These are guidelines for polite behavior in the BDSM scene. It's based on observations, personal experiences, conversations with peers, mailing list & newsgroup postings,
workshops, web pages, magazine articles, books, and personal mistakes. While some items of higher protocol are covered, these notes are mainly to address the most common social situations.
Play Nice: Some Notes on Scene
Etiquette and Leather Protocol
Version 2.09
Version 1.00 first posted May 31, 1999
Version 2.00 first posted May 31, 2005
(formerly entitled "Basic Protocol and Etiquette"
and "Some Notes on Basic Protocol and Etiquette")
This article is dedicated to Beverly M. in Austin
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Additional Articles by Ambrosio
- Some Notes on Safety for Meeting Online and Off
- Meeting Someone Else into BDSM
- An Open Letter to a Novice Domme
- Perverted Vocabulary: a Glossary of Terms Used in BDSM
- Some Notes on Netiquette and 'Net Basics
- Marginalia on the Old Guard, Leather Traditions, and BDSM History
- Play Nice: Some Notes on Scene Etiquette and Leather Protocol
- A Proposed "Pansexual Protocol"
- Polyamory and BDSM
- An Open Letter to Law Enforcement
- BDSM Gone Bad: Reporting Non-Consensual "Play" and Rape to the APD
- Some Criteria for Consensual D/s Contracts
- Relevant Films on DVD and for Streaming
- Dawn Perlmutter's "Dark Subculture" Witch Hunt
- Anatomy for Flogging: The Back
- A Rant on Mentorship
- A Surprising Discovery - an astonishing realization about the appropriateness of sending unsolicited penis photographs.
- Is Masochism Addictive?
- Some Notes on William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman, and Loving D/s
- Life Looks at Leather (1964)
- Some Notes on Psychology, Homosexuality, and Sadomasochism
- ChatGPT and the Truth About Jeanne C. Barney
- The Miscreant's Paradox for Leather and BDSM