Blindfold: A way to restrict or eliminate a bottom’s vision, which helps her to relax and focus. Players might use a blindfold made especially for that purpose, or a scarf or other piece of cloth. A safe blindfold does not put pressure on the eyeballs, but the blindfoldee should remove his contacts anyway.
Body Modification: Changing the appearance of the body with piercings, tattoos, cuttings and other physical methods. People who are into body modification may or may not also be into S/M or other kinks. Sometimes shortened to “bodymod.”
Body worship: Caressing, kissing or licking some part or parts of the dominant’s body.
Bondage and discipline: Many people use this as a term for “softer,” less intense SM. It usually includes some form of tying someone up, and may include milder pain activities such as light spanking or clamps.
Bondage: An umbrella term for using rope, leather and similar materials to restrain some aspects of one’s partner’s ability to move (or, sometimes, just for decoration). Bondage may be very mild - for example, a soft loop of rope holding the wrists together in front of the body - or very restrictive.
Bottom: An umbrella term for the one who gets “done to” - the submissive, the masochist, the slave, the boy or girl, whatever. Some people use “bottom” to mean only someone who enjoys receiving strong sensation, as opposed to “submissive” for someone who enjoys having his behavior controlled, but we’ll use the first definition in this book.
Boy or Girl: A bottom in a relationship in which he or she plays the role of a somewhat dependent, sometimes rather childlike person. The top in such a relationship usually, but not always, identifies as a daddy or sometimes a mommy. Daddy/boy relationships and their ilk are more common among gay men and lesbians (daddies, mommies, boys and girls can all be of any gender), but are not unknown among heterosexuals.
Cage: Pretty much what it sounds like - a large square wood or metal box with bars in which a bottom can be confined. Some cages are small and uncomfortable and meant for short-term scenes, others are larger and more comfortable, for longer periods of confinement.
Cane: A long narrow flexible stick, usually of rattan, used for striking the buttocks. This is not the same as the heavy rigid cane used for walking; it’s also not the same as the much longer and heavier rattan canes used for judicial punishment in Singapore. It is more like the canes used on public school children in Victorian England - designed to hurt but not to do long-term damage.
Clamp: A small spring device which can be attached to a pinch of skin to create intense sensation. The most commonly used clamp is a plain wooden spring clothespin. Other kinds are made of plastic or metal, but are comparable in size and intensity to clothespins.
Clip: Another word for a clamp.
Collar: A decorative piece of leather or metal worn around the neck, often as a symbol of a dominant/submissive or owner/slave relationship. Many people put on the collar to signal that they are going to start their scene, and take it off to signal that the scene is over. Others wear their collar all the time, like a wedding ring.
Consensual: This is probably the most important term in this book. Consensual means, quite simply, that everyone involved has consented to everything that will happen. Kinkyfolk tend to have very high standards for what constitutes consent. Consent must be affirmative - it isn’t enough to not say “no,” everyone must actively say “yes.” Consent must also be given by someone who understands the ramifications of his behavior, who is of age, and who is not significantly intoxicated. Consent may be withdrawn at any time with the understanding that the scene will stop at that point; many players use a safeword for this.
Crop: A long narrow shaft with a flexible leather tip, designed to encourage recalcitrant horses to get moving but adapted by kinkyfolk as a striking device for people. (It actually tickles the horse, but on human hide it stings.)
Cutting: This term sounds way scarier than it really is. Cutting is sometimes done in a ritual or kinky setting, either with the purpose of leaving a mark or just for the sensation. However, the cuttings done by knowledgeable kinkyfolk are very shallow - typically about as deep as a cat scratch. Cutting is not an activity for beginners, or for anybody who hasn’t been taught by an experienced practitioner.
Cybersex: When two people, who may be thousands of miles apart, use their computers and modems to enact a “scene,” that’s cybersex. Typically, the top describes what she’s doing to the bottom, and the bottom describes his responses. (He may or may not actually be physically following orders from the top at the time.) Cybersex is a little bit like collaboratively writing an erotic story These days, it is many people’s first exploration of kink.
Daddy: The top in a daddy/boy or daddy/girl relationship. Daddies can be strict and demanding or loving and indulgent - sometimes both.
Dominance er Submission: Some people use this as a synonym for S/M, leathersex, and other terms of that nature. Other people use it specifically to mean play in which most of the eroticism comes from one player’s mental control of another (as differentiated from play that is mostly about physical sensation).
Dominant: Some people use this to mean someone who specifically enjoys controlling his submissive’s behavior, more likely to give orders than sensations. Others use it as a generic term for a top - the person who is in charge of a scene.
Dominatrix: a female dominant. Sometimes used specifically to mean a pro-domme.
Drag: Halloween for grownups. The classic drag, of course, is a flashy trashy outrageous woman’s outfit worn by a man. (One story of the term’s origin is that it’s an acronym for “Dressed As a Girl” - note that its opposite, then, would be “drab.”) However, the term has been expanded to any kind of kinky costumery - pirate drag, cowboy drag, baby drag and so on.
Dungeon: Any space set up for S/M. A dungeon may be a corner of a bedroom, or it might be a complete suite of rooms designed and equipped especially for play.
Edge Play: Play that pushes or expands a player’s physical or emotional limits. The definition of edge play varies according to your personal edges - a scene that seems perfectly simple to one player may feel very edgy and difficult to another. Edge players are usually very experienced folk who make informed decisions about what risks they are willing to take.
Endorphins: These are the chemicals released by the brain in response to strong physical or emotional sensations. (They’re what causes the “runner’s high” that helps keep distance runners motivated.) Both bottoms and tops may experience “endorphin rushes,” which leave them feeling relaxed and happy, from S/M play.
Exhibitionist: Someone who receives erotic pleasure from being watched while doing something sexual. Ethical exhibitionists, in contrast to popular images of seedy men in raincoats, enjoy their kink only with the full consent of one or more voyeurs who enjoy watching them.
Fantasy: A sexual fantasy is something that a person enjoys thinking about in order to turn herself on sexually. People may enjoy fantasizing while they daydream, while they masturbate, or while they have sex. It’s important to recognize that just because someone has a fantasy does not mean they have the desire, or the intention, to act on it. Some fantasies are physically impossible, some would be far too dangerous, some would be unethical or illegal. (Getting spanked by Clark Gable is simply not an option, more’s the pity.) Most kinkyfolk have pretty good boundaries between their fantasies and what they actually do. We’re good at thinking up let’s-pretend games that give us some of the flavor of our fantasy while leaving out the difficult or risky parts.
Fetish: “What I like is normal; what you like is a little kinky; what he likes is a fetish.” In the classic sense, a fetish is a sexual attachment to an inanimate object, body part or body fluid that isn’t sexual to most people. Some fairly common fetishes are feet and shoes, leather, rubber and hair. Some people also use the word “fetish” to talk about a preferred activity such as spanking or infantilism, or about a preferred body type, but we won’t use it that way in t
his book.
Fisting: Inserting the entire hand, slowly and gradually, into the vagina (“vaginal fisting”) or the anus (“anal fisting”). The word “fisting” is something of a misnomer, since the hand is not balled up into a fist when it is inserted. Properly done fisting is neither painful nor dangerous.
Flagging: Signaling one’s kinky desires by wearing a colored handkerchief or other symbol. The color of the hanky signifies what you like to do, the side you wear it on (in a back pocket or tied around a boot) lets people know whether you want to top or bottom.
Flogger: A device made of many long narrow pieces of leather or other flexible material attached to a handle, for striking purposes. Please don’t picture Simon Legree or your favorite pirate movie when you hear about “flogging” - modern floggers are made specifically to use on human skin for the purpose of pleasure, crafted to offer carefully controlled sensation with no real damage.
FtM or FtoM: a transsexual who was born with the physical characteristics of a woman but who now lives as a man, often with the assistance of hormones and/or surgery.
Gag: A device used to restrict a bottom’s speech - often, a strap or piece of cloth that covers the open mouth and fastens behind the head.
Handballing: Another word for fisting.
Infantilism: Play in which one or more adults play the role of an infant.
Kidnapping: A special-occasion S/M scene - often a birthday present - in which one or more tops, with careful pre-negotiation, “abduct” a willing bottom away from home, work or a semi-public place, carry him off to a dungeon or someone’s home, and do various delicious things to him.
Kinky: This is one of those terms that is so vague as to be nearly useless. For some people, leaving the lights on, or sleeping in the nude, is incredibly kinky. Others don’t begin to feel like they’re getting kinky until Fellini shows up with a movie camera. Kinky may mean that someone is into S/M, that he’s a transvestite, that he enjoys public sex or multi-partner sex or voyeurism, that he has a fetish... If someone tells you he’s kinky, your best bet is to ask, “What do you mean by that exactly?”
Leather Conference: A get-together of kinkyfolk for the purpose of networking, sharing information, and a bit of cruising. Leather conferences range in length from a day to a long weekend, and in size from small regional conferences to huge international ones with hundreds of attendees. Most conferences include workshops, play parties, munches and more.
Leatherman/Leatherwoman: A man or woman who identifies as part of the leather or S/M community. These terms are in wider use among gay men and lesbians than among heterosexuals, but the usage is spreading throughout all kinkyfolk.
Leathersex: Yet another synonym for SM or BDSM or power exchange or what-have-you. Probably in widest use in the gay male community, but others use it too. By the way, if someone tells you he’s “into leather,” you’ll have to ask him to find out whether he means he has a leather fetish or he’s into S/M; both meanings are in common usage.
Masochist: Someone who receives sexual or erotic pleasure from some forms of physical pain. It isn’t true that just because someone is a masochist, she enjoys all forms of pain - masochists don’t like root canal work or stubbed toes any more than you do. It would be more accurate to think of a masochist as someone whose range of desirable erotic sensation is simply wider than most people’s.
Master: Someone who is in an ongoing, committed relationship in which he (or sometimes she) has received his partner’s consent to control many aspects of her or his behavior. Some people use this as a synonym for dominant. Also sometimes an honorific for a dominant (“Master Tom,” “Master Nancy,” etc.). We use the first definition in this book.
Mistress: The female (or female-identified) analog of a master.
MtF or MtoF: a transsexual who was born with the physical characteristics of a man but who now lives as a woman, often with the assistance of hormones and/or surgery.
Munch: A social get-together of kinkyfolk in a restaurant or similar location. Munches started as a way for Internet-based kinkyfolk to meet face-to-face (or, as Netfolk put it, “F2F”).
Negotiation: It’s hard for many people to believe, but kinkyfolk typically spend a lot of time talking about what we’re going to do together before we actually do it. During negotiation, we talk about what kinds of activities we like, what kinds we don’t like, and what kinds are absolutely not okay with us. We share information about physical and emotional limitations. We choose a safeword or other way of signalling the status of consent. We also tell each other anything we might know about how we typically react to play and how we like to be taken care of during and afterwards.
Normal: What a loaded term this is! We don’t even know what it means. Many people worry about their kinky friends or relatives because these people aren’t “normal.” We don’t think normal is necessarily a very good thing to be - for example, a “normal” American reads less than one book a year. (By reading this book this year, you’ve just become “abnormal”!) Better questions to ask might be, “Is my kinky person happy? Is she growing? Is she forming satisfying relationships? Is she taking good care of herself?”
Ownership: A consensual agreement in which a Master or Mistress has the right to control many or most aspects of the life of a slave. The parameters of many owner/slave relationships are defined by a written or spoken ownership contract, which outlines the rights and responsibilities of everybody involved for the length of the contract.
Paddle: A largish flattish piece of wood, plastic or leather with a handle, designed for striking the buttocks. Please don’t picture the paddles used in fraternity hazings; most paddles used in spanking and S/M are smaller, lighter and less dangerous.
Pain. This is a scary word. Most people’s experience of pain comes from things like migraine headaches - no wonder it’s hard to understand how someone can be erotically turned on by pain! For people who enjoy it, pain in the context of a loving and consensual interaction literally feels completely different, and often very erotic. Nobody knows for sure whether people who like pain are neurologically different than other folks or whether they’ve just learned to process sensation differently; your authors strongly suspect the latter.
Pedophilia: A sexual desire for children. Many kinkyfolk enjoy age play with consenting adults pretending to be children, but ethical kinkyfolk do not have sex or do S/M with actual children. To do so is both illegal and wrong.
Persona: More Jung here. A persona is an aspect of yourself that comes out in certain situations. Most people have some experience with different personae; if you have a friend, for example, who makes you feel like a teenager again, giggly and silly, that’s one of your personae coming out. Many kinkyfolk have one or more erotic personae that they like to play with - a man who has a female persona (or vice versa), a grown woman who likes to pretend to be a little girl, and so on. It is interesting to note that the words “persona” and “person” both derive from the character masks of Greek theater - so in some sense, whatever you’re doing, you’re playing a part.
Pervert/Perv: An affectionate term that kinkyfolk use to refer to ourselves, in much the same way that many lesbians call themselves “dykes”: Catherine and her sister were chatting in their mother’s living room a couple of years back. Their mom walked through just in time to hear Catherine refer to herself as a “pervert,” and cringed visibly. “Mom, it’s OK,” Catherine tried to reassure her. “Just like Sis and her friends call each other ‘dykes,’ my friends and I call each other ‘perverts.”’ “Oh, I know that,” responded Mom. “I was just wondering how I got lucky enough to have one of each!”
Phone Sex: Comparable to cybersex except using a telephone instead of a computer. The participants in phone sex arouse one another by describing erotic things they’d like to do to one another, and enjoying their partner’s reaction. They often masturbate while doing so. Phone sex is often done professionally by paid phone sex workers, but is also often done by non-professional
partners who are separated by distance or circumstance.
Piercing: Piercing may be done as a permanent body modification, to give the recipient a place to wear jewelry. Common places to pierce (in addition to the ears) are noses, eyebrows, tongues, nipples, navels and genitals. People with piercings may or may not be into S/M. Some people also like to play with temporary piercings, typically just below the skin almost anywhere on the body, just for the sensation of being pierced. All competent piercings, whether temporary or permanent, are done with sterile needles by knowledgeable practitioners.
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