Am I Scary Enough?

With LeatherSIR defined as a “players” title, one of the questions that bothered me some earlier in the title year was whether my kinks and play activities measure up, whether they are “enough” for the title and to carry me through to an International win.

The title of this post came from a discussion about some local play parties where some people who are on the invite list never come to the party.  When asked why, their response was that they aren’t “scary” enough to come to those parties.  While we knew they wouldn’t be on the invite list if they weren’t sufficiently advanced players to be appropriate, it raised a couple interesting thoughts about our own perceptions of both our kinks and our perceived skills with those kinks.

There is always someone who plays with stuff that is too “edge” for you, and there is always someone who plays harder or “better” at the same things you do.  If you limit what you allow yourself to do because you think other people will judge you and consider you to be inferior — because what you do isn’t as extreme as what they do — then you will never get the chance to play at all.  This is a really hard hump for people to climb over.

(This wasn’t about my fisting parties, but as I think of it, there are guys who have been on the invite list for a while who always say to keep them on the list but never actually make it to a party.  I’ll bet some are simply intimidated by the thought of a group party where there are guys who are “better” than they are — deeper, wider, just more experienced — so they don’t come and don’t get to play with a variety of great guys in a great, supportive environment.)

In the 90s and early 00s, when I was simply trying to figure out what I liked, I sampled a lot of kinks, and bought a lot of equipment (including contest auction baskets; you don’t think I bought multiple huge nasty paddles, do you?).  I’ve got probably a dozen floggers, a couple spreader and bondage bars, a wide selection of cuffs, sounds, an electric butt plug, pounds and pounds of dildos, a humbler, collars, whips, a myriad of paddles and rods… you name it, I likely have it, including some rather interesting, quirky items.  A lot of it, though, I never use.  In fact, some of it has never been used at all, by me or on me.

A large piece of this lack of use, of course, is finding the right partner for certain equipment.  You don’t spring a paddle with sharp-edged grooves cut into it on just anyone, after all.

More than that, though, as I have matured, I have also narrowed my focus.  Before, I was into (nearly) everything, or said I was because I didn’t know any better, but now I have found a few things that I really do like/am good at, a few things I like enough/am good enough at, a whole bunch of things that only lightly interest me, and a few things which definitely don’t interest me.

The peculiar side-effect of that is that stuff that I do enough to know I really like and get good at also starts to seem mainstream.  One friend a few years ago said “What I do is normal.  What he does is edgeplay.”  Another, at a recent fisting workshop, whispered “Is fisting really considered edgy?  It’s always seemed normal to me.”

Which cycles back to the original question: Am I “scary” enough?  For my title year, rather than trying to be into everything (a Sir of all trades), I decided to focus on two things: fisting and foodplay (and to a lesser extent, flogging — FFF!).  The first being something to center around, the second something to explore.  Most especially, this helps me have a kink center to bring things back to for my interview questions, my speech, and even to touch on in my stage fantasy.

Is fisting “scary” enough?  The lack of need for fancy equipment and the basic truth that it’s just a (huge!) step up from fucking make fisting seem simple to some people.  I often forget about my own journey, which took a couple years to complete the first leg of the “journey” (taking a fist), and then many more to repeat it at will.  I see that I am still building my skills, as both top and bottom, with no end in sight — I can see the vast distances I have traveled and that the road goes ever on, and that is a good thing!  While I do it often, fisting is a huge mystery to many guys, and to many others, it is an occasional event at best (so many never get truly good at it, having to always relearn atrophied skills).  So yes, fisting is “scary” enough.

How about foodplay?  This is a huge blank space on the map for most people, marked by “Here there be (hungry) dragons”.  Most guys don’t even have a solid concept of what could be involved with foodplay, beyond two obvious images: a cucumber or other vegetable as a dildo, and licking whipped cream or honey off someone’s chest.  (Or maybe that scene from 9-1/2 Weeks.  And for some people, much of foodplay actively turns them off.)  Like with fisting, foodplay really needs no elaborate equipment; just go to the kitchen and use what you find.  Super-cheap kinky play, that confuses people.  (How can Mr. S make money from this?  Is it valid if they can’t?)  Just from the curiosity factor — break out a Klondike bar for your scene and people will pay attention — yes, foodplay is “scary” enough.

Does flogging qualify?  Almost no one would question this one, although when marked up against guys who use singletails, it starts to seem like the baby brother of “real” whipping.  But that depends on what your goals are and how you implement things.  I sometimes do just standard flogging, but I like to get up close and use my hands to beat on a guy (usually in concert with pop music rhythms, to abuse the brain as well as the body).  I like to scratch (if I have any fingernails after trimming them for fisting), I like to bite, I like to spit.  Even if I don’t raise welts and break the skin, I leave my mark.

In the end, this all second guessing the competition judges, and there are a bunch of them.  Do they feel that fisting is “out there” enough, or has it become too mainstream?  Do they think just flogging is passé, that whipping is where it’s at?  Do they think foodplay is just dumb, not even worth considering in comparison to e-stim and suspension bondage and fireplay?  Or maybe, hopefully, they don’t really care what you do — “Your kink is your kink” — so long as you do something!

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Updated on August 1, 2012:

Touch-up edits and added links.

Northern Exposure 3.0 (Anchorage) • June 14–18

GUSH!

I guess I need to say more that that, huh?  Okay: I had a great time at Northern Exposure, exceeding my expectations!

Northwest region for International LeatherSIR has a huge territory to cover — Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska — and much of it very sparsely populated.  There isn’t much that you could call a gay leather scene out of the Seattle-to-Portland corridor (no leather bars in Missoula, Montana, sorry to say), so it is difficult to really cover the region as a leather titleholder.  There are a couple small fisting weekends in Eastern Washington, though.  And a pansexual leather conference in Alaska.

I knew vaguely of Northern Exposure in Anchorage because of arrangements made for last year’s Northwest Community Bootblack Dylan to travel up to the event.  So when the call for presenters went out, I sent in five proposals: Play Party Etiquette, How to Throw a Play Party, Online Cruising, Engaging a Club and Its Board, and Fisting.  (Yes, all over the map.  Not knowing just what they were looking for — more sex or more organizational — I wanted to provide a variety of options for them to choose from.

It took a long, long time to get things settled.  I had communication that they wanted me to come, but it wasn’t until after all the other presenters’ bios and classes were posted online that we got my stuff settled.  (As the head organizer, Sarha’s time was stolen for the first part of the year getting ready to compete at IMsL.)  I don’t know if this was my lack of experience in being a traveling presenter (this was only my second such; I previously did a rubber workshop for KCLU (now defunct) in Kansas City) or added uncertainly on how to handle a gay presenter at a pan event, but it was frustrating.  Eventually all got dealt with, of course, and I had enough miles on Alaska Airlines to cover the ticket (which would be pretty expensive otherwise, even from Seattle).

Thursday

I flew in on Thursday, getting in about noon.  About the time I got to the Seattle airport, it occurred to me that this was one of the few trips I have taken in recent years to somewhere new, somewhere I haven’t been as an adult.  The last trip like that would have been to Madison in October 2010, and before that were overseas trips to New Zealand, Amsterdam/Copenhagen/Berlin, and Ireland.  Alaska is one of only a handful of states I had never visited before (with Hawai’i, Alabama, West Virginia, Delaware, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine), and there aren’t many metro areas in North America I haven’t been to at least once.

I met one of the other presenters at the airport — Dr. Clockwork, who sells violet wands.  While someone from Northern Exposure was supposed to meet us, no one was there.  I had rented a car, so I went off to get it and left my contact info with Doc in case he felt stranded.  I headed to downtown, but stopped off at Alaska Leather (a motorcycle leathers shop) and ate at Angeline’s Philippine Cuisine.

In town, I scoped out where the gay bars are — Mad Myrna’s, The Raven, and Kodiak — and then headed for the downtown tourist area.  That part of town is loaded with tourist shops, each of them having 80% the same stuff as all the others, of course.  I bought the requisite Alaska t-shirt (with a moose on it), a pair of bed shorts (red with mooses on them), and a necklace with a bear paw (not a moose!) carved on some Alaska mineral that looks like hematite.

I then headed out to the west end of town, to Earthquake Park.  Alaska suffered a major earthquake in 1964 which destroyed a couple major ports and severely damaged the Alaskan economy — and launched a tsumani which was seen in San Francisco and actually caused major damage in Crescent City, Oregon.  Earthquake Park overlooks part of the landscape which collapsed, dropping a bluff a couple hundred feet.

At The Raven, there was a “potlatch” — a small potluck in this case — and the welcome meet and greet for the weekend, with the introduction of most of the presenters.  The amount of food wasn’t quite enough for me, so I went next door to a hamburger place.  Later on, I was definitely fading, so I got directions to where the presenters were being housed, some cabins on Beech Lake, about 30 minutes north of Anchorage, and I head out there ahead of people.

When I got there and got into the first cabin, I was dismayed: bare except for a couple cots and an unlit wood stove.  Fortunately, I found the main cabin, which had futons, heat, a bathroom, and a kitchen.  I found a couple blankets and snuggled under them, working on blog posts, and was just about to doze off when others arrived, including some of the Northern Exposure crew with bedding.  Suddenly things were much more tolerable!  about half of use stayed in the main cabin, and others got fires started and stayed in the smaller ones.

Friday

On Friday, I took a couple of the workshops, including Dr.  Clockwork’s on “Violet Wands: Basics & Beyond” and Big Bad Jim’s on “How to Beat the Crap Out of Someone”.  The latter of these gave me a few ideas to use during flogging and bondage scenes regarding hitting someone with body parts other than hands and feet.

I also did my first workshop, on “Play Parties: How to Go and How to Throw”.  I first did a version of this a year and a half ago for Tribal Instinct in Seattle, toning it up a little for this.  The first half of it is influenced by the book to teenagers called Prom and Party Etiquette, by Cindy Post Senning (daughter of Emily Post), twisting its content to kink party ends: what should you do and not do at a play party, should you bring a date, should you bring a (hostess) gift, can you see the guest list, etc.  The second half is about putting together your own play party — why you should do one, what you can manage, what you need to provide, who to invite, how to manage an invite list, how to deal with problems.

I didn’t stick around for the play party that night, going out to Mad Myrna’s instead.  I got to the bar to order and heard “Jim Drew, what are you doing here?!”  The bartender was former Seattle Empress Miss MeMe (albeit in boy mode for work).  Never assume you can go anywhere incognito.  I also met up with a guy I had been chatting with on Scruff.  After a couple drinks at Mad Myrna’s, we went to the Raven and made out a while there.  Unfortunately, neither of us had somewhere we could go to fuck (etc.), so we had to leave it at that.

Saturday

On Saturday, I took three workshops.  One was Snook’s “Bill of Rights for Bottoms”, which was a work-in-progress workshop, as much group discussion about the concepts as anything.  Second was Rule of Three’s “Depersonalization and Dehumanization”, which discussed things such as bondage and masking to focus on only part of a bottom (like tits or cock), and also about using a bottom as an object, such as a table or an ashtray.  Third was slave Elizabeth (and Master Todd)’s “Slave’s Guide to Screwing Up with Grace”, which was mostly about how their relationship works, including managing/balancing the BDSM side of things with professional life and children.  Slave Elizabeth also gave a great phrase to take with me, regarding when people treat their relationship protocol as the one everyone should follow: “Your protocol is your protocol.  Your protocol is your gift.”  (My addition: “Please keep it.  Regifting is tacky.”)

I did my second presentation (we were each scheduled for three, one per day), “Cruising Online: Getting Some Ass without Being One”.  This was heavily centered around gay male online cruising, but with looks into things like FetLife and OK Cupid, including the OK Cupid Enemies Tumblr blog, which showed that het cruising can be just as full as asses as gay cruising is (as witnessed by Douchebags of Grindr).  The workshop went through details of what goes into a good online profile, including photos, title, text, and keeping things fresh.  There was also some good discussion about concerns for het women (stalking, etc.) and people in smaller communities (where the description alone in a profile can be enough to identify someone, even without pictures).  But probably the best part of the session was walking through bad examples I had found online — no pics, no profile text, iPhones implanted in faces, and so on.  (You could probably do an entire hour giggle session just with bad profiles!)

I slept in the car instead of taking the last workshop session, very tired.  It was warm and humid, though, so I only dozed.

Rather than head out to the gay bars early tonight, I stayed for the evening play party and engaged in four flogging scenes.  Two of them were with women — Marie and Monique — both of whom were newer to things (I think it was Marie’s first flogging and Monique’s second one).  I also played with one of the few other gay men at the event, former Mr. Alaska Leather (and former Seattle resident, so we already knew each other a bit) Kurt Hillyer.  WIth Kurt, both because he is experienced with flogging and because we didn’t have either gender or orientation issues to get in the middle of things, I was able to work him over harder, and we did the scene in the round, without bracing, just him standing upright in the middle of the space as I worked him up one side and down the next.  The fourth scene was the standout for me, though, as Monique had set me up with a straight (presumably) bear of a guy named Will who wanted to really be laid into.  As with Kurt, I was really able to open up on Will, not just with the flogger but with a paddle and with my hands, including fist beating on his back and even spitting on his heated skin.

I eventually had to stop playing — had to cut short the fourth scene, with Monique — because of my wrist (which has been bothering me since March), before it started hurting too bad.  Monique gave me a great gray bandana with “ALASKA” and bear and moose printed on it, and I traded her my fairly standard gray bandana in return.

I went out to Mad Myrna’s again for a beer and met up with a Facebook friend David, who knows people I do in the Seattle Imperial Court.

Sunday

On Sunday, everyone at the cabins got a late start, waking up just a little bit before the car to take those of us who didn’t have our own in to Anchorage.  Since my workshop wasn’t until the afternoon, I hung out rather than rushing.

I made the second workshop, Snook’s on “Piercing for Bondage & Control”.  She used hooks in her girl’s chest and thighs and strung them under the table.  She used some needles in the arm with a ribbon lacing, and then used needles through the fingertips and toe tips… and then made the girl remove the needle piercings while tied down.  While it was a fascinating workshop, it also confirmed for me that needles aren’t something I want to pursue, either as top or bottom; the blood and pain issues don’t bother me, but there’s just nothing in it that flips a switch for me and makes me want to try it.  Which is fine: Not My Kink.

My third workshop was after lunch, titled “60 Minutes of Buttsex”.  Actually, the workshops were 90 minutes, so I edited that to “60 Minutes of Buttsex + 30 Minutes of Fisting”.  This was a formalization of the “100 Miles of Buttsex” car workshop I did with Ruin, Ryan, and Jean in March.  While my other two workshops had small attendance, maybe a half-dozen people each, I probably had 20 people here, which kind of surprised me.  I shouldn’t have been: anal sex has some taboos attached (making it that much more attractive) and is something a lot of pan folks have tried to a limited degree (and maybe not with great success), but generally not nearly as much as a gay guy has — we specialize in it, after all.  There were bits of great discussion during the workshop, especially from Cat, a lesbian from the Bay Area, who was able to help fill in some of the holes (intentional pun) I had regarding female bits.

After that, I sat in on Lady Pact’s “Erotic Wax Play” session, but I was so tired, I kept dozing off.  Eventually FoxFinder (Sarha’s husband/dom) nudged me and had me go lie down in the presenters’ room, where I dozed and got a little sleep.

When we arrived that morning, FoxFinder had told myself and Master Todd that we wouldn’t be staying at the cabins that evening, that we would need to go back out and retrieve our stuff, that other housing would be done that evening.  Due to my workshop right after lunch, we opted to go out between the workshops and dinner, when there was a long enough break.  When we (and slave Elizabeth) got out there, Otter (who was kind of our cabin Den Mom) was dealing with the people who were renting the cabins next.  Apparently not only were we not staying that night, we were supposed to be fully out before they got there at 5:00.  Oops.  We hastily cleared things out, trying to keep further friction at a minimum.

(The incoming people run a weekly camp for “special needs” kids.  Obviously, one thing that really helps “special needs” kids is consistency, the ability to do the same things the same way every time.  Perhaps less obviously, one thing that really helps people who work with “special needs” kids is also consistency.  The woman was pissy less because our stuff was still there than because it was disrupting her consistency and thus her ability to provide such to the kids.  I sympathize, but she came across as though some of the “special needs” had rubbed off onto her.)

Returning into Anchorage, we had a lengthy discussion about relationship protocols, how things differ between gay and straight kink worlds, leather contests, and in particular about hats and covers.  Finding that we were on the same page about the subject, they asked me to do a Covering Ceremony for Master Todd, which I was surprised yet honored to oblige for.  (I won’t go into details — it was just the three of us and the Alaska countryside, short, and less formal than ceremonies you will find written out [such as in John Weal’s controversial book], but the value in such is what those involved take away from it.)

Dinner was a multi-course affair back at the event site, everything home made, including bread, cream of mushroom soup, salad, salmon, bear meatloaf, and dessert.  In between the courses, the Last Frontier Drag Kings performed.  (And Sarha fluttered around, changing outfits every few minutes.)  They also brought each of the presenters on stage for a special thanks, and for me, that included an on-stage pinning by Kurt with a The Last Frontier Men’s Club (the local leather/bear club) pin — down on his knees, fishing in my fly to find the right place for the pin — and a few seconds that I spent licking all over FoxFinder’s fist (that’s what happens when you ask me to explain International Mr. Saliva, what can I say?).

Most of the presenters who had been at the cabin went out to the FoxDen near Wasilla for the night.  I decided I wanted to stay in town and hit the bars again, maybe get myself some man-on-man action.  (And ensure having a room, bed, and bathroom to myself.)  Online hotel sites had godawful expensive rates, but remembering the name of a motel near the bars, I got a decent enough rate to stay in the city.  The bars were pretty dead, but I did connect with a guy online for some suitable play.

Monday

On Monday, I packed out of the motel and headed to Gwennie’s Old Alaska Restaurant for the Survivor’s Brunch.  The info I had was off by an hour, though, so the rest of the crew wasn’t there.  I was about to leave to kill time at Starbucks when Kurt arrived, also way early, so we went off and had coffee together.

When we got back, a few of the crew and presenters were there, and more trickled in over the next 30 minutes or so.  Food portions were huge, and I couldn’t finish mine.  As things would down, I handed out zip ties (zipper pulls on leather things, akin to a bolo tie) to several of the people there whom I had a really great time with over the weekend. 

(These zip ties are something I remember from my early days in the San Francisco leather community — you sometimes still see versions of them now without a zipper pull, with one of the cords in a fancy knot around the other — and I re-created them for my booth the last time I vended at IML.  They are a great subtle way of showing your leather to others as well as keeping a little with you even when not wearing hides.  And they can also serve as a handy collar, cuffs, or tie for CBT or other needs; I have even used one as temporary back lacing in a pair of chaps!)

FoxFinder pulled me aside at one point for a special thanks and palmed me a genuine bear claw.  Very cool.

After the brunch — including some picture taking with the Edmonton Away Team on the reindeer sculptures out front — I drove down the Seward Highway along the Turnagain Arm to Girdwood (about an hour south of Anchorage).  I took some photos and videos of the incredible scenery, had a fireweed & honey ice cream cone, and headed back to the airport for my return flight to Seattle.

Aftermath

GUSH!  (Oh, I said that already.)

I had a lot more fun at Northern Exposure than I expected to.  The largest part of that, of course, was being the sole gay presenter at an otherwise (kinky) straight event.  You never know how you will be received — embraced, accepted as just another presenter, or kind of danced around.  It was pretty much the second of those for me, which is really what you want: treat my like a person first, then deal with the gay angle only if you need to.

Despite some of the communication issues I had going into the event, it really ran exceptionally well.  (I have always believed that most events will: set things up to succeed, start the boulder rolling, and it will make it to the bottom of the hill, in part because others want it to succeed and will help.)  While I’m sure there were adventures and small panics behind the scenes — certainly with the music for one of the Drag Kings on Sunday — the only thing of significance that I noted which needs to be improved was having a large printout of the schedule.  They only had a small printout taped to a white board at first, and then we started writing in big letters what the next workshops were, but a 24x36 or so pre-printed one would be a good thing to have for next year.

I loved loved loved getting to know Master Todd and slave Elizabeth, getting great insight into a model for how a master/slave relationship can actually work, especially with Elizabeth being more of an equal partner in the relationship in many areas than the fantasy nature of such relationships would have you believe (and that much more real as a result).  I wish them the best if they choose to run for one of the regional M/s titles, as they said they may.

Almost my entire life has been on the West Coast, in view of mountains — real mountains, with craggy tops and snow, not the big rolling hills they call mountains back East (grin).  You learn to tell your location and directions by where they are, and to navigate by them.  From where I am sitting now, I can see the Cascades, four distances away (nearby Seattle, Mercer Island in Lake Washington, the Issaquah highlands beyond that, and then the mountains).  They are real, but they are a ways away — 60 to 90 minutes drive.  In Alaska, though, the mountains are IN YOUR FACE!  They are only two distances away, almost close enough to touch, looking 15 minutes drive away, maybe.  It was really amazing.

There’s an old joke that the Alaska state bird is the mosquito, and they were certainly out a Earthquake Park and at Beech Lake where the cabins were.  For whatever reason, though, I only came away with one scratchy bite.  I sure brushed enough of them away.

Northern Exposure was just days before summer solstice.  Alaska is the “Land of the Midnight Sun”, and while I knew what this meant academically, you just aren’t prepared for it until you experience it.  On Friday night, I got back to the cabin at 2:30 am, and it looked like the sun had just set.  (Fortunately, I didn’t have trouble sleeping with the odd light levels.)

I did not get to see the Northern Lights.  I don’t know if they are even visible from Anchorage at that time of year, but that’s something to look for on a future trip.  There was a cool art installation at the Anchorage airport emulating the Northern Lights on the ceiling of one of the corridors, though.  That rivaled “Flying Fish” (the stream of fish embedded in the floor of Concourse C at SeaTac airport) and “Desert Wildlife” (the half-sunk desert animals at the Las Vegas airport) for cool airport art.

I got several compliments on my speaking style and presentation for my workshops.  The biggest part of that, I’m sure, is that I’ve taught dance workshops for a decade.  But I think a chunk of the credit has to go to my father, who was a Methodist minister.  Even though I didn’t like having to sit through sermons (and often read a book in the back pew instead of paying attention), a lot of how he did what he did must have rubbed off.

I also got kudos from people for doing my presentations from a gay viewpoint.  While I did go through them and make sure that pronouns and focus weren’t completely male oriented, I didn’t try to “straighten” things up any more than I had to, presenting things as “This is the way I do it or I think it should go” and trusting that those attending the workshops were adults, able to adapt what I was presenting into their own reference frame.  (This was especially true with the Buttsex & Fisting workshop, where a couple times I had to come back around to the fact that I don’t know the details of female anatomy, so I could only generalize about things like vaginal fisting.)

At one point during the weekend, I thought “Wow, this sort of event would be great aimed just at gay guys — workshops on all sort of subjects and play parties at night.”  A few minutes later, I thought “That would never work.”  What I meant by that is that on multiple levels, gay leathermen wouldn’t be interested.  First, there’s simply the matter of number of attendees — take a leather bar with 100 guys in it, and frankly only 20% (if that) are actually players of a sufficient level to be interested in the concept, and only half of those might attend any way; the rest of your leather bar patrons are interested in leather as a fashion accessory or leathersex as a condiment rather than the main dish (and that’s fine!).  Second, gay leathermen like to think we already know everything, or at least that we can figure out whatever we need to know — we don’t want a 90-minute workshop on wax play, covering beginning steps, safety, more advanced topics, and some demo; we want 5 minutes of basics, 5 minutes of safety, 5 minutes of next stages, and then 75 minutes of hands-on demo/guided play, with the belief that we can figure out what things to try or avoid.  (We’re rebels, you know!)  Third, half of the workshops (some of mine included) were less about play and more about making relationships work and managing your leather lifestyle and such; gay leathermen again generally are not interested in that stuff (at least on the surface, and there are exceptions) — we want the sex, damn it!

If they invite me back again next year, will I go?  I would sure like to — do more exploring of the geography, and I have several other workshops I could do which would go over better for that crowd, now that I know them better.  But I would also heartily recommend that other gay leathermen (and women) apply to be presenters — to get the experience of both the weekend and of Alaska, and to bring their own spin on things to the event — and if it were a choice between me and someone else with good stuff to present, I would definitely tell Northern Exposure to go for the other gay leather presenter, to “expose” themselves further!

See pics from the trip.

Seattle Pride • June 23–24

After two weekends away — Palm Springs for FistFest and Anchorage for Northern Exposure 3.0 (URL to come) — it was good to not be away from home for a weekend.  But that didn’t mean I had a free weekend.  This was Seattle Pride.

Northwest Leatherboy Dan was up from Eugene.  Last time, he stayed with me, but this time he decided to get a hotel, to give me some “recover from being gone so much” space.  He didn’t have to do this, but I understand the choice: I usually prefer to ensure I have my own space during a potential “play” weekend, rather than be dependent on someone else (and rather than occupying them, forcing them to tend to me rather than their own preferences).  I’ve always been more of a solo traveller, self-sufficient and wanting to make my own path.

Leather Community Picnic

The weather report for the weekend originally looked less than fabulous, and Saturday sure held to that.

Generic Leather Productions of Washington held their 6th annual Leather Community Picnic in Cal Anderson Park.  This year, they (we, since I was involved in the planning, too) moved it from the far corner of the park to a more central location, to increase the visibility.  We arranged with Local Dogs (a hot dog cart owned by one the GLPW members) to supply dogs and drinks as a fundraiser, which required some permitting and extra costs.  A poster was designed, printed, and distributed around the city.  Events were posted to Facebook, Fetlife, and so forth.  All the sorts of things which should have made the picnic a good success.

But it rained.  And not just Seattle sprinkles.  It fucking rained.

Realizing that we would likely get at least sprinkles, I dug around at the last minute and found my REI screen house.  Boy, were we glad I brought that, so there was someplace handy for people to get out of the rain a bit (although with mesh sides, it was hardly a real rain shelter, but it helped a lot).

A decent number of leatherfolk braved the rain, including most of our local titleholders (and some of the Oregon ones) and two of the SEA-PAH pup/handler pairs, who were planning to have a pup walk.  But after a bit over two hours, we called it a day and broke everything down and headed our separate ways.

The rain stopped pretty much as soon as we left, although we were all wet and the ground was soaked, so we wouldn’t have wanted to hang around anyway.

Contest Prep

One of the main reasons Dan came up was so that we could plot out the Demo and Fantasy pieces for the International Contest next month.

We had discussed a couple ideas for the Demo.  At one point, I wanted to do a kink swing dance demo with Ruin, but the demo needs to be Sir/boy.  Dan and I also discussed a depersonalization demo based on a workshop at Northern Exposure, but we came back around to something we’ve done before that we both liked and we think can carry some more pleasant weight than depersonalization.

We also fleshed out the Fantasy, based off an idea I came up with during the burlesque show at IMsL in March.  I can’t provide any details here, but it will hopefully come off fun, with some good title team interactions (not just Sir/boy stuff but incorporating Ruin as well), and some edgeplay stuff (our regional theme this year) which is not the old gun/knife/rape stuff.  I typed it up that evening and sent it off to Ruin, and she loved it.

I now have to build some set/props for it (I’m hoping just a couple hours work) and figure out what to do with music.

Saturday Night

I have long disliked Saturday night bar stuff on big event weekends.  If you aren’t out early (and I am never able to manage that easily), then there are long lines and inflated cover charges (supply and demand!) everywhere and you can’t change locations without more lines and more cover charges.  I recall at least once in the Bay Area (for Pride or Folsom, I don’t recall which), driving 30 minutes into the City, finding 30+ minute lines out the door on every place I might want to go, and driving home instead.

This year, I rode to the Cuff, saw about 100 in line, then rode around the block and over to Diesel.  There, I was able to walk right in.  It was packed in there, but at least I could get in, get to the bar, and find some people I knew.  I got to talk for a bit to International LeatherSIR 2010 Hugh Russell (one of my judges for the International contest), who was out with his partner (I think; I’ve never met his other half before that I recall, but this wasn’t one of Hugh’s boys); Hugh told me he has been reading this blog and is pulling together questions for my interview.  (Mmm, hope the blog won’t have backfired on me!  No, must remain confident that this better allows me to control the interview, both by ensuring I have better thought through various issues and by helping to feed what I want to talk about to judges who do read some of the blog.)

I gave a good hard cruise to a cute shorter bearded guy named Greg, and it paid off enough to get me a night of make-out and cuddle/sleep at his place, although not much more than that.  He expressed that he’s recently had some bad drama in his life, and I think that may have led to a reluctance to go further (nor to go back to my place).  I’m hoping to get the chance to know (and play with) him some more in the near future.  We shall see.

Pride Parade

A few years ago — perhaps coincident with moving the Parade from Broadway to 4th Avenue — the leather community became irritated at potential random placing of our group in the parade, where if we were in the back half of the parade, we could guarantee having a low turnout.

Other groups around the country have also had the same issue.  Some have tried raising a stink and giving an ultimatum of “Give us better placement or we won’t attend” (to which I hope the local Pride committee replied “Fine.  One less group we have to wrangle, more room for others”).  The Seattle community took a different tack and would gather funds from various groups who would be marching under the banner to provide a “bribe” to the committee in order to get better placement.  This year or last, though, we have formalized this and changed from a “bribe” to a formal community sponsor, ensuring us a spot along with the other sponsors in the first third or so of the parade.  (This makes me at least much more comfortable with the process.  Words have meaning, and “sponsor” carries a much more positive, legitimizing weight than “bribe”, even if the net effect is the same.)

In order to further entice leather participation, Seattle Men in Leather advertised that they would be providing some snacks and coffee and encouraging light “street play”, to turn the pre-parade wait into a sort of Sunday Leather Social.  I didn’t get to the staging location until 10:45 or so, so I don’t know how well this actually worked, but turnout was some of the best I have seen, between Seattle Men in Leather, the Center for Sex Positive Culture, a truck of SEA-PAH pups, Seattle Girls of Leather, GLPW, Leather Reign, and all of our Northwest titleholders except Mr. Oregon State Leather.

With the disco music from one of the nearby contingents, Ruin and I did some West Coast Swing dancing on the street.

The weather report had only promised sun through the morning, changing to a 30% chance of rain by early afternoon.  But the weather report was wrong, and the entire day turned out to be sunny and warm enough (not hot, but suitable for going shirtless during the parade).

For the length of the parade, I was twirling my flogger, including using it some on Dan and Ruin and Ms. Oregon State Leather Ms. Tracey (and a handful of bystanders), as well as loaning it to Tracey to use on Dan.  I was very nervous of my right wrist, which has been problematic for months (and flogging sessions in Anchorage the previous weekend didn’t help), so I swung mostly from the elbow and shoulder or with my left and I seem to have escaped most aggravation.

We gathered most of the titleholders after the parade for some pics, although Seattle Leather Daddy Ryan and Seattle Daddy’s Boy Damien had to head up to the Cuff immediately.  I’ve been generally pleased with the pics of me from the parade, both the posed ones and the candid shots, because indeed, I didn’t look fat to myself in the pics.  I has been a few years since I’ve been willing to be photographed shirtless and not cringed at the pics.

Click here for my Flickr photostream of the event, with more pics.

With SEA-PAH Pup Gadget on the street and the Seattle Pups & Handlers truck behind us.	Regional Titleholders Northwest LeatherSIR Jim, Ms. Oregon State Leather Ms. Tracey, Washington State Mr. Leather Colby, Washington State Ms. Leather Nyx, and Northwest Leatherboy Dan.  Photo courtesy of the Seattle Gay News.
Northwest Title Team Northwest Community Bootblack Ruin, Northwest LeatherSIR Jim, and Northwest Leatherboy Dan.	Street Dancing with Ruin Tah-dah!  Big finish!
Regional Titleholders Washington State Mr. Leather Colby, Washington State Ms. Leather Nyx, International Mr. Bootblack/Oregon State Bootblack Nick, Ms. Oregon State Leather Ms. Tracey, Northwest Community Bootblack Ruin, Northwest LeatherSIR Jim, and Northwest Leatherboy Dan (kneeling).  Photo by Mike Graves.

PrideFest

Several years ago, after losing a lot of money on the weekend, Seattle Out & Proud cut loose the afternoon festival and concentrated just on the parade.  A local community organizer picked it up and has managed to turn PrideFest at the Seattle Center into a great event.  (Especially when it is sunny!)  Two stages of entertainment, shopping and community group booths, food booths, and dancing in the International Fountain are hallmarks.

Rain Country Dance Association, our local GLBTQ country-western dance club (which I’m one of the founders of) again this year had an info table inside Fisher Pavilion.  These are low-cost tables for non-profit community groups, sports teams, etc., and there is a beer garden half in/half out of the pavilion which keeps people flowing in the area: a great option for us.

I was scheduled to staff things at 4 pm, so I decided to ride home, change attire and drop off the title sash.  Going home was great.  Coming back should have taken 20 minutes and took 50, as I took the freeway, bypassed the usual exit because it was stuffed with traffic backed up from the parade and festival, and then rode pretty much all over Eastlake, Denny Triangle, and downtown trying to get around things and back to the festival.  (Would have been another 15 minutes in a car, I’m sure.)

Phil and I staffed the table, which have giveaway beads and candy, plus info sheets about country-western dancing, postcards and a banner for next year’s hoedown, and a computer slideshow of dance pics.  At about 5:15, the number of people walking around was dropping, so we consolidated to a half table, and a bit after 5:30, Pete came back and we packed things up and headed them back to his car.

Getting home, I took a short nap and then thought about going out for some evening partying, but decided against it.  The best place for that would be the Cuff, at the end of their street party, but they charge a hefty cover all day, even after the entertainment is done and crowds are thinning.  I don’t like to pay more to get in than I’m going to pay for the drinks I’ll be consuming while there, and I don’t dance to thump-thump music, so it wouldn’t be worth it to me.

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Updated on August 2, 2012:

Added picnic poster.

LURE (Portland, OR) • October 22–23, 2011

On Tuesday, I realized that I didn’t have anything scheduled for this weekend other than the Northwest Bears Brunch on Sunday, but this was the 4th Saturday and thus the LURE leather event in Portland.  As Northwest LeatherSIR, I need to cover the entire region as much as I can — not just Seattle, but all of Washington, plus Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and even Alaska.

Portland is the easy and obvious one of those.  There’s relatively little in terms of leather going on in the rest of the region, unfortunately.  Lucky Dog Tavern in Boise had a couple events in the past, and there are a couple fisting parties in Moses Lake and Richland, and Dylan got up to Alaska last year.  So needless to say, when I’ve got an available weekend and there’s an out-of-town leather event, I’m going to try to be there.

(British Columbia isn’t in my ILSb region — it’s part of Western Canada — but it’s as close as Portland, so I’ll get to events up there, as well.  Give them some leather love.  Or glove.  Whichever.)

So a quick Hotwire deal on Wednesday and I had a cheap enough (yet nice) hotel at the Courtyard at Lloyd Center.  I then wrangled up Northwest Leatherboy Danny to go down with me.  Ms. Oregon Leather Ms. Tracey was also having a Fetish Makeovers workshop that afternoon at the new location for Fantasy For Adults Only, so we tried to leave early enough to get to that.

Well, tried.  I slept a little later than planned, and so did Danny.  When we got to Olympia, I realized “Crap!  I forgot my boots!”  (Oh, the shame!)  Fortunately, the Centerville Western Store is at the outlets in Centralia, so we stopped for the fastest boot shopping in the West: 15 minutes in and out and I had a new pair of harness boots, plus some boot socks, bandanas for myself and Danny, and boot laces for Danny.  But that was still a delay, as was the unfortunate pull-over by a cop right after we got back on the road.

I forgot that the speed limit plunges at Centralia, and he was just waiting for someone.  Remember that old line from Driver’s Ed about it being safer to not travel in “wolf packs” of cars?  I now wonder about that, because he basically said he picked me off because I was not in a group of other cars — “I was keeping pace with traffic” apparently didn’t apply to the traffic that was a couple hundred yards ahead of me, traveling the same speed.  But what can you do?  I was legitimately over the speed limit; you takes your lumps (and you pays your tickets).  But it added another 10 minutes to us running late.  Sigh.

We rolled into Portland at 4 pm — the workshop was supposed to start at 3 pm — but we went to Fantasy anyway.  Ms. Tracey was still there, along with her partner (and former Ms. Oregon Leather) Lady Alycyn, plus store manager Chanelle and one of the local leathergirls (whose name I missed).  The gist of the workshop was having the opportunity to try on any of the outfits and gear in the store.  We quickly put Danny in an Asylum straight jacket, plus a gas mask.  Checking out other stuff they had there, I ended up buying a funky Ruff Doggie Styles flogger with braided tails with leather leaves braided into them and leather rosebuds on the ends — pretty, yet still functional, and likely to be a big hit (ahem) for Spanksgiving next month.  (The rosebuds actually give some weight and unexpected thud to it.)  I also picked up a hand-held Foreplay Ice Frost massager — it has a silicone sleeve you fill and freeze, then add a vibrating bullet to make for an ice toy which doesn’t get everything wet as it melts.  We’ll see how well it actually works.

We then went out to Aparaphilia, the recently opened leather store out on 82nd and Fremont (which the Maps app on the iPhone can’t find by name, just be address).  They carry about 75% men’s leather gear, 25% women’s, plus a selection of cock rings, sounds, cuffs, and so on.  As usual when I go to a leather wear store these days, there wasn’t anything I needed (I’ve got a full leather and rubber wardrobe) — nor after buying boots and a flogger already that day, would I have wanted to buy anything more!

We checked into the hotel and I had a short nap.  We then caught the light rail to the Pearl District and at at the Republic Cafe, a Chinese restaurant that Danny liked when he lived in Portland.  After a shower and clothes change, we headed off to the Eagle Portland for the LURE (“Leather, Uniform, Rubber, Etc.”, named for the former leather bar in New York) event.

This month was themed for Puppy Play, and there were a handful of leather pups there.  The Border Riders also had their monthly meeting in Portland, so they all showed up as well, and the bar was packed.

Shout out hellos to Mr. Oregon Leather Tarsus, Oregon Boot Black Nick, leather community jeweler John Poncé (you’ve seen him at big leather events, I’m sure), Thom Butts of Blackout Leather Productions (and a former Northwest LeatherSIR, Andy Mangels, Oregon Cub Dalin, former Oregon Bear Don James, and so on.  Hunky Lance and George were visiting from Denver, and Don was up from Los Angeles, plus furry local Nick and who knows who else that I met and am not remembering right now.  Special thanks to Don and Hal for good times (and for getting my lost leather cap back to me!).

It turned out that the Northwest Bears board meeting was supposed to be after the Sunday Brunch, so I had a bunch of texts back and forth on Saturday evening and Sunday morning with board president Pete.  I had forgotten the discussion about moving the board meeting, and apparently others did as well, since there wasn’t a quorum.  Although I’m not on the board per se, as an outgoing titleholder for the club and part of the website and Spring Thaw committees, I had needed to get some info to Pete.

The trip back was uneventful.  For several miles north of Kalama, a pickup track with a mass of compacted oak leaves in the bed was having the wind pry the leaves out as he drove, and they were bouncing on the road, dancing along with the cars.  It was a nifty, uplifting scene.

Before getting Danny to come along, I had hoped to ride the scooter down, but it rained most of our trip down, so I wasn’t too bummed about driving.  The trip back, though, was broken clouds and nice enough that I pined for the chance to ride.  In two weeks, I’ll be going up to Vancouver for the Hard 3 leather dance/dungeon party, so I’m crossing my fingers that the weather will be dry enough to do that trip, since it’s the very last distance trip I think I could hope for.