Who Is This Book For?

Before the Collar was written for anyone who wants to build healthy, intentional BDSM relationships rooted in trust rather than assumption.

Whether you're exploring kink for the first time or have years of experience, this book provides practical guidance for making informed relationship decisions before authority is exchanged.

It is ideal for:

• Newcomers looking for a safe and trustworthy introduction to BDSM relationships.

• Dominants who want to lead with integrity, accountability, and emotional intelligence.

• Submissives seeking to recognize healthy leadership and avoid manipulation.

• Switches navigating both sides of power exchange.

• Couples interested in building stronger communication and intentional dynamics.

• Anyone recovering from an unhealthy or abusive relationship and wanting to make wiser choices moving forward.

What You'll Learn

Inside Before the Collar, you'll discover practical tools and evidence-informed guidance to help you build relationships that last.

You'll learn:

• How to recognize healthy Dominants, submissives, and dynamics.

• The difference between attraction, chemistry, compatibility, and long-term trust.

• How attachment styles, trauma, and emotional vulnerability influence relationship decisions.

• How to identify manipulation, coercion, love bombing, and other common red flags.

• The green flags that indicate emotional maturity, consistency, and accountability.

• How to negotiate boundaries, limits, expectations, protocols, and aftercare.

• Communication strategies that strengthen trust before power is exchanged.

• Practical vetting questions, worksheets, assessments, and compatibility tools you can use immediately.

Why This Book?

Most BDSM books teach how to play.

Before the Collar teaches how to choose wisely before the first scene ever begins.

Rather than focusing on techniques or fantasy, this book emphasizes psychology, communication, emotional safety, and intentional decision-making. It helps readers slow down, ask better questions, recognize healthy patterns, and build relationships capable of lasting long after the excitement of a new dynamic fades.

Because healthy BDSM isn't built by impressive titles or intense chemistry.

It's built through trust earned over time.

Book Details

Title: Before the Collar

Subtitle: The Complete Guide to Vetting Healthy BDSM Relationships

Author: Ruger E. De Mon

Publisher: Orion's Quill

Formats Available:

• Paperback

• Hardcover

• Signed Paperback (Website Exclusive)

• Signed Hardcover (Website Exclusive)

Trim Size: 6" × 9"

Interior: Black & White on Cream Paper

Length: Approximately 600 pages of educational content, practical frameworks, assessments, worksheets, appendices, and reference materials.

Coming Soon

Expand your learning with companion resources designed to help you put the concepts from Before the Collar into practice.

The Ultimate Vetting Interview Guide for Submissives

A guided workbook featuring reflective exercises, compatibility assessments, journaling prompts, and structured interview questions to help submissives evaluate potential Dominants with greater confidence and clarity.

The Ultimate Vetting Interview Guide for Dominants

A companion workbook designed to help Dominants assess compatibility, communication, emotional readiness, leadership style, and long-term relationship alignment while building healthy, accountable dynamics.

Together with Before the Collar, these workbooks create a complete educational system for learning, applying, and practicing the principles of healthy BDSM relationships.

Healthy Power Exchange Begins Long Before the Collar.

Because trust isn't created by a title.

It is earned through honesty.

Strengthened through communication.

Protected by accountability.

And built one intentional choice at a time.