BY ALBERTO FERRERAS
PHOTOS: GABRIELA CRUZ
A few years ago I fell unilaterally in love with a banker who was heavily involved in the SM scene. I liked the guy a lot, but I didn’t know crap abut SM so -to prepare myself for our first date- I went to a beginners’ meeting organized by a bondage association in New York City. That night I walked up to the door of an apartment in a particularly gothic-looking building in the Village, having no idea what was waiting for me on the other side.
A few irrational scenarios crossed my mind as I was waiting for the door to open. Would a gang of hooded bodybuilders in leather and chains tie me up? Would they flog me, brand me, and pass me around like a bong in a frat party for one last round of rape and mayhem? I was freaking out and yet, I found myself unable to walk away.
But what I found behind the door didn’t look like an orgy at all. It was more like a Tupperware party: I was greeted by an older gentleman whose little leather vest turned out to be the only sign of perversion in an otherwise rather homey apartment.
The motto of the association was “sane, safe and consensual,” so their policy was to over-explain the dynamics of SM, preparing the torture sessions with the same detail that my mother would put in planning a picnic.Sitting in the living room, and surrounded by a small group of friendly beginners snacking on coffee and cookies, I prepared myself for my introduction to bondage.
The first lesson was just semantics: never refer to the practice as S&M. The actual term is “sadomasochism,” not “sado and masochism”, so using the “and” makes “S&M” sound like the candy that melts in your leather pants not in your hand.
But more practical knowledge was soon to follow. For instance, if you’re planning to pour hot wax on your lover’s genitals, what kind of candles should you use: the cheapest or the most expensive ones? If you said the cheapest, you are right. The expensive ones are usually made of pricey beeswax instead of inexpensive paraffin. Beeswax heats up much more than paraffin, causing third-degree burns, which could be a “turn on” only if you like to end the session in the emergency room playing doctor.
It’s also recommended to choose a password that will let the flogger know that it’s time to slow down the whipping.
Screaming: “Please! Stop! I beg you!!!” can be part of the fun, so they advice you to come up with an expression that has nothing to do with stopping, like “five arm mortgage” or “republican vote in congress,” to remind your executioner that some pain is fun, but if he keeps at it, you’ll require reconstructive surgery.
Apply this concept to your unhappy marriage or to your dead-end job and you’ll save yourself thousands of bucks in psychotherapy.
However, the most interesting thing that I learned that night, was the concept of “service.” The master –meaning the one who’s hitting you- is “servicing” the one who’s tied up. We would think that the poor guy handcuffed to the headboard is the one who’s at the disposal of the master. But like in real life, human relationships are never what they seem, and at the end of the day the one inflicting the pain is fulfilling the fantasy of the one who likes to be punished. In other words, there are no victims, only volunteers.
So armed with all this fresh knowledge, I finally went on a date with my leather banker wondering if that night I would end up tied up to a whipping pole screaming “republican vote in congress”, but my banker explained over dinner some details of his complicated sex life: he already had a lover, two slaves and a few casual victims here and there, however, he courteously offered to add me to his personal list of “flogees”. As tempting as it was to practice what I only knew in theory, I had to decline. Maybe I could enjoy the pain, but I just couldn’t stand the drama.
