Saturday's class was about fear. A fair portion of the bottoms admitted to being fear junkies--folks that love to be scared. We discussed the difficulties of scaring someone who has developed trust in you as a top, and found there are ways to add a certain fear factor to the play.
Visuals are good -- things like laying out the toys that will at least potentially be used. Contemplative looks at a bottom already restrained while holding a very intense toy can up the ante in short order.
Blindfolds are great for taking bottoms out of their comfort space. It's surprising how effective they are, taking away that advance notice that we take for granted.
Also, Tops wearing masks introduces another element of fear, since the bottom can no longer read his/her expression. Also, it makes folks seem more alien, when their face is immobile and unreadable. Tops generally tend to feel meaner when they are masked. Maybe the extra anonymity frees up the monster in the basement a bit more, plus the frightened expression on the "victim's" face feeds the flames.
Because we did discover that many tops enjoy seeing that fear on their bottoms' faces, probably because being an object of fear is another expression of power, and you know how we get off on that!
Multiple tops in a scene adds some uncertainty as well, and is especially useful in a scene with long-term partners.
Of course, some folks disagreed, and said that trust was not only a huge aspect of their play, but necessary before they could allow themselves to be vulnerable. Some of them felt that their top was evil enough that there was fear aplenty before the scene began, and the trust that they would survive essentially intact was what let them play at all.
Sometimes their fear was more a fear of failure, or the fear of not pleasing the top, rather than a corporal fear.
And there's at least one more area of fear play--the mind fuck--that we did not address at all. A future class...
Clay
