I was once moving into a bdsm relationship with a girl who’d always been vanilla. I was in the process of perverting her. Mostly that consisted of my tying her up and spanking her, followed by fucking. We were almost vanilla, by most bdsm people’s standards. I didn’t care. I liked her, and I was perfectly happy to keep things at levels she was comfortable with. 

But as Doms do, and as I think even vanilla girls stepping slightly off the straight and narrow expect, I pushed carefully and not too insistently against those limits. I found some things.

For example, she was interested in being watched by another girl while she was being punished and fucked, and in being tied up and having to watch while I fucked the other girl. One of the reasons I thought I was probably right in reading that from her is that although those things are fine and fun to me, they aren’t central in my own dreams, fantasies and desires.

So my picking it up wasn’t just wishful thinking. 

But I only “knew” those desires of hers because when I had her tied up, and sometimes when we were fucking, I’d tell her stories. The stories were on various themes. But stories on those lines got particularly excited physical responses from her. She never said anything.

I thought it was too early to put her on the spot, and anyway I didn’t have another girl all lined up and ready to drop by into a threesome at the drop of a hat. It could be done but it’d take organising, and I couldn’t do that until she’d indicated she was okay with that. Even I wasn’t dumb enough to spring a Surprise! Threesome!! on her.

But I lent her a book of bdsm porn, and recommended Chapter 9. There was, I remembered, a hot scene with a man and two girls doing the kind of threesome she seemed to be comfortable with.

The heroine spent most of the scene tied and helpless while the other girl was free, and dominant to her. but it was emotionally safe for her: both girls fucked the hero and watched the other girl fucking the hero, but  they weren’t in the bed together at any time. So there was a kind of very close girl-on-girl emotional intimacy, but no actual girl-on-girel cunnilingus or fingering. 

Anyway, a couple of days later I asked her if she’d read it, and she said she had. But she wasn’t at all happy. I asked her what was wrong. 

“I didn’t know you were into knives. I mean, that’s not…”

“What? Knives? There’s no knives in that.”

“There is.”

“Bullshit. There can’t be.”

She passed me the book and I checked it. I must have read that section 50 times at least. And sure enough, there’s a bit where the other girl got the heroine’s attention by holding a knife to her throat.

I just hadn’t ever noticed.

The thing is, I hate knives and blades. It’s to do with a childhood accident; sharps give me the chills, and not the good kind. I’d always read that scene for pleasure, so I’d always just skipped the knife bit without it registering on me at all.

I think in sex men only see what we like, so that we like what we see. That’s me, for sure. 

So that’s a small warning, on using media to make explicit what you want, or to encourage your partner to be explicit about what they want. You see a bit of film, or text, and you think it’s saying something sexy and charming. but there may be a knife in there. The other person doesn’t know what you want them to notice and what to ignore. Keep your eyes open.

Postscript:

The relationship didn’t suffer much damage. My failure to notice the knife was weird but obviously real. So we had fun, and lots of hot sex. 

The threesome didn’t happen, though.