Who’s the boss? BY DAN SAVAGE

I’ve just started dating a guy who is into being dominated. He also has quite the foot fetish. Problem is, I have ZERO experience with any sort of kinky sex. He’s 35 and has been around the block, while I’m 24 and all I’ve ever had is sex with guys who claimed to have no fantasies. I really want to please him, but I don’t know what to do. He says that he’s not really into pain and that it’s more centered around being mentally and emotionally toyed with. I’ve asked him for specifics, but he says he doesn’t want to freak me out. I’d wing it, but I’m clueless!

Tramp in Training

"This couple sounds like they’re off to a great start," says Lady Green, author of The Sexually Dominant Woman (Greenery Press). "He’s willing to talk about what he wants, at least in general, and she’s open to trying it. That immediately puts them in the top 10 percent of the folks I talk to who are into female domination. Now, it’s just a matter of getting the details ironed out."

Your urge to wing it is admirable, TIT, but Lady Green and I both agree that you shouldn’t attempt anything too ambitious until your boyfriend comes through with some details. "The most she should try without getting some more specific ideas from him," says Lady Green, "is building a little control and/or fetish play into your lovemaking. Put one of your feet in his face for him to smell and nuzzle during intercourse, for example, or place a hand over his mouth to block speech during whatever else you might be doing."

So how do you get the details out of him? Lady Green suggests the "yes/no/maybe" game. "Sit down together with a big sheet of paper and write down every sexual activity you’ve ever thought about, heard about, read about, or imagined. Then both of you put a Y (‘Yes, I’d like to try that sometime’), an N (‘No, I don’t ever want to try that’), or an M (‘Maybe I would try that’). Discard any item where either of you has put an N, do some talking about the Y’s and M’s to find out what might make them doable, and you’ve got a basic menu of possible sex and play activities." You still need to proceed with caution, TIT, even after you’re armed with your list. "Some of the activities may have a learning curve," points out Lady Green. "Bondage, strap-ons, cock-and-ball torture, flagellation, and other favorites all have some risks attached, and it behooves you to learn how to minimize those risks, either from a class or workshop (most urban areas have them) or from a book. There are at least half-a-dozen good introductory BDSM texts out there." (Lady Green is too modest to say it, so I will: The Sexually Dominant Woman is an excellent primer for women who find themselves with guys who are turned on by domination. You can order her book through Greenery Press’s Web site, www.greenerypress.com.)

"The most important tip I can give you is to remember that you don’t have to ‘act like a dominant woman.’ If you try to put on an act, behaving like someone else’s idea of the Bitch Dominant from Hell, you’ll have a hard time relaxing and enjoying yourself. Just open yourself up to the pleasure of being in charge in whatever way feels right to you."

I’ve been sleeping with this man for two months. The sex is phenomenal, he loves to eat pussy, he tosses my salad, there’s some digital anal play ... that’s all good. My problem is he’s into rough ball play. It turns him on when I knee him in the balls, or punch them, or squeeze them. I’m okay with doing all this, but he wants me to "pop his balls." He’s a young-ish doctor, so he knows that this is dangerous. I don’t want to make him a eunuch, but he’s hell-bent on me "destroying his manhood." Should I do it for him? He says he doesn’t want to have kids, and that he doesn’t care if he loses his ability to have an erection or ejaculate. Should I do this for him? I’m 23, if that helps.

Reluctant Ball-Popper

Before you destroy your boyfriend’s manhood, RBP, there’s one question you need to ask yourself: how will you feel if five years or, hell, five minutes after you do this for him, your boyfriend decides it was a big mistake? And I promise you, RBP, if you go through with this, your boyfriend will come to regret it — and when that day comes, he will resent and/or blame you. So just say no to ball-popping, RBP, okay?

And while I don’t think it’s possible to have a healthy, long-term relationship with someone so insanely self-destructive, RBP, I can understand why you might want to keep seeing this nutjob in the short term (phenomenal sex, enthusiastic cunnilingus, tossed salads, etc.). There are ways to indulge his castration fetish without destroying his balls. Buy him a male-chastity device (just Google "CB-3000") and throw away the key. If that’s not extreme enough for him, chemically castrate him by injecting him with Depo-Provera, a drug that sexual predators are sometimes ordered to take and one he could, I presume, prescribe for himself. Maybe after experiencing a short-term, reversible castration, your boyfriend will conclude that castration is a better fantasy than it is a reality.

Have you ever heard of "decanting"? I work at a hospital in New Orleans. A man came in with multiple urinary infections, and stated that at certain parties he was a "decanter." He put a catheter in his bladder, drained his urine, replaced it with wine, and then "served" it to guests. I’m calling for a consult.

MD in NO

In a world where some men want their balls popped, MDINO, anything’s possible.

Have you ever put your fingers in someone’s mouth while they’re asleep? I have. I like to play with the faces of my lovers as they sleep. And invariably, Dan, they have a strong involuntary bite reaction. It’s painful as hell, and I don’t know why I keep testing this. But needless to say, this information should be passed on to This Boy Wonders, the young man who was fantasizing about initiating oral sex with his sleeping wife.

Lucky To Have All Ten

I advised TBW to "obtain [his wife’s] consent to either initiate oral sex sometime when she’s asleep or sometime when she’s pretending to be asleep." In light of your research, LTHAT, I’m going to, er, withdraw the "sometime while she’s asleep" part of that response.

Why don’t you talk about your family in your column? I want to know if you’re still with Terry, how your son is doing, how old he is now, etc.

Girly Fan

Female domination, ball popping, decanting, dicks bitten off in the middle of night: I don’t write about my family in "Savage Love," GF, because there’s no way to make a graceful segue from the usual horror stories to heartwarming anecdotes about my six-year-old kid. But you can rest assured that Terry and I are still together, and that DJ remains, as of this writing, blissfully unaware of foot fetishists, ball poppers, decanters, and dick biters.

Dan Savage can be reached at mail@savagelove.net