You meet this fabulous guy at your local Gap store and decide to get together for drinks. When you're back at your place playing tongue-twister you decide you'd like him much more if only he'd carve his initials into your back.

You're a modern girl. You have needs. You need someone who is going to be able to engage in exactly the sort of messy red kink that flips your minnow. Before you break out that X-acto and ask him to go to tear-town, here are some tips for the modern blood-fetishist.

1. Where to get spillage accessories. Well, you certainly don't want to mess up your Laura Ashley duvet, so before you engage in blood sports you may want to visit The Fetish Factory. They sell latex bedsheets for any size bed (easy to clean with Windex), and you can get them in basic black, as well as tan, yellow, and light green. You cheapskates can drape your bed in either white bedsheets (clean with very hot water and bleach in your washing machine) or garbage bags (just use and toss).

2. Skin cutting for the tech-set. OK, so now that you've replaced your Snoopy sheets with something a bit more vampiric, you need to get down to business. Engaging in scalpel sex is risky business. Before you try this at home you should be very familiar with what you and your partner are doing, or else you could end up as an unfortunate modern-day Jack or Jane The Ripper. You should never slice someone's face, wrists, neck, or genitals. And it's best for novices to make very light incisions on the back, thighs, chest or ass. Keep in mind you are doing this for the deliciously painful thrill of bloodletting, not the pleasure of carving a fucking turkey.

You only want to engage in this when sober, as I refuse to be held responsible for anyone getting scissors-happy and murdering their mate, which brings us to...

3. Do they sell straight razors at 7-11? Just like a surgeon, you need to be scrupulously clean with your implements, which means no using broken glass, barbed wire, cracked Kid Rock CDs or kitchen knives for your blood play! Check out The Body Modification Ezine store where they not only sell boxes of scalpels, but equipment for performing at-home castrations and rib removal.

Remember: Always wash your hands with warm water and soap, and use rubber gloves. Always clean your equipment in alcohol or an autoclave and clean the skin you've marked with alcohol or Betadine. Nothing is sexy about pus-swollen infected lacerations, which brings us to...

4. The doctor's note. Don't leave marks without it! You should always engage in blood sports with someone who has had a recent HIV test, and even then it probably isn't the smartest thing to consume your partner's blood, or to go rubbing it into any open sores. Play at your own risk, kids. And, for those would-be cutting couples who prefer things a bit more "safe"...

5. Visit a salon of scarification! Many local piercing and tattoo parlors now offer cutting and branding as well; you can choose from a wide array of designs or bring your own. It may not be as intimate as breaking out the straightedge and slicing and dicing at home, but there is also no messy cleanup and little chance of infection. The ultimate setting for a first date.