I was inspired to write this post after reading an account by Destruction in his blog Torrid Arabia about how he accidentally caused a small injury to his submissive during a session, when one of his cane strokes cut her. His horror and embarrassment at drawing blood shone through his post and I was moved by how bad a dom can sometimes feel when he accidentally causes real physical injury – always a risk in any kind of BDSM play.
I have a massive fear of blood being drawn in a scene that I am playing. Firstly, I am repelled by blood, the mere sight or smell of it makes me nauseous and faint. Secondly, and probably far more importantly, I never feel that there is any excuse for it. I know perfectly well that there are some types of sadists (and I use the word in a BDSM sense, not the psycho sense) out there, some of whom I know, who are greatly aroused if they draw blood in a session. It proves that they are ‘hard dominants’ and that their subs can ‘take it’ and are ‘properly submissive’*. These are the type of doms that I would touch with a bargepole.
Many years ago, when I was a mere stripling of 22, I had a session with a dom who was known to me as being a ‘hard player’. In those days, I was very bad at saying what I wanted, sometimes falling for the oft-stated assertion by bad doms that ‘If you’re a proper submissive, you take whatever I give’. I wanted to be a good submissive. I hardly ever asserted myself in scenes. Which is how I ended up lying on a bed, knickers round my ankles, school skirt up whilst letting a man beat my bare bottom with a thin cane. It hurt. It wasn’t erotic. To this day I can remember the relentless slashing pain of that thin cane as it bit into me and my terrible relief as my whole backside went numb and I couldn’t feel the horrible slashing pain anymore – and to this day I can remember the terror that I then felt when I felt something warm and wet starting to trickle down my thighs and realised, leaping to my feet in belated horror, that my whole bottom was a mass of bruises and blood from thin, vicious deep cuts, welt over welt.
I remember stumbling into the bathroom, him yelling at me through the door not to let blood drip onto the bathroom floor, pulling up my knickers, struggling into my clothes and rushing out of his house like the hound of hell were in pursuit. I remember walking down the road in Belsize Park, feeling coming back into my bottom, aware that my knickers and slowly, the pale grey skirt suit I was wearing were becoming saturated with blood. When I got onto a bus to take me home, I drew concerned looks from the driver and from several passengers. ‘Are you all right dear?’ ‘Do you need help?’
No, I didn’t want help. How could I explain that I’d done this willingly? So I got off the bus. At that point, I would usually have called He Who Must Be Obeyed, whom I was going out with then, but he was in Thailand on holiday. So I called a dear friend who got in the car, came and got me, took me home and then silently and without condemning, cleaned me up and dressed my cuts.
After that, I took six months off from any kind of CP. I still get nervous when being caned and now, the merest speck of blood sends me into a spiral of terror and all play stops instantly.
Now I know that accidents happen. I know (now) that things can cut and the concentrated force of a thin cane is the worst thing for doing that. And I know that good doms, like HWMBO and The Lover and Destruction (from his blog) never purposely draw blood and would always stop and that afterwards they feel bad, like they have personally failed. What I don’t understand is the mentality of people, like the man in Belsize Park, like other men I know, who can keep going when the skin breaks – or worse, when someone is marked, welted and cut, still want to put new strokes on top of broken skin. Yes sure, the submissive if often willing. But how irresponsible is it to take advantage of the submissive yearnings and instead of showing common sense and dare I say it, common humanity, to indulge that, when what they actually should be saying is no. ‘No, you’ve had enough, you need a break. Time to recover.’
I just don’t get it. BDSM is meant to be erotic. What is erotic about beating someone so hard that you injure them? The kind of injury that you could be arrested for? Even worse in my view is that it shows a total lack of subtlety. Any idiot with a stick can beat someone to blood, it doesn’t take any skill. The skill is knowing when to stop, when to leave the sub wanting more but having to wait until next time, the skill is in rolling their mind, not breaking their skin. The skill is in holding back. The skill is in the knowledge that you could – but that you don’t.
It’s a skill some doms need to acquire.
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*My scorn over this attitude is probably very apparent, but it’s the subject of another post.
Jessica, I agree entirely, a badly aimed stroke or a slight injury are cause for concern.
Hopefully there is enough information around that young subs don’t have to suffer this.
I believe the the sub and the Dom really should get to know each other before playing, and everybody says it, but until you are fully familiar with each other, use a safeword.
I’m glad that it didn’t put you off entirely, the scene would be a poorer place without you.
I won’t say anything about that so called dominant.
Warm hugs,
Paul.
That’s so horrible… you’ve never told me that story but it kind of shows me why you’re so great at looking after me and it’s because I’ve got people like you and HWMBO as well as the rest of the lovely people looking out for me that I haven’t had something like that happen. Teaching me that I can say no was one of the best and most important thing that you could of done and I’m so grateful for it.
Oh, my that is a heartbreaking story! There are clearly decent people in the scene who love severity, but this goes well past an innocent misunderstanding. This man isn’t a sexual player, he’s an abuser. It’s stories like this that make it easy for me not to regret (at least, not too much) not having come into the scene when I was younger. Young women are so programmed to please, so poorly trained to take care of themselves. Even in my 40′s, I’ve made my share of stupid newcomer mistakes. But I think the hard lessons learned over the years about protecting and valuing myself in other arenas of life give me an air that sends people like that running in the opposite direction. Not that I can take that for granted, of course, but it helps.
Wow… is all I can say. That’s awful. I’ve had the occasional skin break, especially with thinner canes, but that’s been accidental. To keep on during blood is such a manner is disgusting, both physically and morally.
whoops, drawing, not during…
Hm, difficult. Whilst I agree with a lot of what you say, I always err on the side of consent – if a dominant enjoys that sort of play, as does the submissive, then I make no judgement call on that at all except to say, as you do, that it wouldn’t be for me and I wouldn’t participate in that. But it doesn’t make them a “bad dominant” per se, in my view, in the same way as you or I not taking that sort of treatment makes us a “bad submissive”. Bad for each other, but not inherently.
But what an awful experience for you, and no wonder you get nervous around blood.
@littlenic I have to disagree. I hesitated before using the inflammatory language I chose above, but in this case, I believe it’s justified. I can understand that two people who have established a high level of trust, personal or professional, might choose to take part in such a scene. Frankly, I question whether beating someone so hard that they bleed through two layers of clothes really passes the safe and sane test, but I agree that these terms are much more subjective than consent. Which is why consent is the most important qualification. *Informed* consent, that is.
There is absolutely no excuse for the dom’s having engaged in a scene like this with a bottom who did not explicitly consent to being beaten to that extent, especially as it sounds as though this was the first time he and Jessica had ever played together. Proceeding in this way with undue caution– and with no respect for the sub’s needs– does indeed make him a bad dom. And worse, perhaps.
@indy – I do agree with you entirely. My point wasn’t that the chap in Jessica’s post wasn’t a bad dom, but that someone playing this way with consent isn’t a bad dom. Jessica talks in the OP about that sort of very hard play not being erotic, but I would disagree, as some people find it so – but as you say, that only comes with time and knowledge and trust, not a first play and not without explicit consent either.
(PS Some people don’t adhere to SSC, but to RACK – and those who play this hard are the latter, if they subscribe to anything at all. My ex partners were very much into this sort of scene between themselves, and I had – and still have – no problem with that at all. They were both utterly understanding and in agreement that that level isn’t right for me, and only play that way themselves after several years of relationship and trust behind them, plus tippy-toeing steps to get there.)
@Littlenic: a quick Google search for RACK and BDSM explained all, lol. I agree with the author of the essay I found that Risk Aware is more easily defined than Safe & Sane, even if it’s not as reassuring to outsiders… If I’m honest, I’m uncomfortable with very hard play, not just for myself, but also for others. However, I don’t find truly consensual extreme play to be immoral, and that’s where the line should probably fall. Hmm, maybe I’ll have to get my thoughts in order and write a post for my blog, instead of continuing to hi-jack BOJ!
A brave post, many thanks for sharing it. I am commenting because what you describes resonates with a very interesting workshop I attended yesterday dealing with dominance and assertiveness. The workshop was presented by a very experienced member of the BDSM community in the US and she made the point that, sometimes, tops need to safeword. She illustrated this with a couple of examples from her own experiences, both of which were unexpected and for which she was unprepared. I do not intend to detail them here but the key point is that playing with a bottom who doesn’t safeword does not relieve the top of responsibility to call a halt, even if the play is still, ostensibly, within the scope consented to. Normally, in this dynamic of ours, the top is in control, and control is all about responsibility.
[...] recent conversations or events have left me pondering this issue. First, Jessica posted recently about a scene she played in her early days in the scene, with a top who beat her bloody, on what [...]