If you want to know more about Ms. Dubois' work, be sure to visit www.sm-arts.com and www.cleodubois.com.
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The four "girls" follow me in line with their hands clasped respectfully behind their back as instructed, school uniforms swaying seductively as we parade through Thunder In The Mountains’ huge dungeon. Saturday night’s Play Party is in full swing. Spankings, floggings, bondage scenes, mummifications and suspensions are going on right and left in the deep red and gold hotel ballroom which is filled with black dungeon furniture for the weekend Leather Conference.
I lead my "girls" past Scary Terry and Lady Patricia who are deeply involved in sword play with Sylvie. Bound to a Saint Andrews cross she thrashes wildly every time the steel blade caresses her skin. We stop for a moment and admire a sweet, naked submissive suspended off the ground with multi colored rope. She looks so blissful just floating there above the watchful eye of her Bondage Top. The busy room is pulsing with so much erotic energy! We are more than halfway around before we see the large leather padded spanking horse and fortunately, no one is using it or waiting for it!
Role playing is not something I do very often but School Mistress and her pupils is one I enjoy in such a public dungeon. Besides, I have this pretty new cane to break in! I bend Creed and Tess across the red horse and order them to be quiet and stay still while Frankie unpacks my toy bag and lays out the floggers and the canes in order of intensity. Sure enough, just like sassy schoolgirls, I catch them whispering to each other, pointing and giggling!
I know they are doing it on purpose being the good little masochists they are! Time to play a little punishment game! I lift both pleated skirts revealing provocative panties. As the sting of each stroke of my new rattan cane is absorbed, my “good girls” say appropriately, “Thank you Madame, May I have another?” Suddenly a strange sight distracts me as I am about to deliver one final stroke. Two couples have moved quite close to our scene, obviously to watch us, and they are dressed in Hawaiian Hibiscus shirts, Docker shorts and well-worn flip-flops! In the Dungeon! I could not believe it. I approach these strangers in our midst.
“Is this your costume for your scene?” I ask one of the men whose arms remains tightly crossed over his chest.
"If you say so," he replies.
"That is not an answer, is it?" I glare at him. How could they get past the security crew at the dungeon entrance checkpoint? I see they are wearing Thunder badges meaning that they are conference attendees. I wonder how could they be so inappropriately dressed and behave like such outsiders?
It occurs to me that while there has been an explosion of interest in BDSM, many of us educators do not do enough to pass on the roots, traditions and rituals that are part of our community consciousness. One of the most basic of our traditions is black and is as fundamental to dungeon etiquette as equipment, consent, safewords and respect for people’s scenes.
Historically, the roots of today's BDSM community are founded in the post WWII biker culture'; Marlon Brando in "The Wild One," James Dean and others made black leather the epitome of cool, an expression of masculine power, confidence, and sexiness that rebels and wild girls were attracted to. Passionate, fierce, sexy. The rest of the world is beige, vanilla.
Basic black is more than one of the many fetishes kinksters cherish, it is, as my friend Mark Thompson says in his groundbreaking work, "Leatherfolk," "a still daring symbol of cultural transgression and personal transformation. Whether one chooses to wear leather is not the point, it's the intention beneath the fashion that counts. And the urge is to push personal and public boundaries on the sexual frontier as far as they will go."
So, for example, entering an evening play party in afternoon street clothes not only shows the person is unaware of the tradition and meaning behind dungeon attire and etiquette, it also fails to support the erotic environment being created communally by the players.
Whether it is a class at Thunder or a private ritual, creating the space in which erotic energy exchange takes place begins with making everything special, what you wear, where you play, how you negotiate, how you begin and end your scene. It's important for BDSM educators to pass on the value of a properly created space. Such a space can allow the magic to come through.
Earlier that day, I got to revisit one such timeless, magical moment with Creed in a scene much like the one captured in my docu-film “The Pain Game.” The ritual began as I got the room ready for my class “Play Piercing: Safety and Magic.” I always include a real time scene in each of my classes. My boi Sam assisted me in piercing Creed and her partner Pam. The four of us took a moment to join hands and breathe together.
(Creed w/ breast piercings)
(And Cleo) After a brief talk on safety and technique, I introduced Creed who bravely declared her intent to heal emotional losses and pain both she and Pam suffered last year after a nasty car accident. I pierced around her breasts, as she used the needles to let out the trauma. We continued with rows of needles down the front of each thigh, lacing them together with bright yellow twine. Once I removed her blindfold and had her stand I saw her as a calm "warrior," strong and beautiful.
I then pierced her partner with two 19-gauge needles and connected their piercings with cords, allowing them to create tension and pull against each other. The music was building, their pulsing magically energizing and taking over the room. The scene closed with Creed kneeling before Pam in a sweet moment of surrender and celebration of their love. As the music faded, the room fell silent, and yet kept on vibrating. I noticed some participants were softly crying, touched by the strength and quiet beauty of the ritual they had just witnessed. I asked everyone to breathe together, drawing our shamanic SM journey to a close.
We walk a fine edge when we awaken the archetypal energies that work inside us. While there are dozens of books on the subject, nothing replaces the experience you get when you feel that energy shift and connect in the dungeon or at conferences like Thunder In The Mountains.
Next month, we will talk more about going out to play, because it’s time for San Francisco’s world famous Folsom Street Fair, that undulating sea of scrumptious black leather! Hot! Hot! Hot! You can come with me for a bird’s eye view, as long as you promise to leave the Hawaiian shirts and flip flops at home.
In Leather Pride, with heart,
Cleo Dubois
www.cleodubois.com
www.sm-arts.com
This fall, Ms. Dubois, Eve Minax and Sybil Holiday will conduct two hands-on workshops in San Francisco at the SF Citadel, a Weekend for Dominant Men and Men Who Switch (October 1-2) and a Weekend for Dominant Women and Women Who Switch (November 11-13).
For more on these workshops, see http://sm-arts.com
