I'd like to say that I can cavalierly dismiss a contract like several of you have done, and I think I catch your drift. The contracts we found on line when we were drafting ours were usually laughable, cliched, and more romance than meat.

For us, a contract has given us a touchstone with this 24/7 thing we're trying to live gets confusing and when priorities shift. As anyone who has done it knows, or anyone who imagines it may gather, there are times when the "normal" (D/s) priorities rattle around a lot.

Of course, common sense could solve all of these issues probably. But anyone who has been married knows how little common sense comes into play when emotions are involved.

So, as pita explained, each three months in this first year of being together we sit down and go over all of it, from one end to the other. We make few changes. It does give us a formalized chance to revisit the things that we thought were important to us; it's nice to find out they still are, even though life sometimes throws curves, or housecleaning, or shopping, or teenagers into the mix in such a way that the way we wanted it to be has to be revised or simply suspended for a bit.

Some people think that's nonsense. Okay. But if you're one of those casual types who say your heart and your word are your bond, and your common sense is going to remain intact no matter the situation, and -- finally -- you trust your dominant (or submissive) to be able to do the same, then I wish you well.

But I would still bet that you have a contract ... if not written down, then verbal. Can any of you tell me that you've never had a conversation with your O/other in which you negotiated what was a hard limit, a soft limit, what is expected of each person, before you got together? In fact, what would you tell someone -- imagine a new submissive, perhaps -- who asked on the boards, "This dom guy says he's going to take care of me if I submit to him. I really like him. He snarls really neat and makes my armpits tingle. Should I move in with him this weekend with my kid and turn over all my money to his care? Oh, he likes breath play, suspension, and knife play. Anything I need to do before the lights go out?"

I'll go so far as to say that anyone involved in a BDSM relationship in real life who doesn't have a contract, written or a verbal agreement, is a bad story waiting to be told.

hJ