Women who play with women

Almost everything written about this subject assumes a man at one end of it, including, until recently, most of this site. That is a failure of imagination rather than a fact about who does this, and this page is the correction.

Consenting adults only. Everything on this page is about adults over 18 who have freely agreed to it.

Written from first-hand experience or extensive research by the editor.

Two adult women, both over 18. Everything on this page assumes the ordinary negotiation, a working safe word and the anatomy on where it is safe to strike, none of which changes at all. What follows is only what is different.

What is not different

The body. Every word of the physical guidance on this site applies without modification: the same target area, the same never-strike list, the same business with marks, the same positions and the same implements. A hairbrush does not know who is holding it.

The psychology, mostly. Decision relief, permission, absolution, attention and the rest are laid out at what it is actually for and none of them is gendered, whatever the internet believes.

The missing script, which is a mixed blessing

A man and a woman arriving at this have several centuries of ready-made imagery to borrow from, most of it inherited and some of it unwelcome. Nearly all of it puts a husband in charge. Two women have far less of that, and the frames that do exist are mostly borrowed ones with the roles reassigned.

The cost is real. There is no obvious groove to fall into, so the first few attempts often feel like they are being invented from nothing, and people describe an awkward self-consciousness about who is supposed to be doing what.

The benefit is larger, and worth being explicit about. Nothing is inherited, so nothing has to be undone. Nobody arrives assuming the dynamic mirrors a marriage from 1958. What the two of you build is what you decided rather than what you defaulted to, and every couple I know who has done this says the negotiation was easier for it.

The shared body, which is the practical advantage

Not having to explain is the thing women say about this most often.

A partner who has the same body has an immediate, unexplained grasp of several things that otherwise have to be spelled out: that pain tolerance moves across the month, that bruising varies with it, that being told to take up less room and keep quiet has its own long history, that thinner skin and slower healing arrive with perimenopause, and that being looked at is not a neutral experience for somebody who has been looked at all her adult life.

The pages on periods and menopause and being bared cover the detail, and the point here is that a great deal of it does not have to be said aloud.

That cuts the other way too. A partner who knows exactly where the insecurities live is a partner who could aim at them, which makes the rule about never commenting on anything a person cannot change more important rather than less. See choosing the words.

The assumption, and what to do with it

Every woman I have spoken to about this has met the same reaction in some form: that two women doing it must be for somebody's benefit. A rehearsal, a performance, a thing that happens at a party while men watch, or a phase before the real version.

It arrives from strangers online, occasionally from men at events who assume an invitation is implied, and sometimes from other women. It is tiresome and it is also a practical safety problem, because the person making that assumption tends to be the person who does not take a stated limit seriously.

What to do about it is unglamorous. State it once, plainly, in a profile or in conversation: this is not a performance and there is no third person involved. Then treat pushback as information rather than as a debate to win. Somebody who keeps returning to it after being told has told you enough. That is the same test as everywhere else on red flags.

Who does the spanking

Whoever wanted that role. It correlates with nothing.

The assumption that the more masculine-presenting or more assertive woman must be the one giving is wrong often enough to be useless as a guide, and it does real harm to women who want to top and do not look the part. Some of the most precise, unhurried tops I have met are quiet women who spend their working lives avoiding conflict and found this the one place where being definite was permitted and welcome.

It is also entirely common for both women to want the same end, which is not a tragedy and does not need resolving by one of them volunteering. Two bottoms can have an excellent time doing something else entirely, and plenty of women switch. There is more at switching and topping for the first time, which is written for anybody taking that role for the first time.

Finding people, which is the hard part

Honestly: harder than it should be. The pool is smaller, and a great deal of the visible scene is arranged around men seeking women, which means the ordinary routes return a lot of noise.

What works better than open searching is going where women already are. Women-only and queer-specific groups, which exist in most large UK cities and are usually listed rather than advertised. Munches with a named organiser, since a real organiser is a filter in herself.

Workshops and rope or impact classes, where the reason for being in the room is not finding somebody. And getting known in a group first, because an approach from somebody who has been part of a thing for two months lands very differently from a message out of nowhere.

The regional picture and the small-scene problem are covered at the scene outside London, and they bite harder here: a smaller pool inside an already small pool means more pressure to overlook doubts about somebody. Do not. The vetting on vetting a partner applies in full, in both directions, and a scarcity of options has never once made a bad match into a good one.

One thing for couples

A number of women reading this are in a long relationship with another woman and are wondering how to raise it. The route is the same as anybody else's and it is on asking a partner you already have, with one wrinkle that comes up repeatedly.

Couples who already communicate well sometimes talk this into the ground and never do it, because the conversation is comfortable and the first attempt is not. At some point the discussion has to become a Tuesday evening with an actual hairbrush, and it will be awkward, and that is not evidence that the idea was wrong.