The thoughts and experiences of a person in the BDSM scene

When I first entered the BDSM scene in January, I did three kink events within the span of a week: Gateway with Black Rose, Dungeon 101 night at The Crucible, and a munch.  These things all cost money.

I mentioned previously in passing that I am a major cheapskate.  Basically, I don’t like to spend money if I don’t need to, and will plan my purchases carefully.  Black Rose had membership dues of $30, and attendance at their regular meetings required further payment beyond the membership dues.  Likewise, due to its location in the NoMa neighborhood, The Crucible operated as a private club, with a $25 membership fee, and then the cost of admission to a Crucible event cost an additional $20.  Then of course the munch had the cost of the meal and tip.  Plus I needed to build up a collection of stuff to play with, like rope, BDSM gear, and other “pervertables” (more on that last part later).  And as much as I wish it were otherwise, my funds are finite, and there are only so many hours in a day.  Thus I had to make choices about what to spend my money and time on.

The way I saw it, Black Rose and The Crucible were both a little pricey.  Black Rose membership cost $30 to join and would expire on June 30.  Then to actually use the membership and go to their various meetings and educational events would cost more money.  It felt as though they wanted money at every turn.  Thus it was a somewhat high barrier to entry, and for less than six months’ time as a member before having to pay another $30 for the next year’s membership.

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The Wednesday after Dungeon 101, I went to a restaurant in Rockville, Maryland for my first munch.

For those not familiar, a munch is a social gathering in a restaurant or bar or something similar where people go to eat and socialize. If it sounds like something that vanilla (i.e. non-kinky) groups do, it is. People dress in vanilla clothing, many wearing the same clothes that they wore to work. The only way that you would know that the group is kinky is by getting into the conversation. And even that is not necessarily kinky. We talk about anything.

I got to the munch fashionably late. Some folks remembered me from having attended Dungeon 101 the Friday before, and welcomed me in. I found a spot at a table with a group of folks, and introduced myself. When I introduce myself at scene events, I usually give my real first name and my FetLife handle. The others at the table did likewise.

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After attending Gateway with Black Rose the night before and getting all of the various information that I needed from the Black Rose folks, my plan was to attend Dungeon 101 at The Crucible, a BDSM and swingers’ club in the NoMa neighborhood in Washington DC, on the night of January 6, 2012.

However, before I could go, I needed to make some preparations.  First, I needed to assemble some sort of toy bag.  For this, I made a very early morning run out to a Home Depot store near me, and bought fifty feet of rope.  Getting home, I cut it into three fifteen-foot lengths and one five-foot length, and then sealed the ends with a lighter.  My rationale for cutting it that way was to have just enough rope to make a decent hogtie, assuming the use of one fifteen-foot length each for wrists, ankles, and knees, and then using the five-foot piece to attach ankles to wrists.  This went into a backpack.  Then also I threw in a ballgag that I had bought some months earlier.  Since I was going to Dungeon 101 right from work, I added a change of clothes to the bag.  The folks at Black Rose had recommended wearing something comfortable, and so I threw in a pair of pajama pants, a comfortable and somewhat loose fitting shirt, and a pair of Crocs.

With my toy bag assembled, containing all the supplies that I thought I might need for a BDSM night, I took that and the bag I always take with me to work on the Metro, and went to work like I always do.  At work, I was again feeling that weird feeling in my stomach that I had felt before Gateway.  However, unlike before Gateway, where I only got that nervous feeling in the late afternoon, I had that feeling all day, and seemed noticeably preoccupied about something.  I thought going out to lunch with my coworkers would calm me down and distract me, but it didn’t help.  I was so nervous that I could hardly eat, and was seriously concerned that said lunch would not stay down on account of nervousness.

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Sometimes the hardest part of a journey is taking the first step.  This was the case for my first foray into the public BDSM scene.

In my previous post, you may recall that I discussed how I had known that I was kinky for practically my entire life, and that I had known about Washington DC-based Black Rose for several years, but had taken no action towards getting involved with that group.  Once my friend told me back in September 2011 that she was kinky, and was involved in her own local scene, it made me start to wonder why I wasn’t involved myself.  After all, if she can do it, why can’t I?  I looked at Black Rose’s site again a few times over the next few months, and in late December, determined that their next orientation, or as they call it, “Gateway”, was on January 5, 2012 in a conference room at the Phoenix Park Hotel near Union Station in DC.

I had been debating in my mind for about a week prior to the January Gateway about whether or not I should go.  Ultimately, I decided to just take the plunge and go.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?  It might be a great thing, or it might turn out to be completely lame, but you don’t know for sure until you go and find out.

As with other vanilla special events that I’ve been to, my body knew that Black Rose’s Gateway was something special.  My stomach was doing flipturns at the office, as the anticipation was causing me some physical ailments.  I knew that this was something I really needed to do for myself, and I would regret it if I didn’t go (and would have to wait a month for another opportunity), but my stomach felt worse and worse as the day went on.  I did my best to ignore it, as I knew it was just nervousness from anticipation and that once I got there, I would be fine, but it was becoming difficult to ignore in the meantime.

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Welcome to Bondage Diaries, a place on the Internet where I can safely and discreetly discuss kinky topics.

I feel like I should introduce myself in this first post. I am in my early thirties, and I identify as male. I consider myself a submissive, first and foremost.

I have known that I was kinky practically all of my life. Something “clicked” when, as a child, I would see a scene in a cartoon showing someone getting tied up and gagged. I particularly enjoyed a very brief scene from the SuperTed episode “Nuts in Space” where a villain gagged a woman whom he had previously tied up offscreen.

Likewise, I would feel uncomfortable watching a scene on television where someone got tied up when family members were present. It wasn’t that I was doing anything that I wouldn’t necessarily want them to see while these scenes were going on, but I was enjoying the scenes in a way that I couldn’t quite name and they were cramping my style by simply being in the room.

Later in childhood, I would tie myself up with the pillowcases in my bedroom at night for a few minutes before falling asleep. This sort of self-bondage wasn’t anything that I could have ever gotten trapped in by any means. I relied on my imagination more than anything else to keep me “bound”. Then after tying myself up for a while, I would quietly put everything back as it should be before going to sleep.

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