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Unlike Ted, who was a control freak and had a fear of giving it up, Beth was tired of being in control. The day to day decision-making in her life wore her down to the point that she hated to do something as simple as deciding what to eat that day. She described often crying in the morning because she couldn't pick out what clothes to wear. The simple decisions the rest of us face daily overwhelmed her. She told me her biweekly sessions with her Dom empowered her again, and allowed her to take control of aspects of her life in which she felt she was losing a grip.
The Dom/sub sessions, however, do have their own set of risks. All too often, you occasionally hear stories on the Internet and read the paper about sex games gone bad.
Stephen King's Gerald's Game recounts in vivid detail a couple's bondage experience that has a tragic ending. These men and women don't intend to hurt anyone, but they do it out of inexperience. The last thing anyone wants to do is to engage in activity that causes a 911 call that lands someone on their annual Christmas party tape.
I learned that in the D/s lifestyle, couples often have what they refer to as a "safe word" which is used to immediately stop any activity in a session. They mutually choose any word that would normally not come up in a conversation, or during sex. The word "red" was a common choice. It was a signal to tell the other person to stop what they were doing because the session was getting too emotionally charged, or the activity was too physically painful to continue.
There seemed to be a universal unwritten law that when the chosen safe word was uttered, there were no questions or explanations needed -- the session abruptly stopped. If the safe word was ignored, it was considered grounds for ending the relationship. They also believed that ignoring a safe word could get you physically injured or killed, depending on the intensity of the session and what type of "games" were being played.
Who do you trust?
Both Beth and Ted described their individual experiences in the realm of D/s as the most intimate experiences they've ever had. They say the trust and level of respect and admiration they have for their individual play partners, was above and beyond any and all conventional unions.
"When you are bound and restrained to the point where you can barely bat an eyelash and cannot speak, and the person you are with has the power to do you serious harm or permanent damage," Beth explained, "you had damned well better trust the person and have no doubts that they'll be safe and know your limits."
In other words, to them it's the ultimate fall-backwards-into-the-arms game.
Ted felt that even his girlfriend didn't truly know him like his sub did. He felt his relationship with his sub and her "gift" to him to be his most prized possession, and he had an enormous amount of respect for her.
"I have no intentions of leaving my girlfriend," he said. "We are very much in love and I want to get married, have kids, and the all-American thing.
"However," he continued, "my sub will go on to be an important part of our lives."
He explained that his sub understood the ground rules and had accepted them. He and his girlfriend had even considered purchasing another home with a mother-in-law suite and explaining his sub's presence to friends and family as "the live-in housekeeper."
When I jokingly asked him what he was going to do in 25 years when his children were grown and in college and his sub is still living there, he laughed and replied, "Well, you know how these Southern families can be. If one family member questions another about the arrangement, I'm sure the consensus will be 'Don't ask!'"
Communal D/s "families," like the one Ted and his girlfriend are contemplating, are rare, but they do exist. They'll purchase real estate together, take vacations, and even raise children. Sounds more like the Addams Family than the Bradys, but think about it: what keeps both those familial units together is the high degree of respect and trust they have for one another, superceding everything else in their lives.
The "contracted" arrangements that Doms and subs share together are as varied as the people who find themselves in the lifestyle. D/s relationships were once en vogue almost exclusively among the biker and the gothic communities. Now it's become another type of game among the social elite. One look at any website selling the toys to play with will tell you that you need a lot of disposable cash to have a well-equipped dungeon in your basement or garage. Most of these items won't be found at your local Home Depot, either. Who would have thought there's still a market for chastity belts?