I had a boyfriend some years ago with some rather odd ideas about things. For instance, this boyfriend firmly held that HIV had nothing to do with AIDS despite evidence gushing from every medical institution and in everything apparent in the population around us. It was years later I found out he’d been HIV+ the entire relationship, knew it, and was in total denial. There was never a condom between the two of us; somehow by sheer luck I’m still negative.
Towards the end of the relationship he figured out I had this latent/nascent interest in BDSM and bondage; his response was categorically that anyone with such inclinations had to be certifiably mentally unsound. In thinking about that, it occurred to me that the three men I knew in the leather/BDSM community I knew were all among the most grounded, intelligent, affectionate, artistic, and creative men I knew. This made sense, that creativity and a love of diversity in regular life would be reflected in a sex life as well. When the above-mentioned relationship predictably accomplished its terminus a few weeks later, I made a beeline for their world. I had been in a series of monogamous relationships to that time; condoms were things I used between relationships, but weren’t necessary for committed boyfriends, as I’d been indoctrinated by these past partners into understanding. So my experience with safer sex was a tad limited. Hell, my experience with sex in general, even in my mid-thirties at this point, wasn’t terribly wide-ranging. I was a quiet, mousy, physically unremarkable guy without a hell of a lot of confidence in myself. So it was with tremendous luck that the first man I connected with in the BDSM world was the best of possible guides and mentors I could have ever asked for. He’d been a long-time member & administrator of the Gay Men’s S/M Association (GMSMA), an organization started out with a fair amount of activism in mind but who’s larger calling came to be education and care within the BDSM community.
Our first meeting he explained wouldn’t be anything too extraordinary, just a taste of a number of different things, see if there were practices I enjoyed and others which perhaps didn’t appeal. Over a good eight hours he tied me up in different positions. At one point, with me blindfolded, he tied up my cock and balls and proceeded to cover them with clothespins as quickly as he could. “How many of those do you have on?” “Fifty two”. Dead silence. “You little fucker…” he said, laughing. “You can’t possibly have counted them as I was putting them on.” “Nope, I just visualised in my head how large that surface area is, and knowing about how much space a clothespin probably occupies, I made a reasonable guess. Figured I’d be within ten of the actual amount, but I didn’t think I’d nail it!” And having understood that laughter is as important an aspect of BDSM for both of us as intensity of sensation or testing one’s limits might be, I was hooked. The biggest impression that first visit though was that, despite that nothing went up inside me, and that the worst mess was our cum splatters which did get on the rope a bit, EVERYTHING we used was cleaned at the end of the session. Rope, paddles, the contact pads for the TENS unit, even the clothespins (which as it turned out had special rubber-dipped tips)… In subsequent explorations with him he taught me how to clean floggers and canes, dildos, leather restraints and other implements, HANDS… I especially remember a long talk about sounds and how to disinfect them… and all the while he’d be explaining WHY. Aside from not wanting to transmit anything dermatologically between sex partners via toys that impact the skin, it’s not impossible to break the skin enough to cause local internal infection. Mucous membranes are far more delicate and permeable; the ass has some degree of anti-pathogenesis to it, but the urethra has night none. And with the definite possibility that a little blood might be shed… Well, if one’s worried about cum-borne STI transmission, blood can be even more virulent if it ends up in the wrong place. ALWAYS better safe than sorry. Besides, nothing discourages a good playbuddy from returning like getting sick after a fun night.
He got me involved with GMSMA where I started taking classes, learning, making friends to play with and to learn more from, and ultimately ended up teaching a few classes myself. These classes were largely about understanding the heightened intimacy and (for those of that philosophical leaning) spirituality in BDSM. More commonly, though, I was teaching safety, everything from pre-scene communication to cleanliness and body fluid management to safer sex to disaster response. Every class I took or taught, someone would have a story about infected welts on their ass from a cane which probably hadn’t been wiped down between uses, or a proctitis probably brought on by an unwashed dildo. There was one fellow who recounted his lips and throat swelling shut during a scene, as it turned out the ball gag he’d been muzzled with had been used as a “garnish” in a shrimp cocktail sauce at a party the eve before; the poor guy was allergic to shellfish. I’ve heard so many fisting misadventures I can’t even begin to go into them here, though I think I can say that not one was unavoidable with a little more care. I think •I• learned something new to teach or to watch out for every time I stood in front of a class! This has given me a healthy respect for what may possibly go wrong, but it’s also given me a huge amount of confidence going into any situation with any guy I might want to play with that, regardless of age or physical ability or HIV status or whatever, we can still have an awesome, intense, fun time of it, and emerge from that no worse for wear. That alone has been a huge empowerment, and spelled part of such a change in the man I’ve become.
It’s amusing to note that it was through this earned reputation for knowing a thing or two and being a good player that led to being recruited a few years later by Titan, and my life once again took a sea change. Titan is a studio perhaps more concerned than any other with safety on set and especially with their portrayal of that safety. This goes beyond just condom usage in their films; the BDSM scenes I’ve filmed with them always are quite clear about the safety precautions taken, and they’ve valued my knowledge and understanding of this emphasis tremendously. Alas, GMSMA went the way of so many such organizations in our modern age when so much information (and misinformation) can be found online and when fewer serious players seem to be emerging from younger generations. That first play partner of mine has remained a very close friend to this day, though; I count him among the six mentor figures and really the only men in the leather community I think of as “Sir”. We haven’t played in years now, but I still see him as often as I can. I owe him so much.
Author's Name: Reader submission