Playing Well With Others (11 page)

If travel is not an option

So you live in a rural area, with your nearest munch in the heart of the big city. Or perhaps you have mobility and time constraints that preclude long drives. If you only have one munch to choose from, or one play party you can get to — you can still have a blast! Here are a few ideas on how to make it work for you.

• Extend your friendship circles.
  You don’t have to limit your connections to potential play partners. Though you might not be hot for one another, they may have resources for you, or have friends, and friends of friends, who could be right up your alley.
  

• Create an “Invasion”
  Have you been the only kinky spankophile of color in the dungeon? You can increase your chances of meeting like-minded perverts by networking in advance. Putting out a call for a “Kinky Spankos of Color Invasion!” can increase your critical mass. Whatever your fetish or focus, there are plenty of other folks who share it; you just have to reach out and organize! Ask everyone what dates would work best for them, put the call out . . . and see who else can be brought out to play by knowing they are not alone.
  

• Have folks come to you.
  Connect with people online, or network like crazy at the events you
  can
  attend. Get to know folks, and make it attractive for them to attend events near you. Or see if there may be a niche for a new event. If your locality has another event that may be of interest to the broader community, i.e. a Renaissance Faire or a motorcycle run, planning a concurrent event might lure folks to make a trip of it. If you live somewhere beautiful, encourage the kinky to explore and get their freak on while on vacation: living in Maui is enough of an excuse to throw an event and have people willingly travel to see you.
  

  You can, of course, start your own group, and we think that is fantastic . . . but we suggest checking out what is already going on locally. Maybe there’s a way to make what’s there work for you . . . and if you live in a small town, there may be only so many perverts to go around. In addition, many smaller events are held in someone’s home, and it may have taken them many long hours, or even years, of work to make it happen. Just because the current state of affairs isn’t satisfying for you is not a reason to trash others. Consider brainstorming with them to see what you can come up with together, rather than telling them that their event sucks and attacking them on a personal level.
  

Can/Should You Join This Group?

Many different types of groups occupy the world of kink: organizations, leather families, leather clubs, fraternities, sororities, societies, covens, boards, non-profits, social clubs, unions, discussion groups . . . and that’s just for starters. General/open membership groups allow you to pay a fee or fill out a few forms and you become a member. Others require pledging to the group; eventually, through sweat equity, initiation, and other required rites of passage, you may be considered for full membership. Some are open to the public, some are by invitation only, and some require that you be vouched for by current members.

Humans tend to run in packs — different types of packs can fulfill different core needs for different people. What are your core needs? Be honest with yourself: are you looking for companionship, friendship, sex, belonging, support, a way to do community service as a group, validation, a sense of identity, love, spiritual connection, fun times, or something else entirely? Not every group is offering the same things, or will be the right fit for everyone. Every group is inclusive in some ways, and exclusive in others. A particular group may not be the right one for you to join, but you may still want to go to their public functions.

Some clubs also have specific requirements for joining. Do they require that all members attend meetings every single week? Fly to the national gathering every year to renew membership? Give money to charity? Have sex with all the other members? Play at a certain “level”? Own the specific wardrobe required by the group?

Some groups have very formal protocols for joining, for working your way up the ranks, and obtaining full membership. Some groups in particular have rules and protocols around who is permitted to wear club insignia or uniform, and how members earn that right. This is called “earning your colors,” and the process is one that allows everyone who sees those “colors” to know how much work went into the right to wear them. A tool for building camaraderie and a sense of family, part of the richness of such ritual is the challenge it takes to go through. Each group has its own social traditions. In some parts of the leather community, instead of earning colors, you earn leathers: the right to wear specific caps/covers, hankies, collars, or to use specific titles is “earned” and awarded by senior members of the group or club. Through the process of passing down rituals, the new members also learn cultural history and mythology, and become part of the group.

I remember one of the first times I went to a play party in an area with a very small community. I was blown away! Since there was only one play party most folks could get to, the lesbians, gay men, straight couples and fetishists of all stripes were all at one party. They all helped each other out, and the energy was wild. Dykes held the hand of a straight boy getting fucked; a leather-man was teaching a straight couple how to do play piercing . . . HOT!

There may be some groups that exhibit traits or characteristics which can seem unhealthy or straight-up dangerous. Encouraging camaraderie is great: forbidding contact with your friends and family, less so. If you are unsure whether the group you are considering joining is healthy for you, please see
Appendix 4I
.

Finding Events

OK — you want to find an event! Well, if you
promise us
that you will look through the list later in this chapter, detailing what you can expect to find, how to approach it, and what some of the best practices are for attending the different types of events — so that you don’t walk into a munch wearing a rubber chicken suit or show up at a community wake expecting to get laid — we’ll jump on in and talk about some of the ways to locate kink community events.

Internet search engines

Go on your favorite search system and start plugging in some of the following words that jump out at you:
BDSM, SM, Leather, Gay, Lesbian, Queer, Kinky, Kink, Rubber, Bootblack, Swinger, Fetish, Hedonist, Fetishist, Pervert, Sex . . .

Did you get a whole bunch of porn? You will, if you do that. However, if you add some of these words to the search, it gets better:
Event, Social network, Blogs, Conference, Convention, Party, Gathering, Munch . . .

Now, add your location: large city, state, region, province, country. It narrows even further! Play around with the language and see what you can come up with. Creative searches are an excellent way to bump into helpful information.

Kink event listing websites

Some websites are specifically built to list events for our communities, and we list some of them in
Appendix 4B
: listings for swinger events, BDSM events, leather events. there seems to be a list for everything. Some pages charge for listings, and thus may not include smaller events that don’t have a big advertising budget. Though not always complete, these list pages are a great place to look around, gain inspiration, and be blown away by the variety out there. Once you get onto the sites for the events themselves, make sure to check out the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) to see if the event might be a good fit for you.

Social network sites

Social networking sites may be a great tool for traditional networking, but they’re also used by kink populations to network. Please look at
Chapters 2
,
5
and
7
for some pointers on online etiquette, and don’t accidentally “out” yourself on your entire social network by saying you are going to a kink event. However, if you have a kink-specific profile, or are consciously “out,” these networking sites can be a great place to find out about upcoming events.

Even better are kink-specific social networking sites. Join up, log in, build yourself a profile, list your city (or a city nearby) on your profile or in the search engine, and
voila!
Most kink-centric networking sites will show you events and gatherings nearest you, and also list the profiles of other site members who will be attending. Many will also have tools for communicating with other attendees beforehand, allowing you to get the skinny on what has happened in years past, and glean tips on making that specific event a success for you.

Reviews and advertisements

Grab a copy of your favorite kinky magazine, and you will find advertisements for some big (or selective) events. There may also be reviews or post-event write-ups on events that have already happened. Read them! What does the author have to say about the event? What is that author’s bias? Are they writing to generate good copy, or giving a reasonable assessment of the event, with both pros and cons? Is the review sponsored by the event (or written by the event producer)? Reviews can also be found on a variety of websites, blogs, kink news columns, and more.

Advertisements can also come in the form of flyers in nightclubs, postcards at other events, paid ads in local kink/gay newspapers, and notices at sex shops. Consider where you see the ad appearing. If an ad is plastered on the side of a bus promoting a “fantasy erotic masked ball” complete with scantily clad silicone-enhanced models, the percentage of folks there to ogle the spectacle may be higher than at an event advertised via a postcard handed to you at your local munch.

Word of mouth

At the end of the day, just like in meeting the right partner, finding the right event often occurs via word of mouth or personal introduction. Yes, you can find a lot of great stuff using the above approaches, but once you’re traveling within kink circles, it becomes much easier to find other events. The winding maze of discovery by word of mouth may not lead you straight to your goals, but it can be an interesting adventure.

Just like with reviews, word of mouth comes with speaker bias. If someone says they did not have a good time at a given event, ask them why. What about the event didn’t work for them? If they say that it was because an ex-girlfriend was there. this is not a reason for you to avoid the event yourself.

As you’re looking for that perfect gathering, keep an eye on the types of events that intrigue you. Are they the ones that mention specific words or have philosophies that resonate with you? Is it the advertising imagery that grabs you? There are some people who rule out events just because they do not have glossy photographs as advertisements, or because those images do not feature people that look like them. Ask around for folks who have been to an event before — do the photographs reflect what you will really see there? Will you feel welcomed there, or is it a better event to attend as a bystander, tourist or voyeur: playing dressup, then going home? All of these approaches have their own merit, and may or may not appeal to you, or may appeal at various times in your kink career.

Types of Events

With so many events out there, it can be useful to break them down into categories for ease of examination. In this next section we explore many types of gathering — to give you an idea of what the event is about, suggest how to get involved, and help you gain some understanding of the culture for each type of event.

Remember — every gathering is unique. Even if you went to a party in your hometown nine months ago, it may be different today. There is always turnover in populations, venue changes, and transformations to the vibe. In addition, there are regional variations and exceptions to every rule: at the end of the day, what to wear to go to the Montreal Fetish Ball may be different from what is appropriate to wear on the street on your way to the Flagstaff Fetish Ball. Plus . . . people are inventing new variations all the time!

Munches, Brunches & Meetups

Concept:
People gathering together in a semi-public or public location for food or meeting other kinky people in a safe, usually non-kink environment. Some munches are general (e.g. kink munch), and some are very specific (e.g. the Kensington Diaper Lovers Munch). Munches are also known as coffees, happy hour, meet-ups, round-ups, salons and more. Variation: Sloshes and Liquid Munches, where the munch takes place at a bar venue and drinking is OK.

What You May See:
People sitting around a table, eating food, socializing and laughing, and being discreet about explicit, sexual or kink conversations — if any are even taking place.