February 15, 2006

Now, I get nothing sexual out of this, I've just eaten pickles this way for as long as I can remember. I've always eaten them inside out- biting off one end and then sucking the middle out until all that was left was a flat, limp shell.

...It could have something to do with why I'm so popular at the Ren Fair.

Start with:

February 07, 2006

I had done this before. Piece of cake, right? Or so I thought as I prepared to head up to the city for an evening of illicit adventure. Troy had rented out a club for the evening, so I knew it would be a bit different than the last party, which was a handful of people in a hotel room. I wasn't at all prepared for what I got.

Matt was throwing a pre-party, and I was excited to see him again. He seemed glad to see me too. What no one told me was the the pre-party was actually the advance team nominated to help Troy set things up (not that I minded). It was being held in a men's club in the castro, and the set-up time gave me a lot of time to look at the art on the walls. Some would probably call it erotic, but I have to say I found it disturbing.

Not because it was all men, many naked, many in explicit scenes with others, that doesn't bother me. There were some that I just found to be rather over the top.

But I was determined to keep an open mind.

The club provided lockers to keep our things in, which was nice since one of the rules of the party was no street clothes. I had asked Troy, in regard to a party he had invited be to previously that had gotten canceled, what one could wear, if one did not want to be naked, but could not wear street clothes. He told me he thought I would look really cute in a pair of flannel pajamas, so that was what I had packed.

As I was changing, I looked around at others who were changing out of their street clothes. What I saw unnerved me a little bit. There was studded leather fetish gear everywhere. It was like a walking ad for Leather Etc. on Folsom. There was a high ratio of gay leather daddy types too, (leather hotpants and studded X harnesses, patent leather cop hats).

This was bad news for what I had chosen. I hadn't just chosen flannel pjs you see. I had chosen pink ones.

Before a lot of people started arriving, I walked around the place, and the upstairs was kind of cool and maze-like, with lots of padded horizontal space, lots of bunks. There was an area with bunk beds, which the clubs website described as "having sort of a naughty summer-camp feel" and it definitely had that.

I wandered back downstairs to find the bathroom, but not before turning a corner and coming across a man casually leaning against a wall playing with himself. I was more than a little bit startled.

I managed to walk in on Matt in the shower in my search for the bathroom, since the shower was just a big open space and you had to walk through it to get to the toilet, which had been built with no door on it. Definitely a place designed for men.

I wandered for a bit, talking to a couple of the people I had met at the preparty, but they eventually left me for the play space upstairs. I saw Matt again at one point... after his shower he has changed into a pair of patent leather hotpants with a zipper that would make his asscrack, er.... accessible. I was a little stunned, because that was not the image I had of him from out previous encounters.

I'm shy anyway. Put me in a situation like that, where I know two people, one of whom is not part of the party but is outside checking people in, the other is wearing patent leather hotpants and is therefore quite different than the way I know him, I was really really shy and, being dressed as I was, I looked very
much out of place.

I finally got to a point where I couldn't take it anymore. I wasn't having fun, I was uncomfortable, and there wasn't really any point in me being there anymore. The party started at 8, and by 9:05 I was back in my street clothes walking the several uphill blocks to my car.

I think had I known what to expect my reaction would have been different. I don't own fetish wear per se, but I've got enough knowledge that I could probably have pieced together something passable.

I asked Troy to keep me on the invite list... maybe I'll try again next time.