If you found the Fifty Shades Trilogy irresistible, you’re not on your own. In fact, you might be one of the many who describe themselves as seriously curious about BDSM. However, BDSM is just an umbrella term covering a wide range of activities related to bondage, dominance, submission, and masochism. On the face of it, the whole practice looks scary but safe BDSM is consensual, fulfilling, and mutually beneficial.
When approached properly, BDSM is extremely erotic and definitely adds spice in the bedroom. It doesn’t even take a lot of work to add it to your play. A few pocket-friendly kinky sex toys and trinkets, such as a vibrator, leather whips, anal plugs, etc., and you’re good to go. But before you start splashing on the credit card, it does make sense to find out more about BDSM for beginners. Here’s our guide to get you started.
- Dominant/Submissive: There’s always a submissive partner who permits the other partner – the dominant – take control of everything. Both males and females can play the dominant role, which is a position of absolute trust, just not at the same time.
- Bondage/Discipline: This element of BDSM refers to when the submissive sub is restrained in some way by the dominant partner. It could be as simple as covering your partner’s eyes, holding their hands during the sexual act, or something kinky. People with experience use a Japanese rope or handcuffs, ribbons, or stockings to restrain the submissive partner. It doesn’t have to be a tight binding, although some doms would say that’s how their sub prefers it. Discipline also falls loosely into this category and is mainly focused on punishment for behavior modification, which can involve erotic humiliation and spanking by the dominant partner.
- Sadism/Masochism: It’s hard to define this area of BDSM, but in its simplistic form, it involves giving and receiving pain. The masochists usually receive pain to feel the pleasure, whereas a sadist administers pain to feel thrilled.
Practicing BDSM for Beginners
In case you’re serious about giving BDSM a shot, you don’t need to go big too early. You can always start building your experience with lighter BDSM practices. Some include blindfolding, hair pulling, light spanking, role-playing, and tie bondage.
To guide yourself into more serious forms of erotic play, it’s better to educate first by taking a class, watching instructional videos, or reading a book or two on the concept of BDSM. Maintaining a happy, healthy, and safe BDSM relationship is more complicated than it looks to the outsider.
Attending sex-positive workshops can help and even lessons with a willing Dominatrix if you’re a serious newbie. These experts can help you figure which kinky sex toys will work and how to utilize them properly. They can also demonstrate how safely carry out the more physical things such as a choke, spank, flog, whip, or paddle without causing any injury in the process.
As an alternative, you can also join online dating sites and use their chat rooms to connect with experienced members. If you have the experience or want to take this to a new level, joining a site with BDSM pages is a way to find partners interested in BDSM with a stranger.
It’s important for BDSM beginners to keep their eyes wide open and proceed with caution because there are some advanced practices that can end in injury or cause emotional distress if activities aren’t pre-negotiated and the rules always clear.
If you are looking for tips on BDSM and how to proceed if you’re interested, here’s just a few worth keeping in mind.
- Good communication is everything before, during, and after. You should always feel able to talk and express your own desires. There should also be agreed rules, which you know will be followed and definite boundaries before you embark on a serious BDSM relationship.
- Early on, it’s best to stick to light BDSM. It helps you discover what you really like once the novelty value has gone and lets you find out just where your boundaries are, whether you are sub or dom. Spending time in dating site chatrooms offers inspiration, and it’s a great way to meet nearby doms or subs looking for partners if you’re single and feeling adventurous.
- In a dom/sub relationship, the partners take roles, but it’s up to you as a couple to decide how far you take it. Some couples make BDSM a whole way of life in long-term relationships; other couples save their alter-egos for once a week treats on date nights.
BDSM is nothing if not versatile, which is why so couples enjoy some element or another as part of their healthy sex lives. Many more singles are using dating sites to meet new sub or dom partners, and there has been a recent rise in BDSM couples seeking other couples, but of course, it’s got so much easier to try BDSM with dedicated pages on local dating sites.