Honesty is the best policy

Out for dinner with Ethical Hedonist tonight, which I am very much looking forward to as it has been a fortnight since we last saw each other, for no other reason than diary clashes. I have a charming message from him expressing a desire to be sadistic towards me whilst I'm helpless on a cold, stone prison floor, which is certainly the ideal, but I suspect we may, sadly, have to substitute "carpet" or "tile", however the key aspects are present and I'm looking forward to whatever he has in mind.

One of the most refreshing things about him, and my other partners, is the upfront frankness about play and sex. The bashfulness, bullshit and false coy behaviours are absent. We talk openly and as clearly as we can, describing what we want, often at length. I enjoy these conversations not just as fantasy builders, or masturbation material, but as ways of understanding what makes my partners tick. The more I understand, the better I can please them and that is exciting to me. Honesty in discussion opens us up to each other, private fantasies become public and we work to making them private realities.

The way that we interact with theoretical and hypothetical suggestions and scenarios via text or in conversation sets the pace for how we will behave in play. These give not only the simple boundaries of what we will and won't do, limits, fears, desires, but also the more complicated part of the deal: the interaction of our personalities in and out of scenes. If we get on here and now, we'll likely get on in less comfortable situations. Me in play is different to me sat here talking to you in the bar, but not dramatically so, not unrecogniseably so.

Obviously the two are connected, derived from the same person, and the roles put on are coverings for that more permanant shape. I have yet to speak to someone and find them utterly different in play, although I'm sure the time will come. I don't believe I could ever enjoy play with someone who I didn't like as a person, who I didn't enjoy being in the company of, or feel I could discuss other things with. Perhaps worthwhile on a purely experimental level, as a one night stand, but even then, I don't think I'd want to devote the energy to something so flighty, that came and went and slipped through my fingers.

I'm not talking about one true love, or the answer to everything, but genuine interaction, between two (or more) people who are seeking real mutual pleasure. And it takes time, effort and honesty to build those relationships, those spaces to play in safety, where power is taken but always returned, where trust is given and pain received. We can part in the morning with a kiss to the forehead and a spring in the step in the understanding that all that was done was done in honesty, and between friends.