A Kinky History Lesson

It's hard to celebrate where you are, if you don't know where you've been. The Leather/Kink/BDSM community has a very rich history. It's a mixed bag of gay leather, transwomen, kinky het folk, and BDSM enthusiasts, all supporting each other. War, motorcycle clubs, Stonewall, our government, and popular media have all left their mark. A lot of our history was lost to AIDS. And that history is being made right now, today, as well.

Advice For Healthcare Professionals Treating Patients With An Interest in Kink & BDSM

Every now and then, I get the opportunity to teach basic kink concepts to a room full of healthcare professionals - doctors, nurses, EMTs, counselors, therapists, social workers, etc. These opportunities get me really excited, because I recognize that I'm not 'preaching to the choir' in these classes, but instead I have the opportunity to influence the quality of healthcare that kinky folk will receive from their providers. A provider that understands even a little bit about kink is going to be more accepting of their patients, creating a better relationship, more openness and acceptance, and leading to better care for people in my community. 

Making a Safe Call

In several of my classes, we talk about using a Safe Call when appropriate. But what is a Safe Call, when is it appropriate, and how do you go about setting one up?

In vanilla dating, especially for women, there's already a safe-call concept. If you have a date starting at 8pm, you might have a friend plan to call you at 8:45, so that if things aren't going well, you have an excuse to cut things off because of something that has come up. But in the kink world, we take that concept and flesh it out a bit more, applying consent, privacy, and safety concepts as our community usually regards them.

In most cases, you'll never have a situation where a Safe Call was actually needed. But the very act of setting up and negotiating a Safe Call will put safety in everyone's mind and prevent possible issues.

Teaching a Class Is My Favorite Way to Top

One of my top kinks is teaching. "Now wait, that's not really play!" someone says. But isn't it? Teaching can certainly be a scene all on its own.

As part of a scene in a playspace, I love teaching a new top how to do something that'll I'll enjoy as their bottom, but I also appreciate the chance just to impart knowledge to someone that values it, even if we never do that thing together. I love watching the brain-bulbs light up when something connects.

So how much more, then, when I have a room full of people to teach? Whether I'm teaching one of my Community Essentials classes, or just providing a demonstration to a small group at the dungeon, it's absolutely a scene for me.

Labels

Labels that we give ourselves are important. Not as a restriction, but as a starting point, as a description of who someone is right now. A warning - I'm going to use the term 'weird' all through this writing, and I mean it in a positive way - different from the norm, interested in or involved in things that aren't completely middle-of-the-road mainstream. I'm weird... I'm very weird, in a lot of ways.

My profile here says, "I am kinky and poly and queer and multiple. I'm also a mom, a daughter, a wife, and a friend. I'm a writer, a geek, a Trekkie, a gamer." My Discord profile says that I'm a "kinky multiple poly queer author educator actor." My FetLife profile says, "we are openly kinky, poly, multiple, geeky, gender-fluid, primal, androsexual, recipro-romantic... just generally queer," and a more detailed writing lists that we are a multiple personality, genderqueer, geeky, polyamorous, androsexual, and openly kinky, multiple, poly and queer.

Kink Belongs at Pride - But Consensually

Someone asked me recently - knowing what my answer would be, of course, "Does kink belong at Pride? And followed it up with, "To what extent? With what limits?" So of course I decided to write about it. I'm using the term Queer a lot in this one, and in this case I'm using it as an umbrella term to cover folks who are gay, lesbian, trans, bi, pan, poly, kinky, of all different sexualities, of various gender identities... all the colors of all the rainbows. All the people who are part of Pride.

New Class: Fit to be Tied

 

We're working on a new class! Coming soon: Fit to be Tied. It's a class for Rope Bottoms. 

- Preparing to Play - making yourself ready for bottoming in rope

- Playing in a Rope Scene - fully engaging in the rope scene

- Playing with Rope Over Time - managing risk levels and accounting for experience