What I've been up to recently

Haven't done a lot of updating here - life's been happening instead.

Did the suspension demo on Thursday - worked out fine, and thanks to the two bondage bunnies apart from V on whom I demo'd other kinds of quick ties as well.

Afterwards I had a go at my 'signature' tie of suspending someone from a dance pole. This is technically easy if you know the right knot. However, prusik knots basically tighten up more with increased pressure so trying it (a) with someone who was light and (b) deciding to use a second climbing sling around the pole both for safety and so I had an additional space to use carabiners, didn't work out all that well. Live and learn, I guess. We did it instead on an upright pole of the 'cube', the piece of kit we took with us.

Note to self - could usefully do with a shibari suspension ring. This would mean I could tie multiple ropes into a single ring hung on a single climbing sling. Ones with welds seem to be about £25 and the high-grade ones cut from a block of steel with no welds on them are about £60, so it won't break the bank. Something to think about in the next week or so.

Meanwhile someone sent me this link to some bondage performances that took place a week or so ago at Boundcon VIII in Munich [NB: link updated 24 May, the original link was to a search rather than to Vimeo content - click the bit that says 'See all 9 videos' from the user profile to get the most recent Boundcon footage listed].

Went to a 'Bi Fun Day' yesterday with V - I'm not, she is, I was showing a bit of solidarity. The interesting thing was, a good proportion of the people there are people I've known on the fetish scene for a long while, many of whom I'd previously met at the suspension bondage demo we did on Thursday. And many of whom are also regulars at one or several of the local munches. I don't imagine everyone who's bi is also into bdsm, any more than everyone who's gay or lesbian is. I suspect it's just a function of how the local networks work. On the other hand, I'd also suspect identifying as, broadly, non-straight is a process/journey that tends to open one's mind to a range of 'alternative' sexual practices and gives one 'permission' to explore them. Would be interested in hearing from anyone who knows more than me about this kind of stuff.

Other bits of daily life have intruded, but they're pretty boring. Things are due to be published in the next week or so but there's no point telling you about them until I have a proper URL to direct you to. And I'm girding myself up to write the last 15000 or so words of the novel, though am likely to be distracted by a couple of (probably) short projects that will hopefully only take a day or so to put together, assuming I can find a day to do them in.

Impromptu bondage, planned demo!

Just had to repost this as Blogger lost it in a service outage, but never mind...

I may be a writer but it may entertain you to know I actually do the kind of stuff I write about. Sometimes in unexpected circumstances.

On Wednesday I went to one of the local munches. A ‘munch’, as you no doubt know, is a regular meeting that takes place in a public location where no-one dresses up (much) and there's no overt BDSM play. They're places where people new to BDSM, the area, etc. can feel welcomed. This particular munch uses the upstairs room of a pub, so is to that extent private.

I walked in and was immediately asked to do an impromptu bondage workshop. Someone who’d agreed to do one hadn’t turned up. I had no ropes with me but a few other people did. I borrowed them, did some basic stuff, got people to practice on each other and talked about safety issues as well.

The stuff I did wasn't highly technical - one useful knot and a style known as a 'karada' plus some of safety issues. But it was entertaining and hope other people found it so as well...

While I’m on the topic, Velvet and I will also be doing a suspension bondage demo at After Dusk next Thurs, 19 May in the UK midlands area. I'm not going to repost all the contact details here because they're already on my other joint blog with Velvet, DeliciouslyDeviant (see the post there on 'Writing bondage, doing bondage'). Or mail me. We haven’t done any demos for a while, so this weekend will have to involve some time to run through the stuff.

Well, now you know, if it wasn't obvious before, I don't just write about stuff.

In other news, there are some plans for erotic story readings and such. More to come when I’ve sorted details.

Have fun!