Dear Seeker of New Sensations (a.k.a. Terry),

If you think you'd have trouble remembering your safeword during a scene, and you're at the point in your relationship where you can trust your master with this, consider doing a limits-pushing scene without the safeword. Instead, your dominant should stop when he has judged you have been pushed enough. This can work well, but only if you trust him to read you and not to take you too far. In a non-safeword scene, you need to do your part and respond honestly to the sensations. If nothing is hurting you, don't scream in agony; likewise as the pain increases in intensity, don't turn into a stoic: your screams or groans or movements or whatever your personal response to pain is should increase as the pain does. This gives your top valuable clues as to your subjective experience of the pain, not to mention being a pleasure for him to watch.

As far as what it feels like, when my limits are pushed successfully it feels like I take the pain up until the point where I can't stand it anymore and then my master gives me a very little bit more beyond that point: a few more smacks with the paddle, another cut with the cane, five more minutes in the tit clamps. What I learn from such experiences is that I can tolerate even more than I thought I could, that I can get through something I thought was intolerable...and then some. You feel a marvelous feeling of acomplishment when your limits have been pushed successfully.

When going from hand spankings to paddlings with implements, you can use any paddle or whip that you want, as they all can be applied with less or more force. Some are easier to control than others: for example cats with sharp or knotted tips can be hard to control and the wrap effect (where one of the tails or strands wraps around your side at the speed of light and sears into your hip) can be so painful that I've known beginner subs, after experiencing an accidental wrap, decide that they never want to experience another whipping or spanking of any sort. In addition, canes can be hard to use without giving someone lots of pain--with these, a very light touch goes a long way. When I am given the luxury of a warmup, I like ping pong paddles and slapper paddles (a slapper paddle has a split end--the thickness of the leather is split in two and both pieces slap together when they make contact)--you can go on and on and on with these for a long time. You've heard people talking about soft deerskin floggers here? These are nice because the dominant can hit quite hard with these without it hurting much. If you get too used to one of these floggers, you can always tie knots in it to make it a rougher instrument. Put the knots at least 4 inches up each strand, in case you want to add a second layer of knots later on. A good toy catalog to get is Adam's Whips and Gillian's Toys (or is it the other way around?). Anyway, I like this catalog because they use a nifty five-star rating system on all their instruments: they label each whip in terms of the pain it inflicts from novice to very advanced. I don't have a current number for them, but maybe someone else does.

A fun and less abrupt way to push limits is to do a very long spanking/flogging/whipping session with a variety of instruments. Taking lots of pain is easier to do if the pain is varied--if it changes from wooden paddle pain to cane pain to cat pain to shoesole paddle, to riding crop pain, etc. When your master senses that you are close to your limits, he can finish you off quickly with a few harder or faster strokes. But if you want to go all out and get to your pain limits very quickly, request your dominant to begin hitting you at heavy intensity--no warmup--with the same instrument, over and over, very fast, very hard, giving you no time to recover between strokes. I guess that approach is nice if you just want to get the whole business over with quickly and then go watch your favorite TV show or something (Harder, master, HARDER! The Simpsons are coming on in two minutes!) , but I would think that for a first time limits-pushing session, the slower approach would be more gratifying for both partners.

Can I ask you a question? Why does your master have some serious issues about not wanting to do something you will regret later? Have you had a bad experience with pushing limits before?