I think I confused a sub the other night

Not that I really try to do this, but then again, I don't have to try. He initiated chat on gay.com He was local, cute enough (though from his own opinion of himself, I think he'd consider "cute enough" to be a put-down even though I don't intend it that way), and worked pretty hard to establish "kinky" credentials despite having nothing BDSM-related in his gay.com profile.

As I often do, he conversed by asking questions, because it's a way to keep other people engaged. Unfortunately for him, his questions were largely about my identity:

• What's your name?
• Where do you live?
• What do you do for a living?
• What are your hobbies?

Granted, the last one wasn't really an identity question, but after the first three, I had tried every way from "gentle" to "blunt" to tell him that I wasn't interested in revealing my identity to total strangers. I covered that in the first non-test post to this blog nearly four years ago. The only thing different now from then is that now I normally don't send pictures at all—I don't feel the need to do so, and I'm almost never looking for a hook-up, so I really don't care if people can't see what I look like and decide if they find me attractive or not.

When I didn't want to answer any of these questions, though, the poor boy was stymied. He's quite handsome from his pics, and like a lot of college-age boys, he seemed awfully confused when someone didn't try like hell to keep a conversation going with him. (I don't really mean to imply that he was full of himself, but it's true that handsome guys live in a different world than ordinary guys. They routinely get social and sexual opportunities that others would find rare or non-existent. When the situation doesn't work that way, they sometimes don't understand what's happening and misinterpret it as an insult of some kind. See the last bullet point in that post from four years ago.)

At that point, he got frustrated and wanted me to pick a topic. The problem with that strategy is that I didn't message him. I didn't have anything to talk about. People who initiate chat are supposed to have something to talk about, or else it's like calling someone on the phone and then asking that person what he wants. You called him!

I didn't mean to piss him off or even frustrate him, but once I finally got through to him that:

• I didn't want to talk about my identity, and
• I didn't have a chat topic prepared in case someone new started talking to me

...he got frustrated and pissy, lecturing me about how I should answer the questions to have a "normal" conversation. He could have asked a lot of BDSM questions (and to be fair, he asked some, but they mostly revolved around anal sex, which is not at the top of my hit parade), but the only topic he really seemed prepared to talk about was me. Guys tend to open up to other guys who are as cute as he is. I didn't, and it threw him off, and probably pissed him off—which, again, was not my intent.

Apparently I am mysterious and frustrating without even trying. If there's a lesson here, I guess it's "know more than one way to chat with another guy." It's like having only one pick-up line at a club: if it doesn't work, you can either try another way or just give up. "Repeating the same lines and then getting mad when the other guy doesn't cooperate" is not a high-percentage strategy.

It's weeks like this...

...that make me wonder how much I could get if I sold all of my bondage equipment.

Repeating an old theme

I'm starting to think that the most important thing I've written here was about two years ago, in this post talking to prospective submissives:

Say what you mean, and mean what you say. If you can't do something, don't tell a sir that you "will" do it or "are" doing it. If you say you are going to do something, do it. If you say you won't do something, don't do that thing.

The semi-local boy has apologized profusely for his actions and expressed regret that he blew his final chance. In the process, though, he reminds me again why too many chances for new online subs are a bad idea. (I do believe doms should be more tolerant of people they've met in person because they have more tools to assess the sub face-to-face.)

After one apology, he said "I will not contact you again, Sir."

The next day, I got another long apology from him, which I accept at face value: I believe he did not mean to discourage me or lead me on, just that he was never really capable of doing the things he said he would do (and not doing the things he promised not to do). That was immediately followed by a message explaining why the previous message contradicted the one before that—why he was contacting me despite having emphatically said he would not attempt to contact me again.

That, plus his profile picture showing him having disobeyed an order I gave him, are very stark reminders that even if his intentions are good, I simply can't believe what he says. He may fully intend to follow through on his word, but at this point he can't always bring himself to do what he said he would, or not do what he said he wouldn't. Since I place an extremely high premium on reliability, that's pretty much always a deal-breaker. I'm not the kind of dominant who hopes a boy will screw up so I can "punish" him. The core of BDSM is trust. If a boy does not keep his word, even if no deception was intended and he didn't keep his word because of fear, that bond of trust is ripped apart and I don't know how to mend it.

Most of the time, of course, deception is intended, and the subs think we're not smart enough to figure it out. I got a private message on gay.com today from someone with a "private" profile. Normally, I will not talk to someone who has a private profile. I don't care if they show pictures or not, but basic stats and information about what they're like is a pre-requisite for adult conversation with me.

The new gay.com is fairly specific about the information it provides. You get thumbnails with a label for people who don't have public, non-adult pictures in their profile, and the label is clear about why you don't see a photo. "Private" means his photos are private, duh. "No primary photo" means that all of his photos are either adult (because they won't let adult pictures be primary photos where non-paying members could see them) or private. If you have no photos at all, the label reads "No photos."

Similarly, there are guys who never filled out a profile, and for them, gay.com says "Sorry, but 'member-name' has no profile available," or similar words (it's hard to find an example on the fly or I'd make a screen cap and post it). On the other hand, if you've filled out something in your profile, but gone to the "My Account" section on the site and checked the box to make your profile visible to "No One," gay.com instead says "This member's profile is private."

In other words, even if I can't see your pictures or profile, I know whether or not they exist.

You may see where this is going. Today, when the sub with the "private" profile and "private" pic sent me a message, I noted that his information was private so I didn't know anything about him. He responded that he absolutely did not have a profile or a picture at all, and that if I thought otherwise, "this new software" must be at fault. (He also blamed the software, which is called a "web browser," for eating his keystrokes and making him type the wrong letters in words.)

Yeah, sorry, bye now. When you open a conversation with something so easily determined to be false, I'm simply not going to be able to believe anything you say. If I can't believe what you say, I'm just not interested in talking to you.

Be reliable. Speak the truth. Withhold what you feel you need to withhold, but don't pretend that you're not withholding it. Don't say you will do things unless you will do them. Don't say you won't do things if you're going to do them. Do those things you say you'll do and don't do the things you say you won't do.

You will likely find that this leads to fewer conversations, because a sub's natural instinct is to promise a dom whatever he wants and worry later about how he'll make it happen. Doms like it when you try to please them, but make clear when you'll try and when you'll do what is asked or volunteered.

Look at it this way. If a dom doesn't care how reliable you are, or if he can believe what you say, then can you be sure you can believe what he says? Including about what is and is not possible when you're tied up and can't negotiate further?

Be as reliable as you want your dominant to be. If you're not, don't expect any easy way to repair the situation. It's bad enough to stretch that bond, but if you pull it far enough to break it, the relationship changes forever. Sometimes you can tie the parts back together or glue them, but the result is never as strong or elastic as it was before you broke it.

The cost of multiple chances

A couple of months back, I said something interesting on indecisiveness, edited slightly for clarity:

In the past week, I've put two boys to that test—one a semi-local boy who's submitted before but not in a while, and one a more experienced sub who's submitted here before and was working up to it again. In both cases, but for entirely different reasons, they were happier leaving actual in-person contact unresolved, preferring to think about the submission than actually submit.

And that's fine—it's not my place to judge, and I try not to. (I don't always succeed, since I'm human and all that.) In this particular time and place, "thinking about it" wasn't working for me. I told them, in effect, to decide: in or out? If you're in, you're going to submit. If you're out, you don't get to dither about it for weeks and weeks and then maybe play. At this particular time, that doesn't work for me. I want to know if they're in or out.

Both of them chose "out," and one of them regretted it instantly (and still does), but he's out anyway. In all BDSM encounters, actions must have consequences, and the consequences for his decision to be "out" is that he doesn't get to think about playing here.

That one, the one who regretted it, was the semi-local boy. But he wanted another chance, and I gave him one—and he fucked it up again, saying his "final answer" was that he would not play here. Three days later, he wanted yet another chance, begging and pleading and apologizing all over himself. I made it clear he would be cut no more slack, that I would not tolerate disobedience or provide a fourth chance if he backed out of this one, either explicitly or by disobeying an order I'd given him. He repeatedly said he understood, and over the course of two months, he progressed steadily towards realizing his long-time fantasy.

---

At this point, I need to backtrack a few months.

In winter or early spring, I had been chatting with a local boy who explicitly identified himself as a "slave" seeking an owner or master. He advertised this desire quite clearly, and while I wasn't looking to own a second boy, I decided to see if he was interesting.

He appeared to be sincere, but certain parts of his story were, shall we say, inconsistent. Some information he provided in email didn't match up with other things he said, and someone else (without me even asking) had said that other parts of his story didn't match up with what he was like in person.

After this many years of dealing with indecisive, fake subs online, any inconsistency at all is a big red flag. I also realize I'm imperfect, and I might be wrong, so I'll generally continue, but without much tolerance for error. For example, I've said before that I usually don't let subs have this limit. If any red flags have come up, I definitely won't allow that limit, even if I have no intention of taking advantage of it.

This particular red-flag boy was trying over and over to get out of that limit, promising all kinds of things (including unsafe things, another red flag), and I wasn't budging, so he finally decided he wouldn't play unless he could have that limit. I declined, and that was that, as far as I was concerned. (That's how it's supposed to work. The system works!)

He had also wanted to see my picture first, and I also declined. I noted in the second post on this blog (over three and a half years ago, geez) that I value my privacy. If a boy is getting to the serious stage, I'll often provide a picture. It used to be "usually," but I've grown more wary of this in recent years (keep reading). I've sent pics to plenty of guys who never came here to play.

A short time later, this same boy was in my local chat room on gay.com, telling people that I was probably some kind of serial killer because I wouldn't give him what he wanted. He said, in open conversation, that my own slaveboy was probably in mortal danger if he visited, and that someone should "do the right thing" and call the police.

I shit you not, he said that in the public chat room. Fortunately, he was already widely seen as a flake, and enough people either knew me in person or by reputation that no one took him seriously—as far as I know. I have no idea if some newbie sub who needed advice or a sympathetic ear was in the room that night and left with the impression that I couldn't be trusted.

Needless to say, that boy is permanently blacklisted from my playspace. The essence of BDSM is trust, and I can't think of a clearer demonstration of why he can't be trusted. Can you imagine what he might have done if he'd had my picture? Can you imagine what it would have cost in time and effort to clean up whatever shit he tried to throw? You gotta stay far, far away from people who aren't stable enough to play.

---

Back to the current day.

Although the semi-local boy was making slow but sure progress on his third chance, he continued to strongly indicate he could not handle an order to stop stalling and come play, so I let him take it at his pace. I just stopped letting him wank every day, or even every week, so he could find some motivation. (There was no physical encumbrance, just an order; he could at any point choose not to follow it and, in turn, choose to blow his final chance here.)

Because of past experiences like the one I just described, I felt pretty strongly about not giving him my picture. Instead, I told him we'd meet first in a public place where he could see me in a safe environment and then decide whether to continue to the playspace or just part company without hard feelings.

Had he never flaked out on me and insisted he'd never play here, I might have relented on this, but after two total flake-outs, I felt pretty strongly about not sharing the picture. He said that made it a lot more difficult, but when repeatedly asked over the two month period, he said he could deal with it.

He recently went on a trip and when he came back, he (respectfully, no complaints there) said that the no-picture-in-advance rule was too much for him, and either I changed my mind or he wouldn't play. I would not change my mind, and he backed out again, for the fourth and final time.

Again, this is how it's supposed to work. But…

…it was difficult and I have not taken it well. He'd been very emotionally needy over the two months, far more than I had patience to handle (quite honestly), and was clearly still scared about submitting even though he said every day this was exactly what he wanted and he didn't want to mess it up again. (He also disobeyed another order while on vacation, so it's possible the picture thing was just the pretext he used to avoid facing that he'd disqualified himself by disobeying.)

I spent a lot of time chatting with him about his fears and needs and struggle, and while I was far more brusque with him than I would have imagined—it's been a difficult year for me—I sensed his real desire to submit in ways that were not in his control, and I believed his repeated assertions that he would find a way to make this work.

When he returned from his trip and immediately ended what he knew to be his last chance, it just drained all of the optimism out of me. It was several days ago, and it's still gone. In the end, whether it was a pretext or not, he backed out over something that he said months ago was a concern but that he could overcome.

If I'd followed my own advice, I would have realized months earlier that he would find some reason to justify his fear, and I wouldn't have become emotionally invested in the idea that he would actually play here multiple times.

I'm sure there's price that subs pay internally for never going through with their fantasies, but there's a cost for dominants who provide multiple chances as well. You convince yourself that this one is different, that it's a minor blip he'll overcome, that this one won't back out when it's time. And then he does, and you feel like an idiot for ignoring the rules you'd already learned from experience.

Optimism is a poor strategy for dealing with subs. I don't know if I have to worry about it, because I don't know if mine will return.

"Gee, this room is dead."

There's nothing more annoying than people whose entire conversation in a chat room is about how quiet the room is, or who demand responses when they've said nothing more than "hello." (Or, in the case of something like the Leather room, "I like leather." So does everyone else in the room. That's why they named it the Leather room.)

You know why it's quiet? Because no one is chatting.

You know why no one is chatting? Because no one's saying anything that anyone else can respond to. Sorry, but I have no response to "Hi" other than to say "hello" back to you. You like leather? Good for you! So do I, but you must know that since I'm in the Leather room. And then I'm out of responses.

You want chat? Chat! It's a chat room! Talk about something interesting and people will probably respond. Talk about how everyone else sucks because they're not entertaining you and people will probably think, "God, what an asshole" and not want to say anything to you.

Chat rooms are self-service. Complaining that there's no chat in a chat room is like going to a grocery store and complaining that other people aren't putting food in your cart. That's not why the other people are there.

While you're at it, please get over the idea that a given chat room exists exactly as you define it. If you're there for hook-ups, more power to you, but quit bitching that some people aren't (unless the room is named something like "The Hook-Up Room"). If you're there to meet friends, great—but don't get mad at people who want hook-ups. It's a public space, and people will use it for different reasons. It's not there for whatever reason you imagine it to be.

You know how a public park is not "only" for picnics or kids playing or sunbathing? It's all those things to the people who come there to do those things. A chat room is the same way: a room named after a given city or state is for anyone in, near, or interested in that city or state. The "Discipline" room is for people interested in discipline from either side, or who just want to meet people who are.

I have this life-size picture of these same idiots who complain about how "dead" a room is going to a park full of sunbathers and loudly bitching that not enough people are having picnics or playing on the slides. You wanna play on the slides? Go right ahead. If you have enough fun, maybe others will join you. If not, quit whining at them for not participating in your fantasy.

You want chat? Chat. It's not brain surgery.

Some random chat observations

Every time I see a sub/boy complaining online that there aren't any dominant men out there, I'm tempted to unload about why I don't take most of them seriously. I've mentioned some before in this category, but I had a few others on my mind tonight, so here you go: reasons why doms (or, at least, me) write off submissives:

• If you post an automatic ad in the chat room (pasting the same ad and repeatedly sending it so "new people in the room" see it) but yet don't respond to private messages, you're presumed to be either fake or shallow.

• Boys who don't have pictures posted but also say they're looking for webcam are obviously full of shit. If you have a webcam, you can post a picture. If you want to keep your identity secret, you're not going to be doing webcam with strangers. You can't have it both ways.

• Boys (well, people in general) who don't respond to "hello" messages in private are saying they're not worth talking to.

  I say that with full awareness that, at times, I do this myself. But for me, it's usually with guys who are looking for a hook-up or cyber sex and who send me private messages despite the fact that:

  1. They have to read my profile to get the password to send a private message, and

  2. That same profile pretty clearly says I don't look for cybersex or hookups, and

  3. My chat status on gay.com is almost always set to "Not Looking," which I repeatedly have to point out to some people who keep messaging me with "Woof!" or "I'M READY SIR" or other such messages that make me believe they didn't read anything at all.

  If you're a younger sub who's only looking for masters in a given age range, or geographic area, or body type, then say so in your profile or bio line. If you don't, you'll get messages from others. If I see that you don't want to talk to someone like me, I'm not going to message you, except just for idle chat if you're not busy. If you simply ignore it, don't expect the dom you want to take you seriously when you realize who he is and that you blew off a few of his messages several months ago.

• If you post auto-ads in the chat room such that I can see 2-4 of them in one window, I'm putting you on ignore. I'm quite sure I'm not the only one who does that. Auto-ads are a great way to make sure you never get quality responses.

• It's actually one of my very favorite things when people visiting town stop by the chat room and say hello, ask what's going on, look for tips about where to eat or dance or whatever, and generally show interest in the place they're visiting. So why, exactly, do so many guys come into the rooms for places they're visiting in 2-3 weeks, or 2 months, looking for hookups? Or enter a local chat room as if there was absolutely no gay scene here before they arrived, and therefore their arrival absolutely must be the best thing that ever happened?

  Hint: It's not. The place you're visiting got along fine before you arrived, and will be fine after you leave. No one's indispensable. Everyone likes visitors. No one likes assholes who think that a place can't be cool unless they're present.

I actually want a different observation to have a separate URL, so it'll come in another post. And I may make more of these over time, but they basically boil down to "quit acting like the chat room exists to serve your perceived needs." If people talk to you, respond. If you don't want to talk to them, make clear why before they even start and save everyone the trouble. Be clear and we'll all be happier.

On indecisiveness

Submissives often wonder how the dominant mind works and how they can submit better, so every now and then, I offer unsolicited free advice that is worth at least as much as you paid for it. (Guarantee: if this advice doesn't work for you, call your ISP and ask for a refund for the bandwidth you required to load this page. I guarantee I'll enjoy imagining you doing that.)

New subs usually have difficulty working up the nerve to actually submit to a master (or, I suppose, mistress, but that's outside my experience). Even experienced subs don't always say "YES SIR!" and fall to their knees. This stuff is scary, and it's supposed to be. By definition, it's not exciting if it's boring. No risk, no reward. Pick your cliché.

On the other hand, I've seen more than one younger sub (18-24) look at another younger sub who is collared and owned and think, "Damn, how did he manage that? Why can't I find a master or dominant to teach me?"

I'd bet you at least 50-50 that the difference between the owned sub and the unowned sub is that, when presented with a decision to submit or not, the owned sub decided to submit. He went for it.

Much of the time it's not much more complicated than that.

In the past week, I've put two boys to that test—one a semi-local boy who's submitted before but not in a while, and one a more experienced sub who's submitted here before and was working up to it again. In both cases, but for entirely different reasons, they were happier leaving actual in-person contact unresolved, preferring to think about the submission than actually submit.

And that's fine—it's not my place to judge, and I try not to. (I don't always succeed, since I'm human and all that.) In this particular time and place, "thinking about it" wasn't working for me. I told them, in effect, to decide: in or out? If you're in, you're going to submit. If you're out, you don't get to dither about it for weeks and weeks and then maybe play. At this particular time, that doesn't work for me. I want to know if they're in or out.

Both of them chose "out," and one of them regretted it instantly (and still does), but he's out anyway. In all BDSM encounters, actions must have consequences, and the consequences for his decision to be "out" is that he doesn't get to think about playing here. (I think the other's decision is probably more valid, but I think that for those reasons, the deliberations shouldn't have gotten as far as they did. I've told him as much, and he understands my position.)

If you want to submit to a man, then you have to submit when the opportunity presents itself. You generally know pretty early on if you feel safe with any dom you're considering (and who is considering you), but it's never going to be without fear. Even if you've ridden the roller coaster a hundred times, you're gonna feel that rush of adrenaline as you top (no pun intended) the first hill. If you don't, why would you ride it again?

When a dom puts you to the decision point, it's time to stop dithering and submit. If you need more time, you can ask for more time—but most doms I know will respond with "how much time do you need?" If you can't answer that in 15 seconds, you don't need more time—you're just scared. Two more days, two more weeks, or two more months won't make you any less scared, and when your extra time passes, you're going to be right back at the same decision point with the same choice: go through with it, or walk away.

Don't get me wrong—there's nothing wrong with walking away, not even in the slightest. It's just that when you walk away, you can't then honestly wonder why other boys have masters or owners and you don't, because you know why you don't. You didn't go for it when you had the chance.

Only you know if that decision is right for you. All I'm asking is that you stop pretending it's all stacked against you by forces outside your control. It's not. It's your choice. Make it and live with it.

I'm not posting as often.

Of course, you probably noticed that, if you’re still reading.

There’s a simple reason. The tag line when I started the blog was “a gay, dominant leather man living on my own in the American Southwest,” and that’s not really the case. I’ve owned a boy for nearly a year, and he was (voluntarily, platonically) collared before that. He’s been collared for over a year.

Most things aren’t all that different, oddly enough: he’s attending school far away, but he’s been here twice for about a week each time, and both times were among the happiest times I’ve had in the past decade, even though he still has long hair (despite this). I actually kind of like his hair, as odd as some of you may think that is. (Deal with it.)

But we chat every day, we talk most days, and I no longer feel like I’m alone, or “on my own.” I miss him terribly when he’s not here, which is 95% of the time. He has several issues on his own, none of which seem related to me, but I make him happy and few other people seem able to do that. He thinks he’s a mess, but I think (as does everyone I know) that he’s a catch. I feel quite lucky.

So I don’t need to vent frustrations here as often, though I still have them, largely because the puppy isn’t here all that often (and make no mistake, I believe he should be in school where he is; it’s the best choice for him by far). He gets to play with permission; I don’t keep him locked in his CB-3000 because one ring is too big and the next ring is so small that it gives him kicked-in-the-nuts pain after a few hours, which is not my intent.

I still chat on gay.com, but as before, most younger guys who express a BDSM interest simply refuse to respond to “hello.” I usually set my chat status to “Not Looking” so guys will know I’m not looking to pick them up, but I continue to get messages from subs (usually older than me) who can’t figure that out. That’s a bummer.

There aren’t a lot of local guys to talk to about BDSM things, too. I have a couple of BDSM friends, but I rarely see them. I really wanted one of them to meet the puppy, but he’s been out of town during both of the boy’s visits. (He’s a good friend—he wore a collar of mine briefly a few years ago.) The other one has flaked in and out over the years, and is currently mostly flaked in, but didn’t flake quite “in” enough to meet the puppy. He runs pretty hot and cold, which can be frustrating when I want to talk about things, but that’s not something I can control.

I love talking about everything with the boy, but he’s new and doesn’t have as much experience. On the bright side, most of the things we try, he likes, and how could that not make an owner smile?

I want to say something like “I can’t imagine my life without him,” but of course that’s not true—I was on my own for a really long time, so it’s pretty easy to visualize what that was like. But everything is immeasurably richer because he’s part of my life. I just wish I could abuse him more often in the ways that he likes and needs.

gay.com is too expensive

So use promo code "SAVE50ALLPLANS" (no quotes) and save 50% on any premium membership, from a month to a year. Half price. No kidding.

(No promises for how long it works, but as of this writing, it works exactly that way.)

On roleplay

Last time, I mentioned one of the chat situations where the "submissive" guy is actually engaged in roleplay but does not tell the dominant guy. I've talked about roleplay before, too, in that same context—guys who are roleplaying (faking) without telling the other party.

Over the years, I've become quite good at spotting fakers. I thought about posting some tips here, but decided not to because I don't want to help fakers to avoid detection. Remember, I'm not talking about guys who are explicitly roleplaying—I'm talking about "submissive" guys who want the dominant to believe they are obeying orders when they are not, who are roleplaying while pretending not to. That's not kosher.

It becomes even less kosher when a secret roleplayer takes it someplace that you don't want to go, like fantasies involving minors. Note carefully that I am talking about adults pretending to be children, not actual children.

One reason I mostly chat on gay.com is that they require members to be 18 or over to chat in the adult rooms. I understand that there is (or at least used to be) a different set of chat rooms for those under 18, but I don't see them, and I don't know about them, and I don't care. I avoid Myspace and Facebook and all those places where kids hang out because while I understand that teens have this horny-hump-everything drive to find out about sex, I'm not interested in them.

Really. I've seen both Porky's and American Pie, and that pretty much took care of that curiosity.

As an older member of the BDSM community, I answer questions about BDSM and safety, no matter who asks. But I never have "hot" chat with anyone under 18. This has pissed off a number of guys who have identified themselves as under 18 but tried to chat with me anyway, but that's not really my problem.

(It's kind of amusing, though, when they get all indignant and point out that the age of consent around here is 16. My rules say "18," and I look for more qualities in potential partners than "wouldn't be illegal." It's quite amazing how many younger guys cannot comprehend the idea that someone older wouldn't be interested in them.)

I don't think it's anyone's business to judge the sexual proclivities of consenting adults who aren't hurting other people. If I'm not into what you are, that's your business, and more power to you as long as it's not hurting other people and you know what you're doing.

You can argue that roleplay is useful because it allows people to explore fantasies that would never be permissible in real life. I have absolutely no understanding or patience with snuff fantasies, but I would rather that those guys roleplay them than actually do them.

Nonetheless, it's way out of bounds for someone to start roleplaying in a taboo area without telling the other guy that's what he's doing. If some guy asks you to talk to his little brother, and you don't know that it's really still the same guy typing, then you're going to freak out when he starts talking about brother-on-brother fantasies.

(Even if you've figured out that he's secretly role-playing, it probably doesn't thrill you when he starts pretending to be his little brother who wants to watch his big brother jack off, but you might stick with it to see where he's going in case he can be salvaged.)

I guess that sometimes, roleplayers get tired of other roleplayers, and want to see what it would be like if their fantasies met a real person. These guys who are into scenes like the one above, or being teen friends who all torture each other, or being guys who are "hypnotized" and ordered to go outside naked, apparently want people to believe those things are really happening.

They also then want it to get intense, like being "caught," or someone really getting "hurt" (in the roleplay), and see what the dominant will do—or, just as often, they'll get themselves off by that point and then make a quick excuse and log off. Majorly, majorly uncool.

Can you imagine what it would do to an unsuspecting and inexperienced dominant, chatting with a submissive whom he thinks is following orders and has gagged himself, to read "I have to throw up" and then have the other guy disconnect? (Puking with a gag in place is a really bad idea; safety rules don't allow gagging people in situations where they might puke because the gag could make the vomit bounce back into the lungs.) In reality, the faker has probably just shot his wad and logged off, but the dominant who doesn't know he's faking could think something went seriously wrong.

Actually, even if you know he was faking, it's still unnerving. No one has total confidence. The submissive could have triggered every sign in your book of being a fake (several of which I've mentioned over time) and still, if something goes "wrong," you'll wonder if something bad really happened. No matter how many decades you've spent seeing fakers, no matter how many times you've verified that your fake-radar works, there's always that smidgen of doubt.

That's why I generally don't roleplay. Once a year or so, I'll talk to a guy who I can tell is faking and roleplaying just to see where he takes it, while always keeping true to my own rules (i.e., if he wants to put his "little brother" on, I won't talk about sex stuff with the "little brother" except in a clinical answering-questions kind of sense, which usually makes them all go away pretty fast). But almost every time, at one point or another, the guy will raise the stakes and take it into territory that, if it were real, would not be cool at all.

And they always end the chats by just vanishing completely (or, if they eventually show back up under the same name, they refuse to talk again at all). And I always wind up wondering if there was some slim chance they weren't faking, even though I know they were, and even though I wouldn't have talked to them had I not believed they were fake. I have no interest in some guy's fantasy to be arrested for public indecency and carted off naked to jail, but sometimes it's interesting to figure out that's where he wanted to take the fantasy.

As long as there's anonymous chat (which is generally a good thing), there will be roleplayers who want to pretend they're not actually roleplaying. If you're talking to a guy whose situation turns bizarre and dangerous, look for signs that he's been faking it, because he probably has.