By Joseph Couture

Straight people are such freaks. I recently managed to get myself into a private "pan-sexual bondage and sadomasochism" party, and I think I saw one of my best friend's grandmothers there whipping some guy's ass with a riding crop, and later having her back set on fire with rubbing alcohol.

I'd heard some stories, like about all the cute straight guys who came who seemed to have a lot of pent up same-sex sexual frustration in need of release. I heard even more from the staff who complained about having to clean up blood and shit after the kink players had gone home.

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Like any gift, the anticipation as you unwrap the package was half the fun.

One of the first to arrive, I got to see the place empty as organizers set up an impressive amount of equipment. The bondage tables and St. Andrew's crosses were made of fine oak and leather and beautifully polished. Separate areas were roped off to keep observers back and give players space.

The club that runs the show holds these events about once a month in the decidedly-average, mid-size Ontario town where I live. Despite the frigid winter temperatures that night, they were expecting a good crowd. You had to be on the membership list to get in and pay $20 in advance. You also had to sign a legal waiver indemnifying organizers from liability if anything that happened left you harmed or offended.

The first mental note that I made was how, well, ordinary, everyone looked.

Yes, there were a number of scantily clad men and women in fetish leather outfits. Yes, there were naked women running around with their breasts flopping in the air. Yes, there were a couple of transvestite men showing off women's lingerie. There was one particularly striking young man wearing black contacts that made his eyes look demonic and creepy, yet irresistibly sexy in that way danger and trouble often are.

There were a couple of very hot young and feminine women with perfect bodies who turned the head of even this gay man. There were a few good-looking men who looked like Wall Street stock brokers, the kind that might impress your mother if you brought them home for dinner.

But mostly, like any bathhouse, average was the norm. There were a lot of seriously overweight men and women. There were elderly patrons, and a number of handicapped men and women sporting canes and wheelchairs.

The evening began slowly, with people starting to trickle in around 8 p.m. By 9:30 there were over 125 folks in the bar. I noticed how almost everyone was carrying what seemed like a large tool box. Mostly everyone sat around awkwardly drinking and talking, the play areas conspicuously empty.

Hitting the books

It started slowly at first, and then became the background noise for the rest of the evening. The swatting sounded a lot like my last trip to the cottage in Northern Ontario during mosquito season. Smack. Smack. But here there were no insect fatalities involved -- just eager tops with leather whips smacking the shit out submissive bottoms.

At one end of the bar was this rather gay-looking man chained to a cross being tortured by a women in plaid pants and boots. First she whipped his ass with a riding crop, then gently stroked his back with her fingertips, then mercilessly tickled him as he squirmed, yelped, and begged for mercy. He seemed to suffer more from the tickling than the beating.

In the middle of the room there was chained a beautiful, slender woman being topped by a large and sweaty man. First he spanked her butt with his bare hand until it glowed red. Then he made her lie down on the floor on her hands and knees and lick his boots. When he grew tired of that, he reached into his tool box for a pair of nipple clamps that he placed on her tits and tightened them until she pleaded for her master to be gentle.

Over to the other side of the room, an extremely obese woman was being topped by a young man who looked a bit like a garden gnome. She stood there naked, strapped to a cross, and he wrapped her giant and floppy breasts in clear duct tape. Then he whipped her tits until tears ran down her face, while she gratefully thanked him for his kindness.

In another part of the bar I came across a naked young woman crouched down inside a large dog cage, her "owner" sitting watchfully beside her in a chair, lest she try to escape. Just down from her was another obese women bent over a medical examination table. From the other side of the room there were large pockets of cellulite visible on her ass, but they weren't the focus of this doctor's attention. Another big man was standing behind her, Crisco at the ready, with his fist nearly up to his elbow inside her rectum.

In a small room off to the side there was a man on another examining table, his top wearing rubber gloves and sticking needles through the man's nipples. I couldn't tell if the bottom was near tears or closer to orgasm, but he was loud and seemed grateful for the all the ministrations.

Soon I ran into the young cutie with the devil eyes. He was naked and being led around on a dog chain by a young woman who (how can I say this without sounding unkind?) looked like she had some developmental disability. She was ordering him about like a drill sergeant and, obviously very fond of him, keeping him close.

All the while the participants were being supervised by roaming DM's, or Doms, whose job it was to make sure that no one got hurt who didn't want to and that limits were respected. Yellow was the house code-word for "caution," and red meant "stop." Without these words, even if someone's screaming at the top of their lungs that they're being murdered, no one will intervene.

There are other rules, too. Knife play is only allowed in certain areas and must stop if blood spatters. Electrocution is only allowed below the waist. Watersports are limited to shower areas, with bathing and clean-up required afterwards.

The key rule, though, is that sex is absolutely forbidden. The official party is a non-sexual event. No oral sex, anal sex, masturbation, or the sexual touching of genitals is permitted and, so far as I could see, none happened.

The focus was simply bondage and SM, and sexual orientation wasn't a big deal. Many of the organizers were straight men, with many of their women comrades identifying as lesbian or bisexual. A smattering of gay and bi men rounded out the group. For whatever reason, the event is billed as predominantly straight, but it was certainly inclusive.

Veni, vidi, comedi

So things were rocking. Naked people were getting whipped, spanked, and beaten all over the place. Then a couple of the staff brought out the food, laying out cold cuts, vegetables, and crackers.

No one had yelled "red," but the whole place came to a complete stop and there was a virtual stampede to the food table. Some loaded up their plates like they hadn't eaten in a week and went off to a corner to graze.

One couple, immersed in their SM play, was slow to get in line. The woman turned around and the table was completely empty, not a scrap of food left. "Jesus Christ," she exclaimed out loud. "These people are like bloody locusts."

I didn't know what to think. But the next time I'm in a bathhouse and see a cute guy whom I want, I'll have a strategy for dealing with the competition. If some other guy makes a move on my man, I'll start throwing shrimp and veggies in the interloper's general direction to distract him. Since food seems to be more important to a lot of people than sex, maybe it'll work.

This particular bunch of players seemed quite messy. And not only did this group tend not pick up after themselves, they weren't generous tipping the staff to whom that job would fall. "These guys outdo the fags on the cheapness scale by a factor of ten-to-one," I heard one waiter say to another. Staff told me that SM night meant they did twice the work but made about half as much money as they do for their average gay night and a third as much as a typical bear event.

Burning bright

But at least the workers got to see some curious spectacles. One of the organizers caught me staring at an elderly woman involved in "fire play" and he came over to explain it to me. "It's about dual sensations," he said. The 70-percent rubbing alcohol is at first cool to the touch when spread in a thin strip on the skin. And then it isn't, with the help of a fire wand. Practitioners use their hand to extinguish the flame before it burns. If you watch as you are set on fire, he said, it adds to the anticipation.

Just then a middle-aged woman walked over to us. My new friend asked the woman if she had her "needle ribbon" in. She said yes, and pulled up her pant leg to reveal her evening's sewing. She had used a scalpel and made a vertical incision in her leg. She then stitched up the cut with a needle and ribbon. She had left several needles sticking through the wound horizontally for added feeling. I declined her offer to show me the other leg.

My guide was becoming Virgil to my Dante. Picking up on a term I'd heard bandied about, I asked him about "percussion play." He said it was basically like slapping. I was probably visibly leery when he said he would demonstrate. He started out by gently tapping my back with his hand. Then he cupped his hand and hit me a little harder. Next, without a moment's warning, he slapped me on the back as hard as he could and nearly sent me flying across the room. When I recovered my senses I told him never to do that again. "Please don't hurt me,"
I said. "I'm just a little old lady."

Speaking of little old ladies, as the evening drew to a close an elderly woman was making her way past me to the door with her walker. "Oh, darn, I forgot my violence case," she suddenly blurted out to her female companion. I smiled at her and asked if I'd heard her correctly. Violence case? Her friend scurried off and returned a minute later with a violin case, which she opened, revealing a beautiful collection of leather whips. "I only carry this on special occasions," she said.

A young lady walked past me on her way out who looked completely drunk out of her mind. I asked the man beside me whether she looked more than a little toasted. He answered that he knew her and she hadn't touched a drink all night. She was in what he called "sub-space" -- the haze the follows a good beating. "The endorphins get going and you look dazed and confused," he explained, "although it's a good high. Boxers call it punch drunk."

Vanilla & sprinkles

Finally, as the crowds began to thin, I had a chance to talk to one of the hottest girls of the night. She was a petite blonde wearing a leather outfit that had holes showing her ass and nipples. Her cutish boyfriend stopped to proudly point out to me the welts on her ass. I had a chance to chat with her as he went and got the car.

She was a seasoned veteran, she told me, but her boyfriend was a newbie and only tagged along out of loyalty. She asked if I was into BDSM. I'm slutty as hell, I replied, but actually pretty vanilla.

But then I told her the story of a recent trick. I was at the bathhouse and I picked up this guy -- not all that hot-looking, but with a nice body and sexy tattoos. Yet it became clear quickly that this guy was no dead lay. He was active, talented, and enthusiastic.

He worked me over good and brought me close several times, never letting me come. Suddenly he grabbed my hands, forcefully pinning my arms down above my head. Then he started biting my neck -- hard, borderline too hard. I'd never felt such a combination of pleasure and pain before. I nearly came just from that.

"Ah," she said. "So you're not vanilla then. You just need a few more lessons." Was she trying to set something up? As fate would have it, her boyfriend popped through the door and with a "good night," swept her away.

The Flame's the Rub

An introduction to fire play

I'm a whiz with needle and thread. And having been around the block, I wasn't fazed by the spanking and fisting. But fire play sure caught my eye when I was guest at SM party last winter. It got me reading.

I'm not suggesting trying this at home, or trying this after a few drinks, or trying this at all. But having found online an intelligent baedeker to fire play with rubbing alcohol, I'd be remiss not to tell you, if your interest was piqued as much as mine.

To learn more, check out a great site on all things SM -- Albanypowerexchange.com.

On this erotic frontier, I'm still a virgin. But I can't look at a bottle of rubbing alcohol quite the same way again! Here's an excerpt from the Albanypowerexchange.com's fire play guidelines:

The standard rubbing alcohol found in drug stores that is 70 percent isopropyl alcohol. This is perhaps the riskiest form of fire play and requires the most caution. Two important safety points when doing fire play with rubbing alcohol: the liquid flows down, fire burns up. I will repeat these points later. Start small. Take a 100 percent cotton swab (stay away from "cosmetic puffs"-- they are made from artificial fibers that will melt and can cause burns), dip it in the rubbing alcohol and light it. Carefully and lightly brush it across the skin on the underside of your wrist. This is what the flame will feel like on your partner's skin. Now let your bottom repeat this same procedure on themselves. If it feels okay to them, you may continue. If it's too hot, stop -- this type of fire play is not for them.

If you're ready to go on, proceed by painting alcohol on an area of the skin on the subject's forearm with the swab. Watch for drips! Place your hand over the uppermost part of the forearm where the alcohol starts. With the swab, light the alcohol. Let it flash up only once, and then use your hand to snuff out the fire by wiping your hand down over the flame.

Practice this technique of lighting small patches on different areas of the body before moving on to doing larger regions.

Keep a hand towel near by to wipe the excess alcohol from the skin before reapplying. This helps you control the amount of alcohol on the skin each time you light it.

I keep my free hand between the flame and my bottom's head at all times when lighting. It makes it easier to snuff out the flame if necessary, and I'd rather burn my hand then my bottom's head.

Please note that repeatedly lighting the same spot will make the skin more sensitive to the burning. Avoid doing this.

If you want to reduce the time it takes for the alcohol to completely burn, you can dilute it with water. Adding water will reduce the alcohol content, and less alcohol means there's less fuel to burn. The flame will go out much more quickly.

It's important to stay away from the face and head. And watch out for the hair -- it will burn!

You can also apply the alcohol with small sponge brushes found in hardware stores. Again, watch for drips. The alcohol will continue to flow down the skin if too much is applied. These sponge brushes can hold a lot of alcohol. Be especially aware if you are working on a area of the body with crevices such as the breasts, buttocks or folds in skin. You don't want alcohol getting into these areas and burning. It can cause injury. Keep in mind that body hair will burn, too.

I don't recommend using this type of fire play on the genitals. Besides having lots of folds and crevices, the skin of the genitals will readily absorb the alcohol and may burn more intensely than intended.

Also included in this type of fire play is the use
of alcohol torches. I make my own from wooden dowels with small amounts of 100 percent cotton tied on with 100 percent cotton thread (again, avoid artificial fibers
that melt and burn). Dip the cotton of the torch in the alcohol and then light it. You may then lightly and quickly brush the body with the tip of the
flame of the torch. Stay away from the face and head and watch for burning body hair.

Find out more at http://tinyurl.com/fireplay

Author Profile:  Joseph Couture

Joseph Couture is a journalist based on London, Ontario.