Besides being a pervert, and a libertarian, I’m also motorcyclist. It is a hobby I’ve had for over 15 years and I still consider it part of my life. There’s really nothing like the feeling of freedom when riding a motorcycle down a country mountain road. This essay will be a little rambling, much the way I like to ride. Hope y’all enjoy it.
I bought my first motorcycle in 1999. My dad had been riding a few years, and I decided to ride bitch on the back to see what it was like. And I was fucking hooked. At that time, I’d had my first real job. I had my own place, and money in the bank, the recipe for first motorcycle ownership. Within a week of that ride, I had purchased a used Honda Shadow 600 and all the gear I needed. I taught myself how to ride in a parking lot and off I went for the rest of the summer, taking rides with my dad and his friends.
And my God did I enjoy it. The only thing close to the sense of acceleration I’ve ever experienced was sky diving. There’s a strange alchemy that happens; the gasoline is converted to freedom via the engine and a connection with the world around you that is simply joyful is transmuted from the speed and wind. Not to horn in on Persig, but there is something Zen about riding. Once you get the mechanics of it, you can reach a state of flow, where your body is taking in all the inputs and piloting the machine so smoothly, so perfectly, it feels like you are in that state of being one with everything.
It is dangerous though. There is no denying it. Donorcycle is a word for a reason and so is squid. There isn’t much protection on a motorcycle, and mistakes can cost you dearly. There’s ways to mitigate the risk; safety classes, good riding habits, proper gear, but there’s no denying the danger. I’m honest enough to admit that is part of the thrill. Part of the fun is that testing of your own skill and nerve.
I went on to take safety classes, teach them, and I’ve owned about 10 motorcycles over the years. From Honda to BMW, from Triumph to Harley-Davidson. I’ve worked on them in my garage. Though I’m at best good for doing bolt-on accessories and extremely simple maintenance. I’ve helped my dad change stuff on his bikes, from replacing the pipes to swapping the carb. And vice versa. There’s still an element of pride in customizing your bike, making it yours, an expression of your individuality that is satisfying. Add in spending time with your dad and it’s hard to think of a better way to spend time besides actually riding.
Current Ride. No it doesn’t mark its territory
A motorcycle allows for both solitude and camaraderie. Riding a motorcycle down a country backroad, somewhere with curving roads and beautiful scenery is a rare respite from crowds. You get to be alone with yourself in a positive way, let the motion carry off your cares and worries and focus simply on enjoying the ride with no voice but the engine’s growl and whip of the wind. Or you can ride in a group, safely ensconced in a pack of people with the same interest, enjoying that feeling of doing something fun with people you like. Making a day of it, stopping to eat and laugh and relax. I gained, and later my friends my age gained, a great deal of wisdom from such rides with my dad and his pals.
As you may have noticed, riding was often a way for my dad and I to connect. Some of the rides we took will be those memories I hold onto for a long time. I remember one year we went to a rally and as was our habit we didn’t haul the bikes in a trailer, we rode ‘em. The last night of the rally he dumped the bike on his foot and broke it. I had to rent a 20’ UHaul to get us and the bikes home as that was all that was available. I had to ride both bikes up the little loading ramp to get them in and then drive us both home 400 miles in that monster. My dad and I still reminisce about that trip and laugh. We were chatting about it and other rides that were both perfect and not so perfect last week. He’s selling his motorcycle this spring as he is no longer going to ride. He wondered if I wanted the bike, but I have one, and for now that’s enough.
I wonder though. All the miles under my belt on motorcycles, the joy I get from riding, one day the risk will be too high for the reward and I’ll hang it up too. I hope that day is a long way off.
Being a libertarian can be tough. As our logo (I think of it as ours. The founders may be first among equals, but its the participation of the Glibertariat that makes this place amazing.) alludes to some of the misconceptions people have about libertarianism. The public discourse and the education complex don’t discuss the ideas that underlie the philosophy. So how do people arrive at it? I like hearing other people’s stories so I thought I’d share mine.
I grew up a poor black boy in…wait, no, I know the difference between shit and Shinola so that’s another guy. I did grow up in a rural area of N. Carolina and went to a Southern Baptist church. I suppose that had an impact on me. I started out a kid with not much appetite for authority, tons of questions about why, and intolerance for bullshit.
My favorite show was the Dukes of Hazzard. I think that had a big impact on me. I don’t know of any other show on TV that was so anti-authoritarian and so subversive while appearing to be nothing more than country kitsch. The authorities were corrupt, venal, petty and incompetent. Which almost made it a documentary. The Duke family were loving, fun, and had cool cars. And they never meant anyone any harm, even the corrupt government trying to destroy them. I didn’t realize for decades how formative that show was, but it set the stage later.
I grew older and more obstinate. The more I learned, the more questions I asked about why. And the more I realized that most of the authority figures in life didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground, and either way couldn’t find it with both hands and a map. And with that realization, the more I began to question why they should be able to tell me what to do simply because they had managed to remain breathing. From there to questioning others in authority like politicians and cops wasn’t a huge leap and fortunately, around the time I was 11 I had an experience that helped me make the jump.
In the 5th grade the sad, pathetic nature of bureaucracy became crystal clear to me. We had an assistant principal that all the kids and parents adored. She truly was great with us kids; a good balance of discipline and love. When the principal announced his retirement due to health reasons a temporary principal was put in place while the school board decided on a permanent replacement. Full of nonsense about our form of government and a naive belief in the right of the people impacted to petition the government for redress I started a petition. I sent it around to kids and parents, asking for signatures supporting Mrs. Sandy (the asst. principal) for the principal position. The temp principal who had worked for the system longer and wanted it because of that, despite having spent years trying for a principal position without success, was not pleased. She went so far as to call me into her office for a dressing down and to demand I hand over my ‘stupid little petition’. This did not go well for her when I told my parents about our little meeting and her threats to suspend me if I didn’t comply.
My mom was something of a mama bear; if I was in the right she’d go to the mattresses for me. But woe betide my ass if I didn’t behave well. And the words, “This is bad enough your dad will handle it” struck a kind of liquid terror in my bowels on the few occasions I heard it. Dad was usually the less strict, so if he had to do the disciplining I knew I had seriously fucked up. Anyway, they both had my back and went up to the principal’s office the next morning and had a little come to Jesus meeting with the harridan. I am still not privy to the exact conversation, but she steered clear of me from then on out.
It was at the next school board meeting where I had that lesson about petty bureaucrats reinforced even harder and cemented my hatred of those pathetic types. The hiring of a permanent principal was on the list, I showed up with my petition and duly handed it in to the board. I was interviewed by the local newspaper for a front page story. And thus the lessons.
First, despite the petition having about 70% of the parents and students at the school signing on, Mrs. Sandy was passed over for the bitchy-bitch. The board accepted the petition, but they didn’t even look it over or read it. I mean, after all, what do the peasants and their children know about education?
Second, the news reporter got my quote wrong in the front page article the next day. They quoted an 11 year old wrong, changing the meaning of my words. I mean, this adult had one fucking job in a small town newspaper and they couldn’t even accurately write down what I said. That also made me pretty furious and long before the The Orange Cheeto turned the phrase around on them, cemented the idea of Fake News in my head and further stoked the fires of my skepticism.
By the time I hit college I’d had seven more years to shape my philosophy of politics and negative experiences of people in power. I labeled myself a conservative. But my religious indoctrination had also created a disgust with hypocrisy and a desire for clear, moral consistency so I often found myself at odds with certain conservative opinions. I’d also started reading Heinlein.
It is a little hard to articulate how big of an impact Heinlein’s novels had on me in regard to political thought. While it was never stated outright in that fashion, the NAP was there in his work, presented questions of moral agency, letting others live their lives as they see fit so long as they don’t offer your violence. (And the idea of non-monogamy, but that is a different post). It gave me a springboard to start looking for other works to help my burgeoning interest in a political ideology based on liberty and personal autonomy.
The final piece was a principled lefty prof, my adviser. In an age of ‘speech is violence’, no platforming, and all the rest of the Ctrl Left totalitarianism, it sounds odd that a lefty prof might recommend such kulaks and wreckers as HL Mencken, Rothbard, Milton Friedman, FA Hayek, and the like to a student discovering his politics seems unimaginable. But it happened. Because Mr. Collins was a liberal, but he was also a man who felt he had a duty to his students, and who took the goal of educating his students into thinking for themselves quite seriously.
I can’t claim I was completely reasoned into my thoughts on politics and libertarianism, but those are some of the sources that helped shape my thinking as I grew up. That’s how a corny country show from the ’80s, a petty bureaucrat, an incompetent reporter, a science fiction author, and a lefty professor helped me to develop my politics and outlook on life.
In the fall of 2017, the outdoor cannabis harvest was a bumper crop for growers throughout the state of Oregon. This epic weed haul was the result of two factors; weather, and bureaucracy. The weather was spectacular for growing cannabis, particularly outdoors. A wet fall, winter, and spring (nearly 220 straight days of rain) meant there was plenty of water available. And the summer was warm and dry. Conditions that are favorable for growing trees with plenty of flower on them. The sunshine helped to ensure that flower would be potent. The other cause was bureaucracy. Normally inimical to the production of any good or service of value, on occasion bureaucrats manage to step on their dicks in such a way as to help the actual productive class. Such was the case in 2017 with the OLCC (the Oregon Liquor Control Commission).
The OLCC is the regulatory pseudo agency (much like the fed it is a non-government organization with a government mandate) responsible for enforcing Oregon’s pot laws. In 2017, the OLCC declared open season for anyone with a license to grow marijuana when it announced that “due to a lack of allocated funds, enforcement efforts will primarily be focused on those growing cannabis without legal license to do so and on those with a recreational license. However, next year will see increased enforcement for medical growers.” In plain English and practical reality, this meant that as long as you had a medical license you could grow as much pot as you wanted. The statutory limits on the number of plants one could grow was out the window. Worst case, if you were caught, they’d cut down plants of your choosing until you were down to the legally allowed number. Every grower was growing as much pot as he could get in the ground that summer as cuttings are cheap.
Fields of Green
The resulting harvest was huge. And while the left may not understand or believe it, the laws of supply and demand are iron. If supply is greater than demand, the price falls until an equilibrium is reached. And the result was The Glut. A situation where outdoor weed wholesale prices fell as low as $300 per pound. If you could find a buyer and had good enough quality weed. There were rumors of weed going as low as $100/lb but that had to have been either exaggeration or for some really ditch weed bullshit. Either way, that was the first bump in the road.
Once the harvest was in, properly dried and cured, and finally trimmed and packaged up, we had enough product that once The Glut ended we’d be able to fund our next phase. Right where we need to be to build our indoor facility and go through the process of getting the rec license that would allow us to expand. That’s where the next bump in the road occurred. We just need to wait for The Glut to recede and the price to come back up to our floor of $800 to $1000/lb. While it would put a crimp in our timeline, waiting even six months wouldn’t be catastrophic.
An aside; indoor and outdoor pot flower are of differing quality. Indoor is higher quality and fetches a relatively higher price. But outdoor is far cheaper to produce and the aforementioned conditions were conducive to outdoor pot production. In 2017 we had both indoor and outdoor operations.
End Product
My business partner was impatient to take the next steps however, so was looking to expand beyond our established channel of buyers to sell all that outdoor product. The short version is that the buyer was a scammer that my partner thought he knew but didn’t. My partner took his stepson with him to the transaction, verified the guy had a med card, and gave the stepson the cash to count, made the transaction “selling” 80% of our harvest, and the best quality at that, and they left. Only to get home and discover the money was, as he texted me, “counterfeit.” I didn’t hear from him for 3 days and when I finally got the full story I have never been closer to murder than I was at that moment.
Turns out the money wasn’t counterfeit. It was movie money that looked just this side of monopoly money for verisimilitude. I wasn’t even mad at the scammer (whom my partner didn’t even take a picture of the guy’s med card or his license plate and only had a phone number that of course turned out to be a burner). I mean, the balls to try that and get away with it? But my partner and his idiot stepson? Yeah. Them I was furious at.
Does that look like legal tender to you?
Anyway.
As of February, we had only 20% of our harvest, The Glut was finally receding, and we were at a crossroads. We came up with a last-ditch plan of selling that final amount to finance continued expansion of existing indoor med operations of high THC plants, and to get legal for growing outdoor hemp as we did have a legit buyer for hemp flower by that point for processing for CBD products. Those funds from a large hemp harvest could then be leveraged to do the build out for a rec license grow. As described in my previous article, a rec license allows a much larger size grow operation than a med license.
Another digression: Marijuana and hemp are the same plant, save that hemp has been bred primarily for its fibers in the stalk and has only trace amounts of THC but plenty of CBDs, even in the flower. Marijuana flower contains both, and various strains have various proportions. THC is what gets you high and CBDs are the actual medicinal chemicals, especially for seizures, muscle & joint problems, pain, and anxiety. CBDs also don’t get you high and won’t, generally, show up on a piss test. Getting licensed for hemp is far less expensive than getting a rec marijuana license and you can grow as much as you like. There’s a fee for a 2-year license and you must have proof that the plants are hemp and not marijuana, and that’s it. Far easier compliance and we have enough acreage on the farm it could be quite lucrative. THC flower is usually more valuable, esp. indoor grown. But there’s potential in CBDs, especially with hemp as the input costs are way lower, the regulatory burden is lower, and the labor costs are lower offsetting the lower sales price one can get per pound.
Unfortunately, due to the remainder being lower quality and The Glut being so epic, it took a long time to move that product. The revenue hasn’t come in fast enough to buy the hemp plants needed to get the hemp license or get them in the ground for a spring or summer crop. The flow has been a trickle; just enough to keep the lights on and pay the basic bills while expanding the amount of indoor plants we can grow up to the legal limit for the number of med cards we have. There’s an outside shot that by next spring there’ll be money for hemp. But I don’t see it.
The result is that two months ago I washed my hands of it and told my partner that as long as he kept things legal and he paid the lease payments on time for the farm, he could keep going, but that I was done being actively involved. I started looking for a job and found one. I started that the last week of June and I’m enjoying it.
The saving grace, from a financial perspective, is related to the legal technicalities on having a rec license and the land we purchased for the business. The land use regulations related to marijuana are somewhat convoluted. There are both county regulations and state regulations. The state regulates the maximum square footage of flower canopy one can have per rec license. It also insists that no individual or entity may have multiple licenses on the same tax lot. The county regulates the zoning for tax lots, which determines whether you can grow indoor, outdoor or both. It also sets a minimum size for a rec license. Usually 2-5 acres. Further, to obtain a rec license, one must prove water rights. If they aren’t already registered on the deed, this isn’t as simple as digging a well. One must obtain those rights through a process that takes 1-2 years.
To give an example. If one purchases 40 acres in a county where the minimum size for a rec license is 4 acres you may not, then obtain 10 licenses from the OLCC. You can obtain one and lease out the other nine to other folks with a license. But if you want a second license you must buy another tax lot somewhere. Many of the larger operations are buying 5-10-acre plots with proper zoning building a minimum size rec grow, and then offering the rest as turnkey, then buying another parcel and repeating. That was part of our plan. But the number of parcels that are properly zoned in counties with relatively simple regulations is small. More importantly, the piece of land we bought has county water and therefore automatically has water rights.
The land is valuable in and of itself. And the land is in my wife’s name and my name. It’s appreciated about 20% in value since we purchased it. And the company is leasing it from my wife and me. So worst case we have a valuable piece of property that has a current market value that is keeping pace with the rest of the money we invested and then some. Also, it’s a good place to go shooting whenever I want. We may even just keep it and build a country house as a retreat there.
I learned my lesson. My next startup will be a side-hustle that I build until it replaces a significant portion of my income. I’ll have no partners, only employees, or minority ownership stakes if I need someone with special skills, but not a partner. And while I’m probably out $20-$40k counting lost income, it was worth the gamble as it was money I could afford to lose. I don’t regret taking the chance, though, and I learned a great deal about myself and managing people, and just how tough it is to start a business. I’ve always admired folks who run their own enterprise, but I do so even more now that I’ve taken a shot at it.
End Note: I appreciate all the interest and encouragement as well as kind words. It’s helped immensely. This place really is a community.
Easter weekend is also the weekend of KinkFest. KinkFest is one of the largest west coast gatherings of people into Kink, BDSM, and related sadomasochistic pursuits. In some ways, KinkFest is like any other convention. A large group of people in a giant hall, attending lectures, perusing vendor booths, and socializing. Where it departs, obviously, is the subject matter. The classes usually involve demonstrations that can get you arrested in some places or are interactive and intended to teach a new skill. And the socializing involves leather and latex and cross-dressers and rope and beatings and all kinds of fun, fucked-up shit. Well, not literal shit. The dungeon doesn’t allow scat, thankfully, nor piss play or Roman play.
This year was KinkFest XX. The Portland Leather Alliance has been putting on the event for 20 years. It’s grown to 1500 people attending and takes up the largest space at the Expo Center in Portland, OR. It’s an all-volunteer run effort. And we bring in presenters from around the country and even internationally. It’s 3 days of debauchery, education, and friendship, and I kind of look forward to it every year. Sorry, no actual pictures as cameras aren’t allowed during the event, and the official photos haven’t been posted yet. I’ve included a few shots I’ve taken that are relevant but hopefully SFW.
Education
One of the fun things about KinkFest is that you have attendees who are new and jumping feet first into the deep end and old heads like myself who’ve been involved for decades. The classes cover a wide range. From the relatively vanilla-like classes on anal sex, giving head, or having multiple partners, to basic kink-related things like flogging and how to process pain, to more advanced topics like full-time total power exchange, medical play, and other types of edge play. Here’s the worskshop list from this year.
Edge play is usually play that carries with it higher risks or is pushing close to the limits of the players involved. What that entails varies by kinkster, and it is like Justice Stewart’s definition of porn: you know it when you see it. Some of the more common types are play using knives, needles, and increasingly race and misogyny play.
Backside of a takate kote chest harness. Jute rope
The Kink scene has always fetishized consent for a couple-few reasons. The first is that knowing that all parties directly involved are consenting is the difference between play time and abuse. It may also be the only difference between getting your rocks off and going to prison. In some jurisdictions, even that wouldn’t help, so trust is paramount when you’re doing some of the things we do. Having trust in your partner to stop when you use your safe word, to not push too far, or not take advantage when you are helpless means that negotiations and consent are important. Third, because we are playing with things that are dangerous and carries physical, emotional, and psychological risks, having some security by emphasizing discussion and agreement is important to people in the scene. There is a focus from the older crowd on autonomy, and the idea that you can’t exchange power if you don’t have power to start with, where negotiations are the means for doing so.
This does lead to some entryism by SJW types. But most people aren’t much impressed by them. Part of the point of kink is risk and ambiguity and playing with those things. People do need to learn etiquette around a dungeon. The rules are different. In some ways they are looser than in a nightclub or normal situation. You’re going to see people doing and wearing (or not wearing) things you’d never see in public. In other ways they are more stringent. The biggest one is don’t touch other people or their things (which may mean other people) without asking or being invited to do so. There are other protocols like not talking to people at a play station who are having a scene or standing too close. Generally speaking, people into kink recognize individual autonomy and have developed etiquette around supporting it.
Vendors
Violet wand for shockingly good times.
Like any other con, there are vendors at KinkFest. Vendors selling leather vests and outfits and cuffs and collars. Toys for impact from wooden paddles to acrylic canes. Electro play toys like violet wands and tasers. And of course, rope, rope, rope for bondage and suspensions. There are floggers and whips and latex outfits. Oh, and dildos. Every shape, size and description you can think of. There’s even one vendor called InHerTube that makes special dildos and harnesses that attach to the thigh, or the end of your boot. The vendor hall makes a good spot to wander around, people watch, and socialize with friends. Or to arrange a scene that night in the dungeon, featuring the toys one just purchased. Some of the vendors are truly talented at the things they make.
Dungeon
The dungeon at KinkFest may be the best in the country. To start off with, it is 36,000 sq ft. That space is divided into individual 10′ by 10′ play stations. Each station has some sort of furniture in it: St. Andrews Cross, spanking benches, bondage chairs, massage tables, pagodas, cages, medical tables or simply thick floor mats. The center piece this year was a giant truss structure laid out in four squares with hard points for doing rope bondage. It covered, by my estimation, about 2500 sq ft of space. The whole dungeon has a professional sound and light setup to help set the mood. And it honestly looks like something out of a movie. Some of the extras maybe weren’t as telegenic.
There were some amazing scenes that took place. My favorite was probably an alien probing scene. At least from a spectator’s perspective. There was also the car wash. A couple of nubile young ladies in transparent latex with sponges and water who would wriggle all over their subject and give them a washing. Whip alley is always fun. It’s a 40′ by 20′ section closed off by chain link that has space for two whip scenes. Hearing the bullwhips crack and pop over the sounds of the crowd and music can be startling to some, but it’s part of the atmosphere to me. It goes nicely with the screams, and surprisingly the more common laughter.
And that’s what brings me to the libertarian bit in this piece. It isn’t all just titty-lation (hi Q!). The Kink scene can be a microcosm of spontaneous order, self-policing, private property, and self-ownership. The entire KinkFest phenomenon refutes the ideas people have about why small government couldn’t work. It absolutely works.
The entire affair is organized by volunteers. The core staff put in 20+ hour weeks for 9 months and don’t get paid a dime. They perceive a need and they do it because they want to see it happen. It is a direct counter-argument to the idea that feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless wouldn’t happen without government. People donate so that shit gets done. This includes people spending hours to build dungeon furniture then giving it to the organization. Or specialized skills like professional riggers who donate their time to get things done. Same for the promotion and lining up vendors.
Impact toys, Rope bondage, and the beginnings of some bruises on a bottom.
The volunteers, usually younger members of the community, who help carry it all off give up part of their time enjoying the convention in exchange for free admission. This is a fair exchange of value for those who couldn’t pay the entry fees that are used to pay for the bits that aren’t done by volunteers. Nonetheless, the volunteers earn their keep. It’s also interesting in that if someone volunteers, gets in free, but doesn’t keep up their end of the bargain, they get banned from next year. This deals effectively with the freeloader problem.
Risky things happen in the dungeon. People wear their bruises and welts and even lacerations with pride. Yet the policing is done by a volunteer crew whose focus is on making sure the rules are followed and people are having a good time. The Dungeon Monitors are a model for private police. They are mostly focused on facilitating play in a way that reduces risk as much as possible. They only interfere when called on, or when there is a genuine threat to life and limb. And even then, they are trained in de-escalation and using their words instead of violence. Despite 1500 people all doing fucked-up shit, they rarely must intervene. They wind up offering council or telling people where supplies are like cleaning stuff, first aid, etc. They occasionally must do some dispute resolution over who has dibs on a piece of equipment. But even that’s rare. Because people police themselves.
People and their property are also sacrosanct. Despite all the degeneracy on display, asking first is ingrained and important. Yes, there are yahoos that are new that don’t understand and make mistakes. They are usually quickly identified and corrected. And yes, there are predatory types that look for vulnerable victims to assault, but by and large, those people stay away from the organized group events. Because, again, they get identified. I’d wager one is less likely to be made uncomfortable by a stranger groping you or trying to corner you or to wind up having unwanted violence done to you at a kink event than at a normal bar or concert. It isn’t perfect, but it puts the lie to the idea that without government you can’t have people getting along peacefully or that corporate action requires coercion.
Rope and knife
Another note on property. Most players who have been at it a while have large toy bags. This can be anything from a backpack to rolling suitcases stuffed with stuff. To keep from turning the dungeon into an airport, large shelves are setup near the entrance. People leave their stuff unattended for long stretches of time while playing voyeur or looking for just the right playmate. And return to find their toys unmolested. Some of those toy bags have thousands of dollars in equipment in them. My rope kit alone is probably close to a thousand bucks worth of jute and hardware. Toys rarely go missing. And on the few occasions where they have, it’s usually a case of someone picking up what they thought was their own toy but was someone else’s and it is promptly returned.
That’s not to say there aren’t problems with SJWs, as mentioned. There are, especially online, a contingent of the usual intersectional feminists who want to make any accusation of violating someone’s consent an automatic blackballing of the accused. They use all the language SJWs use in campus kangaroo courts and make big posts on Fetlife, the kink equivalent of Facebook. But fortunately, they don’t have much power in the flesh and blood world. Even more interesting, the vocal ones are learning a hard lesson that the #metoo movement is learning: experienced tops with the more exotic and in demand skills are being much more selective in who they play with for the simple expedient of wanting to guard their reputations. The gender and pronoun thing is something of a big deal. But my experience is that most of those folks are polite in requesting you use their name and pronouns. Those that would like to be able to force you, power is so decentralized, it is hard to coerce people.
One of the saddest things to me is that so many kinksters don’t see that. In their private lives they live and play by libertarian ideas. But they can’t make the leap to seeing it as a strong basis for politics. The left politics are almost reflexive and without thought. I think because many people into kink have negative experience with religious and political conservatives they lean the opposite direction in politics. And there’s a larger contingent than the general population of people who are dysfunctional and therefore want their gimmedats. I try to talk to people about it, and I’ve made some inroads with a few. But cutting through all the accumulated derp is slow going. There are some things you can’t beat out of people.
Impact toys: Carbon fiber cain, hawaiian hardwood hairbrush paddle, rope fist baton, rubber paddle (for vegan play partners), tigerwood paddle, riding crop, small acrylic cane, three floggers.My dungeon/playspace. Instead of typical furniture I have hardpoints for suspension.Diamond Pattern chest harness in jute.One of my first suspensions. Four point side suspension with hemp rope.
My favorite show was the Dukes of Hazzard. I think that had a big impact on me. I don’t know of any other show on TV that was so anti-authoritarian and so subversive while appearing to be nothing more than country kitsch. The authorities were corrupt, venal, petty and incompetent. Which almost made it a documentary. The Duke family were loving, fun, and had cool cars. And they never meant anyone any harm, even the corrupt government trying to destroy them. I didn’t realize for decades how formative that show was, but it set the stage later.
First, despite the petition having about 70% of the parents and students at the school signing on, Mrs. Sandy was passed over for the bitchy-bitch. The board accepted the petition, but they didn’t even look it over or read it. I mean, after all, what do the peasants and their children know about education?
The final piece was a principled lefty prof, my adviser. In an age of ‘speech is violence’, no platforming, and all the rest of the Ctrl Left totalitarianism, it sounds odd that a lefty prof might recommend such kulaks and wreckers as HL Mencken, Rothbard, Milton Friedman, FA Hayek, and the like to a student discovering his politics seems unimaginable. But it happened. Because Mr. Collins was a liberal, but he was also a man who felt he had a duty to his students, and who took the goal of educating his students into thinking for themselves quite seriously.
