by Hermes Solenzol Although much has been written about the different techniques used in bondage and sadomasochism, less effort has been put into systematizing the dynamics of a Dominance/submission (D/s) relationship. D/s is much more complex than the Dominant simply ordering the submissive around. It begins when the Dominant and the submissive agree that they…
Category: Concepts
Panic Attacks in BDSM Scenes
by Hermes Solenzol Among the many problems that can happen in a scene, panic attacks can be a serious one, especially if the Top doesn’t know how to handle them. They are more common than you may think. Last month, during a talk I gave at Threshold (the BDSM organization of Los Angeles), I asked…
Being a Leatherboy is a Lifestyle and a State of Mind
by boydon freeman We all know about Masters and slaves, Tops and bottoms, Doms and subs, but what exactly is a leatherboy? All around the US, leatherboys are participating in clubs, competing in contests, and volunteering for fund-raisers. The boy presence is very much in evidence at leather events. Maybe it would be helpful to…
Taking Out the Garbage
I read something interesting today that I wanted to share, because with all this radical self-reflection we all seem to do these days it resonated as kind of important. The short version is here, on Peter Rudd’s wonderful Coromandal blog. He excerpts from the much longer article Sons of The Beach on WorldHum, and his…
Quiz – Which of the Five Love Languages Do You Speak?
Gary Chapman’s best selling book The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate posits five ways that we express and experience love: • Words of Affirmation • Acts of Service • Receiving Gifts • Quality Time • Physical Touch Everyone has a primary and a secondary love language. These are the…
Anticipation, Anxiety and the Butterflies
We all experiences anxiety, stress and the butterflies start fluttering in our stomach at different times in our life. Because what we do is transgressive and sometimes edgy, there’s a chance that it does happen more frequently or with higher intensity in our BDSM exploration. It might be when we hook up with people we…
BDSM as an Art Form
… a BDSM scene is a work of art, not science, not technology. A work of art is something unique that is created using special skills and reflects the personality and creativity of the artist. Hermes Solenzol – BDSM is not science, it’s an art! We all like to escape our everyday life once in awhile….
It’s All Smoke and Mirrors
In my checkered career I’ve studied business, design and journalism, worked in PR, been a graphic designer and a magazine editor, and I now run my second design and advertising company. I’m what they call in Singapore, where I live, a “creative”. I’ve only recently started using that as a noun… I always thought it…
Don’t Take My Word For It
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with a site called TripAdvisor. If you don’t travel much or you haven’t come across it before, it’s the Lonely Planet of the digital age, except they don’t editorialise… it’s all crowdsourced. I had such a bad experience at a restaurant in Bangkok a while back that I felt…
BDSM is not science, it’s an art!
by Hermes Solenzol Borrowing from the name of a popular website, I fucking love science! I fell in love with science when I was a pre-teen and have studied it ever since. These days I make a living doing scientific research on the physiology of pain, which is kind of convenient for a sadomasochist. I…