I work with homeless young people and recently I was chatting with two of my clients when one of them laughingly said she had bought a pair of handcuffs to "use with her boyfriend." I was tempted to offer "safe sane and consensual" advice but I let it go. Now I think she may have benefited from my advice. Do you think I did the right thing?

Many people find the trappings of SM a turn-on in themselves. (Every vanilla hen party I have been to, the bride has been presented with handcuffs). A little experimentation with Ann Summers-style rudery is not necessarily going to lead to a dangerously out of control SM session. The chances are this young woman and her chap are just going to play around a bit and don't require any outside help.

Working with vulnerable people you are of course tempted to protect them from possibly dangerous situations and while your knowledge and experience of BDSM could help protect this young woman from making mistakes, to share it could also be misinterpreted by some as verbal sexual harassment. We all walk a line of some sort in our day jobs…and it's drawn in different places for every one of us. You went with your instinct to leave the subject alone. Unless it comes up again, and she looks like she wants a specific answer, I'd say you did the right thing in this situation.

I love Japanese bondage and want to try this on my girlfriend. Where can I learn the techniques?

The art of Japanese rope bondage is becoming more and more popular and at clubs such as the Adventures of Gwendoline, there are practitioners who will be able to demonstrate techniques on yourself or your partner. Amateur rope masters you may come across at clubs will sometimes be happy to oblige in an impromptu workshop if you ask nicely enough. Meanwhile, have a look at Japan Bondage or Tammad's Bondage How-To Page for web information. Most rope bondage on the web is just porn, not many good technique sites available. If any LFS readers could point me in the direction of a good technique site, please This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and I'll post the links.

I want to go to an SM club and have a mistress fulfil my fantasies, but I don't want to spend much money on special clothing. What is the minimum acceptable dress to meet a club dress code?

The minimum dress in some clubs would be no clothes at all I suppose. In other clubs you would be chucked out for going nude. Depends on the club.

More to the point, if you want your fantasy fulfilled, you'd better stand out from the crowd of subs in order to catch the eye of a halfway decent mistress. They are always in great demand in clubs and speaking from personal experience, the more effort you make on your appearance and general behaviour, the more chance you have of getting a spanking (or whatever).

If you are serious about having your fantasies fulfilled as opposed to a bit of a play about, you may be better trying a professional dominatrix, who will take your money and not care too much about your bad socks and sandals.

What do you have against us wankers? I like to get close to scenes where women are being beaten till their bottoms are glowing pink. They are so beautiful I get totally turned on and I love nothing more than watching and masturbating. I don't do anyone any harm.

An awful lot of people find WMs (wanky men) offensive because they often forget that a scene needs space to develop and if they get too close to the action, they can get in the way and spoil the mood.

The number of WMs tends to define a club's quality for a lot of people. For example the old Submission was full of them and I avoided going there after a while. The Gate doesn't have any most nights and the atmosphere - for me anyway - is a lot better.

While there is nothing wrong with a bit of DIY per se, I recommend staying well back from any scenes or other people who may not wish to be in your line of fire. Failing this, you will be surprised how unerotic a sharp, unexpected cropping on the end of a swollen todger can be.

I am trying to find out about SM Pride events but their website is totally out of date. Do you have any information?

I thought so too till I realised I was looking at the old site. Try this link which leaves out the "dot uk" I had bookmarked all this time.

The Pride weekend is on 21/22 July, and is non-stop out-and-proud pervy fun. London Fetish Scene will be there and will cover all the goings-on.

Two problems, well not really problems. First, our band just got signed to an English Film maker who is now branching out into CDs. It's perfect for us, and he is flying us to London to film the video and record the CD. He is also handsome, charming, and rich. I definitely have a crush on him, and he flirts with me on email and calls me on the phone. I know that a big reason that we got signed is because we have really sexy beautiful girls in the band, and he likes me. However, sometimes lately when I flirt back, he backs off (he is a Scorpio). Is this just a normal guy thing? Or a Scorpio thing? Also, his friend who introduced us to him, is really crude and rude and our enemy now, he actually told me that if we slept with him or gave him money he would help us get a manager, and when we did a fetish photo session that he set up, he was saying crude things and so was the photographer, so we cut it short. How can I handle this situation gracefully?

Well, well girls, this surely isn't a barefaced plug for a new band, is it? Firstly the film maker. You're in showbiz now and the flirting sounds like a typical showbizzy email equivalent of air-kissing. He probably does this to his secretary and his cleaner as well. Get used to it.

Regarding the crude remarks: learn to walk it like you talk it. If you're all trussed up in fetishwear for a photo shoot, you should at least have the attitude to carry it off.

Those riding crops aren't props - they're weapons. Learn to use them. You'll be surprised the effect they will hve on sleazeballs. Show them you are "4 Real," not just another bandwagon-hopper. I'll plug your website, I'm in such a good mood. I claim my free CD.