When I check into hotels for bondage photoshoots I usually arrive dressed up, but I do it in a more toned-down androgynous way, wearing girls’ jeans and a girl’s top and full makeup and a wig. I know mask wearing is controversial and political, but I do like wearing a Covid mask since I’ve been a germ phobe for decades, and they are great for the anonymity. (If only I’d known I could have been wearing a mask on the plane and at the gym all this time!) If it’s cold I’ll also wear my favorite ladies’ trench coat. The thing is, though, I don’t pass as a girl when I’m dressed in this casual mode. I’m certainly not going to show up at the check-in counter wearing a tight bodycon dress with hoop earrings and five-inch heels – not that there would be anything wrong with that – but in the summertime, no thanks. Besides, I have to load in my camera and lighting gear and all the bondage gear and clothes and heels. I’d be a sweaty blob by the time I got everything into the room – and I often end up a sweaty blob anyway.

Dressing in my “casual Sandra” mode, the one question I’ve been asked probably more than any other is, “Are you a musician?” It always makes me laugh when people ask that, as it’s just so ridiculous, but it also really underscores the point that I’m not passing as a girl. Hell, even in my regular boring “Robert” mode I’m occasionally asked the same thing (happened just a couple weeks ago in a parking garage) – probably because without a wig I have fairly long hair (though starting to thin in back like Prufrock) and I’m often wearing girls’ jeans anyway. So as casual Sandra I guess I just look like one of the guys from the band Sweet. You could do worse, I suppose.

My experience though does point out just how hard it is to fully “pass” as a woman – to meet someone and for them not to realize that I’m a crossdresser and to see me just as a genetic woman. It just doesn’t happen, at least for me, and I try not to kid myself into thinking that it will. Looking nice, that’s another matter, but passing and being seen as a genetic woman, that’s something else entirely. In any case it’s a subject for another blog post, maybe the next one. I know passing is controversial in the trans community but it’s worth reflecting on and being honest about. Hopefully more coming before too long.

I just posted about the upcoming TEASE Party just last month but didn’t realize at the time that it would turn out to be our last TEASE Party, at least for the time being.

I’ve been hosting the party since 2006 but just got word last week informing me that the club will no longer be hosting the party after this next one. I’m still a bit stunned by the news, but we’ll have a fun time anyway and I’ll probably be doing a lot of tying!

After this one I’ll take a break from running the party for a while – it has been a long run. But maybe at some point we’ll do another one at another venue, though I have no plans for now. In any case, I’ve been letting a lot of people know and I expect it to be a good party. As always, the club requires proof of vaccination and mask wearing in the club – I know it’s kind of a bummer having to wear a mask but that’s just how it is at the club. If you’re in the L.A. area though I hope you’ll consider coming out for the evening and joining us – it would be nice to see you there!

Fetlife RSVP

After tying up and photographing so many models for Trannies In Trouble I can say with certainty that bondage modeling is tough. From appearances I know it looks pretty easy – you get tied up and gagged, you make some “mmphing” sounds and struggle a little. How hard can it be?

It’s true that at its most basic it can be pretty easy, but to do it well takes rare skills. One of the most common difficulties in bondage modeling is how to convey high energy while tied up. If you just sit there, and especially if you do the “mmphing” in a repetitive monotonous way, it can be really boring. Of course, sometimes someone just looks so hot that they can get away with doing very little but to take it to the next level takes experience and skill.

I believe there really is a “method acting” approach to bondage modeling. If someone gets into the mindset of being a damsel, where they’re naturally conveying a sense of fear or peril, and they’re focusing on the bound sensations and the gag while having “damsel-y” thoughts in their head, it can be much more believable and natural – as opposed to just going through the motions. I often give people the direction of, “Focus on your wrists and the different sensations and really think about being tied up and what a pickle you’re in now.” If you try to act like you would act in real life if you were tied up and kidnapped, your actions will be much more believable. But if you sit and grunt repetitively and do nothing it will be dull and low energy. And believe me, I’ve made these same mistakes myself, and others, many times.

I don’t normally like to toot my own horn a lot, but one area where I do excel is in my ability to move across the room or move up and down on furniture while I’m tied up, even while hogtied. This is not an easy thing to do, and not many models can pull it off. Kyra Pixie was always quite good at energetic struggling and moving around but it’s a rare skill. And yes, it comes with a price. I’ve sometimes finished shoots where once I’m untied I just lie on the floor on my back and mutter, OMG! Usually the next day I’m bone tired and my feet hurt. But it’s worth it.

One other tough reality of bondage modeling is that you can get injured doing bondage, and in fact bondage injuries are far more common than people like to admit. I think I’ve talked before about my own nerve compression injuries, including a bad one several years ago from an overly tight scene that I stupidly pushed through. At this point I don’t appear to have any lingering issues from past injuries, but I’ve heard of a number of female bondage models who’ve suffered ongoing issues in their limbs and back and neck from being tied up. It can screw you up badly if done poorly or if you’re just unlucky. There’s always a risk. I sometimes fear that at my age I may be pushing my luck – and it’s true I don’t generally do things as intensely as I used to, though the recent scene where I was taped up by Damon Pierce would argue otherwise!

So ideally when watching a video you’re seeing a convincing and sexy portrayal of a damsel without distracting facial grimaces or weird repetitive grunting or the model just sitting and doing nothing as though she’s waiting to get untied. The best models make it seem effortless but I’m sure all of them learned to get better over time. I know some of my early videos I can’t stand watching. I just wish I was that young again with what I know now.

And while I don’t always get turned on while doing bondage modeling – there are too many technical things to think about! – sometimes it can still be super-hot. When ScorpioBD did one of his super strict gags on me last year in that all-in-white outfit below I was as turned on as I’ve ever been…at least until my jaw started to ache! But it was still really hot. Here’s hoping everyone has moments like that where you get lost in your damsel fantasy. It’s worth pursuing those moments!

I don’t normally discuss political things and there’s nothing sexy about this post at all – I may end up deleting it. I’ll try not to sound too alarmist here but with the recent decision from the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, and a more hard-right turn that the country seems to be taking, I do wonder about the future of things like same-sex marriage, public crossdressing, and online porn. I totally get it that abortion is a highly emotional issue and that some of you reading this blog likely are in favor of the Court’s decision. My own opinion on abortion isn’t the point here, though it’s probably not hard to guess. And I’m not here to change anyone else’s opinion, which is a fool’s undertaking anyway. But I do wonder what’s next.

Following Roe, same-sex marriage is the right that seems most at risk. Clarence Thomas has already said that he’d like to revisit those rights that fall under the so-called “Substantive Due Process” principle – same-sex marriage, sodomy laws, contraception and so on. Tellingly, as many have pointed out, he left out interracial marriage, which also would fall under that same principle. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if gay marriage gets overturned in the next few years, maybe even as soon as next year. In fact, if the issue were revisited, I would expect it to be overturned unless Brett Kavanaugh doesn’t vote with the conservative bloc on the Court. I wouldn’t put any faith in that prospect, though he has been a little quieter apparently than some of the other Justices on the issue.

If same-sex marriage goes, and even if it doesn’t, there will almost certainly be a greater increase in gay bashing and violence against LGBTQ people, which is already on the rise. And it also wouldn’t surprise me at all if some more conservative states try to pass bans on public crossdressing under the pretext of “protecting the children.” I’m in California so unless things dramatically fall apart that’s not going to happen here. As crazy as it sounds, an attempted ban on public crossdressing would be a great issue to stir up the outrage machine which powers so much of our politics today. And it would just make sense to go after the trannies if you’re an uber conservative politician or member of a state legislature – it would play into the culture wars and there would be no downside to it. Obviously, such a ban would be a nightmare for trans and gender non-conforming people and for human rights in general. It would be a crazy idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me in our current climate.

And finally, online porn seems like another inevitable target if you’re in a conservative state. An outright ban would be very tough considering the First Amendment’s right to Free Speech, but it’s an idea that always has some traction. There is a story – and I honestly don’t know how accurate it is – about a big anti-porn push that the George W. Bush administration was going to introduce, set to be announced on September 11, 2001. Of course history had other plans.

The easiest way to target online porn is to put pressure on the credit card companies to drop porn websites under whatever pretext. It’s what happened to the old Insex.com website, where the Department of Homeland Security apparently talked to their billing company and said they suspected that Insex was involved in money laundering for terrorists, which was of course total bullshit. But they shut ’em down just like that.

Again, with me being in California it’s unlikely that a website like mine would ever be targeted but again it’s an issue that I always keep an eye out for. I hope that everything I’m saying is just alarmism and that none of this will come to pass, though at the same time many many people thought that Roe would never be overturned, that it was “settled law,” as many of the Justices who voted against it said themselves. We shall see.

We just had TEASE last month in April and had a really fun time. I got to tie up a number of girls including the two below (the one of the right is Mika, who’s on my site. I think they rather enjoyed it.

So we’re planning to do another party on July 30th at the Threshold clubhouse. I expect that the club will continue to require proof of vaccination from now on forever, and mask wearing will probably be required for as long as there’s any Covid activity going on. I get it that the mask wearing is kind of a pain and I know there’s all kinds of political arguments around Covid and vaccine requirements – I’ve heard them all, especially in some of those emails that I get! But the requirements are not going to change and honestly I’m okay with them. I heard that DomCon LA took place about two weeks ago, which I did not attend, and apparently it turned into a big super-spreader event with a lot of people getting sick. I know that mask wearing is not a foolproof preventative against Covid but I’d rather be cautious than not at TEASE, especially since I’m the host and some of the people who attend are frankly pretty old. So I’m fine with the requirements. More details here.

Having said all that, the real point of the party is to have some fun and be able to dress up and be yourself and maybe get tied up. Or just hang out, relax, and have a nice time. It’s very laid back and chill at TEASE so if you’re in the L.A. area at the end of July I hope you’ll consider attending. I’m always there barring anything unforeseen. Hope to see you this summer!

I have really mixed feelings about Twitter and social media in general, especially after reading a number of critical articles recently about how those sites deliberately work at hooking us. For me, my bad online habits consist of checking email too often and then wasting time on Twitter. Years ago, I left Facebook because I just didn’t like the site that much (and I don’t trust Zuckerberg at all), and I’ve never looked back. I’d probably be happier if I just left Twitter completely, but I have this irrational belief that I need to be on it because of Trannies In Trouble – whether that’s true or not is open to debate. My site did hum along for eleven years just fine before I ever opened a Twitter account.

The big mistake I made when I started using Twitter is that if someone followed me I’d immediately follow them back. This might be a nice thing to do but it’s certainly not wise, as I ended up following way too many accounts that are simply retweeting hardcore porn – plus at one point a bunch of guys from Turkey followed me. Of course I don’t understand Turkish so again it’s nice but kind of pointless for me to be following them back – nothing against any Turkish Trannies in Trouble fans. I love you guys!

I have often thought though that I should just delete my Twitter account and start over, but my friend Delilah pointed out that the downside of only following a small number of sites is that your timeline quickly becomes boring as you only see items from a small number of people over and over – though that might not be a bad thing if it keeps me from frittering away my time. So it’s a dilemma – to delete and start over or not? It’s also a good example of a first-world problem, as if my Twitter experience matters in the least in the scheme of things.

A related concern that I sometimes wonder about is if anyone out there has ever gotten really addicted to Trannies In Trouble and spent hours and hours looking at pics and videos. In a way that would be flattering but I’ve always felt that in looking at naughty images one should probably limit oneself to an hour and then finish it off, if possible. I’ve certainly been caught a few times in that loop of looking at naughty images for way too long and it can definitely leave one with a sense of, “What the hell am I doing?” I hope not too many people have ever done that on my site but I’m sure it must happen – how often, who knows?

Fetlife, on the other hand, is one site that I don’t really have attention problems with. I mostly use it for messaging friends and potential models, but I don’t scroll and click around too much. It feels pretty benign and it’s one site I always recommend. Twitter on the other hand I do have some mild to moderate addictive tendencies with. Strangely enough, I don’t post or comment much, but I do get swept up in the news and reading the comments and looking at naughty images there, though I’ve been much better the last week and a half making a conscious attempt to limit my use.

Again my time on social media isn’t a particularly earth-shattering problem that matters much but it is a source of frustration. I am always curious though about what people think of Twitter if they are on it. Maybe I should go tweet something!

Just last month I shot two custom videos and had a lot of fun with them. In the past I never really did them very often because I wasn’t confident I could pull off the customer’s vision properly and give them what they wanted. But during the pandemic I started doing more of them when I felt like I could pull it off.

One of my favorites is the recent video with Klintelle Moore interviewing a potential new tutor for her college studies. Klintelle has shot quite a few hardcore videos and she’s always game to shoot the racy stuff, plus she’s a great actress and fun and easy to hang out with. The storyline was quite involved, and it turned out to be a long epic shoot but Klintelle stuck with it like a pro. I think it turned out really sexy, and very dark and twisted, and the emails I’ve gotten have all given it a thumbs up.

Klintelle also appears in another custom shot last year which will probably be on the site in a month or two. In that one she plays a naive trans girl who fails to pay off her student loans and gets a visit from officer Sandra. Both of the videos with Klintelle are pretty racy and end with her orgasming onscreen, which is a first for T’s in Trouble.

Custom videos usually cost $150 if it’s a storyline that I feel I can pull off with the group of models that I work with and then use later on my site – I usually wait three months before I post it for everyone to see (although the last customer very generously didn’t mind if I posted it early). If it’s a concept that wouldn’t fit in on the site, well, then of course it would cost much much more.

But if you have an idea that you’d like me to consider, feel free to write me directly and I’ll give you my honest opinion as to whether I feel I can make it happen. If it’s having a girl grabbed off the streets of downtown L.A. and taken away in a van to a hidden cabin in the mountains where a group of cultists tie and abuse the poor gurl and then suspend her by her wrists over a boiling cauldren – well, it’s probably not gonna happen! But even if I don’t feel I can pull it off, I always love to hear ideas for inspiration for new videos. Sometimes I like something so much that I end up shooting parts of it even if I don’t feel I can make the entire storyline work. Feel free to write though if you have an idea you’d like to see, or even if you have a storyline you’d just like to suggest, custom or not – my email here.

For a while now I’ve been watching the movement to decriminalize psilocybin (magic mushrooms) here in California. As I mentioned in my end-of-the-year write up there’s some very interesting research being done in treating depression, anxiety, and PTSD with psychedelics. I’d be very interested in trying microdosing with mushrooms to see if they could potentially help dealing with my own tendency for low mood. As for full-on tripping I’d want to approach that much more cautiously as I sometimes have anxiety with substances and would need to gauge the emotional “feel” of the experience before I’d ever take a big dose, though for the potential benefits I would consider it if I felt I could do it in a safe and relaxed setting.

Signatures are currently being collected till March 15th, 2022, to get the initiative on the ballot, perhaps as early as November of 2022. I’ll be sending in my name this week! Please consider doing the same if you’re interested and a resident of California. Already there are three cities in California that have decriminalized psilocybin – Oakland, Arcata, and Santa Cruz, so things are headed in the right direction.

I don’t want to get my hopes up too soon, but it seems inevitable that eventually more of these substances will become decriminalized. They could potentially help a lot of people who are suffering with mood disorders and PTSD. Fingers crossed.

Many of us have fantasies of being strictly bound and gagged and left helpless for hours on end, unable to get free and completely at the mercy of whoever tied us. It’s hot, I agree!

But then there’s reality. One thing I’ve heard many times over the years doing bondage photoshoots is that the reality of being strictly tied up is way tougher than expected. I was shooting with someone just a couple weeks ago who said the same thing – they love the hot fantasies of being hogtied and helpless for hours on end but the reality is much different – after ten minutes they were ready to call it quits. And hey, I’m the same way. I’m pretty tough and can take a lot, but still. The pics below were all super-intense scenes that were hot to endure but in each of them I was thinking, “Get those photos and then get me out of this!”

The hogtie was by Delilah, the intense tape gag tie by ScorpioBD and the hooded hogtie by Michael Keye. That last one was especially tough, mentally I just had to endure it and try to keep calm. Looking at the photo now it’s really hot but at the time that hood was very challenging and nearly freaked me out as it was so tight and confining. It might not look like it but it was. I’d definitely have to prepare myself to do something like that again!

Every December I like to write a little reflection looking back on the year that was. I don’t want this to be a big downer, and I don’t think it is, but Oh boy, this year was challenging. I haven’t really talked about this online but my Mom died in May from an unusual untreated condition in her abdomen (not Covid, thankfully). I’m just grateful that I was able to drive to Denver and spend the last few hours of her life with her in the hospice center and then stay on a couple more weeks taking care of things with my brother. Then I drove back to L.A.

The summer was especially tough but I’m not looking for sympathy. It’s the human condition that we all deal with, our friends and family getting old and dying on us, as will we in our turn. In the early stages of the grief I felt like I would never get over the loss, but then with time, as usually happens, it does become easier to carry though it never completely goes away (and why would I want it to since it’s about someone I love so much?)

My friend Jeanne and I had planned a trip earlier to Yosemite to hike up Half Dome in late June. I thought about canceling, worried that I would be a downer to be around, but decided to go through with our plans. I’m so glad I did. We had a great time and the physical and mental challenge of that very difficult hike was probably just what I needed.

Another positive, the website is still humming along and I’ve shot some nice scenes that I’ve really enjoyed this last year. Star Nine and Delilah both really put me through the wringer and I’m planning to see Star again in about a month and a half.

Not surprisingly though I have felt a lot of stress this year – and not just from the loss of my Mom, but also just life in general. In the fall I had more and more days when I felt like I was just dragging. I’ve mentioned dysthymia before, or persistent low-level depression (what the therapist I talk to calls “walking depression”). I felt like I wasn’t doing that well the last few months – not that I was in any danger of harming myself – but many nights I was happy to just collapse into bed and pray that I could forget things for a while.

Ketamine for Weight Loss – I’d been aware of Ketamine-assisted therapy for a few years, and about the research on psychedelics in treating persistent depression and PTSD. Ketamine is a “dissociative” drug rather than a true psychedelic but it’s trippy AF. The treatment isn’t cheap and I’m certainly not rich but I splurged a little and did three treatments in mid-November, and it turned out to be fascinating and even profound.

I don’t really enjoy tripping that strongly and I often get a little anxiety from substances. A glass of wine or two with friends is nice. Wine is one of those drugs for which there are no surprises. You know exactly what you’re going to get unless you really overindulge. Occasionally I enjoy some edible weed and that can be a little more dicey. At low doses it can be fun and relaxing though I find edibles almost always have a hint of paranoia, which I don’t mind too much since I also find them to be a huge aphrodisiac, especially when wearing a gas mask or being tape gagged! But in higher doses weed can start to become challenging. I do like it but it comes with a price and I know it’s best as an occasional thing.

Ketamine though is deeply strange and intense. I dressed androgynously and went to a nice clinic in L.A. where a doctor who’s done a lot of research into psychedelics and mental health administered the injection into my shoulder. Then I would lie down with eye shades and drone-like music playing on headphones and a psychologist would hang out with me while I tripped balls. After about 30 minutes you come down and can talk about the experience. It was deeply weird! At times I felt like I was in a Transformer’s movie, which makes no sense at all. At one point I was aware of an engine block with a sleek cylinder head cover that was full of power and energy and seemed somewhat menacing, and I feared that I was perhaps going to fuse with the engine block and become one with it.

I didn’t fully hallucinate and actually see things but it was more like I sensed them being present, and I was aware of being in a different dimension, and of colors and patterns, and of waves of energy. I always felt like I was in an enclosed space and at times it felt death-like and deeply spiritual, which doesn’t surprise me considering my Mom’s death earlier in the year. At times the experience could be scary but not super scary, although during the last trip I did think at one point, “Oh man, I wish this was over.”

One surprising thing about Ketamine is that it has strong antidepressant properties and that it often brings up emotional issues or self-defeating patterns that one might be stuck in. I certainly had that experience. Some of the insights felt profound and I think they likely will continue, such as the need to emotionally give myself a break. My “inner critic” means well but can be just brutal. The drug also dramatically makes people less suicidal and it tends to make depressed people hate themselves less – a fascinating article here.

I got a lot out of the experience and I’ll admit that first week I felt about as good as I’ve felt in decades. I knew that likely wouldn’t last, since the antidepressant effects tend to taper off in a few weeks, but it was sweet at the time and a really nice gift for Thanksgiving. The insights often do stick though and I’m hoping I’ll be lucky and use it as a window of opportunity to make some positive changes.

One thing I’ve also tried to do for fifteen years is meditation, as I’ve always sensed there are benefits to it. But I’ve always struggled with it and some days I can’t even sit for five minutes. Strangely enough after doing “Special K” my meditation is much improved and it’s much easier to follow the breath. Weird that a few injections could make such a dramatic change. There is research to indicate that the drug may be stimulating the growth of new connections in the brain that get withered by the stress of depression. It’s really fascinating if that’s the case, as it’s a completely new approach to antidepressants which like Prozac tend to operate on one neurotransmitter (such as serotonin) and need to be in your system to keep working. Ketamine on the other hand gets flushed out within a day or two but apparently can still have positive effects that may persist.

I don’t know if I’ll do more Ketamine treatments again or not. I don’t really enjoy the weird tripping but the benefits were totally worth any discomfort. The treatments did wipe me out for a day or two afterwards and one nice side effect was that my appetite was so suppressed during the two weeks that I visited the clinic that I lost six pounds! Some people with the means to do so go in once a month and trip their ass off since the mood boost that it gives is so worth it. If I had the dough, maybe.

In any case it was a fascinating experience and I’m especially intrigued by other research into psychedelics and mental health, particularly psilocybin (magic mushrooms), which also seems to help in treating depression and PTSD and may even have longer lasting effects than Ketamine. I suspect we’ll be hearing a lot more about these substances in the years ahead as this kind of treatment gets more traction and they become more widely decriminalized, which is the direction things are going.

To wrap up, as always, I hope everyone has a nice time over the holidays and can spend time with friends and family. And again, I want to thank all the supporters of the website. I always say it but I truly could not do it without you. I’m hoping to continue on at least through 2022 and shoot a bunch of new sexy material (and hopefully continue way beyond that!) Next March it will be nineteen years of T’s in Trouble so, hey, I gotta keep going!

All the best. Peace and love from groovy Sandra