IMPORTANT NOTE:  Remember that good old TV saying, “Don’t try this at home”?  Well, DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME.  I do not claim to be an expert on anything, and I have spent years developing my style of play.  If you are curious or have any questions feel free to e-mail me.

You and your s/o literally fight each other with bats?

We don’t use aluminum or wooden bats.  Wiffle ball bats are the standard, the thin ones give a nice sting, and the fat ones make an awesome noise and make great marks.  We also children’s bats that are foam coated, with some kind of wood shaving core.  They can hurt a lot but the bats in all cases are more likely to break before bones.

Carbon fiber rods and knives?

With carbon fiber rods, that’s pretty straight forward.  We buy them from hobby shops, we make the short ones that are often for sale at BDSM fairs, but we have also fashioned them into toy sword handles, and left them long so they can be used in fighting.

The knife fights are rather new, we’ve been playing with knives together for 3 years.  We both have rather dull knives that we know very well (through hours upon hours of play).  So we are more active when we play with them now.  But the purpose is not to cut one another.  We more play like cats play.

Are there set rules when it comes to this?

Not so much rules, but a lot of information goes into it.  We get to know the toys we use over a long period of time.  We study up on the materials, we practice, and slowly work up to using them in fights.  A good example is we don’t get frisky with new knives.  We got some nice new ones in December but they’ve rarely been used because we both need to spend time with them and get to know their weight, the blade curves, and how sharp they are.

Do u guys go to the hospital a lot? Broken bones?

Nope, we’ve never been to the hospital, and no broken bones.  I’ve strained a few fingers, and pulled a few muscles, but that’s about it.  And some minor cuts, none have required stitches, a few have required a butterfly for a day or two.

We also have a pretty extensive first aid kit.

Seriously WTF, how do you fight with knives without seriously harming each other I find that hard to believe.

Lots and lots of practice, and we avoid the abdomen at all costs.  We don’t run at one another with knives, it’s more of a close knit struggle, if there’s a lot of movement we hold them away from the body.  We both know to drop them in an emergency, and we both know when we’re caught and any movement is a bad idea.  As I said earlier we both know our main knives VERY well.  We both have two that we have used for over two years and are pretty dull.  As I said earlier we both approach this kind of fighting like two cats playing, the purpose of the “claws” is not to injure.  It’s more to find that opening when one of us is trapped, and then get in a little bit of good ole knife play.

We sterilize all of our knives with Cavicide before play, and we never use knives to break skin.  Though we sterilize them because sometimes small scratches and cuts happen.

And how do u fight with fire?

We don’t, fire play is more sensual with us.  Though sometimes I throw a bit of fear play in.  I’ve been a fire performer for eight years, and been doing BDSM style fire play for over three years.

Like a lighter and hair spray?

Never.  Hairspray is always a terrible idea.  Though I do use isopropyl in a spray bottle, and make fire balls from time to time.

Plus how do u use a knife or scalpel on a loved one.

We do love our blood play.  We buy prepackaged sterilized scalpel blades for that, and like with fire there is no fighting involved.  The cuts are superficial.  He’s a professional body mod artist, and I have had a lot of medical related training, and have been first aid and CPR certified for the past seven years (I actually have my renewals coming up next month).

We also do blood cupping which is a nice combination of blood play and fire play.  I make a teeny tiny incision in his back, and light a fire cup and adhere, and suction draws the blood out.

As I said previously we don’t use knives for cutting, knife play is more sensation and fear play based.  For blood play everything has to be sterile and single use for use to feel comfortable.

On our first aid kit, just wrote an article on that!

While I enjoy the intense connection from my sadistic little actions to my partners writhing, moaning, screaming reactions.  The intense detail, how I can track the response, on the best days predict them.  How I also enjoy feeling helpless, totally letting pain in, the meditative state managing surrender.  There is something else.

My favorite partnerships are switch/switch.  And not in the way where we say, “You’re on the bottom tonight.”  In the way where it’s a continous war zone.  So much of my tolerance of submission comes from not focusing on my decisions and actions.  In many ways I give those up entirely.

There is nothing like the terror of knowing I am no where near the headspace for pain.  Nothing more humilating than knowing I am clawing for control I am not going to get in that moment.  That my contentedness with my wickedness is going to be taken in an instant.

Yesterday my partner got a new tattoo while bored at work, quite conveniently on his ass.  During play he joked I hadn’t hit it yet, and he had his guard down just enough for me to get a really hard smack in.  As he was wailing I was laughing my ass off, smiling, feeling proud, of both of us.  Feeling a bit of the smugness of, “Oh, I made you do that.”

However as the screaming and the writhing started to die down I felt the dread of my moment of fulfillment ending.  I was in a freefall grasping for that serenity of submission which I knew I was going to need for the next strike, though not wanting to let go of my brief moment of control.  My eyes darted around, I felt my muscles tense and untense, testing the environment for where it was going to come from, and, “SLAM!”

“I’m not going to be the only one who can’t sit down,”  I hear distantly outside my screaming obscenities.

It’s the clawing confusion of am I going to let this in, or keep fighting.  Figuring out how to work around being held down and hurt.  Using consenting to being on better behavior as an excuse to be very bad the very next instant.  It’s mindset onto itself.  With my emotions seething, my thoughts scattered all over the place, the haphazard awareness of details, the very raw nature of the pain, the anger and the love.  It’s mindblowing.

It’s simple: we fight constantly.

We’re both D/s, S/m, and insanely aggressive. Verbally and physically. To be clear though we also have a relationship outside the fighting, and with all the things in life that count we agree, really we just like fighting. This is an important note, for all relationships involving BDSM, we actually do care about each other and have good communication at all times even while slamming each others’ heads against the wall.

This is also not a topping and bottoming kind of scenario. The terms top and bottom I tend to take as referring to the act, and the more emotional and mental sides of BDSM are left out of the picture or cease to be when the scene ends. This is not the case with me, and it never has been.

Also, I have found my switch/switch partnerships to be more severe than dominant submissive ones. Largely because our version of impact play requires immobilizing a moving target. The fail safe for serious injury tends to be that we end up immobilizing each other. A few weeks ago we stopped ourselves from asphyxiating because we both had fingers dug into our necks. We were both starting to lose consciousness and thus both let up on the grip.

It’s a lovely scenario because the joy is in winning and losing. I equally love paralyzing him with pain, as I enjoy being paralyzed with pain.

The dynamics also build slowly over time. Old tricks cease to work, so we add new ones, we get bored of one thing and start doing another. In a past switch/switch relationship this occurred as well and after several months we had a whole box of gear and range of things we liked to do to one another.

However, adversarial dynamics still involve top drop, sub drop, and require aftercare. It’s interesting and really amounts to something I’m inclined to call switch drop. When I drop after submissive scenes the experience is quite different. As there is that kinda amazing sub drop void, though also a concern for my partner and where they’re at. That piece of my mind which directs towards my responsibility towards another keeps me from getting lost. I enjoy this headspace more, as it’s less lonely.

It’s nice going through the same adrenalin drain, and both dealing with the aches and pains. As it’s a similar experience it’s easier for us to care for one another and relate to each other.

I was thankful for his admission of guilt.  More people should do that.  Thing is the scene is extremely attractive.  We do extremely hot and sexy things and involve pain and all this awesome seductive mental foreplay.  On top of that switches by appearance seem noncommittal, because we play both sides.  It feels to me much like when kids would say “I’m bisexual” in high school and college.  To the point where when I was catching up with a high school friend for the first time in years the other day; she just had to ask if I was still bi.  Honestly, given the idiotic behavior of many of our peers back in the day, it didn’t surprise me.

On the surface it seems to be more of a commitment to declare one as submissive or dominant.  The submissive opens themselves up to the opportunity that they will give their will over to another.  The dominant declares a responsibility for the submissive  and is expected to have a manner and skill-set that will make it a good experience.

However, switches aren’t free for all’s.  Most ACTUAL switches I know are edge players.  We like extremely dark adversarial play, asphyxiation, severe injury, often blood play, and a whole lot of violence.  We’re able to exist and actually thrive in a very violent and dangerous head space.  We also tend to like less volatile dynamics.  I do very much enjoy the peace of submission, and am quite good at that as well.  Fully giving up will to the scene and following the command of the dominant.  Versus biting, scratching and flailing my way into the dark water, sometimes it is nice to be “calmly” led by the hand.

Truth is being a switch is much like being bisexual.  We are open to various opportunities and must define for ourselves what works within various roles and what doesn’t.  It’s a different process of soul searching. Submissives do this when involved in deep work with their masters, and I know the dominants go through something very similar, though they never talk about it

We all are individuals in the scene, we take on different roles though everyone has different skills, likes and dislikes.  Not every slave has the same experience, not every dominant has the same arsenal.  The mental experience is even further individualized.

We all grow within this, and have taken time to find ourselves and what we are.  While I was fairly open about my penchant for masochism as early as the beginning of highschool.  I was quiet about my role within relationships until my freshman year of college.  Even then we often question them and think about change.  As all of us in the end are a little bit switchish.  Just not all of us oscillate between the two roles as the default.

So please, do your reading, and do what my date did, and ‘fess up.