Most of my posts tend to the positive and upbeat. This one might be a bit more of a rant. Let’s put a nicer spin on it, and call it constructive feedback. It’s aimed squarely at dominants and centers on something that has happened to me too many times to be a coincidence.
Here’s my rant feedback: When you’re playing with someone fairly new, and that person has outlined a few limits (hard or soft) to stay away from, then stay the hell away from those limits. Don’t try and figure out exactly where the line is drawn. Don’t try and determine exactly what about the activity makes it a limit. Don’t toy with anything vaguely related. Just avoid, avoid, avoid.
I’m not a submissive with a lot of limits. When I look at a typical list of play activities, it’s quicker for me to list what I will not do rather than what I will. I’ve a soft limit with hoods and claustrophobia, I’ve a hard limit on humiliation, and I’ve a slightly screwed up lower back that makes extreme bondage positions tricky. That’s about it. Not a lot to remember. Yet multiple times in the last couple of years I’ve played with new dommes who, having been given this list, proceeded to flirt with activities that ran awfully close to these problem areas.
The last time it happened was a couple of months ago. It was my first time I’d played with this particular dominant. Not fifteen minutes into the session, and after my standard limits discussion, she pulled out a hood and asked if it’d be OK because it had both mouth and eye holes. Suddenly I’m thrown out of my happy subby mindset and into evaluation mode. How scary does it look? Can I handle it? Is it an integral part of the scene she wants to try? It would have been fine to show the hood pre-scene to get my opinion, but why bother suggesting it after we started to play? I ended up refusing and it made absolutely no difference to how the scene unfolded.
A similar thing happened towards the end of last year. It was again someone fairly new to me and, after mentioning my screwy back, she proceeded to try for a really awkward bondage position. She had me on my back on the floor, knees pulled up towards my shoulders and my arms pulled down towards where my feet would normally be. After pointing out that this wasn’t a great position for me she gave up on the plan, but it seemed so unnecessary to attempt it at all. Maybe we could have got it to work given time, but I estimate there are around three million and seven safe positions to tie me into, so why try for the tricky number three million and eight?
None of the examples (and I have multiple others) felt like deliberate attempts to break a boundary. It just seemed the limits discussion planted ideas, and that saying “Heavy X is a limit” somehow translated into “… but let’s do light X!”. This seems perverse to me, and not in the good way. Assessing intensity or risk is very hard with someone you don’t know. Much better to stay as far away as possible from potential minefields. Just because someone has handed you a map, doesn’t mean you need to go up to the minefield boundary and start jumping up and down. There’s no shortage of other interesting places to explore.
This artwork by Shohei Yamashiro manages to capture both hoods and an awkward position to bend a slave into. Now if you can just imagine she’s calling him a worthless fool, it’ll have nailed 3 of my personal limits.
A really interesting point, which might have a basis in psychology (or it might not, but I offer it for what it’s worth). There is research that demonstrates how our propensity to think of things varies with our exposure to them. The training course staple demonstration of this is ” don’t think of a pink elephant”, and of course, after having it mentioned, the whole room can think of nothing but pink elephants. Like the conveyor belt on “The Generation Game” everyone can remember the last thing said to them. My point is, that maybe it’s the mention of the limits that puts the idea into the Domme’s mind I the first place. The context (that they are limits) is less memorable than the activity. As an experiment, you could try discussing limits, followed by the discussing the things you love, thereby placing the things you like at the top of the dominant’s thinking? Just an idea, offered for what it’s worth. Thanks for all the hard work you do on the site, even the rants, I love it.
Thanks for your comment. As you’ll see from my latest post I took a big chunk of it and re-purposed it, even down to the post title :). And mentioning the generation game made me smile. I used to watch that with my family back in the 80’s, but it had completely slipped my mind!
Glad you like the blog. Always happy to hear that from a reader.
-paltego
paltego, this is a great rant, and it is, indeed, also great FEEDBACK.
A few things spring immediately to mind (and sorry, this is going to be discursive):
–One thing that I tell new prodommes at my studio is, during consultation/interview, SHUT UP AND LISTEN.
–Prodommes don’t get to do EVERYTHING she wants to do just cause she’s the Top (neither do dommes in personal, non-business relationships with subs). Ignoring a submissive client’s boundaries is totally unprofessional (not to mention being RAPEY, but I’ll get to that). As a prodomme, when I’m with a sub, I want to take control and do as I please…but I also want him to have the experience he wants to have. Sometimes I’m strictly a Service Top and it’s “drive-thru” domination. Sometimes it’s more personal, and the sub wants to get a feel for my authentic expression of domination–how I would treat him if he was my personal slave, if my household.
In either case, it’s not acceptable to ignore or “test” a subs limits. I mean, heck, if I go to the dentist and say that I don’t want laughing gas on the form, and she gives me laughing gas,, is that okay? Of course not!
–Ignoring or “Pushing” client boundaries is, in almost all circumstances, incompetent at best and Rape-ey at worst. I have talked to men who had their boundaries EGREGIOUSLY crossed by their pro-dommes. I rant on my blog all the time about boundaries-pushing clients and scary clients, but clients can have awful experiences too, and it’s not right or fair! I wrote about one here:
http://piecesofmargo.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-worst-session-ever.html
Thanks, love the blog
Miss Margo
Thanks Margo. I remember your post on the bad session well. A great example of someone not empathizing and not understanding what was desired. It’s not how I play (too prescriptive a scene) but I definitely felt for the guy in that situation. I’m lucky to play frequently enough that I can chalk a bad scene or a bad domme up to experience, but it must really suck to save up for a special event when personal circumstances allow and have it go bad. Glad you could rescue as much of the scene as possible for him.
-paltego
Oh, I can very, very well imagine her calling him a useless fool….mmmm.
I love bondage positions, hoods and humiliation. The more humiliating the beter.
I hate nipple clamps, anal penetration… almost any form of pain really. And I do completely agree with you about how annoying it is when someone just tries to test the limits. It’s particularly difficult, if you’re into humiliation and submission, because you can’t argue without breaking the scene. But sometimes I just want to say “Look, love, you’re very beautiful and sexy, and I’m your abject slave and I’ll obey you in anything, but I really meant it about the nipple clamps, OK?”
I think you and I have complementary hard limits, Paltego. Perhaps we should go shares on a session some time. We could tell her to do whatever she likes, and just swap around depending on the activity.
I have a slightly easier job saying ‘errr no…that isn’t working for me’ as I skew more to the masochism and away from the humiliation and subjugation. But I’m still typically in a submissive mindset in a scene, and it’s a wrench sometimes to change gears and get into negotiation mode.
As for a tag team session and telling the dominant to do whatever she likes, I suspect that would mean her going to drink a glass of wine and read a book or magazine on a comfy sofa somewhere. That being ignored vibe might work for you, but I suspect I’d get antsy 🙂
-paltego
I agree! Well done!
~ Vista
Thanks Vista. Glad you’re in agreement on this topic!
-paltego
I couldn’t agree more with that, however, you will always get clients who think the session was not a good one if the domme didn’t push limits straight away, those guys will then bitch their little heads off about how she’s not a real domme and far too soft, blah blah…
Makes me want to smack them in a very unkinky way, a hard limit is a freaking hard limit, it’s a limit for a reason and until you know somebody, it’s a no go.
I once had a rant about clients who couldn’t tell you what they want
http://exdomme.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/what-do-you-really-want.html
But trust me, there were also clients who gave you hard limits and yes, freaking respect limits as I’d get annoyed if somebody wouldn’t respect mine, they gave you their limits and THEN complained that you respected them and didn’t push them.
It’s like somebody saying “no marks” then you DO NOT leave marks, because I’d always assume that there is a good reason for it.
I don’t think it’s too unfair to say that on both ends of the whip can be people who are a few planks short of a full tree house!
If a guy wants to get a hard limit pushed, he should find a bloody mind reader
There’s definitely a place for pushing limits. I’ve done it myself in the past. It comes after I’ve said something like “I’d like to try pushing one of my limits in this session, but we’ll have to tread carefully…” 🙂
As you say, defining a limit and then expecting a domme to read minds and magically know which ones to push and which ones to avoid is deeply stupid. In much the same way as the “Do whatever you want” guys are stupid for saying that and then complaining when what you want mysteriously doesn’t align with their very specific fantasy. Communication is key. As is honesty about what you’re actually looking for. Not to mention a full collection of planks for your tree house 🙂
-paltego