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DaddyBob69@aol.com
Daddy Bob Allen is a well known
personality in the
California
Scene, having written “The Only Reason I Mention This,” a collection
of his essays from the Leather Journal and a novel called “The Wings
of Icarus.”
Read Daddy Bob's Other
articles:
To Boldly Go
The Great SM
Demonstration Dilemma
The Spiritual Daddy
The Wearin' O the Hides
SENSUOUS SADIE: Your novel The
Wings of Icarus received excellent reviews and also won four local
awards in the leather community for both literature and journalism. It
was said that you really broke some new ground with this book. How did
you do that?
DADDY BOB: “It might be better to
analyze the ‘why?’ first; the ‘how?’ will fall into place later.
I took a good hard look at what the SM community was being offered in
the way of fiction and decided just about all of it was dreck: Cardboard
characters flitting from one sex adventure to another with little in the
way of redeeming social value. It was all jack-off literature and though
I was advised by everyone I talked to that it would be literary suicide
to do anything else, I decided my Brothers and Sisters in Leather
deserved something better. My peers bought the junk because there was
nothing else offered to them.
“Since I am a rather good storyteller, I was certain I could come up
with something with a trifle more depth than a cookie sheet, something
that would challenge and uplift instead of just titillate. Some years
ago I was invited to spend a day at a rather interesting ranch which
turned out to be the setting for a gut wrenching parable about real
people and the real meaning of Leather in the lives of folk you could
actually hope to meet someday. It has sex in it, indeed it is Leathersex
that makes us a people, but the sex doesn’t get in the way of telling
a beautiful story.
“I’ve had hardened, veteran, tough as nails, Old Guard Leathermen
read my book…and talk to me about it in tears. About half the people
I’ve talked to who have read The
Wings of Icarus have read it more than once. I’ll let you draw
the inferences.”
Sadie: Your other book
is a collection of your essays. How would you describe the timbre of
your writing?
Daddy Bob: “I have always been a serious student of Irma Bombeck. I
was a pre-teen when she started publishing and I fell in love with her
instantly. Not only did I appreciate her wicked humor but I also
appreciated her saintly wisdom and her ability to make a serious point
about our culture within a 400 word torrent of laughs. Though I have
developed several different literary ‘voices’ which I can handle
with some skill, my humor articles have to be my favorite form of
literary expression. Some years ago I was trying to shoehorn myself into
one of the local gay news magazines with a farce feature on main stream
gay life. I was rejected, but Dave Rhodes was working for the magazine
at that time and he saw them. He was about to start his own publication,
The Leather Journal, and
he asked me if I could write the same kind of article for the Leather
reader. I told him I was a professional, he could have anything he
wanted and I turned out a few samples. The rest is history. My feature
article for TLJ was called The
Wearin’ O’ the Hides and it appeared in every single issue of
TLJ Magazine except issue 1; that assignment lasted just about 10 years.
My instructions were to keep the readers riled up with humor and to
always be at the center of some controversy…and I was to skewer a few
of Leather’s sacred cows while I was at it. I never deviated from
those instructions.”
Sadie: What are you
working on right now?
Daddy Bob: “I have several manuscripts finished at present, but I
haven’t taken any steps lately to get the next book in print. I write
an article every Monday to accompany my bar’s calendar of events which
is sent out to the Bullet’s E-mail list. A few paragraphs of farce
each week make opening my calendar a delight -- most of the other
calendars people receive are deleted as spam. Even my Brother bar owners
admit the open my calendar to find out what sort of mischief I’ve
gotten into during the week. I take something that is happening at the
bar, blow it all out of proportion for the sake of farce, and sometimes
make a serious point as well. It keeps my customers involved. I am
saving all the articles and they will eventually form the basis of a
definitive book on the owning and running of a saloon. It will be called
Schmoozing, Salsa, and Slime.”
Sadie: You are owner of
the Bullet Bar, a leather club in
North
Hollywood
.
Where do you place yourself, and the Bullet Bar in the leather community
there? What do you offer that is unique?
Daddy Bob: “One of our herd Fathers wrote a guest editorial last year
about the passing of an era: Though there is more SM activity than ever
going on at present, virtually none of it begins in the bars any more --
the mixing and discovery venue has switched to the Internet. The first
thing a bar owner has to realize these days is the true Leather bar is
gone, probably forever. So, though the Bullet is billed as a
Leather/Levi bar, for most of the hours of the week it is no such thing.
The Bullet is what it has always been, a warm, friendly, local watering
hole with no attitude. My business partner and I cater to a core of old
guard regulars -- old guard in age and loyalty, not SM experience -- who
have been keeping the doors of this venerable old institution open for
decades, and we have added a lot of new regulars who are a bit on the
kinky side, and by some miracle the two groups blend seamlessly. We
offer a lot of special events, some for the vanilla crowd, some for the
LeatherFolk. But, the emphasis at the Bullet is always on ‘family’
and that wonderful family is a very large and very diverse group of
people. I’m not sure any of this is ‘unique’. We don’t try to
be.”
Sadie: You
take a strong spiritual approach to BDSM, saying that, ‘SM is a belief
system, the oldest belief system on the planet. In the dungeon we are
tapping into the same forces that our pagan and aboriginal ancestors
knew about and used in rites and rituals...’ Could you expand a little
bit in what you mean by this?
Daddy Bob: “Be careful. I have quite literally talked for days on
this.
“I put my first clothespin on a set of nuts when I was 11, I am now
approaching 60; I’ll let you do the arithmetic. The point is, when I
first made some rather daring and studied thrusts into the realm of BDSM
as a boy, I had not read a Drummer
Magazine, no one had instructed me in the glories of the
endorphin rush, and I needed no advice on how to incorporate sexual
energy into a recreational activity. After Reading Geof Meins’ The
Urban Aboriginal I understood why. Meins offers some rather
convincing bio-chemical support for the BDSM phenomena, and had he lived
I’m certain he would have eventually nailed the topic even better than
he did in T.U.A. In short, SM is programmed into the brain at birth.
“For just about all of our existence, homo sapiens has been a hunter
gatherer. Culture is little more than a ten thousand year overlay on
what amounts to an aboriginal brain. Though the brain evolves, it
doesn’t evolve that fast, so we are all born with a set of reward
centers in or brains that dictate successful behavior for survival in
the wilderness, including some that dictate the need for meaningful
rites, rituals and mythology. Attempting to correlate these drives and
needs with the ‘artificial’ demands of culture is trying at best,
and our species has a rainbow of stress related diseases to show for it.
“Under the tender auspices of the Judeo-Christian ethic, our culture
mis-instructs us in numberless ways, not the least of which is the
pantheon of meaningless rites and rituals we are handed and expected to
live with. Our culture has gutted all of our rites and rituals of
anything significant: Sexual energy, life and death imperatives,
personal involvement. A good example of this is the puberty rite. The
First Communion and the Bar Mitzva are not true puberty rites. Everyone
passes, there is no introduction to the mysteries of sex either overtly
or symbolically, and other than a little nervousness at having to recite
prayers there is no real introduction to the stress of living life in a
dynamic and sometimes angry world. It is not father and uncles putting
on masks and scaring the piss out of a boy to turn him into a man. BDSM
takes over where our culture fails us.
“When I first opened my dungeon and started trying to attract men to
my special realm, I did what I did quite well. But, it was from a gut
level and I could not really articulate the dynamic. My boys would
constantly ask me, ‘Why do I like this? You strip me and torture me,
and when we’re finished I want to come back for more, I am right with
the cosmos, and I feel better about myself. What’s going on?’ I
didn’t have a ready answer at the beginning but if anyone is going to
figure it out it will be your Daddy Bob.
“I won’t go into the details of the years of reading and study I
went through. A lot of the research was original since I talked
extensively with the men I was playing with to find out what was
happening to them in tedious detail. (In New Wave Leather this is called
processing) Eventually I figured out that what we are doing in the
dungeon represents tailor-made rites and rituals designed to center and
balance the organism using dramatic shifts in blood chemistry. Add
intense sex and the power shift to this rather simple dynamic and the
true aboriginal nature of what we’re doing slips into focus. And add
to all of that the fact that the stimuli and life and death imperatives
of true aboriginal rites and rituals are placed exactly where they
belong: On the helpless naked body of the participant, and the picture
is complete. I call all of this mystical, aboriginal, pagan and natural;
others have a different list of words for it and they are just as
correct because SM is above all personal.
“I’d like to take a brief aside to talk about the power shift.
Humans quite naturally stratify themselves: We are a social organism and
letting individuals assume roles on a graduated scale is critical to our
survival as a species. We elevate creative and dynamic individuals to
stations above the norm without thinking about it. Unfortunately -- and
we have the Judeo-Christian ethic to thank for this, too -- we also add
dangerous value judgments to the strata. In our culture, if we are not
posturing for alpha individual status, there is something wrong with us.
So the power shift, especially in a sexual context, is a hideous bugaboo
to most people.
“Getting back to the aboriginal brain, I’d like to offer one example
of what I am talking about which should clarify everything: The
phenomena of inner city gangs. Until government and law enforcement
become aware of precisely what they are dealing with, there is
absolutely no way the anti-social aspects of these groupings of young
men and women can be eliminated. These young people have totally
rejected the bankrupt belief system that the Judeo-Christian ethic has
handed them in favor of one that actually works for them. And this
belief system that they themselves have devised, coming directly from
the reward centers programmed into each and every one of us, has all the
elements of any pagan and aboriginal belief system: Daily exercises in
dominance and submissiveness, mood altering drugs, sex, real life and
death imperatives and human sacrifice. And these young people are not
going to give up this true belief system which services all their needs
and play basketball.”
Sadie:
What is your religious background? Did
you find that this contributed to, or took away from your ability to
connect spirituality and BDSM?
Daddy Bob: “I was sent to a Baptist Sunday school when I was little
and my parents only took me to church services twice a year, Easter and
Christmas Eve. I was a Sunday school teacher’s nightmare because I
asked a lot of pointed questions about organized religion -- I didn’t
buy into it then and I don’t buy into it now. Organized religion
doesn’t equate to spirituality for me, though I am very quick to
acknowledge that for some people it is critical. To sum up the matter,
other than a general acquaintanceship with the Bible which comes in
handy once in a while, my exposure to organized religion has had very
little effect on the unfolding of my life in general and my
understanding of BDSM specifically.”
Sadie: There’s a
wonderful statement you make on your website that really says it all,
“I don’t care how pretty you are, I don’t care how well you are
hung, I don’t care how horny you are, I don’t care how thoroughly
you think you can fulfill my needs, and I don’t care how desperate you
are to explore the wondrous mysteries of Leathersex with an experienced
sorcerer.” Yet of course these are the very things that most players
offer up. How do you find partners who have a deeper sense of things?
Does anyone ever fool you?
Daddy Bob: “Over the years I have developed a pattern of questions and
statements which weed out the men who are not ready for Daddy Bob’s
dungeon…for whatever reason, including the hunk who thinks his
physical beauty is the only key he needs to open any door. Alas, the
secret panel to my dungeon swings wide only for the more cerebral
player. I am, after all, more interested in the sex organ that is lodged
in the skull than the ones dangling between the thighs.
“This is not to say that in my opening conversations with potential
playmates that I concentrate only on the mystical, the pagan and
aboriginal. I remind everyone who wishes to visit me for the first time
that we are there to have fun and we never lose sight of the fact that
we are having sex. I do stress the sensual and erotic aspects of Leather
as opposed to raw brutality and indiscriminate pain. The reason I go
into all the other matters revolving around mysticism is that I would be
criminally irresponsible if I didn’t warn potential partners of the
highly charged and intense nature of my games. Some rather incredible
things happen in my dungeon and I want the man to be prepared.
“I won’t go into the complete litany of my screening process but to
the babies I start with, ‘SM changes your life.’ I include the fact
that I don’t mount scenes I touch lives, and I don’t open the
dungeon for quickies and half measure. Unless the man is ready for a
life altering experience, I’m not interested. Once I start talking
about this host of peripheral matters, my new contact is either
monumentally turned off or I set the hook with a vengeance. It’s been
a long time since anyone slipped in under my net.”
Sadie: Oh no, you
won’t get off that easy. I’m dying to know - what are the actual
questions you use to screen new partners?
Daddy Bob: “First of all I have to find out who I’m talking to,
veteran, baby or in between. I ask what experiences the man has had,
good bad or indifferent. This dictates the remainder of the
conversation…and that conversation is always face to face. The man has
to look into the old brown eyes and see for himself that I am
trustworthy. And, each and every conversation is different.
“If it is a hardened veteran who has heard about me the conversation
can be very brief. I tell him I stress the sensual and erotic, that
there is the possibility of mystical energy entering our play and I need
to see his get-down side. If he understands what I’m talking about
there is little more to say except to answer any specific questions he
may have. I give him my phone number and he agrees to call me for a date
on my play calendar.
“If the man has some experience but isn’t a veteran, my first
question is how much of his dungeon experience he has found erotic.
Assuming he knows what I’m talking about I ask him some specifics
about what has been done with him in an SM setting, what games Tops have
played with him. I find out if he has had any scenes that went badly --
this to see if I have any repair work to do on the man’s approach to
SM. When I get a clear picture of where he is into the BDSM continuum --
so I’m not so much like a Gypsy doing a cold reading -- I begin
explaining where I am coming from.
“I hit the high spots in no particular order: I use a broad range of
techniques, but I can generate the magic with anything; I stress the
sensual and erotic; I observe the rules of safe, sane and consensual; he
gets the whole piece of goods -- I am not interested in quickies and
half measures; I don’t mount scenes, I touch lives; I would be
criminally irresponsible if I didn’t warn him about mystical energy
entering our play; I need three things from him to give us optimum
chances of a successful scene: 1. His trust, 2. He has to be happy with
sex toy status for the evening he entertains me and 3. He has to get
trashy.
“I entertain questions on all this and after the man is satisfied
I’m not a candidate for the looney bin I give him my phone number.
“If the man is a baby, no experience at all, I try to find out where
he has gotten his information about SM -- he has contacted me, after
all, and he knows there is something out there. This is important
because if his information is coming from SM fiction I have some
re-focusing to do. SM fiction is distorted and sensationalized to sell
copy and he has to know that. Then I lay the big one on him: ‘SM
changes your life.’ I can then go over the same steps I have already
outlined, slower and with a little more detail that with the man who has
had some experience. I spend a lot more time on his questions before I
hand over my card with my phone number on it.
“An interesting little side story: My conversations all take place at
my bar. I do not give out sensitive information about myself before I
have met the man so I meet him on neutral ground. After so many years of
meeting men in my bar, the regulars have gotten to know my methods. They
are all aware that if I have found a worthy playmate the signal is I
give him my card at the end of the conversation. The regulars routinely
place side bets on whether or not a particular man is a winner.”
Sadie: Geeze,
Daddy Bob… a “play calendar?”
Daddy Bob: “Yes,
I have a play calendar. There was a time -- and this went on for many
years -- that my play dates of Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday
afternoons were booked for six weeks in advance. The joke was, ‘It’s
easier to get tickets to Phantom
of the Opera than to get into Daddy Bob’s dungeon.’ I don’t
play like that any more; once, maybe twice a week is normal now. But, I
do keep a calendar so I know when to expect my guests because I need
some time during the hours before my boy arrives to prepare myself
physically and mentally.”
Sadie: And…
pardon my ignorance, but what is a “get-down” side?
Daddy Bob: “One’s
get-down side is what we do when we think no one is looking. It’s the
side of us that has fun, gets bawdy, takes chances and thumbs it’s
nose as society.”
Sadie: You
have said, “I add generous amounts of tenderness and camaraderie to my
encounters, a concept that is lamentably out of reach for a distressing
percentage of my Brother Tops.” I can imagine that some kinky folk
might feel this is the “lighter side” of BDSM. What does tenderness
and camaraderie add to the experience for you?
Daddy Bob: “I wrote that a long time ago and the part about the
concepts of tenderness and camaraderie being out of reach for a lot of
people is no longer true. Most of the men in the groups I inhabit have
incorporated some form of tenderness in their play, though I must add
that I do engage in really surprising amounts of kissing, caressing and
fondling to my games. There are really three basic reasons for this.
”One, I consider SM exotic lovemaking and I have always been frisky
and imaginative with my vanilla sex activities. I don’t find it
untoward to involve my SM partner in those forms of play.
“A second reason is it drives a bottom crazy to have alternating
stimuli on his body, contrived violence one moment, tender caressing the
next. Since my games are cerebral, the more I can drive that man to the
brink of erotic insanity, the closer we get to SM Nirvana.
“Also, I don’t stand back and send a man on a trip, I link with him
emotionally and go along with him on the journey. I play completely
naked and I maintain virtually constant skin to skin contact with him
which gives me volumes more information about what is happening to him
than if I were standing a pace away from him, and I share very
intimately in his arousal and excitement. My breathing changes as much
as his; it takes me just as long to come down from the high as it takes
him.
“A brief aside. Some people pooh pooh the ‘link’ part, usually
because they don’t understand what I’m talking about. When you can
use the toy on your own body and get the same reaction from the bottom
as if the toy were being used on his body, then you know what I’m
talking about. And you don’t have to believe this one if you don’t
want to, but I have actually gotten the same reaction from the bottom
while he was blindfolded.
“Indeed this is not the ‘lighter side’ of SM. This is the portal
to the very mystical realms I have been talking about. The kinds and
levels of intensity that can be generated by two people thus locked in
the SM rocket are limited only by the stamina and fearlessness of the
players.”
Sadie: Deborah
Addington writes about a wonderful idea called the Body Between, saying
that, “When we exchange energies, we create a third entity: The Body
Between. It’s that Body that lets us get as close to god as possible
while wearing skin.” This idea of hers sounds like your “link”
between you and your partner. Would you agree?
Daddy Bob: “When I am introducing the newcomer to SM I always
emphasize how personal the whole thing is. One of the ways I use to put
this idea across is to reference the words and images we each use to
describe what is happening to us. I employ a long list of vocabulary
words and phrases, but I stress that these are mine, and whatever boy I
am talking to will have his own list which not only can
be different from mine but should
be different. Deborah is explaining what she feels in her own
way, and I think it is stunning imagery.
“I personally don’t feel a third entity when I am linked with a
playmate. I feel a surge of energy exchange between two poles much like
a strong electric charge, but the poles never blend identities, our
personalities don’t merge. And I do not feel the creation of anything
or anyone else in the room.”
Sadie: One of your
comments is, “My encounters all have a deeply spiritual spin to them,
most frontier on the mystical; some people go so far as to call me a
shaman…. I can conjure the magic with my finger tips, my eyes and the
sound of my voice.” Did you always approach BDSM this way, or was
there a moment when you “got it?”
Daddy Bob: “I said earlier
that when I started out I was operating from a gut level, and eventually
there was a day when the whole thing reached critical mass and a great
pounding wave of understanding engulfed me. I was actually frightened
that because I could articulate it all now, the charm was broken and I
would no longer be able to conjure the magic. It turned out the exact
opposite was true. My games took of in new and very dynamic directions.
“I would like to make a comment on the finger tips, eyes and sound of
my voice part of that statement. I still meet a distressing number of
LeatherPeople who think that their stature as players in our community
depends on the number of redundant equipment items they own. I’ve
given up trying to explain to people that SM is not a set of equipment,
it is not a costume nor is it a place. It is not a series of activities
either. SM is a state of mind. And if the Top player cannot generate
that state of mind in the bottom with the very basic of God’s gifts to
us, the fingers, the eyes and the voice, then there is no amount of
equipment that he can buy to solve that problem because he has the wrong
slant on the matter.”
Sadie: You are very
willing to work with novices, and in fact seem to have a special touch
with them. Considering that many experienced players don’t want to
waste their time with the hassles that newcomers bring, how do you see
your role here?
Daddy Bob: “I was not always a Leatherman. I buried my SM tendencies
for a long time and spent many years in vanilla realms. You can wait for
my memoirs regarding the detailing of that early part of my adult life.
When I first decided to cast my lot with the organized Leather Community
I was in my mid thirties and since I have never been anyone’s idea of
a hunk I had a lot of difficulty getting people to take me seriously. I
finally found three Tops, each quite different from the others, to give
me the kind of training I knew I needed to carry out my desires and
fantasies. But before I found these men I spent a rather long and
frustrating time getting people see the real me. I vowed to myself that
once up and running I would never put anyone through this kind of
torment, that anyone who was really serious about learning SM, and
really serious about getting involved in my game my way would find a
willing teacher in me. I’ve always kept that promise.
“Also, it didn’t take me long to realize I absolutely adore the
babies. I don’t give my boys grades or stratify them in any way, but I
guess if backed into a corner I have to admit the novices are my
favorite. I am totally mindful of how critically important that first
Leather experience is in a man’s life. Properly handled it opens
breathtaking new doors for the man, mishandled and it can scar him
forever. I find the challenge of giving that man his first taste of
Leather profoundly exciting -- you can’t cheat the man out of the
intensity of the moment, but you can’t scare the piss out of him,
either. Walking that tightrope is one of the most serine joys I have
discovered in life. For this reason I have spanked a lot of men into
Leather.
“I might ad, when I am playing with a man for the first time, one of
my objectives is to prepare him to walk into anyone else’s play space
and glean what other players have to offer. Everyone has a personal
approach and I am not the be all and end all of the Leather experience.
The boy must be encouraged to explore a wide variety of SM situations.
So his exposure to my toys and my dungeon is merely the beginning of a
much larger spiritual journey. I look at myself as his first guide. For
this reason some have called me a shaman -- That is not a title I’ve
given myself.”
Sadie: You wrote that,
“the matrix of humor was the best way to get people to think about
what SM really is in our lives.” As you know, there’s an awful lot
of people who take the whole kink thing very seriously who might feel
that you aren’t aware of the serious issues we face. What is your
response to this?
Daddy Bob: “Some years ago Dave Rhodes was approached by a very angry
member of our community’s cadre with a few well chosen words about one
of my columns in The Leather
Journal. The thrust of his protest was, ‘This column is
dangerous!’ Dave’s response was, ‘To whom?’
“Though my columns never descended into personal attacks on anyone and
usually revolved more around making fun of myself than anyone else, this
particular person had been one of the sacred cows that had been skewered
that month and was feeling the sting. Dave never once wavered from his
support of me and my assignment. And I have never lost faith in the
maxim that anything worth holding onto in life has to be able to
withstand the acid test of farce, which SM did magnificently. Anyone who
can’t laugh at himself is in real emotional trouble. However, I must
add, the people who feared and criticized me and my humorous approach
were in such a small minority as to be practically negligible. I got
people’s attention with humor and then got them to think; it was never
any more complicated than that and most people figured it out without a
list of instructions.
“I have to tell one short story here. There was a gentleman in our
Community, very near my own age who appeared to be in that minority of
people who didn’t like me. This was a man I thoroughly respected
because he was a Brother wordsmith, but over the years there were
certain signs and signals that he thought me quite unworthy. One day I
was in a very crowded bar and I found myself standing near this man, he
didn’t see me. He was in a very animated discussion with a companion
and he was quoting Daddy Bob to make his point. For half a decade I had
misread those signs and signals and he was convinced I was avoiding him.
Go figure.
“I would also like to add another detail about the clown, something I
learned from countless years of going to see the Ice Capades as a child.
The clowns appear to be slipping and sliding all over the ice, falling
down to get laughs. They have to be the best skaters on the ice to pull
off this illusion.”
Sadie: The foundation of
today’s BDSM culture was the gay leather community and the “old
guard.” With BDSM increasingly being mainstreamed, what do you feel
has been lost or gained in the process of the last 20 or 30 years? What
changes have you observed in your local area?
Daddy Bob: “When I decided to enter the world of LeatherFolk it took
three men a year and a half to train me and I was perhaps the last man
to actually have to earn his
Leathers. I was told when
I could buy that first vest and it was a rite of passage when I walked
into my first beerbust wearing it. I came into the lifestyle just as the
Old Guard was passing the torch to the New Wave. And though I am at the
vanguard of New Wave Leather I have always taken some very reverent
moments for some solemn bows to the men and women who came before us.
“By and large, the Old Guard kept a very tight reign on membership in
the Leather Community. It was secret and underground and it was not easy
to even find let alone join. Like any aboriginal clan, the newcomer had
to prove himself exhaustively before he was accepted. LeatherFolk were
vary grave and serious, and supremely tightlipped about their lifestyle.
They had to be silent and underground, they were considered mental cases
and outlaws. But, they kept to their posts when Leather was a dirty word
and they handed down a lifestyle that was legitimized and codified…and
they handed it to the New Wave with no strings attached. (They grumbled
a bit here and there but by and large they bit the fist when they saw us
take the lifestyle to new and dynamic areas)
“Changes? They were not long in coming. New Wave players opened
membership to anyone who wanted to join with little or no initiation.
West
Hollywood
discovered leather apparel and declared it chic and trendy so the black
leather uniform of the Leatherman became so watered down as to be
meaningless. New Wave players talked the pursuit practically to death,
in and out of the playroom, and it was New Wave players who formulated
the current emphasis on the spiritual aspects of SM. New Wavers also
lightened the soufflé with some humor and perspective, I hope with a
bit of help from me -- the Old Guard did take itself a little too
seriously. Personally, I was not sorry to see the seriousness fade, but
I would like to see the bar raised on the membership requirements just a
teensy weensy bit.
“Now it is the New Wave that is growing old, myself included, and we
are having to do the same thing our Old Guard Brothers and Sisters did:
Hand the pursuit to a new generation, I hope we can do it with the same
dignity as the Old Guard handed it to us, without strings.
“The youngsters nowadays have turned their backs on the hit and miss
nature of the bars and they are exploring contacts in the wonderful
realm of websites and E-mail. According to my contacts in the retail end
of SM they are buying sophisticated equipment in quantities that would
boggle the mind. They have managed to change the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual to exclude SM activity from the rosters of
mental illness unless it leads to significant clinical dysfunction. And
though I thought that SM couldn’t be more public and exposed that what
the New Wave did with it, the New New Wave is definitely expanding the
envelope. I am in contact with groups who are currently giving lectures
to high school seniors and freshman college students about the
lifestyle, with the blessings of modern educators. I’m sure there will
be many more changes in the future and I hope to be around a little
longer to see what the youngsters will be doing with it. In general, I
think Leather is in good hands.”
Sadie:
The coming out of the BDSM community
has often been compared to the coming out of the gay/lesbian community
twenty years ago. Do you think this simile is an apt one? What will we
face that will be easier or more difficult than what the gay community
faced historically?
Daddy Bob: “My personal opinion is that coming out into the world of
BDSM is easier than coming out gay 20 years ago, but this depends on
where you live. Anyone near a reasonably large urban area, with clubs
and organizations of all descriptions ready to take the newcomer by the
hand, will find a niche in our community quite easily…this no matter
what warp or fetish the novice entertains. If the newcomer is out of
reach of the organized Leather Community then finding a place is just as
hard as ever.”
Sadie: You are also a
poet. Can you share a few lines of kinky verse with me?
Daddy Bob: “I’ll share a lot of lines with you…though I’m not
sure how kinky they are.
LAMENT
Father is home,
And by the hearth
Ablaze with winter-wood
His liver-colored hunter
Dreams and dozes,
Drifting pipesmoke
Mingles with the scents
Of weathered wool
And leather,
The world is dark polished wood
And rich warm stone.
Daddy’s home!
And if the meal goes great
And patient pleading
Is rewarded,
The cabin’s holy air will sing
With stinging rawhide
And the icy clink of
Stainless steel link
On link,
His eyes will breathe out
Wicked thunder
While in his shirtless bass
He crabs: ‘Bend over and grab them
Ankles, boy’.
Father is home,
And by the hearth
Ablaze with only
Darkness
The red-brown hunter
Whimpers softly,
Wispy memories mingle
With the dying room scents,
The chains hang still
And cold
While limp lash strands
Consecrate the wall
Unmoving,
Wood and stone will echo
Nevermore,
Father is home...
Forever
Sadie: So,
I guess Daddy Bob, that I won’t be allowed in your dungeon any time
soon? Bummer…
Daddy Bob: “Sorry,
I am not turned on sexually by women so I’m afraid the magic doesn’t
work with the ladies. Indeed, when the female element is added to the
BDSM equation I can no longer speak on it with any authority. Women play
for different reason than men and when men seek women for SM they do so
for different reasons than when the come to me.”
Sadie: Can you expand on this?
Aren’t we all alike on the soul level?
Daddy Bob: “With no
value judgment implied or stated, women and men are different. They have
different roles in the grand scheme of human existence and therefore
have different needs in the unfolding of our myths, rites and rituals.
And when they enter an SM situation, what they bring to it and what they
require from it are in like manner different. Since I have never played
with women I cannot outline any exact comparisons or contrasts, but I
have played with bi, married and straight men who also seek women in SM
situations and they assure me that for females the feeling, texture,
approach, outcome and the basic reasons for being there are all very
different. When females seek females for the power shift, the set of
variables creates yet a third kind of DBSM.”
Sadie: Is
there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Daddy Bob: “A few unrelated bits and pieces.
“I’ve never given myself any titles. Whatever titles I use to
describe myself have been given to me by others and that includes the
name Daddy Bob. In point of fact, I don’t even like the name Daddy Bob
all that much. It sounds like a man on public television who should be
doing and act with a puppet. But, given to me it was and who am I to
argue? All things considered, because of my niche in the Leather
Community as class clown, the name Daddy Bob has just enough of the
whimsical about it to work perfectly.
“I don’t claim to have everything all figured out, not by a long
shot. I learn about SM from every scene I mount. And when I do make some
sort of pronouncement that I no longer have anything to learn, it’s
time to take the whip out of my hands and put me at my computer to do my
memoirs, because I have become at that point a very dangerous
person…closed to new ideas. If we are not growing and learning every
day of our lives, we are really quite dead.
“Where SM is concerned, I have often been accused of being a tad on
the long winded side. Ask me what time it is and I’ll tell you how to
build a watch. I hope I have not gone over my limit, but your questions
have been quite thorough and most stimulating. Thanks for the
opportunity to be heard.”
Sadie: Thank
you very much!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sensuous
Sadie is the author of It's Not
About the Whip: Love, Sex, and Spirituality in the BDSM Scene (http://www.trafford.com/robots/03-0551.html).
She is the founder and leader (1999 - 2001) of
Rose
&
Thorn
,
Vermont
's first BDSM group.
Comments, compliments and complaints, as well as requests for reprinting
can be addressed to her at SensuousSadie@aol.com
or visit her website at www.sensuoussadie.com. Sadie believes the universe is abundant, and that sharing information
freely is part of this abundance, so she allows reprints of her writing
in most venues.
Copyright
2003 Sadie Sez Publications
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