Quote Originally Posted by ami_r90 View Post
I'm just curious as to how one can go to a club/dungeon/private party/whatever and meet a stranger there, maybe have a few drinks before playing but all the same they are still basically a stranger to you. And then submit to this person you've just met!! For me, the element of complete trust is absolutely key in any d/s relationship (I use this term loosely here applying just to the moment of play, maybe replace it for the word 'activity') and it really confuses me to try to understand how some people can submit so easily in this way.

Opinions please :-)
In the first place, a good club, particularly if you know the crowd there, is designed to foster trust. You are out in the open, there are (or should be) people tasked with seeing that nothing is going wrong, you know that if you yell a safeword and it's not respected someone will intervene sharpish. It's not like going to a stranger's home, that's one reason people like to play at clubs.

That's the practical side, and on the mental side, imagining that the stranger you're playing with is your dream Master/Mistress fills the gap left by their being actually a stranger. A sub can always close hir eyes!

I don't go to clubs a lot, but I've played with almost-strangers a couple of times, though the "almost" was important to me, and probably to them as well. The first time, my local online community had agreed to meet up in a bar across the road from the club before it opened; and there I got talking to a chap I hadn't seen before, and who turned out to be just visiting the area. We got on well (the fact that he was discreetly wearing a collar helped us get off on the right foot!) so when we got inside, and found we were both on our own, I invited him to get over the nearest bench and he was glad to.

That was strictly on a mutual play basis, but a while later I had got into an online correspondence with a slave who had a long distance Master she rarely saw, and who was allowed to play with other Doms. So we arranged to meet at a local New Year party at a club, and as soon as we met I took charge of her and ordered her from one position and device to another all evening. But that was possible because we'd already laid the basis for it online. I doubt if I could have started from zero with someone I met after I walked into the club, but these things do happen.

These examples also cover the question of play without sex. I've had a lot of casual subs over the years, and whether they have sex is always part of the negotiation. I'd usually rather, but to borrow ID's image, I can enjoy my cake without frosting! In the first case I've mentioned, sex wasn't implied so I didn't expect it: he needed a place to stay afterwards, so I took him home and let him use my spare room, and gave him breakfast in the morning. In the second, she'd specified that her Master let her play with others but not fuck. That time it was me that needed a place, so she took me back to her hotel room, and we slept side by side in a double bed as peacefully as if I hadn't been whipping pegs off her nipples half an hour before

Which reminds me of another occasion, when for a change I was the one that ruled out sex. Thir and I were still in a long distance relationship, and she was OK with me playing with other women so long as it didn't include sex. But one time I played with a femsub from my local group, she got too hot to care what we'd agreed. And I decided that I'd discovered a test: if a naked woman is grovelling at your feet begging to be fucked, and saying "No" and watching her suffer is as much fun as doing it, you're a Dom!