Spanking Bench -- A Technical Question

I received an email from a reader today.  Apparently, I've had correspondence with this person before, and it seems he may have run afoul of my tendency to admonish people who approach me in ways that I find too familiar or offensive at some level.  I honestly don't remember the exchange that he refers to, but however that went, his question today seems reasonable and even a bit intriguing (and besides that, some have declared this to be question month, so here you go):

Interesting.  Hmmmm...

Hello Swan,

...I emailed you ...a few questions about your lifestyle some time ago, and you were a bit put off... I'm just a guy that reads and enjoys your blog...You answered some of my questions in a later blog post, which I really appreciated...I appreciate everything about your blog. I like the realness of it, and you. We all know there is professionally produced BDSM porn on the web, but none of it looks real. None of it looks like something I might experience some day. I don't have a dungeon and never will have. I will also never have a young woman with a perfect model's body. I really like your pictures of the bench in a living room, in the real world, with pillows to make it comfortable!! So, my question this time is ...about your new bench...do you think, if you completely lost control of yourself and struggled hard trying to get away, while restrained to the bench, that there is danger you could tip it over sideways, risking injury?

The short answer to that is, "No.  I don't think I could cause it to tip over."

It hadn't really occured to me to even think about this.  The bench is still very new, and I've only been on it a couple of times, so there are potentially things about it that will surprise me, but at this point I think it is very stable.  It sits fairly low.  The ratio of height to width makes it seem unlikely to "rock" or wobble.  Too, once I am on it, all of my weight is pushing down on the structure of the bench.  I'd think that the action of gravity, and the laws of physics would work to keep that bench on the floor under those circumstances. 

We are not really "into" bondage AS bondage.  He restrains me as an adjunct to His play, and His primary interest is in erotic and disciplinary spanking (and related arts).  Bondage for its own sake holds no particular appeal for either of us.  He likes the bench because, with it, I can be secured in a position which works for Him while still being relatively comfortable for me.  For us, the use of restraints is more often about creating a safe and secure situation for our SM play.  I will sometimes ask for restraints if I sense that a session is going to be particularly difficult, or if I am feeling particularly wimpy (and He usually indulges me).  Given that reality, He can choose to restrain me with varying degrees of severity, and the bench seems very accommodating on that score.  So, for example, the restraints that He used last weekend were fairly "easy."  I had some range of movement, and while I wasn't going anywhere, I was able to shift and stretch and pull a bit at a number of points.  I was able to arch my back, lift my torso completely off the surface of the bench, and move my hands to a couple of different places where I could hold on.  That was just fine for what we were into over the weekend, but we do have sufficient restraint gear to completely immobilize me if that becomes the goal.

The expectation here is that I will stay in position during our sessions, and I am pretty good at that under most conditions. However, there are levels to our play that make it very difficult for me to stay put. Some of His preferred implements can pretty quickly drive me into complete and absolute panic and / or rage. That is particularly true of his synthetic switchy/birch-style rods and the singletail whip. And... I am not a petite, delicate flower. I am, by any estimation, a big, strong, muscular woman, and I have been known to "walk" a full size St. Andrew's Cross completely across the floor of the dungeon while lashed to it -- powered only by the intensity of His blows and my own efforts to cope with the pain. So, I am familiar with the effort it takes to "move" a piece of bondage furniture while strapped in place on it. I just don't think it would be possible to do with the bench -- especially if He were to put me in very tight bondage on it.

The other consideration, as I think about this, is that I am convinced that if I were to tip the bench over while I was strapped to it, I'd very likely damage things in the immediate vicinity, and probably injure myself. His goal, in terms of SM play, is to hurt me. He has NO interest in injuring me, and I am certain that He would not allow me to injure myself -- especially while I was so totally vulnerable and under His control. He watches me very carefully during a session, and shifts and adapts to manage me and the environment. If I were to become so agitated and out of control that I actually succeeded in turning the bench over while He was "in charge," I'd be sure He'd feel responsible for that event. I can't imagine things ever getting so out of control with my Master.

swan