Eight Techniques for Maintaining Communication and
Trust During a Scene
by Chris M
|
During an SM scene it is the top who guides the bottom through the ordeal,
seducing their consent, then challenging their ability to endure through
carefully modulated technique. How much is enough? How much is too
much? To know, the top must be able to read the bottom’s reactions and
assess how the scene is going for them. Is their confidence and strength
soaring upwards,ready for more? Just hanging steady? Or is it plummeting
like a stone? Are they ready for a hard push, or do they need to be pulled
back from the edge? Is the scene moving too slowly? Too fast? And what
about trust? Has something unnoticed by the top jeopardized the bottom’s
confidence in the tops ability or intent? To sculpt the SM experience, mere
technique is not enough. We must be able to look into what the bottom’s
soul and know with some degree of accuracy, what they are feeling.
Particularly when the action gets aggressive.
The key to the dance is staying in step with your partner. The top leads;
the bottom follows - dancing backwards and on high heels - trusting the
guidance of the lead. The lead dancer is certainly chief, and director of the
action. But it takes two. It’s not merely the skill of the lead, but the
synergy between both dancers, that can make a scene pure physical poetry,
or an embarrassing botch. When I hear tops complaining about having to
use safewords, or worse still, boasting about ignoring them, I always think
of a lead dancer who performs his own part brilliantly, oblivious to his
partner stumbling gracelessly all over the floor. Ignoring the question of
whether your bottom is in trouble, or pretending not to notice, is not the
attitude of an experienced dominant, but the hallmark of the self-
infatuated rookie top.
If we always knew what our partner is thinking and feeling, safewords, pre
scene negotiations would never be necessary. For the rest of us, however,
we must master the protocols of how the scene is going from our partners
point of view. The remainder of this paper will outline nine techniques for
making better communication possible while the scene is underway.
1) Safewords Since we are already talking of safewords, lets address them
first. Traditionally, “Yellow” or “mercy” is a plea to slow down, that the
bottoms endurance is being challenged. “Red” “limit” or “safeword” means
the bottom’s endurance has been exhausted, possibly trust too, which is far
more serious, and demands a full stop for renewed negotiation. In one form
or another, most players incorporate safewords into their negotiations as a
safety precaution, whether or not they are used. While everyone is
different, I think it gives the bottom extra security, and buys a little more
trust, deepening, not cheapening the scene. Safewords are especially useful
for nervous bottoms who may take great comfort in knowing that breathing
room is available at the drop of a word. It can really kill the scene if the
bottom gets locked onto some distraction like numb hands, a panic attack, a
cramp, vertigo, nausea, or incontinence. The bottom may feel that a
negotiated limit is being infringed on, fear they are being marked when
they absolutely must not be, or be aware of some other issue requiring the
tops attention. The ritual space of the scene can be difficult to restore,
once the mood has been broken. Ideally, safewords permit the top to
rescue the scene before it breaks, allowing the scene to continue once the
issue is resolved.
Admittedly it can go too far. Some tops are driven to distraction by
bottoms that get real picky about how they want to be “done”. I don’t
believe that bottoms should abuse the privilege of being able to push
“pause” and in my experience they generally do not. Most bottoms want
only a break pedal, not a ripcord. The purpose of “yellow” is not for the
bottom to flag mistakes. Nor is the goal of a “red” to fire the top.
Safewords should be thought of as tools for sustaining the magic of the
scene by alerting the top before he steers the bottom smack into an
iceberg. With this in mind, the bottom should strive for both strength and
honesty about how they are handling the sensation load.
Some tops, mercifully a small (though loud) minority have fixated on the
idea that cherishing consent is a threat to their dominance- refusing
safewords, limits, negotiation, playing a high stakes game of all or nothing.
But ignoring the bottoms reaction is a bad habit to get into. It lazy on the
tops part, and frankly makes for a wimpy dom, although the intent of this
posturing is quite the opposite. A top who cannot work with the constraints
of maintaining a bottom’s consent throughout a scene is either inept,
having a bad day, or insecure to a point where I would question their fitness
to lead. Another possibility is that they are really not very interested in
playing with you and are unconcerned whether the two of you play or not.
A responsible hot top will want to know how the scene is going for their
bottom partner. And a responsible top will be ready to throttle back and
wait if their partner gets flustered or lost in a way that hurts the scene (In
fairness some bottoms love feeling flustered and lost. Some bottoms hate
feeling that way but love pleasing their partner so much that they are
willing to endure it. To each their own)
2) Wait Signals: This technique was first committed to print by leatherman
extraordinaire Guy Baldwin. It was aimed at impact play but can be
adapted for a wide variety of scenes. It involves the coordination of
protocol between top and bottom without the use of spoken safewords.
During the scene the bottom keeps the top appraised of their readiness
through the use of a prearranged nonverbal “wait” cue such as clenched
fists, or a foot tipped forward on its toe. This signal is recognized by the
top as a request for time before throwing the next blow, next needle, or
next flood of sensation. It works like this: First the bottom provides a
“ready” cue, a signal that they are ready to be hit. Next comes the stroke,
and while the bottom is absorbing the blow they give the “wait cue”,
clenching fists, tipping their foot or whatever they’ve agreed on. When the
bottom is ready for more they withdraw the wait cue, and the top continues.
I know a couple in New York that use this approach. Their playroom has a
chain that hangs diagonally from one corner of the living room to the other.
Grabbing the overhead chain for balance, the bottom stands on a short
bench. While he is up there, his top can have at him, and cascades of
stinging blows cover his body like rain. On the bench, the bottom moves
with fantastic, slow grace; it looks like Tai Chi, or ballet slowed way down.
His “wait signal” is stepping off the bench. When the sensations build to
overload and he needs a break, he just steps down and the blows halt
instantly. He stands next to his master recovering his breath and when he’s
ready he hoists himself up and the action continues. It’s some of the most
beautiful SM I’ve ever watched.
3) Try it in Teaspoons: A basic tidbit of SM motherhood, is to start slow,
build slow. Don’t go charging in with the battle axe. A good way to ruin the
mood of a scene, is to tee off with play that is uncomfortably intense,
before you really know how much your partner in SM can take. Seduce
consent. Go slowly, even when the ultimate intent is a heavy scene. When I’
m doing a single tail scene I always start out gently (Sometimes when
playing with an anxious newbie I will stop after a four or five feather
delicate caresses, say we’re done and that she can tell everyone she was
single tailed by me). Not only does starting off slowly acclimate the bottom
to the sensations being administered as they grow from mild to wild, but it
also lets the top observe first hand where the bottom’s limits are, where
“ooh” turns to “ouch!”. Furthermore, by varying the intensity just below
the bottom’s limits the top can actually seduce the trust and comfort that
permit the bottom to move beyond those limits allowing hotter and more
intense scenes. So with each new technique, try it in teaspoons, instead of a
fire hydrant blast. You can always pump up the action later.
4) Honor Bondage: Honor bondage essentially dispenses with physical
bondage from the SM scene. Instead of using cuffs or rope, the bottom is
requested to hold a fixed position through their own force of will. Honor
Bondage isnot a communication technique so much as it is a way to: 1) let a
bottom experience SM without the added intimidation of bondage: or 2) to
entrust some responsibility to the bottom. In theory, this allows the bottom
the option of leaving if they loose faith in the scene. Some bottoms may
find honor bondage preferable when playing with tops they don’t know
well. This is not universally great advice. Bondage can provide both support
and prevent the bottom from suddenly lurching into harms way, so I don’t
recommend this for heavy play where the bottom’s motor control may be
compromised but for beginners it can make a scary scene more palatable.
5) Gauging the play: A useful trick. Ask the bottom to verbally gauge the
intensity (of a whipstroke, electrical play, or tight bondage) on a scale of
one to ten. If they answer “nine and a half”, you know you are nearing
their present limits. If the answer is “one” you can ramp up the action. Its
not a bad idea to sprinkle gauging requests throughout the scene, to keep
communications clear and strong.
6) Check-ins: Check ins are periodic breaks in the action where the top
does a spot examination of the bottoms condition. Basically move in close
and ask “How are you doing?” Check-ins are a good habit to form, and
should probably be done in some form every fifteen minutes or so. Stay in
character, when you do so it doesn’t come across as a jolt.: Soft voice,
some touching, perhaps some encouraging, nasty words on how good they
look all tied up. You can also do check-ins that are nonverbal: check
breathing, squeezing the hands to see if they feel cool, offer a sip of water.
You don’t need to overdo it; check to see if there is a problem, so you can
fix it if you need to.
7) Count downs, and time outs: Another way to maintain contact between
partners is to build scenes from discrete time blocks, either using a timer,
spoken count downs, or a stated number of blows before a break. Birthday
spankings fall in this category. Corporal punishment, often administered six
blows at a time, also qualifies. Tickling someone mercilessly until the
second hand circles the dial gives the bottom the promise of eventual relief
at a fixed point in time. A nice technique is to ask the bottom for a number
to use as the basis for a count down or a time limit. This allows the bottom
some measure of control in how long they must wait until the next break.
Short counts are best for beginners or people you haven’t played with
before. As the scene progresses the top may repeat the counts making
them incrementally longer.
For a more aggressive scene these boundaries can be advisory, and not
binding. The top may choose to ignore the clock, set the secondhand back,
or continue ministrations past the end of a time limit. The top may multiply
the count given by the bottom, begin again for some made up offense,
repeat numbers, or start counting in fractions to prolong the bottoms
ordeal.
8) Cultivate Play relationships: Of all the techniques we’ve discussed, the
best way to read your partner is to know them extremely well. Experience
will show you how to read your partner, know where they are, where they
are headed, how hard to push, when to ease off, and how to rejuvenate
their courage, consent and will to continue. Over the course of many
scenes, you learn your partners limits, idiosyncrasies, responses, tastes,
share their fantasies, and learn the nuance and sensitivity that separates
the greatest SM from the run of the mill. Scenefolk who have played
together for years often develop a near psychic ability to read and
anticipate their partner’s responses.
Knowing someone and becoming known by them, also forms a natural basis
for trust, which makes more challenging dungeon work possible. It can
even result in the necessary trust to dispense with safewords and to turn
responsibility for the scene entirely to the tops shoulders. This entirely up
to the people in charge but such a decision must be reached jointly.
9) You fill in the blank. Using a technique we haven’t discussed? Shoot me
an email at chris_m39@yahoo.com and I’ll add it to the list. The more ideas
we have on preserving the link between top and bottom, the hotter our
scenes will be.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 1998-2002 Chris M. All rights reserved.