By Hermes Solenzol There is an article that has been doing the rounds of BDSM community websites since at least 2013 and has been posted and reposted on blogs, tumblrs and forum boards, with titles such as “How to Get Your Sub into Subspace, a Guide for Beginners”. Here’s a small snip of it: “The…
Category: Identities
Doms: How Controlling Do You Need to Be?
Power exchange in Dominance/submission is characterised by one person wanting to give up some degree of control, and another wanting to take that control on. On the surface it’s not a difficult concept, but like all things that involve degrees, there are infinite points of balance and it is only successful when both people feel…
Ask a Neuroscientist: Altered States of Consciousness in BDSM
by Hermes Solenzol One of the most fascinating aspects of BDSM is its ability to induce altered states of consciousness. Unfortunately it has also generated a series of pseudoscience myths and dubious techniques to induce endorphin release and attain that coveted sub-space. In this article I want to use my experience as both a BDSM…
Why Japanese Hentai Manga Still Upsets the West
Japanese “manga” has many subcategories. There’s a wide variety of mainstream manga, but it can also veer off to darker places. Loli and shota illustrate underage characters, guro and vore are extremely violent and can include snuff, and hentai quite often shows consensual and non-consensual BDSM. It’s not hard to find any of those varieties…
What’s the Buzz about Barbershop Scenes and Head Shaving?
“Hi. My name is Keith, and I cruise barbershops. This is one form of legal nudity. Shaving is sexy. The vibration of the razor’s teeth [on my head] is sexy, plus Dad likes it. It makes me look so fucking good.” There are many reasons for getting, giving, or having a buzz cut. There is…
Dressing Up Isn’t Just For Children
My personal world of BDSM is coloured by gay leather traditions, and within that subculture there are lots of protocols relating role to appearance. Dominants and submissives don’t dress in the same way, and there are some items (caps and boots in particular) where it would be a faux-pas to be wearing the wrong thing….
Keeping the Passion in BDSM Relationships
What we do in BDSM is linked to desire. We can call it servitude, or dominance, or sadism or masochism, or sceneing or sessions, or any of the other many words we use, but ultimately it never fails to come down to desire. We do it because it fulfils this deep need in us, and…
White Light, Black Leather – Balancing the Light and Dark in BDSM
Societal rules are complex and we begin learning them at a very young age. Your family might not have told you that masturbation would make you grow up weak and sickly (or that you’d grow hair on your palms), but you’ll have learnt all kinds of other mistruths from society. Perhaps you heard: • asking…
Top Drop and Easing Back the Throttle
Our terms for things can be a bit clumsy, and there are actually two ways you could use the term “Top Drop” or “Dom Drop”. There’s no right or wrong way, and both would work within their context. IS THERE REALLY SUCH A THING AS TOP SPACE OR DOMSPACE? One way to talk about Top…
How Ritual in BDSM Brings Us Closer To Our Authentic Self
Every morning when I wake up, there is a breakfast tray on my balcony with food and coffee. In the evening when I go to bed, my boy/s are kneeling beside it. We often talk about rules, rituals and protocols, and I wanted to talk a little about why, of the three, I find rituals…