How did you find a Partner?

[persephone]

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.