Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Shania Teardrop has died


Shania Teardrop, many of you know was a Mistress who often came to the Cellar and shared her wisdom and kindness with those she met. Always with a smiles, she reminded us to be happy and enjoy our life.

Sadly I need to inform you that last month Shania lost her battle with lung cancer. She was fortunate to not have suffered long and had her good freind was by her side when she passed.

I know many of you cared greatly for her and as her sub she often told me how she cared for those she met at the Cellar.

Please feel free to IM me is there is anything I can share with you.

Ceejay Shinn

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Aftercare

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Thursday, September 24, 2009

3 Books by Tria Telling published in SL by Tai Koltai

Sexy D/s stories for you to read in Second Life



A Life In A Porcelain Box is a series of three complete stories by Tria Telling describing a young lesbian's adventures in Second Life, from her tentative and fearful entry into the world of domination/submission under the formidable Lady D to her full acceptance of the excitement of surrender to servitude.

Each story comes as a separate, beautifully bound and illustrated volume produced by the innovative Tai Koltai Publishing. The books not only make stimulating reading but, left lying on a table or bookshelf, add both decoration and real interest to any shop, club or Second Life home.
Price L$1250 for all three volumes.

There is a vendor at:

Or you can buy them from Xstreet at:

There are some copies in the Cellar library for people to browse.

My congratulations to both Tria and Tai -- good D/s stories are rare indeed.

(for a short review by a reader -- see the comments by Olivia)

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Declaration of Submissives' Rights (Final Version)

Preamble

It is recognised that any relationship has rights and responsibilities on both sides; that where there is honesty, effort, care and attention rights are probably redundant; and that dominants have a set of similar rights. However, due to the greater number and vulnerability of submissives a list of minimal rights for submissives is particularly relevant -- a dominant is in a position to enforce respect etc. or to let a submissive go and thus do not need a set of rights to quite the same extent. This is not a list of the principles that are desirable in general, due to the huge variation of kinds of D/s relationship, but intended as a minimal set of rights for all submissives in SL.

____________________________________________________

We declare the following to be the absolute rights of all submissives in SL.

1. To have their Sanity, Safety and Consent (SSC) respected at all times. That any dominant ensure, as far as reasonable, that all who interact with their submissives respect these principles. (see notecard on basic safety)

2. To have their hard limits and use of safewords respected without exception or excuse. Further, that they not be put under pressure to weaken their own declared limits or withdraw use of safewords that they feel appropriate.

3. To be told when their dominant decides to quit SL (or swap to another avatar), so they don't hang around for weeks worrying and wondering if their dominant is coming back. A short IM or e-mail takes little time and saves a lot of heartache. Similarly faking death is unacceptable.

4. In return for the gift of submission to be given sufficient attention by their dominants. The emotions that accompany genuine submission usually makes the submissive dependent on some attention for their emotional well-being. If a dominant has more submissives than they can properly care for, they should not take on more. There is no way around this need (leaving them at a club, doing meaningless tasks, isolating them, putting them on display etc. are no substitute) -- if you take on a submissive you then you have to give them enough personal attention or let them go.

5. To be informed to a reasonable extent when they can expect their dominant to be online, so they don't needlessly mope around waiting.

6. If they have NOT submitted to anyone, to be able to dress and act as they wish, free from any interaction they do not wish for, subject only to any rules they consent to (e.g. rules of a club they go to). In particular for it not to be assumed that they will obey anyone or behave in any way if they have not consented to do so, regardless of their usual orientation or their manner of dress.

7. Not to have to reveal any RL information they do not wish to reveal, especially those pertinent to their RL ID (NI/SSN numbers, name, address, credit card numbers etc.).

8. To be able to withdraw from any relationship for their own reasons, without inappropriate public sanction or insult.

9. If not in any agreed relationship, to be free to take any desired role, for example dominant, to switch or, withdrawal from D/s altogether.

10. To be free to bring any contravention of these rights to the attention of others.

____________________________________________________

Issued by San Mauvaise with the support and input of many others at the Cellar and elsewhere in SL.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Annemarie Niekerk Memorial Service, Friday 28tyh August

The Annemarie Niekerk memorial Service will be held next friday, August 28th. It will be a party-like event celebrating Her Life and at the same time an event full off memories to be shared by all present.

Since Annemarie was dutch, but lived in New York City She had friends all over the world, throughout all timezones. It is therefore that i wanted this event to be a long one, enabling people from all timezones to be there for a while; it is not the intention to be there all the time :-).

The Memorial starts at noon and ends at 06:00 PM PST (SL time)/ 08:00PM - 02:00 AM (GMT). There will be some famous SL artists and a few DJ's performing fully free.

Guests are not supposed to tip the artists. Instead there are several "tipjars" that can be used to make a donation to the Royal Dutch Cancer Foundation (Annemarie died of cancer). This donation can be made directly to the foundation or inworld in linden.

I am aware that there will be people present, that did not know Annemarie, but come to see a certain artist. They are most welcome, but they should be aware of the nature of the event and behave accordingly; this means for instance no gestures.

Furthermore visitors are requested to leave all lag-causing attachments at home, since there might be lots of people at times and we do not want the sim to crash.

Tthe official announcement (can be rezzed or worn on te HUD) is obtainable from San Mauvaise, IM her for it. The location is:

Thanks again,

Liz Laville, widow

PS. There will be an exhibition of pictures of Annemarie upstairs at the Cellar to coincide with this event, in other words from the 28th for at least a couple of weeks. San

Friday, August 7, 2009

Articles and Tutorials about the RealRestraint (RR/RLV) system

Good information seems to be like busses, nothing for a while and then a lots all at once.

Not only do we have Eloise's insightful and clear introduction to SL BDSM/sex toys on this blog (and in the cellar library).

But we have a new series of tutorials and tips from Marine herself on her blog (http://realrestraint.blogspot.com) with the index at: Tutorials, Tips and Tricks (Introduction)
This series is to be continued to cover all aspects of the RR system.

Also Shuggi has started a series, concentrating less on the technical aspects but more on the uses and psychological aspects on her blog (http://shuggi.wordpress.com). starting with:
Shuggi, has written a number of pieces on RLV, its use and abuse in the past - all worth reading.

About a year ago I wrote a reflective piece on RLV technology called "Freedom and the Restricted Life Viewer".

San

Thursday, August 6, 2009

The Toys and Gadgets of BDSM and sex in Second Life - Eloise Pasteur

This isn’t going to be a list of places to shop. Rather it’s going to be a series of suggestions for the sorts of things you might find and what they can (and can’t do) and some ideas about using (or not) the various options you have.

First up, though, is the question of “Do I need this?” The answer to this is a bit more complex that it might seem.

In Real Life, particularly for D/s, the answer is a resounding no. BD and SM usually require some sort of equipment in real life but it’s often possible to use stuff you can find lying around. Don’t buy a cane specially, use the handle of a wooden spoon, don’t buy nipple clamps, uses clothespins and so on, at least at first. Once you find things you really like you can think about spending real money on custom designed items. But for pure D/s play as long as one party is dominant and the other submits it can all be done without any props at all. Often, but not always, there are props for all three parts of the BDSM family. A collar, cuffs, a maid’s uniform, a flogger, some rope and so on. However, IRL it is easy for the sub to kneel next to their domme, to avert their eyes and so on. It’s also easy for the pair to snuggle up really closely, whether in bed or with the sub clinging to the domme’s leg.

In Second Life the options to perform most of these things still exist but they’re a bit harder to do. You can’t really just make your avatar kneel but you can play an animation of kneeling and cause your avatar to kneel. A collar (which often does this) is not necessary, but it does make it easier. Pose balls in Second Life exist so that you can both play an animation and precisely position the avatar when the animation is playing. This allows you to snuggle up close. If you have an avatar kneeling thanks to a collar animation and try to approach her she will apparently run away but will insist she’s not moving. She’s telling you the truth; there is, in technical terms, a collision box around every avatar. Two avatars can have their collision boxes right next to each other, but if they interpenetrate they get moved apart. Hug animations, if you watch them carefully, have both parties appear to move forward into the hug. It is possible, using animations, to move the apparent position of the avatar within (and even outside of) their collision box (you see this with more energetic dance animations) so this repulsion effect does not apply. When an avatar is sat on a pose ball their collision box disappears - technically they become part of the furniture and their collision box matches the furniture’s collision box. So, if you have an avatar kneeling on a pose ball just randomly rezzed (still counts a furniture as far as Second Life is concerned) you can walk right up to them because their collision box is the size of the ball they’re on.

This gives you part of your first dilemma. If you use a collar you can get your sub to kneel anywhere, which is good, but you can’t walk right up to her unless she’s on a pose ball. Pose balls take prims and you probably can’t rez them just anywhere. It’s going to be a juggling act. Also, your sub can kneel without a collar - she just needs to play the animation. If she uses an AO, she could load it into the AO as a “stand” pose and kneel without a collar. Even without that, if she has the animation in inventory she could just play it from inventory to kneel for you - it’s an ugly, hard-work approach but it does work.

And as soon as you’re here, making that choice to have toys, pose balls, collars and the like you’ve got more choices to make, a fairly bewildering array of them.

Systems

Past that there are some more, rather important, choices. In no particular order these will include:
  • Chaining systems
  • Cyber v xcite! and attachment driven arousal systems
  • RLV
  • Interaction method

Lockmeister and Lockguard are complementary chaining systems. Frankly there is little to choose between them from an end user’s perspective but they are different in a number of technical ways. Most attachments the sub can wear (and sometimes that the Domme will wear) come with one or the other system. The toys, frames, horses etc. will come with one too. If they don’t match, no chains... Fortunately, there is no reason not to have both sets of scripts in collars and cuffs, and other locations. The “target” scripts (for putting in collars, cuffs etc.) are freely available. Various toys use different systems, so it is well worth considering installing both. You will, however, have to spend a little bit of time getting the scripts together and making both sets work.

Cybering versus xcite! and other similar systems. I should stay, from the start that I am not a fan of these systems. Sex, RL or SL, is about an interaction between the players. Mistress does X, I respond in way Y, so Mistress does Z. On some days Y will be the same as it was yesterday when Mistress did X, on other days it won’t, and on those days Z will probably be different too. On some days, even when X and Y are the same, Mistress has something different in mind and so Z is different to normal, different to expectation. It’s worth noting that, according to a couple of people I know who work as escorts in Second Life, they never use xcite!. Random people want that interaction with their (temporary) partner, not their scripts. xcite! and the other systems that chart your arousal and responses for you, in my opinion, remove the interaction from both parties, generate spam and reduce the quality of the relationship. They don’t respond genuinely and organically. You avatar can be suspended in seventh heaven have multiple star-burst orgasms and you’re sat at home blowing your nose and taking cough medicine. Sure the dream of the orgasms and never ill is great, but in a relationship don’t you want it to be with you, even if you are ill?

But if you want to use them, it’s your choice. Quite a range of toys and attachments have them available and if you want to use them it’s worth reading the instructions and working out how to do it properly. Most xcite! toys and some others will also post comments. For example the domme gives the command to kneel in nadu, and the collar will say something like “Eloise’s collar: Eloise gracefully kneels, spreading her legs and curving her back presenting her body to her Mistress.” (although you might have to play with the scripts to make them say her rather than his and Mistress rather than Master. It’s an option that’s there though. You can, in particular the Domme can, cause their sub to rise up and down towards orgasm by clicking and pressing buttons on various bits of the body. The control can be exquisite, and there’s pain options for the SM crowd too, or for punishments.

It is worth noting that although the various systems have a big network of attachments to work “properly” if you don’t use xcite! you can still buy the odd xcite compatible attachment and it should work as intended except the xcite! part quite happily.

RLV: restrained life viewer. This seems to polarise the BDSM community like nothing else. RLV, if active, allows the domme to do a range of things to the sub. With the full implementation they can lock items on (really lock them so detach isn’t an option in any menu), restrict chat, IM, teleport, force sitting on certain objects and the like. Some people are of the opinion that this shouldn’t be needed - if your sub doesn’t do as she’s told, then she’s not submitting. Some like it all. The subs feel more fully controlled, the dommes more fully in control. There’s no right answer here, it has to be your choice for your relationship. RLV is a hack to the standard viewer, and requires the sub to log in using an RLV enabled viewer, and with RLV turned on in the case of some viewers. Please note, therefore, that it is ultimately the sub’s choice - they can choose to log in to SL using a viewer without RLV support and all the controls won’t work. Also note that there is no need to use the whole set. Mistress and I use a subset of the RLV options. The only item I have that RLV-locks on is my chastity belt. We both like knowing that it’s as locked on as SL can make it (even though it makes changing hair styles and the like a nuisance). We use the options that RLV offers to control clothes, in particular Mistress likes tearing clothes off me, and I like her doing it. We have a “strip” command and a “remove X” command built in so she can either tear them all off, or remove them one at a time as she chooses. She can write about what’s she’s doing as my clothes are ripped or cut off and we’re both happy - it also stops me having to fumble around with pie menus or the inventory whilst she’s stripping me - it puts her in the driving seat as she should be for that sort of activity. You don’t have to use the whole set, they definitely can add something (if you like forcing girls onto your dungeon devices RLV is great there too, although we don’t use that routinely) but they are an option, not a necessity.

How do you interact? You’ve doubtless seen people frantically typing “ao on” and “ao off” That’s not a command to a toy of course, but it’s probably the best known example of the voice command. Collars often but not always use this - Mistress for example says e.strip to make all my clothes fall off. Some, but not all of these toys also have silent chat channels, so Mistress could type /1 e.strip for the same effect and I wouldn’t see the message in chat until she emoted tearing my clothes off. It’s worth noting that although silent commands have “surprise” impact they’re not always the best way to go unless you’re wanting to (hopefully play-) punish your sub for not obeying a command she couldn’t possibly hear. If you give her a pose command there’s a reasonable chance her ao will block it and she will fail to obey because she won’t know to turn her ao off.

Some items are touch-driven. This may be simple - I have a yoke that you touch to lock and touch again to unlock - or it may pop up a menu. Hopefully the menu is clear and you can find your way around it smoothly to have it do whatever you want.

Some items come with a HUD that you wear. This will give you a range of buttons that you click and away you go. This may additionally pop up a menu or it may directly do what’s needed. The downside of HUD toys is that you can quite quickly run out of HUD attachment points and screen real estate but the odd one can be really useful.

You should consider all of these things up front really. Most of us don’t, I know I didn’t, but I think about it now if I’m considering a new toy.

Collars

And with that, on to the toys. We’ll start with the most basic of them, the collar.

Of course a lot of people like collars. They’re a useful indication of status as well as a useful means of playing animations. Often both dommes and subs like the look of a collar. So what sorts of things can collars do?

You can have a totally unscripted collar that just looks good. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, but there’s not much to discuss about them either. Note that if they’re modifiable you can grab scripts, animations etc. from other collars and put them into this collar if you want. There’s no guarantee that all the parts will work (particularly for setting names on collars) but the core functions should. Note also that if they’re NOT modifiable you can still adjust for height, but your sub will have to adjust her avatar to fit the collar.

Most, in fact all that I’ve seen, of the scripted collars offer an option to create one or more “owners” (Doms, Dommes, Masters, Mistresses etc.). Do you need only one or might you share your sub? Owners usually have special privileges such as locking the collar on, being notified if it’s removed or similar.

Similarly most or all collars offer the ability to play animations, usually to both the wearer and any owners. The owner’s command for an animation overrides the wearer’s of course, but if you like your girls waiting for you in a particular pose this lets them do that. The animations that come in the collar are usually of variable quality and quantity and include a lot of Gorean poses but they’re often quite popular for all subs. Note that if the collar is modifiable you or your sub can add new animations to it. However, if the animations are not at least copiable you can’t add them whilst the collar is being worn. You might want to torment your sub for not adding animations to her collar of course, but she really can’t unless you let her take it off.

After that, things get a bit more tricky. There are different choices, and you may have to hunt around to find the precise combination you want.

Many collars offer the chance to apparently engrave a texture onto the collar so you can have it say “My slut” or “Eloise” or “Lilly’s Pet” or whatever you like (there are maximum numbers of characters here).

Many also offer some sort of leashing option. This may be a leash to you only (with or without handles for the chains), or leashing to posts or others.

Some collars offer shocks, bells, spikes etc. so you can punish a sub, hear when they move, stop others grabbing their collar and so forth. These are fairly rare in terms of numbers of collars offering them, but the most widely used collars seem to offer bells.

There are collars that can report each time your sub teleports or moves sims, so if you’ve ordered her to be online and in a certain place without you, you can check that she hasn’t left the sim. (Why you would do this routinely is another matter - you’re in a relationship and your sub deserves your attention - but the option is available.)

There are doubtless many more options that you can find if you want.

Other toys.

Past collars the range of toys and how they work becomes bewildering. There are, for example, blindfolds. Some of them use HUDs to also block the avatar’s vision (at least mostly). Some are purely cosmetic. A HUD-blindfold will still allow the sub to see at least some of her other HUDs, the mini-map if she uses it and text chat. It naturally won’t interfere with voice chat.

You can find a wide variety of gags. Most will have a “chewing” animation look because there isn’t really a “keep mouth open all the time” option but they look fairly good. Many good gags will come with a silent chat channel e.g. channel 3. Your sub speaks on channel 3 (e.g. /3 thank you Mistress.) and the gag makes a muffled, gagged approximation in open chat (ffffnnnk oooouuu Mmmmsstrisssss for example). Some can be tagged for owner use only and worn all the time so you just touch her mouth and slide the gag in. The gag sits there invisible at all times, and only comes into visibility when touched. It goes again when touched and the correct menu item is picked. Others your sub will have to attach and detach from inventory for herself.

You can find cuffs in a wide variety - police cuffs; ankle and wrist “slave” cuffs; metal, leather or furry cuffs; leg irons; arm and wrist cuffs etc. Most of them play an animation that “forces” the sub into a cuffed position, and this is nearly always cuffed police style with the hands behind the back. A few offer an in-front/behind cuffing option. Some may offer chaining and ankle cuffs often offer a leg-spreader and immobilise option.

You can also find leg-spreaders (with or without an immobilise option), yokes, armbinders (in a variety of styles) and the like. Yokes and armbinders in particular might come with leashing and chain options. Leg-spreaders sometimes come with T-bars so you can fit a pole up towards your sub’s body with a vibrator or similar on top.

You can find piercings for just about any body part. Certainly facial, ear, nipple and clitoral piercings are common and quite easy to find. These, except for earrings, are rarely passive. Nipple and clit rings can be chained together, allow you to play with your sub and the like. At least one style of facial piercing can be adapted into a gag as well.

Chastity belts also exist and again in a variety of styles. Most chastity belts take a fair bit of adjusting to fit and are relatively low-tech. You wear them, and with some you can lock them on and that’s usually it. However chastity belts need to be modifiable so you can add other scripts if you wish. This can include RLV locking, chaining points and the like.

All the toys I have talked about so far are attachments. Before moving on to a discussion of other toys, you need to remember an important point about attachments. That is, you can only have one object attached at each attachment point. If you have collar, wrist cuffs, ankle cuffs, arm cuffs, clit ring, gag, blindfold and nipples attached (that’s my current load) that’s 11 of the 31 visible attachment points. Add some hair and you’re over 1/3 full. Attaching skirts becomes entertaining - many will clash with the clit ring (or sometimes the chastity belt) for their preferred attachment point. Your sub will have to become adept at editing skirts to fit from an attachment point other than their intended one. YOU should become adept at ignoring those times that your sub knocks her collar, belt etc. off by mistake. For most items there is no way to tell in advance where it will go until the item is attached and you suddenly find your collar has gone. Establish ground rules - maybe your sub can only try new things in your presence so you can see it’s an accident and that she reattaches her collar straight away (the down side? You might have to watch hours of fumbling as the item is attached elsewhere and tweaked to look right). Maybe an apology and explanation and a check as soon as possible that she’s back in her collar is OK. You get to see the clothes worn in the right way straight away and if you trust your sub (even if you’re rping forcing her, she’s still here through choice) she’ll put the collar back on unless she really means to run away.

There are doubtless other attachments for other kinks - I know there are attachments for forced urination for example - but I’m afraid that’s outside my experience. However the general principles from above will still apply and it’s well worth shopping around. Pony play, which I’ve sat on the edge of, for example, has a wide range of choices available - it’s really up to you to choose what you want from them and to examine all the options before you put your lindens on the table.

Remember too that not all the attaching toys are for the sub. Floggers, whips and the like are available for the discerning domme.

On to the other toys. Here we’re thinking everything from sex beds to hitching posts, St. Andrew’s Crosses to candles.

Second Life supports just about every kink you can imagine. You can find all manner of bondage equipment, fornophilia toys, drowning toys, even barbeque spits if that’s your thing. Here a number of the questions that were relevant above remain relevant. Is the device xcite! compatible if you use xcite!? Does it support RLV if you use RLV. Are the chains LG, LM or some other system? (There are a small number of custom systems still, most use either LG or LM or both.) How do you interact with it?

However, there are more choices here again. Does that toy come with one pose or hundreds? We have a mixture of these but the multi-pose toys are generally more often used because as the scene develops we can change between the poses without changing location. However, there are certainly some single pose toys that absolutely do the necessary job - we have a free St. Andrew’s Cross laid horizontally on the floor next to a candelabra for example. For those times Mistress wants to drop hot wax on any part of the front of my body it’s ideal and the price was right too!

If you have a multi-pose object how well does it work and how easy is it to change? Your sub may be taller or shorter than average, or you may be, and that pose that says “fuck her with a strap-on” looks a little ridiculous to both of you when you’re thrusting between her knees or over her back because the heights aren’t right! There isn’t really a “right” answer here, but there are a multitude of options for setting the positions and keeping them for future use. Some are simple, some are complex, some just plain don’t work. If it’s important to you, then check that out too. Talk to people that have them about how easy it is to set up - the developer always finds it easy, because they wrote the code for it and it reflects how they think. I was recently shopping with a friend and there was a toy that looked just right for her. Sadly the demonstration model just didn’t work. It may have been a wonderful toy but it was no sale - if the owner can’t keep the demo running will you be able to keep your own running?

The ease of editing existing poses probably tells you something about the ease of adding new ones, but make sure it’s a modifiable object (even if the box says no modify, that might reflect the scripts only remember) so you can add new ones if you want.

Also with that multi-pose object how easy is it to find the pose you want? Can you modify the menu system? Is the menu system clear to you? It isn’t always (and for many people not much ruins a scene in which your partner writes about flipping you over and licking your pussy until you scream for mercy as quickly as the pose balls vanishing, leaving you standing next to each other looking confused).

Then you have fun issues like decor. Many dungeon toys come in a variety of looks, or with systems that let you change their colour and upholstery to suit your play area. That’s all well and good. Remember, however, that if the object is modifiable and you are good with textures you might be able to retexture the object to suit you. Remember if you do this the creator is under no obligation to provide you with the original textures and may well refuse to do so.

A final note. I don’t really make BDSM toys. Although if you have something you want that isn’t available I might make it for you, drop me a line! However, I do make a range of other scripted items in Second Life. I also take the time and effort to write help cards and instructions. If this wasn’t for a blog for a Ff club I wouldn’t bother to write this: men will always be crap at reading instructions; but please try to read the instructions and work it out first! I don’t mind people asking for help who haven’t understood the instructions, or have done something I wasn’t expecting and that isn’t covered by the instructions and code. People who ask for help when it’s clearly in the instructions, and clearly in the instructions they haven’t bothered to read - well let’s just say every sub’s patience has its limits and that is a sure-fire way to get across

Monday, July 20, 2009

Declaration of Submissives' Rights (DSR)

Having watched the deplorable behaviour of a few dommes with respect to their submissives, I wish to make a strong statement concerning the minimum standard of behaviour that is acceptable. There are lots of other rights that are desirable, but can be a question of taste. Comments to me in-world in a notecard or to me in email please. I will take on board constructive comments and publish the final version in the future.
We declare the following to be the absolute rights of all submissives in SL.

1. To have their Sanity, Safety and Consent (SSC) respected at all times. That any domminant ensure, as far as reasonable, that all who interact with their submissives respect these principles.

2. To have their hard limits and use of safewords respected without exception or excuse. Further, that they not be put under pressure to weaken their own declared limits of withdraw use of safewords that they feel appropriate.

3. To be told when their dominants decide to quit SL (or swap to another avatar), so they dont hang around for weeks worrying and wondering if their domminants are coming back. A quick 3-line IM or email is a minimum. Similarly pretending death in RL is unacceptably cruel (unless arranged with those close to them).

4. In return for submission to be given sufficient attention by their domminants. The emotions that accompany genuine submission usually makes the submissive dependent on some attention for their emotional well-being. If a domminants has too many submissives they should not take on more. There is no way around this need (leaving them at a club, doing meaningless tasks, isolating them, putting them on display etc.) - if you take on a submissive you then you have to give them enough personal attention or let them go.

5. To be informed to a reasonable extent when they can expect their domminant to be online, so they dont needlessly mope around waiting.

6. If they have NOT submitted to anyone, to be able to dress and act as they wish, free from any interaction they do not wish for subject only to any rules of any place they visit. In particular for it not to be assumed that they will obey anyone or behave in any way if they have not consented to do so, regardless of their usual orientation or their manner of dress.

7. To not have to reveal any RL information they do not wish to reveal, especially those pertinent to their RL ID (NI numbers, name, address, credit card numbers etc.).

8. To be able to withdraw from any relationship for their own reasons (stated or otherwise), without inappropriate social sanction or public insult.

9. If not in any agreed relationship, to be free to take any desired role, for example to domminant, to switch or out of D/s altogether.

10. To be free to bring any contravention of these rights to public attention or the attention of a relevant authority.
Thank you.
San Mauvaise

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Pictures of Annemarie Niekerk


I am planning an exhibition of pictures of Annemarie at the Cellar to celebrate her life. If you have any please send them to me in world with perms or email them to me at san.mauvaise@gmail.come (please only from addresses that do NOT reveal RL IDs!).

Thank you.

San

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Photography Exhibit


I would like to invite my Cellar family to a showing of my photography at the Art'e Gallery in Helvellyn, now through the end of July. The Cellar is the setting for one of the pictures, and features several familiar figures.

Helvellyn is also worth the visit by itself. A charming Mediterranean style shopping village and residential area, om and I have called it home for a year now, and would love to have you visit.

-Jilly Kikuchiyo

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Annemarie Niekerk has died


It is with great sadness that I have to announce that the RL person we knew as Annemarie Niekerk died after a long illness. Her SL family was there with her over these difficult months. She and her family are a great example of how loving a SL D/s family can be, Our thoughts are with Liz, Tas, Eve and Emma as they come to terms with this.

Her SL memorial is at

San

Cellar Gender Policy

Dear Members,

I have now spent a long time consulting a range of people. Many thanks to all those who sent me their opinions or talked to me about this issue. It is good to know that so many care about the Cellar and that it is a special place for them.

There was a huge variety amoung those that sent me their opinion. Amoung those I talked to personally, however, there was near unanimity. This is significant to me as those include many whose RL sex I know to be female. This is a difficult issue, and I am sure I will not satisfy some whatever I do. I am sorry if the policy here is not to your liking.

My general principles and inclinations are as follows.

The Cellar's female ethos is overridingly important. That is it is a welcoming, caring and helpful place - not a place for quick sex or instant liasons, but one where quality relationships are encouraged and celebrated. It is not only a place for lesbians, but for women of all kinds and orientations. Tolerance of all different kinds of sexuality, and approach/style of BDSM is essential, not to mention any kind of nationality or religion.

There are some vulnerable people who come to the Cellar due to its caring ethos. Some have bad experiences in for example from Gor, abusive D/s relationships, or RL experiences. I would like to be able to afford them some protection, but have come to the conclusion that the only way to do this in SL is via tha norms of quality behaviour in the Cellar and via the mutual support network that is available there. It can not ensure the RL characteristics of those as the Cellar and it should not give the misleading impression that it can.

The Cellar can not achieve its ends by "hard" means such as banning. This does not work in SL -- only persuasion and self-selection works. If someone is banned they can just come back as another av. However if they dont find that avs here are easy to exploit and that callous behaviour is disapproved of they are likely to go elsewhere. Thus the purpose of the policy and guidelines should be to encourage good behaviour as much as possible and discourage and abusive, uncaring or exploitative behaviour.

The Cellar is a feminist place in the senses that: it promotes the rights of women to be respected and free from abuse; it is for the mutual support of women; it promotes a female ethos. It is not, however, vindictive towards or against anyone, merely be a place where women can relax and simply socialise without threat or hassle.

Thus the new policy of the Cellar will be as follows (it is similar to the old one).

The Cellar is a place for females only. No male avs, sexuality or behaviour will be tolerated. We ask that any males who are simply pretending to be female should respect our wish to be female-only and go elsewhere. No penises or other displays of maleness are allowed.

It is recognised that there are people (TG/TS/TV) with female brains but RL male bodies. These are allowed by on some conditions: (1) they talk to me, San Mauvaise before spending substantial time at the Cellar (2) they reveal their RL status to others before any sexual intimacy or entering into a longer-term relationship with them (such as collaring) (3) they live as a female at the Cellar in all respects.

People at the Cellar will ultimately be judged on their behaviour. There will be no witch-hunt in the sense of trying to find out about the RL sex of av's and anyway this is contrary to the SL Terms of Service (which all have accepted by using SL). Avs who behave callously or abusively will not be welcome at the Cellar, even if they are RL female. TG avs who show by their behaviour that they act in accordance with the Cellar female ethos will be accepted on terms equal to any other av.

My decision on this is final. I am, as always, always willing to listen to the views of any member if respectfully put. However I will not now change this policy for at least 6 months.

San Mauvaise

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Search and the Cellar

Forgot to mention in last post.

I had already taken the Cellar out of search as an experiment. Most of the members who come to stay and fit in come as a result of recommendations by others and members Picks mentioning the Cellar. Many of those that arrive using search are looking for a quick thrill.

So if you search for the Cellar and it is not there - it is not (necessarily) due to the adult restrictions!

So, do send suitable people to the cellar, give them the LM to it (obtainable from the orange shiny ball in the entrance arch), do add the Cellar to your picks.

I will evaluate this experiment in a month or two. As always I welcome members' comments and suggestions!

San

Upcoming changes to SL and the adult restrictions

I do want to help ensure that under-18s do not come to the Cellar. However I am equally sure that the new regulations will make it more difficult for some of our legitimate members.

Firstly, we will not be in a hurry to introduce the restriction on entering the Cellar. Secondly I dont think we are a "public place promoting sexual activity" we are a club open to the public promoting quality D/s relationships that may or may not involve sexual aspects.

If you have used payment information (essentially a credit card) with the Lindens there should be no difference for you. If you dont, then you should be able to verify your age using the Linden system. Apparently this is completely seperate from SL and SL only recieve a code indicating a successful verification. However I have not yet tried this system.

The recent linden post on search and adult ratings is here: https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/technology/blog/2009/06/10/search-and-adult-content



If you want to test whether you are adult verified try going to:
Linden Account Verification Test, Oatmeal 15 (249, 242, 22)

If you are worried or want to discuss this do contact me in world.

San

Friday, June 5, 2009

End of the Road for Dari's Haus

As you can read from http://www.darishaus.com/site/ while the website is still there (will dissapear in a bit), Darian Caudwell is leaving SL and has put a large amount of the collars etc. he produced into the public domain.



There is a vase in the middle of the freebies at the cellar with all this stuff in (also at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Yurim/235/87/31 and http://slurl.com/secondlife/Aneslasleja/62/58/2). Please take these and give them to others.

The collar may need a bug fix once the dari haus website has gone. See below for details:

Keeping Your Collar running



Written by Darien Caldwell
Monday, 11 May 2009 18:42 originally (here)

The collar polls this website for diagnostic reasons. Now that Dari's Haus is closing, this website will also eventually close. Once this site is gone, the collar would produce an error on every TP, however, there is a simple fix to ensure your collar continues to work without this error.

Please Select Read More to be taken on a step-by-step guide.

  1. 1. Rez your collar on the ground.
  2. 2. Press Ctrl-Alt-T to make invisible things show as red highlight.

3. Then Right Click on the collar and choose Edit.

4. Check the box that says "Edit Linked Parts"

5. Select the Content Tab, then click on the lightly red ball that's usually near the center of the collar. This prim will be named "dari_node".

6. Inside is a script named "!".

7. Delete this script, by right clicking on it and choosing the delete option.

8. The collar will prompt to reload settings. Say 'done' to start the reload, and you're finished.



San

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Exhibition of wedding pictures (Moni and Michelle)


Moni Basevi and Michelle Grant's wedding pictures can be seen at Ratna's Artistic Lens gallery at the following LM

Mystical, mystical (42,  163, 27)

Walk through the main gallery and then down the stairs, where you find an exquisit set of lovely wedding photographs made by Ratna.

San

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Basic Safety for BDSM in SL

I realised I did not have a notecard about basic safety, so here it is.

..............................

Basic Safety for BDSM in SL

Although SL is very safe (no significant physical risk, can always quit) it is surprisingly emotional.  For this reason some basic safety measures are advisable.  

This is not long, please take the time to read it if you, especially if you are new to BDSM in SL.
  1. Do quit if it gets too much!  I know this is obvious, but it is easy not to for reasons of pride (I have no limits, am no sissy etc.) or social obligation (I said I would not, she would be disspointed in me).  Good BDSM interaction will not allow you to get to this point - if its really too much, press ctrl+Q or turn off your computer/disconnect the internet (which simulates a crash well).

  2. Agree a safeword with whomever you are interacting with.  This is a word that will not be confused with play refusal (saying "no no" when you mean yes, which is fairly common in kinky play) - !SAFEWORD! is fairly unambiguous.

  3. Think about and declare your limits explicitly.  Don't just hope your partner will somehow know what they are - even if they are obvious to you they might not be to others, everyone is different in this.  Also *everybody* has some limits, don't fool yourself otherwise -- would you be happy stuck somewhere in SL for 6 months with no interaction?  would you be willing to be sold to someone else and then to another?  would you be nasty to your friends on command?  would you do things to yourself in RL?  

  4. Declare traumatic episodes. If you have any traumatic episodes in your life that even *might* be triggered during an interaction, please either (a) don't enter into that interaction or, at least, (b) tell the other about it in enough detail so they know.

  5. Don't reveal your RL ID. Don't tell information about your RL that would allow yourself to be identified (at least until you have known them a LONG time then do it gradually and carefully if you really wish this).  Remember due to the web and Google, information about you (your job, location etc.) can be used to identify you if you are specific and accurate enough.

  6. Talk to others. If you are worried about anything talk to others who are similar to you (subs->subs etc.).  This will help you understand what is normal, what is not, useful tips and what to do about bad situations.  If you dont have anyone else, come and talk to me.
Thats it.  Enjoy!

San

PS.  Safety in RL BDSM is a lot more involved due to the physical risks involved.  This is about BDSM in SL only.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Consultation about Cellar Gender Policy

Dear Members,

I am consulting about the Cellar's Gender rules.  Please tell me your opinion by writing it in a notecard and sending it to me (open my profile and drag the notecard you have written onto it). 


Background

The Cellar is supposed to be only for women.  As much as possible it should be a place where a female ethos and behaviour reigns (emphasis on relationships, a caring and connected community helping and supporting each other, no instant sex etc.).  There are some at the Cellar with bad or even truamatic experiences with RL males, and it would be nice to think they had a little protection from such behaviour at the Cellar.

Here I must add a couple of personal notes. I have a F2M Transexual friend in RL (was a girl now a man, operation, married etc.), and through him I have learnt what they go through.  I do believe that it is possible to be born with a male brain and a female body (or the other way around).  I would like those who *do* have a female brain to be allowed into the Cellar.  Secondly several people who are very dear to me have arrived at D/s in SL in a quite a depressed state, yet aware of submissive urges in themselves.  I would like the Cellar to be a place where such people feel they can be themselves but within a community that provided them with friends, advice and care.

Of course these two things are difficult.   It is impossible to stop males who are just pretending to be female coming to the Cellar.  Equally it is very difficult to seperate those that are genuinely transgender (female brain) from those that just want to causually try being female.   It must be the case that a significant proportion of those at the Cellar are RL men, estimates range from 10-90%, there is no real way of knowing.  I hope its under 40% since if its above this the club's ethos probably cant be maintained in the long run.


Current Policy

The current policy is no males but with the following exception (in the detailed club information):
Although RL men are not wanted at the cellar, and no male behaviour/appearence will be tollerated (including the use of penises), genuine m->f transexuals are welcome, provided (1) they reveal this to me and discuss this with me before entering the club (2) they live totally as a woman in all respects and (3) they reveal this fact to anyone before becoming intimate (there are some at the club with traumas due to abuse by men so this is a sensitive subject).
The idea of this was not to make it easy for RL males who were pretending to be TS, so that I knew who they were and could keep an eye open on them, that they had to know about TS issues and processes and they understood the importance of not being intimate with others before telling them.  


My General Aims for the Club's Policy

My aims in this policy are several:
  1. To maintain a "female atmosphere", that emphasises underlying respect, tollerance, relationships, friendship, safety and mutual care/support.
  2. To help provide a home (to the limited extent possible a safe home) for women with D/s leanings who want to avoid men, in particular for those who have suffered trauma due to their treatedment by men.
  3. To be an open, friendly, welcoming place that is simply nice to come to, helpful and inclusive to newcomers and newbies
  4. To be as tollerant of people's various desires and orientations as possible whilst emphasising the importance of safety and care
  5. I dont want to even try to police the gender of those at the club, or have to investigage claims about an av's sex if there is not incident or noone is harmed (quite apart from this being against the SL TOS).  Rather I would like rules etc. that encourages the self-selection of those who frequent the place.


The Consultation

I am asking members what they think of the current policy, as well as if and how they think it should be changed.  

Some particular issues:
  • Should the TS males at the club declare this in their profile?
  • Should we be trying at all to keep the club female?
  • Do people want to maintain the illusion that all at the club are RL female?
  • How best to keep the maximum pressure on RL males at the club to behave in a suitable fashion?
  • How to ensure the Club can protect its more vulnerable members?
  • How to preserve the ethos and atmosphere of the Club?
Please send me your comments!

Thank you.
San Mauvaise

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Getting over a bad relationship...

  1. Embrace Your Anger — “You were lied to. You were betrayed. You were fooled. You have the right to be angry.”
  2. Get Over Your Regret — “Kick yourself in the ass a few times. Mourn everything you lost. But pick yourself up and get on with it. You already wasted time — don’t waste more drowning yourself in your sorrows.”
  3. Hold Steady — “Create a support network, and try to stay away from intense debates with those who betrayed you.”
  4. Be Cautious About Getting Back Involved in the Same Sort of Relationship — “Even if you still believe that it is worthwhile or what you want, you should probably take it easy, at least for a while. Otherwise, you may be setting yourself up for a pattern of involvement, disillusionment, and disbelief.”
  5. Life Your Life in Color — “Life without can be a marvelous, beautiful thing. I urge you to take the opportunity to do things you couldn’t or wouldn’t do before, when and how you can.”
Culled and adapted from From Shuggi's Blog at:
http://shuggi.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/getting-over-a-relationship/

To which I would add (based on my own experience):
  • Meet with and interact with friends — don't spend all your time moping on your own (and SL wandering on your own can be very depressing).
  • Start a new project, SL skill, or exploration — new things and even relationships can grow out of doing something new, and its imporetant to feel you are making some progress, somehow.
  • Help and empathise with others who have lost someone — this not only helps them, but its something that feels real even if you are a bit down.
  • Get outside — yes the RL outside each day.
  • Don't beat up on yourself too much if you are not achieving and seem to be just wandering — you are not, recovering from a bad relationship takes some personal space and time.

San

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Tisiphone and Selena are Wed!


Much to everyone's surprise (and I think theirs) Tisiphone and Selena decided to get married today!  


Although both hide it well under a venner of playfullness, I know there is real love and friendship between them.


They made touching pledges to each other in a simple improvised ceremony, and then were married.


Those who could make it at only 10 mins notice did and joined in congratulating them.


Unusually the couple were very quiet afterwards as they danced.


May I wish them many happy years together.

San

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Silks-only night at the Cellar



This thursday there will be a silks-only night.  That is the normal rule about no nudity will be relaxed and there will be an obligation for everyone to wear silks of some kind (broadly interpreted).

This will last from 8pm SL time (4 GMT if my calculations are correct) for the next 12 hours.

Enjoy!

San

Annemarie and liz's wedding

On friday, Annemarie and liz were wed in a beautiful ceremony.  Everyone I talked to was deeply touched.  I will post some pictures when they are available, though I expect there will be many on Liz's blog (when she has some time to catch up).

San

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Prison Facilities


Over the last few months I have been transforming the prison block downstairs.

To get to it you click on the blank wall opposite the stairs.


Now has two cells, a rack, a plunger (!), a head trap some leashing rings and a some more robust animations. 

But best is the deep, dark oubliette below - sit your sub on the manhole to send them down (only way out is to TP them). 

Enjoy, sorry only for full members or those accompanying them!

San

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Corner of the Sim at the Cellar



I have improved the outlook and facilities at the corner of the Sim at the Cellar.  There are now nice rocks and spray, a tree, a leashing ring, a bench with a nice pose (above) as well as some chains on the end wall opposite, for subs that needs some "downtime" (or is it uptime in this case?).

Enjoy!

San

Saturday, February 21, 2009

10 common questions/worries about BDSM - Eloise Pasteur

Sometimes people come along with some big, heavy questions about BDSM. Quite often, if they're raised in public, it turns out quite a few people have worried about the same things. So, here are some answers to be thinking on.

1.    I've just found out that I like (some aspects of) BDSM. I'm worried that I'm a pervert!

There are lots of answers to this, starting from "Welcome to the pervert's club!" to thinking deeply about what it means to be a pervert. The second is probably more useful to discuss though.

Perversion is, essentially, defined by your culture. Some cultures have strong taboos against public nudity, some are remarkably relaxed about it. In the former, topless sunbathing, upskirt shots and the like are taboo and titillating, naughty or even illegal. In the latter, exhibitionism is a rare fetish, and often involves being partially (but inappropriately) dressed rather than being naked in public.

If you go back to pre-reformation Europe, then the heights to which we were meant to aspire was marriage to God and living a celibate life as a priest, monk or nun. Because this was impossible for most people, it was considered second best to "suffer" intercourse within marriage purely for the sake of propagating the species. Under that definition, sex for pleasure, for comfort and so forth was perverse - although I bet a lot of couples did both of those and more.

Some people will doubtless regard what you do as perverse. That's a reflection of their inability to think outside the boxes that society tries to use to control us, often a desire to control other people and their ability to have fun, and their willingness to judge you from insufficient information. That doesn't make it easier to live with of course, if it's your parents, your boss or similar, but it doesn't make them right.

Are you giving your partner(s) loving care and attention? Are you mutually pleasuring and supporting each other? If you are, then what you do is between you, and it's almost certainly a healthy relationship. If what others think of it matters more than the pleasure you get from it, then that is a choice you have to make, but you will probably be happier and still look for relationships that satisfy all your needs over time, even if you decide for the moment to have a relationship that doesn't shock your peers. You should also, of course, consider keeping the relationship you like, but not being quite so open about what you do in the bedroom (dungeon, bathroom, nightclub or wherever). Families don't really want to know, even if you'd like to tell them. Friends can usually cope better - but you don't have to tell them every little detail unless you like that or they witness it anyway.

Before leaving this topic, one of the things that often comes up is "how you can like giving/receiving pain? That's just sick!" Whilst many D/s couples, and certainly those into the S&M end of things go further, possibly much further than this, most people, even the vicar, have indulged in erotic pain at some point, one way or another. Did you never give, or receive, a hickey/love-bite? Whether it's sinking your teeth into your partner (not my thing) or being bitten and the bruises left after the bite (sign me up! More, more!) you're into giving and receiving pain in an erotic situation. Still think it's sick?

2.    I've just watched CSI/SVU/Criminal Minds etc. and they're hunting a sexual sadist. They refer to this person as criminally insane too. Am I criminally insane and will I be hunted down?

There is an unfortunately double use of sadist here. If you like giving pain (you're a top of some description) then you are a sadist more or less. However when the various law-enforcement agencies are looking for a sexual sadist, they are looking for a sexually predatory sociopath (or sometimes a psychopath) with sadistic tendencies, not the local heavy top. There is a difference, and it isn't a small one. A top, no matter how rough he/she plays and caters to extreme fantasies, does so with the collusion and desire of their partner. A heavy top meets the needs of a heavy bottom, and they both enjoy what they do together. Your typical sexually predatory sociopath doesn't have that partnership. Rather they inflict their desires on someone, often more than one person, in a way that is not in the slightest consensual. They kidnap, rape, abuse and often kill their victims. Whilst you may have fantasies about being kidnapped and forced, or kidnapping and forcing another, the point at which it crosses the line is when they have no idea, no desire to play along, and it's purely for you.

I actually have mild kidnap fantasies. They're hard to work in Second Life, but knowing that Mistress might (IRL) kidnap me and drag me away for a weekend of "rape" and "torture" sometime is kind of exciting. But I know and trust Mistress, and if she rapes and tortures me, I'll be fit to go to work on Monday, and I rather expect I'd enjoy the weekend, even if I was worried it might be for a week or longer and I'd miss work unexpectedly or something. The prospect of being kidnapped and held by a genuine rapist who will probably kill me - that really doesn't do anything for me. Thinking about the former makes me tight and tingly in all the right places. Just writing that much about the second has killed that feeling and is making me sick.

So, your typical heavy top is not a sociopath or a predator. She will may act in a way that appears to be torturing you, kidnapping you and the like, but it will be with your consent and to some extent with your knowledge and complicity. It's a very different situation, even though the wording used is rather similar.

3.    I've just heard about Boy George being sent to prison for 15 months for chaining someone to his bed and beating them. Am I a criminal?

The answer here is more complicated, and needs the proviso that I am not a lawyer. I am based in the UK, so the criminal offence names I am going to use are from British law, but most countries have broadly similar laws that will apply.

My understanding of the law is that, with the exception of depictions of paedophilia and sex with children whatever you get up to in Second Life with a consenting partner or partners is OK. Outside of Second Life, the law usually protects the sub and puts the Domme at risk. Tying someone to the bed can be construed as illegal imprisonment. Beating or branding someone is almost certainly assault, possibly with actual or grievous bodily harm. Kidnapping and pretending to rape someone looks a lot like kidnap and rape to the police, and the kidnapper and rapist will be the person charged. Now, if you are doing these things sensibly, and consensually, in most cases the police won't find out because the sub won't want to complain - Boy George was arrested because he chained a model to his bed and beat him without consent, the model escaped and reported him to the police. But, if the police come knocking at your door for something else, they could, if they want to, arrest you for unlawful imprisonment if your sub is tied to the bed...

The law doesn't always protect the sub mind. If your Mistress can control your clothes in Second Life, in most places if you turn up naked, or exposed, even gagged and chained, people don't bat an eyelid - it isn't something you necessarily see every day even in Second Life, but it's not uncommon. Turning up to the mall naked and with chains from your clit ring, gag, collar and nipple rings to a leash in Mistress' hand is rather more likely to cause comment! In the UK being naked in public like that is usually a public disorder offence (Behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace for example) and the defense of "Mistress told me to dress this way" is not a defence at law.

But remember, apart from depicting sex with a child, in Second Life you're legal.

4.    I'm worried that I'll start things and get kinkier and pervier until I can't control myself.

My simple answer to this is "No, you won't" but that deserves some explaining.

Most people, often at some early point in their exposure to BDSM, see a limits list. It is surprisingly easy for most of us to fill in the majority of that list, even if we've never tried BDSM in any way or shape before. If you fill in the list you basically have, typically 6 categories of answers:
  • I know I'll like this to some extent
  • I think I'll like this to some extent
  • I think I won't like this
  • I know I don't like this, but it doesn't revolt me
  • WTF is this?
  • OMG NO!
As time goes by you might find that some of the things you thought you might like a little or not like you like a lot (I wasn't keen on nipple rings or clit rings, I wouldn't be without them now), I was very unsure about long term chastity belt wearing, and I still am, but I wore one for a month and don't regret having done it, even though I'm not looking for a repeat thanks!

You will also, of course, come to learn just what some of the "WTF is this?" category are, and you might find you like some of them.

But this isn't really becoming kinkier - this is just exploring which bits you like and don't like and how strongly as you learn more about yourself and your sexuality. However, I've been doing limit cards for getting on for 5 years now, at least occasionally. The hard limit "OMG NO!" things are still all hard limits. I haven't really added new kinks to my psyche, although I have discovered that some things I wasn't that keen on in the abstract are actually really good in practise. I've also discovered that some things I thought I'd like a lot don't really do it for me. The list of kinks I like and hope Mistress uses on me has changed, but I've both added and taken away from it, but I still have boundaries I won't cross, even for her.

5.    I'm worried about meeting IRL and finding I don't like the same things as I do in SL/can't submit to her/can't make her submit to me

Meeting IRL is a big step. It can be made all the bigger because there can be long distances between you IRL that you are going to work around. Long distances make one or the other person travel a lot, and away from "safe" or "neutral" ground because they may well be in a country they don't really know that well.

You should, I would say must, get to know the person as well as possible. Skype, photos, video-chat if you can over skype, as well as a relationship in SL, email and all the rest. Try everything you can to make sure you both want this. Even though I'm hard of hearing, we've tried Skype - it's doubtless not as good as if I could hear well, but we have some idea of what the other sounds like.

If can submit to your partner after all this, you can almost certainly submit to her face-to-face. Your submission is, after all, something you offer to her and you can almost certainly offer them to her face-to-face if you can do it in SL, through Skype, email, and everything else. In some ways we have it easy as the subs - we're used to giving up control and waiting. When you're meeting for the first time, you will both be nervous, but you can give up control and wait patiently. The nerves will go, in time, and it should work out.

Similarly, if your sub will submit to you, then you shouldn't have to worry. You will both be nervous, but she's used to subbing to you, and will sub to you. If you're in a relationship where you normally play at forcing her, you might want to take that aspect easy at first - and negotiate this in advance. In Second Life a 90 year old 4'10 and 80 lb woman can "force" a pro-wrestler. In real life, the 90 year old will still be able to dominate the willingly submissive wrestler, but forcing her will require more choreography than it does in Second Life.

The biggest difference will come with how the sub's body reacts. In Second Life I love kneeling. In real life, I have two bad knees and a bad back - kneeling for more than a couple of seconds is frankly impossible and some of the tension poses over a horse or similar are equally impossible. Being tied in suspension poses, especially inverted ones, causes not that much discomfort in SL (although a great deal of excitement at the style and completeness of the restriction). IRL whilst you can be tied and suspended fully for quite a long time without problems by an expert, finding things strong enough to take your weight and an expert tier/suspender is rare - although with time and practise both of you will get better.

Both of you will have to adjust to this. Your Mistress will probably find that things you obey willingly and completely in Second Life you just can't do in real life. Avatars can be animated in ways that even the most supple gymnasts can't manage, can take highly restrictive tension bondage for days without developing cramps, sores or similar and in the ultimate can be hung by the neck without suffocation. Real bodies can't do these things, most of us can't even get close to any of them. Of course, depending on your relationship, she might use that to punish you and she is perfectly within her rights so to do, but in any relationship that is likely to last your Mistress will be considerate of your physical limits, so if you can't get your elbows together behind your back IRL (however easy it is in SL) then she might encourage you towards this (and over time you might find you can do it) without punishment until you can manage it. Most people who have extant SL relationships and choose to meet in real life will find, in D/s terms, it is quite like starting over, but it progresses to a deep and comfortable relationship more quickly than normal. The habit of submission and obedience is there, and the psychological knowledge of each other and needs, like, habits and so on are well established. However, the physical limits, and the specific feelings of bodies in contact with each other are new and have to be learnt. That can, of course, be very exciting and often is. That discovery time also helps with determining the physical limits that you will each have to get used to.

6.    Crime and Punishment

This is always a thorny issue - and in part the answer will be "it depends on your personality, likes and dislikes and relationship" as it is more or less bound to be.

Lets start with the types of punishment. 

There's play punishment, the kind of thing where you're sent to do an impossible task such as find my favourite picture and bring it here - you go, it's already broken, you get punished for breaking it. The punishments in this case are almost always fun. You get put over the knee and spanked, then brought to orgasm for example would be a suitable, and probably typical, play punishment. If your relationship is largely entirely separate scenes with lots of role-play you might have lots of these. School-girl and teacher, police-woman and shop-lifter, maid and mistress etc. Some proportion of these will involve play punishments, because most people who play in the D/s field like the tying up, the judicious application of erotic pain and the like that adds the BD and SM sides to the BDSM field. If you have a more continuous relationship you'll still have times playing this sort of game too. Play punishment is role-play, but can be and often is used in a lifestyle relationship as well. In a more vanilla context, silly stories about "I got my husband to dress like Batman and spring from the wardrobe to rescue me" and so forth are exactly the same sort of thing. The types of play almost certainly (at least usually) define the sorts of "punishment" you're going to see - Police-woman and shoplifter is a classic for public nudity for example as the police-woman removes each "stolen" piece of clothing as evidence. You might well then be cuffed and dragged off, and get into a group sex scene if that's your kind of thing as the whole of the police-force at that station come in to "check" on the prisoner. School-girls get into either mucky play - hockey on a muddy pitch for example, or some sort of caning/spanking when you misbehave in class. The list carries on, and there are certainly variations, but this kind of thing can be loads of fun despite having strong normal tropes.

Then there is real punishment. Mistress tells you to wait at home, naked, tied to the bed and gagged. She comes home to find you dressed, not gagged and nowhere near the bedroom. You are in trouble - it doesn't matter if you've chosen to disobey, she's come home early or what, you are clearly not obeying her instructions. If you've got a really good excuse - the police opened the door to "rescue" you, you've just got home from an interview and you have rules that let you dress and go out for interviews etc. then you might get away with it, but it's unlikely in any other circumstances. Speaking personally, I rarely, I won't say never because I have done it, behave in a way that is going to seek punishment. The reason for this is quite simple. Each time I've been properly punished, I have completely hated it and I have no desire to be punished again. That said, I think this is the way it should be. If I transgress, I should be punished, and punished in a way that will make me not do it again. For me, being spanked isn't a punishment, it's a pleasure. Being whipped is a punishment for me because the pain is so severe I can't find any erotic pleasure in it. Being denied access to Mistress is a punishment too, and perhaps one of the commonest ones. There are subtler variations too - losing the privilege of calling her Mistress is a surprisingly nasty one for example. To my mind these punishments should be limited in time, clear, and if possible modified to suit the crime. Denial of contact is a good one for a sub that pesters for attention. Restrictions on calling her Mistress are ideal when you don't call her Mistress in public despite the fact you both know you should. Some people will tell you that you should never get punished like this. I have to disagree, and will address that further below. 

7.    It's got to be fun/She can do what she wants

Both of these statements contain elements of truth, but they're dangerous because they're not really wholly true. 

If you are playing with someone as a one-off or very occasional thing, then I would say that normally I would expect both sides to want it to be fun. But, if you say "Mistress, you can do whatever you like with me" then you're (probably) not being honest - most of us have some limits - and to some extent you deserve not to have fun until you learn to say "I don't like X, Y, Z Mistress, but anything else is OK." This also gives us the limits of the truth of the second statement. When you submit to someone most of us submit within limits. Within those limits, she can do what she wants. As she gets closer to them she needs to be careful, and pushing hard at or through the limits returns to you the right to say "STOP!" in some pre-arranged fashion (Red as a safeword say) a right she really should respect. If she doesn't respect your stop safeword, that's not D/s that's abuse - although of course occasionally someone can hit the return key when they intend to stop so one or maybe two sentences more could be an honest mistake, it's carrying on regardless that tips it into abuse.

In a longer term relationship it's trickier. Obeying orders you want to, or obeying orders that give you a thrill because they "tickle" a taboo rather than smashing it is fun. Turning up naked to a formal non-D/s ball in Second Life is fun if exhibitionism is one of your foibles for example - and in SL you probably won't get arrested, expelled or similar. Someone has a photo of me in a black and purple latex catsuit and a very obvious steel chastity belt somewhere. PG really, although not quite normal street clothes - except I'm at a teachers' conference at the time. That was fun. But, subs can be very complex things - part of D/s is submitting to your dominant's wishes, even if you don't really want to. Part of you is getting a reward - doing what your dominant wants - whilst other parts of you are wishing you didn't have to do this. One of my former Mistresses had me show people around the house and gardens naked, whoever they were. With most people this wasn't a problem, but just occasionally it would be someone that made me feel very uncomfortable, and I would have to do it anyway. I could do things like not offer to show them around and hope they didn't ask of course - that was OK - but this didn't always work. This kind of awkward order is something that she was perfectly entitled to, wasn't always fun, and yet strengthened my feelings of submission most WHEN it wasn't fun to do. The other thing, of course, is that in a longer-term relationship you will almost inevitably try new things. Some, hopefully most, of them will be good for both of you. Some will be bad for one or the other, some will be bad for both. Healthy relationships can stand this (and often giggle about it later) and decide not to go back there.

8.    Collars are Gorean/sacred/represent a personal submission/should be worn by all submissives/something else

The answer here is really something else. Collars are NOT Gorean, but they are universally used in Gor. Collars have been used to restrict slaves (in the non-sexual sense) since at least Roman times in the West, probably longer. Collars have been described in BDSM play for centuries - you can find them in the writings of de Sade for example. Gor adopted the collar because it's such a great symbol of submission/slavery and control - and they were used in history because if you can control someone's head and neck it's very hard for them to do much like escape, run or fight back.

In RL BDSM circles it's common for all submissives or the vast majority of them to wear a collar of some kind and rare for a dominant to do so. You are closer to a situation of "should be worn by all submissives" than anything else. However, in real life it's relatively rare (and uncomfortable in the extreme) for a submissive to wear a collar all the time - in Second Life it's rather common (my collar has not been off in almost two years unless there's an attachment debacle trying new clothes on).

In Second Life I would say that it's more of a "something else" situation - people pick and choose as they like. It is reasonably common for submissives playing with someone, long-term relationship or no, to wear a collar, simply because collars contain lots of goodies that let your dominant control you - affect poses, tie you up and so on. The symbolism of always wearing the collar is representative of being always submissive to someone, and that of the locked collar of it being a restricted, long term relationship.

If you choose, whilst wearing a collar, to go to a Gorean sim, the free there, unless it's clear you're not Gorean, might reasonably assume you are a kajira and treat you as such. Read the rules, wear a "guest" tag or whatever it takes. Explain to them that you're not a kajira you're a visiting submissive and not there for them to play with (most times, if you are polite with such an explanation you will find those trying to "use" you will respect that). At the end of the day, unless you've been abandoned there and told to submit to whatever goes on as a punishment or similar, you can always leave, mute them or whatever it takes, the same as anyone else that doesn't respect your limits and boundaries.

9.    All submissives long to be broken

Another tricky one - before you fly off the handle you need to find out what they mean by broken. Most submissives in long term relationships will, at times, hope to or even ask to have their soft limits and even their hard limits explored to find out where they lie now. That would include me, on occasion. Some people describe this exploration as "breaking" and on those terms I would say it's fair comment. To my mind, however, breaking someone is not the same as exploring their limits. Exploring their limits can be done slowly, carefully and lovingly - it is something that is known to be high risk and so taken gently with the expectation at each step that you might have to stop. Breaking them sounds a much more focussed, uncaring process. "I am going to push this limit to the point I want regardless of your wishes" sounds like breaking them. That's never been something that I have any interest in. Some submissives might, but in my experience it's a minority of them, and certainly not all of them.

How you explore those limits, assuming you do, is something between you and your Mistress. I'm always reminded with exploring hard limits of the approaches to curing phobias. There are two methods, called broadly desensitisation and flooding. Desensitisation involves lots of little steps... thinking about spiders, seeing a spider in a cage in a different room, in the same room, out of the cage next door, out of the cage in the room and so on. Flooding is (more appropriately for those with phobias about water) like pushing them in the deep end of the swimming pool. Both have advocates in the psychiatric profession, and times they are probably the best treatment. 

10.        All submissives are broken, abused, hopeless creatures.

Crap. Pure and utter bullshit. Complete and utter nonsense. It is, inevitably, true that some submissives are. It is equally inevitably true that some dominants are. If you have two large enough subsets of people, there will be people in both subsets. There are estimates that about 25-30% of the population have suffered abuse and about 20-25% of the population have mental health conditions at some point in their lives. If the two are totally unlinked about 5-8% of the population have both (the cross-over is higher in fact, and it's about 15% that are estimated to have both). There's about 10% of the population that have BDSM tendencies, so about 1.5% of the population are into BDSM and have been abused and have mental health conditions. About 3% have BDSM tendencies and a history of abuse, and about 2% have BDSM tendencies and mental health issues.

Within the already selected groups of BDSM people the numbers you would expect return to the population norms - 25-30% will have suffered abuse, 20-25% will have mental health conditions. I would say that actually the proportions you find of both conditions are lower than this in my experience (probably about half of the general levels) suggesting that actually a history of abuse and a history of mental health illness keeps about half of the possibly interested away from the BDSM: It requires a degree of mental toughness and health to cope with the demands of the lifestyle. It is possible (here is even more of a guess) that BDSM attracts those with more serious mental health conditions and those who are both victims of abuse and have related mental health conditions. My experiences don't support this really, but I don't make a habit of surveying the mental health of those I meet in depth, so it is possible and I just haven't noticed it. However, people will say this so if you're exploring the BDSM lifestyle, you might want to make your own mind up about the people you meet - there will be a small proportion of very weird people, just like there are everywhere. 

My experience, both personal and seeing those around me, is that by and large both submissives and dominants in happy relationships are at least as happy, mentally stable and so on as the general population. Finding a relationship that fulfils your needs is a good thing for all concerned, even if the day-to-day nature of that relationship isn't quite the norm for your society, whatever that is.


Eloise Pasteur