First seen at the Toronto Film Festival in 2022, this riveting two-hander takes place over a single night in a high-end hotel room, and I was hooked from the first scene. The very rich but very tortured Hal (Christopher Abbott with his soulful brown eyes) opens the door to his longtime dominatrix Rebecca (a luminous [...]
When and how did you get into BDSM? I was 26 years old, living in LA, and a friend invited me to a birthday party at a BDSM club near my house. I walked in and the first thing I saw was a stage where two women were tied up together. There was this man [...]
After four years of enjoying a “secret” BDSM life that no one knew about, just my husband and I making up our own rules as we went along, we joined our local kink community. It was a great decision for many reasons — the awesome people! — but it was quickly made clear we’d be [...]
The South Korean rom-com, Love and Leashes, hit Netflix in early February and I was equally keen and reluctant to view it. The chance to watch a movie explicitly about BDSM is a rare thing; we don’t often get to see our bedroom predilection depicted onscreen, but when BDSM does pop up, it is more [...]
Most people who give BDSM or the D/s lifestyle a try are exploring non-traditional play as a way to spice up their sex lives, or perhaps learn more about themselves and their desires. While these readers may gain some insights through My missives, in this particular blog post I am writing for those individuals who [...]
Control: The Building Blocks of Rituals and Protocols Almost all rules, rituals and protocols center around the Dom practicing control of the sub, and the sub practicing surrender to the Dom’s control. There are a number of areas in which a Dom can control the sub’s body and behavior, and a couple can choose from [...]
When we think of “training” in a D/s relationship, the first image that comes to mind is of a Dominant introducing his/her submissive to a set of rules or rituals and instructing the sub in how he/she wants them performed. We imagine a Dom sitting in chair, riding crop in hand, teaching the sub deferential [...]
In my very first BDSM relationship, I was the Dominant. Well, I played the role of Dominant anyway, dressing up in leather, whirling a flogger over my head, giving my masochistic boyfriend frequent beatings … and growing very irritated when he didn’t do what I told him. Aren’t you supposed to be my submissive? I’d [...]
With the thrilling discovery that one enjoys the submission side of BDSM, many an eager sub finds him/herself longing to be “trained” by a Dominant. Lucky for their Doms, manuals on submissive training abound on book-selling sites. Some of these manuals are good, and some are bad (and badly written). Yet, all are incomplete with [...]
How long have you been practicing BDSM and D/s? What drew you to it? When I was about 14 or 15, I had a boyfriend who was into wearing leather, and we got the idea to try to tie each other up. We’d basically switch back and forth, but I remember being very drawn to that sexually, the being tied up. From then on, I knew I was [...]
