Kinky Sex Link

What, no bondage dungeon?

Now that I have your attention…

I don’t own my dream house yet but when I do I now know to avoid these eight most overrated home projects. In order they are 1. whirlpool bath, 2. room additions, 3. “Versailles” kitchens, 4. marble counters (or other porous surfaces), 5. deck off the master bedroom, 6. elaborate home theatres, 7. hot tub, and 8. overly complicated home automation. One missing that I’d love to have is my own private library, preferably in the tower of a Victorian house.

My main question is, what about the bondage dungeon? I ask this question at the Midnight Seductions blog and I talk about what kinky toys I’d like in my own private bordello. What toys do you want? What do you already own? Head over, read, and comment.

http://midnightseductionsauthors.blogspot.com/2010/08/what-no-bondage-dungeon.html

Things have been way too serious and intellectual like around here lately. So I thought it was about time to inject some comedic relief. Ergo, today’s installment brings you a glimpse of the lighter side of  BDSM and how not every single detail of a scene is exacted with surgical precision.

My partner, D, and I went to our first party together in October 2006. He’d been in the scene for a few years and since this was only my second party ever, I thought he knew everything about everything about how SM operated. At the time I identified as submissive only.. bordering on the more slavey side and wouldn’t even utter the word ‘switch’ in relation to myself. I did the whole ‘walk a step behind, lower your eyes,’ subby type stuff. I thought D was the be all and end all of BDSM. He’d been around a few years and he was a DOMINANT afterall, of course he knew what he was doing and every single little nuance of SM. Didn’t they all by default?

So we go to our first party together as a couple. I was brand new in this country, in this particular scene and still pretty darn new to SM in general. My experience was basically limited to a few scenes and the wisdom gathered from ”The Story of O’ and ‘Safeword’. Thanks to that type of crash course, I was of the mind that D was Stephen of Roissy who lived in an estate with leather walls and red brocade curtains. I thought  that a submissive in a scene was there to do nothing more than ‘just take it. Take whatever your Master dishes out, without moving, without sound and certainly without opinion or objection!’ Thanks, Pauline.

Here is where my reputation as a stoic got its start: No matter how hard he hit me or with what, I was determined to keep still and keep quiet. Dont move a muscle and dont utter a sound. So that’s what I did. Take the pain, TAKE IT! or you will displease your Dominant and that makes you a bad girl. Noone wants to hear ‘bad girl’, so I kept still and quiet the way ‘good girls’ are supposed to. (the idiocy of my thinking alternately makes me laugh or want to go back in time to that version of me and slap her upside the head with a phone book.)

Our scene started and I was cuffed to the bar and blindfolded. D is whacking away at me with every toy we had. ‘Every toy we had’ at that time meant a briefcase that came with a free set of steak knives filled with a few handmade floggers, dollar store pervertables and some crafty little items he’d whipped up. One such item was a nasty little bugger we named ‘The Whisk’. If you saw it you’d laugh, it looks like a prop for a cheap ass Dominatrix Halloween Costume. An actual kitchen whisk would probably look more intimidating. It was a foot long piece of half inch dowel (painted black of course, this IS BDSM afterall) with 6-8 strings of 10 inch (black!)  latigo lacing attached to the end. It weighs practically nothing and looks like a prop of a Roman Scourge  in a kindergarten production of ‘The Passion of the Christ’.

Thing about that whisk is, its fucking evil! That piddly little prop of a toy can slice you open and have you calling ‘red!’ in one strike if that’s the desired effect. We should rename it ‘the Serial Killer’ because it seems to nice and harmless. It aint.

So D is wailing away on me with that stupid thing. He’d been at it for a while since, thanks to its lightness, it weighs practically nothing and can let the top keep running the scene long after getting major flogger fatigue from a more ‘Universally Accepted by the BDSM Magistrates’ type toy. After a fairly long time of ‘just taking’ that intense sting, I started to wiggle and moan with each strike. Just a little one.. a foot raised here, a shoulder turned away there, a lip biting here, a teeny little squeak of ouch there. Doesn’t sound like much but when your girl hasn’t moved a muscle fiber in an hour no matter what you do to her, a raised foot becomes a monumental reaction.

He jumped at the chance to lay some of that awesome Domly mindfuck language on me. ‘Dont move, bitch, or I’ll hit you harder.’ ‘WTF is wrong with you girl, I gave you one simple order and you cant follow it? BE STILL!’ and other such growly and wonderful things. At the time it never entered my head that he might be saying it just to fuck with me, I thought he was actually getting mad and disappointed in me. I resolved to be even more still.

I failed. He whapped me a right good one across the shoulders and my knees buckled. I got back up as soon as I could to try and resume my stoic stance so that my Master might use my body for the infliction of pain for his own pleasure.

We’ll pause for a second while I quell the nausea that my then headspace now gives me all these years later.

ahem….

I stood up just in time to hear him say ‘I told you to be still, slut!’ and THWAP! that damn whisk wrapped around and caught me square in the face. ‘Holy fuck, he’s really mad at me!’ I thought to myself. ‘ Ok ok.. be better! Be still!  I dont want that in my face again FFS! I didnt even know you COULD slap someone in the face like that! I thought that wasnt allowed! Could have sworn I read that in ‘Screw the Roses’, but he’s been around, so he would know that stuff. Yep, he knows what he’s doing so just do what he says!’

I didn’t move again. He didn’t hit me in the face again. At the end I got a ‘good girl’ and all was right and happy in my little world. Take THAT lil miss story of O! Oh wait, subs arent supposed to say that kind of thing are they? Fuckmuffins…

A few months later we were at a BDSM 101 workshop. Great time for it, eh.. AFTER I’d been in the scene for a while now? Well why break my longstanding tradition of doing everything ass backwards? So after a bit, the conversation turned to ‘what to do when you screw up.’ All the folks with more experience than me giggled and did that knowing head bob thing. I was mystified. ‘When you screw up? But everything is just how the Dom wants it? How could anything ever possibly screw up?’

One guy said ‘Yeah, like when you meant to hit her ass and you wrap around to the front of thighs! All you can do is hope she dont see your face when you say ‘ooh fuck! thats not what i meant to do!’ Everyone laughed, I was still trying to make sense of the words spoken in my native tongue that sounded so foreign. So another guy says ‘yep, thats why you blindfold them!’

I heard D laughing behind me. I looked at him quizzically and said ‘What?’.

He said ‘Oh, like that time I fucked up and got you in the face with that whisk!’

I was horrified. ‘I thought you did that on purpose cause you were mad at me. I thought you were just all  serious and stuff!’

He says ‘Oh hell no, it was an accident. I was so happy you couldn’t see me gasp and hope you weren’t gonna kill me when I took you down!’

My perfect little submissive world shattered. ‘I thought you were all hardcore and shit…’

He laughed, ‘not that day, that day I was just happy I remembered to pack the blindfold!’

And we laughed. And have been laughing about it ever since. Some people say there is no laughing in serious BDSM. I feel bad for them. The laughing scenes are some of the best ones! Maybe next time I’ll tell you about the oreo cookie pants scene, or the ‘Tarzan Swinging on the Suspension Rod’ scene or the time I got a little too close to a fuzzy caterpillar in a scene. Laughing is fun and as my wise friend used to say, ‘if it aint fun, it aint BDSM’.

~kim

Kink In Motion

While I love writing about sex toys, my true love is erotic fiction. I will appear several times on Beth Wylde’s Yahoo Group this month talking about GLBT issues and promoting my books, in particular “Feral Heat” (m/m/f, m/m), “Lost In Her Mouth” (f/f), “Neighbors” (f/f), and my upcoming June 11, 2010 release “The Fountain Of Youth” (m/m).

Here’s the link to Beth’s Yahoo group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bethwylde

My release party for “The Fountain Of Youth” will be on Beth’s group on June 24, 2010 from noon until I drop. I will host a contest and a lucky winner will get a FREE copy of “The Fountain Of Youth”!

Look for more contests during the month.

Here are dates. Mark your calendars!

June 07 – GLBTQ open discussion
June 11 – Release Date – “The Fountain Of Youth”.
June 14 – Gay male fiction day – win a free copy of “Feral Heat”!
June 15 – Bi writer’s day
June 21 – F/F day – contests! Win free copy of “Neighbors” and “Lost In Her Mouth”.
June 24 – My chat day with contest! Win a copy of “The Fountain Of Youth”
June 28 – GLBTQ BDSM day

I’m looking forward to talking to all of those who love GLBTQ fiction.

x-post from Mystress Lady Evyl

A little while back I wrote a blog about how I wanted to start offering workshops to small groups about various topics within our alternative lifestyle. Well the timing of my plans and the new ALCC could not have been more perfect!

The Alternative Lifestyle Community Center (Centre Communautaire pour les styles de vie Alternatifs de Montréal) is a free and open space where like minded individuals can meet, share, learn, build and create meaningful relationships, discover, and seek information without fear, judgment, or discrimination.

Last night I attended the grand opening and it was a huge success. I could only come for a short while and got there very early. I expected the place to be quiet. I was wrong…at 5h20pm the place was already packed. Such a great sign for the future! Countess Allura, a fabulous wonderful lady I am happy to call my friend, is the founder of this center. Amazing my dear! I am so proud of you!

And yes of course I will be giving my workshops here. I am very excited. I already have dates on the schedule. So COME SEE ME AT MY WORKSHOPS.

Wednesday, May 12

7-8pm: What is Protocol – Lady Evyl (English)

Wednesday, May 26

7-8pm: C’est quoi le Protocol – Lady Evyl (Français)

Wednesday, June 9

7-8pm: Let’s Have a Ball -CBT Intro – Lady Evyl (English)

Wednesday, June 16

7-8pm: On s’amuse avec les boules – Intro au CBT – Lady Evyl (Français)

More about the Alternative Lifestyle Community:

We provide information, education, counseling, socialization, and support through activities, workshops, seminars, discussion groups, certified psychologists, drop-in hours, and resource materials.

We welcome all people 18 years of age or older from any religion, culture, spirituality, race, age, distinction, minority, majority, orientation, identity, preference, sexuality, that may be curious about, questioning, or living an alternative lifestyle. We also welcome those who are concerned, opposing, or uncertain about alternative lifestyles and encourage you to come to the center to learn more.

We encourage you to drop by and ask questions, familiarize yourself with the various activities being offered at the center, or simply sit on our comfy couch and read some of the literature we have available.

The center is YOUR place to call your own and feel welcome.

Today is May 4th, also known as Star Wars Day so “May The 4th Be With You”. Bah dah bum!

Star Wars Day would not be complete without some porn, so visit this site full of Star Wars Porn, including this amusing picture:

The Force is strong in that one.

Fairly frequently, I get emails from all over asking me ‘What is a Leather Family?’. I’ve thought for months now that writing it out here and just having a link to give people would be a better solution than trying to explain it each time. Sounds easy enough. It’s been an oddly drawn out process. I’ve started writings that were very personal, some that were very academic and fourteen other flavours and just couldn’t seem to strike the right tone. Now I’m deciding to revert back to what my former preacher used to say: ‘Start at the beginning and when you come to the end.. stop’ (I know its been said by many others as well, but his is the voice I hear when I say it to myself). So, back to the beginning it is….

What IS a Leather Family?

At its most basic and simple, a Leather Family is nothing more than a group of people who identify as kinky in some way and wish to be known as part of a specific grouping.

Sounds simple right? Well it is, and it isn’t. Consider the following:

• Each one is unique, no one will look completely like another.
• The number of people involved can range from 2 to 200. There is no minimum or maximum.
• Sometimes there is a D/s or M/s dynamic to some or all of the members involved. Sometimes there is no stated power structure at all.
• Sometimes there is a sexual component to the relationships between some or all of the members of the group. Sometimes there is no sex at all.
• Sometimes there is a service aspect present between some or all members. Sometimes there is no service aspect at all.
• There are no hard & fast rules as to what constitutes a Leather Family (other than ones the members of an individual family mutually agrees upon, which often times never occurs)

After reading the above, you may be thinking ‘Well that sounds an awful lot like ‘Family of Choice’ or ‘Urban Tribe’ type stuff to me..’ And you’d be right! That’s exactly what it is. It’s just that when you add the ‘Leather Lifestyle’, ‘BDSM’, or ‘kink’ labels into the equation, the words change slightly. It basically means you & your closest pals are kinky,the relationships between you feels more familial than friendly and rather than just have this affinity go unnamed, you choose to place a label on it so that it’s easily understood that these people are very meaningful to you.

Like I said above, no two are alike. There are some with very structured hierarchies, some actually have members assigned to traditional familial labels (Daddy, sister, etc..) and some are a loose collection of people with shared interests. Some are little more than people who see each other at events and some have more rigid systems that may even include all members living in one house and following a strict set of rules regarding play, sex, finances, decision-making, etc. None of these is ‘more right’ or better than another. Basically it is what you feel, say, think it is.

Since it’s the only one I can speak to, I’ll give you the rundown on my very own ‘Leather Family’.

I live with my primary partner. He is also my Dominant. We are very blessed to have alot of fantastic people in our lives. Some are casual friendships, some are much closer. We play with lots of other people. We have sex with some but very few. My primary and I have our own power structure that does not extend to anyone else. We have people who are closer to us than others and it’s those in this intangible, rather undefinable ‘closer’ areas that we consider family.

On Fetlife a few of these people are marked as ‘in a Leather Family’. This was/is due to circumstance, a little bit of in-joking, and a little bit of seriousness over a very specific situation. It means that the people listed there are very dear to us. What it does NOT mean is that those NOT listed there are NOT dear to us. If I were to list every single person I consider family under my ‘in relationships with’ heading on Fetlife, John Baku himself would email me to let me know that his FL server is only so large and can’t contain my proclamations for all those I adore. There are people not listed there that I wouldnt hesitate to jump out of bed at 3am and drive 8 hours  just to give them a hug if they needed me. They would do the same for me. That, to me, is family. Fetlife label or no Fetlife label.

The kinky people who I know and that I feel would be there for me no matter what and I’d do the same for them, those are my Leather Family members. And I have alot of them. I cant quantify what makes them family to me, except how I feel about them. My Leather Family doesn’t look like anyone else’s. It’s more structured than some and not nearly as structured as others. I may not call them Daddy or sister or brother or Mistress, but I am bound to them from a place of shared interest and mutual affinity. They are precious to me in a way that historically only those bound by blood have been, and that’s what makes them family. The fact that I met and fell in love with them because of kink is what makes it Leather (to me).

And now we come to the end where we will stop, and the closing thought is this:

A Leather Family can be whatever you wish for it to be. There is no ‘one true way’. Its nothing more than you and the people you are close to and how you decide to define yourselves. Just to further the point, I’ll leave you with this bit from someone who said it much more poignantly than I as to what a Leather Family is:

Those very select few that i find solace, comfort, information, strength, and closeness with are the ones i consider my Leather Family. Those i have listed in my Leather Family on my profile are the ones i turn to for guidance, a shoulder to cry on, an ear to bend, assistance with situations i feel lost in, friendship, conversation, enjoyment, company, etc. There are a great many things i deal with in regards to my BDSM involvement that i cannot talk to my biological family about as they do not have an understanding or do not wish to be included.

i respect, adore, love, and relish my Leather Family, they are an extension of me. i would hope that i am there for them in the same manner that they are for me. i would give my life for them in the same manner that i would exchange my life for the One I give myself to completely. My Leather Family is exactly that, my family. I got to choose my family members this go around, and i think i have the bestest family ever!

http://www.tsrnetwork.com/blogs/entry/Leather-Family

~kim

Kink In Motion

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1. Family of Choice – a group of people who choose one another and whose bonds often mimic that of a birth family

2. Urban Tribe – a group of individuals that form communities or smaller grouping with bonds to provide the emotional support of an extended family.

3. Leather (as in the lifestyle) – for lack of a better definition (which I am happy to add should one be made available to me) the term ‘leather lifestyle’ is a very large term that can encompass ‘Old Guard’ practices/protocols/ hierarchies to those who engage in BDSM  to simply people who enjoy wearing leather. There is alot of debate about who has the right to claim which terms. These are debates  I am not prepared nor qualified to engage in. Ergo, the term ‘Leather Lifestyle’ is used here simply as a means of conveying a group of people who claim the term as applicable to them in some way.

4. BDSM – those who engage in some form of Bondage/Discipline/Domination/Submission/Sadism/Masochism.

5. Kink – those who view themselves as ‘set apart from the norm’ by way of their sexual or recreational proclivities, often with some BDSM leanings.

‘Luke, you will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view’ – Obi Wan Kenobi

I first heard that line when I was eight years old. At the time I had much the same reaction as Luke, as in ‘Well that’s just bullshit. Saying someone is dead is pretty cut & dry there Obi.. you’re just trying to justify your own lies and guilt’. Remember, this was 1980.. before we see Anakin redeem himself, before we see his crusty ass white face and WAY long before we see the cute little tyke who won a pod race turn batshit crazy drunk with his own self perceived power and be turned into a Sith-kabob courtesy of Obi Wan. Blessed with the fleshed out story and the benefit of almost 30 years of life experience, now when I watch ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and hear the Obi ghost say that line I do a little knowing head bob and think ‘Boy, aint that the truth.’

Context is a beautiful thing. But how does it apply to kink? In true zen style I say instead: how doesn’t it?

Context is nothing more than the set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event, situation, or relationship. Depending on the details, any given situation can have any number of interpretations. Those interpretations are how we process a thing, how we view it, judge it, decide its merits. In short, context gives us the basis to decide how we will react to a thing.

A few examples:

At a play party you see a female bottoming to a male and you know nothing about the people involved. Do you see a woman who is a traitor to the cause of feminism by being submissive to a man? Do you see a man perpetuating the patriarchy? Do you see a woman embracing the true spirit of feminist theory by acting on her right to choose her interactions? Do you see man taking his rightful place as being ‘over’ a woman in some way? Do you see just a plain ole hot scene with no politics attached?

In the parking lot of a munch you see a two people pull up in their car. Do you see a couple? Do you see two friends who carpooled? Is the driver the Dominant or the submissive?Is the passenger being served (driven) or is the driver taking control by operating the vehicle?

You are talking to a man who uses the label of Dominant in BDSM circles. He says he wishes his girl could find a job closer to the city he lives in. Is he weak for not ordering her to live closer to him? Or is he taking care of his girl by giving her the freedom to do what is best for areas of her life other than their relationship?

Any person with a brain in their head would answer any of these questions with the same response: Well, it depends.

Exactly. That’s context.

Each of these questions and a gazillion more just like them are debated without end in SM circles. There is never a hard and fast conclusion met. (Which does not negate the value of the conversations. Healthy debate is always just that.. healthy.) There in lies the beauty of BDSM, should we choose to embrace it. There is no one true way.

So then whats the point .. dont judge a book by its cover? Well yes. We were all taught that early on (I hope). But it goes deeper than that, and hits closer to home. The point? Give yourself a break, take ownership of whats yours and hold others accountable to the power of context.

Give yourself a break: I see so many people agonize over how they identify and how they fit into the greater collective of kink. In the end all that matters is ‘are you happy with how you are’? The rest is just noise. If you dont feel comfortable with a situation, ask yourself why. If it comes back to alot of ‘they think this‘, or ‘they may say that‘.. take out the ‘they’s‘ and see what’s left over. Are YOU happy with it? If so.. then there ya go.  Context in this way means knowing yourself enough to know that whatever you are is just as it should be.

Take ownership of whats yours: And by ‘whats yours’ I mean whatever labels you choose to apply to yourself.

These days I identify as a bi-poly-switch. In a very ironic twist this means I dont ‘fit’ into alot of places. I ‘barely qualify’ for events that are heavily skewed toward male Dom/fem sub dynamics. Going to Leather Dyke events and talking about living with my male partner gets not a few ‘why are you here’ looks. I enjoy service but only for those who will not take advantage of it simply based on my gender or kink label which means volunteering for events that used to be a joy now leave me nauseated.

But I choose to look at it the other way. I actually DO fit into just about anywhere I want to go (with the exception of all cis-male or non switch welcoming events). So long as I respect the rules and spirit of the event, I have no trouble moving from one paradigm to another. I go to primarly hetero events as well as all girl ones. I go to workshops on Dominance and submission alike. I often top and bottom in the same evening. Rather than seeing my preferences as limiting, I choose to look at it as a buffet that I can pick and choose from.

Hold others accountable to the power of context: Last year at the PRIDE Dyke March my partner and I both were on the sidelines snapping shots of the parade. A couple of girls from a bisexual organization were going down the line handing out flyers for an all girl event later that evening. They gave flyers to the 2 girls in front of us, looked at me with my partner and  then gave flyers to 2 girls behind me. Now maybe they had all manner of reasons to not hand me a flyer but the body language suggested that they made a snap judgement that since I was standing with a male in the midst of a thousand dykes I was hetero and not included in their demographic. Before they got too far I stopped them and asked for a flyer too. After all, bi girls are just that.. BISEXUAL.. meanining both, and PRIDE is supposed to be about challenging normative thinking and embracing inclusiveness. But then again maybe our disconnect was not over sexual orientation but over the issue of mono/poly. Either way, taking context into account changes the scenario all the way around when you know my situation. Conversely if I knew more about why they did what they did I may have had a different reaction. At the very least, maybe I made them think for just a second about how perhaps things are not always what they seem.

‘…many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view..’ Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes it is a laborious process taking many hours of planting and harvesting, curing and rolling that culminates in a thing you can enjoy. Both are correct. Your view of which it is depends on the context in which you choose to view it. Knowing this gets you one step closer to being comfortable in your own skin. Embracing it gets you one step closer harnessing your own power, in whatever context you choose.

~kim

Kink In Motion