Many meet ups

I've been spending a lot of time recently at more social kinky events than having wild BDSM sex (sorry, you will all just have to wait until after this weekend when I will have had plenty of hands-on time with Ten as well as performing at Fangtasia over at the Resistance Gallery).

Friday was a photoshoot and quiet night in with Rossetti (behind the lens), Dandy (in front of it, we jostled for position) and a few other folk. We did a gender swap shoot in which I strapped down my breasts, scraped back my hair and made an attempt at muscle flexing, hopefully the overall effect will be of attitude ridden male youth. Then we did some more "traditional" fem-dom shoots, I wore a latex ballgown and cast a variety of disparaging looks at the kneeling, semi-naked Dandy. Finally, because I couldn't really help myself, I put on a straitjacket, messed up my face with black eyeliner to form tears and collapsed into a shower cubicle. Identities assumed and discarded within minutes of each other. I'm feeling rather chameleonic at the moment and taking snaps of these phases helps me relax into the dress-up attitude of being a switch. Different strokes for different folks.

Saturday I left town to attend a (mostly) vanilla wedding, for a good friend of mine. Another dress up moment, perhaps - I don't think that my kink is particularly ostentatious and I don't feel the need to emblazon it upon myself at every moment, but being in a position where you really can't mention it, especially at an event focused on personal relationships is strange. I was asked a couple of times if I was married or planning to get married, or if I was dating and ended up being very non-committal about the whole thing. Saying "no, I'm just spending some 'me' time dressing boys up as puppies and sex slaves" is not ideal conversation before the best man's speech.

Sunday I was back to reality - or what passes for it - having a catch-up and coffee with the ever-delectable Poupee, we discussed kinky designs for living, and balancing family, friends and kink. I then spent the rest of the day with Ringmaster practising some rope work. We've had ideas for a while about some more intricate ties we'd like to perform which needed more collaboration beforehand than our previous ventures, as well as closer examination of appropriate suspension points and assessments of how long I could hold different positions for. Whilst I love rope simply for the enjoyment of being tied, there's a satisfaction in being able to create something more challenging alongside a top - to offer input, feedback and suggestions so it's a piece you've made together.

Monday was spent having dinner with Offensive Charmer and we managed, not unusually for us, to get into rather deep and meaningful waters, for whatever reason our conversation tends towards the cerebral (he brings out the analytical in me, and there's plenty to bring out) - the whys and wherefores of kink. One point that especially struck me was about D/s as a stress reliever. He's been having a busy few weeks and was talking about feeling that each time he came home he wished there had been a "subby" waiting to let him thrash out his day and enter that calm, empty-headed dom-space. I know the feeling. I too would have been rather cheered to find Ten, waiting patiently at the foot of my bed, a toy with which I might take my ease. We discussed the ways in which having a D/s requirement to relationships made them different to vanilla ones - something that was fresh in my mind after attending the wedding - eventually coming to the partial conclusion that all relationships have those kinds of give-and-take scenarios, it's just that the kinky ones are perhaps more upfront and extended ways of relieving stress. The important factor is that they are shared expressions and the tables can turn - just as a dom might need to deliver a beating, a submissive might need to receive one - it's not the same as hitting someone because you are angry with them, nor going home and shouting at your partner because you've had a bad day.

Personally, I am looking forward to a massge this weekend, amongst other things...