The CNC Sextbook: Chp 3: Communication Practises That Aid CNC

Note: This is part of a textbook I am writing for the practise of CNC. The entire textbook will be available on my Patreon, the first chapter is posted here and the second is here. There is a downloadable document at the bottom, as well as a document with the full textbook (titled what is consensual non-consent). Please do not disseminate, as well as a document with the full textbook.

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Chapter 3

Communication Practises That Aid CNC

Chapter Overview:

In this chapter we will go over various practises, communication routines, habits and protocols that can help one navigate, sustain and strengthen the practise of CNC within their play or dynamic. Some of these suggestions pertain to newer players and others may be more advanced, kindly apply with caution and consideration.

Communication For CNC

The problem with taking a very negotiation-oriented approached to all things BDSM is that it creates the illusion that negotiation is the only space for communication and outside of that one must necessarily step out of their role to say the things they may need to say. Communication can occur in two spaces:

Communication Within Your Roles.

The method in which you communicate with one another from within the confines of the roles you take with each other will be governed by the features of the roles that you take. In this space of communication, all parties will be influenced by the duties and responsibilities that they undertake as part of those roles, as well as the powers or lack thereof that they experience within these roles. There are certain kinds of communication that are perhaps best avoided within the conditions of an inherent power disparity, but that being said, it still bodes well to have active channels of communication between yourselves even as submissive/dominant, master/slave etc. The purpose of this communication is to reveal your emotional nature within your role to your partner. How I feel as a slave or how they feel as a dominant makes up the fabric of our interactions much more than the acts we perform with each other. Active communication from within the roles ensures a depth to our engagements, it ensures that my partner has the information they need upon which to base their actions and decisions.

Communication Outside Your Roles.

I am a huge advocate for spaces of equality in relationships that operate with a power disparity, especially the kind of relationships where CNC or TPE is a primary component. In my relationship, we have an actual physical space (ie; my home office) where the conditions of our dynamic do not apply and we use this space to discuss, address and revisit our dynamic from a space that is outside our dynamic. I enjoy having an actual physical space to do this because the strong associations I have with this space ensure that I do not approach these discussions from a slave-mindset but from a place where I feel most in control. The danger, to me, of approaching these discussions from a slave-mindset is that I am already placing myself at the bottom of the hierarchy where I am allowed to be coerced, self-effacing and the dynamic allows for my will to be subverted which means that I may never have the space to feel like I can say things that may challenge the authority of my partner. The following are the kinds of communication I like to have outside of our established roles as master/servant:

Conflict Resolution

While I see some merit in the leader-follower version of conflict resolution, in my experience most people lack the type of nobility and objectivity it takes to truly recognise their own faults from within the position of leadership and the forced establishment of protocols even when it comes to conflict then often leads to the kind of aggravated conflict which is emotionally charged, potentially damaging and prone to creating more issues that resolving them. I prefer to fight on equal footing because I don’t think that fighting within a role actually ensures the structure it takes to have a “good” fight and in the long-term it seems to cause more rifts within the dynamic and outside of it. If the issue I wish to address is an issue I have as the slave with its master, that conversation does not fall within the ambit of conflict resolution for me (more on this later), and if the issue is about interpersonal communication or issues, I don’t feel comfortable being expected to come from a place where is possible to coerce me on the issue. I find that when I approach and resolve conflicts on even footing there is a smaller chance of escalation.

Redressal

This is the space in which I approach issues I may have as the bottom with the top in question, but I need these issues to be approached by two equals as opposed to one master and one slave. First of all, this is because I want the space of redressal to be an active one for both the top and the bottom, which means that any issues my master wishes to address with me can be brought here as well. Secondly, unlike the space within the dynamic where issues and mistakes are dealt with using threat and punishment, there needs to be a space where the underlying causes of the issue can be studied and discussed by all parties without one feeling like there is the threat of consequence hanging over their heads. Here’s an example: I have been polishing my master’s shoes for eight years, but a couple of years ago I went through a phase when I absolutely just did not wish to do it anymore. I did not wish to do it because a peculiar phenomenon has begun between us wherein no matter whether I polished the shoes or not, whether I did it well or poorly, whether I did it in time or late, he would still punish me for it. This was hot for a while, but in the long-term, it just made me feel like anything I did with regard to the shoes was worthless since it was all going to end in the same way anyway. I needed to address this with him in a space where I didn’t feel threatened by potential consequence and where I am able to offer my suggestions of how something should be handled because I feel like it hasn’t been handled well so far without that causing offence to the authority of the top.

Renegotiation

I am a a big believer in constant negotiation, because I am big believer in the fact that people change continually and the impact of the things we do with one another sexually sows seeds for further change, and sometimes this change turns out really well, and sometimes the fruit it bears is rotten and corrupted, so it needs to be cut out and thrown away. I am wary of individuals who hold the first and only negotiation as sacrosanct and treat any changes in perception and experience as a betrayal to what they used to be able to do you. In my experience these people often turn out to be a rather specific type of predator, the kind who wants you to negotiate away all of your rights before you are able to discover anything about yourself. I renegotiate on the basis on changes in my perception, experience, body and accumulated damage, and respect the right of all my tops to do the same within a space that is outside the dynamic.

Feedback and Debriefing

While I do absolutely provide certain types of feedback within the dynamic, and receive it as well, there is a particular form of feedback that I prefer to provide as a dedicated activity free from the confines of control. This is the type of feedback that comes after a particularly intense scene, period, construct or change in our communication with regard to how we commune sexually, it is not the kind of feedback where I gush about how hot things were and what really works for us, but the kind that is geared towards establishing whether the goals of safety, security, sanity are being met. Usually, if it is in response to a scene, I will lay out clearly the things that aided my safety and helped me feel more safe, the things that acted in the opposite way, ways in which I may have felt violated, things I did not expect to feel and how I was responding to them. Most of it is not designed to be prescriptive nor suggestion, but demonstrative of exactly what I went through. I expect the same nature of feedback in return from my top as well. It does not aim to undermine the authority nor disallow things that may have caused discomfort, but to ensure all parties are aware of what is happening.

Communication Practices To Help You CNC More Safely

A major part of CNC is the art of instinctively knowing when to stop and when to push, but in actuality instinct is not a voice from the gods, good instincts are developed over time, by using dedicated practises and ensuring adequate reevaluation and introspection about ones own actions and involvement with their partner. When CNC works well, it can enable the feeling of being known so well that you needn't ever communicate your desires or boundaries while in scene and being able to truly let go and trust that the people involved really know what they are doing, mean what they are saying and can be trusted to handle what they have undertaken. That kind of trust and resolve doesn't come from merely introducing the condition of CNC to a relationship, it comes from unrelenting, exhaustive communication. The following are some communication practises that I use or have used in the past that help develop better and more reliable instincts with regard to your partners:

1) Body Mapping

This is a practise that I recommend no matter whether you are into CNC or not, it's the practice of preparing an emotional map of your body for your partner. This is not just about demonstrating your body in terms of impact play, but of revealing the emotional memories of your body and how they impact you. For instance, there is a point on my back which is a major trigger for me because of something that happened a decade ago and over the past decade each instance of being struck in that part of my body has furthered the negative associations with it to the point that I can almost always actively feel this part of my back, it feels like it is always glowing with heat. Or, perhaps your emotional memories with your asshole have to do with something specific a former partner used to do to make you orgasm but ever since they left you have been unable to ask for that thing because any asshole stimulation causes you to feel a misplaced but unmistakable shame. That's the kind of thing that constitutes an emotional map of your body. Once you make it, you will realise how much information you house in your flesh and you may even suddenly be able to explain the sudden shifts in your mood or behaviour during play that previously seemed inexplicable.

2. Contingency Planning For The Unknown

The most vital contingency plan you will make (besides an emergency safety plan) is one for the situation that causes confusion for all people in the scene, and the inability to determine what is happening (or retain control). There are many emotions that indicate a failure of communication but none diagnoses a breakdown of communication better than confusion. If you find, that your interactions lead to spaces where you are confused about what is happening, what just happened or what caused it to happen, it means that you should be communicating more or better because you do not know where your partner stands, nor perhaps where you do. Confusion is the situation for which you should prepare your best contingency plans.

3. "Not Today" Spaces

Develop the ability in your relationship to say "not today" (and the like) to things and have that mean exactly what it does on face value. Look, when it comes to CNC, one party does not quite have the right to insist that they cannot do something "today" but this is not about that. This is about the fact that sometimes we evaluate the health of our relationships based on the nature of the sexual relationship between us, and in that, when one partner makes the other feel rejected simply by turning down sexual engagement because they have a headache, for example, it means that there has been a breakdown of communication. Usually, this happens because you have communicating sub-textually instead of directly. For instance, when my former partner said he had a headache, it meant that I had done something wrong and he was withholding sexual engagement until I apologised. The ability to have a headache be a headache enables an environment where your feelings are not completely contingent on the whims of the other person and in such an environment problems of communication are easier to diagnose as well.

4. Indulge The Emotional Urge To Pee

How does your partner learn to trust that your silence means that you are okay? It's when they know that if you weren't, you would truly and immediately (if possible) articulate that. CNC is not about creating a space where you prove your devotion by allowing yourself to be damaged or enforcing constant perfection to prove you are the most badass top/bottom imaginable, it is about creating a space where you feel comfortable when approaching difficult states like violation, intensity, nullification etc and I find that when I am overwhelmed by the need to say something that I deem will be disruptive or "ruin the moment," that is when I most need to say that thing. It's not about saying stop or not, it's about explosing the irritant. As much as confusion is the primary deterrent to communication, irritation is the most common deterrent to immersive experience. In all likelihood, it is not your sadness or fear that you fail to articulate, it's the fact that the room is just a little too cold for you to be able to focus. It feels like an inconsequential bit of information that you should be able to ignore, but when you aren't, it becomes the entirety of what you experience. Just ruin the moment for a moment and ask to have the temperature increased, the effect of the disruption will pass and it will pass more quickly than you can imagine.

5. De-Bugging Your Systems of Communication.

Every once in a while, any system requires an upgrade and this is different from negotiating the terms of your relationship, it is more about updating the methods in which you achieve the goals of your relationship, and it is best based on evaluation of how you have communicated up until that point and seeing which systems work well and which ones don't. The following can be helpful to debug your systems of communication:

- An evaluation of the primary emotions and experiences you wish to enable for one another and yourself to determine whether they are actually being enabled or you find yourself still longing for them.

- Try to answer questions on behalf of your partner and then compare answers to see whether you are being direct enough in communicating yourself to each other.

- Evaluate all the rules that you have instituted in your relationship and check which ones are most often not followed, it will help to decide whether there is an underlying issue that caused the breakdown or whether this particular rule is just not doing anything for anyone and warrants being discarded or replaced.

6. Understanding Your Relationship With Fear

Fear is an important component of CNC for most people. While there are some who operate in realms outside of fear, there is the part of human nature that fundamentally repels violation and the circumvention of will. The denial or suppression of fear is to CNC what the denial of jealousy is to polyamory. Fear exists and we have to learn to manage it, especially if we expect to enjoy it. Once fear is triggered in you, whether that is at the prospect of the cockroach you just saw at the bottom of the sink or the whip that is about to be administered to your back, there is a potential for that fear to grow exponentially. Understanding your responses to experiencing or causing fear is helpful to your partner in determining how fear can be used and how it should not be used for a particular person. It is important to be able to articulate your fear, even if that articulation doesn't lead to any changes in the outcome, because expressing fear is itself a method of handling it better.

7. Micro-Engagement

Provided that the CNC in your relationship is part of the dynamic and not scene based, ask yourself if your partner feels like they embody their role even when you are not directly engaged in play? Ask whether they feel the possibility of "anything can happen" even when nothing is happening. There are constraints of time and responsibility that we all navigate, and sometimes that means we don't have time for sex and play that is as elaborate as we would like it to be but even at these times, it is possible to engage with one another from within your dynamic. Most relationships around me that I see failing lack this component and they judge the success of their sex life based on how often they play as a result. Instead, I prefer to engage in moments over incidents.

8. Study The Side-Effects of Your Dynamic

Any relationship, whether that is based on a voluntary structure of power or not, can be broken down into a system of responsibilities, responses, systems and communication, and those things all have an impact on who we are and how we behave in relationships in the long-term. The conditions of both CNC and power-exchange have the potential to cause changes in who you are and not all of these will be positive. For instance, I have experienced, in phases, things like enhanced trauma sensitivity, the development of new limits, the erosion of some boundaries that permeated into the way I interact with the rest of the world. Self-awareness is like the screwdriver in your tool-kit of communication, is it even a tool-kit, if you don't have a screwdriver?

Communication is the most vital component in sustaining and developing a dynamic that is inherently precarious and fraught. Negotiation is only the first step and it loses its potency the longer you go without revisiting it.