3 PLAYING FAIR

Everything I have to say in this section is summarized by the three words: respect your lover. Your lover wants to please you. You ought never put your lover in a situation where he or she must choose between pleasing you and avoiding something he or she finds disturbing. Any sex practice against which taboos exist is likely to be more difficult for one partner to accept than the other. Go slow. Allow your partner to become comfortable with easy things first. Move on step by step. If your lover balks at something, accept it and don't apply pressure. The situation may turn in your favor by itself someday. And even if it doesn't, you will still have the one thing that is most important.

Don't ever surprise your lover by doing something new you haven't talked about first. Trust means your lover knowing what to expect from you.

Some of the activities discussed later on involve both preparation and clean up (in particular laundry). Share these tasks with your lover, or even offer to do all of them. For example, if you don't have your own laundry machine, your partner might feel embarrassed bringing the laundry resulting from your frolicking into a public Laundromat. Offer to perform the job yourself.

And this next rule is especially important. Unless both of you explicitly agree that telling is okay and unless you both want the world to know about your sexual tastes, don't reveal to anybody -- not friends, not relatives, nobody -- what you've been up to. Remember, erotic peeing is not going to be on your lover's clergyman's list of sanctioned sex acts any time soon. Promise your lover not to tell. And don't feel shy about asking your lover to promise the same. Nothing builds trust between lovers better than a shared secret. Nothing kills trust faster than a breach of confidence. Keep your secrets secret.

And say, "I love you," often.