Your Front Range Femme, Shanna Katz
Editor’s Note: Shanna Katz’s Front Range Femme column appears weekly on the OFC Blog. Shanna will be blogging about kinky queer sexuality in all its aspects. Her posts will sometimes be explicit and may cover controversial material like BDSM, role-playing, sexual assault, and may include language which could be considered offensive. If you find this type of material offensive or inappropriate, please visit other pages on the blog or go back to our Home page. If you wish to proceed, continue reading Front Range Femme: Kink 101 after the jump.
When I tell people that I’m kinky, the usual reaction is “So…you hit people a lot, right?” Well, yes. And no. Sometimes, I light them on fire. Sometimes, I have them get me drinks, or clean my kitchen, or give me a back rub. Sometimes, I tie them up. And sometimes, I let them tie me up, or hit me with things.
Kink is more than the stereotype of whips and chains. When we talk BDSM, we’re putting six words into four letters; Bondage and Discipline, Domination and Submission and Sado-Masochism. Basically, this means that BDSM encompasses a good deal of sexuality. If you like to tie your partner up with their necktie, that can be BDSM. If you like to make sure that you always come first (or that your partner always does), that can be BDSM. Sensory deprivation such as blindfolds, service like getting your partner(s) drinks and giving them foot rubs, bondage using those fuzzy toy handcuffs – all of these can fall under BDSM.
So what separates us kinksters from people who like to hurt other people just for the hell of it? Two more acronyms (it seems that the BDSM community is all about the acronyms); SSC and RACK. SSC stands for Safe, Sane and Consensual; if someone is doing something that could seriously injure someone, or is playing with someone who is drunk/drugged/unable to make safe choices or consent, that is when that behavior steps outside the realm of BDSM. RACK means essentially the same thing, but takes a slightly different route: Risk Aware Consensual Kink. Because some of the things we do may not be seen as safe or sane (playing with fire, cuttings, electricity, etc), it focuses on being aware of the pros and cons, and practicing your kink in the safest feasible way to do so.
Note that both SSC and RACK involve consent. This is a mainstay of the kink community; no one just starts hitting someone randomly, nor starts calling someone a slave or Mistress without consent. Really – no one.
Denver has an active kink scene, with three public dungeons and lots of other parties being thrown at private places. Add on classes/educational groups and social events, and every weekend can be as fun and as kinky as you’d like.
Whether you decide to play in the privacy of your own home or out at the clubs, make sure that you know what you’re doing. You don’t need to be a rope master or be able to turn a butt red in sixty seconds, but it’s important that you do what you do safely. Don’t be an idiot and hurt yourself, or someone else.
If you’re a newbie, read some books (Two Knotty Boys Show You the Ropes, SM 101 and Screw the Roses; Send Me the Thorns are all great starters), talk to established people in the scene, take a few classes. Before you know it, you’ll be Queen of Shibari, the best service sub ever, or able to draw crowds with your violet wand play.
Thinking you might be kinky? Come on out – we’d love to beat meet you!
Shanna is a queer, kinky, sex-positive Femme and sex educator – a personable professional pervert, if you will. After presenting classes and workshops throughout the US, she is thrilled to be back home in Denver. For information on discussions, workshops, sex coaching, play parties, body-healthy sex toy parties and more, please visit www.ShannaKatz.com. She also writes as Essin’ Em on the popular sex blog “Sexuality Happens” at www.Essin-Em.com. Her Front Range Femme column appears weekly at OFCB.
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