The dungeon. It’s cliché, I know. This kind of place was never part of my kink and really it still isn’t. The aesthetic is just all wrong. The leather and the stone and the seriousness of it all always seemed silly to me. I could never have imagened, let’s say four years ago, that this was a place I’d like to frequent. Then again, I do a lot of things now that I never would have imagined doing a few years ago.

Truth be told the way the place looked is important, certainly, but not vital to the games I wanted to play. I think of it like the library I go to, the one near my office. Twelve blocks away there is the most beautiful library in the city, possibly the country; the Main Branch of The New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. It is huge, a marble monument to knowledge. It is atmospheric, with history and vast ceilings painted with murals. It’s epic, but you can’t borrow books from it unless you have special permission.

A block away from my office there is a very small, very dingy library. It is painted institution green and mostly has large print best sellers, but they will order any book I want from any library in the city and they have all of the things I need. It is easy to get to, it is easy to use. It is handy, like the dungeon.

The dungeon is a place where you can play. Where you can scream as loud as you want and hit as hard as your partner can take and you don’t have to worry about neighbors hearing or roommates coming home. You can just play.
Continue reading →