Do you use toys?
Yes, definitely!
What is your favourite toy, and why?
My favorite toy of choice is rope. I can do anything with rope
that anyone else can do with leather or chain. Rope can be adapted
to any shape, size, or form. It never needs rivets, staples,
glue, grommets, fasteners, bolts, locks, keys, belts, buckles,
or anything else to make it complete. Rope comes in so many different
sizes, colors, and strengths. It is probably the least expensive
of all toys while at the same time being the most versatile.
With 25 feet of rope I can tie a crotch rope, a breast harness,
a hog tie, or a ball tie, or an arm or leg binder. I can tie
my submissive to a tree or her bed, a chair or in the back seat
of my car. Rope can be used as a gag or blindfold or both at
the same time. Rope can secure hands, arms, legs, and ankles.
Rope does not set off alarms in airport metal detectors. It can
be packed in a backpack, overnight bag, purse, jacket pocket,
briefcase, laptop case, and many other places. Rope can be purchased
anywhere you go with no questions asked. If you walk out of a
hardware store with 100 feet of rope, no one turns an eye. Try
walking out of an adult bookstore and bumping into one of your
vanilla friends and see what kind of reaction you get! No one
ever questions you when you show up for a camping trip with lots
of rope. Aside from the everyday uses for rope, I love to tie
my submissive, Victoria, with rope every chance I get. One of
my favorite things to hear her say is “More please Sir,
tighter please Sir” and “Oh look, more rope”.
You get the general idea. I found my first piece of rope when
I was about 6yrs old. I haven’t been without rope since.
I also like nipple clamps, gags, leather cuffs, and a good flogger,
but I never go to a play party or visit Victoria without rope.
Do you believe in safe words and limits?
Yes, especially when playing with some one new to the scene. I
also put a lot of stock in checklists and safe calls. A safe
words means there is always an avenue of communication for both
the Top and the bottom. I believe that Tops should have safe
words just as much as a bottom. I have seen situations where
the bottom wanted more and the Top was exhausted from flogging.
In such a case the Top needs to be able to safe word, even if
it’s “my arm is falling off and I can’t swing
this flogger any more”. It is also very important to be
able to read a bottoms body language. The mind may be saying “more
please” but the body may be saying “enough” or
visa versa.
What are your personal limits?
I do not do any one under the legal age for their state, or 18
which ever comes first. I do not do children, scat, blood, golden
showers, or animals.
What do you get the most pleasure from in a session?
There are two areas that I get the most pleasure. The first is
getting inside Victoria’s head and taking her to the places
she needs to go or leading her to the place I want her to go.
When we are on the same page in our play and I am reading her
body and her mind, everything else connects effortlessly. There
are times when she needs to go to her very limit, she needs me
to break her and make her cry. There are other times when all
she needs is to be touched. Victoria is a touch slut and has
very sensitive skin, so with a light touch she has what I call
skin orgasms. I can find little spots on her skin that causes
her to spasm.
The second area where I get the most pleasure is aftercare. I
live for the aftercare. That is when Victoria curls up in my arms
and completely turns herself over to me knowing I will not let
any harm come to her. It is the time when Victoria is the most
vulnerable, the time when she needs to trust me the most, and the
time when I prove to her that her gift of submission to me is well
placed. Nothing spoils a session more than poor aftercare. I have
seen too many cases when Tops and submissives play, only to have
the Top walk away afterwards leaving the submissive in space not
knowing how to safely return. The trip up to Top space and sub
space is a wonderful one, but the return trip back down is just
as good if not better.
Are rituals part of your relationship?
If so, can you tell us about some of them? Yes. Victoria and I
have a couple of rituals. When she serves my coffee she presents
the cup with the handle to my right, one cream and two sugars,
and says “Sir, here is your coffee, I hope you enjoy it as
much as I enjoyed preparing it for you”. She kisses on the
cup handle and hands it to me. I kiss her in return and thank her.
There is always a twinkle in her eye that comes from her submissive
soul. When she serves my meals, she says the same thing. When we
are out I have her prepare my coffee for me. Sometimes she may
repeat the phrase and kiss the cup depending on the people we are
with. In the evening when we are chatting on the computer, before
we sign off she types the phrase “Thank you for being my
Sir” and I reply with “Thank you for being Victoria”.
I have her sleep in soft lined leather cuffs connected by 18 inches
of chain. When she moves at night she hears the chain and knows
that her Sir wants her sleeping that way. She generally sleeps
peacefully.
What is the biggest benefit for you being a dominant?
Allowing my inner Dominant to come out has let me knock down most
of the walls society has put around us as we grow up. Too often
we have to grow up and fit into pigeonholes that society wants
us to fit into so nicely. That way everything has it place and
all is good. I say “bunk”! We are not all cut from
the same fabric and we don’t come from the same mold, how
could we possibly all hope to fit into the same mold? When I
finally found out about the BDSM lifestyle, and gave myself permission
to explore and find out why I had these inner feelings it was
as if another world had just opened its doors wide. It is very
important to give yourself permission. If we go through our lives
living like good little boys and girls we will never find out
who we really are.
To what degree is your relationship BDSM OR D/s (or both)? All
the time, part of the time, weekends only, etc. Please elaborate.
My relationship with my submissive is all of the above. We live
in different cities, separated by about 30 miles, but we do get
to see each other at Triskeli Guild meetings, selected weekends
during the month and other times when we can. I suppose this falls
under the long distance type of relationship but the distance isn’t
so great that I can’t drive there in under an hour. We communicate
a lot by phone, computer, and email so when we do get together
establishing roles is very important. She needs to submit but during
the week she has to be the single woman in charge of her own life.
Therefore, it is important for us to reestablish roles.
Sometimes
I have to use different means to pull her out of her 8-5 routine
in order to help her get into her submissive headspace. If allowed,
she would tell me everything that happened at work that day. Sometimes
it is important to let her decompress after a bad day at work.
Other times it is important to give her tasks to do on her commute
home such as stop at the store and pick up food for Sir’s
breakfast and dinner the following day. There are times when it
is best to take her by the hair, drag her to her knees, and put
her in her submissive space within two steps inside the front door.
When I do these things it helps me as well. Establishing my dominance
over her and her submission to me helps us both reach the space
we need. Through the week she refers to me as her Sir, but it isn’t
until we are together and I establish my dominance over her and
she gives me her gift of submission that our relationship takes
on its full meaning.
How important is it that dominants have some sort of personal experience
or perspective of what they ask of their submissive to endure/perform?
I think is it very important that a dominant has first hand experience/perspective
of what he is requiring of a submissive. I have been a rope slut
for years and as such I have practiced self-bondage behind closed
doors as a young boy and an adult male for as long as I can remember.
I attended my first play party in 1999. I walked into the play
area with my little bag of rope thinking, “ Am I going to
show these people some stuff”! It took all of about 10 seconds
for me to realize that I was in way over my head and had no clue
as to what I was doing. Sure, I could tie myself up, but these
people were for real. The first thing I saw was a submissive being
flogged while she hung from a spreader bar by her wrist. I spent
the next three days sitting, watching, observing, talking, and
asking questions. I never did take my ropes out of the bag, and
I never did play. I did meet a submissive that was later to become
my submissive for a time. A dominant needs to know what it feels
like to be on the receiving end of a flogger, or bond in rope,
or on his knees kissing the feet of a female, or performing any
other service he is going to ask his own submissive to do. I need
to know the personal depth of submission that can be reached, not
only for myself but for my submissive as well. If you haven’t
made the trip yourself, how can you consider yourself a guild unless
you have already found the pitfalls and unexpected turns in the
road?
What is your definition of the power
exchange between dom and sub?
A submissive is some one that has a gift to give a special person
they will call their dominant or in Victoria’s case Sir.
Thanks to the Internet, too many people coming into the real life
world of BDSM thing submissive means door mat. In my mind those
people are looking for easy sex. A submissive has a gift of submission
that has to be given to some one that can be trusted to take care
of that gift while at the same time allowing that submissive to
go places they have only dreamed of. The gift of submission can
only be given. Submission must be accepted and never taken. Once
the relationship has been established, the dominant and the submissive
can both reach places they never knew existed within themselves.
When a submissive turns over her gift of submission and her power
to her dominant it is very important for that dominant to have
some idea of where their journey together will start out. You may
not end up at your expected destination, but you should have some
idea of where you started to go. The power exchange and the journey
together is one of the best parts of the BDSM lifestyle. Sometimes
you know where you want to go, but you are never sure what you
will run into on the way. Other times your journey together will
take you places you had never intended to go. It’s all good!
Do you believe a D/s relationship should be symbiotic, or is it
all about your needs?
A D/s relationship has to be symbiotic if it is to survive. If
it is all about the Dominant’s needs then he needs a slave
not a submissive. The submissive has a need to serve while at the
same time getting her needs meet. Her reward is being able to serve
and having her service recognized as that, service not servitude.
What are your personal views on the dynamics of D/s? How important
is negotiation for you?
Without negotiations before hand the relationship is doomed. Dominants
are not mind readers, and submissive are not windows. If a submissive
goes into a relationship expecting a Dominant to solve all her
problems and meet all her needs without first letting him know
what she expects she is setting up a situation for failure before
it ever gets started. If she expects him to read her mind and play
a certain way, or tie a certain harness, or do a certain scene,
she is going to be disappointed. If you want it to happen you have
to speak up. Never assume that a play partner and especially a
Dominant knows what you want unless you tell him is specific terms
before hand. The end results will be much more satisfying even
if you are embarrassed to talk about it or ask for it.
How did you enter the BDSM world? What personal experience(s)
led you to the BDSM lifestyle?
I have been married to my first wife for 33 years. We are in a
poly relationship with another man. He is her S.O. and lives with
us our home. He and I get along very well and are both in love
with my wife. We work on the house, cars, and projects around the
house together. We share other duties around the house in order
to keep the place running. About three years ago my wife walked
into the room and said “Lets talk, I have a question for
you”. She asked if I knew anything about polyamory and stated
that she wanted to try a poly relationship with a man she had been
chatting with for 3 or 4 years. This was coming from a woman that
had never been with another man but me. We had agreed that what
each of us did on the computer was our own business and that neither
of us would snoop on the others computer. It was about this same
time that I found MIRC and BDSM chat rooms. I had discovered that
I was not alone in the world and there were other people out there
that liked the same things I did. I was no longer alone! The short
version of this is that I agreed to try poly, and she agreed that
I could go out into the real world and meet people at munches and
other play spaces to find out what this was inside that made me
tick the way I did. Why did I like to be tied up? Why did I like
to tie others up and dominate them? I found the Triskeli Guild
and Victoria, not in that order, and the rest is history.
What do you feel sets you and your practice/pursuit of the BDSM
lifestyle apart from others?
My lifestyle is a combination of poly on the one hand and BDSM
on the other. My wife and her s.o. know about my involvement in
the BDSM lifestyle, In The Woods, the Triskeli Guild, and my submissive,
Victoria. Each is separate from the other, but both affect the
other. For reasons of her own, my wife wants nothing to do with
the BDSM lifestyle and I honor and respect that. At the same time,
she has come to understand my need to be involved in this lifestyle.
I have to expand my horizons and learn how to manage more than
just one relationship at a time. Prior to our poly and bdsm relationships,
we only had to manage our marriage. Now our horizons are broader,
our vision has to be more open, and we must communicate better
all the time. This means that I have to be more open in more facets
than I have ever been, which in turn has change my opinion on a
lot of things. It also means I can be a better Sir to Victoria
and a better husband to my wife.
How would you approach (WOULD you approach...) or deal with a
vanilla acquaintance that was curious about BDSM and What It Is
That We Do?
A few years ago a very dear friend of mine, and a former President
of the Triskeli Guild, along with her submissive, and others in
Canada produced a video called BDSM Alternative Loving (www.bdsm-alternativeloving.com).
The video is one hour and forty-seven minutes long. I would invite
them to watch the video and then ask questions. If they were serious,
more so than curious, I would try to answer their question based
on my experience and accumulated knowledge. I do not have all the
answers, and I never want to reach a point were I think I know
all the answers because that is the point where we quite learning
and start making mistakes. All of us have gone to the adult toy
store and purchased a pair fur lined handcuffs. The minute you
put them on your lover or submissive, you have crossed the line
into my world. Welcome to my world!
Do you think long term couples should continue to adhere to limits
and safewords or should they work to eliminate them?
Yes, I think every couple should adhere to limits and safe words.
Being together long term means you know each other very well, but
what happens when one day you cross an unknown line with your partner
and you have no safe word? Even though you aren’t using safe
words, I think you should have an emergency safe word, kind of
like the parking brake on your car. You may not use it, but it
sure is good to know its there and working properly when you do
need it.
How important is sceening within the parameters of your relationship?
Staying within the parameters of my relationship with Victoria
is very important. There are times when she will tell me that
she wants to cry, or needs to be pushed, other times she needs
and wants me to take over. Having a checklist early on is a good
idea. After you have been together for a period of time it’s
a good idea to revisit that list again.
What do you feel is the single, most important thing for any
new dominant to learn (or observe, explore, share) when entering
into this lifestyle? Can you give us an example of one of your
first learning experiences?
The best advice I could offer
would be not try to bring to a real BDSM relationship what you
bring to a cyber relationship. Submissive
does not mean, “door mat” and Dominant does not always
mean you are right. Cyber relationships always seem to work out.
We are all 10’s, we are all flexible, we can all tie the
perfect knot, and we are all perfect lovers. Leave your on line
stuff where you found it and start fresh with real people. Real
people are not perfect. We have wrinkles, bad backs, sore joints,
gray hair, and health problems. We snore, are over weight, have
scars, wear glasses, and may be limp. Women that have had babies
don’t always have the same bodies they did before the babies
and men are not always hung like they say they are. Contrary to
popular belief, all women are not multi-orgasmic and not all men
can make love like a jackhammer. Find yourself a good club like
the Triskeli Guild in Bellingham, the WetSpot in Seattle, or Rascals
in Canada and let them know you are a newbie. Don’t try and
come off like you have been in the lifestyle for years, they will
spot you a mile away. Newbies have all the best advantages. People
with experience want to share, they are willing to pass on their
knowledge, and they are willing to teach. Act like a sponge and
soak it all up! |
