My “Anatomy of a Mindfuck” post made it into the new sugasm, but so did a lot of other great stuff. I especially enjoyed Audacia Ray’s encounter with the conservative world of banking and Marky D. Sade’s introduction (to me, anyway, since I’m late for the party) to the joys of Backdoor Bondage. Enjoy!

This Week’s Picks
Bush Rides Again: Birth Control Defined as “Abortion”?
“The reason you tweak laws, redefining them or broadening their definitions, is to create the opportunity for a legal climate in which challenges may better succeed.”

First Time For Everything: A Polyamorous Relationship
“The only real trouble with being a triad came from the world around us.”

Sex Work And Compassion: Panty Tree
“I will never feel shame for being a sex worker.”

Mr. Sugasm Himself
Sugar Bank

Editor’s Choice
I Meet the Business End of Citibank’s Anti-Adult Business Policy

More Sugasm

I wanted to make sure that it was ok with her, but Nyxx has agreed to let me post this last picture from the Tree Shoot Gallery (at the last Spankfest). Most of the other pictures were distance shots, showing the whole tableau (and they really put the “Oh!” in tableau) but this particular one showcases four things:

• Nyxx is fucking gorgeous.*
• Mistress Mayhem is fucking talented.**
• Lqqkout is a great rigger.***
• Spankfestival is the kind of a place where you can combine those first two things with incredible outdoor scenery and come up with shots…well, like this.

Thanks to both of you for sharing them with us all…

 *She’s also fucking talented, but that’s not the point here.

**She’s also fucking gorgeous, but that’s not the point here.

***He’s also gorgeous and talented and a lucky bastard, but that’s…eh, you get the point.

Congrats go to Lochai, my brother-in-arms, for his acquisition of the dream job: lead rigger & director at Hogtied.com. I would be jealous of him if I didn’t like him so damn much; as it is, I’m just really looking forward to seeing more of his work. Plus, maybe now I’ll finally get my interview with Peter Acworth for the Ropecast…

The thing about Lochai is, he’s a natural-born perverted sadist. He doesn’t have to work at it - it just comes naturally to him, and that’s why he can seem like such a genuinely nice guy even as he’s causing beautiful people incredible pain. He is a genuinely nice guy…who also happens to get off on doing things like this. In the end, though, he ends up with this expression…and that’s why I admire him so.

A while back I was sitting at my desk job, bored, and decided to read an article on this cool technique for running meetings called “Open Space Technology.” It was based on the knowledge that, at any conference, convention, or structured meeting, the most productive stuff happens in the spontaneous gatherings outside the planned events. The group that huddles in the hall, that goes out for coffee, that sparks a conversation in between the structured speakers.

The “Unconference,” as it was proposed by the business & tech geeks who founded it, was an attempt to have nothing but those kinds of moments. To come up with a structure that would be self-organizing, self-running, and see what came of it.

“Huh,” I remember thinking. “Wonder if that would work for a kink event?” And like any good top, I decided to experiment on my friends. I chose the catchy title of “Graydancer’s Ropetastic Unconference Extravaganza,” (aka the GRUE) and, well, the rest was history.

Since then we’ve had GRUE’s in Madison, WI, Lansing, MI, Minneapolis, MN and St. Louis, MO. If you plot it on a map it looks kind of like one of those CDC contagious disease forecasters…and we’re about to make it international.

TORO! TORO! TORO-GRUE! 

Thanks to my friend the Control Enthusiast, we have a venue, we have time, and we have interest, so we’re throwing a GRUE over the border. You can read about the details here, and we’ll be sure to keep you posted. If you’ve been a participant in a past GRUE - and there are hundreds of you out there, at this point - I’d love to hear what you think of the idea now, long after it’s done. And if you’re interested in knowing more…well, let’s talk. I hear Toronto is very nice in October…

No, I didn’t do the review…dammit, haven’t gotten on Claire or Nina’s mailing lists. Yet. But there’s a great review of the DVD over at Fleshbot, including a snippet of video. It’s pretty evident that you can learn as much from watching the way Claire handles the rope as from what she says - just watching the way she started that wrap improved my own style. This looks like a very worthwhile addition to your bondage library, not the least of which you get to learn while seeing Claire and Nina in quite delightfully naughty outfits.

Kind of ups the ante for Lqqkout & my presentation at the upcoming Spankfestival. I wonder how I’d look in purple leotard…

Just spent two hours on Skype with a hot bi babe talking about rope play and hot suspension…

That’s right, Lqqkout, Nyxx, Sabrina Fox and I will be presenting a class on suspension - more of a workshop, really - at the upcoming Spankfestival. I’m really happy with the outline we came up with - it’s solid info, well-researched and tested either by us or by our mentors. Even better is the little bits of shiny we’ll get to insert, the parts of a presentation I love, when we get to not only teach but entertain.

Sneak preview: we have a section on scene etiquette for suspensions in public spaces…

…and we’re doing it Goofus & Gallant style.

This is gonna rock.

Remember: Rope is edge play. Rope is serious. You can’t fuck around with it, and the practitioners are highly evolved actualized spiritually aware dominants and submissives who always focus on the higher connections enabled by a steady flow of mitochlorions through the aetheric vapors emitted as arousal-induced Reichian flow…

Ok,  ok, I can’t keep typing that with straight fingers. The fact is, rope people are silly - some of the silliest I know. For example, at the tail end of my trip, it was my distinct pleasure to teach a private lesson in suspension to four people in D.C.  Synix, Calypso, Naiia, and E. all learned various harnesses like the Gunslinger and the Drum Tie and the Mammogram Hammocky Harness and the Really Fucking Hotakote and other very traditional ties. It was a rough class - intelligent, capable, hot rope tops, who caught on quickly, gorgeous naked women with matching panties and painted toenails (my lovely assistant Sam even matched them, true professional that she is), often unable to keep their hands and mouths off of each other long enough for a tie to be completed…there was the standard repartee of Eddie Izzard quotes, bad puns, suggestive banter, and incidentally a helluva lot of rope marks on those fair bodies by the end of the day.

Like I said, it was rough.

And perhaps it is understandable that I left my entire rope bag in their car when they dropped me off in Germantown. Yes, that’s right, every bit of rope that I’d carried on the trip (well, minus some that I’ll talk about in a later entry) got left in the back seat.

No worries though, right? It’s going to be mailed to me, I’m assured:

“So I hope the flight back was comfortable and, I promise, we’ll get your rope bag back to you. I can’t promise all the rope in the bag will make it back, but that’s a really nice bag and I’d hate for you to lose it…”

Like I said - my kind of people. Thanks, you guys, for inviting me into your home.

Even people I don’t know.

A while back, when Monk had put up one of his very cool videos, I read on his blog a kudo from a fan, Aitch. No problem with kudos, but the guy called audio podcasts “old and tired”, and I kind of took offense at that. Well, not really offense, but it played on some insecurities.

In talking to Monk about it, later, he reminded me that in audio, no one can see you perv. Well, they can hear you, but they don’t really have any way to object to what you’re doing, even if you’re doing it, because it comes down to free speech. So I took advantage of that and had a very fine, intimate interview with Vincenza.

And then, today, on the Ropecast page, I get this:

Did Graydancer just fondle breasts in response to my remark? (cue it up,roll tape) Yes, yes I believe he did. That ought to teach me a hard lesson; never insult the medium unless you want women to be fondled.

Love the Ropecast. I wouldn’t miss one. I meant to give kudos to Monk for the vloging, seeing how Breakfast at the Abby has fell by the wayside. Under threat of fondling, will promise to (n)ever do it again.

posted by: Aitch on Mon, 5/19 09:26 PM EDT

And it made my night. Because not only does he like the Ropecast, but he has a sense of humor (coincidence? I don’t think so!). So cheers to you, Aitch. Cheers to you.

I’m sure I’m making a mountain out of a molehill here, but one of the funny things about the rope world are the silly little customs - or even just events - that get inflated into “that’s the way it has to always be!!” Remember the whole “barefoot nawashi” idea?

One of those silly rumors is that if you rope fusion style - like Dan & JD of the Two Knotty Boys - you must use MFP or some other artificial, “slick” rope. Hemp, that’s one camp, fusion style, that’s the other camp - there wasn’t exactly acrimony between the two groups, but I think there might have been a little bit of hauteur on the one side and a little bit of “well, ok, dude, whatever, Mr. Stick-up-your-butt” on the other.

Or maybe I’m wrong.

However, what I can say is that the new shoot that they did with Yumi-U and Z-Maitri is unequivocally hot. Just check out JD’s livejournal for the proof (I’d love to re-post the image here, but don’t have permission). And yes, this is all part of their run up to publishing a new book and also offering a really cool workshop on “Dominance Bondage“, but who cares? These guys are the pros that Laura Antoniou talked about in her LLC keynote, and we should give them our money.

Plus, their music on their video really mellows you out: