Monday, April 21, 2008

How to present an educational BDSM topic and not make it boring

Category labels: Communication, Community, Kink events

The other day, Eileen and I were absolutely thrilled to present Sexual Teasing and Denial at the inaugural über Skill Share Workshops hosted by the generous (and fabulous) Mistress Dee at her über dungeon and BDSM playspace. Eileen and I have done this presentation quite a few times before, once at TES-TNG, once at Conversio Virium, and once at the first-ever Floating World. I’m not at all exaggerating when I say that this time, the presentation was the best it’s ever been, with an uninterrupted nearly two-hour long talk that included wonderful questions from and discussion with the audience.

Earlier, I wrote that I think the Sydney BDSM scene is suffering from a lack of educational programming. I’m glad that I’m not the only one that thinks so. I’ve had numerous conversations with people in the scene here who would like to start seeing educational events becoming common place, and many Australians are eager and able to contribute. Especially noteworthy in this arena is Mistress 160, who runs what is probably the best informational blog about BDSM in the entire region, and has been doing so for quite a while.

Of course, the World Wide Web is probably the single greatest tool we as kinky people have in our efforts to educate each other and make information easily accessible. Bridging the gap between the online world and the physical world, however, isn’t easy. Ultimately, every Web site and cyberspace venue is really a support structure for meatspace venues and real-world events where people meet with other people face-to-face. That’s why I was so excited to be involved in helping to get the über Skill Share Workshops off to a roaring start.

Now, back in the United States, Eileen and I have done a few other presentations in the past in addition to this one on chastity, orgasm denial, and orgasm control. We’ve been in attendance at countless others, too.

Some of these presentations were really fantastic. At a minimum, these kinds of presentations always made me want to go straight home and pull Eileen into bed with me, or at least go out to dinner afterwards and have a long debate about whatever the topic of the presentation was.

Unfortunately, most of the time I didn’t really find presentations that engaging at all. In a few of the worst cases, I’ve literally fallen asleep. That’s right, I’m in a room full of people who are all talking about sex and BDSM and getting off and it’s been so boring that I’ve literally fallen asleep.

Over time, I’ve learned that there’s a distinct skill in teaching or speaking to others about what you know that’s entirely separate from just being good at that thing you’re talking about. So, in an effort to document some of those things that should probably be common-sense but clearly aren’t, here’s a list of things you can do to make your presentation for a BDSM educational event not suck.

Be enthusiastic

Chances are that if you’re presenting on anything at all you’re presenting on a topic of personal interest. Since this is supposedly something that really gets your rocks off, it should be easy to be animated and enthusiastic while presenting about it, right? Wrong! For a lot of people, it’s actually very difficult to feel comfortable and relaxed enough in front of a room full of people to let their genuine enthusiasm show. That’s okay, and this gets easier with practice.

That said, there’s nothing worse than listening to a monotone voice for an hour straight. Enthusiasm on behalf of the presenter begets enthusiasm on behalf of the audience. One of the best ways to loosen up and show some enthusiasm if you’re having a hard time of it is to tell personal stories. Share a short anecdote about a time at a club when you saw this amazing scene and how it made you all tingly. Don’t wax poetic about days long gone—stick to the topic at hand, but show some personality. Trust me, if you love what you’re talking about, your eyes will light right up.

Of course, the reverse holds true, as well. If you’re not actually excited about the topic you’re presenting on, why are you even presenting on it in the first place?

Prepare talking points, not a script

I think that in the entire history of the Universe, no one’s ever gone to an educational event just to listen to someone read aloud what they could have read themselves. If you have a handout, use it as a reference or as supplemental material, not as a script or the meat of your presentation. Chances are that by the time your presentation has started, everyone who received a handout has either finished reading it or has decided it’s not worth reading. If you just read what you’ve given them, you’re not going to have added any value to the presentation. You might as well have just emailed everybody your handout and stayed home.

That’s not to bash the usefulness of such things. Handouts can be wonderful reminders for people to take home with them so they can recall what you’ve said. They can serve as an outline of your presentation so that you can ensure you hit all the major points you wanted to hit. You can put together supplemental material in the form of a handout for people to peruse at their leisure, after the presentation. Just don’t obsolete yourself with it.

Don’t just demo, inform

Way too many presenters get caught up in the idea that their presentation is some kind of act, as if they are putting on some kind of show. If you’re at a fetish club and you’re doing some kind of BDSM performance art, then fine, you’re putting on a show. At educational events, however, this is like shooting yourself in the foot. Remember that you’re not there to show off, you’re there to inform people about a topic.

If you just spend the whole presentation playing with your demo bottom and not actually talking the audience through what you’re doing, you’ll be seen as an ego-centric opportunist who’s just interested in playing in front of a captive audience. On the other hand, if you actually walk the audience through the subject matter, both visually and verbally, you’ll be praised and heralded as an expert. And then you can go show off at the next party you’ve suddenly found yourself invited to.

Know your shit, but don’t be a know-it-all

Recognize that presenting on a topic is not the same thing as knowing that topic inside and out. That said, you’d be hard pressed to give an informative presentation if you don’t know your subject matter really well, so be certain you do. Spend some time talking to friends or people at parties about the subject you’re going to be presenting on so that you can get familiar with what other people might ask you about it. This also gives you the opportunity to practice explaining it to others.

Of course, if you’ve been asked to be a presenter, it usually means you’re seen as someone who knows a great deal about something specific—but not always. Presentations are sometimes just as much of a learning opportunity for the speaker as it is for the audience, and both parties can benefit from an arrangement such as this. When your fifteen minutes of fame arrive, don’t be a know-it-all. You never know when you might learn a thing or two that you can then add to your next presentation about the same topic.

All right, that’s quite a bit of advice. If I’ve missed anything, feel free to add your own input in the comments. :)

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Thursday, February 7, 2008

Firsts are always changes

Category labels: Community, D/s dynamics, Emotions, Femdom, Kink events, Male sexuality, Masculinity, Masturbation, Personal experience, Relationship, Sex, Uncategorized, Writing and blogging

One of the reasons I’m so interested in kink and sexuality is because it’s implicitly a big part of my life. It’s everywhere and nowhere at the very same time, not unlike how many people understand god. For me, my sexuality is akin to my religion: self-expression (and particularly sexual self-expression) is my prayer, I am my own god, and the pleasure-positive, queer-friendly, self-empowering communities of which I am a part are my Church.

I like the references to religious imagery apparent in much of my play even though the thought of religion in my sex life makes me feel viscerally repulsed. I won’t do religious-themed play (naughty priests, nuns, and even Rabbis spring to mind—all potentially sexy for some people if not for me), but I understand the impetus of those who do. I like getting wings, being referred to as an obedient angel, or the idea of being nailed to a cross. I am no martyr, for martyrdom and ultimate self-sacrifice is in many ways the epitome of what I find repugnant; I ask to be hurt, to be beat, to be etched and marked, because it’s what I want, not something I dislike that’s merely a path to something “more.”

Parts of my life, like kink, present themselves in interesting ways sometimes. They’re like habits, much in the way going to the gym is something that is at first difficult but over time becomes habitual and—not necessarily in a negative context—addictive. If I don’t get my kink fix for a while, I start getting antsy. The physical catharsis of a good beating goes hand-in-hand with emotional catharsis of some kind. It’s one way that I experience the connection between the body and the mind.

What I’ve found over the past few weeks is that, at least for now, writing about these experiences and continuing my own introspective explorations about myself, my sexuality, and how I relate to the world around me (as well as why the world around me is so fucked up), is similarly emotional cathartic. Yes, I’ll admit it: I blog as a form of self-treatment. And I’ve been itching to start writing again.

However, I’m a horribly change-averse person at my core, in spite of the fact that I am also occasionally an eager risk-taker. When I stopped writing often, it became difficult to start up again. So many pieces of my life are scattered about the floor around me, in piles waiting to be sorted, packed, and shipped off to the other side of the planet (I’m moving to Sydney, Australia, from New York City), that I desperately wanted to maintain some semblance of continuity and order among the change and chaos.

You’d think, naturally, that with all the preparations to be made, the telephone, Internet, gas and electric, and other utility accounts to close down, the bank accounts to open and close, the taxes to complete for the previous year, the stuff to move, the apartments (and jobs?) to find on the other side of the world, and everything else I have to do to move my whole life from one of Earth’s hemispheres to the other, that I wouldn’t be able to squeeze in time for more play. In fact, I expected to be so busy that kink would have to take a back-seat to the rest of my life until I was settled again. Boy, was I wrong.

In the past few weeks, I’ve played more often than I have in the past half-year. Furthermore, I’ve played with more people in less time than I ever have before—the exact figure would have been even higher had there been the time. I lament the fact that it’s only now, with my imminent retreat from the in many ways stifling New York City scene that I’ve suddenly experienced an explosion of play partner possibilities who are not only fun and intriguing but who also seem to actively desire playing with men who bottom or, (gasp!) are actually submissive and self-respecting. C’est la vie….

The experiences are not all incredibly intense in and of themselves, but the experience of my own broadening “promiscuity” and apparent desirability is incredibly disorienting, and surprisingly uncomfortable at the same time that it is very welcome. After repeated conversations about the topic, in which I often express confusion, doubt, and glee at the situation, the best I can come up with is that “I’m not used to being liked at so intensely,” to borrow one of Rona’s lovely grammatical idioms. Of course, I’m not oblivious to the reasons: I’m relatively good-looking even if I still don’t consider myself “hot”, I have a pretty wide and (to some) intense range of things I enjoy doing, and I’m an all-around decent person.

What’s so astonishing to me, then, is that other people have taken note of these things, too. Actually being in demand by people who’ve never even heard of me before, as opposed to being merely available, is a lovely, self-affirming experience. It’s the ego-boost I’ve heard so many women talk about. And I’m not too proud to admit that it was really, really nice to have.

The weekend after the Flea in Rhode Island, I went to a weekend-long private party near Boston, having been invited by a friend along with Eileen, and the experience (much of which is the foundation for the feelings expressed in this post) was the exact opposite of what I expected. Instead of feeling shunned, I felt wanted. I played each night, each night feeling a bit more comfortable than the one before, until on Sunday night I not only got beat in ways that made me moan when I moved for days, I also had my first semi-public orgasm and outright sexual experience with someone I’d just met.

Oh, it was tame, and relatively short-lived, but the fact remains that it was the first of its kind: invited to join Eileen and the top both she and I had met (and played with) earlier in the party on the floor in a corner of one of the party rooms, I lay back and the two of them proceeded to rub and caress my bruised body while he (the top) pressed a Hitachi Magic Wand against my penis. A few minutes later, while I was just beginning to start writhing in pleasure on the floor, my friend from Kink in Exile, who had just gotten through beating my thighs and ass with one of her metal pipes, joined our corner and took a spot rubbing my chest, nipples, and sides.

I was uncomfortable being the center of so much explicitly sexual attention. Three people, one of whom I didn’t even know before the weekend started and another whom I’d seen in person for only the second time, were now sitting around me while I lay on the floor and braced myself against the vibrator’s insistent buzzing. And at first, I really was bracing against it.

“This is not very like me,” I was thinking. It was weird and uncomfortable, and I wondered if they were actually enjoying this anyway, letting me just lie back and enjoy myself with almost no words exchanged about it. “Maybe there are expectations I’m not aware of. That’d be bad!” I closed my eyes early on to try to fend off any triggers for more doubt, and not being able to see is something that helps me turn inwards, to focus on the sensations in my body rather than the thoughts in my mind.

It took me a long time to shove the nuisance of my own self-doubt out of my head in order to relax enough to enjoy what they were doing. At the start I was giggly and clearly nervous, but they all reassuringly told me to hush. The orgasm built slowly, but as a result it was fierce and explosive and wonderful and it left me a little dizzy.

After it was over and I came back down from the high of the beatings and the orgasm, the newness of the experience struck me most clearly: I’m changing, too. For years, even though I’ve had due cause, I’d been walled off and detached from the social and sexual possibilities and opportunities laid out before me. No, they aren’t always there in such massive quantity as they were at this party for the first time, but I know they were there.

Maybe I’m starting to be ready to really say “yes” to a lot of the things I wanted but wasn’t ready for before. It took the right people, in the right place, at the right time, to make it happen. Just as it did when Eileen and I first met.

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Thursday, January 24, 2008

Giving me wings

Category labels: Kink events, Knife play, Marks, Personal experience, Pic Post

My life’s doing that thing it sometimes does when so much happens in so little time that the only record of things actually happening is the effects these things have. That makes for a very exciting life, but not a very exciting blog, and this entry is a symptom of that. Therefore, this quick update-that’s-not-really-an-update post will defer to the (rather silly) tradition of Half Naked Thursdays and some miniscule eye-candy.

I spent last weekend in the Boston area at a private weekend-long play and sex party Eileen and I were graciously invited to attend. It was a lot of fun. I got to see some old friends again, got to play with some new friends and an older friend with whom I had never before played, and then when everything was said and done in Massachusetts, Eileen and I took a detour on the way home to visit Switch and Boy for yet more play. It feels like Tuesday to me, and yet I know it’s already Thursday.

A lot happened in Boston. Some of my friends are beginning to write about their experiences and I’m feeling blocked. I guess I can’t always be writing, though: I’m too busy living to be writing about it, at the moment.

In the mean time, I hope you’ll enjoy this picture of the results of the first and relatively very mild scene on Friday night. Eileen, wielding the shiny, new, custom-made knife that Boy made for her, decided to draw wings on my back. Personally, I think she’s got a thing for wings.

May with Knifed Wings

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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The Selfish Highlight Reel: Rhode Island Fetish Flair Flea-market Recap

Category labels: Community, Emotions, Kink events, Myths and misconceptions, Personal experience, Pet play, Puppy play, Sex toys, Uncategorized, Vanilla life, Wednesday Wanderings, Writing and blogging

Almost a week and I haven’t posted nary a word in either posts nor comments. What is going on? Despite the praise—which is lovely and makes me feel good, and useful, and accomplished—I have no altruistic goals for my writing, no illusions of where my motivation to keep this blog going stems from.

In case it hasn’t become common knowledge yet, in exactly four weeks I will be leaving the United States on a jet plane headed towards Sydney, Australia, where I will be living for at least the following year. This marks the very first time in my life when I will not have lived in New York City. In fact, it marks the only time in my life when I’ll have to call some location outside of the island of Manhattan my home.

I’m so excited, I can’t wait. But I’m also going to miss so many people and things about New York City and the East coast in general so, so much. In this last month in the States, I don’t expect to be writing every day anymore, and would like to echo the things Eileen said about the stress of moving.

But it’s Wednesday, and I want to keep the commitments I make to myself, so I wanted to post a Wednesday Wanderings link-fest for everyone reading. This Wednesday Wanderings post is going to be a little different because instead of wandering all over cyberspace this past week, I wandered around meatspace. Specifically, I went to the Rhode Island Fetish Fair Flea-market.

Part of the goal for this blog—making myself feel more visible, more heard, more seen, and more listened to—has been a major success. People are finding their own kinds of value in what I have to say, and they do so by finding their own motivations for listening in the first place.

Going to NELA’s Rhode Island Fetish Fair Flea-market this past weekend felt very much like that. I decided to go at the last minute, for my own reasons, to turn the event into an opportunity for personal exploration and experimentation of a sort I choose to keep my own, for now. I had some successes, some pain, some very frustrating dashed expectations, and some disappointments, so it was not the sort of spectacular experience some people might expect it to be. That said, I’m glad I went, and I don’t think I did too badly on my own.

The Flea’s primary purpose for me, an opportunity to practice (among other things) taking the bad with the good without Eileen present was something I accomplished in the end. As I mentioned, for now I choose not to show you (all) the bad parts. I don’t want to talk about them right now, especially since I’ve covered lots of them before.

It should come as no surprise to long-time readers how frustrated I am with the persistence that women’s bodies are the sole subject for fetish photography and how combative I feel around asshat mandoms. The Flea had its fair share of these things.

I’ve been to this Winter event two times before and each time it felt like, well, like going to a kink event. This time, however, it felt far more like I was just going to Providence to see some friends, who all happened to be congregating at a kink event. That was much, much more fun.

I didn’t make it to a single class or workshop. I never made it through the entryway of the Fetish Art Show, even though I passed by the entrance at least a dozen times. I didn’t make a single significant purchase, though I did pick up a small, spontaneous gift for Eileen that I’m hoping gets used on me soon. And I’m not at all disappointed about any of those things.

I do wish I had gotten to spend more one-on-one time with my friends, especially Switch, whose insightful self-reflection was the source of my original motivation to attend the event in the first place.

Switch and I travelled to Providence with Dov on Saturday morning who, like both of us, had made similar last-minute plans to attend two days before. Conversations with Dov are always at least entertaining and at their best are very interesting. At the Flea, we couldn’t walk more than five feet in any direction without one of us stopping to say hello to someone we knew. Midori was vending near the entrance to the infamously gigantic vendor’s area, so she was one of the first people Dov stopped to talk with, and he introduced her to Switch. (I just said a brief hello.)

It wasn’t long after that when Switch and I met up with my good friends Maja and Týr, the marvelous Mischief and the enchanting Estra, as well as a few of our other friends without blog names. Together, we swept through the vending area at least three times over. I also said hello to David King, maker of the excellent Coyote Whips single tails, was introduced to Leah and Scott of Big Head Studios, and waved to Hilton manning the Purple Passion booth.

Eventually, after also connecting with Calico, the group of us went to the Bondage Lounge, where we hung out with Sascha, and I spent a fun few minutes as Switch’s ball of human and hemp.

Later, our group swelled to ever larger proportions, including the addition of yet-more-non-blog-people. Also included in the mix was a specific attractive and dominant woman who I was very happy to get to see again—and whom I hope to be able to see more of in the very near future—but unfortunately didn’t get quite as much time to speak with as I would have liked. (You know who you are; I’d rather not call you out by name without prior notice, though if that’s something you wouldn’t mind then I’d be happy to do so from now on.) Eventually we all made it to dinner in spite of a wait well over an hour.

At the hotel room, emotional issues struck at night alongside insomnia of sorts. None of us got much sleep, but the conversation with Switch was heartening and was the highlight of my day, however mixed it was with exhaustion and other sadness.

The next day back at the Flea-market, I was happy to get the chance to meet the brilliant blogger from over on Kink in Exile, who has finally returned from physical “exile” and is back on the East coast just in time for us to cross paths. The two of us wandered around a bit, and I got introduced to some of her friends, like Mr. Pet (who makes incredible custom couture pieces), Steve of Circlet Press, and a few others who also don’t have public blogosphere identities.

I also had the pleasure of seeing Margaret, the absolutely unabashedly, astonishingly adorable founder of Wolf Princess Designs, a company that sells vegan sex accessories for the extremely enjoyable niche of human animal roleplay (aka. pet play). The fact that I’m not going to get the opportunity to get to know Margaret better is one of the reasons I’m sad to be leaving New York City. Not that opportunities were abundant seeing as how I’m from New York City and she’s based in Providence, but still.

After Kink in Exile and I finished making the rounds, I reconnected with Switch over at Monk’s booth to find her literally tied to Maja. Dov snapped a few pictures as Týr’s massive frame provided a background that would hide other people from the camera, an important thing to be careful of at kink events.

I took the opportunity created by the impromptu bondage photo shoot to speak with Monk’s self-described Twisted Mentat, Alex. I had a thoroughly enjoyable conversation about Seattle, the scene there, and stuff to do there, with her, as well as shared a few words on each other’s personal history, and (of course) bondage, hemp rope, and all the fun things you can do with it.

For me, getting to meet Monk—but especially getting to speak with Alex—was probably the best thing about the whole vendor’s area. As it turns out, I might get the opportunity to actually visit Seattle for few days in early February, so making a good local connection ahead of time was simply wonderful. That, and Alex is clearly full of awesome: outgoing and outspoken, energetic and fun.

Unlike me, Monk and Alex were at the Flea on business and so I tried not to get in the way of the constant flow of customer’s questions. Instead, I spoke with Viviane, and then to Rita Seagrave. I was very happy, and flattered, that Rita made it a point to say hello to me (and to compliment me on this blog! Thank you, Rita!) because her own writing is filled with intelligent observations just as mine is, but it’s also polished into some of the most evocative poetry and prose-poetry I’ve ever come across, and I really admire her communicative ability in that style. If you haven’t yet peeked at some of Rita’s blog, you should.

And that, as they say, was that. The overall uneventful affair was ended with some fond farewells and retracing most of my steps back to the city, with a stop to see Boy for just a couple hours along the way.

The takeaway from it all is this: kink is not some kind of magical mystery tour, some alien or foreign experience devoid of the mundane and—gasp!—normal human interaction. For many people, especially the vendors, kink is a part of the daily grind, and is remarkable largely for its unremarkable quality. And I guess that’s really what I wanted to add to my blog when I started writing this entry.

My writing is typically full of the extraordinary, of the moments of epiphany and none of the drudgery of the thought process, of the sex without the foreplay. Of course, this has been by design. I want readers to come here with the expectation that they’ll get their proverbial rocks off, a reliable orgasm (metaphorically or otherwise) with minimal personal effort.

However, this blog is just the selfish highlight reel.

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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Men and masks in porn

Category labels: Bitter and jealous, Erotica and pornography, Kink events, Rant, Sexism

Here are some preliminary thoughts about something I see pretty often in pornography, especially BDSM (or kink-wanna-be) porn, that I don’t like. Men in such pornography, regardless of whether they are dominant or submissive, gay or straight (as if men’s sexuality is as binary as that), or most any other characteristic that I can think of, are often seen wearing masks, hoods, or other items intended to hide their identity and render them, mostly, anonymous. This is very frustrating for several reasons.

  • It is an obviously gendered inequality; that is to say it is downright sexist. Women, again regardless of their sexual orientation, role, or other characteristics, are never seen wearing such anonymizing devices unless the purpose of the pornography is to accentuate (presumably) consensual objectification (which I have no problem with and think is very sexy).
  • It tells men that our sexuality is expendable and replaceable. This is probably a bigger issue than I can do justice (due to a lack of education on the subject), but this is also showcased quite profoundly by the fact that men are universally paid less for their participation in pornography—if they are paid at all—than women are.
  • It tells men that we are unsightly. I’ve even seen gay porn in which the only actors are men who are all wearing masks. I mean, really, what the fuck? Do these pornographers think that gay people do not like seeing the faces of their sexual partners?
  • It makes ignorant or uninformed people believe that participating in sexual acts such as the ones portrayed is something to be ashamed of, so much so that even the actors fear for their identity.
  • It makes for worse porn.

First of all, I am not talking about the kind of sex that happily incorporates hoods and masks into the sexual act. I am instead talking about the kind of porn that uses hoods and masks specifically for purposes so obviously not related to the sex I’m watching that their mere presence becomes distracting in the best case and downright insulting in the worse. Frankly, I am insulted by the insinuation that the only valid part of a man’s body worthy of being filmed is his penis. It’s simply untrue and unfair.

It is absurd to watch Men in Pain clips in which the naked guy is being interviewed about his experience while he is wearing nothing but a locking leather hood. It is similarly absurd to see clips or pictures of bound women being fingered by men who walk in and out of the frame, fully clothed and masked, in an obvious attempt to be as stealthy as possible.

The standard disclaimer from the pornographers is this: most people who buy our porn are men, so we want to make it as easy as possible for men to feel like they can imagine themselves as the man in the video/picture/whatever. First of all, completely sidestepping the circular point that most porn is made for men and that’s obviously why most of the pornographer’s customers are men (it really isn’t rocket science), they need to understand that as a submissive guy, which is indeed part of their claimed target audience, the person I see myself replacing is the submissive. If the submissive is faceless because he is hidden by a hood when he shouldn’t be, then I lose a big chunk of information about how that submissive is feeling and thus the porn becomes less valuable to me.

In other words, I would prefer to wank to pictures of men being tortured than pictures of women torturing men. This is why I tend to enjoy femsub porn more than most malesub porn out there. At least in those instances I can actually get the emotional content from the submissive’s point of view and vicariously feel that. Porn that hides the submissive man behind a hood is taking the hottest part of the picture, the bottom, out of focus.

In every instance of viewing the hooded or masked man the message is the same: the man is just “some guy.” He could have been replaced by anybody, and the effect would be identical. All the value to the product is brought by the women. And in gay porn where everyone’s wearing masks? Again, what are they thinking the value is in that if it’s not some sort of plot device?

There is a paradox here. The women are at once more valuable and less protected than the men. Think about it. Why else would someone want to hide their identity while doing porn? Duh, it’s not okay to do porn. Doing it is wrong, something to ashamed of, something you need to hide for fear of being outed, as sex worker, a pervert, or maybe something even worse. Yet only the men are hiding. Does the fact that they are mean they are so much more fragile than the women? Please.

What is most personally disturbing to me is the instance when submissive men are involved in some porn scene and yet the porn scene is so obviously not about submissive men that one would think submissive men was not actually a sexuality.

The most striking recent example of this occurred the other weekend at Black Rose XX, where in the Oasis Room a table full of fetish photography postcards was laid out. Out of the more than 20 available photographs, a grand total of 2 showed submissive men at all. One image showed a woman looking over her shoulder (dressed in formal fetish fatigues, you know the kind) and in the background, literally about 2 centimeters high, was a small image of a submissive man—hooded, of course—doing absolutely nothing interesting. The second postcard was a close-up picture of a torso in a waist-cincher, extremely shapely and made-up, whose only hint of maleness was the few pixels of clear testicle peeking out between the legs.

The experience of seeing those postcards was saved a little when Eileen and I overheard two women looking at them muttering to themselves, “It’s all female submissives.”

“Didn’t you know?” Eileen sarcastically jabbed at them, “Men aren’t pretty enough to photograph.”

This sent one of the women on a very welcomed, short rant about that fact, paraphrased below.

[The photographer] told me he doesn’t photograph men because those pictures wouldn’t sell. Hah! I laughed at him, and told him I’d have bought pictures of men and how could he possibly think there wasn’t a market for such work? Just look around us! Most of the women here have come to this event with their men, dominant or otherwise. I mean, one picture, he can’t do one picture where maleness is the focus?

Of course, people know that women aren’t “the real market” for images of men, because only other men are, right? This woman clearly didn’t seem to think so. Neither does this more famous one.

More to the point, though I hate to admit at times because it lets people too easily lump me into that category of men-who-would-buy-porn-of-men, I would like to see porn of submissive men where submissive men are actually the focus of the porn because then I could actually believe that I’m not the only man in the world who wants to do those sorts of things. Why else do you think people look at porn? It’s because they are using it as an instructive example of figuring out their sexual likes and dislikes. I look at porn to go, “Holy fuck, that looks awesome, I want to have the things that that girl is having done to her done to me!”

I’ve gotten really good pretending all the tied up women in porn are really tied up men, but it still angers me that I have to do it. It is endlessly frustrating to see an endless stream of so much very good pornography, excellent bondage, extremely hot fantasies-come-true only for the women who bottom. There is precious little good male bondage, and even then, there’s no sex. This is why so much of my personal porn collection that has anything to do with men getting fucked is drawn art.

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Wednesday, December 5, 2007

On Friends and Enemies

Category labels: BDSM safety, Bitter and jealous, Community, D/s dynamics, Emotions, Kink events, Personal experience, Stupid dominants

Early Monday morning before dawn, back at home from Black Rose and in Eileen’s arms, I was crying because I felt lonely and invisible. Moments before, out of bitterness and jealousy, I had just said that the people I like were not my friends in scene (kink) spaces. A little while later, I told Eileen parts of the following story. When I was done, she sighed at me and said, “You say these people aren’t your friends, yet you defend them viciously.” This is that story.

I think I met Rona, a relatively young, beautiful, and obviously intelligent woman, the first night in the Black Rose dungeon. It could have been the second night, and it could have been in one of the relaxation areas known as the Oasis Room. I can’t remember exactly because just about the first thing I did on that Friday evening was stand against an X-frame and present my back as the target for singletails and fists.

In any event, sooner or later one evening during the weekend Rona, another new friend, and I were sitting in the Oasis Room talking about some inconsequential thing. Eileen’s new fire-engine red double-locking handcuffs were locked around one of my wrists. With my hand, I fiddled with the open cuff making loud ratcheting noises in the room.

Out of nowhere, a man who shall remain nameless approached our little circle, smiling, and said, “If you’re going to make some noise, do it with some real cuffs!” He handed me a set of heavy metal handcuffs that dwarfed the standard police-issue pair of handcuffs I was playing with.

Immediately, instinctually, I knew I would not like this man. His announcement was clearly not intended for me but for Rona, whom he turned to with a lascivious smile after depositing the enormous set of cuffs in my palms. Pissing contest, I thought to myself. It is thought typical of older men who aren’t kinky to buy sports cars to show off the size of their penis. Perhaps older men who are kinky buy large handcuffs for the same reason.

In an attempt not to be overtly rude I said, “Wow, these are huge.” They also don’t sound any different than mine, I also observed, though I did not say that part out loud.

“Yeah, and they come in different sizes, too,” he said, taking the first pair out of my hands and replacing them with a slightly smaller version.

“Where did you get them, and how much were they?” Why waste my time asking questions one by one when asking related questions in groups might make him more likely to say only those things I cared about hearing? I had to admit, the cuffs were pretty. If I disliked this man’s presence, perhaps I could find some solace in his cool toys at least for a few moments.

Germany, not too expensive, they’ll make ‘em custom for you, they’re special because they don’t pull, and he’s got so many because he’s been collecting them for some forty-odd years, I learned. A brief conversation about his toybag developed, during which he called over his slave to bring this or that or the other thing.

By this time, the man was lounging on his side next to us and grabbed every opportunity he could to talk about himself, belaboring points like his experience (some forty-odd years), name-dropping every connection he had, and doing this all while looking at Rona and decidedly not at me or our other (male) friend. The two of us might as well have been invisible, since he seemed to turn towards us with a little start whenever we would say anything in response to him.

“I make her sleep in those cuffs,” he gestured towards his slave while he rambled on and on. “Yeah, they’re comfortable enough, but why should I care? I’m not wearing them.” Oh yeah, I thought to myself, you’re so bad-ass, you definitely have a bigger penis than me. I’m kind of amazed you haven’t creamed your pants fantasizing about yourself already.

This is exactly the kind of thing that would happen to me every Friday and Saturday night in Paddles, New York City’s only public BDSM club, almost all night, for two years straight. (Why I poured money into Paddles’s coffers twice a week for two years straight is another story entirely.) By now I’ve become quite accustomed to that sort of interaction from these kinds of “mandoms” (to steal a term from Bitchy).

These days I take a little more glee in steering the conversations towards topics that I know these men would find uncomfortable, or that might prove amusing at least in some small way. One such highlight I can remember is the following:

Me: I used to live in Manhattan in a 250-square-foot apartment that I shared.
Him: Shared? With someone of the opposite sex, I hope, so it’d be nice to get close!
Me: Well, I’m bisexual, so I’m not particularly concerned with a roommate’s sex.
Him: Oh! Well…I always said bisexual people are the luckiest. My friend, she’s a bisexual switch. She’s got the whole world to play with because bisexuals are all basically sluts!

(I’ll admit to paraphrasing that, but I guarantee you that it sounded even better in person.)

Rona seemed decidedly uninterested in this fellow and had become much less talkative since this man encroached upon our space. His slave, for her part, chimed in frequently with verifications of her master’s claims (”I often cook dinner in those cuffs!”) at what seemed like expertly rehearsed opportune moments.

Back to the cuffs, however, he reiterated their comfort and then asked Rona if he could borrow her wrist. I tensed at this, but a moment later she agreed and allowed her wrist to be cuffed. Up until now this man was a nuisance, obviously hitting on Rona but in no position to be a threat. Of course, we were surrounded by other friends having their own conversations and we were in an environment where safety was on everyone’s mind, even going so far as to have designated volunteers serving as Dungeon Monitors perusing the nearby areas. Nevertheless, there was a line that I felt he had crossed.

Now, I started watching this man’s shoulders and face closely. I watched his shoulders because their movement would be the first sign that he would move his arm, and I watched his face because his eyes would tell me where his attention would focus next and his mouth would tell me a lot about how he was feeling about the thing he was focusing his attention on. If he was going to have my new friend’s wrists cuffed, then I wanted to make sure, as the person physically closest to my new friend, that I could serve as a first line of defense. If this was combat, then this man was an enemy.

Of course, Rona clearly needed no defense in this particular situation, and yet, I was already bracing myself to go all commando on this guy’s ass—that is, assert Rona’s requests, whatever it be, vocally or physically if necessary—the moment a signal from Rona indicated I should do so. Eventually Rona cited exhaustion as an excuse to get him to remove the cuffs. When he started tickling her instead, she quickly became rightfully insistent and he did finally leave us, taking his German cuffs with him. Rona was—and is—fine.

The experience, however, put me in a sour mood. I had been reminded of dozens upon dozens of similar, negative experiences. None that ended any worse than what I just described but negative nonetheless. I was reminded of a few stories my ex-girlfriend had told me, some stories long-distance online friends had told me, and dozens of stories I’d heard elsewhere as well, some of which had ended in worse ways than this one. Most of all, I felt angry.

I was angry about everything that had just happened. The invisibility; the assumption that we—or she—was too stupid to see what this simpleton’s desires were; the roundabout way he felt he had to go about chatting Rona up; the pissing contest he wanted to start—consciously or otherwise—with me. It was all so unnecessary, I think, and so damaging. Maybe not if it were just once, or twice, but after two times a week for two years straight it starts to add up. I’m living, livid proof.

Epilogue: Interested persons might find this post by Rona an interesting followup.

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Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Black Rose XX Recap: An Introduction

Category labels: Community, Emotions, Kink events, Personal experience

With Eileen, Calico, and that guy without a blog name, I went to Black Rose XX this past weekend. Even though parts of it were bright, I remember it mostly as a miserable time. I cried out of sadness and anger on each day, and attempts to put into words the feelings I had while there will inevitably seem too trite, and too commonplace, to publish.

Instead, I want to share some of the unexpected experiences I had at Black Rose this weekend. I say unexpected because the other, miserable experiences, I’ll admit to bracing myself for before I ever left New York. I had been warned that the event was a largely traditional maledom, femsub affair (and it was), but at worst I thought I’d proudly shake things up. As it turned out, I retreated into a little emotional corner and felt no pride at all for much of the event. On the other hand, there were plenty more femdom, malesub play scenes happening than I was expecting.

With the above as an introduction, the following is a list of working titles that I will eventually turn into links to entries about my weekend. Some or all of these may not actually turn into entries at all. I’m fickle like that. In that instance, consider this list a brief (if cryptic) insight into how my brain works.

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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

The kink culture of fear

Category labels: BDSM psychology, Community, Kink events, Masochism, Myths and misconceptions, Personal experience, Personal history, Spanking and paddling, Strap-ons and dildos, Stupid submissives, Whipping

Where do I start? Do I begin with the retelling of the stories from years now long past, or with this weekend? It’s hard to tell what would be more effective. This weekend, while filled with spectacularly virginal experiences for most people in the realms of play, pain, pleasure, and of course sex, was actually somewhat old news to me. After all, unlike for most of my friends, this was not my first BDSM convention.

So what was new for me? Some play was new, like participating in a friend’s gangbang fisting along with seven other people, getting suspended in rope bondage by two switches, and getting jumped by I don’t even know how many people for a “forced” sex scene. Those things were new for me, but after the fact I am finding that my mind is reflecting on quite another element of this past weekend that is new to me.

For the first time in my life and the first time in all the (more than five) years I’ve spent in the public BDSM community, I felt that other people who are not necessarily friends actually respect me for more than just my pain tolerance, that they began to actually see some things about me that don’t have to do with how hard I like to be hit.

As a person who primarily bottoms, I’ve often felt that people in general only listen to me when I talk about what it’s like to get hurt. It’s as if, in their minds, all I am is a punching bag. For some reason, it’s hard for people—even other bottoms—to see bottoms as anything else.

The awful phrase “take it like a man” rings loudly in my ears whenever I see this because more than anything else I see it cause self-doubt in men who bottom, and makes them afraid they won’t be able to “take enough pain.” I will instantly confess that I, too, once felt and sometimes still feel this pressure. I think this is stupid.

Mind you, I have little trouble playing the part of a punching bag. In fact, I rather like it, I think I’m very good at it, and wish I had more opportunities for it sometimes. But after more than five years of interacting with people at large, being a punching bag is a very unsatisfying, frustrating social existence. It’s made even worse by the fact that I’m a rather picky punching bag to begin with—I don’t let just anyone hit me. You have to earn it first.

On the first night of the three-day weekend, as a kind of appetizer scene, I got whipped ’til I bled and that night the white hotel sheets were speckled red. Shortly after the whipping scene was over, Anita Velez, the official event photographer, asked if she had permission to take a photo of my back (I said yes). After that, Eileen and I found her again and asked her for a photograph of our own.

On the second night, after I fisted my friend along with seven other people, I got suspended in a rope bondage scene, and then after that I got jumped by I don’t even know how many people who all beat my arms, ass, thighs, and chest ’til they were bruised using a rubber nightstick, an acrylic cane, and some other heavy objects I couldn’t identify due to the spandex hood they put over my head. They pushed an NJoy wand into my ass and then made me go down on some of them while beating my already-whipped back with what I’m pretty sure was a rubber tire tread flogger. (I had felt that particular rubber flogger before.)

On the third night I got bound in a hog-tie with my hands behind my back and my legs kept bent with thick leather belts. Once secured, I was again beaten on my back and ass, this time with what I could identify as a (probably deerskin) flogger, a flat paddle-like object (but it was small, so I’m guessing a kitchen implement), and a heavy rubber taws, among other things. The rubber taws hurt the most, especially when it struck my already-bruised ass.

So like I said, I rather enjoy playing the part of a capable punching bag.

Of course, I got the usual, “Wow, great job,” awed comments from all sorts of people who had seen us play (and who I didn’t even know were watching the scenes). I also eventually overheard from second-hand accounts that others had more negative remarks, such as things like “That’s wrong; you should never crack a whip on someone’s back.” (Fuck that, whoever you are, by the way. I’ll play the way I want, thank you very much.)

Of course, this wasn’t really the hardest Eileen and I have ever played with a single-tail. I even have another picture of more marks taken some time ago, for example. I have been beaten much worse before, like the week before that previous photo was taken; Eileen gave me my first caning which an inch-wide acrylic artist’s cylinder, which resulted in purple and yellow bruises that lasted well over a week and a half. Another time, my friend who made the tire-tread flogger brought over a wooden table leg and bruised my thighs so badly that they swelled to the point where I could no longer fit into my jeans.

Nevertheless, people were still impressed by the intensity of my play this weekend and they still expressed their respect in the form of an appreciation for my personal preferences for pain. Misguided as I think this expression is, I did (and still do) enjoy the recognition.

This kind of misplaced respect happens to me all the time. It’s happened many times in the past, when “heavy” single-tail scenes have earned me the respect of someone who prior to witnessing it didn’t seem to think very much about me.

In 2003 I was a fixture of the New York BDSM scene among the ranks of TES members, quickly earning a reputation as the quiet, shy boy in the corner who watched but never played. Reminiscent of all my school years, most people treated me with an uninterested attitude evidenced by their neglect to acknowledge my words or my presence. Later that year at TES-Fest I had my first single-tail scene that ended with band-aids and a giddy if somewhat worried pair of tops who relished in retelling the story of how the waifish, quiet boy took the hardest whipping either of them had ever given. I’ll admit to being very surprised at my own enjoyment and what I interpreted back then as “stamina” and now simply call my usual preference. All of a sudden people were coming up to me and remarking on how impressed they were with me.

The lesson was clear: to get noticed, play extremely hard.

Even though I was certainly getting noticed a lot more, I hardly felt respected. Perhaps that seems strange to many people because playing that way is exactly how a lot of people who bottom, such as myself, earn respect in the scene. (We would all also be wise to remember Richard’s words when he reminds us that the scene is actually representative of a tiny minority of kinky people and we are, for the most part, the public exception to the normal kinky person.)

We play “hard.” We can “take more.” We have a “higher pain tolerance.” We can “handle it.” Tops respect us because we can challenge them, bottoms respect us because they’d consider themselves broken by things we consider warm ups. People think we deserve respect because of the way we play, because they are scared of how we play. And they’re completely wrong.

Bottoms who don’t play as hard as I do feel bad about it; they feel frightened and inadequate. What a horrible shame that is. Tops who don’t want to rip open flesh or turn skin rainbow colors or emotionally batter a bottom until they sob and beg also feel bad about not wanting to do these things. Again, what a horrible shame that is.

Respect should not be accorded based on someone’s preferred physical intensity of play, and yet every time I play that way in public I get at least someone coming up to me and saying, in an often dejected tone of voice, “I could never do that.” I try to tell them that they don’t have to, that it’s silly to think they should try if they don’t want to. As Eileen said cleverly before me,

And then let’s talk about the fuckupery of according respect to a scene member based upon the intensity of their play. What kind of logic is that? That’s like saying that you respect The Rolling Stones more than The Beatles because The Rolling Stones are louder. Respect isn’t about what people do in the scene; it’s about how they do it. I have young friends who have been in the scene just as long as me, who don’t get the respect I do because they don’t have the balancing factor of being intense players as a weapon to carve out a place for themselves. God help you if you’re perfectly content with a light spanking now and then. The patrionizing smiles will probably drown you.

(Emphasis added.)

In other words, I’m not more worthy of respect than any other bottom because I have a higher pain tolerance than they do. If you respect me for that reason, I feel invisible. I’m worthy of respect because I have impeccable judgement, a razor-sharp mind, incredible intellect, a generous attitude, a commitment to my scene partner as well as myself, and because I respect these same things in others. If you respect me for that reason, I feel seen.

So this weekend I didn’t feel respected when I was asked “How much were you really struggling in that take down scene?” I didn’t feel respected by the people who thought I was on the Power Bottoming panel because I like to limp for days after I play. I definitely didn’t feel respected by all the people who stopped me in the hallways and told me what an intense scene they saw me do (though, again, I did appreciate the kind words and enjoyed the obvious admiration and surprise—I don’t look like someone who likes to scream until my throat is hoarse, but I do).

On the other hand, I did feel respected when a fellow attendee approached me and asked for my opinions regarding TES’s web site (and others) because he had heard people mention my name in conversation about the topic. Likewise, I also felt respected when people came up to me privately after some of my presentations and told me that they thought I had made good points, that I articulated myself well, and that I exposed them to something new and provoked some new thought or insight inside of them.

Thanks to the transman who told Eileen and I that we had finally articulated his primary kink in our Sexual Teasing and Denial presentation. Thanks to the young woman who taught me the word cyberbalkanization in my Sex and Technology presentation. Thanks to the people who congratulated me on my bravery and willingness to get naked on the first night in front of more than thirty clothed people during the demo for the G and P Spot Stimulation presentation.

In other words, thanks for seeing underneath all the cuts and bruises and welts. Thanks for rejecting the rhetoric that to be worth a damn as a bottom you need to have a pain tolerance that rivals a super hero’s. That’s the kind of thing that makes most men think they need to be stoic and “strong” when they are in pain, which is stupid because the last thing a sadist wants to see when they’re hurting someone is a lack of painful reaction (duh).

The people who did this with sadness and envy in their voices made me the most upset at the BDSM community’s constant self-aggrandizement through what amounts to nothing more than fear mongering. The people who I think should be the most ashamed of this are the ones who call themselves teachers, who present so-called “classes” in thinly-veiled attempts to advertise themselves as “intense players” in order to earn what they think is credibility and respect, like the one Switch encountered and wrote about in her post.

Those people are spreading a culture of fear through BDSM that is damaging to people’s self-esteem (both bottom’s and top’s), to the BDSM community’s image in mass media, and—most importantly—to their own partners. Playing at a certain physical intensity is simply one very mechanical aspect of what makes a scene work. It is natural that players with more physically intense tastes would be drawn to one another. There should be no reason to fear that you’re “not playing hard enough.”

It’s just a matter of BDSM chemistry. No one’s going to put you down for liking blondes over brunettes. Don’t let people put you down for liking, or not liking, a certain kind of play.

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