What the Heck Do I think About All This Then?
Someone asked me what kind of over all advice i have to give people about BDSM. After a lot of thought, i've realized the answer is. "You are going to screw up. Try to minimize the damage and learn from it."
I do not intend to sound pessimistic or overly cautious. Everyone makes mistakes in life and everyone fails at things. We are all imperfect people stumbling through life. What I think is important is being honest with yourself and others, and learning from your inevitable mistakes.
When it comes to BDSM, having community helps a great deal. Reading books is an important way to gain information, but they're a essentially the author having a monologue. When you have a kink community (be it in person or online) you can have a dialogue and really get deeper into things. It's one thing for me to make a series of statements about what I think service submission means. It's another thing to engage in the give and take of conversation and explain more clearly what I mean in response to what other people are saying. I may end up changing my mind, or I may end up being more sure in my definitions. Regardless, the process of talking about what I mean, for me, helps to clarify things for me.
Regardless of how many conversations you have, books you've read and classes you attend you are going to fuck up. The fuck up may be minor (giving someone an unintended friction burn or embarrassing them) or it may be major (giving someone a serious wound be it physical or emotional), but it is going to happen.
For me, how you deal with those mistakes is incredibly important. Do you brush them off as unimportant? Do you obsess and agonize over them? Do you blame others? Do you apologize? Do you insist the error didn't really happen? Do you try to fix the harm done? And most importantly, do you learn from what happened?
I hope this doesn't come off as flip or as bumper sticker philosophy. But I do think it's important to realize that no amount of preparation will prevent mistakes from happening. This doesn't mean you shouldn't learn as much as possible. Knowledge and experience can turn what could be a huge problem into a minor slip up. Just be prepared for your mistakes, and be sure to learn what you can from them.
I do not intend to sound pessimistic or overly cautious. Everyone makes mistakes in life and everyone fails at things. We are all imperfect people stumbling through life. What I think is important is being honest with yourself and others, and learning from your inevitable mistakes.
When it comes to BDSM, having community helps a great deal. Reading books is an important way to gain information, but they're a essentially the author having a monologue. When you have a kink community (be it in person or online) you can have a dialogue and really get deeper into things. It's one thing for me to make a series of statements about what I think service submission means. It's another thing to engage in the give and take of conversation and explain more clearly what I mean in response to what other people are saying. I may end up changing my mind, or I may end up being more sure in my definitions. Regardless, the process of talking about what I mean, for me, helps to clarify things for me.
Regardless of how many conversations you have, books you've read and classes you attend you are going to fuck up. The fuck up may be minor (giving someone an unintended friction burn or embarrassing them) or it may be major (giving someone a serious wound be it physical or emotional), but it is going to happen.
For me, how you deal with those mistakes is incredibly important. Do you brush them off as unimportant? Do you obsess and agonize over them? Do you blame others? Do you apologize? Do you insist the error didn't really happen? Do you try to fix the harm done? And most importantly, do you learn from what happened?
I hope this doesn't come off as flip or as bumper sticker philosophy. But I do think it's important to realize that no amount of preparation will prevent mistakes from happening. This doesn't mean you shouldn't learn as much as possible. Knowledge and experience can turn what could be a huge problem into a minor slip up. Just be prepared for your mistakes, and be sure to learn what you can from them.