A couple of comments to my previous post got me thinking about the dynamics of session negotiation. Specifically, what gets treated as opt in and what as opt out. In theory, if you listen to most kinksters, all play has to be consensual and explicitly negotiated ahead of time, so everything should be opt in. The reality can be murkier.
The comments in question – from Servitor and Al about my pet peeve of ‘gotcha questions’ –  were slightly different but both raised the same basic point. I might not like questions designed to trip a submissive up, but that’s a valid thing to do for some scenes. Your kink is not my kink and all that. I absolutely agree with that. It can be a fine style of play if you’re into that dynamic or the roleplay requires it. But it’s also not quite the point I was trying (and probably failing) to make. Gotcha questions are a specific activity or style, and yet often get used without discussion. Which brings me to this posts title. My pet peeve isn’t so much with the approach itself, but that it is something I have to actively opt out of. Shouldn’t the default be opt in? Not so much YKINMKBYKIOK, but that YKINMK – and it’s in my session damn it! – BYKIOK.
I can think of other examples where the default is the reverse of what you might expect. Bondage for example. That’s part of almost every scene I do, yet I don’t think it ever gets negotiated. It’s treated as an intrinsic part of kink that you’d have to explicitly request not to do. Impact play is another. I’ve lost track of the number of times I didn’t mention impact play in session negotiation, yet 10 minutes later somebody was whaling on my ass. I suspect that’s probably because almost all domme’s like it so much! Neither of those activities count as a pet peeve for me, because I also enjoy them, but it might be an issue for someone else.
What exactly gets treated as opt in versus opt out clearly varies from domme to domme. At one extreme, every domme I know treats edge play activities like piercing, cutting or breathplay as opt in. They always get discusssed first. On the other side, along with bondage and impact play, I’ve typically found blindfolds and hoods are opt out. If I don’t call them out as an issue then there’s a good chance they’ll be pulled out at some point and I’ll have to start negotiating mid-scene, which is never my favorite time to do it. In between those two groups there’s a lot of fuzziness. For example, face slapping for some people is a very specific activity to be discussed ahead of time, for others its just an intrinsic part of kink that it’s up to the submissive to opt out of.
I’ve more to add here, but I’ll save that for the next post. In the meantime, I’ll continue my photographic theme of impact play. If this gentleman has a desire to opt out of caning, he probably needs to speak up asap.
This is from the High heels & Fetish tumblr.
Thank you, Paltego. Interesting and wise as ever.
Yah, it very much varies, that. I agree with you about hoods and blindfolds. I cannot understand people who pay to visit a beautiful lady and then get off on not being able to see her, but I suppose they must exist. TKIN etc etc.
My style of play really cannot accommodate too much negotiation, though. The whole point is she’s in charge, so if she keeps checking with me that I’m OK, then it’s not going to work. A little negotiation in session is just about possible, I suppose, if you count ‘pleading’ as negotiation. So: when faced with a blindfold, I beg piteously to be allowed to continue to see her. Sometimes works. But if she decides otherwise, into the darkness I go.
Although I list some hard limits when I first contact a new domme, I also always finish the email with something along the lines of “I want you to be in charge and I love surprises – and this includes accepting that from time to time you’ll do something I didn’t really want and that’s OK.”
That said, the weirdest opting in/opting out choice I ever encountered was first time with a (lovely) domme whose image is – rightly – the classy, aloof English lady. She mostly appears on the Internet in the role of a strict businesslady, all crisp blouse and pencil skirt, you know? Not one posing with her various bits hanging out like a vanilla porn star and that sort of thing. And a strict businesslady scene was what I had requested. All very proper.
So I was a bit surprised when about halfway through, she made me lie down in the bath (and I thought: “ooh – getting scrubbed in cold water, yum”), stood over me (“ooh – powerful and threatening”) and pee-ed on me (“???!!!””). Which was fine… longstanding fantasy and I particularly enjoyed the surprise (see above). Nonetheless, a slightly risky choice for a first session, I’d have thought.
So I should be clear here that I’m talking only about pre-scene discussion in these posts. I generally take the approach that if I have to discuss or negotiate stuff mid-scene, then something has probably gone wrong with the pre-scene discussion. I want the scene itself to be as organic and flow as naturally as possible, but for me that means trying to figure out ahead of time what might temporarily derail it. And in the past for me that’s often been these kind of opt in/out issues, where we’re on slightly different pages about what options are on the table and what aren’t.
The bath scene with the aloof English lady sounds awesome. I have a major kink for the elegant lady of the manor or well dressed business lady, particularly if they have a terribly depraved and sadistic side to them. Something about that juxtaposition of contrasts is so hot. A surprise golden shower is definitely a bit unusual. For every domme I’ve played with, that has always been an opt in activity. I always have to ask for my drenchings. You were just lucky she didn’t pull out needles, a scalpel and an electrified urethral sound. Now that would have had you negotiating pretty hard!
-paltego