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caring way. And especially when he was tying me up, it was this soothing, wonderful thing."

Sophie continues, "So one day... Carl starts an encounter with me. Carl had decided in his head, from all the things that he's heard me say about how I play with another partner, that that's what I really want from an interaction, in order for it to be the most gratifying and valuable. So we proceeded to have an encounter where Carl was not Carl. And I didn't stop it because it was so like, I couldn't understand what was going on. I couldn't understand why it felt so horrible. And it wasn't that I didn't trust him, because I trust him completely. [ ... ] I just couldn't figure out what the problem is, I felt horrible through the whole thing. And he was so out of touch with me that he wasn't even aware of how horrible I was feeling. The encounter went on for some time... and the second it was over, I... was just, like, you know, traumatized. And he was like, 'Oh my God, what's wrong?' [and] he carried me into the other room. I said something like, 'Where did my Carly go?' and then he started to cry. [ ... ] He's like, 'I was trying to give you this sadistic experience.'"

In Sophie's story, Carl's risk backfires.... The risks were unsuccessful; each ended up emotionally distraught and distant. Ultimately, they sacrificed the relationship. (pages 179-180)

Man, that description is so intense. Let's talk about it.

The first thing worth noting about Sophie's story is that, while she probably had a safeword, she didn't use it: she says that she "didn't stop it." Sometimes, in really confusing S&M scenes, submissives have trouble using their safewords. This does not mean safewords are worthless... but as Thomas MacAulay Millar put it when we wrote about safewords, "Tops can never be on cruise control." Non-verbal signals matter, and if an S&M partner -- top or bottom! -- starts reacting in an unusual way, it's great to check in with them even if they haven't used their safeword. Safewords are a useful additional way of communicating about sex, but they can't replace all communication.

Note also how hard the situation was on the top partner, not just the bottom. Carl ended up crying afterwards!

Next, what I find myself wondering is whether Sophie and Carl could have communicated past this incident. Sophie obviously trusted Carl, and presumably he trusted her. Could they have talked it out and had a successful relationship afterwards? It would have been hard, but maybe they could have done it.

I've (rarely) had similar experiences myself -- where boundaries were severely tested, and afterwards it was difficult for both me and my partner to work through it. It can absolutely have an immense impact on the relationship. I write about this a bit in Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser; here's a quotation from a section in my book where I'm talking to a dominant partner, with whom I just had such a difficult encounter:

Sometimes, these things happen. One partner pushes a boundary, breaks it; maybe the boundary was unspoken; maybe the dominant misreads signals; maybe the submissive didn't yet realize that the boundary was there. When it comes to S&M, these things can be so dramatic... yet sometimes they're nobody's fault. We find these mental and

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