Let's Talk About Marking Fees

Something I wish I'd known before.

As a submissive (at least up until this point - that's actually changing, but I'll save that for a later entry when I feel like talking about it) I have to deal with the issue of marks. Bruises.

Before I did this professionally, it was different. Any marks I got were purely from fun, purely from play. I was proud to carry those marks, and it was no big deal if they lasted a few days or a week. And I did play pretty hard. One night, coming home from a club, the friend I'd gone with took one look at my ass and said, "You're not sitting on that." He made me lie on my stomach in the back seat. Then he bought me ice packs at a Rite Aid. He slathered some Traumeel on my ass (by the way, I totally recommend the stuff - it has arnica and calendula in it, and it really helps with the bruising). He also put some neosporin on the cuts on my upper back; I'd gotten into some edge play that night, and had a lovely criss-crossing of slashes on my right shoulder.

It took me about a week and a half to heal from that. And I heal quickly.

But, professionally, I can't afford to have bruises for long. It compromises my ability to take sessions. Clients don't usually want to see bruises from prior sessions. And if I'm already bruised, I can't take as much.

Also, I can't ever let go as much at work as I can during my personal play. I have to watch my boundaries. I have to make sure the client doesn't overstep. While a lot of clients are great and fun to play with, some aren't. Some push. Some don't want to take no for an answer. I can't tell you how many clients have complained about my no breast play rule. And tried to push the boundary.

Also, some clients don't know how it feels. They've never had it done to them. So, sometimes, they hit harder than they should. They don't realize how much it hurts or how much damage it causes. I had a client tell me that it shouldn't matter how hard he canes me, that if I'd just put some echinacea on it, it would go away (he meant arnica, and no, it doesn't work that way).

So, marking fees. Not standard up here. I remember seeing the website for a dungeon in LA that said a client must pay a $100 marking deposit before a session with a submissive. If he marked her, she kept it. If he didn't, he got it back. Originally, I thought this was a great idea. But I don't anymore.

Remember Mr. Cane-too-hard from two paragraphs ago? He offered a marking fee to cane me. Sage, who runs the Gates, told me to insist on a minimum of $300. I did, he reluctantly agreed. And then he caned the shit out of me. It was clear that he didn't care how much he hurt me, or how bad his aim was. I'd never before cried during session. I'd also never before yelled at a client. But I did both with him. Because he really hurt me. And he felt entitled to do so because he'd paid his $300 fee. He didn't care that his aim was bad.

I ended up with massive bruising from that session. All over my ass and down the back of my thigh from the cane. I also had bruises on my rib cage from where the flogger wrapped around (this, by the way, is bad technique - you're not supposed to let it wrap around, but he didn't care). I had bruising on my inner thighs, again from the flogger.

It took over two weeks to heal, and it hurt a lot in the interim. I sat on ice pack for two days. I used my Traumeel salve and Traumeel pills. I used Bromelain (great for bruises). I took excellent care of myself. And it still took two weeks for the bruises to heal. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the damage, but I didn't. I did show it to friends at a party, who were horrified. I showed it to my roommate, who was beyond horrified. I showed it to my boyfriend a few days later; I think he wanted to deck the dude. Heck, I wanted to deck the dude, and I'm not like that.

The thing was that for Mr.Cane-too-hard, I wasn't a person. I was a doll or a canvas. He paid for me, he got to hit me and hurt me as much as he wanted. At least in his mind. He got to bruise me as much as he wanted, and it didn't matter that I had to deal with the pain for a week after, and the marks for two. It didn't matter that the damage he did caused me to lose out on income. It didn't matter that my body was exhausted by the process of healing all that damage. It didn't matter. He paid his marking fee and he felt entitled to mark me. As much as he wanted.

I won't do marking fees anymore. I won't do marking deposits. I won't do sessions that will mark me. I've heard the argument that, if you call it a deposit, it won't be the same. The client won't feel so entitled. But I don't think that one word makes enough of a difference. And the idea of giving the deposit back at the end of a session if there are no bruises sounds really good, but isn't. The problem is, bruises don't always show up that quickly. It can take hours or a day for the bruise to blossom. My ass can be red right after session, and purple by the next morning.

In an ideal world, marking fees would work. But they don't.