BDSM has been a personal exploration of everything W/e want. Other's have provided the hardware, W/e create the software to run, to use a programing metaphor; it is O/ur relationship, not anyone else's, though we may learn through one another. It is an adult fantasy land (already I fall into the position that the piece's critique) where we can be who W/e are and who W/e are not.

On the surface it is rope and knife play, deeply probing q&a sessions, pain and torture, diverse role play, confinement, cruelty and compassion, stick and carrot, etc. But on a deeper level, it has been an intimate connection of imagination, soul and Love that no one else can understand. W/e define appropriate Dominance and appropriate submission.

Thank you for posting this article. I want to look deeper into the Taken by Hand movement. While it seems to pitch for an 'authentic BDSM,' it also rejects prescriptions of such a thing. Paradoxes make life fun.