We constantly express our values in our everyday lives, whether we’re fully conscious of them or not. Boundaries (our preferences and limits) and Protocols (special rules for power exchange) start with good intentions. But what we don’t know - or don’t examine - about our guiding principles can hamper self-awareness, hamstring intentional relationships, and sabotage play or ongoing dynamics.

In this workshop, you’ll identify some of your core values and how they inform your personal boundaries, interpersonal rules, and formalized protocols. We’ll explore general practices for expressing values, and how to implement strategies that match our own goals and dynamics. This is a participatory discussion, and you will be invited to share your thoughts and experiences.

Establishing and maintaining Power Exchange dynamics as a couple is challenging. Stir in multiple partners and you have a potent mixture that can rock your world - or blow up in your face. Ethical non-monogamy can clash with the hierarchies inherent in Dominance & submission. What if you have multiple partners but want a dynamic with only one? What if someone wants to collar your partner? Or you’re juggling several submissives?

We will review concepts of polyamory & ENM, foundations of power exchange, and how ENM and D/s mix (or don’t). With relationship tools, real-life examples, and his own extensive experience, Sir Panda will engage with pitfalls and best practices - including topics such as direct and “stepped” authority, protocols for metamours, and poly agency in multiple D/s dynamics.

Attachments are emotional bonds formed in childhood, and whether we form secure or insecure attachments is dependent upon how our needs for attention, love, and growth are met. The patterns set in place carry forward to how we form adult attachments, including friendships, romantic partners, and the bonds of power exchange.

This presentation will examine the basics of Attachment Theory, how attachment styles are expressed, and how they are manifested in different BDSM identities and roles. The class will also touch on how to encourage secure attachment in ourselves and in our relationships with others.

We should all aim to act ethically in our lives and in the kink community. But when it comes to BDSM, this discussion often stops at definitions of consent. But there is a whole world of ethics and ethical dilemmas beyond gaining basic consent.

This class explores what ethics are, the different categories of ethics, ethics and the law, mistakes and negligence, and what ethical behavior looks like - both in interpersonal relationships and in the wider community. 

We talk a lot about what consent is, and how to reach good consent in play and with partners. Yet consent injuries happen all the time. What happens after things go wrong, and a consent incident shakes up a person, a couple, or a community?

This class will briefly touch on what consent is and how to secure it, then go beyond and examine how to best react when a consent incident touches us, as a stranger, a friend, or an event host. We’ll look at some recommended responses including incident reporting, and consequences such as apologies, punishments, and restorative justice.