Recently, in pursuit of my voyeuristic vocation, I responded to an ad irom Black Rose, a Washington, D.C., social club “for adults involved with dominance and submission in caring relationships.” For the beginner’s meeting ” S&M and Your Family” we packed into a rented storefront church much like your run-of-the-mill Presbyterian establishment but for the AIDS literature and pictures of entwined same-sex parishioners fellowshipping at potlucks past.
They say (“they” being various and suspect sources claiming expertise on perverse social sub-strata) that some 15-25 percent of this great nation’s citizenry is seriously kinked — into varying degrees of S&M, from light spankings to antics involving the Pony-Boy full-body harness with bridle and bit. I wouldn’t have believed it before my Black Rose nights.
Beneath a doubly appropriate portrait of Jesus grieving at Gethsemane, the predictable suspects were present: two beefy lesbians clinging to each other like Bounce softeners, another leathered she-hemoth in a handcuff’ chokelet, and a mustachioed Bruce Dern-lookalike in his Limited Express Catholic schoolgirl mini whose matted hairy gams suggested fishnets lull of tautog.
But the rest of the packed house could live next door to you. In fact, they may have been you: grandparents and tax lawyers and high-security-clearance federal workers — front-porchers all, with their Ajax-white tennis shoes and sartorial synthetics.
According to their leader, a sell: proclaimed former Secret Service agent whom I’ll call Bilbo for his uncanny resemblance to Tolkien’s Hobbit, plenty of congressmen have stopped by to make contacts, though I had no luck in wresting names. I probably could have, had I applied techniques learned in Bilbo’s lecture on “How to Conduct an Interrogation,” delivered in black tights, executioner’s mask, Sherwood Forest blouse — the full Inquisition rig.
But first, family concerns — which weren’t many. Sure, there was talk of bus ted marriages, scornful parents, kids finding the Leather Journal under cof fee tables after part ies — these things must be shrugged off. As Bilbo says, “We’ve got a lot of weird people hanging around the house, and mistakes are going to get made.” But except with prepubescent children, candor is ideal: “If [my son] comes to me with a question, I won’t say, ‘I won’t talk to you about that.’ That would be wrong.”
More important is grappling with inner turmoil, which Bilbo says “can and hopefully will go away.” He stresses, “The first thing to understand is that what we do is not wrong or harmful.” For this audience, sex is not simply an act of love or pleasure but a validation and celebration of their own delectable quirks, which may need to be explained or rationalized but never renounced. While extremely personal, all this is to be discussed very publicly, as often as possible, because it is the holy that trumps all other holies — My Sexuality. And at what cost to family? That’s the good news — there is none!
Moral distinctions are liar trolling “vanillas” like myself — civilians who don’t need to swab with Bactine after bouts of bedside artistry. But there are other worries for those whose sex life is their craft. Should you purchase the Braided Leather Cat O’Nine or the faster, meaner Johnny Corkscrew with the Turk’s head knots? With Valentine’s Day around the corner, do you get him the Sonorabirch with the French-whipped handles or the ax-handle Magna Strap, billed as the “ultimate in mansized whuppin’ gear”? And for her, The Crapper ( half cropper, half slapper), the Nipple Cuffs with pearly bead toppers and attachable charms, or the Erector Set which is . . . don’t ask.
Bilbo himself is a sort of Marquis de Martha Stewart. Having converted his suburban Virginia basement into a $ 7,500 medieval dungeon for playing interrogation scenes, from “Downed Pilot” to “Honduras Hangar with a Car Battery and a Meathook,” he dispatches helpful techniques to players on a budget:
Covered massage tables serve nicely as racks. Keep the Gregorian chant as soft background. Always use amber light. In a dark room and with proper suggestive prepwork, oatmeal and wild rice sub for weevil-filled gruel. Burn with candle wax instead of molten lead. When issuing witches’ summonses, buy parchment at an office supply store, burn the edges, then stick it in a mailing tube so it’s suitable for later framing.
Before whipping, electro-shocking, beating, etc., bondage is key, says Bilbo. “It demeans your position as the Grand Inquisitor to have to chase the prisoner around. Keep the little bloody buggers tethered down.” And by all means, when enacting fantasies involving cutlery, use viscous liquid on a dull knife. Palmolive for blood — with a blindfold and cold steel, no one can tell the difference.
Always observe safety first, plan for success, and remember that we’re not hurting anybody — just each other.
MATT LABASH
