - Anything you might use in BDSM play/sex. Such as: floggers, vibrators, canes, rope or even a pair of £3 handcuffs from Amazon.5 Example: “Come over tomorrow, bring your toys.” Limits - Something that a person won’t do. Sometimes seperated into “soft limits” (things someone won’t do most of the time) and “hard limits” (things that a person will not do