Hello. My name is Jay Wiseman. I'm an author and teacher in the field of alternative sexuality known by a number of terms, including "sadomasochism," "bondage," "SM," and "BDSM." I'm probably best known in this regard as the author of the book "SM 101: A Realistic Introduction."
BREAKING NEWS: NOVEMBER 2006 -- Most of this site's contents are being moved over to
www.jaywiseman.com. This process should largely
be complete by early January of 2007. Please check there for updated information,
new content, and so forth
I've established this web site as a place especially intended for the novice, heterosexual, submissive woman to come to so that she can obtain useful information and a realistic perspective which will be helpful to her in her explorations. I also hope that others will find benefit in what's here. I concluded that there was a need for this site after hearing about numerous cases of novice submissive women being damaged by abusive, manipulative, exploitative, clueless, and otherwise unfit "mentors." (By the way, a few of these jerks are nationally famous within the SM community.)
Key Point: After much contemplation, I am more and more coming to the conclusion that the first resource a novice submissive woman should be referred to when she contacts the SM community is a support group consisting of more experienced submissive women (who do not "hit on" her to engage in SM or sex with them and/or their partners). If possible, these should be women who represent a variety of different viewpoints, who are not all involved with the same man or group of men, and with whom she can meet face-to-face.
While there is not "one true way" to engage in SM, the truth is that there is actually fairly close consensus on most points by most experienced practitioners. Thus, the more sources of information you have, the more likely that you'll be able to tell what that consensus is. If someone proposes that you do something -- particularly something submissive -- that is strongly at variance with this consensus, that person had better be able to give you (and, preferably, to a few other people as well) a very clear explanation as to exactly why this is a good idea.
Please also keep this key point in mind (it's a quote from "SM 101"): If it's going to go bad, it tends to go bad in isolation." Once again, in general, the more informed and varied that your sources of information and perspective are, the safer and happier you are likely to be.
Note: "kvetch" is a yiddish word which roughly translates as gripe or complain. I had contemplated calling this page "submissive women bitch" (again, as in gripe or complain) but somehow giving it that title just didn't seem to send the proper message.
By the way, not that it matters all that much, but you seem to be visitor # 
since about 2 p.m. PST on 6/13/98. (This site was last updated on 10/11/98.)
What you will find on this web site?
This web site contains the following information:
1. Links to web sites that contain useful information regarding general SM education.
2. Links to web sites that contain useful information specifically regarding the concerns of submissive women.
3. Links to web sites regarding places in the San Francisco Bay Area (my home turf) to obtain good-quality SM education.
4. A collection of my SM-related essays and other writings.
5. "The Clue Letters"* A list of people that you might run into whose advice is "more likely than not" [grin] to be worth listening to.
(*This is a satirical reference to a positively God-awful -- and distinctly clueless --"memoir" regarding male-dominant SM called "The Q Letters.")
6. A collection of SM-related humor.
7. A section titled "Letters from your Sisters" which will be a collection of essays written by experienced submissive women to novice submissive women. (That should be added soon.) By the way, if you happen to be an experienced submissive woman and would like to write such a letter, please contact me. You'll find a link to the writers' guidelines in that section.
I'm very open to feedback regarding this web site, both in terms of its content and how I've organized it. This page is very much a "work in progress" (at this point, it's changing almost every day) so please feel free to return from time to time to see how it's developing. You can also contact me by sending email here:OldRope@aol.comYou may wonder why I use that term for an email address. Well, there is a lot of posturing and posing in the SM/Leather community regarding who is and who isn't "old leather." I've been a member of that community since 1975, and I'm not sure whether or not I'm "old leather" (among other things, I'm not particularly into leather, per se) but, given how long I've been in the community and given that rope bondage is my "first love" in SM, I suppose I definitely qualify as "old rope."
About these links.
A great deal of highly useful information already exists for the novice submissive woman, so rather than devote too much time to "re-inventing the wheel" I have put up the following useful links -- all of which lead to other useful links, btw.
Note: I've put the following links on this page because, based on the information I have about them, I believe them to be useful and ethical resources. I would very much appreciate hearing about any positive or negative experiences you have regarding them.
Also please note: The links are listed randomly within their category and not in terms of one being better than another.
Finally, please note: I've decided to not get too "link happy" regarding this site, so the absence of a link from this site is not necessarily an indication that I disapprove of it. However, be advised that there are a few web resources out there supposedly for submissive women that I wouldn't recommend under any circumstances.
Now on with the show...
General SM educational resources
Resources specifically for submissive women
San Francisco Bay Area SM educational resources
Some of my SM-related essays
The Clue Letters
SM Humor Page
Letters From Your Sisters (and a few others)