I was truly excited when I got the news I was accepted as a student blogger here at the Kink Academy, so much so that practically the second after my login information was mailed to me I began watching videos. So eager and excited I watched a great deal of them, making a list of topics that I will be exploring with my partner Onyx and already trying out a few. Before I go delving too deeply into the whats and hows, however, I should first explain the whos.

I’m Scarlet Lotus, a genderqueer polyamorous switch currently in a long-term relationship with my Owner Onyx. We have been together for nearly six years and have been living together for nearly five of those with a few other partners along the way, but currently neither of us has another relationship. We both identify as switches and although our primary roles together are Owner and Pet he occasionally lets me Top him, which is always great fun, and I’m rather a Brat (consensually!) so I can sometimes get away with some Top-type energy from my Bottom-space.

Although we had both been kinky and into kink for a long while before we got together in many ways this is the first healthy kinky relationship either of us has been in, so we had a good amount of personal baggage to work through when we first got together (and oh how I wish I had been able to watch the Managing S&M 24/7 Relationships Series when we first got together!). The last year or so has been the best year of our relationship, and I’m hoping that will continue as the years go on.

We’re somewhere in the intermediate-to-advanced range of experience. Some of our common play time activities include: impact play, punching, face slapping, needle play, erotic wrestling, and rough body play, among others. There are plenty of other things we want to learn more about and incorporate into our play as well.

As I already mentioned, I began watching videos as soon as I was able and have already had the chance to bring a few to Onyx for us to play with together. Immediately after I watched GrayDancer’s Pressure Points video I began torturing him with them, and he responded in kind of course. Onyx actually already knew most of the pressure points I was taught in the video as well as many more, so he has a bit of an unfair advantage. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.

I have plans for playing with many other techniques, especially Fire Play and Skin Stapling, but we’re waiting until we have the right equipment for those so keep an eye out for those posts in the future. Right now, though, I want to talk about rope.

For as long as I can remember Onyx has had a resistance to playing with rope even though we both love the way it looks and feels. He would say things about not being good at knots or not having the skill for it. I’ve insisted that practice is what we need, but the few times we’ve done that previously I have been less than helpful to him. My style of helping doesn’t always go along with his style of needing help, which can be a struggle.

Luckily, being able to have someone other than me or a book teaching him rope work has been the most effective way for him to learn and feel like he actually understood some of the principles of what he is doing instead of just blindly following directions. We’ve had two rope practice sessions so far with the promise for more, possibly making it into a weekly occurrence now that he feels somewhat confident playing with rope.

Last week I began Onyx’s rope exploration with Introduction to Ropes and storage information to ease him into it before learning some basic ties. Both the Single Column Tie and Double Column Tie seemed like a good place to start for someone previously resistant to rope, and he performed them both brilliantly.

Last night he put me in a Chest Harness and then we played around with ways to also tie up my hands, settling on Texas Handcuffs pulled up and over my head and secured to the chest harness in the back. Once I was sufficiently tied he lead me to the bedroom to play with our latest toy acquisition: a thick and thuddy police-style baton.

So far his favorite rope instructor is Lee Harrington (who we are actually taking a weekend-long power-oriented workshop from at this very moment–the wonders of scheduling posts). Personally I really enjoyed watching and learning from Darian and GrayDancer as well, especially the oh so awesome Tie ‘Em Up and Fuck ‘Em Harness, though we still need to get some nice thick cushy rope for that one. I haven’t shown Onyx the Tie ‘Em up and Fuck ‘Em Reverse Hogtie yet, but that’s next on my rope agenda.

-Scarlet Lotus