Following a work of disclosure. We´ll start dealing with the rules of s/m and, above all, the non written rules, those that any s/m lover should know.

Sadomasochism is a play. It has a few rules just as the chess rules or the ludo. If we don´t respect the chess rules, we will be playing any game except chess. The same applies to sadomasochism. If we don´t respect the s/m rules, we will be playing anything but real sadomasochism.

¿Why society consider s/m as an aberration?. There are many reasons but the main one is the lack of knowledge and the belief that s/m is something completely different to what truly is. When people hear about sadomasochism, they are thinkin about atrocious tortures, women rapes, whipings that leaves marks and deep scars and deadly pain.

Sadly, the rules of sadomasochism are not written anywhere. S/m lovers have to learn them one by one as they go deep into sadomasochism. Our society is not able to learn them anywhere as they are not written. That is the reason why we have done this article about the s/m rules. On the other hand, if anyone who ignores the s/m philosophy reads this article, they will discover that s/m is not as bad as it seems and it is not a perversion as he might thought before.

On the other hand, we will list the s/m rules in order that those who start practicing s/m do not have to take the trouble to find out these rules and, also, why not?, to remind them to those who have forgotten them and have got off the right road to the real sadomasochism. Very often, due to lack of knowledge or oblivion of such rules, we end up on the "other side", which can only be perversion, bad track and misfortune.

" SADOMASOCHISM IS A CONSENSUAL PLAY "

Indeed it is a game. A game where two people voluntarily take part. One of them plays to be the dominant and the other one plays to be dominated. Both of them, play voluntarily as well as by mutual consent. They are not doing anything their partners do not wish to do. To assure that, limits are set up, limits which mus not be exceeded in any case.

" S/M IS BASED ON CERTAIN LIMITS "

There are limits in s/m, just as in other games where a limit of time is set, or a condition can not be. The limits are the suplementary rules that each person demands in the game, basic condition in order to play that game.

The limits are good in order to know how far can you go with that play. Find here a few examples of limits: "There will not be any penetration", "You mus not leave me any visible marks that take more than one hour to dissapear", "You mus not tie me up", "You can whip me but only with your hand", "You can only humilliate me mentally".

Obviously, there are no pre-established limits. Someone might love something which another one hates. Each one sets their own limits at the beginning of the game and probably those limits have nothing to do with the ones fixed by another couple that also practices sado. The only limits that everybody should respect are: do not to make any permanent physical injury, do not leave any permanent scars non previously agreed and do not forget the mutual respect.

" S/M IS A PLAY OF TOTAL RESPECT "

The respect to your partner is basic. If you respect them as human beings, you are assuring them that you will not do anything to hurt them. We can pretend that we are treating someone like a slave as long as we respect them, since we do not really treat them as a slave but we play to be dominants.

In s/m plays, that respect to the human being guarantees the submissive that we are just playing a game. As soon as the slave says "stop", the master must stop as the slave does not want to carry on with the game. If that respect does not exist, the master would treat the slave as a slave and then he would be forcing them to a non desired slavery and he would be restricting their freedom.

On the other hand, we must respect the other party´s ideas, limits and beliefs. There has to be a reciprocal respect.

" THE SLAVE IS FREE AT ALL TIMES "

It could seem nonsense that the slave is free at all times when appereances say the opposite. A slave seems to be ill-treated and humilliated against his/her will. That is not true. If a slave is ill-treated and humilliated is because they wish to be treated like that. We must remember that the slave plays to be a slave. The slave builds up his own chains. The master only uses those chains.

In a s/m session, the slave is completely free, no matter how much enslaved he might seem. He is free as nobody has forced him to do anything he does not want. He is free as it was him who chose to do that and the master just do it what he wants, but always leaving the slave freedom to stop the game.

" S/M IS SIMILAR TO A THEATRE PERFORMANCE "

Sadomasochism has a lot in common with a theatre performance. In a performance, a person pretends to be Romeo and another one pretends to be Juliet. In sado, a person pretends to be the Master and the other person pretends to be the slave, acting as such until the performance or the game is over.

Very often, things are not what they seem, as it happens in a performance. In theatre, they play with the fantasies of the members of the audience and in s/m they play with the fantasies of the parties. Everybody knows that an actor is not the real "Romeo". In sado, a Master is not really a Master neither a slave is a truly slave. What happens is that, as well as in a theatre performance, they live and pretend a story until it is finished. In s/m a slave pretends to be ill-treated by his master and both assume that role until the play is finished.

A very common fantasy in s/m is a slave´s rape. According to this play, the slave is rudely raped by one or several unscrupulous men who do whatever they wish to her and subject her to horrible corporal and mental humilliations. Is there any rape?. No, never. What happens is that she has agreed to pretend to be raped and they pretend to be raping her, but they are aware that she wants to be "raped". They don´t rape her either, as nobody can be raped if they want to. It is just a play of "raped and rapists".

Another fantasy very common is usually to be a "bad girl" that deserves punishment. The master pretends that her little girl has misbehaved and takes down her knickers, put her laying down his lap and spanks her bottom. She pretends that she has been a bad girl, she fears the punishment and tries to stop him. As everybody knows, the Master is usually her husband and the "girl" could be fifty years old. ¿Where is daddy and where is the rebellious little girl? It is only in their imagination. He pretends to be a father who punishes his daughter and she pretends to be a rebellious girl who deserves to be punished.

" S/M IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS "

Probably it is surprising that in s/m nothing is what it seems. The raped woman is not raped, the slave does not belong to anyone, the pain is not real pain but pleasure and people pretend to have certain feelings that they do not truly have. As we said earlier, this is because s/m has much to do with fantasies and theatre performances. An observer ignorant of s/m will have the wrong impression as he does not distinguish fiction from reality. We can believe that a poor woman is being horribly spanked and the reality is that she is enjoying it very much and does not feel any pain but truly pleasure.

The master may seem to be a vil and despicable person who is spanking a human being and, when the play is over, he might be one of those who is unable to kill a fly. The slave pretends to be suffering a lot but what she truly wishes is that her master does not stop the punishment. S/m is like that in most cases, things are not what it seems.

" THE SLAVE IS NEVER IN DANGER "

It may seem that the slave is in danger, but if the Master knows what he is doing, the slave will be in no more danger that someone who is playing cards. That is because the Master has enough experience to know what knocks can be given and which not, how hard can be given and the right places. The slave will only be in danger when they are in the hands of an inexperienced Master who does not really know the s/m techniques. Anyone who does not know the tecniques should not practice sadomasochism as he is failing to observe the slave´s safety and not respecting her.

The Master who knows what he is doing, can inflict pain but without leaving any mark, he can spank someone but without leaving any scars and his slave finishes the session in the same physical condition as she started.

" WE MUST BE VERY CAREFUL IN SADOMACHISM "

A baby must learn to walk before he runs. In s/m occurs the same. Before going deep into heavy s/m, it is necessary to know the light or soft s/m. Each thing must be done only when we have read a lot about it and know all the dangers with we may come across. Those who do not take all the necessary precautions is very irresponsible who do not know where they have got to. They do not respect their slaves as they are expossing them to unnecessary dangers.

Therefore, our advice to those who venture for the first time in this circle is to be careful and go as much slow as they can. Once we feel confident we can go further, but only a little bit and so on. It is similar to climbing a mountain. Nobody can climb it in one go, it is good to have a rest, find the best paths and climb it little by little.

Those who practice s/m improve little by little their knowledge of s/m. We practice the techniques that other s/m lovers have explained us and ask for help when we do not know how to do something or what dangers should be avoided.

In s/m there is lot of homework. And it is not easy to do it as there is not any book that explains everything. We need to look up in hundreds of magazines, books and talk to many s/m lovers in order to get to know well enough to start regarding ourselves as "experts".

In their beginnings, people feel like archaeologists who are making discoveries after many hours of hard work.

" S/M IS NOT ALWAYS PAINFUL "

The sadomasochism does not have to involve painful games, as many people believe. There are two types of S/M, the painful one and obviously the non painful one. In fact, when people start in S/M, they mainly play non painful games, making some forays into the painful ones S/M every once in a while.

Many of the S/M practices are not painful or, if they do, they are very little, like for instance: humilliation games, forced exhibicionism, bondage, etc.

On the other hand, there are different levels of pain. A slash can be a caress or very painful. Most s/m lovers usually practice s/m games at very low levels of pain and without reaching unbearable pains.

" WE ARE NOT WEIRD "

Most s/m lovers usually think that they are the only ones who love this kind of practices, that they are a bit crazy and also a bit weird. Whoever thinks that is completely wrong as there are many many like them who love this lifestyle. We do not find many because very few of them dare to make their interest public, but the truth is that we are a big community. As a sign of that, s/m related magazines and books are published worldwide, and everybody knows what the s/m practices are (although they do not know exactly what it is). If there were not s/m lovers, it would be understable to think that no books or magazines are published. The same applies to those movies containing forbidden s/m scenes, etc.

It is astonishing to see that many couples play s/m games at some point but ignore it. There are millions of couples that at some point of their relationship have done bondage plays using handcuffs and ropes, have whiped their partners in their backside, pinches, etc. When the film "Basic instinct" was released, many women did things like "going out without knickers under their dresses, or tieing their husbands up to their bed posts. Most of those couples practiced s/m plays totally unaware of it as they believed that S/M had to be painful.

Therefore it would be good to start giving up the idea that we are weird. There are hundreds, thousands and maybe millions of s/m lovers to certain extent. Anything that we might think, someone else has thinked about it before and has done it in his plays. We are not weird as we are not the only ones who have these feelings. There are s/m lovers in all countries of this planet.

" S/M IS NOT A PERVERSION "

Well known psycologists and psiquiatrists worldwide agree that S/M is not a perversion. Most of them regard it as a sexual play or a sexual option as valid as any other.

The perversion only appears when the play stops being consensual and someone is forced to do something against their will. If someone volunteers to the game, S/M is not a perversion. Perverts are those who practice a false S/M and force others to do something they do not want to. The real S/M is just the opposite as anyone forces someone else to do something they do not wish.

It is not a perversion either when s/m does not become an obssesion. The vast majority of people only practice s/m plays every now and again, bearing in mind that they are only practiced for a while and after that it is necessary to come back to reality.

A pervect is someone obssesed with s/m, who practices it at all times and is always searching for other people to play. As long as we do not become obssesed, we can not consider ourselves as perverts, as we are aware of the fact that it is only a game practiced for a short while.

Up till now, I have listed some of the S/M rules. There are many rules left and much more to say, but there is not enough room for that. Therefore we will carry on with this in later deliveries. I would be glad if other members of BDSM take part in this text and also list those rules that they regard as basics in S/M. If all us take part, we will make sure that we have not forgotten anything. I will also appreciate any kind of opinions that might help us to clarify any doubts that may have arosen from this text. Send your letters to Esencia and we will get through the real sadomasochism while maybe we can make aware the society that surround us that s/m is nothing bad.

Written by Gato9colas (Spain).