SM 101: A Realistic Introduction (57 page)

Bound submissives should be spotted if they are ordered to move, especially if they are blindfolded and “double especially” if stairs are involved. When guiding a submissive on level ground, stand slightly behind and to their side. Guide them by grasping their elbow or upper arm. When moving the submissive up or down stairs, stand below them and facing them. Doing so will help you steady them if they start to fall. (And guard your own balance!)

Avoid sharp, strong pulls and pushes when guiding a submissive. Unless they’re deliberately delaying, let them set the pace. If you want a clear idea of how to do this, have someone tie your hands behind your back and blindfold you, then move you around - especially up and down some stairs. This experience teaches lessons you will remember for a long time.

Fainting.
Submissive occasionally lose consciousness during a session. This can be frightening, but is usually not too serious. The most common cause is too much pain. Other causes include intense emotion and medical conditions such as epilepsy.

The most important points in treating someone who has lost consciousness are to protect them from harm and to assure an open airway. You can usually open their airway by tipping their head back. Immediately remove any gag, hood, or other equipment covering their mouth. An unconscious submissive can vomit. If they vomit into a gagged mouth, they will inhale the vomit. This can kill within minutes.

After making sure their airway is open, check for breathing and a pulse. The most reliable pulse point is in their neck just beside their adam’s apple - try finding your pulse there.

(It’s a good idea to find the pulse in your submissive’s neck- especially the first time you play with them. Among other things, the rate and force of the pulse can give you valuable information about their emotions. As eastern healers know, you can learn a lot about a person by feeling their pulse. Also, this touching helps create intimacy between you and the submissive.)

If the victim has a pulse and is breathing, they probably will wake up within a few minutes. If they are not breathing or have no pulse, immediately lay them on their back, begin resuscitation as needed, and call an ambulance. (A first aid class will teach you the details of this.)

Many people believe the most important point in caring for an unconscious submissive is to untie them immediately. This is not
true.
The most important points are keeping them from harm, safeguarding their airway, and checking their pulse and breathing. Untying them, if necessary, comes after that.

Most faintings I’ve heard about involved the submissive being given pain while standing. Submissives standing with their hands over their heads are even higher risk. Submissives rarely faint while receiving pain, even heavy pain, if first made to lie on their back or stomach.

If your submissive faints while tied with their hands over their head, your first concerns are their airway, breathing, and pulse. Your next concern is usually that they are hanging “dead weight” from the restraints around their wrists. Obviously, this could cause serious injury.

Unfortunately, many dominants don’t plan for this possibility. Never tie a submissive into a position that would require their help in releasing them. If you aren’t strong enough to release and safely lower their unconscious body, tie them in another position or have another method of lowering them available. Remember, a good dominant asks themselves, “What will I do if they fall
^?
What will I do if they faint?” If they don’t have solid answers to those questions, they change the activity.

What if the dominant faints?
The possibility that the dominant may be the one who faints (or falls, or is otherwise injured) must be considered. Once, during a very hot, humid summer afternoon, I was enjoying being tied up and energetically whipped by a petite, mischievous dominant lady. Things were going along nicely until she began to get pale and sweaty. I looked over my shoulder and saw her leaning up against the playroom wall. She was dizzy, nauseated, and barely able to stand. We both agreed that ending the session and getting some liquid into her was a truly excellent idea.

This incident was easily handled, but it left me wondering what
would
have happened if she had passed out while I was tied up. In this case, we were in an apartment complex, I wasn’t tied to anything, and I wasn’t gagged, so the prospects weren’t all that terrible, but we were both somewhat lucky. Had we been more isolated, or had she continued even though she wasn’t feeling well, things could have turned out very differently. If you play in any sort of isolated location, both of you need to make sure that you have a workable, realistic plan regarding how to deal with the dominant’s suddenly becoming unconscious.

Sudden loss of electrical power (“failure”).
An electrical failure occasionally disrupts a scene. The main hazard of this is the sudden, unexpected darkness. Wise dominants equip their play rooms with back-up lighting systems that start automatically if the power fails. You can buy basic, adequate emergency lights in hardware stores, general merchandise stores, department stores, and similar places for about $15 to $20 per unit. One per playroom is usually enough (but test this in your play area). I’ve tested various blackout lights, and the one I like best, and buy for personal friends, is the Brinkman Model 827-0395-0. It’s the brightest and longest-lasting power failure light I can find.

Fire.
While rare, fires sometimes occur during a session, and being tied up in the presence of an out-of-control fire is one of the most terrifying things I can imagine. (A recent post on alt.sex.bondage described a situation in which a woman tied a man to a bed and told him that she was going out for a while. When he asked, “What if there’s a fire?” she responded sweedy, “But there won’t be.” A few moments later, they looked out the window and saw a brush fire rapidly approaching their house!)

Fires may be related or completely unrelated to the SM activity. SM-RELATED fire hazards include burning candles, flammable liquids such as rubbing alcohol, poorly wired electrical devices, and clutter.

If you play with open flame, such as a candle, be certain you know whether items in the area are flammable. Alcohol-containing liquids (and their vapors!) are especially hazardous around flame. A few years ago we had an outright disaster in the community involving a bound submissive, rubbing alcohol vapor, and a candle flame. Nobody was killed, but both people were very seriously burned.

Besides following general precautions, put a fire extinguisher in an immediately available place, perhaps on the wall outside the playroom. Some experts recommend mounting fire extinguishers near exits. The minimum size I recommend for this extinguisher is a UL rating of 3A:40BG (I used to recommend the smaller 1A:10BC extinguisher, but I have since learned of too many cases in which these extinguishers were inadequate.) Rating labels are found on the extinguishers. Smoke detectors should be placed as needed.

These items of equipment might sound excessive and too much trouble, but they are necessary. It’s easy to keep a first aid kit, a blackout light, and an extinguisher on hand and yet completely preserve your play area’s erotic atmosphere.

Most SM players never face any serious emergency, but they know the risks involved. The knowledge and equipment needed to prevent and deal with SM-related emergencies is easy to use and inexpensive to acquire. Responsible players do so gladly.

Safety Checklist

The following checklist will help you make sure you have at least a minimally reasonable amount of the proper emergency equipment on hand.

- Certificate from a first aid/CPR class issued less than one year ago.

- One small, light-colored flashlight (with batteries checked) either carried on your person or in a known place in your toybag and reachable in the dark within five seconds. This flashlight should be of a shape that does not roll easily if placed on flat, level ground.

- One pair of plastic-handled (light color) “paramedic scissors
^»
either carried on your person on in a known place in your toybag and reachable in the dark within five seconds.

- One small first aid kit in your toybag with contents as described above.

- One larger first aid kit on the premises with contents as described above.

- A reliable means of summoning professional help in an emergency. This usually means a telephone. In isolated areas, it could mean a two-way radio.

- Condoms; latex, vinyl, or plastic gloves; lubricant containing nonoxynol-9; spermicidal suppositories; disinfectant solutions; and other safer sex/birth control supplies stored in an immediately available place.

- At least one properly charged “blackout light” per average-sized bedroom that will come on automatically if the electricity goes out.

- At least one emergency flashlight
in addition
to the blackout light. Minimum size: two D-cell batteries. Recommended size: 6-Volt lantern, preferably with extra-bright bulb.

- At least one 3A:40BC dry chemical fire extinguisher stored on the same floor as the playroom or bedroom. One additional extinguisher of at least the same size stored by each exit to the home.

- Mirrors placed near (and, especially, above) a bound person are made of mylar or other non-breakable material.

- Suspension equipment of a type that can safely lower and release an unconscious submissive.

- A reliable means, such as a silent alarm, cordless phone, or panic button, for the submissive to summon help while bound or confined if the dominant becomes unconscious.

While not safety equipment
per se
, the following items are often useful to have in a playroom: thermometer for measuring room temperature, clock (need not be visible to the submissive), urinal with cap that secures into place, something non-alcoholic to drink in a squeeze-bottle with a built-in straw.

SM and Safer Sex

The following are a few of the most widely agreed-upon, basic precautions against catching or transmitting the AIDS virus and other sexually transmitted diseases. Keep in mind that I’m not an expert on this topic, that opinions and recommendations vary, and that new facts are discovered often. For example, there are increasingly frequent reports of new strains of AIDS virus that are far more transmissible via vaginal intercourse than previous strains. Therefore, try not to use this book as your only source of information. (And remember that many “expert” sources of information are inaccurate, incomplete, out of date, and/or and biased.)

The HIV virus lives in infectious concentrations in blood, semen, and possibly vaginal fluid. Contact with these fluids - especially on a mucous membrane or open wound - is potentially infectious.

It appears the most common method of sexually transmitting HIV is active-to-passive anal intercourse without a condom. Apparently, anal intercourse creates small wounds inside the rectum. HIV-infected semen enters the victim’s bloodstream through those wounds. Evidence suggests the virus also may be absorbed directly across the intestine even if no break in the membrane exists.

After I’ve been whipped, my skin is so sensitized that the slightest touch just drives me nuts.

Vaginal intercourse is also risky. Evidence suggests that oral sex is safer, but not entirely risk-free. Masturbating your partner, in the absence of any open wounds and/or with the use of a hand gloved in latex or vinyl (lubricated, please), is apparently fairly safe. (One way to check your hands for wounds is to wipe them with rubbing alcohol and pay close attention to any stinging.)

I think one of the most important precautions you should take regarding HIV is to determine whether you or your proposed partner has been exposed to HIV. Many people think the disease can lie dormant for years with no sign. This is not true. The disease itself may or may not lie dormant, but most infected people develop antibodies within two months. Have one antibody test, then another six months later, and, to be absolutely sure, a third test six months later. If all three are negative, and you have done nothing unsafe meanwhile, you are almost certainly not infected.

If your partner is also antibody-negative, and has done nothing dangerous in the last few months, then the two of you can probably do anything you want (regarding the HIV virus) as long as neither of you does anything risky outside the relationship.

If I were entering a new relationship, I would want both of us to have our blood tested before we did anything high-risk- certainly before we had any type of unprotected intercourse. (Janet and I had such a “new relationship
^»
test.) Many clinics perform the test free and anonymously.

If, as is often the case, it’s not possible to be certain of either person’s antibody status, (and remember that many, many people will lie if doing so will get you to have sex with them) you
must
assume they’re infected and proceed accordingly. This means wearing a condom
and
taking other precautions.

The person on the inside of the ropes lives in a different world than the person on the outside of the ropes.

I very strongly question whether using only a condom provides adequate protection. Condoms often break or slip off, and during the “heat of the moment” neither party may realize that has happened.

(Both of these events have happened to me on several occasions, and I’m completely certain that I had put on the condom in the manner recommended by AIDS-prevention experts. Nowadays, when I’m in a condom-requiring situation, I check every few minutes to make sure everything’s all right. I also, partially because doing such checking is a real drag, get into considerably fewer condom-requiring situations.)