SAFE MEETINGS
Confession time!
My first BDSM meeting and I did it all wrong. Like a good girl I had arranged safety calls. My husband was in the city with me and on hand to respond to a negative call. We had the Dom's photo, full name, work address and phone numbers, car make and reg. I had spoken with him online and on the phone for 3 months and felt confident that he was who he said he was.
First mistake … I had arranged to play on the first meeting despite previous discussions of simply meeting for coffee. I had never scened before and took what I would now class as a severe beating for a newbie. Ironically the beating was given to me to demonstrate what a danger I was being to myself.
Second mistake … we had arranged to meet outside of a hotel in Hammersmith, London and I assumed that was the hotel we would be in. My husband left me there under the same assumption. Instead I was told to get into the car so we could have coffee first … and I did … I was then driven for 45 minutes across the city to a different hotel. I had no idea where I was so my safe calls were compromised … I could tell my husband whether I was ok or not but he would not have been able to help me if I had needed him.
I was fortunate that the Dom was genuine … no! …. I was bloody lucky that he was!
Keeping yourself safe is a tricky business. You want to show the person you are meeting that you trust them to some extent and yet you have to act mis-trustful, you want personal details, you make calls out to friends to say if things are ok or not, you refuse lifts. You are told not to give out your personal details and yet the person you are meeting is expected to give all their personal information over to you. We readily believe that subs are vulnerable to Dom/mes or, that women are vulnerable to men but women and subs are quite capable of being axe murderers too!
These pages lay down some "dos and don'ts" about meeting online or in real life, but is by no means a complete checklist. Use your common sense and take care over your own safety. Always ask yourself "why?".
If, after reading all this, you just decide to trust to instinct do your BDSM friends a favour. Leave your address book at home and remove their numbers from your mobile phone because, when your body is finally found in a ditch or shallow grave, they are not going to want to have to explain their S&M connections to the investigating police.
Okay! so this all may sound a bit dramatic and over-the-top but think about this ... statistically you stand more chance of being murdered than winning the National Lottery but I'm guessing that this fact doesn't stop you from buying a ticket "just in case"!