My random thought of the day: Intensity of play is entirely situational. It depends on the chemistry you feel in the moment, your emotional state beforehand, the stress in your daily life and countless other factors. It’s fine to ask for a lighter scene or to bail out of an intense scene. It’s fine to play hard with one person but lightly with another. It’s fine to change limits from scene to scene.
I used to think of kink as a one way street. If I achieved a certain level of intensity with a domme, I couldn’t pull back from there. And if I did some activity with one domme, then obviously I should be able to do that with all dommes. It was a bit like a videogame where I was unlocking achievements. Once you’ve got the heavy whipping badge, then obviously heavy whipping should always be a possibility in all future scenes.
These days I’m older and wiser. There is no grand council of dommes collecting scene reports and making sure nobody ever backslides on their level of play. I’d much rather evolve my play slowly and organically with a new domme than immediately race towards my limits as fast as possible. And if I’m feeling stressed or not in a good masochistic headspace, I’m also now fine asking for a lighter scene that I can relax into. It turns out that you don’t get into trouble for not always playing on the edge of what’s possible.
Talking of intensity – here’s a pretty heavy caning scene. Not sure where this originates from sadly.