The fantasy of no limits is an interesting one. Often newbies try to use it to convince a Dom/me to accept them but more often than not a sensible Dom/me realises that there is no such thing as no limits and so avoids these people.

I agree that many seem to not realise that there is a massive difference between fantasy and reality. I used to think that my endurance for nipple clamps was quite good - when I put them on myself I could stand the pain for a good long while, clearly I was some superhuman pain endurance machine... then I found myself tied to a bondage bed and clamped and the agony was far far worse than anything I had endured before. It may have been different strength clamps but I think a lot of it was also the fact that I had no control - I couldn't stop the pain when it got too bad by taking off the clamps. It also felt like I had them on for an age - far longer than I had ever endured them - but in the discussion afterwards I found that it had in fact been no time at all... perceptions change when you are in a more realistic situation and 'practise' may be close to the real thing but it never the real thing... as Pratchett mentions in Thief of Time, one thing you always forget to include in emergency drills is the damn emergency.