Skill Sets and Hard Limits

[94Aries]

What activities is it important to have a skill set for or essentially a person performing the activity should be specialised in? For example the obvious ones like rope play, choking and whipping, need to be done correctly and are skills that need to be learned.

I'm coming to understand this as part of a hard limits, not to be closed minded about what u want to try but to be cautious of who u agree to do it with. For example to be open about rope play with an experienced dom, and even consider asking for references before agreeing to anything, but have it as a clear hard limit for inexperienced doms who may just be curious. Be selective and know it's not one size fits all essentially!

Bondage such as cuffs and using a belt as a tool in spanking I presume are very straight forward and can be done with anyone, when your just delving into bdsm, or am I wrong?

Hope I made sense, lol. Thoughs, opinions and anything u can add is appreciated😊.

YouTube clip got me thinking about this. Title: Common newbie misconceptions about BDSM. Channel: Evie Lupine. Published: Aug 25, 2018.

 

[Mo****]

Aries you raise some good points here, and from a training perspective, we know skill *** begins at about the 2 year mark, and by about the 6 - 7 year mark, most things have disappeared.  There is a problem for all of this though.  NOT everyone loses skills at the same rate, those figures I quoted were for general/average population members who had absolutely NO involvement in those skills over those periods.  But what if, and we can use a Dom here, has a play buddy, or a niece nephew type, who he practices on during that time.  His skills in theory, should not slide.  As for asking for references, that I think is out of the park.  It means that a lot of people who may be trying to keep this aspect of their life private, will have to disclose some things in order to perhaps be contacted by someone they don't know.  A lot of unscrupulous people such as pretenders, could fake references.

[ey****]

I feel it's important to have a rough idea of the experience level of the person you are playing with in any activity.

So, if someone is inexperienced in something but wants to do it (as do you with them) you can look at ways to do it safer 

1 hour ago, 94Aries said:

Bondage such as cuffs and using a belt as a tool in spanking I presume are very straight forward

on paper, yes.

But there's folk people don't always consider with both.

So, belt spanking... where can be struck, where can't be struck? Some people can be hit hard from nothing, most need a warm up.  Being hit full *** with a belt with no warm up isn't going to be nice for most people.

bondage/cuffs... how long is it safe to keep the person in the position you're intending? (raised arms, no more than 10-15 mins) does it restrict circulation? there's people sometimes talk about leaving the person tied and alone; never leave someone tied and alone.  

[Ky****]

the cane also needs quite a bit of practice both in order to ensure that the sub's bottom isn't damaged beyond what is agreed and to make sure the same receives the maximum benefit, in some ways the easiest to master are probably the flogger which are designed for the less experienced, although wickedly erotically ***ful in experienced hands as well, and the paddle which due to its rigidity is easier for tyros to control

[cautiousswitch]

Everything has a skill set of some sort.

Handcuffs seem straight forward enough - lock them on, keep the key where the top can get to it readily.  They can be put on too tight.  If they aren't double-lock cuffs then they can tighten during play.  The hole in the cuff isn't going to be perfectly round when it is shut, so you want to make sure it is oriented properly with the wearer's wrist rather than locking it in place without paying attention to it.  And each sub is going to be their own skill set as to how long they can wear cuffs for.  It's not a complicated skill set and most people can figure it out on their own with a little thought, but it does exist.

One complaint I read about frequently is women who want their husbands to spank them but he wont because he's afraid that he'll hurt her.  Part of the problem is that he doesn't realize his wife wants a little ***; part of the problem is that he realizes it's a skill set that he doesn't have.