A technical glitch

I am no longer on the SL board. Nope--has nothing to do with SL. Has everything to do with money.

Still trying to find D a job.

I will get back on the board as soon as feasible. No March party for me either. Hopefully we do make it to Labor Day. Dunno with the way the economy is going though....

Thank you to everyone who has e-mailed me over the last few months.

Figging and Caning

This post is a bit late but since Jenni Mack advertised this on her blog the least I could do would be to post how it turned out.

The local "Next Generation" BDSM group (for younger folks) asked me to do a demo at APEX. We have an arrangement with APEX whereby we will do a couple of events for them per quarter. It definitely helps the poor programming committee.

They asked me to do figging. I was rather reluctant. Although my private play and party figging sessions are generally a big hit, I have had some bad karma when it comes to trying to do this at a demo. Gingerroot will go projectile, or fail to burn, or whatnot. This time I insisted on finding and testing a bottom first. It worked well and I booked the demo.

And she got ill the day before the demo. Fortunately she did make it with the help of narcotic cough syrup, but this precipated a frantic search for a backup. I found a backup who would do it under the condition of being tied up. I am a mediocre bondage artist at best, so D became my crash test dummy 3 hours before the demo (at which point I discovered the man likes bondage. I think I am not going to stay mediocre for long).

The demo was fantastic. January is the season for gingerrroot somewhere on the planet and my local oriental market found this place, evidently. They had beautiful hands there with fingers nearly as thick as my wrist. I had to carve off a lot of "meat" to create a functional plug. Turns out they were *strong* too. The anal plug I made nearly tapped out my bottom.

I discovered anal plugs burn more intensely than vaginal ones. Makes sense. Any lube kills the burn and one orifice produces it's own. I combined caning with the figging (as figging alone was not enough time to fill 2 hours) and had the good fortune of decorating two behinds with the cane.

Lots of yumminess. D started acting up and another audience member who has a fondness for helping D get what he needs managed to get him to stand in the corner in front of the audience. At this point a friend of mine gave him quite a spanking on stage. I love audience participation.

Teaching S/M skills makes me hot and seems to be becoming a part of my scene identity. Not sure what it is about it. I get the audience going with my warped sense of humor, but I also love doing research and presenting my findings as well. People always tell me that they learned something they did not know. I always learn something in the process of preparing for a demo. Often I learn stuff during the demo as someone will ask me a question and I will use the demo bottom to come up with the answer (ie: which burns more--an anal or vaginal plug? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop?)

That and using a skill that was the result of overcoming a major phobia (public speaking, needles) seems to add to the charge of the situation.

A non-spanking post

Jenni Mack got after me this weekend for not posting. Yeah, she's right. My energy has been drained over the past few months by a number of things, economic garbage chief on the list. This weekend though I was reminded that I need to stay in contact with what gives me energy and power.

So this weekend I went to our local Southwest Leather Conference with D, a couple of friends from SL, and about 50 friends from the local and national BDSM community.

I will post more details later, but now I will make a cross post from another primarily BDSM themed blog. Warning all--what follows is about piercing, not spanking. We ain't in Kansas right now. ;-)

To provide a bit of background, SWLC hosts something called "the dance of souls." It is a cathartic, ecstatic dance ritual loosely based on some ancient body ritual practices. One aspect of the ritual is something called a "hook pull." A pair of sterile stainless steel twelve gauge hooks are placed under the skin (chest or back) and then are attached to ropes. The participant can then attach the rope to an eyebolt or give it to another person and then tug. This stresses the body (much like a cathartic spanking might) and allows the person to give up "monkey mind" for a time and come to know what they've been hiding, stuffing, avoiding, etc. Anything from emotional pain to emotional joy can come out. Some use this as a rite of passage as well (that has been my tendency). This particular dance definitely had that quality for me. Here goes with the post...

Dance of Souls V:

Yep--my fifth.

I placed my first 12 GA flesh hook today (and the same 11 or 12 GA? needle twice). The fact that my crash test dummy was myself made the experience all the more interesting.

From what I understand, piercing oneself with--whatever--has an honored place in body rituals. The fifth play piercing needle I took was from my own hand and for some reason I find that placing at least one needle in myself during ritual anchors me to the experience. I "own" it then in a very visceral way.

That said, piercing myself with something that large (twice) and placing a hook in myself was several steps beyond mind blowing.

I got the "hit" that I was to do this halfway through the introductory lecture to the dance of souls. I was worried that the piercers may not allow it, so I deliberately sought out the most twisted edge player of the bunch. STF was actually my first choice but I saw he was only doing needles (they formed two teams this year for the sake of efficiency), so I picked Master Z of Texas. He had me convinced of his delightful sick twistedness after I saw what he could do with duct tape and an power stapler at an earlier demo. I figured if I fucked it up he would mop up the blood, grin, and take over. I also had an inkling he might like the show (he did). I asked a couple of SL friends to witness. Despite the fact this was their first dance they did with much love and without so much as a flinch.

I told Master Z where my knowledge of how to do this ended, so he helped me figure out depth and placement on my chest. I actually found that doing it myself made it less painful, even though I probably was twice as slow getting the needle through as he would have been (I wanted to get it to the right depth and I was not worried about whining from my "bottom"). He put in the first hook as I watched.* I asked to put in the second hook after I placed the piercing needle on the other side and to my surprise found doing that part took at least as much strength and a bit more aggression than did shoving the needle through. I was also drunk as a skunk on my own endorphins by this point and the concept of push and pull was not completely registering. Despite this I managed to get the hook 95% through before asking Master Z for help. He gave it a tiny shove and had the grace to tell me that basically I had done the job myself.

Of course I can't adequately describe how doing that made me feel. The word "empowered" comes to mind. Never had I felt so much ownership of anything. This ritual had become, viscerally, mine. I needed that very much. I was also immensely satisfied.

To my surprise and pleasure the subsequent pull was very comforting. My instinct had guided me the correct spots to pierce. The sensation felt maternal and safe and protected, much like I would imagine a kitten might feel when carried around by the scruff by mother. Even when I went into semi-suspension and the pain kicked up that underlying solidity was there. I had, literally, built my own wings and found them more than worthy for flight. I called myself beautiful at the prompting of a witness. I licked my ropes, licked Master D's hand, licked the wood frame, and kissed a female witness twice on the lips. I blissed out and let the whirl of sound go through me...

The first pull was about courage. The second...about building wings perhaps. For what, who knows. Of course more will come to me, verbally and non-verbally, as time goes on. I know though that this was transformative. I feel it.

* Hook piercing is done like any other piercing. The first thing to go in the body is a straight hollow piercing needle. Once the point of the needle penetrates through the skin the point of the hook is placed in the "bevel" (hollow point) of the needle. The needle acts like a sheath guide for the hook as it travels under the skin and the needle is ultimately shoved out of the skin in the opposite direction it went in. It is the curve of the hook, I think, that demands a decent push at this stage. An 11 or 12 GA needle, evidently, stays sharp enough to be reused for the rest of that same person's piercings.

My Birthday

Ok--let's see how far I get on this try...

Sunday was my birthday. Saturday I went to the Tucson BDSM dungeon to do a demo I had committed to several months ago. At first I was not thrilled at having to spend money at this particular time, but the trip proved to be well worth it.

First the spanking part :-). At SL I had purchased a "Birthday" paddle which was meant to be used on the birthday person and then subsequently signed. So I took it out at the conclusion of my demo and invited any women to give D smacks on my behalf at the following play party. I also told the group that as of Sunday I would be legally old enough to run for president.

I was quite touched by the outcome. A woman D has been wanting to play with for over a year finally got her chance to spank him. She likes the domestic aspect of spanking so much that she conscripted a few men to move one of the dungeon couches out of the voyeur area and into the play space. So D got a nice OTK spanking, paddling, and strapping by her, me, and three other ladies. During one of the SL demos I did I recieved a nice plastic paddle that turned out to be perfect for a beginning top. I handed it to a nice young lady who happily gave him several swats. She now wants to come up to Phoenix once in a while to spank D and do some other things (more on that below).

When the first lady had to take a shift in the DM chair a second one took over with canes. I think D got 2 hours of attention total and was one very happy boy. Even better, the young lady took it upon herself to get the paddle signed by everyone in the dungeon. It came back with birthday wishes and even a few well wishes for any future presidential campaign I care to run!

Now for the non-spanking part. A word of caution here--if medical play squicks you out you might want to give this second part a miss. I have crossed the line into having a hard core medical play kink in the last year (I think when you can rattle off 5 different ways to sterilize something, can define a bacterial spore and the four parts of the male urethra, and you write Santa for a stove top autoclave you meet the definition of hard core).

The demo was about male urethral sounding. I am not sure how many demos I have done in the past 4 years, but this was by far the most technical and advanced topic I have presented and required the most research. My first task was to convince folks that you can't sterilize stuff by boiling, alcohol, bleach, or baking. My second task was to convince folks that sticking toothbrush handles and other odd objects into that part of the male anatomy is Very Bad. People who have this particular kink from the bottom side seem to like it intensely and I have heard one too many stories that have made me sprout yet another grey hair.

The timing for having to prep for this demo was not the best, but otherwise the whole process was a lot of fun. I have a geeky side that grooves on the science stuff I had to research and present--so the audience got a lot of it. Dunno if it bored them--I don't think it did. This topic always generates all kinds of questions. I veered towards the conservative side (to the point of suggesting sterile gloves and showing folks the proper way to use them--thank goodness for generous nurse mentors). I think though that is the best way to go. The demo bottom was a sounding virgin (a risky thing from a demo production standpoint--more in another post). I noted that after my talk in the first half the only fear he expressed was over how it was going to feel. He loved it--fortunately his dominant has access to an autoclave and works in a tatoo shop so he is in excellent hands. I think more people will be willing to try it after witnessing him.

I then got stopped at the party by a self professed risk and germ adverse submissive who wanted me to sound him. I had to use some short ones as I had used my beginner's sound on sub #1, but he did give it a good try. It turned out not to be his thing but that is quite alright.

The best part of the party though came when I was able to meet a lady that both I and Medical Dom (mostly Medical Dom) have been courting on Collarme. Medical Dom and I have an odd arrangement. I am mildly to moderately masochistic. He is masochistic in a very narrow range. And, we are both heavy tops. So when we play sometimes it starts out with both of us brandishing our metaphorical dinner knives trying to figure out who is going to eat whom. We need a bottom badly.

So anyhow, I met the lady during the demo and D's spanking--and she was keen to try some medical play. She had already established some trust in me after watching me sound 2 sounding virgins and had also been able to play with D and watch our interactions. I watched her bottom to a well known Tucson Top and saw that she did fine, so we found the dungeon gyno table and I did some speculum play on her. It was her first time with this sort of play after years of doctor fantasies. I think it is going to be a long time before I find someone who beats her single scene orgasm record. That scene was very, very sweet. I have made another speculum convert and met a very sweet lady to boot. Hopefully we get to see her in Phoenix soon.

Not a bad birthday at all. :-)

Oh, fer Christ's sake!!

Now I am also going to have to write a post on the difference between *enacted* fantasy and Unfortunate Real Events after reading the recent conflagration on the Shadowlane board regarding edge play.

*sigh*

Good BDSM comes with a hefty side dish of ingenuity. If someone has the fantasy of having something really horrible done to them you can enact that fantasy--without causing them physical or psychological damage. It takes a ton of work and care--but it is precisely this work and care that differentiates it from an actual crime.

This is an example of something that looks like something else on the surface, but is worlds apart in underlying design and intent. Post to follow sufficient noodling time.

Post coming...

Yesterday I presented a demo in the Tucson dungeon (I had committed to it back in May). Much fun to be had, particularly since it is my birthday today. D got to take my spankings yesterday at the play party which followed the demo. I am still tired, but tomorrow I will post about it. Some of it will be spanking related, and some of it will not.

The Economic Crunch...

...Has caught us. D can't find work. Hopefully he will get lucky in the next 2 months, but now most of my spare time is being spent helping him look for work, being a Microsoft Office tutor, and kicking around strategies for tightening things up around here. While I am doing my best to be optimistic I do feel like we have to plan for things to be rather bumpy until the economy turns around. That and I have a half day work certification exam coming up the first of next month, a BDSM demo to do in Tucson next weekend--I am feeling rather drained.

I was going to post things in this blog a few times a week, but now I am going to shoot for once a week until things clear up.