The East Wing Perspective on Training vs. Romance As my peers have noted in their articles, this subject, while completely clear to us as we discuss it within our group is somewhat more difficult to express to the community at large. I myself sat on this subject for more than a month (actually, much more)  Read more »

Training vs. Romance: The View From The North Wing I outlined this piece no fewer than four times. I was trying to eliminate the tone of inherent judgment. I’ve realized that is not going to be possible. "Vs." implies contest, and by virtue of selecting one method over the other I have made an endorsement.  Read more »

The West Wing Perspective on Training vs. Romance Essential Estate Structure: Merit   First, let’s clarify our terms for the purposes of this discussion. S/M: Sado-Masochism. The inflicting and/or receiving of physical and/or emotional pain for the Fulfillment of (presumably both) partners. B/D: Bondage and Discipline. Usually sexualized play. Often, but not by definition, an  Read more »

The East Wing Perspective on Protocols in The Estate: What and Why When we formed The Estate, it was with the specific goal of codifying what we like into a structured, well thought-out and consistent set of rules and guidelines that could be used all the time. Our feeling is, it should never be necessary  Read more »

The West Wing Perspective on Protocols: Intent and Practice To clarify my terms: There may be some confusion as to what a Protocol is- I would first like to point out what a protocol is not. Protocol is not ritual, although it may contain ritual elements. Ritual is a behavior, repeated by situation or on  Read more »

  Punishment, Correction and Conditioning in the Shaping of Human Tools Introduction I am a fairly active participant in the discussion of the methods, philosophies and issues that surround and permeate the BDSM community in a number of mediums. Several topics come up often and seem to be in the process of dividing the BDSM  Read more »

For our purposes, we can divide the population into four primary groups. As it is inevitable the the language of this discussion will be prejudicial if someone were to wish to misunderstand, or to take it out of context, I will make no attempt to pretty it up… instead, I am going to embrace those  Read more »