Dealing With Pain and Emotional Breakdowns

Emotions are tricky and scooping up a healthy dose of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with all the fixings seems a lot more appealing than dealing with an emotionally traumatized partner or determining when pain stops being a "good" thing and becoming a "bad" thing. Our individuality is what endears us to people especially in relationships, and BDSM relationships are no exception. In fact, partners in a bondage or SM relationship should be even more aware of a person's individual limitations and desires as these are a pivotal component to producing a pleasurable role play experience for both parties. Communication, as always, is central to deciphering the needs and wants of the other party even when they are unable to verbally communicate those needs.

Risk Factor Number Ten: Failure to deal promptly with "bad pain." "Good" pain and "bad" pain are subjective in both bondage and SM play. For one person "good" pain could be defined as being in light bondage, for another person, being in light bondage could be defined as "bad" pain. Communication is a key factor to knowing when "good" pain becomes "bad" pain during bondage or SM play. With experience, bondage and SM practitioners will be able to decipher the nuances of "good pain" and "bad pain," but a good working definition of "good pain" is when the sensation typically contains an erotic component or is not significantly damaging while adding to the energy of the play; whereas "bad pain," like painfully tight bondage, has no erotic component, is potentially significantly damaging, and subtracts from the energy of the bondage or SM play. As a general rule "bad pain" frequently involves a joint, especially the neck, lower back, shoulders, or wrists being improperly or too tightly placed in bondage or too much pain being inflicted upon those joints during SM play. If one fails to immediately alleviate the cause of "bad pain", long-term problems may result (Wiseman, 78).

Risk Factor Number Eleven: Loss of emotional balance. As with any intense experience, emotions are strongly linked to bondage and SM play, and at times a loss of emotional balance or an emotional crash may occur. Any number of things during the BDSM play may have triggered an emotional breakdown, but this relatively rare occurrence that usually occurs to the submissive is generally associated with 3 circumstances: 1) an inexperienced or careless dominant increasing the intensity of the bondage or SM activity too quickly; 2) the submissive having waited too long or being too emotionally overwhelmed to use their 'safeword'; and 3) the return of an unpleasant or forgotten memory. Communication is the key to minimizing a loss of emotional balance during bondage and SM play, and the dom should make a habit of not assuming that all is well unless the sub expresses concern and of making "affirmative check-ins" with their subs before increasing the intensity of the BDSM play. Despite precautions, if an emotional breakdown should occur, all bondage and SM play should immediately stop and the dominant party should take on the role of a sympathetic and comforting supporter. As Matthias T. J. Grimme writes, "there is no question that the active part […] has to free his or her partner immediately and has to be there for him/her, look after him/her and ready to talk, to try to get over the nasty experience (as far as it is possible to do this by just talking). This emotional security is one of the absolute prerequisites for a trustful bondage game. It's the safety net the "victim" can let [him or herself] fall into, in the sure knowledge that [he or she] will be held." N.b. It should be understood that this is not the time to argue with the submissive or to discuss in detail what happened during the scene. Although some the loss of emotional balance may occur unexpectedly, as with a phobia, most of the time there is significant warning, so be aware of your partner's reactions.

Last but not least, we will be exploring the mechanics of new BDSM equipment and of accomodating failure in bondage or SM equipment.