# First session checklist > Everything to settle, pack, do and say for a first spanking session, in one printable list: weeks before, on the day, during, afterwards and the week after. - Canonical URL: https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/first-session-checklist/ - Section: Safety and practice - Updated: November 2026 (2026-11-01) - Audience: consenting adults over 18 only. Everything on this site concerns consenting adults over 18. Everything here is somewhere else on this site, in more detail and with the reasoning attached. Nobody can hold fifteen pages in their head at nine o'clock on a Friday. So here is the short version, in the order things actually happen. --- ## In short - Everything is settled before the day, in writing, sober. First message to first session is normally weeks, not days, and the waiting is where most of the safety lives. - In the room: water, food, a towel, a blanket, warmth, phones face down, and the implements laid out before anyone undresses. - Disclose both ways: medication including blood thinners, injuries, recent surgery, back and knee problems, and pregnancy. - A first session is mostly warm-up by hand, with no cane, no restraint and no numbers borrowed from fiction. [Drop](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/sub-drop/) usually arrives 24–72 hours later, so the check-in message matters more than the blanket did. This is the checklist version. For the narrative, what a first session feels like from the doorstep to the taxi home, read [your first time, start to finish](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/first-time/). Every item here links to the page behind it. ## Weeks before, if this is somebody new None of this applies if you have lived with the person for eleven years. All of it applies if you met on an app in March. - A real first name and a phone number outside the app. See [vetting a partner](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/vetting-a-partner/). - References, if they have been in the scene at all, and message them yourself. - A ten-minute video call, so you know the face matches. - A public first meeting with no play, however well it goes. See [meeting safely](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/meeting-safely/). - One friend with the name, handle, profile screenshot, number, address, your check-in time and a plan if you miss it. - Live location sharing on for the evening, set to expire the next morning. - Your own way home, paid for from your own account. ## What to settle before the day Clothed, sober, on a different day, then sent as one message so there is something to point at. The conversation itself is at [negotiation](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/negotiation/). This is the list it covers. - Which [implements](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/implements/) are in, and which are named out. Hand and hairbrush in, cane out, is normal. - A maximum: a stroke count or a length of time, agreed as a ceiling. - [Positions](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/positions/), and whether anything is held or braced. - [Degrees of undress](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/degrees-of-undress/), and when in the evening that changes. - Whether there is a [count](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/counting-and-ritual/), who does it, and what happens to a lost one. - Forms of address, if any: see [do I have to call him sir](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/questions/do-i-have-to-call-him-sir/). - [Marks](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/marks-and-bruising/): acceptable or not, how visible, how long, and who might see you undressed this fortnight. - Where nothing lands at all. See [where it is safe to strike](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/where-it-is-safe-to-strike/). - Hard limits, written down. See [limits](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/limits/). - [Safe words](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/safe-words/) and a non-verbal signal, tested once on the night. - Whether anything is [photographed or recorded](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/photographs-and-video/). If not, phones go on a shelf. - What happens afterwards, for the rest of the evening. See [aftercare](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/aftercare/). ## What you both need to disclose Both ways. A top with a bad shoulder who says nothing is how a stroke goes wrong. I have no medical training and this is not medical advice. More at [health conditions and medication](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/health-and-medication/). - Anything that thins the blood: warfarin, apixaban, rivaroxaban, clopidogrel, daily aspirin. Bruising is larger and lasts longer. - Prescribed steroids, and anything else that affects skin or healing. - Asthma, epilepsy, diabetes, clotting disorders, fainting, anything a GP is monitoring. - Injuries and recent surgery, anything still scarring, any metalwork. - Back, hips, knees, circulation. For these the position causes more trouble than the impact, and twenty minutes over a sofa arm is what hurts on Thursday. See [chronic pain and disability](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/chronic-pain-and-disability/). - Pregnancy, now or recently. Talk to your GP or midwife before anything is planned. See [health and medication](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/health-and-medication/). - Where the inhaler or the insulin physically is, in the room, tonight. - Anything that has gone badly before: a faint, a panic response, a mark that frightened somebody. ## The room, as a list of objects What goes wrong here is dull rather than dramatic. All of it in the room before anybody undresses. - Water, poured, a pint each, within reach. - Something to eat afterwards that needs no cooking. Biscuits, chocolate, a banana. - A bath towel over whatever is being leaned on, and a cushion on the [sofa arm](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/positions/over-the-sofa-arm/). - A blanket, unfolded. Temperature drops afterwards and shivering is normal. - Heating on twenty minutes before. Cold skin hurts more and marks more. See [setting and space](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/setting-and-space/). - Both phones silent and face down, in this room. Not vibrate, which is loud against a table. - A clock the person being spanked can see. - Every implement laid out in advance, lightest first, rather than fetched one at a time. - The coffee table moved, and coats, shoes and keys in the room you are in. > **The one I got wrong.** I ran a first session in a Premier Inn once and had thought about everything except the room. A kettle, two shortbread biscuits, no water and no food. So at half eleven I was in a garage buying Lucozade and crisps while somebody sat on her own in a duvet for twenty minutes, which is the opposite of the aftercare I had promised her. I pack the bag the night before now. ## On the day, before anything starts Adrenaline and low blood sugar feel identical from the inside, and only one is avoidable. - Eat properly about two hours before. Not a coffee and a resolve. - No alcohol, not even one for the nerves. See [drink, drugs and why not](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/drink-and-drugs/). - Arrive half an hour early, so you do not begin by apologising. - Twenty minutes of tea and ordinary talk first. Anything that starts five minutes after the door closes is information. - Say now if you have changed your mind, for a reason or for none. The only good answer is thanks for telling me. - Say the safe word out loud and drop the keys once, so the movement is in the body. - Agree the finishing time, out loud. - The top: nails short, rings and watch off, sleeves up. ## During The shape of it is at [how to spank](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/how-to-spank/) and [pacing a scene](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/pacing-a-scene/). Four things belong here. - A long [warm-up](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/warm-up/) by hand, over clothing at first, ten to twenty minutes, past the point where it seems necessary. - Every new implement starts almost gently. The first dozen strokes find where it lands. - Check in often enough that it stops being noticeable. Hands and feet tense before anyone speaks. - Stop earlier than either of you wants. Twenty or thirty strokes across half an hour, mostly by hand, is a real first session. Four things a first session has no business attempting: - The [cane](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/using-a-cane/). Smallest margin for error of anything here, and it belongs to month three. - [Restraint](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/restraint/) of any kind, including a hand held behind the back. - Any scenario where protesting or saying no is part of the script. - A number brought in from fiction. A hundred strokes, or whatever it was. ## Afterwards, the same night Twenty minutes to an hour, and the order matters. - Water first, then the blanket, then food. People get dehydrated and never notice. - Look at any [marks](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/marks-and-bruising/) together, on the night, rather than in a bathroom mirror at seven. - No debrief. Nobody evaluates anything honestly while full of endorphins. See [aftercare](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/aftercare/). - Message your friend from inside the building, not from a street. - Home by the route you decided before you started, with your own money. See [getting home](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/getting-home/). - Going back to an empty flat: ask somebody to text you in the morning. ## The next day and the week after The part almost everybody skips. - Expect drop 24–72 hours later rather than on the night, both ways. See [sub drop](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/sub-drop/) and [top drop](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/top-drop/). - A check-in message a day or two later. Silence for a week says something. - The real conversation, once you can both think: what worked, what was tolerated rather than enjoyed, what changes. - Look at the marks again on day three, when bruising is worst. - Do not book the next one in the afterglow. Wait a week. See [frequency and escalation](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/frequency-and-escalation/). ## How long all this actually takes People arrive expecting days. It is normally weeks. Working backwards from my own arrangements: a fortnight of messages, a coffee in public, a gap while you both think it over with the other person out of the room, a negotiation, then a date two diaries can agree on. Three weeks at the quickest and more often six or eight. The gaps are where the useful information turns up. What the waiting buys is several separate looks at somebody, far enough apart that a performance gets expensive to keep up. Anyone can be impressive for one evening. Very few hold it across six weeks of ordinary messages, a limit being set, and a postponement. The ones I have declined to meet gave themselves away in week three. So pressure to compress that timetable is the clearest of the [red flags](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/red-flags/) here, and it rarely looks like pressure. It looks like enthusiasm, or a flat that happens to be free tonight. Somebody good at this will still be good in a month. ## Read next - [Your first time, start to finish](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/first-time/) - [Negotiation: what to agree beforehand](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/negotiation/) - [Meeting safely](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/meeting-safely/) - [A printable yes, no, maybe list](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/yes-no-maybe-list/) - [Agreeing how hard](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/agreeing-how-hard/) ## Common questions ### What should I have in the room for a first spanking session? Water poured and within reach, something to eat afterwards that needs no cooking, a bath towel, a blanket already unfolded, the heating on twenty minutes beforehand, both phones silent and face down, a clock the person being spanked can see, and every implement laid out in advance rather than fetched one at a time. Keep coats, shoes, keys and bags in the room you are actually in. ### What should a first spanking session not include? No cane, no restraint of any kind, no scenario in which saying no is part of the script, and no stroke count borrowed from fiction. A first session is mostly warm-up by hand, then a modest amount of work with a strap or a hairbrush, and it should stop before either person wants it to. Everything left out is still available in three months. ### How long does it take to arrange a first session with someone new? Weeks rather than days. In my own experience it runs from about three weeks to a couple of months between a first message and a first session: a fortnight of talking, a coffee in public, a gap, a negotiation, then a date that suits two diaries. Anyone pushing to compress that has told you something about how they will handle the rest of it.