So, about seven years ago, when I still lived in the city, I was hosting my first ever bdsm meet’n’greet evening, and as I mentioned, this woman – I’ll call her Ruby – turned up wearing a fishing net, tiny pink knickers and little flashing red lights pinned, as badges, over her nipples. She was a cheerful, flamboyant eccentric.

I’ve always liked that in other people, and I sometimes aspire to it myself. I wasn’t feeling very flamboyant at the time, though, so I got her a glass of wine and talked to her instead.

She told me she’d driven a long way to get to this event, and somewhere out in the middle of nowhere she’d been pulled over by a cop, officially for being a tiny fraction over the speed limit, but really because the cop could see two flashing lights speeding along at nipple height, and it had looked weird. 

So the cop found himself smack in the middle of a porn scenario, with his ticket book in his hand, staring down at a woman undulating all over the driver’s seat wearing flashing nipples, a sweet smile and fishing equipment. She wound down her window and said she’d certainly been a bad girl, and she was terribly sorry and ashamed for having had to be stopped, and she’d do anything to compensate him for the trouble she’d put him to.

The cop had stood there staring down at her for a good 30 seconds after that speech, and Ruby was getting her hopes up, she said, because he was a very handsome policeman. Then the cop laughed, wished her a good time at the party, wherever it was, and warned her not to drive home afterwards. And he’d waved her on.

While she was telling this story, the test of the group gathered round us. They were dressed more traditionally, as bdsm people being discrete. The submissive girls were wearing collars and plain white or plain black dresses, and the woman doms were wearing corsets and long black dresses. All the men, sadly including me, were wearing black, generally the jeans, t-shirt and jacket outfit, with boots that set airport scanners off, what with all the metal zips and rings and chains and such.

I enjoyed Ruby’s performance, but after an hour I’d had enough charming eccentricity,  and I drifted away to talk to less interesting people. I was struck, though, by how much less interesting they were.

There was an on-line couple reminiscing about the cyber-spanking he’d given her the night before. I had trouble getting my head around that. They lived in the same city, and they were here together, so obviously they could meet. Even if one or both of them were married, wouldn’t they rather get together in meat-space and do real things?

 I was sympathetic to the idea that something that “happened” on-line had really happened, in some sense of the word “really”.

People can fall in love with each other without ever meeting, in the flesh. When they broke up the heartache was real. I accepted that.

 But choosing to do sensual things in cyber only, when the two bodies could easily hire a hotel room and lock the door behind them: that made no sense to me at all. Typed or skyped words are no substitute for the meeting of skin and skin.

There was also the problem that some of the things that work in cyber, like naughty pranks and giggly cheekiness, work better in text that in real life, unless the performers have a certain amount of acting ability. So, I’m afraid, I found them embarrassing.

The were male doms swapping woodwork tips, for making St Andrews Crosses, whipping benches and so on.

There was a group discussing football. I just never found a way to care about football.

I’d already known it in the abstract but this really drove it home to me: just because you have a kink in common with someone, there’s no reason to expect that you’ll have anything else.

 So I was trying to be a good host, but the whole thing was making me feel a little low, a little wan. I met the bdsm community, or one segment of it, and I was bored shitless.

And then Ruby left. That’s when it got weird. 

The group I’m hosting up in the mountains is going fine. Numbers are low, but that means I get to finish off the champagne and runny cheeses afterwards. But it’s a talky group, with interesting people in it. And they spend the time chatting, sometimes about bdsm and sometimes about other topics. And they all get on.

I mention that because this is actually the second time I’ve run a group. The first time I was still living in the city. I agreed to take on the running of the group because the guy who’d been doing it for years had got a bit sick of it, and I was feeling public-spirited. 

Like this, only with guys

The venue was an old pub that was once what was called a “bloodhouse”, the sort of pub that – in its day – had sawdust on the floor for soaking up the patrons’ blood, also urine and vom. There was a trench that ran down the edge of one wall, and at the bottom of the bar, so that when the evening was over and the bouncer had frog-walked the last drunk out into the small cold hours, you could clean the place with a hose.

In the morning you’d put out new sawdust and you were ready for business. People would say that the morning’s sawdust was last night’s furniture, hurr hurr hurr.

But that was then. These days the place was quiet except for the gambling machines at one corner of the room, and the occasional cackle or groan from the old men and ladies who sat nursing a single beer as long as possible while feeding coins into the machines.

Some time ago some optimistic manager had put in comfortable leather chairs and dark wood tables. But they never succeeded in getting new clientele. The old people slumped in front of the machines weren’t going to be shifted, and it was never going to be a trendy wine bar while they held their corner.

So I liked the place. We were welcome customers, and no-one was going to hear us talk, or object to discussions about soft versus hard floggers and comparing notes on ropes and so on. 

I advertised on-line that the group was still going, and I sat, as promised, with a bunch of artificial red roses propped up in a beer glass.

I’m going to tell a story about a woman who turned up wearing a fishing net, and two little flashing lights, one over each nipple. But I’ll do it later. 

I’m running a monthly meeting for bdsm people, to talk, drink, eat runny smelly cheeses, and other things, and meet each other. 

Initially I started an on-line group for people in my mountains, simply because there wasn’t one. It didn’t take any work to set it up, and get it started with a couple of posts. After a while people wanted to meet for real, so I called a munch in a local, rather grand hotel. 

It had a turnout of maybe ten people, which is okay for a start. But the venue was a problem. The food was pricey (and very ordinary), and, because I’d put the munch in the foyer, near the fireplace, you could only order drinks from the champagne bar. So they were expensive too. 

But the real problem is that assorted families were in the foyer too, and they’d brought their kids along. Kids love watching fires. So one of our group would be discussing, oh, let’s say, the electrification of nipple clamps, and a couple of boys aged ten and twelve would suddenly turn up to stare into the fire while listening to the adults.

And then, I expect, go back the the family and ask, “Mommy, what’s a butt plug?” 

So we’d fall silent whenever kids showed up. A lot of kids did. It was awkward. 

I said I’d find a private venue next time. I did some hunting around, and found that any hireable meeting space or social space was hideously expensive. It was far too much for me to pay just out of generosity, but if I charged people who turned up a share of the cost then no-one would show. 

So months passed while I refurbished my library, which had been flooded in the spring. That wasn’t just a matter of getting new carpets and shelving. It also meant digging a trench below the level of the library floor and putting in piping to take any water away. And doing various other drainage and water management things that involved sink holes, pipes, gravel paths, and so on. 

Finally, late last year, it was done, and I had the first bdsm library munch. 

Which I’ll tell you about in a couple of days.