Everything I wish I’d known about BDSM…

My first for­ays into BDSM & fetish were com­pletely exploratory. Besides what I’d read about in erotic nov­els and on the inter­net, I really didn’t know very much about BDSM — I had no idea what was out there. Pony play, master/slave dynam­ics, learn­ing to meld pain and plea­sure — for me, every­thing was trial and error. I learned about what I did and didn’t like through trial by fire, and along the way, I made mis­takes. I really wish I had known then what I know now. And I really wish that some­one would have given me a man­ual of sorts to help me out, to let me know what all was out there, and to give me a basic set of guide­lines from which to make my own way forward.

Phillip Miller and Molly Devon’s, Screw the Roses, Give Me the Thorns is exactly the kind of man­ual I wish I’d had when I first started out. Though some might find parts of it out­dated (the book was writ­ten when the inter­net was still in its fledg­ling stages and could prob­a­bly use an updated ver­sion), over­all, the book is an excel­lent resource, com­bin­ing wit, style and com­mon sense to pro­vide the reader with the kind of back­ground infor­ma­tion that every­one should have before they try any­thing BDSM or fetish. The book starts off at a very basic level, explain­ing what BDSM essen­tially is — the sorts of activ­i­ties and power exchanges all encom­passed under­neath the head­ing of BDSM.

It then delves into the many dif­fer­ent facets of BDSM, includ­ing a look into the mind­set and desires of both dom­i­nants and sub­mis­sives, the top/bottom dynamic, set­ting real­is­tic bound­aries, and learn­ing how to play safely and con­sen­su­ally. The authors of this book sub­scribe to the SSC (safe, sane, and con­sen­sual) phi­los­o­phy, a phi­los­o­phy rejected by some in the lifestyle for RACK (risk, aware, con­sen­sual, kink). There­fore, some may find that the safety pre­cau­tion rec­om­mended in this book to be too strin­gent. I say, that regard­less of what you even­tu­ally decide to prac­tice, as a new­bie to the scene, the safety pre­cau­tions out­lined and detailed in this book are still more than rel­e­vant. At the very least, they give you a start­ing point to build upon and to move onward from.

I espe­cially enjoyed the chap­ter on impact play. I learned almost every­thing I know about impact play through trial and error. I tried out dif­fer­ent whips, crops, and flog­gers first on myself, then on oth­ers, grad­u­ally build­ing my skills. While I still believe that hands-on expe­ri­ence is invalu­able, this chap­ter is very help­ful. It talks about the dif­fer­ent places on the body to impact and the dif­fer­ent effects var­i­ous strengths of blows can have. There’s a sec­tion on hit­ting prop­erly to avoid bruis­ing (espe­cially bruis­ing of deep tis­sue or mus­cle) that I think every­one should read.

I empha­size that this book is a great place to start — it’s a foun­da­tion of knowl­edge to build upon. There are so many dif­fer­ent view­points and lifestyles within the BDSM com­mu­nity, and the opin­ions expressed in this book are just one set of view­points. Some may dis­agree with some of the opin­ions expressed, espe­cially those that deal with SSC or lifestyle BDSM/slavery, and that’s fine. Regard­less of where you even­tu­ally end up, you still have to start some­where, and Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns is a great place to start out!

Thank you to Tab­u­Toys for send­ing me such a great read!