NSFW! Everything you always wanted to know about BDSM but were too afraid to ask

Adult content warning: Bondage and domination is thriving at “kink schools” in Adelaide’s suburbs. So we asked a teacher all the questions you were too shy to.

**WARNING** If you’re easily offended, proceed no further! This article contains sometimes-graphic descriptions of themes of an adult / sexual nature.

Think BDSM (the practice of bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism) is all about chains and whips and masters and slaves? Think again. Adelaide’s kinky community is growing, thanks in part to a sexual explosion during the pandemic, and a show at this year’s Adelaide Fringe festival is hoping to lift the veil of secrecy on its often misunderstood participants.

Cab Suave performers Abby Kelso and Latonya Wigginton with Nick Montgomery and Skye Bee from DOMINANCE + submission. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Performer and producer Skye Bee runs Devious Adelaide with her husband Nick Montgomery, and their show DOMINANCE + submission has already had to move to a bigger venue, adding two extra shows in the process, thanks to strong interest from Adelaide crowds.

So we thought it was time to find out from Skye everything you always wanted to know about BDSM but were too afraid to ask!

How would I describe your role in the BDSM community?

You would describe me as a ‘switch’. That’s someone who both tops and bottoms. So I enjoy both being the dominant and the submissive.

How did you get into the BDSM scene?

Initially I got into it because it was a teenage fantasy, I guess. It was where my imagination was drawn to whenever I thought of anything sexy or fun, I would think of the kinky stuff.

Was that inspired by anything in particular?

You know, I think Beauty And The Beast maybe? The beautiful woman falling in love with her captor. It might sound a little bizarre. But then as an adult, I would ask my consenting partners if they wanted to explore kinky things with me. Sometimes it was met with a ‘yes’ and sometimes it wasn’t, but that’s how I came to play with it outside of my fantasies.

Tell me about the BDSM community here in Adelaide. Is it a large community? What sorts of people are involved?

I feel like it is probably proportionally quite large. It’s a lovely community in Adelaide actually. We have quite a few educators here and we have some really supportive sex shops as well who are invested in providing good quality products and education for kinky people.

There are also a number of kink and bondage schools, one of which I teach at with my husband Nick as a volunteer. It’s called Peer Rope Adelaide in Hutt Street.

I would imagine a wide cross section of the community comes to the school?

There’s definitely no one size fits all description of a kinky person. You’ll get everyone from young people who have just finished uni all the way through to retirees.

Men, women, all genders and people. A range of sexualities. And there are no rules that say ‘men have to tie up the women’. There are plenty of women, and others, who do the tying up part of the bondage. It definitely goes both ways as long as it’s done in a consenting and supportive way.

Picture: Justin Kennedy

What is the process in building a relationship with someone within BDSM and how do you negotiate the consent?

I guess the first caveat and one of the biggest rules is you don’t renegotiate boundaries once you’re already in a scene or actively playing with someone. So everything is pre-negotiated and not done mid-action.

We don’t want to take advantage of or manipulate people once they’re already flooded with all the fun hormones and chemicals. So pre-negotiating is a big part of the consent process.

I think the onus with consent is on both the bottom and the top.

It’s not just on the “do-er” it’s also on the “do-ee” to know what they like, or at least what they are curious about, and not just go into a consent conversation blindly and just say yes to anything to make someone else happy. You really have to question what you enjoy and ask yourself questions. “What is it that I like? Do I like when people touch me hard or is it more about I like when people say mean things to me?”

So it’s working out if you’re attracted more to the physical or the psychological?

Yeah, but it’s also about not just being led by what the other person might want. Both people, the top and the bottom, need to come to the conversation with some prior knowledge about themselves and their limits.

Now, that’s not to say there isn’t room for exploration.

For example, you could say something like: “foot torture is not something that has been on my ‘I’m interested’ list but it’s not a taboo for me so I might be interested in that but I’ll need you to check in with me”. But then you might also say “piss play and scat play are off my list and don’t think about it”.

I guess that’s why a show like this at Fringe would be good for people who might be curious but want to watch from the sidelines at first before dipping their toe in?

Yeah and getting to know what tickles your fancy when you are watching and seeing if it plays into your fantasies in your personal time.

One of the most beautiful pieces of feedback that we’ve had from the show was from a couple who said they were talking about their feelings afterwards and it gave them the opportunity to learn more about each other. Which is exactly why our entire show and business exists. It’s to help people open that door and let them know it’s OK.

OK, so give me a bit of the repertoire. What’s on the menu at a BDSM event? What are some of the BDSM greatest hits … pun intended.

So my husband and I run the company Devious Adelaide, which is producing the Fringe show Dominance + submission, and as part of that we also run kinky parties. Most of the time people want to jump on a cross or on a horse (a bench with straps) and do some flogging. That and spanking would probably be the most popular, followed very closely by rope bondage.

But in terms of the show we thought it was important to highlight the diversity in BDSM so we have a scene with “play partners”, a scene with a dominatrix and one with a sadist. There’s some girl on girl. There’s some guy on guy. There is some heterosexual representation thrown in too. We’ve also got some super strong aerial talent and a big dose of sex appeal as well.

Is electric wand play common?

Oh an ElectroWand? It’s probably not super common but it’s not like an outlier. More people are probably into that than they would be into cutting or needles. It can be quite fun and stimulating. You can use your body as a conductor for example and you can zap people with your fingers.

How long would a BDSM session be and how much actual sex would be involved or does it never get that far?

Oh gosh, there really is no cookie cutter answer. It doesn’t always lead to sex for everybody. Some people’s kink might be ‘sexual’ but doesn’t involve any form of sexual contact at all. So they will find it sexually thrilling in their body and mind, but they won’t do any touching, intercourse or penetration of any kind.

For some people there might not even be any kissing.

Then you have other people who find anything kinky extremely sexual and they want it to involve genital play and intercourse. Both are very valid expressions of being a kinky person.

As far as timeline goes, there are people who live full time in the BDSM world in Master/ slave types of relationships so their scene might be for 16 hours a day and you might always be fulfilling tasks for your master. Other scenes might last for ten minutes.

There would be people who look at a relationship like a master/slave scenario and call it abuse. How would you say it’s different?

It comes down to consent again. One hundred per cent consent. The principles that people within the lifestyle will apply are a few common ones: S. S. C which is Safe Sane and Consensual and then there is R.A.C.K which is Risk Aware Consensual Kink.

To be risk aware, you actually need to know what is in the realm of possibility in terms of what can happen to you and what the consequences might be. You might end up with a bruise for example and if you weren’t aware that something like that could happen, you can’t actually in an educated way consent to that.

It comes down to consent again. One hundred per cent consent.

Can I ask you personally if there was ever a time where all this was underground for you and did you have a moment of coming out?

It was underground until I realised that there were people who did these things at parties and out with their friends. I don’t think that’s an uncommon occurrence for people to have a realisation like that where they realise ‘what? Other people do this as well? In public? And we are allowed to and we can get together’”. But I think there were many moments for me that lead to this realisation.

Certainly when I realised that biting and enjoying being bitten made me a masochist and I hadn’t put two and two together with that. I think that realisation was part of my coming of age.

What about your relationship with your husband? How did you meet?

We met at a kinky mutual friend’s very not kinky 21st birthday party. We hit it off and through chatting throughout the night both realised we were both in the kink scene but hadn’t come across each other yet.

He was really the first man that had really wanted to play in the dom/sub space with him as the dom and me as the sub and not the other way around. I have a pretty confident personality so I would often get placed in the dominant role but I really wanted to explore the other side and I hadn’t found the right person. My husband is not at all a submissive or a bottom or a masochist. Eventually, once we got to know each other, we started playing in that space. But the actual party we met at was just a vanilla party.

It was years before we started to teach at Peer Rope and another 18 months after that that we launched Devious Adelaide. Under this brand we’ve now been running since October last year and before that we were organising events for other people.

Have you ever been in a situation when things have gone wrong or someone has been injured or passed out?

I have actually been injured and I don’t think it’s ever something that you ever plan. But it’s also not something to be ashamed of either and you can learn from your mistakes.

I was whipped in the eye. Everything went white for a moment before I was able to get the other person’s attention and say ‘hey you missed and I can’t see’. We stopped the scene and called the safe word and I was wrapped up into a blanket. It happens, but you can work with it.

DOMINANCE + submission will play in The Octagon in Gluttony on March 4,5,11 and 12. Search DOMINANCE + submission in The Advertiser Fringe Adviser to find out more and buy tickets.