Now With QR Codes!

I attended a presentation by a fellow educator yesterday, and he did something that got me excited. On the very first slide of his presentation - the slide which sat there while everything was getting started - he had a QR code that would allow attendees to download his slide deck.

I thought this was brilliant. For people who weren't sitting up close and perhaps couldn't see the slides well and/or couldn't hear him well. For people who couldn't process as quickly as he talked and would like to go back to the slides later. For people who saw something on the slides they wanted to refer back to later and research on their own. For people who came in late or had to leave early. There are plenty of reasons why someone might benefit from having access to the slides on their own mobile device.

Shout Out - Hello!

I've had several interactions in the last few weeks where someone has told me that they were reading something on this blog and learned something. People who were either in my kink community, new to my kink community, or connected otherwise. I wanted to take a brief moment to say thank you to each of you for reading, and for letting me know that this is helpful to you. Sometimes writing something on the internet is like shouting into your own space, and you don't know that anyone else notices. So every time someone mentions reading something here, it just sends a huge jolt of happiness to this author's brain. Thank you!

Bondage Essentials

 

I'd like to announce a new class! 

Bondage Essentials: General Bondage Concepts and Simple Rope Ties

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.