Identifying Real Amateurs

When I first got Internet access in the early nineties, if you wanted bondage pictures then your best bet was to go to USENET groups like alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.bondage and see what people had posted on there. Back then, with relatively few exceptions, most of the pictures you'd find were scans from kink magazines, and the scans were usually low-quality because most of the people who did the scanning didn't bother to color-correct their scans (and may not have even known what color-correcting was). Websites with bondage photos on them were few and far between, although as the decade went on, and digital photography became more affordable, more and more paysites sprung up as amateur producers and models tried their hand at selling their work online. (The initial wave of "alternative" bondage sites inspired by Suicide Girls, especially The Underground, were particularly wonderful.)

However, as file-sharing services took off to the point where Napster soon became a household word, erotica producers of all stripes soon found their hard work being passed around for free online, just like the photos from kink magazines that were so popular on USENET a decade earlier. Lots of people who wanted to get off to quality erotica, but didn't want to pay for it, could just jump on their sharing client of choice and download hundreds of dollars' worth of paysite content in a matter of minutes. This problem has never gone away, and if anything it's gotten worse with major streaming video sites for erotica making it easy for people to post pay videos for everyone to see. (This phenomenon is not unique to photos and videos; I find someone trying to pirate California Bondage Sorority Book One online at least once every week.)

The problem is that even with all this piracy going on, there are still amateurs who put their work out for free. Maybe they just don't want to go through the rigmarole of trying to set a paysite up, or maybe they just like the idea of lots of people seeing their photos and videos, but they do exist. Honestly, I often find myself preferring that kind of work because there's a rawness to it that reminds me of those old sites like The Underground. The problem is that these amateurs tend to use the same websites that are responsible for so much of the piracy of erotica that's going on right now, and since even these amateurs have high-quality video cameras on their cell phones, and can get professional-quality lighting for a good price at Amazon, it can be hard to tell at first glance whether a video on one of these sites is a genuine amateur production or a stolen paysite video.

I understand why a lot of my producer friends have taken to boycotting these sites, but it feels like there must be a better way to go about this. Back when there weren't so many bondage websites out there, sites like Red's Realm and Talon's Eyrie served as an excellent guide to both the free and the paid content out there. Maybe someone needs to make a website, or some other service, for those of us who enjoy true amateur erotica, so we can find the photos and videos that are being put out there by their producers for free without accidentally running into pirated content. That doesn't seem like it would be too difficult, and it would enable everyone to find and enjoy truly free content without accidentally watching stuff that they should have paid for first.

Pedantic and Proud?

Recently Wellcome Collection, a museum in London, posted a YouTube video showcasing a scold's bridle that they have in their collection, and discussing how scold's bridles were used over the years. This video caught my attention for a few reasons, the first being that material about scold's bridles (one of my fetishes) is kind of rare just by itself. Secondly, the video contained the first photograph I've ever seen of a scold's bridle being used for non-kinky disciplinary purposes. (Like a lot of bygone punishments that were outlawed before the camera was invented, the scold's bridle was still used "in the shadows" in places like prisons and POW camps.)

What still bothers me about the video, though, is that the device shown in the museum's collection looks much more like a German schandmaske than a scold's bridle. Although derived from the scold's bridle, the schandmaske was a substantially different punishment. Not only did most schandmasken not have a gag, but they covered much more of the face to superimpose another image over the wearer's head (usually something animal-like or devil-like), which also served to make it harder to identify the criminal later, whereas most punishments of that era (like the pillory and stocks) were meant to expose the criminal to the public so citizens would know which persons to avoid and distrust.

Since I'm an enthusiast about gags, as well as medieval-era punishments, it's natural that I have a lot of knowledge about these topics, but it brings to mind how pedantic I can be about these things. Especially when it comes to the difference between a stocks and a pillory, this cartoon kind of drives the point home perfectly. I can't count the number of times when I've been at a play party and bristled when another kinkster referred to a pillory as a stocks (or, worse yet, a stockade), and as much as I know that it's not polite to "correct" someone about that (unless they're one of my subs, of course), part of me always wants to go into Teacher Mode and explain the difference.

Looking back at California Bondage Sorority Book One, I can see how I used dialogue to kind of take a jab at people who use the word "stocks" to refer to a pillory. (To be fair, Cece and the other sisters of Epsilon Pi Sigma would be expected to know this difference because of their comprehensive BDSM classes.) I also took a similar swipe at non-kinky people who call ball gags "gag balls," although I've seen other kinksters rankle when someone says that term aloud, so I feel a lot less self-conscious about that. Being seen as a pedant doesn't exactly help you make friends, but maybe I shouldn't fight that label when it comes to knowing the proper terminology for punishment devices. After all, I'm kind of supposed to be an expert on those.

Getting Off On Your Handiwork

A little over a week ago, Alice of aliceinbondageland.com fame tweeted that she was getting turned on by editing fetish videos that she'd just played a part in. That kind of threw me for a loop, because I've always had a hard time getting aroused by erotica that I've produced (whether stories or scene logs or pictures), and I'd figured that was the norm. Inspired by that tweet, I posted a poll on Twitter to see how erotica producers felt about their own work. To my surprise, not only did most producers say that they found it easier to get aroused by their own productions, but no one else reported having a more difficult time.

On the one hand, it's easy to see why people would be more aroused by erotic media that they played a part in, because many producers create work that targets their own fetishes and other interests. Especially for producers who specialize in relatively niche fetishes and other markets, their work might literally be the only work out there that caters to what it is that gets them off. Even with as much erotica as you can find on the Internet these days, there are still lots of fetishes out there that don't get much, if any, attention.

For me, though, I think the problem is that because I created my work, I know exactly what's going to happen, and part of what arouses me is the surprise of going through a story or video or photoset, that "what's gonna happen next" anticipation. Even going back to stories I wrote over a decade ago and completely forgot about, I just can't get that aroused when I read them. It's almost like I need that outside perspective, someone else tackling that thing I like, for me to get aroused. (Intelligence is definitely a turn-on for me, so experiencing someone else's brilliance may also be what gets me going.)

Part of the reason I wrote California Bondage Sorority Book One (and why I'm working on the sequel right now) is because I want my work to inspire others to create their own takes on the fetishes and predicaments and such that I put into my books. A good deal of that is just selfishly hoping that I wind up with more material to get off to. I have a hard time believing that I'm the only erotica producer who has a hard time getting aroused by their own work, though, and it makes me wonder if there's a market for some kind of exchange system, where producers of erotica can cater to another producer's fetishes and then get catered to in kind. I don't have the slightest clue about how and where to start something like that, so I'll just throw that idea out there for some of you to run with.

In Defense of Fuzzy Handcuffs

What's wrong with fuzzy handcuffs? From a physical standpoint, there are two common problems. First, the actual handcuffs that get sold with the fuzzy sleeves on them tend to be very low-quality, and can get jammed or otherwise break more easily than a pair of good quality, police-issue handcuffs. Secondly, if the fuzz wears off and gets into the handcuff mechanisms then it can cause jamming issues as well. Handcuffs are always a higher-risk bondage toy than your typical set of leather cuffs, but putting fuzzy sleeves on the ratchet mechanisms can significantly increase the risk involved when playing with them.

When kinksters speak with disdain of "fuzzy handcuffs," though, they're usually not talking about handcuffs. Rather, they're talking about the kind of people they see as the target market for those kinds of toys: Light players who call themselves kinky because they occasionally use blindfolds during foreplay, or engage in a little light spanking during intercourse. In a lot of kinksters' eyes, these people insult the whole concept of kink, as well as those of us who play heavier, by "daring" to appropriate the name of kink for their lighter play.

I wouldn't experience blindfold play or light spanking as much different from "normal" vanilla sexual activity, but I don't think that makes me "more" of a kinkster. I've always disliked the idea of being exclusionary when it comes to labels and identities, but I really blanch when it happens with kink because of how dangerous it is. When kinksters rail against lighter players who start experimenting with kink using fuzzy handcuffs and the kinds of toys you find in "upscale sex boutiques," they run the risk of putting those people off of kink events where they could be educated, where people like us can say, "Hey, those fuzzy handcuffs can be risky to play with because of these reasons, so here's why you might want to try using these buckling leather cuffs first." Those people could then get seriously hurt if they try riskier kink on their own, not coming to the rest of us for help because we've treated them so poorly before.

It's understandable that some heavier players may want to associate with other heavier players, but all of us who identify as kinky -- no matter how light or heavy we play -- face the same problems from the rest of society when it comes to stereotypes and legal problems and potential employment issues. You can avoid playing with lighter players and still support their rights to express their kink, just like those lighter players want you to be safe as a kinkster as well. We're all in the same boat, battling the same rough waters, so it really bothers me when some kinksters want to throw people overboard for not being "kinky enough" for them. We have a lot to gain by tolerating our differences, and a lot to lose by continuing all this petty bickering.