LURE (Portland) • April 28–29

I’ve increasingly been dreading this spring and summer, as I’ve looked ahead at my schedule for the year and seen almost every weekend booked.  In fact, from the end of March to early September, I will be attending/will have attended three leather contests, two rubber events, two country-western dance events, one bear event, five fisting parties, two Pride celebrations, two other leather weekends, and my international contest.  (And I’m not just attending these things: I’m judging one of those contests, presenting at one of the leather weekends, competing at one of the country-western dance weekends, host for three of the fisting parties, and on the organizing committee for four of the weekend events.)  Add in the weekend before the international contest for a contest walkthrough and my free Saturdays across 5-1/2 months become… April 28, May 12, and June 2.

So when Northwest Leatherboy Dan asked me to come down to Portland for the April LURE, I naturally said “Sure”.

(I’m writing this on May 27, which means I’m now down to one free Saturday until the end of summer.  Ugh.)

There…

While the ride up to Vancouver three weeks before had been a little too chilly, a few more weeks of spring made it a dandy ride down.  I left about 1 pm, rode I-5 all the way down, and got to the hotel (Courtyard by Marriott on Wasco; one of our former Northwest Leatherboy titleholders works there) which Dan had arranged in good time.  After a short nap, we went out to a nearby restaurant for dinner, came back and changed to go out to the Portland Eagle. LURE (Leather Uniform Rubber Etc.) is the Eagle’s 4th Friday leather event, typically hosted by the current Mr. Oregon State Leather (Tarsus, in this case).  They usually have themes attached, and this was the annual Battle of the Village People night, which included a Village People costume contest.  Andy Mangels started this Village People event during his title year, as I recall.

What to wear for the contest?  Hmm.  Ah, of course: Western attire as the cowboy — brown cowboy boots, brown chaps, brown vest, bandana around the neck, and brown cowboy hat.  The brown vest is actually my Mr. Northwest Cub vest from last year, which meant I didn’t wear my current title vest out to the event, although I did wear it as motorcycle colors on the trip down.

(Hmm, as I write this, International Mr. Leather has probably just finished.  Looks like Washington State Mr. Leather was in the top 20, and Oregon State Bootblack Nick won the International Mr. Bootblack competition.  You go, Nick!  I wasn’t at IML because the International Association of Gay/Lesbian Country Western Dance Clubs convention was in New Orleans this weekend.  More on that in a future post.) 

I ended up winning the costume contest, and the prize was a small original oil painting by Tarsus, of a harnessed leatherman.  A very nice prize, and just the right size to fit in the bike trunk. 

After the contest, I connected with a couple guys from Beaverton (a Portland suburb) for a play session, getting back to the hotel late.

And Back Again

Dan and I went out to breakfast at The Roxy Diner in the morning, before I left for home.  We had the chance to talk about ideas for the contest fantasy and demo, although I had bad info about the demo and have since had to start replanning it.  Sigh. 

On the trip north, I decided to take the (longer) scenic route: first out to the town of St. Helens and across the Columbia at Longview, and later leaving I-5 north of Centralia and going around the east side of Olympia, Joint Base Lewis/McChord, and Tacoma, coming up through Spanaway and up 167 to the south end of Seattle.  I ended up with absolutely killer gas mileage doing this — 58 or so going down, but over 74 mpg coming back!
Unfortunately, “killer” has its downside, I guess.  I was either too tired from the night before or spent too long on the bike in not quite warm enough weather, and when I got home, I had a major case of the chills.  I turned up the heat in the house and literally sat on the heater vent for 15 minutes. 

Of course I knew what this meant: my bronchitis was going to come back.  (Or “bronchitis”, anyway.  One doctor didn’t think it was actually that, but some other recurring bacterial lung infection.  Close enough.)  I used to get this one to four times a year since the early 1990s, usually when I got stupid: tired and overheated and dealt with weather too cool for what I was wearing — usually brought on in spring or fall by leaving the dance bar in a heavy sweat, or sleeping with the window open and having a temperature drop over night. 

Sure enough, in the next few days, I started to cough and hack up phlegm and all the stuff you don’t want to read about here.  After two rounds of my homemade antibiotics (onion-infused honey, nasty stuff but it works as well as a Z-Pak), it seems to have finally cleared in the last few days.  Wasn’t as hard of a cough as I’ve had before — only felt like being hit in the chest by a plastic baseball bat, not a wooden one — but a bummer because this was my first bout of it in maybe two years.  I was beginning to think maybe I had cleared it from my system.  Apparently not, although I’ll point to the scooter as likely reducing it in general by improving my posture and exposing me better to outdoor temperatures year round.

Safewords

I don’t play with safewords.

Let me rephrase that: I don’t generally play with safewords.  I have used them in the past, as both top and bottom, but I can probably count those instances on one hand over the past 20 years.

SSC vs. RACK

Safewords are a by-product of “Safe, Sane, and Consensual” (SSC), which was the guideline of the leather/BDSM community in the 1990s.  They show that what we are doing is Safe (see, “safe” is even part of the term!), Sane (we understand and respect limits), and Consensual (we negotiate scenes and agree on what will happen).

Today, people increasingly embrace “Risk-Aware Consensual Kink” (RACK) as a model.  The need to present Safe and Sane are not embedded in that phrase, and thus play without safewords may fit in more easily.

Let’s be clear, though: I am not bashing SSC in favor of RACK.  Both are valuable phrases for people to learn and understand.  They are not a one-or-the-other option; they can both be in effect at the same time.  SSC is externally focused, saying “BDSM play is not inherently a bad thing, so long as you are doing it with sense and reason,” while RACK is internally focused, saying “Some of the things we do may appear and even actually be risky and a bit crazy, but we know this and deal with those issue appropriately.”  It is difficult to convince someone familiar with SCC that fisting to the elbow or flogging with blackberry vines or skewering the testicles with electrified needles are safe and sane activities, but they are certainly kinky and can be done risk-aware and risk-mitigated.

Why I Don’t Use Safewords

I find that there are three main purposes for safewords:

1. Safewords are used in a public context (even required in some cases), to make sure that the PC police are convinced that we are doing BDSM play the right way.
   
   That is, we use safewords not so ensure that our scene is safe, but to ensure that other believe that it is.  Safewords in this context only really apply in public dungeon spaces.  Public dungeon play is a great thing.  But there are relatively few dungeon spaces which are both welcoming and conducive to gay male leather play, and rules requiring safewords are typically seen only in pansexual spaces.  (Gay leathermen don’t really like rules forced on us, you know?)
    
2. Safewords are used with BDSM newbies (or others) where there is a need to show them that we are competent, honest players.
   
   This is the one place where I have used safewords in the past, both as a bottom and a top, to establish a base level of competency and trust.  Recently, I offered to establish them for a play scene with a newbie, but it wasn’t expressed as needed, so we didn’t use them.
    
3. Safewords are used when we can’t trust that “No” and “Stop” will be intended as such and will be heeded.
   
   There are two places this happens.  First is where the bottom doesn’t know his limits (or the top doesn’t believe that he does), so words other than the automatic ones are  set so that the bottom has to process a little deeper than “No” and “Stop”, has to consider a little more whether his limits have actually been reached.

The other is “mind fuck” play, where it isn’t that the bottom doesn’t know his limits but that the top (and maybe the bottom as well) wants to push past those, and they depend on safewords to help force the bottom away from calling it quits too early.

You’ll note the inherent problem with safewords: they are meant to establish trust and competency, but they don’t ensure it.  If you need to convince a play partner that you are competent, does mouthing sound bites about “yellow and red” do that?  If you need to convince watching third parties that you are competent, are you playing or are you performing?  If you don’t trust that “No means no” (or you don’t allow that meaning), why do you trust that “Red” (or god help us, that “Chocolate cream pie”) will mean “No”.

So to summarize, I don’t use safewords because:

• I don’t play in spaces where there are required to be allowed to play
• I rarely play with guys who need that I prove that competency level
• I don’t play with guys/in situations where “No” and “Stop” don’t mean “No” and “Stop”

What I Use Instead

Obviously (I hope), I don’t ignore all communication from my play partner about his state and needs.  I just don’t use formal, negotiated safeword language.  I use body language and actual language to determine the state of my play partner, and I react according to what that tells me.

Since fisting is a big passion of mine — as top and bottom — I know that in the heat of a scene, especially when the bottom has gone into a sub headspace (or beyond; I go into animal headspaces — dog, pig, bear, werewolf, trout), the bottom may not be able to form coherent words.  Even “No” and “Wait” and “Stop” and “Pause” and “Ouch” may not be possible; “chocolate cream pie” is surely out the window.  When words cannot be formed, and when the bottom is literally thrashing in the sling, growling and barking, clawing at the air (is it getting hot in here or is it just me?), the top has got to depend the ability to “read” what the bottom needs well beyond negotiated words and signals.

(This isn’t limited to fisting in a sling.  I’ve seen it and done it with fucking, nipple play, CBT, flogging… anything where the bottom’s headspace goes sub-verbal.)

Further, of course, is that the “red” safeword is typically meant as “stop the activity now, we are done,” but that doesn’t typically apply with fisting.  With fisting “Stop” typically means “Too much intensity!  We need a serious pause to let me come down from my endorphin high an evaluate, but we’re probably not actually done here.”  (I have only once had to stop a scene outright in the middle.  Once you start seeing scaled, tentacled elder gods from beyond space looking back at you with intelligence and hunger, you’d want to stop it, too.  Bad bad juju.)

Other Thoughts

There’s only one safeword that really works: “lawsuit”.

I host play parties 4-5 times a year, and I don’t use Dungeon Monitors for them, either.  As with safewords, DMs are a facet of SCC, useful for either proving we run a “proper” play party, or where the attendees cannot trust one another’s competency and need a chain of command to deal with potential issues.  My parties have a sufficiently vetted, experienced, empowered set of players involved that this has not been an issue.

Rubbout 2012 • April 6–8

This year was Rubbout 21 in Vancouver, BC.  Started by Bill Houghton two decades and some ago, it was handed off to Mitch Kenyon several years ago, who built it from a small regional event (mostly Vancouver, some Seattle, a few from beyond) to something attracting a broader segment.  Mitch turned it over to a committee (including Mr. Vancouver Leather Doug Mitchell and Mr. West Coast Rubber Reid Dagleish), who have tried to build things a level higher, to attract outside of the rubber “core” with some added events, with a mix of success.

This was my 13th trip to Rubbout over the years, having only missed one year since I started attending.  I’ve attended more years than anyone except Bill Houghton, in fact.  Once again, I room shared with Cliff, who this year brought along his pup, Spike (Marty).

This year’s posters for the event and the Slick dance were by comics artist Stephen Sadowski (JSA, John Carter of Mars) and were fantastic.

Riding Up

My car is currently out of commission.  Apparently rats have chewed through the coolant systems, so it wants to overheat quickly, and repairing that requires taking out a chunk of the engine (thanks, Land Rover!), to the tune of $1500 or more.  I ride my maxiscooter most of time anyway (heck, all of the time now!), so this really only becomes an issue for out of town trips.

For Northwest Sash Bash last month, I rented a car, since there were four of us going down.  This year, I decided to ride up.  The scooter will comfortably zip along above 70 mph (even up to 85), so there’s no issue with highway speeds.  (And I did four multi-hour trips like this last year on it, and have ridden to Vancouver on my previous scooter a couple times, so the trip itself is old hat.)

I’ve gotten in the habit of wearing my title vest on these long bike trips as biker colors (which makes sense, when you think about the origins of title vest patches).  I started it last summer with a trip to Richland where I wore my Mr. Northwest Cub vest that way, and continued the tradition on this trip, both to Vancouver and back.

The only complication this year was weather, or maybe I should say the time of year.  While the country as a whole had a warmer than average March, Washington was actually below average for the month.  (In fact, we were the only one of the lower 48 state to be below average in March.)  Fortunately, the weather was looking at least clear, so I did the ride.  About the time I got to Stanwood (an hour north), it was getting pretty chilly, so I stopped for Starbucks in Burlington to warm up.  From there north, temps raised a bit and all was fine… until the border.

First off, I violated my rule of not crossing at Peace Arch.  I was lulled into a false sense of security by indications that the wait was only 5 minutes.  Which was true, until they pulled me over to Customs.

Apparently this was my once-a-decade border stop.  (I was stopped in 1992 or 1993, going to Vancouver from my parents’ home in Bellingham, and in about 2002, coming back from Rubbout in Vancouver.)  They made me give them my keys and passport and phone, and wanted to know if I had any firearms, any pot, if I had been arrested, if I had been in the back of a police car, if I had ever been fingerprinted (yes, when I was a Boy Scout), and pretty much just made me sit on my butt for 30 minutes or more.  So far as I can tell, they didn’t search the bike.  One of the customs agents implied that my name might have matched close to someone else, but hell, for all I know they were stopping everyone on bikes, or it was a tax-related thing, or as I said, maybe they just do this to you once a decade.  (It will be interesting to see what I run into when I go up for Pride in August.)

Once I got into Vancouver on the city streets, I was waiting at a light and heard a honk behind me.  WTF?  Cliff and Marty were right behind me!  (Which was odd because they left Stanwood a bit before I left Seattle, and then I got stopped at the border.  Turns out they hit several thrift stores on the way up.)

Friday Night

At most event weekend events, Friday night is the obligatory Meet & Greet, usually overlaid on an existing bar night as the only event of the day since you often only have a portion of your attendees present and the locals are dragging in after a workday.  That is what Rubbout has done for years, but this year, they amped it up with basically two events.

First was the standard Meet & Greet at the Junction Pub.  Second though, with sponsorship from Mr. S, Rubbout took over the entirety of the PumpJack Pub, closing it to the public after 9:00 pm.  (Well, sort of.  The PumpJack has a capacity of roughly 100 people, and that’s how many were registered for Rubbout.  For the first hour after 10:00, they would be letting in only package holders; after that, there would be a $10 cover for what small piece of the general public could fit in.  So close enough to a private party.)

About a month before the event, I got an invite from Doug to do a bondage demo during the Friday night event.  I ended up not being able to bring a bondage boy whom I’ve played with a few times up with me, so they found someone to be my stunt bottom.  Two someones, actually.  For the younger guy, I put him in a duct tape hood using the same method Karen Yew taught at Northwest Sash Bash, but I used three tape tubes — two red and one yellow — which then sliced open against the black duct tape to make a rubber pride flag hood.  I put the other guy in a neoprene hood.  I then tied them each into a rope harness — one red, one yellow (I do like my colors) — and then used red bungee cord loops to tie the harnesses to each other. So the boys got to have a hooded bondage tug of war.

This was the one piece of the weekend directly connected to the Northwest LeatherSIR title, there I wore my leather vest instead of rubber this, that, and the other.

Saturday

Saturday afternoon was a Puppy Play event and “Best in Show” contest, which was won by Pup Gadget from Seattle, one of the proponents of the new SEA-PAH (Pups and Handlers) group in Seattle.

Saturday night was the Slick event at Performance Works on Granville Island.  This was the controversial part of the weekend, and the biggest failure point.  In an effort to expand Rubbout beyond just the “we come to gear up and play” rubber guys, the Rubbout crew has tried to expand to have a Saturday dance, to broaden the exposure of rubber by getting the leather guys involved, and this year broadening even more to a general dance crowd.  Last year, they had a pretty good event at Wise Hall, but this jumped the scale up a level.

Unfortunately, the non-rubber crowd didn’t bite much and attendance was pretty low beyond the Rubbout registrants.  As well, there were some attempts at a show (following the “Invasion” theme of the weekend) which fell completely flat — they cleared everyone from the center of the floor and one point and… fog blew out from under the stage, but nothing else seemed to happen.  (Heck if I know what it was supposed to be.)

So what went wrong with the event?  Inadequate marketing?  Overreach into an arena/for a crowd that could care less?  Easter weekend?  Location people didn’t want to go to?  Competition from other local events?  I don’t know.  The only thing I can really say is that thumpa-thump dance events don’t appeal to me at all — I went to the event only because it was part of my weekend package, had a couple drinks, and left about 11 pm — but last year’s event was both more crowded and had greater variety in setup in the location and thus was “better” in multiple ways.  Maybe they can retreat back to that option.

Saturday night was the “official” after party at Steamworks.  According to the website, my Rubbout package was supposed to get me a 6 month membership and there were supposed to be discount cards handed out at Slick, but I never saw the cards and the guy at the front desk seemed completely ambivalent to the Rubbout wristband.  There didn’t seem to be many of the Rubbout guys there, and Steamworks in general is a more general audiences play space, not especially conducive to rubber guys.  While I got a little play in while there, it was only a couple short sessions and I eventually left rather unfulfilled

I don’t think Steamworks was a good fit for Rubbout.  In years past, the play party has been at M2M, which is more welcoming of and enjoyable for the kink guys.  (And walking distance from the host hotel.)  I would have gone to M2M if this hadn’t been a designated event for the weekend; if they use Steamworks again next year, I’ll go with my better judgement and not go to that venue.

Sunday

On Sunday, things returned to the regular Sunday brunch that Rubbout has used for… maybe forever.  The early ones had been at Doll & Penny’s (what is now PumpJack Pub), I think we had a couple at Fountainhead Pub, several at PumpJack Pub, and this year and last at Junction Pub.  In addition to Brunch, they had a raffle for which tickets had been sold all weekend.  I also bought copies of the Sadowski event poster, for eventual playroom art.

My only complaint is that the bartender couldn’t make a bloody mary to save his life.  Three cans of tomato juice and a shot of vodka does not qualify.  I had to ask for spice and olives (as the only veggies available).

The weather had continued to improve during the weekend, so the ride home was several degrees warmer than the ride up.  (Turned out to be a record high for Seattle that day, cresting 70 degrees.)  Best of all, no issues at the border this time.

Emerald City Hoedown 2012 • April 13-15Spring Thaw 2012 • April 20–22

The second and third weekends of April, I had non-leather weekend events which I was intimately involved in.  Although not title-related, they still show on my title event calendar, and one of the things that was prominent in my contest application was wanting to build bridge between leather and the country-western dance and bear communities.

The Hoedown

This was the 5th year for Rain Country Dance Association’s Emerald City Hoedown.  We’ve gone from an event with a bar dance night, a few dance workshops at two sites a few blocks apart, and a big dance at a local ethnic community hall, to our current one with three days of workshops, three dance nights, and dancers coming in from as far away as Hawaii, Texas, and New Jersey.  Next year will be even bigger (as much as three times as big!), as we will be hosting the 20th annual convention of the International Association of Gay/Lesbian Country Western Dance Clubs (an organization I have been heavily involved with for the past 18 years, and this upcoming convention is something I have been aiming at for most of that time).

I was co-chair of the event this year, and we figure that there was a good 400 hours of work involved from the six of us on the committee, when you add everything up over the past year.  In addition to organizational duties, I also ran all the pre-event registration, set up and managed the sound systems, provided music for many of the workshops, taught workshops on Two-Step, Shuffle, and Line Dance Styling (titled “You’re Not Doing That Gay Enough!”), did our Saturday night announcements, and ran the small dance competitions (a line dance contest and a “Pat & Chris” (random partner) Two-Step contest).

One thing that I have been able to bring to our hoedown from the leather side of things, and to the IAGLCWDC conventions as well, is boot care.  Bootblacking has exploded in the leather community in recent years, but it is still almost unknown on the country dance scene.  We have had bootblack at at least the last four of our events, and in fact many of the Northwest Community Bootblack titleholders (Kelley, Henry, Scout, Ruin) do at least some two-stepping, so it hasn’t been a hard sell to get them here.  This year, Ruin blacked for us on Friday night and on Saturday afternoon.

As well, Ruin is a former ballroom and Latin dance competitor, so I got her to teach a dance workshop in Foxtrot during the hoedown.  She is already asking about next year, and might do a forum (non-dancing workshop) on boot care for dancers, as well.

The Thaw

Spring Thaw is the Northwest Bears’ annual event, this being the 18th year and my second year on the committee.  (For a couple months, myself and Pete were the entire committee.)  Knowing how booked I was with the Emerald City Hoedown, I refrained from doing anything but the pre-event registration (where I could heavily leverage what I did with the hoedown) and the Friday and Saturday after hours (where I teamed up with current Mr. Northwest Cub Jeffrey; I was last year’s Mr. Northwest Cub).

(This has been one of the biggest challenges of my title year, and frankly, my leather life for the past few years: learning how to say no, or at least how to say “I can’t do that also”.  With broad skills comes broad responsibility to use them, but take on too much and something has to give — sometimes you fail to do something, and sometimes you half kill yourself trying.  Neither is good.)

Spring Thaw has a lot of good momentum from running for years, but it has been something of a strain to put it together the last couple years, and this one especially.  The club needs better engagement and support from the board and the membership early in the process to make things roll more easily.  Pete and I basically came to an ultimatum point a few months out, where we needed committee members and planning involvement or it wasn’t going to happen.  We got that, but we came to another point a couple months later where we tossed out the planned “theme” for the weekend because none of our events were going to make use of it.  (The only thing worse that not having a theme to build on is having a good one and not building on it.  Like Spring Thaw failed to do last year, with an Wizard of Oz tagline and zero Oz content.)

Since Pete was also on the committee for the hoedown, we have both had an up-close view of the difference between the two events in terms of pre-planning, budget, committee engagement, and so forth.  The Hoedown was down a bit in numbers from last year but we ironed out many previous problems and things ran pretty well.  Spring Thaw was similarly down a bit but had a lot more stress in the planning stages.

We’ll be having a post-mortems on both events in the next week.  It will be interesting to see how things fall out from those.

International Ms. Leather 2012 • March 29–April 1

I decided in February to probably go to International Ms. Leather this year in January, and firmed things up in late February.  Ms. Alaska Leather Sarha would be competing, and since Alaska is in my region and I’m going to be a presenter at Northern Exposure 3.0 in Anchorage in June, there was definite reason for me to attend.  (Alas, neither Washington State Ms. Leather Momma Kat nor Ms. Oregon State Leather Ms. Tracey decided to compete.)  And of course, it gets my name and title out there a bit more.

Ruin also decided to attend, with a view what an international-level bootblack competition looks like and with the thought of competing for International Ms. Bootblack in the future (if she doesn’t win International Community Bootblack, of course!) A significant number of other Seattle attendees were there as well, including three resident former IMsL titleholders (Spencer, Hobbit, and Lamalani); Candace from Seattle girls of Leather; Daddy Wendell, with his leather gear and books in the vendor mart; and a number of others I’m forgetting now.

This was hardly my first time at the leatherwomen’s rodeo, though.  I’ve attended International Ms. Leather before in San Diego and Omaha (yes, in Omaha!), Ms. World Leather in Dallas (twice), Ms. & Mr. World Leather in Philadelphia, and whichever of IMsL and MWL was in Las Vegas about six years ago.  As a male titleholder, a women’s leather event can be a very interesting thing to go to; with most of it focused counter to the guys, we get more of a chance to connect with each other (however few of us are there) than we do at other leather weekend events.

Worked All Day, Got It All Done

Heading to light rail to go to the airport on Thursday was miserable, with steady light rain.  I aimed to catch a nearby bus, but missed it by a minute or so.  Waited for the bus going the other direction, which would also get me where I was going, but it was listed as late, and after a few minutes, I trekked to the next major intersection… and missed that bus by a minute.  So I ended up walking all the way to light rail, nearly a mile with 1/3 of it uphill.  Not that I haven’t done this before, but my right wrist had been bothering me for a couple weeks (and still is, almost a month later; I think I strained/sprained it cutting laurel branches), which made dragging the heavy bag quite a challenge, since the most convenient hand and hand position was the one hand and position I could not use.

The company I work for has a San Francisco office, so I was able to go down on Thursday, work from there on Friday and Monday, and get work to pick up some of the hotel stay, meals, and transit as a result.  In addition, I room shared with Mr. San Diego Leather Kurt Wendelborg, so once I get reimbursed from work, the hotel itself won’t have cost me anything.

This did mean that I didn’t get to attend the workshops and such on Friday, unfortunately.  There were some nice ones on the schedule.  IMsL is an oddity among leather events that way, having a raft of workshops in addition to the contest.  On the other hand, that perhaps makes it more attractive to the leatherwomen, making the weekend more justifiable for them to travel to.  (You generally couldn’t do that at a gay men’s weekend.  You’d get 6 or 8 guys at the workshops, everyone else in the lobby at 11 am, drinking and cruising.)

The hotel used by IMsL was the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway at Van Ness and California.  It is the same one used by Sundance Stompede in October, so I’ve stayed there many times.  It was interesting to see the space laid out not with dance floor in mind.  (This is also the hotel where International LeatherSIR/Leatherboy and Community Bootblack will be in July, so Ruin and I got the chance to see it with contest needs in mind.)

Thursday

Thursday night was a burlesque show, a combination of strippers and stage fantasies.  I unfortunately came in right at the end of one where the gal did a striptease by removing shaving cream foam.  I did get to see the gal in the white dress doing a watermelon fantasy.  (Not as good as Lori Ellison’s IMsL fantasy, but it did spark a couple idea for me for stage fantasies for my International contest.)  (No, not a striptease with watermelons.  Sparked ideas that were way different from what she was doing.)

Friday

Friday night, they had the opening ceremonies and the stage part of the International Ms. Bootblack competition (which only had two contestants, alas).  Also included was the parade of colors for the the clubs represented at the event.  (I didn’t have anything for SML at hand to go on stage for it, though.)

They also did titleholder protocol by announcing our names from the stage and having us each stand and wave.  There were only maybe a half-dozen non-contestant titleholders present on Friday night, but this was a pretty ineffective way of recognizing the titleholders who were present, as people on the other side of the room at best knew where you were, but couldn’t see you.  Worse, though, this was the only recognition of visiting titleholders during the weekend.  There were probably three times as many present on Saturday night, including some regional and national titleholders, but no acknowledgement at all.  That was very strange, and kind of sad, frankly.  No idea if it was something that just slipped out of the schedule, or a lapse intended to keep an otherwise long contest a bit shorter — I doubt it was an intentional snub.

I got to chat with Joan Norry and Nina from Alameda Leather Corps.  I’ll be down in late June to judge their leather contest.  ACLC was my original club in the late 1990s.

I checked out the play space they had set up for the guys, which was a small room with a cross in one corner and a sling in the other.  I give them high marks for setting aside a space just for the guys, although I don’t know how much it was used.  One thing I would recommend is a tarp under the sling.  Fisting aside, lube and body fluids do have a tendency to splatter and drip when using a sling, and there was nothing under it but the meeting room carpet.

I went out to Kok Bar that night.  It was a decent enough crowd, but it sure got better when I got invited to join a couple guys (Sergio and José) off Manhunt for a fisting three-way at their place in the Castro.  That always perks up an evening.

Saturday

I slept late and then ate and cruised and hung out in the vendor market and silent auction area, bidding on a few items.  Late afternoon was the Titleholders Meet & Greet in the hospitality suite.  Among others, I got to meet Northern California LeatherSIR Ray aka Volt; for whatever reason, Northern California Leatherboy Seth wasn’t able to get to IMsL, although I chatted with him online a couple times during the weekend.

After a nap and dinner came the contest, with seven contestants – in addition to Sarha from Alaska, they were from as far away as North Carolina and Australia.  I had misread the schedule, expecting the contest to run 7-9 pm, but it didn’t start until 8, I think, and then ran well past the 2 hour listed time, finishing nearly at 11:30.  So I had to keep pushing out my play date for the evening from an initial 10:30 until after midnight.

After the contest, we were supposed to pick up our Silent Auction items.  That ended up as somewhere between very inconvenient and a clusterfuck.  The items had all been numbered, but some of the items had been moved between tabled for better display or whatever.  When it came time to close up the auction, each item was put in a bag and put in order by number.  So you went to the table where your item had been and opened each bag until you found your item, and then saw if you had actually won it.  Two of my items I found (a pair of Doc Martens and a package with Guy Baldwin’s Ties That Bind, some bondage clasps, and J Lube [odd combo, yes]), but the other two I did not (and I didn’t know the numbers), and I didn’t know if I had won them or someone else had and had already claimed them.

Once you found what of your items you could, you then left the items there and took the bid sheets up a floor and halfway across the hotel to registration so you could wait in line to pay for them there.  Then you went back down, cut past the lineup of people waiting to find their items, re-found your items, and turned in the paid bid sheet.  I’m sure it made sense to someone to have people make multiple trips up and down the stairs rather than having a pay station in the auction room, but it didn’t make sense to me.

I eventually got out of the hotel and back up to the Castro to play with Mak at his place.  We had a great time, and I’m looking forward to the next time he comes up here.  (He’s an old play buddy of a friend of mine who lives about a mile away, so there’s double incentive to get him up here.)  Wonder if I can get him to bring that fuck machine he’s got?

Sunday & Monday

Sunday was wind-down day for IMsL, including a brunch (with keynote speaker) which was an extra rather than included in the weekend price.  This initially seemed odd, but I know enough about how hotel event brunches work: they are darn expensive.  A sit down brunch is going to run $35-50 per person — that’s not just food costs (although they do make a lot of extra food “just in case”) but also room rental, setup, and staff, costs which are spread out over a lot more people and time in a restaurant.  So buy making this a paid extra, they are able to keep weekend package prices lower (and thus get more people to pay for them) and also keep the brunch more intimate and aimed at the people who really want to hear the speaker.  People who need to leave early or otherwise not partake of the brunch aren’t out the huge chunk of change it adds to the rest of the weekend.

I checked in with the Silent Auction, and sure enough, the other two items I had bid on had been won by me, but hadn’t been findable the night before.  With far fewer things remaining, I was able to pick up the other pair of low boots (from a company called “Drew”!) ($55) and a box of 750 condoms ($50).  Yes, that’s a lot of condoms, but I need to have them on hand for my play parties anyway, and this was about the same price as about 150 from Costco, so a net win.  I had to ship the box of them home, though, which added another $15 to the cost.

(Alas for the new boots, three weeks later I had an accident on the scooter, went down avoiding a car that started to lurch out a parking garage and into the lane right in front of me.  Minor bruises on me, trashed the toe part of the right boot.  Ruin has done a minor blacking job on them which helped, and I’ll get them to her soon for a more intense repair.)

On Saturday, I had had another offer for a play session — for a four-way, actually — which I had to turn down since I was already scheduled to play with Mak.  But we picked it up late afternoon Sunday instead.  Not exactly a four-way — the two of us and his other half and another guy playing in the same room — but I had a great, intense time.  Definitely someone to look up the next time I’m in San Francisco.

I left his place in the Castro just about dusk, caught a quesadilla for food and a beer at 440 Castro, then headed back to the hotel.  Couldn’t decide if I was still horny for more play, or just wanted to go to sl… zzzz.

Monday, I worked from the hotel for a couple hours in the morning, then checked out and headed to our San Francisco office, and from there to SFO at the end of the work day and home again.  Spencer and Candace turned out to be on my flight back, and Spencer’s boy was meeting them at the airport, so they gave me a ride home instead of having to deal with light rail and dragging my luggage nearly a mile from there to the house.

“Are You Losing Weight?”

Over the last few weeks, I have had lots of people ask me this question.  Twenty or more.  In some cases, these are people who haven’t seen me for months, but many see me at least once a month or so.

I last dealt with this subject about a year and a half ago, where I also observed the leftover-from-the-90s fear of that question’s implications.  Most people have been adding “You look great” these days.

Since that post, I have maybe lost another five pounds, down to about 190 lbs.  (From a height on maybe 225 lbs five years ago.)  That shouldn’t be enough to trigger these sorts of comments, though, especially all of a sudden.  Most likely, my face has become a bit more slender in the last 6 weeks and that’s what people are noticing — or else the stress of helping chaperone two consecutive weekend events to fruition during the most recent weeks of my title year has taken a toll.

Admittedly, during my title year, I am trying to reduce my weight some and generally look better leading up to the contest in July.  And at 190 lbs (I thought I was there last fall but needed to calibrate my scale by a few pounds), I’m down to where I was in probably 1998 (and I can still wear my original chaps from 1991), but I haven’t been actively dieting.

The basics of losing weight are simple: more calories out than in.  Eat less, eat better, be more active.  Beyond that, a huge part of it is in how you behave.  If you act like you are thinner, you are perceived as thinner.  Here are some ideas:

• Wear appropriate clothing.  If you are trying to squeeze into stuff that is too small, it shows.  Bulges in bad places can make you look fat, such as over the edge of chaps or around the straps of a harness.  In the reverse, wearing stuff that is too large can make you look small, even too thin (unhealthy).  Wear stuff that actually fits right.  Also, be aware of what looks good on you.  Is black (leather) slimming?  I don’t know, but white centered around the waist can really show off a tummy, as can shirts which are too short for your torso and ride up to show the tummy.
• Have good posture.  Stand up straight.  Don’t slouch.  Shoulders back and wide, tits up, head level.  This is true when sitting at the computer or watching TV as much as when standing.  When walking or dancing, imagine a string going from your head to the ceiling, stretching you up.  Feel tall and thin and you will project that way to others.
• Focus on your core.  This goes hand in hand with the posture, but your core — your abs, your solar plexus — is where most of your body movement comes from.  You use it to balance yourself, to sit up and stand up, to walk and run and dance.  Just by concentrating on it a little, keeping it consciously tighter, you add a little tension to the muscles throughout your body, and you pull in your gut.  You won’t get ripped abs from this, but you will project better and show less gut.  (I ride a maxiscooter, and I have found you also ride from the core, relying on it to keep you upright and to do most of the steering via body weight shifts.  So I get added core focus there every day without thinking about it.  Riding any wheeled vehicle, bicycle on up, will give the same benefit.)
• What is your relationship like?  While I’m single right now, which carries with it a certain incentive to slim down, being in a relationship can be either good or detrimental to weight reduction.  What one of you does will tend to reflect in what the other does.  If one member of the couple is active, the other is likely to enjoy similar activities.  On the other hand, if one is the sort who would rather stay at home and nest, the odds increase that both will, and the ability to keep weight down reduces.
• Have a positive view of yourself.  If you think of yourself as fat, you will project that to others.  If you think of yourself as slimming down, that’s what you will project.  You don’t have to go around telling people you are losing weight, you just need to make sure you know it, and they will.

But I’ll put in one other thing to actively do:

• Have hot, kinky sex.  Think about what it takes in terms of effort, muscle control, and energy expenditure to do stuff like staying balanced in near-suspension bondage, or throwing a few hundred strokes of the flogger, or getting fisted for a solid hour.  (And think how much you will enjoy that effort vs. pumping iron at the gym?  I’m a big fan of doing the exercise that you want to do!)

So if I haven’t actually lost more than a couple pounds recently but people are noticing anyway, it must be because of these other things.  I’m eating healthier, but also I’m avoiding clothes that don’t flatter me, I’m strengthening my core, I’m projecting a thinner (and more broad across the shoulders) body, I’m thinking good thoughts, and I’m not letting my relationships with others define how I treat my body.

And I’m having hot, sweaty, energetic sex every time I can.  Burn those calories off!

Northwest Sash Bash 2012 • March 2–4

The first weekend in March, Northwest Community Bootblack Ruin, Seattle Leather Daddy Ryan, and past Seattle Daddy’s Boy Jean drove down to Portland for Northwest Sash Bash.  This was the eighth year for the event, started in 2005 by Andy Mangels and Darklady during their year as Mr. and Ms. Oregon State Leather.  I have attended each year.

Northwest Sash Bash was created a a no-contest event weekend, aimed at getting leather titleholders from around the country to come to the Northwest and have a leather weekend where they have no duties, whether they can relax with their peers, and where they and the local community can actually interact.

For a few years, the event was traded back and forth between Portland and Seattle (to both share the wealth and to avoid burnout), but last year, Blackout Leather Productions took it back for the long term.

Before the Bash

Between being a current regional titleholder, having been to all the past Sash Bash weekends, and having been involved with organizing the event in years past, I did my best to wrangle the Seattle and Vancouver titleholders into coming.  Washington State Ms. Leather Miss Kat and Mr. West Coast Rubber Reid were out of town, Seattle Daddy’s Boy Damien had just returned from or was just about to leave on a trip, Seattle Grand Dad Jeff was unable to get away from work, and Northwest Leatherboy Danny had recently resigned from the title.  So it was Ruin, Ryan, myself, and Washington State Mr. Leather James able to attend, plus Oregon titleholders.  American Leatherwoman Trinity was listed as attending, but I did not meet her.

We had a lengthy back-and-forth in terms of room shares and hotel room, but that all got settled with Jean and Ruin being housed with Portland folks and Ryan and I sharing a hotel room near the airport.  I also rented a car to take Ruin, Ryan, and Jean down (James come down by himself), because my own is in need of cooling system repairs.

Friday: Herding Cats

Jean met me at light rail and we went down to the airport to pick up the car, then headed downtown where Ruin was meeting us after catching the bus.  I was also picking up the title sash from Gene to transport to our new Northwest Leatherboy, Dan.  Then we headed to the Cuff Complex and Doghouse Leathers , where I had to drop CDs off for Keith to use at Cuff Country that weekend and to pick up Ryan and Dan’s title vest.  And then, because you always forget something, we had to go back to my house (which was south, at least) to pick up stuff for the fantasy on Saturday night.

After that, it was simply a miserable slog until we were through Tacoma.  I had targeted picking Ryan up at 3 pm to be in Portland at 6 pm.  It was about 3:45 by the time we left my house, and then rain an traffic took us an hour longer than usual to get south of Tacoma; we should have been there about 4 and it was after 5 instead.  And thus the goal of getting to the Leather and Cigar Social at the Eagle Portland shifted from 7:30 to closing in on 9:00.  Ruin didn’t get to where she was staying until after the social, when Oregon Bootblack Nick gave her a ride (since he lived nearby).

Saturday: Your Mouth Would Look Good with Duct Tape Covering It

Saturday morning, Ryan and I picked up Ruin and met Dan at The Roxy for brunch.  Because I was coming from the far side of town, it took quite a while to get there and Dan ended up waiting and waiting and waiting.  Sorry boy!

After that, we went to Embers Avenue where Karen Yew did two workshops: one on basic rope bondage and one on duct tape fist mitts and hoods.  The first one was okay — a little new stuff for me, but not much — but I really liked the second one.  I hope to make use of the technique at a play party this coming weekend, and again two weeks after that at Rubbout.

Unfortunately, the workshops were pretty low attendance, just the four of us and four others for the first one, and only four total for the second one.  I’ve seen this happen with workshops and demos (and vendor markets) attached to bigger events before: all the advertising goes out with “Hey, there’s this big event happening (and by the way, there will be a workshop or two)”, leaving people to catch that from the ad and go to the website to find out more.  Really, there’s a need for multi-pronged advertising: “Hey, there’s this big event happening (and by the way, there will be a workshop or two)” and “We’ve got a couple great workshops (tied in with this big event)”.  You have a much better chance of reaching the right people that way, which increases your event attendance, increases your even income, and give you the chance to convert people from attending pieces of the event to the entire thing (or to attending next year).

After the workshops, Oregon State Ms. Leather Miss Tracey took about eight of us on a walk down to the Portland Saturday Market, a weekly outdoor market of vending booths.  Dan and I bought catnip toys for our cats, Ruin and I caught our dinners there, and a bunch of us bought fancy cupcakes to eat later.  On the way back to Embers, we walked past Voodoo Doughnuts, only to find a line out the door and down the block.

Ryan was already back at the hotel when I got there (he and James had gone in search of military surplus stuff after the first workshop).  A quick shower and change and we back on the road.  We stopped at a store midway back to Embers for coffee and Klondike Bars (because I was going to redo my stage fantasy from the contest as part of the evening’s show).  The rest of the jaunt to Embers should have taken maybe 15 minutes and took double that; due to something going on at the Rose Quarter and an accident on the freeway, traffic was a nightmare.  We planned to be there at 6:50, got there at 7:10.  Ugh.

The Black Show and Live Auction — referred to as an “erotica show” in years past — went ahead at a decent clip.  Attendance was lower than it has been, and the show was heavy on drag acts (which may be good, but aren’t stage fantasies and other hot stuff!); again, I think there’s advertising improvement focus that could be done.  The Klondike Bar fantasy went off well (and messy), and the addition of chocolate syrup pushed the edgy nature a level further.

(I haven’t yet posted the pics from the contest fantasy, have I?  Will solve that soon.)

Among the auction items was an original framed drawing by Oregon State Mr. Leather Tarsus.  Cliff had bought one of his pieces a couple years ago, and his figure work has improved since then.  Dan wasn’t especially happy that I bought it, because he was bidding on it, too.  Sorry again, boy!

After the show, Ryan, Ruin, and I went to the Sindicate space to check out the play party.  As expected, it was mostly women and pan (kinky het) play, not much to interest me.  So I left them there and headed to the hotel for a costume change, then came back to pick them up.  They had got in some bondage and flogging play while I was gone.

We dropped Ruin off at her hosts’ house and then Ryan and I headed to the Eagle for a bit.  We left there and went back to the hotel, and then I came back into town to check out Hawk’s PDX, the new sex club.  (Dan had won a couple passes in the raffle at the show and passed them to me.)  I’ve been to the Hawk’s Gym in Las Vegas, so I was interested in checking this out.  Low population that night (at least by when I got there) and more brightly lit than just about any sex club I’ve been to, but I did play with one guy and was able to leave satisfied.  Also got to talk to Andy Mangels, who was working the desk that night.

Sunday: 100 Miles of Butt Sex

Sunday morning saw a leather potluck brunch at the home of the leather couple Ruin was staying at.  In many ways, this was the best part of the weekend: good food, good conversation, etc.  Brent from the Sash Bash committee took the chance to chat with us about what had gone well or less well during the weekend, to help with planning for next year.

Ryan, Jean, and I headed out to the car, and then waited for Ruin to say her goodbyes.  And waited and waited.  (Okay, maybe 5 minutes, not that long.)  Finally, we each sent her a text at the same time.  We also joked about taking pics of her making faces at icky comments I made during the weekend, and packaging them into a calendar.  (Favorite phrases of the weekend: “execratory functions” and [artificially low voice] “larger than average manhood”.)

Driving back north was far more enjoyable than the trip south had been on Friday – nice weather and not even the standard slow down in Centralia.  Ruin had a question, though.  (It’s her standard line, “I have a question!”)  For the first 100 miles (roughly Portland to Olympia), we went through an entire workshop on butt sex and how to make it easier and more pleasurable: me driving, Ruin in the back seat with questions, Ryan and Jean piping in as needed.  We covered lube and stretching and relaxing and toys and douching (Ruin makes a face here) and even the edge of fisting.  She was tickled by the whole thing and said she’s going to see about having me do a butt sex workshop for Seattle girls of Leather: “Help me, Obi-Jim!  You’re my last hope!”

(Yes, it sounds bizarre to me as well.)

Favorite comment of the trip back, noting how it it sometimes difficult to remove a cock from the ass after butt fucking, I said that was because the cock likes it there, it’s found a new home and wants to stay.  “Are you saying my Sir’s dick is a hermit crab?”  “Yes, and that makes your ass the discarded shell.”  <insert facial expression from Ruin here>