[Star Shadows]

Trust
Trust key in any relationship- BDSM is no different- It is a fundamental two way link between the top and the bottom and in its core it is the glue holding it together. If you do not have a foundation of trust then there isn’t much you really do other than a superficial label and someone mindlessly calling you some meaningless title.

So yay its awesome you have a dom, or a sub- but if they cannot trust you as far as you could throw a herd of elephants then what does that really mean in the long run? You have to make sure that the person you enter a relationship with is someone that you could see yourself trusting.

Notice that I didn’t say it was someone you could trust 100% straight from the off. If you are looking for someone who you can trust, or who could trust with your life after one play session, then honestly you are deluding yourself. you need to wake up and smell the coffee- People so often have came to me confused that their submissive doesn’t trust them fully yet and they do not know what to do, when in fact they have not been in a relationship long enough for trust to have developed. TRUST DOES NOT COME QUICKLY OR EASILY.

It is important to remember that trust is not something that is bought, it has to be earned. Trust is earned only by repetitive play, not pushing limits entirely off the deep end, and talking with the person in a non D/S way. It can only be earned through time and is not expected to be earned right away.*

While trust is hard to build it is ever so easy to destroy and incredibly hard to repair, if you do something that breaks a submissives (or a slave/ dom/ master or even a vanilla friend) trust then it will take ever so much work to earn it back and it will be almost impossible to fully rectify because there will always at the back of their mind be that knowledge and doubt that if you have done it once are you capable of doing it again.

A dom must not only give his/her submissive the grounds to trust him/her, but they must also trust their slaves to WANT to please them, trust that they will in time grow to trust you more. So all in all what i am trying to say here in a roundabout way is that trust is ever so important in the relationship, building trust should be any couples first goal to start working towards before they begin to push on to other things.
*thanks lady c for wording that in a more coherent manner than i managed to

Bondage
When engaging in bondage that includes sexual elements, all of the common sense rules of sexual intimacy apply. This is particularly important in bondage scenarios where complexity demands that there is a lot of touching of various places on the body; this applies both to the person submitting to the bondage and the person carrying it out.


Escalate slowly. There is no rule that when experimenting with a new partner that you must immediately jump to employing the most complex and challenging elements of bondage. It is important that, even if you have a large amount of prior experience with others, you start at the beginning with your activities and build up from there. The reaction of your partner will help you determine how fast you can escalate the complexity of the bondage with some allowing you to progress to harder challenges in a matter of days, and some requiring many weeks, or possibly months. Be well aware that just because a former partner reacted in a certain way to a certain activity there is no guarantee that the same reaction will occur with a different partner.

Be aware that a person’s physical limits of endurance may be surpassed by their physical limits. With higher level bondage, and in particular edge play, there is always the possibility that while the submissive may have the mental will-power to push through the pain, the root cause of that pain may be inflicting actual damage upon them and in suppressing their instinctive reaction of stopping the pain they could be allowing that damage to worsen. The dominant partner should always seek to prevent a submissive from exceeding their physical limits, and be willing to use their control to step in and stop the scene regardless of their submissives willingness to continue.

Another important aspect to be aware of is numbness of the limits, specifically at points where bindings are being used to restrict movement, such as with the tying of the arms or legs. While bindings should prevent the submissive from being able to escape they must retain enough flexibility that they can manoeuvre their limbs enough to encourage blood flow. This is particularly prevalent when binding locations such as the hands as should they go numb a person would find themselves unable to use them with their normal dexterity due to lack of the touch sensation.*

* thank you philosophical for writing this bit for me, makes my life sooo much easier.



Honesty about health and illness.
This is something that isn’t often mentioned I find but it is actually very important. As a submissive you have to be, to an extent, honest about any health problems or illnesses that you have which may impact on your play. A dominant should ask you first- but they are not psychic. You too are responsible if you do not tell them.

When I say illness and health issues this can be anything from a knock on the head that has caused impaired vision, balance or judgement, or an allergy- and to extreme cases, epilepsy, and diabetes or heart problems. To some this may seem like an invasion of personal space however it is for your/their own safety.

A dominant/ master/ mistress need to know about these things so they do not inadvertently cause a damage or negative reactions in the things that they do.