Monthly Archives: January 2018

community, life, love

The Value of Honesty

Anyone who knows me personally and has interacted with me in the past several months knows that I have a (relatively) new submissive whom I adore.  She is Devoted to me, and I am pledged to her, and I have no intention of changing any of that.

She and I have an open relationship and we are honest with each other about everything that goes on – and more importantly – about how those things make us feel.  We work together to ensure that we have a proper understanding of both the factual and emotional issues that surround anything that may come up – because emotions and facts don’t always correlate well until you take some time to understand how they interact with each other around the particular issue at hand.

And that was a lot of words to say:  she trusts me and I trust her – and the reasons for that are brutal and open honesty coupled with a lot of patience.

I hide nothing from her.  I don’t always tell her everything, because sometimes I don’t think to do so, and sometimes too much information can be hurtful, but I always answer all of her questions and I patiently allow her to feel what she feels and then reinforce the fact that I love her, I cherish her trust, and I am still committed to her.  It isn’t easy, but it is extremely valuable.

I have not always had relationships that ended well.  Heck, I’ve not always had relationships that proceeded well.  However, I am nearly always patient and polite.  No one manages to always be these things, but I do my best, and I usually succeed.  

Yesterday my submissive received some very strange text messages from a woman (or someone claiming to be a woman) who she has never met, but that was put into contact with her some time ago.  This woman resurfaced and started making claims about me – that she ‘catfished me on her behalf’ and claims that I derided her on fetlife and threatened her when she refused to have a skype sex session with me and tried to warn my submissive that I bad-talked my submissive behind her back and that I was a dangerous man.

Now – I am a dangerous man, but not for the reasons that she accuses me.

Anyone who knows me and has tried to get me to agree to a video chat session knows how laughable this is.  I am extremely reluctant to have a video call, and I almost never engage in any sort of sex over the wire.  I don’t enjoy it, and it triggers a few unpleasant memories for me.   If I’m doing it, it’s because I love you very much and I want you to be happy – it’s never something that I would pressure someone into, and I use words like ‘always’ and ‘never’ extremely sparingly.  I don’t even like talking on the phone.  So – on its face this was an amusingly ridiculous accusation, but even the most ridiculous accusations can destroy relationships when there is not trust there to begin with.

I’ve been in relationships where that trust was not solid.  I’ve been in relationships where accusations of infidelity – and actual infidelity – destroyed the relationship, and the reason that happened was because trust was either never fully established, or worn away.  I am certainly not trying to portray myself as always being in the right in these situations – I don’t know that there is always a right to be had – but I do know that I have never acted in the manner for which I was accused.

I honestly have no idea who this person is or what his motives might be.  It’s extremely unlikely that it is one of my exes trying to get at me through her.  It’s equally unlikely that it’s her ex trying to get at her, but the motive of anyone else in this matter just doesn’t seem to add up…

The fact that we can’t find a sensible motive is an any area of consternation to be sure, but sometimes people just like to cause drama, and maybe that’s all this is.

I’ve been in relationships that would be threatened by such a thing, but I am ecstatically happy to not be in one of those now.  

My relationship is as solid as ever, and may even be stronger now for having faced this sort of challenge and walked away unscathed, and we have accomplished this thanks to the intrinsic power and value of honesty, compassion, empathy, and trust.

I love.  I am loved.  We are strong.

I am Rant, and I’m not going anywhere.

 

bdsm, community, life, love

Help Save Wicked Grounds!

Wicked Grounds is more than just a coffee shop – it’s a destination, it’s a sanctuary, it’s a place to meet people, a place to be surrounded by people of like mind and ambition, it is a staggeringly important venue for dozens of clubs, munches, workshops, and it is an icon all on its own.  It is also the only safe space that a lot of people have.  

And it is closing down.

This is potentially a staggering loss for our community.  There is yet some small glimmer of hope that we can save it, and you can help too if you would like.  The patreon page for Wicked Grounds can be found here.  I’ve contributed and pledged and wish I could do more.

I cannot stress how important this place is to our community.  It is the hub around which all of the other kink activities in San Francisco take place.  It is the kink equivalent of Polaris.

Oftentimes when I’m giving directions to people for various kink related place with references from Wicked Grounds as the starting point.  Need to get to Mr. S?  Go out from Wicked Grounds, turn left, and walk two blocks up 8th street.  Need to get to BaGG?  Go out from Wicked Grounds, turn left, turn left at the corner, and it’s three storefronts down.  

It is much, much more than just a coffee shop that sells some kink-themed things.  It is home to a lot of people in my social circle, and the circles that overlap with my own.

I urge you – if you have the means and the inclination – go to the Patreon page and do what you can.  If you are in the SF Bay Area, go to Wicked Grounds today – it may be the last day that they are open.  If you can’t go and support their business today, go to the party that they will be hosting at the Citadel this Saturday.  I understand that they may not have goods to sell that day, and there may actually be little you can do to help with the actual problems of keeping the business viable, but you can still offer moral support.

I am going to try my best to be there – childcare concerns would be the only thing to keep me away.  I sincerely hope that this is not the last Wicked Grounds party, and that the coffee shop can stay in business for years and years to come – providing the solace and community that it does.

I’m a patron now, and I intend to make it a more frequent place that I hang out as well, assuming that the option remains open to me.  I’d love to see you there sometime.

– Rant