Take a Moment

How’s life for you? I bet you’re busy. No… really. If life was a roulette wheel, I suspect it’d have 36 slots marked “busy” and one marked “totally nothing going on over here”. I think putting my money on you being busy is a fairly safe bet. I was thinking about my own back-log over…

Hey You, Get Off Of My Slide

I’ve been thinking lately about the idea of choices as a kind of pyramid that you move around. It’s a bit nascent, but I’ll try my best to explain. I MIGHT NOT HAVE RIPPLING ABS, BUT CHECK OUT MY DECISIONS We’ve all heard of the slippery slope, but how many of us consider the perils…

Anatomy for Rope Bondage Safety

In BDSM there is a certain amount of mystique about the things we do. For every activity, from whips to humiliation play, there are  specialist communities and infinite levels of complexity. Of course there is a lot to learn about anything, but I think it can be a bit off-putting for people just starting out…

Blessed Are the Outlaws, the Rebels and the Kinksters

There must be a reason why people like to do something different once in awhile. We like to go for travel after a year of stressful work, and it feels refreshing. Each time we go for a trip, it feels like our mind and body regain some sense of clarity. For some of us who…

A (Very) Brief History of Modern BDSM Porn in the US

Porn is rich in history and all kinds of things for discussion, but today I just wanted to do a quick rollercoaster-ride through BDSM in America, where it’s come from and why it looks the way it does. BDSM images date back much further than modern history, in fact it can be traced back for…

Endorphins and Adrenaline – What Science Really Says

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…

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…

The BDSM Community – If You Can’t See It or Touch It, Does It Exist?

We often use the term “BDSM community”, “kink community” or “lifestyle” for convenience, but the fact is that there is no BDSM community in the singular sense. We are a thousand separate tribes with different opinions, customs, ideals and beliefs. A united voice doesn’t exist, though we often pretend, for convenience, that it does. WHY…

Putting Our Dominant/submissive Relationships into Maintenance Mode

The Dominant/submissive dynamic and TPE (Total Power Exchange) have a magical thrill, both sexually and non-sexually, that makes it fulfilling. The pleasure of being served and serving, being controlled and controlling, makes us feel good and satisfies needs within us. The magical thrill of the Dominant/submissive commitment is what most kinksters strive for. Not only…