How did you find a Partner?
 

For new players and lifestylers Finding a partner can be a hard experience. Please share your experience and methodology and mistakes so that the newbies can benefit from your experience.

Well, I'll be the first to admit that I have no life. I spend way too much time on websites such as MSF and other chat rooms. It started back in college when a jealous, long-distance fiance would throw fits if I went out while he was away because he didn't trust me and/or our friends. So, I started perusing the net and have been addicted ever since. Every Dom and/or play partner I've met in real life, I connected with either on a forum, a spanking chat room, and occasionally from a profile hit.

Typically, I'm very slow to meet people. I've known most of the ones I have met for years, and even considered them very real and very dear friends, before I even considered meeting face to face. I know a lot of other's don't work that way, it's just what I'm comfortable with.

I've only made one big meeting mistake to date, and it was because I didn't follow my general rule of thumb. I was in a pretty desperate situation having just left college without my degrees, despite an extra semester spent working on my thesis project. I met this man in the SIN chat room and he told me that he was a professor at one of the Cleveland, OH universities (where I'm originally from), and that he was in a position to help me get access to the databases that I thought would help me finish my thesis project. BUT, of course he figured I needed a good dose of discipline before hand. So, after speaking to this man for only two hours, I actually got in my car and arranged to meet him at a local part around the corner from his house. Now let me tell you, every warning bell and whistle went off in my head when I met this guy. Everything about him screamed "creepy child molester". In my desperation, I never really listened to my head, though.

I'm not going to go into morbid detail, but long story short... trust your instincts. If something isn't right in your gut, don't proceed a step farther until it is. I don't want to scare anyone unneccessarily, though. For the most part, every meeting I've had has been wonderful. Just use a bit of common sense.

I'm going to leave the typical bible of safe meeting to someone else, i.e. safe calls, public meeting places, getting the full biography on someone, running the background check...because as some of you know (mostly the ones who lecture me mercilessly for it), I'm not the most likely to abide by traditional meeting guidelines.

wow! Great question!

I was one of those who, only several years ago, was terrified of the Internet. I was certain that everyone on the Internet was a predator of some sort, just waiting to get any sliver of information that they could obsessively hack over until they found out your address, workplace, childrens' schools, etc so that they could come wreak all kinds of horrible havoc on your life.

When I first joined the Internet discussion community, it was in a vanilla forum and I set up a list of personal guidelines for myself that I said I would always stick to, regardless of how trustworthy I thought someone might be. This was to protect me against any bad judgement - I had kids after all, who were to be protected at all costs!

My guidelines were pretty much as follows: I was NOT to give any personal information about myself, including first name, that could identify me. Not the city or state I lived in, not my first name, not my occupation, not anything!

Because I would not reveal such things, I also did not ask these questions of people. This got me into a bit of a quandry at the beginning with one guy that I ended up chatting with regularly for about three years. He volunteered his own personal information after about 6 months of chatting, because he wanted to send me a Christmas present. I had given him my first name and the city and state I lived in, but that was it. I was tight lipped on the rest.

However, after getting involved on forums and realizing that there were people on there that were not simply faceless, nameless people, I started to rethink these things. I gave out my first name, and the state I lived in if asked. I realized there were people in our community who were 'regulars', had been consistent for years, and had also met amongst themselves. This led me to my first meeting of a group of vanilla chat friends - and subsequently, meeting one of the same people a year later as she passed through my town of dwelling on her way to meet someone.

Throw this into the spanking community. I became just as anal the first time I joined a spanking discussion board. It was an adult board after all! I expected everyone there to be secretive, completely hiding who they were to protect themselves from the psycho-predators who slithered around these boards for a thrill. I was there simply for the stories at first - and even made up a few of my own "real life" stories to fit in with this fantasy, thinking there was never a snowball's chance in hell that I would ever forge any kind of real relationships through this kind of venue.

How wrong I was! And once I realized how wrong I was, I became real. I was me. I have met some of the most amazing real people, who have become steadfast friends.

I met my first spanker through a forum and we met r/l after over a year of speaking regularly thorugh email and phone. He did not become my partner, per se, but we played some. We remain friends even today.

I met RG through a forum too. The same one. :)

I have also met VERY good friends - real friends even in a vanilla sense - through these forums. Richard Windsor is one. :) One of my BEST friends is a fellow moderator on another site, and with whom I have spent vanilla, family vacations with, visited with, and talk regularly about life with.

My advice for people? Take things slowly. There are a lot of people who so desperately want a partner who shares this kink and, out of that desperation, tend to rush into the first thing that seems promising. Almost everyone seems promising at first - but to truly get to know someone well enough to start to consider them a real partner, you must spend time and energy to get to know them on levels other than our shared activity.

Involve yourself in known forums. Many people who I know well in this community are members of various forums -- under the same names -- and we all see one another in different forums, being consistent and acting consistently with who they say they are. Many talk to one another privately, and in vanilla contexts. Watching this interaction can also clue you in to who is 'real' and who isn't. This is invaluable.

Pay attention to your gut instinct.

I know this was a longwinded post and not sure if it was the kind of answer you wanted. But there's my initial thought on your question. :)

should make a quick edit to my post... I have beend drifting a bit from my normal long waiting period. More recently I've met with people I haven't known quite as well. But for the most part, I did know them well enough by reputation to aleviate my concern about meeting. And NO, that doesn't mean it's okay to meet someone just because other's have said they were okay!

And then there's the whole party/meet thing. The SSC in Gatlinburg last summer was my very first. I enjoyed it so much, that I would really reccomend activities like that to other people. Of course, that was over 20 people that I didn't know nearly as well as my typical meeting standards, at least on an individual basis, but I had known them well enough from the forums that I was excited at the chance to meet them. Also, RG and Sarh and the others were so careful about the planning of it, that I never felt as if safety was a concern.

And no worries, Sarah, apparently I'm just as long winded as you :-) Heck, look at me, I'm still going. I didn't blow enough hot air the first post, apparently.

aurora, you've brought up another good point, really.

A good way to meet people - maybe someone who ends up becoming a partner -- is to attend a reputable fetish party, or several of them.

This is one exception, I think, to meeting people you don't know. If you know someone well (like you did, aurora, you knew Rich) who knows the other parties well and you go with them, it's a bit different. (Altho you did end up stuck with all of us people you didn't know cuz Rich got delayed :D - but you knew us by proxy)

Group situations are generally safe(r),I believe, if you know the reputation of the group from our community as well as know people who went. Meeting one on one, in private, is obviously more risky because if one person is nutso, there's not really anyone else around to intervene.

sarah

Strange thing was, neither one of us was looking for a partner, either!

It was on SIN, on the discussion board. Even though SIN has a large personals section and is known for the feature, it also has/had a very good discussion forum, one of the best on the net. We had both been members for a long time. (In fact, I had been on SIN since the earliest of days, back when it was little more than the simplest of message boards and called "Spanking Memories").

Sarah was a very frequent poster while I was much more occasional. Nonetheless, we both knew the other's IDs from our posts, and on occasion it would be apparent that our political views were aligned with one another because they weren't with almost everyone else on the board. Other than that we really knew nothing about each other, including whereabouts. One day a member from England posted a question asking if anyone lived in Louisville, Kentucky, because they had seen something online about a shop there. They were hoping that someone could actually stop by the shop. I was going to reply that while I was not in Louisville I was in Kentucky, and often went there. Before I could post, however, I noted that Sarah had already replied that she lived in Louisville. We were only 90 miles apart. We e-mailed for a long time as just net friends, and came to know each other better. Much later, we had a meeting over lunch, again, as friends only, and disovered that the other was just as nice in person as them seemed online. (Well, I better not speak for her! SHE seemed as nice in person as she was online. ;) ). Later, circumstances changed for both of us and after we had parted ways with our previous partners, a romantic relationship began sparking and then began to slowly grow. The rest, as they say, is history.

my "real" partner, my fiance chris, was a vanilla that i met before i really started exploring my spanking interest. he explored everything with me and took a lot of it on so i wouldn't really call him vanilla anymore. but almost a year ago he and i decided that we wanted to meet other people to explore with sexually, and i can talk about that a little bit because we had a very successful experience.

we met this other couple on a bdsm personals site and we actually moved a lot faster than people have talked about here so far. we exchanged emails obsessively for about 3-4 days, talked on the phone on the 5th day, and met up for the first time (not just vanilla meeting up either, i was submissively laid out naked on their coffee table) within less than a week from the first email.

now, the whole thing is very different because there were four of us, not two. and i knew that if anything went wrong that my big burly and very-smart chris would protect me easily. plus we had both of our intuitions to work with-- i think that following your gut is probably the best advice overall-- and we both had good feelings about this other couple.

it was seven months ago that we first started talking with the two people that i now call my owners, and they are now VERY close friends even outside of our very fulfilling D/s relationship... they were with us when we got engaged, they are the people that i call right after my family when something big and important happens. they know us inside and out.

i think that when you're searching for a partner, in any venue, the best thing that you can be is secure with yourself. then you know you're looking around with your eyes open and you can really trust your instincts to guide you. caution is always smart, and having back-up plans to ensure safety is too... but i think the most important thing is to follow your instincts.

Hmm. Alt.com and bondage.com (for play), craigslist (for spanking models), the defunct worldspankingforum (for play), and spankingneeds.com (for discipline spankings).

Also met a few doms and a professional sub who I played with while I was a cop, when I experimented with switching before deciding I was predominately dom (no pun intended).

My dear -- it was still called Spanking Memories when we met. Your old age must really be catching up with ya. ~ahem~.

sarah

Anyone heard any inside word on WSF lately? They published that statement that they would, in fact, return but since then...the Sound of Silence.

Should we just go ahead and erect the tombstone and be done with it?

I am new to the spanking community. Although I have fantasized about being spanked for most of my life, I have only gone public with this within the past month. I have yet to meet a spanking partner or even have my first spanking experience.

I began posting to another spanking forum, admittedly for the sole purpose of finding a partner to play with. I also posted a few personals here and there, but that is not really my style, To date, I have yet to connect with anyone even remotely close to me geographicly or in profile. In the process though, I have discovered a whole community of respectful, open minded and honest people. I can't believe how easy it has been for me to talk <type> about an aspect of me that I felt the need to keep secret for so many years. Regradless of whether or not I meet someone to play with, I feel lucky to have found this community.

Relating this to the actual topic, I belong to several athletic related message boards. I have made many friends through those boards that I have brought into real life. I never went to those boards looking for people to workout with. It just happnes in the normal progression of internet friendship. I figure meeting a friend to share spanking interest with will probably go the same way. Perhaps this is newbie naitivity, but it is what I feel most comfortable with and allows me to be myself.

Welcome WKP to the forum :) You have come to a friendly place let me assure you. I have not been in the spanking realm for very long, a little over a year now. So I guess you could say I'm still a newbie. However I've been spanked plenty in that amount of time so in that aspect I don't know if "new" still applies, lol. I relate very well to what you mentioned about fantasizing for so long and what it feels like to finally be able to publicly and openly talk with others. Be safe & choosy. It is loads of fun. I wish you tons of luck on fulfilling your spanking desire's ! Spanking parties, such as the Texas All-State one mentioned here on the forum, is a good way to get your spanking introduction. Theses type of events allow you to enter at your speed. You call all the shots as to what you are ready for, whether it be to play or to observe ect. Again welcome to MSF :)

[QUOTE=spanked~amber;1601]Welcome WKP to the forum :) You have come to a friendly place let me assure you..........QUOTE]


I have been in touch with a group that holds parties in my area. I am not sure parties are the right atmosphere for me though, especially for my first experience. I'm keeping an open mind to it. It is a little frustrating. Despite coming out, my fantasies remain just fantasies. I don't think my desired role as a male sub or being married helps my cause any. But, that's who I am ..... can't change that.

Thanks for the welcome Amber.

[QUOTE=wkp;1603]..... oh yeah, Happy Birthday!

Welcome to the forum, wkp. Living in Chicago, you may or may not be aware that there are numerous professional doms who would be able to give you the experience you crave for a very reasonable price and with the right combination of harshness/compassion/safety you need. I knew two very good ones when I lived here but alas they are both retired now.

Of course two issues with that are 1) it would be pay for play, not a relationship, and 2) if you happened to have a preference for a male disciplinarian, the pickings would be slim even in the pro-dom arena.

If that is even remotely an option, search under Illinois on www.maxfisch.com, then join the discussion board to look up reviews of various doms.

In any case, welcome again and good luck finding the right partner!

That's what's great about living in a major metropolitan center. No matter what you are into, there are bound to be a few hundred people into the same thing.

I am strictly interested in a female top. I have thought about seeking a pro dom. It may just be what I end up doing. I would probably do that before I would attend a party. It's not quite what I am looking for though. I do want to establish a relationship/friendship. Pehaps a bit idealistic, but I am still hopeful I will find that.

Thanks, your help is much appreciated.

I would strongly recommend you not try to change it! I tried things that I knew I didn't feel comfortable with, and it didn't lead anywhere good. Play around, experiment, but don't settle. Keep your standards high. It is frustrating, but when you find what you are looking for, the rewards will be awesome.

i met my partner at a my very first Texas Allstate Spanking party which is another good reason for people to come because you never know you just might meet the love of your life like i did :) .. we ended up finding each other on the yahoo list that they start before the party and chatted up until time.. im always able to get a feeling about ppl just from chatting with them which is really wierd i guess it's just the way they talk an how they answer questions you might ask ect.. but i felt a really good vibe just from our chats.. anyways when we finally met the first night of the party it was like we'd known each other for years.. it was awesome.. now it's kinda hard to explain to vanilla friends how i met Him lol.. :eek:

wkp, welcome to MSF!

Sarah and I have that same issue. So for vanillas we formed a story that is very close to the real thing, so that stretching the truth is kept to a minimum. Though it leaves out a lot of important details, the essences of the real story is that we met through the SIN discussion board, where we both posted on a more or less regular basis, and realized that both were somewhat aligned with one another on issues of politics (because we were out of line with most other posters - LOL). We became aware that we lived so close to one another when someone from England posted a question asking who lived near a certain city that they had a question about. Things proceeded slowly from that point. The story that we use for vanillas is that we both met on a political discussion board hosted by a small college (discussion board-true, political & small college, not), and that we were apart from most others in our beliefs (true, but we make this a bigger issue than it really was on SIN). All the rest is the same, i.e. what actually happened. And it works very well, and sometimes leads to some very interesting discussions about meeting, dating, and relationships in the online world. (Though, to be sure, neither of us was trying to meet folks or date - we were just members of the discussion board. But as the relationship progressed, we communicated a great deal through it).

That's our story, and we're sticking with it. ;)

He found ME. This was long before I knew that computers and the internet existed, so that had nothing to do with it. Because I had had some 'spanking adventures' with boys, I did know (vaguely) that I liked that sort of attention, teasing and playing submissive and getting spanked.

Anyway, I was raised on a farm by my grandmother and when I turned 18 she decided to sell the farm and move to town. My guy was the real estate agent. He was 25 at the time. The first time he was there with his dad, who he was in business with. He kept coming back to the farm, ostensibly to take pictures of the buildings and such, but I quickly understood that it was really to see me.

On one of these occasions I served him some pepsi and managed to spill a little on him. We had been goofing around so he laughed and said I was careless and ought to be spanked! So he pulled me down across his lap and gave me a few love pats. I was so thrilled I almost wet my pants!

Long story short: we courted, we 'sparked' as my grandmother would say, we had a love affair in the traditional sense, and we got married. Along the way he taught me what erotic spanking was all about (he wasn't a novice!) After 17 years he is still spanking me (as foreplay) and I am still thoroughly enjoying it.

Farmgirl,

Thanks for the background on you. Those are great accounts and you're very lucky to have found someone that shares your interest and that you "spark" with. It's very hard to find that!

Gary

Thanks to this site I found what I was looking for
 

This blog is for my Master RT, as a gift. I want to share my most personal feelings for him and how I got involved in the lifestyle. I am a newbi, that is what RT likes to call me and this is my journey into how I am learning to become his submissive.

Background: I have only known RT for about a month and from the moment I met him I have fallen head over heels. For years I have fantasized about living the life of a submissive, a slave to her man, or simply wanting to be spanked in the bedroom. I am 36 years old with two children and have always led a vanilla lifestyle but have dreamed of something more erotic, loving and disciplining form of a relationship.

RT is a well experienced dominant who has no patience in dealing with someone as new as I. But somehow I have warmed his heart and as you read the stories of our journey together you will see how I am learning day by day how to serve my Master and how my mistakes are punished and my obedience is rewarded.

I look forward in hearing your comments and perhaps suggestions on how I can be a better sub to my man.

http://reinartsubmissjourney.blogspot.com/

Here Goes
 

I picked up my present partner on SIN I noticed she had viewed my profile and being located within 20 miles of me and having what appeared to be a mirrior image of my own requirements I sent a message and the rest is history

She has a particular needs of regular chastisement to correct unusual and unaceptable behaviourand I am in a position to provide this and I am happy to do so.

I have a need of someone to spank on a regular basis and she is only to happy to provide the bottom which reddens up in a very pleaseing way, so I am hopeing this arrangement will continue for a long time to come.

Mike XXX

Interesting....after being with my spouse for over 20 years, she finally voiced HER interest in being spanked. She has always been shy and reserved yet very classy and sexy. After hearing of her interest we tried it recently. Needless to say we have had a couple of very hot and VERY WET sessions. I am looking forward to providing her the punishment she deserves.