Another discovery I made in my rope journey was learning about my limits. And when I say that, this is not really about “what I don’t like and how to communicate it”. It’s about opening my play space and learning to surrender through understanding and taking responsibility for my limits.
I’m convinced that doing that from both sides makes our play spaces clearer and more fun.
But here is my story. As I mentioned before, as we started with ropes, I was very new to BDSM. I had a lot of confusion, including confusion about my preferences and limits.
I thought our play space is defined by our overlapping preferences: what you like and what I like, here we can play, something like that:
Consequently, whenever my partner wanted to do something that wouldn’t be my preference, I would stress out thinking we were incompatible. The “overlap” space – for instance in our case – is not even that big. If you are a couple, maybe you know the stress of wanting to be compatible…
Because I thought I could only do things I liked.
Thanks to my study with Betty Martin, I discovered another possibility. I learned I can offer something that is not my preference. I don’t need to be stressed about liking it or showing enjoyable reactions.
I can be disgusted. Frightened. Angry. Bored. Ashamed. Ticklish.
This learning opened my play space with my partner and others – tremendously.
I found it very exciting to play in this space.
Learning Four. Discovering limits can be liberating (Betty Martin)
It is through understanding the concept of limits, I discovered the very thing I enjoy, which is “offering” something to my partner: not because I like that, but because he likes it and I enjoy offering him something he likes.
Also from my partners’ side, we opened this space.
For me, this is pretty much the essence of Surrender: you are happy that they enjoy it! And it opens up through knowing and taking responsibility for your limits.
To be continued…