Ella Jacobs – author

What happens when a BDSM scene goes wrong?

Some people say it shouldn’t go wrong at all – that good negotiation should prevent it – and some people say you should avoid it at all costs.

I say it’s a natural part of playing with BDSM.*

Yesterday, I did a scene with S, who I’ve been with for eight years, and J, who we’ve been playing with for quite a while.

I was still in my “greeting position” – standing close to the hall with my hands on my back, on display for J when he arrived – and the two men were inspecting me, teasing me, and scaring me a bit with what was to come.

Major turn-on as always! 

When I started moaning, J said something like, “It’s a good thing the neighbors never call the police.”

I tensed a bit and said that S and I had already tried that and it wasn’t a sexy experience. Actually, it was extremely uncomfortable for various reasons that I won’t get into here, and what more is, is that the memory brought me back to a night and a time in my life where I was absolutely gutted.

J didn’t catch on immediately just how bad an experience it had been and made a few more comments about the police showing up, musing on the idea that I’d probably get wet from seeing their uniforms and how embarrassing that would be.

Usually, I’d love this kind of talk – humiliation and embarrassment are a big part of how we play – but this was just too loaded for me to be a turn-on. I can’t remember if it was S or me who said something that made J realize that this was affecting me the wrong way, but once J did realize it did, he immediately stopped. But the damage had been done; I had started turning in on myself and tensing up.

But it wasn’t just that I had been triggered. It was also that J hadn’t caught on to how I reacted, which made me feel like he didn’t pay attention to me or care about my feelings. It was an entirely irrational feeling because I’ve felt his care and concern for me so many times. Whenever he sees that things are getting a little too much for me, he readily takes me in his lap, where he holds me and tells me that it’s okay to get overwhelmed and need a break. But feelings can’t always be controlled and especially not in a vulnerable situation like this.

I got a hug and a moment to take a few deep breaths before the men continued the scene, but it wasn’t enough. (Later on, S told me that he did notice that I still wasn’t feeling alright but decided to go on anyway because making me focus on something else sometimes helps me move on.) Much as I tried, I couldn’t get back into it, and I drew further in on myself to the point where I was reluctant to crawl to S just to get a hug – I was too tense to obey in any way. Of course, I did end up in his arms, and the scene ended – after barely fifteen minutes – when they realized I was in no place to continue.

In the blink of an eye, both men snapped out of dom mode and into protector mode, and we all relocated to the couch, where they took turns holding me and we talked about what had happened. It was particularly difficult to tell J about the irrational feelings, but as always, he listened and was very understanding.

After lots of hugs and some talking, we eventually eased back into the D/s dynamics and ended up having an amazing and kinky evening! I feel very lucky and grateful for having two such wonderful, competent, and caring doms who can handle such a situation with the calmness and attentiveness required. They made it possible for me to open up and thus bounce back so the “glitch” didn’t get to define the evening even though it seemed like it would for a while.

Negotiation isn’t always enough
In my opinion, there’s just no way to prevent things from ever going wrong when playing with something as powerful and intense as BDSM.

We’re not big on negotiating in this dynamic – I love going in not knowing what will happen, and S knows me so well that the two men can easily make plans without my input – but even if all three of us had spent time negotiating and talking about consent, it wouldn’t have prevented this situation. There was just no way for me to say that the idea of the police showing up was an issue because I wasn’t aware that it was beforehand. It might even be that it wouldn’t have bothered me as much on another day or in a different situation, and J might have caught on in time if he hadn’t been behind me and if he had been able to see my face, and S might have stopped it earlier if he had caught on that I was spiraling. So many ifs and coincidences that no amount of negotiations could prevent.

Some of those people who think things shouldn’t go wrong might say I should have safeworded, but using a safeword is more complicated than it appears. First of all, I won’t safeword unless the situation is absolutely extreme and needs to end right this moment – that’s all part of the dynamic to me. And even asking for a pause seemed like too much at the time because I wasn’t even aware of how bad it was until just before the scene ended.

And by the way, isn’t safewording a sign that something went wrong? Isn’t the very existence of safewords an admission that things might go sideways and we need a way to stop something?

I love playing with risks and having my boundaries pushed, and when doing this, things will eventually go wrong one way or another. The important thing isn’t whether it goes wrong or not but how it’s handled when it does.

What I take with me from this night isn’t that things went south and we had to stop the scene, but that we were able to turn things around and ended up having a great night despite of it. I’d even say that a few positive things came out of this:  My trust in these two men solidified, I grew closer to J by opening up about my irrational feelings, and he got to know me and my reactions better.

*I’m not talking about serious injuries here because we should do absolutely everything we can to avoid those!