Tag Archives: public events

bdsm, events, protocol

Descending into the dungeon

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In my own local scene the dungeons are either on the ground level or UP a set of stairs, so descending into them is purely metaphorical, and ‘Ascending into the Dungeon’ just sounds weird.

I get a lot of questions in email from my readers.  More than I get comments on my posts – I’m not sure why that is, but in the few years that I’ve been keeping this blog, it seems to be the trend.

One of the questions that I get with some frequency is, “What is it like to go into a dungeon?”

It’s a difficult question to answer because each individual venue is different.  I’ve been to several, but I can still count the number of public dungeons which I have attended on my fingers, so I’m hardly an expert in the field.  Some of these are labeled as dungeons but are really sex clubs, and at least one that I go to with some regularity is actually just an event at a bar with an area set aside at the back for suspensions and spankings – sex is not permitted there at all.

Generally though – that is one of the things that can be most jarring for people who are coming into this new – you will see and hear people having sex right in front of you.  There will be people walking around nude, and for people who aren’t used to seeing it, it might be shocking to see a bunch of erect penises just wandering about.

This is not to say that the majority, or even a significant fraction of people in the dungeon will be naked or having sex at any given time.  Most of the people will be largely clothed (though partial nudity is common) and not engaged in coitus at any given time.  Most of the scenes will not involve penetration, but most will involve at least some amount of nudity and sexual contact of some variety.

Most dungeon spaces have a regular dungeon floor and also some sort of social area apart from the dungeon floor itself.  There are often also crash couches – areas that are intended to be used for immediate after-scene care, but often these are co-opted by people for social reasons instead.  This is usually considered to be poor dungeon etiquette, but it is so common that people for the most part just accept it.

Surfaces of couches and beds (if there are any) are usually covered with sheets to minimize exposure to bodily fluids of others, and usually there are clean sheets available for you to change out if you so desire.  Often people don’t know that this is an option though, so the same sheets often adorn the furniture all night long.   Some dungeon spaces don’t offer either beds or crash couches though, so you can’t really depend on anything that you see at one dungeon space being present at another.

Usually there are stations on the dungeon floor or near to it where you can find safer sex options as well as cleaning supplies.  Dungeon etiquette requires that you clean any equipment that you use after you use it, but given that etiquette is not universal, it is usually advisable to clean anything you intend to use prior to using it as well as after you’re done.  The dungeon will usually provide spray bottles with cleaning solution and paper towels towards this purpose, as well as the safe sex options of condoms (usually both lubricated (for cocks) and non-lubricated (for toys)), nitrile or latex gloves, and often female condoms or dental dams.  Use these things – they are there to protect you and everyone else – but don’t grab a handful of condoms to take home with you.  I’ve seen that happen more than once, and I have mixed feelings about it… if you’re going to have sex, you should have safer sex, but stealing condoms from the dungeon for home use is kind of crass.  If you can’t afford condoms, most Planned Parenthood facilities will give them to you for free and the ones provided by the dungeon you are going to have costs that the dungeon must pay.  There are too few available dungeon venues to drive them out of business by increasing their operating costs.

As for what you can expect to see on the dungeon floor itself… the equipment can be quite varied.  Some dungeons have separate theme rooms and each room will have equipment that matches that theme, and some will have one large open space with all of the different types of equipment mixed together.

You can usually expect to see a cage of some kind.  Sometimes this will be large enough for a human to stand in, but often they will be too short to stand in and more like you might see for an animal.  People who are put into these cages will have to be lying down or on their hands and knees.

Often you can expect to see a medical scene display of some variety.  These are often kept separate from the rest of the dungeon equipment where possible because medical scenes often involve blood and other bodily fluids that may not be part of other types of scenes and sometimes people have a pretty strong reaction to the site of blood.  This will often be an examination table, usually with stirrups.  Sometimes there will be a dental chair or something similar as well.

Often you will also see pagoda-like structures that people can be tied to or suspended from.   Sometimes this may take the form of a simple arch instead.  But even where such things are not present, there is almost always a cross beam or hard point defined for doing rope suspensions from.  Occasionally you will also find pulley systems or rails that can be used for hook suspensions (where people actually hang from metal hooks that pierce their skin) but because hook suspensions almost always involve some amount of blood, these are also usually kept segregated from the rest of the dungeon equipment as well.

Often you will also see sex swings and beds.  The purpose of these things is pretty straightforward.  Don’t forget that there are probably clean sheets available for you to use on these things!  If you can’t see them, try asking a dungeon monitor.  I’m not a super clean freak, but I always get a little skeeved out when I see people fuck on a bed and then get up and leave it as it was and then see new people jump down on that same bed, with the same sheets and go to town.

Usually you will see a massage table or three as well.  These are pretty self-explanatory.  They’re about hip-height for me, usually padded, and often these are also amended from the ‘normal’ massage tables to include hooks or eyes for binding people to, though not always.  These are used for massage, but also often used for things like wax play (where it is allowed.. not every dungeon allows use of electrical elements or heat/fire) and other sorts of activities where you would have one person lying fully prone and the other doing things to or for them.

You will also almost always see spanking benches.  These look something like a padded saddle horse, often with rails near the bottom to rest your shins on and hooks or eyes to which to tie or attach restraints.  The idea here is that you put someone on the bench in a semi-prone position and then their ass is well positioned for you to smack with your hands, paddles, floggers, whips, whatever you desire.

The last remaining piece of furniture that you are likely to encounter (unless I’m forgetting something, which is certainly possible) is a cross or ten.  Usually these are St. Andrews crosses, which means that they look like a giant X standing on the floor rather than Roman crosses (which would be the T variety) and they’re almost always designed in such a way as to bind someone to them, either facing towards the cross (for flogging a person’s back, for example) or out away from the cross (for fingering or use of a magic wand, for example).  They often have binding hooks/eyes at a couple of different points on the top end of the cross (to accommodate people of different heights) as well as near the bottom of the cross (for binding ankles to).

It can get quite hot in the dungeon, and usually there is some sort of music played over the sounds of slapping, spanking, moaning, shrieking, and cursing.

Most stations are usually set apart from each other by a bit of floor space so that you don’t accidentally whip someone on your back stroke but this also serves to provide some small amount of space within which to work and that you can usually assume that people will stay clear of unless they are merely passing through to get to something else.  It’s worth discreetly  trying to get the attention of the people you might be trying to pass if you do this, both so that you don’t get hit, and also so that you don’t startle them and interrupt their scene.

Watching other people’s scenes is expected, but you should always remain quiet when doing so.  Offering advice or commentary is never a good thing to do while the scene is going on, but if you liked what you saw, letting them know after they are done with the scene is generally considered good form and might even begin a conversation.

I know that was a bit of a whirlwind tour of some of the things you might see and expect in a dungeon, but I also hope that it was helpful.

I am, as always, happy to answer any questions that you may have either in the comments or through email.

  • Rant
bdsm, control, dominance, events, life, protocol

Master Rant’s 10 Day Intensive

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In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been host to a friend who I met through this site.  She lives quite far away, but we’ve been in contact off and on through email and other online means for well over a year at this point.  I never thought we would actually meet in person, but she decided that she wanted to take a trip to San Francisco and experience what it is like to live the D/s lifestyle for a short period under my thumb.

This is the account of some of what transpired in those ten days.

I don’t think the experience was what either of us had anticipated, but it was certainly valuable for many reasons and I am thankful for the opportunities that it afforded me to grow as well.

Let us call my friend (and I do hope that she is still a friend after all of this) Nicole.  That is not her name, but my name isn’t really Rant either, so this should not be terribly surprising to any of you.

Nicole had no experience with D/s before meeting me – but she had had some experience with kink and there were several things that she wanted to try while with me.  We got to many, but not all of them.  There were also several aspects of what I consider to be important to D/s that she had no experience with and found surprising.   Those are the sorts of things that I am going to focus on for this entry.

Foremost, and although I have tried to cover this in the past, was the assumption on her part that D/s requires sex.  This is most assuredly not the case.  I know of several D/s relationships where sex does not play into things at all, and while I would not call that sort of complete lack of sexual focus normal, there is also nothing abnormal about a relationship with deep D/s elements that contains no sex at all.

We did have sex while she was here, but I’m certain that it was not entirely what she was expecting, because sex is not the focus of D/s for me.

D/s is about power exchange.  It is about the transfer of personal power from one individual to another.  It is about choices and decisions and actions and who controls them.  Sometimes these choices and actions and decisions have to do with things of a sexual nature, but quite often they are much more mundane.

Nicole is from Europe and many of our conflicts probably would have been a bit smoother or not have occurred at all were it not for cultural differences as well as the very new nature of things D/s for her when she found herself in my space and under my control.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that she felt that I was simultaneously not controlling enough in some areas and far too controlling in others.

Everyone does D/s a little differently and places emphasis on different parts of the equation.   I was brought up under a different paradigm than is the current norm, and the key facets of D/s for me are Respect, Devotion, and Service.

Respect is the cornerstone of D/s in my world.   It is something that I expect to be in place always and transgressions are dealt with swiftly and decisively.  I am not physically violent without a tremendous amount of forecasting, but I can and often do change my body language and verbal tone to be quite severe when I feel like I am personally being disrespected, or my submissive trainee is being disrespectful to my property or friends.  Showing me proper Respect is Rule Zero.  It is something that I expect to not have to talk about, and if I do, there is a high likelihood that I will be lecturing you, not just mentioning it out of hand.

Devotion is where I get my kicks.   It is my single biggest fetish.  It is the reason why I do D/s.   I may have a big ego, but I like being worshiped just a little bit – and for more than my body or skills.  I like being thought of as competent and trustworthy, and being Devoted to me is the best way to show me that.

And last, but not least, is Service.  I expect a certain amount of Service to be rendered unto me.  This does not always have to take the typical forms, and sexual service is only one manner of service, and not nearly the most important to me.   I can be rather particular in the ways that I expect Service to be rendered, and that can also be an area of conflict from time to time.

Pain management is a constant struggle for me, and even in a short term visit like the one that Nicole and I planned and executed I can be sidelined by my physical pain issues.  There was one evening in particular while she was here with me where the pain was extreme enough that even conversation was difficult for me.  That isn’t necessarily normal, but it’s not abnormal either.  I would say that I have at least one day a month where things are that bad.

Nicole is a lovely woman, but I think I disappointed her a bit when I showed her some of the non-sexual aspects of D/s and placed those of higher importance than the sexual ones.

She asked me to be true to my older self and not to soften the edges on my High Protocol nature, so I didn’t.

It caused conflict.

Conflict in any relationship is normal, but most people are so enamored of each other and deep into the throes of NRE that they don’t register conflict right away – and Nicole and I had our first conflict within 24 hours of her arrival.  It was jarring for us both, but more so for her, I think.

I also practice ethical non-monogamy, which made for more conflict, as I had to manage the feelings of my current submissive partner as well as Nicole’s own feelings while hosting Nicole for her visit.  The three-way conflict was very minimal, but present.

All told, Nicole was able to check off some of her bucket-list items while she was here and I learned a few important things about myself:

Most surprising to me: Sex is nowhere near as important to me as it once was – even just a year or two ago.

D/s is much more in line with my lifestyle and the way I want to live my life than I’ve admitted in the past.  It has always informed my choices, but now it is much more of a lifestyle choice that I cannot turn away from.

In particular, Discipline is very important to me where it has not always been.

I’m a very physical person – and while this manifests itself sexually, it also manifests itself in other areas, Discipline being chief among them.

I really enjoy public play.  This has not always been the case.  I’ve taken part in various forms of it over the past couple of decades, but I have historically had a strong preference for private play.   I no longer feel that way.  They are balanced for me now.

I still don’t enjoy meting out punishment.  I do it, because Discipline is important to me, but I can spank pretty hard – especially when using a paddle – and I surprised myself with the ferocity of my flogger strikes this time as well.

I know that Nicole learned a great deal about herself too while she was here – but those thoughts are for her and I would do her a disservice to relay them here without her implicit approval.

I doubt very much that she and I will meet again in person – the distance and cost are just too high to make that tenable – this was more of a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing, and while I know that things did not go exactly the way that she had planned, I do hope that she feels the experience was worth it.

I certainly do.

If ever I found myself with a similar situation in the offering, I would change a few things, but keep most things the same – so I suppose that is as good a measure of the success of things as any other.  I learned and grew and I’m certain that she did too.

I am changing and I continue to change those around me, but I remain Rant.

  • Rant
bdsm, community, dominance, events, rant

A Call For Leadership

I’ve received a few emails from readers (but surprisingly few visible comments…) about my posts, but my last post on The Feminist Dom seems to have gathered more attention than average.

I suspect that this is due to the current and ongoing focus on the #yesallwomen hashtag and discussion, but since I have neither a facebook nor twitter account, I’m not privy to a great deal of that information.  What I do hear is either picked up by the mainstream media, relayed through friends, or things that I see on fetlife (which is the one ‘social network’ of which I am, nominally, a part.)

The comments to my post have been universally positive, but there was at least one call to action – a reader (I don’t know what gender this person chooses to identify with, so I’ll use the colloquial ‘their’ despite it being grammatically incorrect – forgive me) has stated that in their opinion, I do not go far enough.  I make a bold statement about my beliefs and why I hold them, but it falls short of the force of Will that normally accompanies one of my Rants, and it is not explicit enough to be a call to action.  I have a duty to do more than that, and in my life in meat-space I do, but I can still do more here (and on fetlife as well) so I shall.

 

I am a Dom.  In my case this works for me because I have certain personality traits that facilitate me taking on that role – it is those traits that make me successful and that allow my submissive partner to feel willing to submit to me.  I have never taken the title of Alpha, or even claimed to be a ‘Type-A’ personality, but the truth of the matter is that I have many of the qualities that people look for in a leader.  If you are being true to your own nature and that leads you to take on the role of Dominant, then you do too, and it is directly to you that I am speaking now.

We are almost all the leaders of our peer groups – perhaps in both vanilla and BDSM worlds.

Some of us are the leaders of our communities.

Some of us are leaders in professional organizations.

Some of us are leaders in the workplace.

Some of us are parents.

Some of us are leaders in other contexts as well, but one truth remains even if none of these apply.

All of us, regardless of roles, regardless of gender identification, regardless of personal power – all of us are a role model to someone and there are people who will observe our behavior and incorporate it into what is and is not acceptable in their own minds.

The perpetrators of the vast majority of violence against women or against transgendered people or against any non-dominant group are men.  They’re not all Dominant men, and they’re not all social outliers, most of them are normal in almost every way.  In fact, this is part of the problem.  It is because society as a whole has divorced gender – specifically the male gender – from the problems of repression and gender violence (not all of which is physically violent) that we are in such a state.  It is because we don’t hold men accountable for our own actions.  We laugh things like catcalling off as isolated incidents by ‘other men’ but I’ve met self-proclaimed feminist men who will still ogle women and may even go so far as to say something stupid like ‘Daaayumm’ when they see a woman they find particularly attractive.

There are men who are now trying to ‘opt out’ of the #yesallwomen discussion by saying that it’s is #notallmen who perpetrate these things.  To a certain extent that is true, but like my original Feminist Dom post, it does not go far enough, and to make matters worse, it shifts the blame to the women making the claims.

Victim blaming is evil.

There is more that I could say on that particular trend, but the above line is succinct and sufficient for anyone who is actually rationally part of this discussion.

Sure, I have personally never catcalled at a woman.  I have never groped someone who I wasn’t very sure wanted me to.  I routinely turn down sex when I feel like the person I’m with is not able to give consent.  And yet, I know that in my past I’ve let comments like the illustration above slide without comment, and I need to stop doing that.  Comments like that, those types of actions, they are all hurtful behavior and they need to stop.

That behavior is part of the problem.

Glossing over that behavior is a much larger part of the problem.

One of my favorite movies is The Boondock Saints.  There is a great line at the beginning of the film, when the monsignor is giving his invocation at the beginning of mass and he says, “…we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.”

This is where I get personal.

You.  Whoever it is that is reading this right now.  If you are a male Dom, I am specifically calling you out, but you if you identify as a sub or a switch or something else entirely, you are not immune to this either.  This is not because I do not think that women are capable of fighting their own fight, but because for too long we have made it their fight to carry, it never should have been their fight to begin with.  We men are responsible for our own behavior, but I am calling on you to act and to go even further than that.

Do not be a bystander.

Do not perpetuate the oppression that is holding down more than half of our society and making them feel unsafe, unloved, or unwelcome.

If you are playing poker and one of your buddies makes a comment like, “Dayum.. did you see Kim Kardashian’s ass in that dress? I’d tap that.” do not let it stand.  Do not laugh it off, do not agree, do not just let it slide.  That is an inappropriate thing to say and you know it.  What if he was making that comment about your sister, or your daughter?  I omit wife here because I know that would actually turn some of you kinky fuckers on, but that’s not the point and you know it – so don’t do that either.  Don’t dodge an important issue and attempt to deflect with humor.  Yes – that is why humor works – it allows us the ability to talk about things that are otherwise socially unacceptable and it has filled a very important role in its ability to do that since the dawn of civilization but we are on the cusp now.  We can now take this back and actually make a difference.

If we, the leaders in the male community, take this cause up and act with integrity and mindfulness we can change things.

#yesallwomen is not solely a women’s issue.  It’s not even really a people’s issue; it’s a men’s issue.  It is us, the men, who need to step up and make the asinine comments that our brothers have been making since the dawn of time unacceptable.  These are status-raising comments now and that is totally upside down and backwards.  A bigot should not be rewarded for his bigotry.  If we, men, leaders, Doms, stand up and make it known that this type of bullshit will not stand, if we remove and reverse the status-raising effects of these comments that put others down, if we instead make it so that everybody knows that those types of comments are unacceptable and that they lower your status, then we have the power to change this behavior.

We are the leaders of our community and now is the time to act.

The iron is hot and we have the opportunity.

This is a first for me in this blog or any forum at all.

This is a call to action.

This is a call for Leadership.

I am Rant.

Lead with me.