(Update late 2010 – since doing the Forum more than three years ago my interest in Landmark Education has dropped way off, though it’s still always interesting talking to others who have done it or who are still active in it and hearing what they think of it. I did two other Landmark classes after the Forum but frankly they were very unsatisfying in comparison, and in fact the last one I took was very unpleasant and anxiety-provoking. I don’t really regret doing Landmark, though my bank account is a little smaller. However, would I really recommend it to anyone? No, not really – unless you really really love this sort of thing.)

I haven’t been online much this last week because I was busy over the weekend doing the Landmark Forum. It’s an intense three-day seminar that’s designed to make you look at your life and how you’re living it. It grew out of the est workshops that were started by Werner Erhard back in the 70s. It’s a fairly controversial program. A lot of people have taken it and say it has had a powerful and positive impact on their life. Critics, on the other hand, have accused it of being a cult or of using mind control techniques. A friend who took the seminar earlier this year introduced it to me and I was curious enough that I reluctantly signed up for it. I did it in “Robert” mode.

It is very intense: three 12-hour days in a row. And it’s designed to be confrontational and to really make you look at your shit. I’d have to say it was one of the most intense things I’ve done in a very long time. I resisted it a lot and had many ups and downs over the weekend, more downs than ups, to be honest. But last night there was a short wrap-up evening session and it really brought it all together for me. Before last night I was feeling a little bit freaked out by it.

The funny thing is that there really isn’t much that you need to “buy into” or understand when you’re doing it. It’s certainly not a religion, and although they present many concepts or “distinctions,” as they call them, there’s no pressure that you have to agree or accept anything. It’s also very much concerned with your relationships to friends and family and other people, which leads me to discount the cult charges. Cults are groups that tend to separate people from their families and from others, and create an insular and structured group that has the “right answer.” The Landmark Forum on the other hand is nearly obsessive about your relationships with others and about making even stronger and more authentic connections with other people.

Would I recommend it? If you’re drawn towards this kind of thing, then yes, I definitely would. It’s an experience that’s hard to put into words, and what each person gets out of it is unique. You could write down a long list of the “distinctions” that they present but without the experience of being there it’s just not the same thing at all.

Also, it’s quite expensive – $450 dollars. But having finished it I’d have to say that the money is now a non-issue. It was a really wild up and down ride, but I’d do it again just like that.

Oh, and the gender and kink stuff weren’t even much of an issue over the weekend. I told a few people what I do for a living but I could have not brought it up and I don’t think it would have made a difference to the experience one way or the other.

Some other links and perspectives:

Landmark Education on Wikipedia

Landmark Forum on the Skeptics Dictionary

I’ve just been getting ready a new set of pictures from my last visit with crazy Rebecca H. Heels. I’ll be posting the full set for this Friday’s update on the Ts in Trouble site. It’ll be a self-bondage scene with heavy cuffs, and as always she gave me a totally over-the-top look. Here’s a little preview.

I was feeling a little down the other morning, though I sprang back pretty quickly. Like I’ve mentioned before, women scare me, especially when they’re attractive. I think part of the reason it’s easier to do bondage play and to fool around with other tgs or with guys is because I know I’m not going to develop some deep emotional attachment, and figure they’re not going to feel that way about me either. The only times in life that I’ve felt as though I were falling in love was with “real” women. But at the same time, there’s that little voice of self-doubt inside that expects to be rejected by women (because I’m a transvestite). Of course, real life has shown that that’s not always the case – yes, many women would not want to be with a tranny, but there are some out there who don’t mind, and a few who might even be into it. But those old patterns of self-doubt die hard.

Anyway, I was out the other night, just in guy mode, doing some volunteer work for a group I sometimes get together with. A new girl was there and I felt really nervous around her. I wasn’t even that particularly attracted to her but my shyness kicked in and I felt awkward and uptight. Driving home later I found myself growing more and more depressed about it. I try to remind myself at such times that my emotions aren’t dangerous and that there’s really nothing to be worried about, that after a good night’s sleep I’ll be feeling fine. But I still felt pretty down, and lying in bed I had one of those “looking into the void,” moments, where you feel so alone in the world and life feels like a low-grade nightmare. I know that none of this is true – I have friends and family and most of the time life is pretty good. But those dramatic feelings are one of the characteristics of being depressed – that it feels deep and “dangerous,” as though if it were to continue I would never recover. That never happens, of course, and yes, after a night’s sleep, or a long walk around the neighborhood, I’m usually back.

An update on the Jay Wiseman presentation sponsored by Threshold: The topic is “Bondage You Can Actually Use,” and it’s going to be from 7 to 9 PM on Wednesday, June 6th, in North Hollywood, CA. Hope to see you there!

(And here’s an easy-to-read page on the L.A. Doms and Subs site (LADs), with all the information on the Jay Wiseman presentations.)

Hollywoodland Studios (Entrance in rear – plenty of free parking)
11300 Hartland St.
(off Tujunga, 1 block north of Vanowen)
North Hollywood, CA 91605

Map: http://tinyurl.com/fnwd7

A guy from the Middle East just wrote me a nice email complimenting me on a few of my pictures that he really liked, and he also wrote to say that where he lives most adult sites, including Trannies In Trouble, are blocked and can’t be accessed. This is nothing new, of course, but still the idea of a government deciding that their citizens simply will not be allowed to see or read certain material just blows my mind. The United States obviously has no shortage on messed up behavior and social problems, and is now generally despised throughout the world thanks to our current president, but still we’ve got it so good over here.

Even if our government went on an all out war against pornography, I can’t imagine that things could become as repressive as they are in some parts of the world. And I hope I’m not just being hopelessly naive. Of course, I’d prefer not to end up in the court system for shooting bondage pictures that don’t even show sex or nudity, but I’d also like to think that if it came to that, that I’d have the balls to see it through to the end, whatever that would be. Of course, there’s no way to know unless it happened, and hopefully I’ll never have to find out.

I was talking to a local model recently who told me about a photographer friend of hers who just recently died from an aneurysm. I didn’t know the guy well but had seen him at a studio maybe two months ago. He wasn’t all that old, I would guess 50s or early 60s. It doesn’t last forever.

I just had a birthday myself, just turned 44. I’ve always been kind of funny in that I sort of like getting older. I remember when I turned 40 just feeling a big relief, as if all those bad years were behind me now. When I was younger, in my 20s and 30s, I was just depressed so much of the time that life usually seemed not really worth the trouble. Like I’ve said before, I’m way happier now than I’ve ever been. It’s not all sunbeams and unicorns, especially in this neighborhood where I live, but it’s a heck of a lot better than it used to be.

I figure that once I get too old to look decent in bondage pictures, I’ll just shoot pictures of other younger t-girls, and enjoy bondage just playing privately or at parties. I might even enjoy that arrangement more than what I do now, because sometimes getting ready for a shoot and worrying about how I look and whether I’m sweating and all can sometimes kill some of the fun. When I’m shooting other girls there’s less of that pressure and I can focus more on the bondage and the lighting and so on. And sometimes when I can tell that a girl’s really getting into being tied up, it can be a lot of fun. That’s when I want to surprise them by putting duct tape over their eyes or locking them in a small trunk (okay, I don’t own a small trunk but it would be neat if I did.) That moment of surprise when you’re tied up and something unexpected happens that makes you realize that, wait, you Really Are Helpless can be such a great moment.

That charge – Probably the best moment of that kind I’ve had, and I wasn’t even tied up at the time, was this one evening when I was sixteen and I was coming home late from working at a Chinese restaurant where I worked as a busboy (I wanted to be the waitress, but alas). I know I’ve written about his before, but it was raining hard outside and this guy stopped and offered me a ride home. For some reason I said yes, and then once I was in his car I got this nervous feeling. As we got closer to the nearby 7-11 store, I said, “You can just let me out here,” but he just let out this strange little laugh and kept driving. I remember I had this moment of adrenaline wash over me, that sick-in-the-stomach feeling, where your insides sort of turn over. I sat there thinking, “Uh, what’s going on?” And then after a moment he drove a little farther, pulled over, and I got out and thanked him for the lift.

I wasn’t sure afterward if he had been trying to scare me, or hadn’t heard what I said, or what exactly had just happened, but in my imagination I had this fantasy of being taken back to his home against my will, being forced to dress up like a girl, and being bound and gagged and locked away in his basement to become his “special” girlfriend. At that moment, when he laughed, it was like the possibility of this fantasy actually becoming real was right there in front of me. Of course, it wasn’t, and it would be nearly impossible to make that fantasy come true and to still maintain that “good” charge of excitement and fear – the reality would quickly turn into a nightmare, and very possibly end up being fatal, and whereas role-playing can be fun, you still always know that it’s just role-playing. It would be a lot easier I sometimes think to just be turned on by tits and vaginas.

Wow, this turned out to be way longer than I intended. Sleepy time.