Note: Still on a happily hectic family vacation on the awesomely laid-back Greek island of Lesvos and so posting and comment moderation will continue to be sparse.  Today or tomorrow we're going to try and get over to Skala Eresou, which in addition to being Sappho's birthplace is also supposed to have an awesome beach.

It's really great to keep spreading the message that "No means no" and as a slogan "no means no" is memorable and effective. But a slogan isn't really adequate for helping people navigate real-world situations: you also need real-world illustrations and examples. Sarah Sloane offers an example from the BDSM community that ought to be part of mainstream Relationships 101.

Keep in mind that you do not need to have a reason to say no – you are entitled to say no for any reason (or even no reason) at all. It’s YOUR decision whether to play or engage in sex. You also do not need to give them a “rain check” or tell them maybe another time unless you want to – in fact, in my experience it’s been worse for me to tell them “maybe” instead of just saying no and leaving it alone.

When I came up in my leather community, I was taught that one of the things that bind us together is a sense of respect; part of that is respect for ourselves and our ability & power to say no, and part of it is respect for the other person that we’re talking with. Honesty – not the blunt, hurtful kind, but the compassionate kind – will be something that both you and the person that you’re being honest with can live with.

Practice saying no – to your mirror, to friends, in writing – and use those practice sessions to feel more comfortable and confident when you say it. When you’re in a position where you’re not sure what to say to the other person, tell them that – and ask them if you can get back to them. Take the time you need to make a decision; it’s a very rare situation to have a potential play session with someone that you will literally never see again, so there’s no need to pressure yourself into deciding. And when it comes down to it, remember that no means no – and if the person in question spends time trying to talk you into it, or becomes defensive, then that should be a clear indication that it’s not someone that you wanted to play with in the first place.

Source: Fearless Press

It's almost a cliché in social theory that minority or alt communities will be more accurately aware of their differences and similarities than will the mainstream culture they're embedded in. And that therefore they may have useful insights that the mainstream culture would benefit from. Cliché or not, the BDSM community really has necessarily invested considerable time pondering issues of peer pressure, consent, and maintaining mutual respect. Of course, Sloan's case demonstrates that, being human beings, BDSM people often need active coaching and sometimes frequent reminders. But, being human beings, everyone else frequently needs those same reminders as well.

Via Viviane's Sex Carnival

Further reflections on “vanilla,” “kink” and negotiations. At Sex 2.0 I finally got to meet Miss Calico of Dominatrix Next Door. A week or two ago Calico wrote with warmth and fondness about a BDSM scene she played in with an acquaintance. In addition to sounding eye-rollingly painful for her (which I can handle) her description sounded dangerously out of control (which alarmed me.) I mentioned this to her, in rather maudlin terms that surprised both her and her top.

We talked about it a little further when we met in person and she said, with some exasperation, that she hadn’t thought it was necessary to write about the extensive email, phone, and in-person negotiations she and her partner had gone through to detail exactly what they intended to do together, what to expect from each other, what their limits and squicks might be, what their contingencies would be, nor did she think it necessary to talk about their communications before and during the scene nor the details of aftercare afterwards.

I said it made perfect sense that she wouldn’t want to do that in her post but that I thought it would be nice for her to talk more about negotiation and aftercare in her blog because a lot of (CoughVanillaCough) people who might like to try kinky things would probably have better experiences if they knew more about it.

The blank look she gave me was worth the price of the plane ticket. “People already know to do that,” says she. So I tried to rephrase it, saying that I knew people heard about things like “safe words” but not so much else and that there really wasn’t a lot of discussion of “sub drop” and aftercare and that it didn’t just come naturally because negotiation, communication, reconsideration, and aftercare isn’t really part of standard heteronormative scripts. _[Aside: would The Ethical Slut. What was different, though, and what drove home the point was Calico’s sense of shocked aggravation not with what happens during vanilla sex but with what generally doesn’t happen before. And after. (Think being criticized for driving race cars by people who don’t even wear seat belts.)

Which leaves one wondering which practices, exactly, should and should not be discussed in the sexual disorders and fetishes sections of ab-psych classes.