Limits are a very popular topic among those of us who engage in sado-masochistic activities.  Groups, lists, forums and in person conversations have all addressed the debate.  Those conversations range from who gets to have them, how you create your list of limits, how you learn if an activity is a limit or not, good tops who push limits successfully and create greater good, to tops[1] we want to ostracize from our communities for not respecting limits.  It is a topic of great interest in our communities and a worthy one.  Since limits are fluid, it’s important to have these conversations on an on-going basis.

Before I even go further in this essay, I think enough conversation has been devoted to what can go wrong when limits are pushed poorly or if limits that never should have been touched are broken.  Most of us know the story of broken limits—we’re heard that story and seen the results. Someone gets harmed and potentially damaged.  We’ve even had the scales brought out to measure the degrees of harm.  Harm is harm and in my opinion we don’t need to measure damage.  All damage is unwanted and potentially harmful in which may be lasting.  Harm is not a goal of ethical well-meaning, skilled players.   

Some limits are not meant to be played with and other limits are much more fluid and reveal themselves to be playable over time.  An example is one of my slaves deeply abhors bugs of all sorts.  I threaten her on a regular basis with bugs, she jumps, scratches and generally freaks out in a highly attractive manner in my opinion.  However, if I were to bring a spider over to her held with tweezers (why should I have to touch it?) that would breech a hard and fast limit of hers and no longer be a healthy endeavor. Perhaps her limit will change in the future.  Perhaps it won’t. But today I know her limit is a solid and not playable using live insects.  Tops need to know the difference between limits you can push and those you just can’t touch. Given an understanding that things go wrong sometimes and not everyone handles pushing or pushed limits well—some limits are untouchable.  Those types of limits aren’t what this article is going to address.  The rest of this essay is going to address limits as a positive avenue for growth, exploration and discovery only.  And for those of you wondering—yes, the last two paragraphs are a disclaimer. Some people believe the world of limits is only black and white.  I am suggesting some limits contain a possibility of being pushed or transcended that may serve all parties involved well.

When we talk about limits, we’re also talking about how well we know ourselves and how well we communicate this knowledge to those who step into the sado-masochistic or emotional spaces we explore. The exploratory nature of SM[2] is what draws some of us to SM (and the pleasure of it).  The benefits of exploration are many.  We get to feel the ground beneath us solidify through expanding our self-knowledge. The more we know about ourselves the more solid we feel.  Conquering fear within ourselves provides an exhilarating feeling that we can handle anything and that’s very powerful. We may feel intimate with those who pursue the adventure with us—intimacy being a common goal that leads to satisfaction for many of us.  Those are the people who see, validate, and understand the internal places we discover through play.  Feeling that we are known and understood by another is a key component to achieving intimacy and satisfaction.  When we show parts of ourselves that we don’t know well, we experience vulnerability, and take risks.  Positive risk-taking behavior with a partner will expand our feelings of intimacy greatly.  Pushed limits may command a different level of trust and a bottoms need to be seen and validated may increase. Our feeling of intimacy with the person who can walk the walk with us expands. 

When we’re in long term relationships finding shared spaces that are raw can be rare in later years where in the beginning of our relationship they appeared in plenty. Jazzed, exciting feelings are part of the pay off of new relationships. Our knowledge of each other as the relationship persists and we become well known to each other in our daily living erodes some of the sharp edges we experienced when we were new or at least new to each other.  Knowing each other and mellowing out with each other is expected and even desired in our relationships.  The learned foundational knowledge and solid base we create can allow us to play in spaces we considered untouchable previously.  If we take this thought a bit further down the road pushing limits is one way to refresh, revive and retighten those intimate edgy delicious feelings we previously experienced.

With a deep relationship foundation to support us (be it relationship or long time friend knowledge), we’re perhaps going to be braver.  Those edgy feelings could be intensified if we believe we are with a bold player/partner/top.  With the combined strength of the individuals and the relationship, what was once unthinkable is not only thinkable but now actionable possibility due to the knowledge each person has gained by playing with the other over time or a learned reputation.  In my long-term relationships, we learned we are allowed to make mistakes and have mishaps—it’s being sure that one not so fun moment isn’t going to clear the equity in your solid, tightly-woven relationships. Perhaps some of the above is one reason why pushing limits is of such great interest in our communities.  In general, we’re people who value adrenaline experiences and playing with limits is definitely an adrenaline endorphin inducing activity. It is a potential for regaining some of the high-end excitement which newly forming a relationship initially provided.

If we continue to evolve and experience highs in our relationships we can expect to be in vibrant relationships which may offer greater satisfaction.   The feeling of personal expansion cannot be overlooked either.  Becoming something more than we were previously can drive us forward and provide a sense of growth thereby creating a sense of well-being.  Planning deliberate relationship growth and attending to personal growth is a type of balance frequently sought and reported as a component of satisfaction.  Using this philosophy for D/s and M/s relationships, we would do well to examine how pushing limits may interact with feelings of exercising power within dominance. 

When we look at dominance we have an individual who chooses to command another.  The area of command may be one or two items, or all activities, expressions and interactions.  Being able to dictate to another what will and will not happen is heady.  It can be like finding home for some.  Within that construct some tops want more power to choose than others.  It’s a simple evolution between those who claim D/s or M/s as the lane they wish to occupy in a relationship construct. Limits are expected in either construct.

If one of those limits happens to be a pleasure center for the top or if they are the type of top that limits are interesting for whatever reasons, then clear ideas around safely pushing limits becomes even more attractive.[3]  For those who are power-based in their dominance, pushing limits may be its own type of high.  If pushing limits means that a top can now possess areas that were previously off limits, the very nature of having more power, more areas to play with, can be deeply appealing.  We’re talking about expanding a power base.  This expansion may be felt as self-expansion; self-expansion is key and desirable to living happily.  From this point of view, pushing limits may be deeply entwined with dominant satisfaction.   When done well in a manner that respects the core personage of another, it can be glorious for both parties and provide a long runway for experience, relationship growth and fun.

 

The path of exercising your dominance and feeling powerful is wonderful.  However, when this becomes an on-going focus, and the only means of growth pursuit in the relationship, it may also be an eventual dead-end.  The initial jolt is very attractive but eventually there will not be push-worthy, expandable limits that are left on the list to explore.  If pushing limits was a primary area of satisfaction for the top in the first years (say 3-4) and a mainstay of how the top experienced their feelings of power in the relationship they may feel a lessening of desire when there is so little room left to explore those niches.  They may not even realize the cause of how they currently feel.

If pushing limits was considered a natural part of the growth and development path of their bottom, tops may experience a feeling that they are no longer needed.  They may have enjoyed that part of the path so deeply that the very experience they sought to create has not only created the pleasure along the way of the development but a new hole once the mother load of what they wanted to instill has been achieved. It could be part of the “what’s next” syndrome.

An awareness of these possibilities can assist tops in planning the long road in a manner that does not deplete their resources for satisfaction with limit pushing and a feeling that they are needed to guide and develop their bottoms.  Consider your long road and create possibilities for the future and/or plan how to recycle limits through the years.  If you play out your interest, it might be fun to play with it again five years later with a new nuance.

Perhaps we need to think of limits as a “for right now” moment once we have made the distinction between those which will not be on the list today, those limits which may be on the list in three years and those that should remain unexplored territory.  Perhaps we may not know what those distinguishing factors will be for a year or two—perhaps we need to dig deeper with the people we choose.  However, if we are connected and continue to explore each other’s preferences as we refine them through experience, we will be able to make those distinctions. Top will also learn the distinctions for themselves of what they are willing and able to handle.

Knowing ourselves, savoring the moments as opposed to swallowing every opportunity wholesale immediately will allow not only a longer runway but longer satisfaction.  Understanding the fluid nature of many limits, allows us to explore the edges and touch the darker recesses with enough safety so harm is not created. Limits change as we change personally and they shift with opportunity and experience. Being deliberate in self-expansion and relationship exploration could provide a more steady diet of peak experiences to be explored over a decade and not swallowed whole within the first two years.  Examine your limits as having a life cycle- be green and recycle what you played with years ago and add to it. 

Stack the deck in your favor so exploring the dark horizons is not just for new relationships only. Use your familiarity to push a bit farther here and there in the relationship.  Make sure that your relationship and power dynamics rest upon more than pushing limits. Space it out and make it the peak experience that refreshes the relationship because it is not the steady diet of the relationship.

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