Ambrosio's Newsletter Courtesy of Yahoo! Groups

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Safety Concerns When Looking for a Partner

• Some Notes on Safety for Meeting On-line and Off by Ambrosio
• Ten Tips for the Novice, Single, Heterosexual, Submissive Woman by Jay Wiseman
• Playing and Staying Safe by Gloria Brame
• Safety 101 by Screamer
• Thoughts on Safety by Mistress Constance
• Safecall Guide and Outline by Sir Bamm!
• Ask the Therapist: What Do I Do about a Dangerous Top? by William A. Henkin, Ph.D.
• Sexual Offender Registries are a helpful -- but imperfect -- means of separating the dangerous predators from the safe kinky folk. (Caution: Exclusion in the database is not proof that someone is harmless just as inclusion is not absolute proof that they're dangerous. Also, there are different types of sexual offenders. Someone who had sex with his 17 year old girl friend when he was 19 is not as dangerous as the man who abducted and raped numerous elementary school children when he was 35. But if you confront a sexual offender about his inclusion on the database and ask for his account, don't accept his explanation of the crime without verifying the facts. Criminals tend to lie.)
  
  • Yahoo's List of Sexual Offender Registry
  • Texas Sexual Offender Database:
  • Texas Sex Offender Registry

• The Texas Attorney General's Information on Stalking at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/victims/stalking.shtml

Advice on Finding a Partner

• Some Notes on Networking, Cruising, and Dating by Ambrosio (my advice on the subject.)
• A Surprising Discovery by Ambrosio
• Jay Wiseman's JayWiseman.com website is invaluable especially for submissive women looking for Dominants. His essays are so good, I appropriated several of his articles for this site. (I also recommend buying his book SM 101: A Realistic Introduction  from Greenery Press.)
• Are you married? Does your spouse know about your interest in BDSM? You're not the first married person to discover this interest. Read Letter to a Friend by Wanderer .. before you go any further.
• Response to a Kinky Woman by Sir Edward of Dragon's Lake
• Finding a partner (from the SSB-B (Soc.Subculture.Bondage-Bdsm) FAQ)
• How to Spot a Dominant at Ten Paces by Sensuous Sadie from her book It's Not About the Whip: Love, Sex and Spirituality in the BDSM Scene.
• Three Essays on Finding a Domme by Ms Margo. While Mr. Wiseman's advice is targeted toward female submissives, Ms. Margo's is aimed toward the male submissive. Despite the difference in perspective both documents are informative to parties of either sex.
• How To Court a Dominant Woman by Laura Goodwin (from the Laura Goodwin site.)
• I'd also recommend reading at least one of the books in the "Books for Beginners" section of the Books and Magazine page. Learning the Ropes and S&M 101 in particular have a good sections about meeting and negotiating safely.

Posting Personal Ads on Usenet Newsgroups

• Note: Be sure to include your location or telephone area code in the subject line if you post to a usenet newsgroup. It's not required but I find it useful in narrowing down the hundreds of posts.
• A Guide to writing effective personals for the alt.personal.* newsgroups.
• Note: personals are unwelcome in many BDSM newsgroups. They are appropriate in the newsgroups listed below. Make sure it's appropriate to post personals to a specific newsgroup before you do so. Most newsgroups have a Frequently Asked Questions list which will state whether or not it's appropriate to post personal ads.
• Alt.Personals.Bondage usenet newsgroup.
• Alt.Personals.Fetish usenet newsgroup.
• Alt.Personals.Gothic usenet newsgroup.
• Alt.Personals.Slavery usenet newsgroup.
• Alt.Personals.Spanking usenet newsgroup.

Posting Personal Ads on Mailing Lists

• Note: personals are unwelcome in many BDSM newsgroups and mailing lists. Make sure it's appropriate to post personals to a specific mailing list or news group before you do so.
• BDSM_Personals: "LARGEST list for BDSM Personal Ads. We are SPAM free, pansexual, nonjudgemental, and have over 2,200 members. If you're looking for a kinky partner, this is the place to post your message! This list is not for discussion -- only ads from kinky, delightful people!"
  URL: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bdsm_personals.
• BDSM-Personals: "A respectable place where people can leave personal ads of a bdsm or D/s nature to connect with other like-minded people. Feel free to describe in depth what you are looking for, your likes and dislikes. Just please make sure it is in good taste."
  URL: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bdsm-personals/
• slaves-mistresses: for "Slaves looking for Mistresses."
  URL: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/slaves-mistresses
• BDSM Texas Personals Mailing List: If you are looking for a relationship or encounter in Texas. To subscribe: send email to bdsmtexas-personals-subscribe@pillory.com. To unsubscribe: send email to bdsmtexas-personals-unsubscribe@pillory.com.
• Texas Masters. It's "a place for Texas Masters to look for new subs."
  URL: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/texasmasters

Posting Personal Ads on the World Wide Web

• Alt.com: my favorite personals site despite the high costs they charge for using their premium services. While you can post a profile for free, any worthwhile use of their services are costly.
• Bondage.com: With Alt.com, Bondage.com is one of the two major BDSM personals sites.
• CollarMe.com: I first heard of this site around March 2004. It's attractive, professional, fast, and free. Setting up an account and profile is quick and easy but the usability for navigating and searching needs a little improvement. I expect that the people behind this site will continue to improve on their work and that CollarMe.com will rank with Alt.com and Bondage.com as the three main BDSM personals web sites.
• Other Sex includes an online personals section but it requires that you join.
• SandM.com has a free personal's section and you are not required to join.
• Informed Consent (UK)
• B and belle's BDSM Palace: Many ads but there doesn't seem a way to sort them by location, orientation, or gender. Pages run oldest to newest.
• Fetish Contacts.com
• Wildside Adult Personals
• FetishPersonals.com
• BondagePersonals.com
•  BDSMPersonals.com

Wanted: a special Central Texas female submissive or Switch.

Communication

• What is Healthy and UnHealthy Communication? Author Unknown
• Sexual healing by By Denise Dowling from Salon.com (Aug. 22, 2001): "According to therapist Bryce Britton, 'sex' is a 13-letter word, and it's spelled 'communication.'"
• "Eight Techniques for Maintaining Communication and Trust During a Scene" by Chris M at http://www.subbondage.net/chris_m/guidelines.html

Negotiation

• When you've meet someone you like and trust and with whom you wish to play, negotiate your play session first.
• Negotiation in the SSB-B (Soc.Subculture.Bondage-Bdsm) FAQ
• Negotiation and Negotiation Forms by Jay Wiseman
• Negotiations by Sir Bamm!
• Fill out a negotiation form and checklist like the frequently reposted Submissive BDSM Play Partner Check List. In addition to HTML, I've posted it in Word 6 format which prints better. (My thanks to baebe for her work in revising the MS Word doc.)
• Soulhaven's BDSM Checklist: Another online checklist but more extensive, flexible, and dynamic list than mine. The owners write "The BDSM Play Partner Checklist is a convenient way of finding out where someone's interests lie. Just because someone's a Dom/me, it doesn't mean that every sub is perfect for them, or vice-versa. The checklist allows you to let people know both whether or not you've participated in a given activity before and also how you feel about it. It's a great way of getting a basic feel for where someone's limits and squicks lie, though - of course - it's no substitute for taking a lot of time to discover a partner's limits gently and safely and shouldn't be used as such."

Contracts and Collaring Ceremonies

• Ms Siren and boy john's Collaring Ceremony: a lovely example of a Femdom/malesub collaring ceremony.

Breaking Up

There seems to be plenty of information available about finding a partner, negotiating play, colaring subs, and signing contracts but information on BDSM break-ups seems scant. Which is a shame. Here's a start.
(NOTE: Many of these "Breaking Up" links were suggested by ariana, a lady from Michigan who teaches a workshop entitled "Surviving a D/s Relationship Breakup." Her email address is )

• Dumped by your Dom? from Dorothy Hayden's SexTreatment.com: A psychotherapist looks at why 'breaking up is hard to do' in a B&D Relationship and how to survive the split.
• Ask the Therapist: How Do I End a Relationship? by William A. Henkin, Ph.D.: A therapist answers the question "As a submissive, how do I end a D&S relationship without seriously damaging my dominant's ego?"
• Diary of a Breakup by MP Dunleavy from Lifetimetv.com: (vanilla article)
• http://www.lifetimetv.com/reallife/relation/dating/ls_diaryone_1.html
• http://women.msn.com/266642.armx
• Grief and Grieving from WebMD (vanilla article)
• Book: If the Buddha Dated  by Charlotte Kasl. (New York: Penguin Books, 1999): "In this practical, playful, and spiritual guide, Dr. Kasl shows readers what it would be like to have the ancient wisdom of the Buddha to guide them through the dating process. Kasl brings a compassionate understanding to the anxiety and uneasiness of new love, and helps readers discover their potential for vibrant human connection based on awareness, kindness, and honesty."

Miscellaneous

• Etiquette for the Scene by Rose in the Manners and Traditions section. This is essential reading if you plan on meeting people at munches or play parties.
• Polyamory and BDSM in the Manners and Traditions section: the choice to practice responsible non-monogamy
• Getting down to making relationship actually work,   I have to recommend this book: Baldwin, Guy, MS. Ties That Bind: The SM/Leather/Fetish Erotic Style: Issues, Commentaries and Advice   Daedalus Publishing Co.: San Francisco, 1993. It's a wonderful collection of very well written and accessible essays covering the interpersonal aspects of the S&M scene. Guy Baldwin is both a psychotherapist and an experienced player. While the essays were originally written for a gay male S&M magazine, it's easy to read past the pronouns and benefit from his insights. It's one of those books you want to share with your friends as soon as you've finished reading it. His essay on the Old Guard is posted in the Manners and Traditions section of this site.