entrust this.

conversation with a friend the other that was basically about the nature of trust, especially when starting a new bdsm-related relationship. especially when you met online. and especially when everyone knows we're not laughing about it.

when i met my owner for the first time, it was in public. a dark groovy bar, sure, but in public, where the bartender knew me. we had already spent weeks talking - mostly about sex, but also about who we were, and what kind of people we were, and what kind of people we wanted to be. we both had parts of ourselves that had to be protected, but small verbal risks were taken.

we met in the bar, and i already knew his name. i already knew his face, and some other significant details about his life. he told me later that he'd deliberately done this, so that the risk i was taking by even meeting him in the first place did not put me at some obvious safety disadvantage. a few weeks later, when we met for our first official "play date", i trusted him enough to go into a locked hotel room and hope for the best. i don't know that i would have done that without all the prior information and meetings and obvious chemistry.

but all that being said, there was a point at which i had to let go of protecting myself. i do not advocate risk, but i understand it. there's only so far one can go into a power exchange relationship without deliberately letting go of control over it. when you know what you want to do is to surrender, it's very hard to take the smaller, protected steps beforehand.

i was lucky, and i still am. i never forget that.