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How To Give A Bare Handed Spanking

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One of the biggest barriers for new femdoms (and women who are giving this a try) is that the topping side of dominating people can seem hellaciously intimidating. What if you get it wrong, will the bottom be seriously hurt? Will he laugh at you and take away his submission? I blame existing dominants, who often base their authority on how well they hit and tie. In some cases, of course, kink skill takes time and practice. Bullwhips and needle play require more prep and know how, as well as specialized equipment. But spanking is something anyone can do and carry very little risk, particularly a bare handed spanking with an open palm.


Delecious bare handed spanking pic from juliensubWhy spanking and how does it work?

A human butt is one of the more resilient, padded parts of the body. Cushioned and bouncy, it offers a wide surface area for striking while keeping all the important biological bits tucked deep out of the way. As well as a safe target, many people associate spanking with being in a demeaned, vulnerable of juvenile position. Although people in the 18 to 35 generation may never have personally experienced a beating in the hands of a parent, the idea of being bent over and smacked is deeply embedded in popular culture, as a minor form of violence expressing the authority of the spanker. Besides, we sexualize butts, and spanking is touching butts.

For kink purposes, there’s two kinds of spankings, a fun spanking that works with the “victim’s” natural tolerances and a mean spanking that seeks to exceed them (in a safe fashion of course!). In this case, don’t confuse tolerances for limits. Limits are how the bottom protects you from being arrested, while tolerance is how the spanking effects them in relation to how they experience pain. So how do you make sure everything’s hunky dory?

Establishing informed consent and tolerances.

If you’re a newbie dom, maybe your bottom has also never had spanking before. Or, maybe if he’s new to you, you’re not sure he understands what you are capable of dishing out. I’ve already established that I’m a big fan of consent. Don’t hit people unless they say it’s okay, and understand the ramifications of what they agreed to. That established, what if the person doesn’t know what their finite limits are yet? Nobody wants to initiate a grandiose walloping and have the bottom start screaming “Pumpkin! Pumpkin! I don’t consent!”. Have a conversation about limits and kick any new partner who tells you they have none out of bed.

But what if they’re gung-ho about it, but this is virgin territory? This is the main stumbling block for many kinksters. Most people come into this with a bunch of sexy ideas, some of which are going to turn out to be perverted brilliance, but many of which will be improbable, impractical or nowhere as hot as they seemed in real life. On that line, launching a full scale assault on their ass may sour a spanking victim- if this is primarily your idea you want to be able to ease the bottom into it.

I’m a big fan of using the pain scale numbers system, because you can’t get simpler than that. During your first spanking session, task the receiver to rate your hits on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “did you touch me?” and 10 being “sweet mother fucking christ auugh I’m dying.” For a bare handed spanking, many people can’t even get past 7. Regardless, start with your lightest possible hit and work to establish your mid-range. You will probably discover one other fun fact: people’s pain tolerances shoot way up when they are aroused. Thus his tolerance is going to be a bit wibbly. With warm up, you may exhaust yourself long before he’s ready to call it quits.

Following so far? Let’s keep going…

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Hosting a Munch: The Kink Scene Guide to Building Community

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I’m not an expert (hey, it’s my tag line!) but I’ve learned a few things in hosting Montreal’s 18-35 Munch and attending some.

Venue:

It’s better to hold it in a public place than a private home, and bars or open spaces are better than restaurants. The ideal space encourages mingling so you’re not stuck talking to the same people. Ideally even couches are better than tables. You want people to be able to move in and out of groups comfortably, to escape people they don’t want to talk to but also so they don’t shut everyone else.

Bars often have a group space you can reserve. Sometimes this is a back room or a balcony.  There is often no charge because your event brings a lot of a patrons who will turn around and buy a drink or two.

If you’re not into bars, or you have people under the local drinking age, the next place to look is your local sexual health centre and similar open minded community centre places.

Naming & Advertising

Naming your munch something innocuous may sound cheesy, but it makes it easier than making newbies have to ask “Is this the PERVERTS CLUB!?”

Post ads for your munch on places like fetlife. In the ad, clearly set out the address of the place, what people should wear or bring, and some guidelines for what’s involved. A friendly reminder to buy a drink, even a Shirley Temple, cannot go amiss.

A sample ad:

It’s that time of  again! Come down to [Venue] for our 14th [City Name] Monthly Meet and Greet. Please bring your smiles and a willingness to have a good time to the reserved room at the back. Can’t find us? Ask the bar tender for the [Quirky Abbreviation].

[Start & Finish Time]

[Venue website & address]

Dress Code: Plain clothes (collars okay!)

Cost: Please tip the waiter!

The sooner you can post your munch the sooner people can fit it into their schedules. I run the event on Thursday and encourage it to be more of a drop-in-after-work thing, but you should pick a day that feels right for you.

Keep in mind most people who RVSP will flake, so don’t feel if it is a failure if only half the group shows up.

Hosting:

Have a contact email or PM system where you can be reached. Fetlife’s ‘events’ let people list themselves as coming or thinking of coming. There’s also things like meetup.com or your country’s fetish websites. At the actual event try to arrive early. Silly hats or bright shirts help people pick you out -so you can use that to help people find you. Ideally multiple hosts with different genders are good. It spreads the work out and helps people feel they can communicate.

It’s a good idea to play an active hosting role, which means to watch for new people and greet them as they come in. Offer to introduce them. If people seem to being wallflowers, wander over and say hi. Some people need a while to warm up: different people have different levels of social comfort so the shy person may just need five minutes to warm up.

Be promotional to other people’s efforts unless their idea is truly stupid or harmful. For example if someone else does a play party when you talk to people at your munch you can bring it up… but obviously truly stupid ideas like say, and open invite, non-consent themed play party in some strange guy’s basement.

Keep an ear out for problems. You will hopefully not have a predator show up, but you may have to ask someone to leave if they make it unpleasant for the other people. That’s the other advantage to reserving a venues party area.

Problems:

Drama, cliques and that person with the odious personality who makes everyone uncomfortable and never show up, venues that prove unreliable and a bunch of other things will happen.

A lot of fighting is over territory. Once things get started, people may get cranky either because you feel like that since you put the effort in you own something, or because once a good thing gets going everyone wants to help. As the organizer you’ll get a lot of people dictating how things could be bigger, better, and so forth. Thank them for their input and enthusiasm- many of them don’t mean it to be critical, and it’s not worth challenging people who are cranky. Let the bitter people be bitter.

There’s no solution for cliques but open circulation venues cut down on the closed circle look. Taking the time to talk to everyone and make introductions based on (if you know them) non-kinky interests helps. Get people to talk about their hobbies, fan memberships… all the non-controversial stuff that makes people build friendships.

On the other hand, as the host, try to stay out of the petty stuff. For example if two events start a competition for members, avoid picking sides because there’s generally little substance other than big egos and hot air.

And of course there’s the creepers and the trailing chaos. You probably won’t ever need to involve the cops, but as the host, be ready to pony up and ask people to leave. If say, someone is being stalked or bothered, be ready to involve police if the situation requires it. DO NOT treat the kink scene like a private world outside the law. It’s less embarrassing to have say, someone’s crazed ex-wife escorted away then the venue calling the cops after she clings to her ex’s leg and attempts suicide.

And be ready to tell a lot of people stuff that feels very basic, like BDSM safety or things that should be common sense like that subs don’t have to obey everyone who calls themselves a dom or that not everyone is a secret leather master from an ancient European house.

All this talk of trouble has probably scared you away, but take heart! most evenings will just be a great night out with new people and old friends.

FAbQ: What Is a Dominant or Submissive and How Do I Know What I Am?

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This is intended to be a regular feature on this blog, in which I try to talk about the absolute basics. I personally won’t be able to teach you elaborate rope tricks or fancy ways to flog or how to make someone orgasm on command. The goal here is to cover the things people say they wish someone told them when they were new, and to answer the Frequently Asked beginner Questions.

This time I’m going to look at dominance, submission, how to figure out what to call yourself and most importantly, the sanity rules.

What is this, anyway?

One of the first pieces of confusion that comes up for new people is finding out how the Dom/sub thing works in real life. Sure a host of porn covers the things they might do, but it really doesn’t explain possibilities in reference to how it tends to go down with real couples and also people are generally not given a sane approximation of the limitations of a D/s (that’s Dominance/submission or Dom/sub) relationship. It also doesn’t let you figure out what to call yourself if you’ve only ever had fantasies.

First, the sanity check.

  • All submissives do not have to do what all dominants say just because Dominants are dominant.
  • Individual submissives do not have to do what their particular dominant says they should do, without prior negotiation. If you agree to a D/s relationship this is not automatic implicit consent.
  • There is no central licensing system for dominants or guild system of training. Despite desperate hopes, even tales of “Old Guard” or “Leather Families” do not replace common sense in the quality of the dominant. The dominant can be as inexperienced or more inexperienced than the sub.
  • Every D/s relationship is different. Some involve sadomasochism, some do not. Some are built on pure obedience, some involve deliberate disobedience on the part of the sub.
  • Dominance and submission are identification labels not personality types. Doms can be shy and quiet and nervous, while subs can be aggressive and outspoken and have fantastic careers.

Now, some terms:

Dominant: The dominant person is a relationship is the one who is in charge. Dom, domme, dominatrix, master, mistress are all used to refer to this sort of person. The way you become dominant is by deciding one day to call yourself that. The way you act dominant, more often than not, is to convince someone else to call you that too. However the act of the stereotypical dominant (you know the one in leather chaps or the latex corset who is whipping someone?) can also be referred to as a Top if the level of compliance/disobedience is less important than the hitty bits or rough sex. Generally dominants get a warm fuzzy feeling from control that may be sexual arousal.

Submissive: The submissive is the one being told what  to do. How accurately these commands are followed is really defined by what sort of relationship two people want to have. The submissive might like thinking of themselves as a slave, a pet, a servant, or simply the other half of a happy couple, maybe even all of the above over the course of a night. The sensations only version is a bottom. Generally submissives get a warm fuzzy feeling from someone being in charge of them. This could be arousal, feeling ‘safe’ and any number of other pleasant sensations.

Switch: Surprise! Some people are both! In some relationship people switch off on the roles with each other sometimes. In other cases, people feel dominant towards some and submissive towards others. Some switches are more there for the sensations, for example they could be equally happy being spanked or spanking. Switching isn’t even on/off and some people like ambiguous dynamics.

Okay, that’s nice but what am I?

A lot of people starting out don’t really have a clear idea of what they want to call themselves. Even your taste is porn is no help, for example it’s not uncommon for male subs to enjoy female submission as masturbatory material and many dom women find the stereotypical pro-dom shtick causes them to flee the room. If you’ve never done all this, for example you’ve never been spanked or actually had control over someone outside the safe limits of work you probably just have a vague idea some things are kinda hot.

It’s okay not to know what you are. If you’re filling out a profile, put yourself down as ‘unsure’. You have all the time you need to figure it out. Me, as a masochist I was under the impression that I’d be happiest as a sub. A friend who is entirely submissive mislabeled herself as a dom. Neither of us had the world explode on us as we worked out what we were.

Plenty of people even shift how they ID over the course of their life. However if you’re urgently trying to figure out a leaping off place with a label you can either go generic with ‘switch’ or give your fantasies a holistic look. Unlike a lot of quizzes I’m not going to think about whips and chains because if you’re not sure that’s probably just more confusing.

Are you more comfortable (in your fantasies!) being in charge or having someone else tell you what to do?

If your nurture someone are you being ‘responsible’ and taking care of things or are you ‘serving’ them with pampering?

If you like the idea of someone handling all the details of a problem or task for you is it because they are being responsive to your needs and letting you delegate or are they in charge and you feel great because you can just do as you’re told?

Your lover gives you a token to wear, like a neck charm or a bracelet or maybe a jacket  When you put it on do you feel “Mine, mine, mine! My person!” or “I am marked and connected to them!”

I phrase the questions this way because not all dominants do the ‘harsh’ thing and not all subs are into passive. You will need to decide even beyond that, what kinds of dynamics you like. This could be anything from 1950s household or full bore wicked dungeon slavery games to equals with bedroom wrestling. And it’s all okay.

How to Meet and Get Along With Dominant Women

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Start up any kink forum, and the same standard questions come up, time and time again: “How the hell do I get a Mistress/Domme/Dom/Dominatrix?!” Sister to this plaintive cry is the equally desperate call of the dominant women “How the hell do I make these guys figure out how to approach me properly?!”

This is the awkward part: trying to give advice. As observed by Beej, there’s a lot of hand holding Mumsy advice, often downright basic things about regular baths and wearing some pants on the first date; a hell of a lot of idealistic twiddlings on the true beauty of kinky sex and the difficulty in doing it; there’s a whole suitcase full of books about starting out kinky in any particular orientation you want, many of which have been around since before absolutely everyone had the internet; and of course there’s an active scene in most communities of a certain size, where at least one person fancies themselves to be a mentor.

This is not even getting into the websites people have put together giving various shades of advice, from pornographic fantasy like the abysmal Elise Sutton to fussy little tripod and archived Geocities pages that were labours of love of some well meaning person about a decade ago, and still bear their black backgrounds and white or coloured text, (because anything about kink has to look like something I thought was cool when I was a 15 year old goth) and “under construction” GIFs. But your question is probably- Where are the fem doms at and how do I approach one without getting devoured like a male praying mantis or shunned like I was president NAMBLA?

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