I Can’t Endorse You, And The Fact That This Bothers You Is A Warning

So Montreal is very blessed with a large BDSM scene. Although clubs and dungeons come and go, based on trends and the notoriously tight wallets of the average kinky citizen, you have your pick of places to hang out.

One (well, a couple) of them keeps allowing HerrK to come to their events, a dude with a number of nasty outstanding allegations. It’s pretty well documented, from his vague apology/confession, to the 11 alleged victims that came forward that shit is fucked up. Net consequence, people, including my partner, warn their friends that he goes to stuff. And we tell organizers because it is helping them to know what’s going on. Even if you are a for profit company with the morals of a Saturday morning cartoon villain, it’s really stupid business practices because it’s a giant liability and PR stink.

As of Thursday, talking about a party being held at the club, Unity to which HerrK is going, Wildcard posts a status on fetlife, (kind of like on facebook) to note this so his friends can make up their own minds on the subject and asks he organizer for a statement via PM- warning him that HerrK is attending.

Now Wildcard and I compare notes, but generally work independently on our own moral direction on things- the organizer suggested talking to him, but knowing no fruit came with working with me (eg HerrK was still going to stuff) Wildcard declined the opportunity. The organizer had his warning already. We can’t keep telling him about stuff he was linked to and he can make up his own mind. If his 25+ years of kinky party planning tells him that this is the right call to make, so be it. He’s a free citizen.

Then the organizer puts himself as going to my 18-35 munch. I generally try to enforce the age limits, with a little wiggle room at the 36-37 side of things as people transition into wider things in the scene, so I give him a note this is not the right space for him. He insists that he, despite being a well preserved 50+, has the right to go to a public venue, etc, etc…

I repeat that it would be a shame to have to formally eject one of his tenure and status (because I mean seriously, this guy is the closest to a grandfather the scene has) and I’d rather not humiliate the veteran organizer over what might be a miscommunication when people are tired and emotional. The conversation is probably permanently severed, but I don’t know what more to tell him.

The organizer probably doesn’t like this, but the fact remains, that if you welcome people with the dreaded Allegations hanging over their head, people will be warned by their friends about the quality of the company found at your events. I am nowhere near as evangelical as Wildcard about this particular strategy (I tend to get a lot more “but it never happened to meeeee!”), but it really is very frustrating.

And I know this organizer really, really wants me to endorse the multitude of projects they work hard on. They try to involve the entire community in huge, big tent projects. That I respect except I can’t endorse an event that doesn’t meet the standards of my judgement. I’m not a complicated woman, but there are some things I can’t compromise on. I am just not that flexible.

And I’m a little nobody, toodling around with my single monthly event for the last 5 years. All I can do is tell people I personally don’t endorse this.

Post Mortem 2016

This is "Zozobra" a spirit of pain and despair ritually burned at the change of the year.2016 was not a sexy year. It was a year where I had a very complicated relationship with the Montreal BDSM Community (which is a nice way to say I shouted about sexual assault allegations) and also a year when my libido decided to take a nap, helped along by a cushioning layer of medications for various health problems.

Outside of the context of kink, I took on a vanilla project where I kicked butt, but it ate every scrap of my spare energy.

Other stuff happened in large volume. Some of it was simply a bunch of changes that manifested themselves at the very end of 2015 (moved, got promoted), some of it was background family things (my brother got very sick).

On the safety front, I accomplished a lot, and I accomplished sweet fuck all.

I got enlightened to the HerrK mess and reacted to it. A person I was previously close to decided to get excessively handsy with other people to everyone’s detriment. I yelled at a person who has other assault allegations including my own against him.

People mostly listened, but unfortunately this isn’t a movie. My former friend is on the edges of my social group as many people decided not to cut ties.  HK dramatically quit, and then slunk back into the background of the Montreal BDSM community, moving to separate Urban Dungeon from Opal and carry on as if nothing ever happened. Yelling at the guy who fondled me was about as effective as yelling at the sea, but… at least there is little room to pretend that people don’t know about that shit.

Various event organizers in Montreal were made aware and took approaches ranging from outright denial to taking it as the safety tip, although the vast majority decided that unless there was an iron clad court case with arrest records it was a dramatic mystery. I even got lectured about how poorly I handled this, as if anyone was bothering to touch this shit elsewise.

Eh, it really soured me on a lot of the general Montreal community, because I held the opinion that most people were just unaware of the severity of this and I discovered that given intelligence about a risk most people doubled down hard on the personal responsibility front.

Otherwise…

I did some writing, but not a lot relevant to here. I gained a lot of twitter followers, which meant deepening my connections to online people, and gave my website a much needed face lift.

Wildcard and I ticked through another year in a shared home, this one picked out as a mutual thing at the end of last year. It’s got a lot of floor space and is still located in Canada. We hosted parties of the kinky kind, which I generally failed to document except as stubs of drafts.

Eh, feeling better and not being quite as medicated, I can tell that I was not engaged with my sexuality at all. I think I was averaging an orgasm a month at best, and being pretty rabbit like in my usual habits,  this was quite shocking.

I mean I have pretty impeccable control when I want to, and have been known to match hapless orgasm denial suffering subs so that when they whine I can point out how tough I am. (Old trick from my ex military aunt, never assign a punishment you can’t handle, up to being ready to do push ups right next to them).

Photo source – npr.org

 

 

A Sex Shop Date With Wildcard

sushiLast Saturday, Wildcard identified my doldrums as needing fixing, s we went out to watch Dr. Strange and then gorge on sushi, the latter activity almost  meaning a visit to the nearby sex shop, called “Romance“.

Every relationship has its rituals. I have an undying love for salmon, particularly raw or smoked. Wildcard has a tradition of eating his feelings in delicious all you can eat buffet omnoms. Having a favourite fishing hole, and being fond of me, he shared the location and now we make monthly pilgrimages. Faces get stuffed, then we invariably go sex toy shopping.

At first the shopping trips were an accidental extension of geography. The store just happens to be between us and where we always park. Honestly, showing up there started with very little expectation other than having a giggle at the hilari-bad porn DVDs.

This branch is open absurdly late, which was probably the first draw.  Plus, in addition to the breast shaped macaroni and strawberry flavoured lube (euch), they have an upstairs BDSM and fetish section. It’s an Adult Novelty style shop, but it is more than dick hats and copies of Pink Eye 2.

Still, why pay the markup?

You might wonder our motive for being there. After all, it is never going to be as cheap as shopping online. No brick and mortar store is going to beat a fresh-from-the-warehouse site like pinkcherry.ca in cost. If I want a bouquet of a half dozen riding crops,  I will never argue meatspace is cheaper.

I keep going back to Romance, because they beat even my favourite online retailers in immediate customer engagement. The staff cares about and is knowledgeable about all their stock. And, while online sites offer reviews, at a certain point you can’t beat actually touching the merchandise.

Going Hands On

Does it bounce well in the hand with a fleshy weight? How strong are the stitches in the leather? Can you slap it against your thigh to feel the thud or the sting? How does it stand up to my personal tastes? You can tell right away what will and won’t work for you.

For example, this time I wanted a cock ring for Wildcard. We’ve basically maxed out on vibes and insertables, but I wanted to take my teasing game a little further and make his erections more persistent.

Sure cock rings are a cheap grab. They seldom cost more than $20, unless you are moving into the territory of elaborate gilded ornaments. Still, I could have bought multiples online for the price of the one I got.  I paid the store markup because I wanted to actually handle the products properly, and get Wildcard’s immediate feedback. After all it was his penis about to be cinched.

At Romance, anything is available for reasonable in store testing, and I had six or so different sizes and models to play with and figure out which was best. Otherwise, I would either need to borrow a friend’s personal items (assuming I knew someone who did have one), or try my luck with buying before I try. Why gamble and create waste?

Curation Matters

Romance doesn’t stock the super high end, gold plated luxury brands, and while they have a few of the lower quality toys, they are carefully screened for skin safe material. The quality and price point runs a range, but nothing will cause a rash. They have recognizable brands, like Tantus, and various versions of the standards in less recognized brands: glass, masturbation sleeves, bullet vibes, etc… Nonetheless they have their share of the cheap quality stuff.

However, what makes me trust in the quality of their offerings are how they handle duds and poor purchases and how they constantly make purchasing a conversation.

corsetback

For example last shopping trip, I impulse bought a Music Legs branded corset back fishnet tights set. That’s not a band I’d expect much from, but even so, the quality was terrible, neither matching the claimed colours on the package, nor coming laced. Indeed the wretched things gave you your lace as a single length of uncut ribbon- unacceptable for an item fragile enough that the first wearing was likely the last.

Online shopping, you write an irate review, and maybe process a return with shipping at your own expense. The smaller ones have time to address you complaints, but there’s a lot more time and distance involved. Here, you get the immediate feedback and from the staff, checking if it was a one off and pulling the defective product, as well as making a note to discuss the problem with the supplier.

And their relationship building also works in the opposite direction. I admit a certain degree of entertainment in getting a post purchase inquiry into the effectiveness of other toys. As much as they are ready to take unsolicited feedback, when you shop they ask questions- and if they know you bought something in the past, they ask you about what your experience was.

So in all, I might buy most of my toys online or seek out pervertables from cooking supply and hardware stores, but the post sushi sex shop date isn’t going to stop any time soon.


Disclosure: I affiliated with pinkcherry after I realized I was giving them a bunch of business from simply bulk ordering cheapo toys and talking about it. Romance and Priape offer no compensation for being mentioned. The sushi pic is free stock photography from clker.com

 

Herr Kommandandt Quits. Now What?

nikeHerr Kommandandt has stepped down from his role in Urban Dungeon, and allegedly the BDSM scene. After the number of abuse allegations climbed to 11+ separate individuals with startlingly similar stories of rape, injuries they never consented to, theft and abuse, and a post of mine that made Kinky & Popular on fetlife, there’s some sort of response to all this other than denial. Well, that’s pretty vindicating.

The allegations are getting fully talked about. Other people are talking to MasterSin about the involvement of Montreal Fetish Weekend. I’m getting talked about, in that oblique and careful way that fet does, as a “kinky blogger”. There’s a statement on his profile and in an event thread in the fet group- and one here in the comments of this post from Shawts, which I’ve given a reprint to make it easier to find.

His original statement was in French, so once again D20 has stepped in with his patient translation skill. That guy is a gem of a human. If you see him at one of the munches, please buy him a beverage and tell him nerdy jokes. Seriously.

Herr Kommandandt’s Statement:

Dear Fetlife community,

I address you all in response to what I have read about myself in the past few weeks.

Formerly, impulsive as I was, I would’ve replied immediately, but I wanted to consider the weight of my words and truly think about the matter. For a certain time, as those close to me already knew, I was planning an exit from the fetish scene for an undetermined duration, perhaps even a permanent one.

About two or three months ago, I realized I did not like the person I had become and I asked myself several questions about this subject. Those who have known me for seven or eight years know I am but a shadow of the guy I once was, the friendly and smiling guy, never judging others, never holding a grudge.

It made me realize that, since my breakup with my ex wife, the mother of my daughter, I have been dealing with a major depression for all those years and I did not give the bitterness caused by this breakup the time it needed to heal.

With the years, I became spiteful, moody, I cultivated an unhealthy feeling inside of me and it all affected my actions in my everyday life. I often resorted to negativity and verbal attacks, threats, psychological violence (often without realizing it) and, because of my depression, I was unable to deal with a stable job for medium or long amounts of time.

The advent of Urban Dungeon had worsened these negative feelings and, in the position of power I found myself in, I probably psychologically abused certain people and my recurring poverty meant that, several times, I became dependent of my partners. The taste of power went up to my head. The simple guy became a vindictive, cruel and sometimes illogical guy.

Each breakup in my D/s relationships or love life was epic, laborious and especially complicated. I often only looked at my side of things, without caring about the suffering of others. Sharing my mood swings on social network websites hurt many people… and today, I fully realize it.

Because I love this community, because I gave a lot despite everything, I have made the decision to leave my position as the owner of Urban Dungeon and to cease my BDSM activities.

I’m only a human being, but I did not like what I saw in the mirror when I woke up in the morning. So, a few weeks ago, I took a concrete action to fix my personal problems and as long as my mental and moral conditions do not improve, I will stay away… and I am considering a permanent departure.

I am currently being helped by professionals. Psychiatry and psychology. This help will allow me to thoroughly sort this inner mess, which will certainly require lots of time. It will be painful, but it is time I make this person disappear, this Kommandandt who has been so often talked about in the past few years, and not always for the right reasons.

In the process I have recently begun, I am lucky to have found an angel, a voice of reason, in my submissive, [Faye], who is slowly, and as much as she can, showing me how I can be myself again… how I can become a human being again. Her support is exceptional and I am very grateful of making me rediscover the simple things in life such as happiness, the right path, a life worth living.

So I take the time here to deeply apologize, before leaving, to all those I might have hurt. I was clearly not 100% myself during the past two or three years and I clearly owe you apologies. I have begun to contact each of these persons and to express my regret and present them my sincere apologies (to those who were ready to hear them). To those who wanted to receive them: exes, ex play partners, former friends, etc.

The path I am about to continue on, that I began treading too slowly, this path towards change, permanent change, a return to normal for me, Jack, will be long, painful, but I am ready to face it. I am tired of hurting people I care about, my entourage, and this scene that allowed me to develop myself.

Now that I have identified all my problems and what I must do, I must and will do it. I have already started this process. I will no longer live in negativity nor denial. I will not live in misguided pride. I no longer act in anyone’s name but mine. I will no longer try to run away and I will try to look at problems as they come and attempt to solve them and to make honorable amends at the best of my ability.

With that said, I offer my apologies to all persons, locations, events, venues or other entities to which I might have said things that were either negative, exaggerated or false. I ask all of you to forgive me. It was selfish and irrational of me.

I also offer my apologies to all persons I may have, directly or indirectly, abused of my power or position of power on. I am deeply sorry and I must also work on that important fact. Being a figurehead does not necessarily mean being a harsh dictator or an insensitive being looking for thrills.

I would also like to mention that several people, without naming anyone, out of respect, have deeply hurt me, have harassed me, have caused trouble for my family, have broken my heart and my kidneys… but I forgive you all, each and every one of you, WITH NO EXCEPTIONS. I am tired of living in bitterness, pain and bad memories. I now want to live day by day with a positive mindset.

I have decided to turn a new leaf, to work on myself, no matter how long it will take, even if it takes the rest of my life… so that I don’t make anyone relive these dark years! Not myself and especially not those I love and the woman I love. No one deserved the shitty attitude I may have sometimes displayed.

Now, I take my leave to heal, feel better, take care of myself, my life and my partner. Big thanks to those who have supported me against all odds during all those years, but especially MissOpale who, despite everything, despite certain disagreements, has always been a loyal partner during our adventure. She is also one of the reasons why I am still here, typing behind a keyboard to you today.

The Urban Dungeon was a dream, built with love, passion and in the image of the people that would spend time in it. MissOpale will take my place and will continue the mission of the Urban without me. I will no longer be associated to this place, even if my soul and my heart will remain Urban forever. For the love I have for this community and my friends, I pass the torch. Do not deprive yourself of a beautiful place to play and meet people. And I will add that MissOpale is an extraordinary person. I had become the problem… and I am doing what it takes to fix that problem. I do not deserve a prestigious position at the moment and I especially do not deserve to be a standard bearer. Do not make a venue and fantastic events pay for my mistakes, as it would be unjust of you to make an entire, wonderful team pay for mistakes I have made in the past due to my lack of a better judgement while I was going through depression!

With that said, and with a tear to my eye, I tell you… see you next time, if there ever will be one.

What happens now?

Read more

Something Positive From MTL: A Lingerie for Men Show!

After that necessary barrage of negativity about abuse allegations, and the unhinged messages from special salad man, I want to digress into talking about something pretty neat happening in my city…

A Lingerie for Men Fashion Show!

I often talk about the strictures on men, particularly male subs, not to be objects of sexual desire. As a woman, there are lingerie looks I can try from frothy in ruffles to fierce in leather. As a male, the lingerie for men options usually demand simply cross dress or offer aggressive sports wear or strict bondage looks. The dichotomy is strict- modern masculinity eschews softness. For a gender that is automatically associated with dominance for many people, the list of rules governing what men can’t do without getting their gender questioned is long enough if this were a BDSM contract we’d be telling the top to scale back to something more realistic.

It wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, men didn’t have to enter the complicated world of gender bending to enjoy lace, but let it burst from beneath their clothes at they collars and cuffs, and hemmed their private linens with the same pride as women.

Enter Wicked Mmm

14657442_300850686964610_1471498625882323371_n

They have a fashion show on October 20, 2016 that is their brand fundraiser launch. In keeping with the open and forward thinking spirit of Montreal, they are using male, female and non-binary identified models. Although aimed at male leaning persons, their tagline is pretty clear that it’s for all people with packages (even those who pack).

Because nobody consented to be denied lace because of their gender.

If you want to check out their catalog, they have an etsy shop as they continue their ongoing launch. Myself, despite a crazy busy week, I’m planning on making it out to the show- and if you aren’t sold on the lace, there’s a raffle for a number of great services in the city and several of the finest burlesque stars in Montreal strutting their stuff.


Required disclosure: These nice folks aren’t paying me to promote them. I’m not even getting comped tickets, I just like what they are doing. Because I know the team responsible (Mashacat and Willcat), they were nice enough to give me permission to repost from their recent fashion shoot. Those singlets are to die for!

Urban Dungeon & Herr Kommadant Pt. 3

new mfwurban logoWondering what this is? Start here.

So, in response to making the allegations public, at my current count we have one well meaning unrelated interloper doing the false accusations hurt people shtick and 4 our so people directly connected to Urban Dungeon or Herr Kommadant, 3 of those who acknowledge that he has a reputation, whether or not they choose to take it seriously. And an outpouring of support. Yaye guys.

I am actually inclined to be patient with the former, as bystanders have less obligation to speak for anyone other than themselves, but I can say in my perspective, Opal (Co-owner of Urban Dungeon), Happy Boobologist (the “Happy Munch”) and Shawts (25 to 45 Munch) have made it explicitly clear they will happily organize events at a venue owned/run by someone with multiple allegations outstanding.

Urban Dungeon’s Associated Persons are Not Handling This Well

All these individuals are more concerned with silencing dissent about the venue than dealing with the problem. They are not at all concerned with taking steps to address these allegations other than insisting a higher standard (police reports, in particular, which you know are scarce even in vanilla circumstance) although they are happy enough to pay lip service to the idea that they are totally open to victims talking to them, nothing about their behaviour or actions has indicated they plan to take anything seriously.

Perhaps none of these persons is aware that they are making a hostile environment that is contributing to the issue at hand. I will say if at *my* munch it was discovered that a volunteer or fellow organizer have numerous allegations outstanding I would (and did!) consider it way more of a priority than shutting up the person who brought it to my attention so that my business or parties were not impacted.

I know first hand how upsetting it is to discover that not only was someone you trusted not who you thought they were, but also the feelings of guilt in being complicit by legitimizing someone who did not respect consent. But you have to do the right thing because if you are going to make yourself responsible for hosting or organizing, you are 100% responsible for putting people at risk.

Meanwhile…

Alleged survivors/victims remain frightened of consequences. I would like to see due legal process followed, but it is understandable that asking someone to out themselves (remember we can use pseudonyms here, but the cops will not accept anything but legal names and the intimate details of your private life, something that they are under zero expectation to understand or accept) is a tough order of business. Police were talked to, but proved to be somewhat difficult to gain the attention of- remember that our entire way of doing the public sexy stuff took relatively recent legal challenges, and at this time buying sex, profiting from the sale of sex and third-party advertising are all illegal– Montreal is a generally liberal area, but it would be foolish not to say there is a stigma attached to what we do.

Yes, there will probably be further attempts at police but that is entirely up to the victims. And FFS people, the reason why I am doing this is because right now many of the people who believe they were victimized feel there is a consensus supporting Herr Kommadant. I am having a hard time arguing that it would be safe for them to go public when multiple organizers acknowledge his terrible reputation, but don’t care and are annoyed I’m talking about it.

Ok, so what does Miss Pearl want from this?

I want nobody with any degree of power in the Montreal BDSM community to be able to say they didn’t know about the allegations. I want to call out people who make a hostile space to discuss abuse within the BDSM community, or for that matter insist that we are a healthy, safe space while trying to force truly toxic things into the shadows without acknowledging them.

If you want to help…

  • If you have survivor resources in Montreal, leaving them in the comments would be a good idea.
  • If you have been victimized or witnessed victimization I will listen.
  • If you want to affirm that you respect the right of survivors not to be re-victimized, leaving a comment is more than welcome.

Follow along here:

Urban Dungeon & Montreal Fetish Scene Issues

new mfwurban logo

So yeah, if you want to deal with missing stairs, unfortunately one of Montreal’s more popular fetish venues is in the middle of one of those scenarios. Urban Dungeon, a play space that hosts numerous events and is closely affiliated with Montreal Fetish Weekend, is run by someone with a known reputation for abuse. It is not challenging to find people who will tell you Herr_Kommandandt is a dangerous person. Nonetheless tons of people who are aware of this continue to hang out there including people whose friends (whom they believe!) have had alleged consent violations or other abuse happen to them.

I avoided it personally, because I got a bad gut feeling about the whole thing, one of those intuitive guesses that something seems off- maybe it was the pile of people with resumes for profiles about all the things they are involved in, which I always see as a bad sign because it means they want you to respect them off the bat and award them authority.

And because I run the 18 to 35 munch, people tell me shit. It wasn’t unsurprising to get given a FYI about eight separate incidents and people. But still, it’s really fucking thorny to deal with. There’s literally no way I can stop this, no matter how much social capital I have and the best I can hope is to close ranks with the TNG style stuff I do run and tell my friends and guests to be careful.

But other than that, it’s not like I can go to the police and say “oh by the way there’s alleged alleged abuse going down between kinky people who use psuedonyms, and probably none of the people this happened to will testify because they are utterly fuck terrified of the social or legal consequences and because he preys on people from marginalized populations (sex workers, the mentally ill whom he can say are just “crazy”). Nobody believes or trusts that they’ll be heard in any meaningful way. I sure as fuck don’t- it’s not like anyone listened about Dunter.

I’ve told my fellow organizers at MEOW and the secret TNG play party. I even told someone connected to the Urban Dungeon who has clean hands, in case he’s simply been oblivious. I mean I doubt it, but I’m clinging to the idea that he’s not an accessory because I need some innocence to stay motivated.

But it’s a rock and a hard place, because it’s nearly impossible to get anyone to publicly admit this shit happened to them. They’ll talk, candidly, and off the record, but… eugh.

All I’ve got to go on with this is fleeting social capital, so I guess if I end up publicly known as that crazy vindictive bitch in Montreal I guess you guys know what happened. It’s not like I ever go to Montreal Fetish Weekend anyway.

Siiiiigh. Sorry guys, it’s not a sexy anecdote, it’s one of the harsh realities of the BDSM scene that the terror of being outed and the limited pool of events make things a lot darker than they should be. They’re bigger than me, they have a larger pool of social capital and they have more money than me, but fuck, if I can’t use my popularity to tell people about this what good is it?

If you believe me as a reliable source, stay away from Urban Dungeon.

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