The New Bottoming Book by Dossie Easton, Janet W. Hardy Read Free Book Online

used, upset, unseen or generally stomped-on.

    Virtual play enables its participants to connect and mirror their fantasies in a kind of feedback loop not available in the "real world," often leading to startlingly intense fantasy gratification. The reason we put "real world" in quotes is because in many ways cyberplay is real: the shared fantasy is a real fantasy, and the physiological response in your body is very very real... so in some, but not all, ways, the universe you create in your head and manifest through your keyboard and monitor is just as real as the one you're occupying now.

    On the other hand, many of the people playing in cyberspace have litde or no experience in realtime BDSM. This absence of "reality checks" sometimes means that its easy for them to get unrealistically caught up in their roles, enacting the impossibly controlling and arrogant dominant, or the cringing and servile submissive, without much recognition for their own or their partners' real needs or limits. If you find yourself in an Internet environment where it seems like bottoms aren't valued, or are treated rudely or disrespectfully, we assure you that there are plenty of other places to hang out - the 'Net is a huge and varied universe. Leave, and let the other folks there know why you're leaving - some of them might just decide to follow you.

    One final warning: one of the down sides to cyber-interaction is a lack of accountability - the 'Net lets you play however you want, with little or no chance of your actions ever being connected with your real-world self. Good people use this opportunity to explore roles, scenes and characters that may be too scary or unrealistic or embarrassing to enact in reality. Bad people can use it to stalk you, threaten you, insult you, tell people untruths about you, or reveal information about you without your consent. We suggest that you be as careful about who you associate with on-line as you would be in real life, and be especially careful in sharing information about your name, location or life situation, unless this is information you'd be comfortable having the whole world know about you.

    Now that we've talked about the scary part, let's talk about the good part - the Internet offers a wide world of information, support, friends and possible play. But the 'Net is a huge jungle of websites, mailing lists, newsgroups, chatrooms and other venues... so how do you get started?

    A lot of people exploring kink on the Internet get started looking at sites on the World Wide Web. These sites resemble magazines in many ways; they may feature pictures, text, and sometimes even video and audio, and they allow you to move from one page to another as your interests dictate. They are appealing to many beginners because you don't have to participate in anything to look at them: they are very anonymous, although many do require paid membership, or ask that you register with a relatively inexpensive service which confirms that you are old enough to look at sexually oriented material.

    Some may be porn sites, intended purely for sexual stimulation. Others might be informationally oriented, with articles about various aspects of BDSM, and links (connections that you can click on to go look at something else) to other informational sites. Some might belong to a manufacturer of sex toys, publications, or fetish clothing, and still others are maintained by support and education groups for BDSM folks. Since the Web is essentially
    unregulated and chaotic, the only way you can tell what kind of site you're looking at is to use your own common sense - if it seems to be mostly there as a sexual turn-on, its not intended as a source of realistic advice and ideas.

    Information on the Web, or for that matter anywhere on the Internet, is only as good as the person who put it there. Don't take any advice from a single source. Look at several websites, and discover for yourself where they agree and where they disagree: the