Ever since Eden, we pass from innocence to experience when we recognize that nothing is either-good-or-bad; adulthood means knowing the best definitions are conditional and pain is not incompatible with pleasure. Physiologically, our brain is small and stimuli aren't easily distinguishable. Recent studies by the Brain Evolution and Behavior Lab at the National Institute of Mental Health showed neurological connections between sex and aggression: electrical stimulation of a one-millimeter area of the brain—the amygdala—evoked responses of salivation, teeth-grinding, scared or angry vocalizations, and hard-ons. The proximity of the neural structures governing violence and arousal explains everyday incidents like erections after REM sleep, after domestic fights or physical attacks. Terror, inherent in our evolutionary struggles for dominance, is erotically stimulating; it spurs us to ravish and propagate. That's one reason we associate danger and transgression with sex. Another is psychological: puritanical parental injunctions and strict social controls have trained us to link sex with secrecy, desecration, mischief, trouble. But the point is inescapable: Adam and Eve first got wet thanks to their healthy curiosity about the forbidden fruit of knowledge. The age-old moral is: a bite won't kill you; it may change your life. It's a great preface to S&M.
     I possess a war-chest of stories about acquaintances who crossed from 'vanilla' ignorance to 'player' literacy too clumsily and had to beat their own embarrassment to attain any pinnacle of pleasure. One guy tied his girl's hands and feet to bedposts while she was in the missionary; not only did she feel out of control, captive, and frustrated at being unable to touch him, but the position didn't allow for much, and trying other poses entailed untying and retying until they both felt sexless. On their next attempt he used handcuffs and a single rope that created, by a tug, a lever action which exposed her pussy and asshole and directed her mouth to a blowjob; they both went wild. One girlfriend wanted to be suspended her by chains from the ceiling; she dislocated a shoulder when she reflexively resisted a smack to her thighs. Once she chose immobility over swinging and got tied to a common wooden chair with her ass in the air, she liked it so much she agreed to fisting and bit on a rubber ball to muffle her cries while he tried to find China in her orifices. As he gained experience, they started videotaping it.
     Novices, you're not alone: bondage-play is this nation's top reported fantasy. If you're a rookie and aspire to avoid rookies' blunders, broach the subject slowly, teasingly. First, establish if your partner would inflict or undergo pain. (If you'd both rather dominate, be open to switching roles, or partners.) Ensure the topic leaves her relaxed; casually mention S/M nightclubs, websites, costume balls, videos, or community classes you run across. Describe bondage as a spiritual covenant or self-realizing test of strength or spicy foreplay. If this costs you her respect, she's a prude and your only recourse is to catch her unawares: intoxicate her, propose you act out one of your fantasies, and surprise her into mild restraint. If she breaks through into climax, you've got yourself a typical 90s masochist: a control-freak who unwinds by shedding responsibility inside the bedroom. Overcome feminist prejudices against any appearance of power deprivation and humiliation by reminding her this is a parenthesis of reality. If a girl enjoys being spanked, or if she likes Gucci stilettos and Versace leather, it doesn't mean she's weak, passive, undignified, ill-treatable; usually she's the opposite. Conversely, enjoying the sight of her helplessness doesn't make you brutal.
     Take her to a sex shop. Make an adventure out of examining the ample variety of toys, encourage her to pick something herself, then express curiosity about a pink suede flogger or lightweight translucent paddle. Avoid torturous aids like nipple- or labia-clamps. Because things look more harmless wrapped in plastic and adorned with capitalist exclamations than they are when used in a working dungeon, because there're always more complicated and spooky objects on a store wall, she'll probably agree to your purchase. And her presence there will implicate her in your experiment and make her your accomplice, not victim.   
     At home, start with handcuffs (closed but unlocked), or package ribbons (spontaneous and innocuous), or silk ropes (they feel sensual to her). Assure her she can break free—even if she's trussed up like a turkey with inch-thick rope—and it'll be a matter of honor for her to endure. First, bind only her hands, together or apart; if it annoys her, she has no aptitude for bondage; if she giggles, put a sleep mask over her eyes. The list of potential S/M toys in an average household is endless: spatulas, flyswatters, cheeseboards, vice grips, rubber gloves, egg openers, ping pong paddles, belts, apply. But don't introduce tools, clinical options, or code words yet. ('Codes' stop the proceedings; they mark the difference between getting clobbered and getting off. Any other pleading for mercy or talking rough is part of the course.) If you envision yourself a bondage master, practice your knots before you find yourself in possession of a willing nude and confused about the wrapping; ex-boyscouts have a head start. (But if the aesthetics of hogtying gain precedent and you obsess over the mechanics of macramé square or Sweet Gwendoline or Japanese or slipped knot, you're a bonafide sadist and belong in another league.)
     Run more rope over her prone body, dividing and noosing tits or buttocks, not too tightly but so as to induce some purple engorgement; thus squeezed, you can slap, pinch, flop them with more impunity until they turn a pleasant Mediterranean blue; she should enjoy this whether she regularly finds her curves a burden or a boon. Or fasten her belly-down across the kitchen table, lather up her backside with olive oil and whack it with your hands; oil exacerbates the sound effects and the stings, yet heals and prevents skin damage; appropriate carrots, squash, eggplants for dildos—they especially work on girls for whom food and punishment are related major issues, and on anyone with a sense of humor and irreverence. Throughout all this, loyally stimulate the clit, and describe how unbelievably sexy she looks, how she makes you feel. Drip hot aromatic candle wax—it hurts only briefly and you can lick the burning away, roughhandle her softer body parts, and finally make love so she eroticizes the experience; don't try any type of sex you haven't had before—unless she begs, which means she's a born bottom. Be polite, attentive. Bondage can bind couples in a powerful intimacy born out of how vulnerable the partners become—it gives the phrase 'knock yourself out' new meaning.
     Clearly, the ultimate goal of bondage is to thrash, lash, beat, maul, and amorously discipline your object of desire. Sexual dominance of a female confirms the male's unchallenged possession of her, her total faith in him, and a bevy of similar psychic nuances that enhance man's libidinal drive. So as you lift the whip and listen to its swish against her frail skin and watch her upturned quivering buttcheeks redden, don't wonder if her objectification is mean, insecure, or apocalyptic. You're not a rapist in hibernation. If you can't disregard the 'why' of the thrill of giving her welts as long as a Faulkner sentence, you deserve mediocrity. Sex requires objectification, of self and other: unless we separate the sweaty, writhing, panting mass in front of us from the mother of our kids, the profligate spender of our earnings, the bitch on wheels, the workaholic pastor or mechanic or chemistry professor we encounter the rest of the day, we can't fuck properly. Respect starts and ends with consent. The rest is the bait of nature.