My mini-rant in the previous post triggered some interesting comments and some further thoughts of my own. So this post is a continuation on the topic of flirting with limits when playing with new (or newish) partners.
I should start by stating that none of the dommes that get regularly name checked here (Lydia, Yuki, Ai-Li, etc.) have ever been guilty of this problem. People I play with fairly often know my limits, so the situation doesn’t tend to arise, but even in my first few sessions with them they did the right thing and completely avoided problem areas.
I should also draw clear distinctions between the different circumstances where limits can get violated. The three obvious cases that spring to my mind are when a top deliberately cross a line, when a top simply doesn’t listen and is unaware of a limit, and when a top chooses to play somewhere close to a limit and crosses it accidentally. All of them are bad, but it was the final situations I was really trying to dig into, as it’s something I’ve not seen addressed elsewhere.
One of the comments (from ‘Informed guesswork’) likened it to the Pink Elephant problem. Being told not to picture a pink elephant instantly makes you picture one. In the same way I sometimes think limit discussions trigger the visualization and problem solving parts of a top’s brain…
Bottom: For me piercing / hoods / having bananas shoved up my bottom are limits.
Top: Oh really? (Thinking: That’s a shame I like needles / sensory deprivation / pretending to be a kinky gorilla)
Bottom: Yes. I am terrified of needles / am claustrophobic / witnessed a traumatic event at the local zoo as a child.
Top: OK. Good to know (Thinking: So is it all medical scenes / enclosed spaces / anal fruit situations that are a problem? What if I used a carrot? I remember a great scene I did last year with an aubergine. That’d be fun to try again…)
At this point the top now has pink elephants on the brain and is making connections to similar past situations, while forgetting the million and one other things she enjoys doing that don’t relate to elephants of any color at all.
Obviously the onus should be on the top to avoid this type of behavior, but one excellent suggestion in the comments was to finish a scene negotiation with the stuff you enjoy rather than personal limits. I suspect a lot of people are like me, and the last thing they talk about before a scene with a new person is their limits. After all, it’s human nature to open up with all the positive things you enjoy before adding the qualifiers and conditionals. Perhaps that switching that around would help avoid the pink elephants.
When looking for an image for this post I actually did an image search for elephants and femdom. I didn’t have much hope, but I should have realized that rule 34 can never be violated. Unfortunately the relevant images – of big breasted women waving whips near men being crushed by elephants – was a little too extreme for me to feature. So instead here’s a rather beautiful shot of a naked woman next to a naked elephant. It was taken by Vlad Gansovsky.
Read your rant, the comments and the follow up very carefully and I tend to agree with “Informed guesswork”.
Quote: “As an experiment, you could try discussing limits, followed by the discussing the things you love … ”
Think of it as getting the “naggin’ victims of household procrastination” (taking the trash can out, laundry, ironing, cleaning out the dishwasher or whatever) out of the way, before crashing out with a good book, a Mahler symphony in the background and your favorite drink within arms reach.
Don’t bother to think the aforementioned will not even get close to submitting to a dominant woman. You know damn well better and I do as well.
They make a lovely couple, those two in the picture. But you could have photoshoped the wrinkled one pink, methinks, for emphasis.
Have a nice weekend. I know we will, over here.
Marga
Thanks Marga. That’s a good way to think about structuring it. Get the chores done first before moving on to the fun stuff!
I could have tried some image manipulation on the wrinkled one, but working out of a hotel room on a small laptop with a patchy WiFi connection is never the best place for getting fancy with posts!
Hope your weekend was enjoyable,
-paltego
Hello again,
I just wanted to say thanks for taking my honest suggestion seriously, and building on it for your post. It was good to feel that what I’d suggested might be helpful or thought provoking in some way, as I’ve read a lot of things on your blog that have been that way for me. I thought you might enjoy “The Genration Game” reference! Spare me a thought next time you get to play with Lady Lydia, I’ve been a huge fan of her’s for longer than I can remember. If only she didn’t live quite so far from Surrey…..
Well thank you again for the great comment and suggestions. It’d never occurred to me to think about reversing the discussion order. Simple but brilliant. Hopefully your comment and the follow-up post will be helpful to others out there.
Lydia is wonderful, but traveling to her from Surrey would definitely be a bit of a long hike. Maybe you’ll pass through this part of the world someday have chance to play with her.
-paltego
From the world of pseudoscientific evolutionary neurobiology comes….the answer!
Okay, maybe not, but it can’t hurt.
When you negotiate, go over the hard limits first and as neutrally as possible. Don’t discuss unless it’s to clarify, just get them out there. Then, before you play, start talking about what you both like and why in lurid, vivid detail. You don’t have to worry about not thinking about pink elephants if you’re out hunting green otters as hard as you can. 🙂
Yes, it certainly seems like a better way to structure the discussion. Might be a little unexpected to order it that way, but as you say, if you put in sufficient lurid vivid detail on the good stuff right before play, that should certainly keep the green otters to the forefront!
-paltego