Negotiation First Terms

My Promises To You

I promise I will tell you, to the best of my ability, of all my limits, hard, soft, and squicky. I will make sure you understand what lines you absolutely may not cross, what lines are on the edge, and what lines will piss me off (in case you want to piss me off just to see what happens—and this is negotiable).

I promise I will tell you, to the best of my ability, of the little quirky things about my body that make me, me. Like that my left hip isn't as flexible as my right hip, or that I have really (really) bad peripheral vision, or that my scalp is incredibly sensitive, or that I get wet when I'm afraid.

I promise I will, to the best of my ability, communicate with you. I will tell you things it's vital for you to know. I will tell you things I think are important, even if the information never actually applies to our scene. I'll tell you things you will probably never have use of, but I want to share with you anyway, because you never know...and once you get me high enough, I'll probably be speaking in tongues.

I promise I will, to the best of my ability, be honest with you. I will tell you if something doesn't feel right to me, and to what extent. I will warn you if I'm getting close to panic, or just ultimate frustration.

I promise I will use my safeword if I have to...and if I can.

I promise to go into our scene with an open mind. Because even after all our communication, after all our negotiation, after all our planning and talking, you may be imagining a scene very different from the one I'm picturing in my head. And that's okay; our scene can still be wonderful.
I also have been around long enough to know not every scene is going to be the "scene-to-end-all-scenes," because not every scene can be. And that's okay. Sometimes the energy just isn't there; sometimes scenes just go wrong, and that's okay, too. This doesn't affect how I think of you as a person. It just means we need to find another opportunity to try again, perhaps on another night, when the energy is right.

I promise to share with you, to the best of my ability, what I liked with our scene (and what I didn't like) in the coming day or two. I will tell you what pushed me, and in what way, and whether I liked the push or not. (And if things go really well, I'll tell you there was nothing I didn't like, because the whole scene was awesome. I fucking love check-ins like that.)

But most of all...I promise I will come into this scene with the knowledge that you are entering into this scene to make us both happy. I promise I will trust you not to do anything malicious, vicious, or harmfully cruel; that your intentions will be honest and good; that you will try to make your actions reflect those intentions, even if it doesn't always work out that way. That any mistake made on your part will be just that, a mistake, and not a vile, callous way to hurt me.

I promise to give you the best of my intentions, and trust you to give me the best of yours.

Your Promises to Me

I need you to tell me of your limits, hard and soft. Tops do have limits; don't make me find them the hard way if you don't have to.

I need you to accept my limits as they are, even if I'm not willing to share the whys or wherefores with you. I need you to stop yourself from trying to negotiate or sweet-talk me out of them.

I need you to accept the limits of my body, physically and mentally, and not try to push me past them.

I need you to make me feel comfortable to talk to you, to share with you anything I think may be relevant to our time together—even if it's not, even if you think whatever I'm telling you is probably insignificant and silly.

I need you to make me feel like you respect my words, even if you don't always agree with them.

I need you to trust me to be honest with you, to believe that I'm not playing some kind of mind game with you (unless we've negotiated that); because believe me, I've learned the hard way mind games are something I'm horrible at, and I always lose.

I need you to honor my safewords as soon as you hear them. As soon as you hear them.

I need you to come into our scene with an open mind. It may not go as planned; it may be less than perfect. But that needs to be okay with you. I need you to understand that not every scene can be perfect, but that's no reason for anger. (It's okay to be frustrated by the situation, but please don't get frustrated with me. I am a human being, I can sense your resentment, and it hurts.) We can try to reschedule another time to play, and try harder next time to make it right.

I need you to tell me, after our scene is over and some time has gone by, if I did something wrong to piss you off. Because I don't like inadvertantly pissing people off, especially play partners, but I won't know I've done something wrong unless you tell me. If you don't tell me, I may do it again.

I need you to enter this scene with the intent of making us both happy. I need to know I can trust you with me, mind and body, heart and soul, and you won't do anything to maliciously betray that trust. I need to know this, because if things go wrong, and you do make a mistake, I need to able to believe it is an honest mistake, and not a calculated, cold-hearted move on your part to use me just to get what you want.

I need you to give me the best of your intentions, and trust me to give you the best of mine.

These are the first terms of my negotiations. This is what I can offer you, and what I need you to give me. If these preliminary terms cannot be met, then we have nothing further to talk about. 

My Story of Ultimate Humiliation

The Story of My Ultimate Humiliation
The other day, my friend d (yes we all call her d, with a lowercase d, because d is a slave and that is how she refers to herself) was not feeling well, and I was trying to think of ways to cheer her up.
Now it just so happened that the night before, her Master, the MotherfuckingSadist™, had made ominous threats online to turn my tits purple. (Why, I have no idea; it's not like I did anything to deserve such monstrous treatment of my delicate breasts.) When I told Husband about the online threats (and what I did to deserve them, which was nothing, I swear) the whole thing prompted Husband to break out into prose...if you can call it that. It went something like this:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Your tits will be purple...
Then he stopped.
"What comes next?" I asked.
"I don't know how it's supposed to go," he growled at me. "Go look it up yourself."

Now, the other bit of backdrop to this story is that my second-to-oldest son was on a trip at the time, having the vacation of his life with his friend and his friend's mom. His friend's mom and I are also friends. She knows I'm kinky, but not to what extent, if you get my meaning.

So I send d a text version of the poem Husband gave me...only I didn't send it to d. I sent it to Son. And this is what happened.

 As you can see, I realized I had made a mistake as soon as I sent it. But as they say—too little, too late. My pleas for him to delete it fell on deaf ears...

And his version of "entertainment" began.

Of course, he had to fucking promise to show his friend, his friend's mom, and every other person under the fucking sun. 

I tried to lay down my own threats...to no avail. He knows me too well.

There was nothing I could do anymore, nothing but wish myself a hole to crawl into.

Son was not very sympathetic.

I have horrible children.
They take after their father.

This Is What A Munch Is Like For Me

In case you don't follow me on Fetlife....
I have a Top in my life who is a regular play partner of mine. He also happens to be quite a Sadist. For the purpose of this post, we will call him, mmm, MotherfuckingSadist™.

MotherfuckingSadist™has this thing about hot sauce; he loves it. Motherfucker loves it. He's actually called "The Hot Sauce Guy" on Fetlife.
But he hasn't earned this moniker because he likes to put hot sauce on his food, oh no. I mean, he does like to put it on his food, but that's not why he's called "The Hot Sauce guy." No, he's called "The Hot  Sauce Guy" because he likes to put hot sauce on women.
Specifically, women's sensitive bits.
Now I should tell you that he has never actually put hot sauce on me. Not yet. I have a feeling that day is coming. But he's aided Husband in my torture: he's the one who bought Husband the tiger balm.
He's a sick, sick bastard.

A while back, I was cruising through the internets, and I came across an ad for hot sauce. Here's a picture of the bottle, take a look:

And I thought it would be nice and helpful of me to send MotherfuckingSadist™a link to the ad. Because I am stupid.

MotherfuckingSadist™'s slave was not exactly happy with me. She took my helpful generosity as "throwing her under the bus." Which, honestly, had not been my intent, at all.
I swear it.

But my helpful generosity went south on me really quick when MotherfuckingSadist™ told me he's going to buy a bottle of this stuff as a gift—for Husband.
I tried to tell him that was quite unnecessary, but he was adamant; he wanted to return the thoughtful generosity.
The Bastard.
To make a long story short, there was a lot of swearing and cursing on my part, and a lot of sickening threats on his part, and we blew up the Fetlife feed with his innuendos and my attempts at denial. Everyone who was friends with both of us on Fetlife could see the "banter" going on, and many of them remarked how entertaining it was. It was all pretty maddening, frankly.

MotherfuckingSadist™promised me he would bring the hot sauce to the munch that week.
And Husband...that...that...man, straight out ordered me to accept the hot sauce with all due respect, and thank the MotherfuckingSadist™for it. Not just on his behalf, but on mine! 

The day of the munch came, and I  entered the room with my Mistress by my side. We sat down, and I realized that everyone was smirking at me.
Goddamnit.
As I waited for my food to arrive, one of them offered up to me a bottle of tabasco sauce that had been sitting on the table. "Hot sauce for your food?" He asked.
"No thank you," I answered, scowling.
"Are you sure?" Another inquired. "You don't want any hot sauce?"
"No!"
Sick bastards, every one of them.

I tried to make small talk with my Mistress. Something passed under my nose.
It was a bottle of tabasco sauce...with a pair of eye stickers glued onto it.
I tried to sound nonchalant. I was hoping if I ignored their cajoling, they'd stop.
They didn't. The collection of bottles of tabasco sauce with eye stickers glued onto them grew, right under my nose, even as I tried to ignore them.

Soon, everyone was just calmly and quietly passing their bottles of tabasco sauce to my place at the table, until I couldn't ignore them anymore. They looked like they were having a motherfucking party, like their own little tabasco sauce munch.

Then MotherfuckingSadist™walked in.
He waited to greet me properly...and then he pulled out of his case not one, but two bottles of motherfucking hot sauce.

And in front of the whole goddamn munch, I had to thank him for the bottles of hot sauce. Everyone snickered and laughed, especially one particular Dom who had overheard Husband giving me the order to thank the MotherfuckingSadist™. He'd probably been waiting all week to watch me get my comeuppance, the jerk.
THESE PEOPLE...THESE PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE I CONSIDER MY FRIENDS. Goddamn enablers, every one of them.

I named the "Ass Reaper" bottle Alistair, because it seemed to fit somehow. Poor Alistair suffers from an underbite, but it's an adorable underbite, I have to say. Makes him look really unassuming. (And yes, I've decided the hot sauce bottles are a "he," because anything with a long phallic neck must be a "he" in my book.)

P.S. I gave Husband the bottles of hot sauce as soon as I got home, which was yet another mistake on my part, because he promptly hid them, and now I can't hide them from him.
But will find them...oh yes, I will...and when I do, Husband's food will not be safe.

Christoph Kramer played with a concussion, and nobody cried "Personal Responsibility!"

Unless you live under a rock, you know that last Sunday was the final match World Cup soccer game, Germany vs Argentina. Since my Husband is South American, this was a big deal in my house. We all crowded around the tv, watching.

In the last minute before the game started, Germany's original infielder was replaced by a relative newcomer, Christoph Kramer. He played for about 31 minutes of the game.
He can't remember most of it.
About 17 minutes into the game, Kramer got hit in the head by Argentina's Ezequiel Garay. The blow knocked him to the ground, unconscious.
When he finally came to, FIFA trainers checked him out...and let him continue to play for another 15 minutes. Only when Kramer started staggering in his place, dazed, unable to keep himself steady, did they finally call the order to get him to stop playing and take him out of the game.
They had to escort him off the field. He couldn't walk in a straight line.

Now here's the funny thing about this. In not one of the articles I've read—not one—is Kramer blamed for continuing to play those last 15 minutes. Every article, everyone interviewed, agrees that Kramer is not the one at fault here. The ones at fault are the trainers, the coach, and FIFA.
There is not one cry of "Personal Responsibility."

Which is interesting, because Kramer could have refused to play. Yes, he was knocked unconscious, and once he came to, he was dazed and confused...but he obviously had enough faculty to answer fundamental questions and make basic choices. No matter what the trainers told him, he had the choice of refusing to play after that. Nobody was holding a gun to his head. He could have told them all to go fuck themselves, that he wasn't going to risk permanent brain injury, and just flat out refused.
He didn't do that.
Why not?

It's easy to understand why not. He trusted the trainers to know what they were doing. He trusted his coaches to do right by him. He trusted the people in power over him to take care of him.
He was also under a lot of pressure. This was his chance to play the big leagues, the World Cup; he didn't want to screw that up.
He didn't want to disappoint the spectators, look weak, get blamed for a bad game. He was probably also afraid if he made a big stink about his injury, the team would never want him to play again, and they would cancel his contract.
He was addled, probably flustered, afraid to disappoint, afraid to stop.
So the bottom line is, yes, he could have refused to play, but expecting him to have done so, expecting a player to make those kinds of decisions under those kinds of conditions, is decidedly unreasonable.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

In BDSM, when a Top and bottom negotiate a play scene, both need to be honest. Both have a responsibility to lay on the table what they can handle, what they can do, and what they know. And yes, ultimately, both have a responsibility to keep themselves (and each other) safe, even as the scene unfolds.
But once the scene starts, the onus is on the Top to take responsibility for what happens to the bottom. Allowing Tops to shirk and discard this responsibility does nothing but make for dangerous play.

We cannot expect bottoms to trust their Tops to know their shit, allow themselves to enter states of impaired faculty, get beaten, get manipulated, get induced into states of terror, and then take on the mantel of "responsibility" when things to go to hell.
This is how people get hurt. This is how we start to lose respect for Tops.
This is how we corrupt the game.

Five years ago, D.C. United defender Bryan Namoff suffered a career-ending hit to the head during a soccer match. He sued his former team for allowing him to continue playing even after he complained of debilitating headaches. This is what he has to say, and I think the quote is very apt:
"Oftentimes, players aren't self-aware of their issues. I thought I was fine to play...If a player is truly injured in the head or has concussion-like symptoms...he should not be put in the predicament of trying to determine whether he does feel good enough to play. We need...to manage what the most important thing is, and that's taking care of the player."