Practical Scene Preparation

Discussion with your partner

There are times when certain types of BDSM scenes with your partner may be inadvisable.

There can be medical or psychological reasons, such as:

• Your potential cutting or piercing partner is taking blood thinners and thus their blood won't clot,
• Your potential flogging partner is recovering from broken ribs or torn ligaments,
• Your potential play-rape partner was raped as a child,
• Your potential mind fuck partner is (or should be) receiving psychotherapy or psychiatric treatment,
• Your potential partner is a psychopath.

Some, or most, of these (and other) limitations can be discovered by careful discussion beforehand.

Take stock of any recent injuries either you or your partner have sustained, allergies, inherent physical or psychological limitations, and so on.

You should also get some idea of how much your experience your partner actually has. Sometimes fantasy well exceeds reality and a person who thinks they can take enormous pain may, in fact, be having themselves on. If you take their word for their limits then you may find yourself causing major damage very early on in a scene.

Agreement on safewords and how they'll be used

Having a safeword or two is good, but you should also agree on exactly what each safeword means and what will be done when they're used. For example, does "red" (a common safeword) mean:

1. Stop what you're doing and await further instructions,
2. Quick! Get these ropes off of me!
3. Call a doctor (and a lawyer)!
4. DEFCON 1 !!!

Practical

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Don't forget to turn off the telephone!

© Raimond Spekking / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 & GFDL

• Make sure you have plenty of time:
  • You need uninterrupted time for the scene itself
    • Send the kids to stay with their grandparents
    • Take the telephone off the hook
    • Lock the doors
  • Make sure you have enough uninterrupted time after the scene to take care of each other and to fully recover before needing to face the world again
• Make sure you have such things as:
  • Keys to all handcuffs and padlocks
  • Disinfectant
  • Bandages
  • Scissors or trauma shears (see bondage)
  • Drinking water
  • Blankets (in case your partner starts to get cold during or after the scene)
  • A telephone nearby