A couple people have asked me recently about an earlier post where I mentioned how it seems that people who are into damsel in distress style bondage are really in the minority in the BDSM scene, where bondage itself is a small minority interest. One friend asked, “What are the bondage people into if they’re not into DID-style bondage?” I’ve gone on about this before but it does seem in the BDSM scene that Shibari, or Japanese bondage, has really become the dominant style in the last few years, especially in the BDSM clubs and dungeons. It often seems when I go out to the clubs anymore that Shibari is what you see when you see bondage (other than cuffs and leather restraints) and that good ol’ damsel in distress style bondage has become much more scarce in comparison.

My guess for this is that damsel in distress bondage is often the style that bondage fetishists (such as me) favor, whereas Shibari seems much less fetishistic, and fetishists in general often seem to be a minority at the BDSM clubs anyway, where Dominance/submission play (D/s) and Master and slave relationships are so often the main focus. And in that environment I think Shibari fits right in as a form of aesthetic bondage that’s difficult to learn and thereby sets one apart as a bad-ass top for those who go to the trouble to learn it. I’m sure many would disagree with me and say that Shibari has just as much of a fetishistic charge to it, but I just don’t see it – which I grant may just mean that it’s not my fetish ;-) But one of the things that bewilders me the most about Shibari is that so often the girls aren’t even gagged. Now I know that for bondage fetishists the gag is oftentimes the main focus of the whole thing. I’ve lost count of how many bondage lovers I’ve heard say “It ain’t bondage if there’s no gag.” And I would totally agree – I mean, what’s the point otherwise?

I remember there was a big day-long bondage demo in L.A. several months ago and I was struck by how all the presenters, and I think there were seven or eight, all of them were doing Shibari and not a single one was doing DID-style bondage. I didn’t even bother going after that. And again, I totally get how difficult Shibari is and how people devote years of study to it. But I just find it way too cold and clinical and lacking in any fetishistic “bondage charge.” I think I have a folder on my computer with maybe twenty Shibari pictures that I’ve seen over the years that I find a turn on, and of course probably thousands from all the damsel in distress bondage sites that I’ve joined (way too many!)

Anyway, just another rant and I’m sure I’ll be back at it again before too long. I don’t hate Shibari – I just wish it hadn’t taken over and become THE style of bondage at the clubs. What I really like about FetishCon, on the other hand, is that it’s one of the main events that’s still focused on damsel in distress bondage, so even though I’m a crossdresser at least I don’t feel like I’m completely out of the loop there! I’m definitely looking forward to it in August and seeing friends whom I haven’t seen in way too long!

I had a really nice shoot recently with a very cute girl named Kali who has a terrific secretary look – my favorite! We shot a couple sets of pictures and I’ll post the full set of this one for this week’s update on Friday, where she ends up as a helpless secretary bound, cleave gagged, then OTM gagged on top of that and blindfolded too! We had a great time and it was very sexy getting her into the ropes and gags ;-)

I went out the other evening, just in boy mode, to one of the local “munches” – where a bunch of kinky people get together in a restaurant for dinner. It’s all very non-kinky and a good way to meet people in a very low pressure environment. I actually met my last two girlfriends at munches, not that I go out trolling, but you never know who you might meet. Of course, most of the time it’s some chit chat and a meal and that’s it, which is fine too. Well, it was definitely one of the latter kinds of evenings but I’m trying to take my own advice and go out to events, whether I enjoy them or not, as eventually if you do it enough you start to make contacts. Sometimes it feels like I make contacts in spite of myself, as I can be pretty shy and tongue tied when I first meet people.

One discouraging thing about the BDSM scene in general, I’ve found – and this is in any city, not just Denver – is that people who are into damsel in distress style bondage are a very tiny minority, and then being a crossdresser makes it an even tinier minority. So sometimes I get to feeling like why even bother going, but again it sometimes pays off if you go out enough.

Anyway, not the most exciting blog post here but it is tough starting again in another city, although I do have some history here. Actually most of the potential models and photographers I’ve been talking to have not really been that big in the BDSM scene, but are generally more just people who are familiar with my site and write me. Or people from Fetlife, who know me there and see that I’m now in Denver.

Hopefully I’ll have more exciting news as time goes on. In the meantime the picture taking continues on :-)

A lovely girl named Tiffany recently contacted me and we had a really nice shoot the other day. She wears a corset which gave her this amazing tiny waist in this tight green dress. I also love how she looks in the metal collar and the dangley earrings. I’ll be posting the full set of these pictures late tonight or early Friday, where she gets tied up, vetwrap gagged, and then finally pantyhose hooded and taped. She’s a very busy girl but I look forward to hopefully shooting again with Tiffany before too long. She was a lot of fun and it was terrific rendering her completely bound and helpless! ;-)

Well, I’m slowly getting more settled in and unpacked from my most recent move here on the west side of Denver. It was certainly way easier than the drive out from California. I think the new apartment will work out pretty well and I’m looking forward to doing some shooting here. Things have been going okay but it seems like so much time has been spent apartment hunting and running errands and just trying to stay on top of things. I’d really like to start having more fun this summer. I’ll have to work on that.

A nice girl from Poland recently wrote me and let me know that she translated my bio into her language and posted it on her blog related to transgendered issues. Wow, that was a lot of effort, I’m sure, but it looks pretty neat, and it’s very flattering that she went to all that trouble. I hope it’ll be of interest to her readers.

It looks like I’ll be in Tampa in August going to FetishCon! It’s been a couple years so I’m really looking forward to it and to seeing friends whom I haven’t seen in a while and meeting new ones. If you’re going let me know. I’m always up for meeting new people.

Last night I dressed up and went out to the Denver Sanctuary’s Gateway party, which is their big monthly BDSM party. It was, well, okay. Thankfully I knew maybe three or four people there, but the crowd was huge – about 80 – and there were only three or four crossdressers that I could see, a couple of whom were just working the front desk. I definitely felt like a bit of an outsider in the crowd, but then, heck, I feel like an outsider in this world ;-) A few of the ladies did make some nice comments on my outfit – I was wearing that favorite brown skirt and a stretchy print top and a brown wig – and I met several new people who were very nice, including a woman who had also recently moved from California. It’s funny, the night was fine, but I can’t say I really had that much fun. There was little if any bondage going on, mostly just whips and floggers, and I don’t really enjoy huge crowds, so I think I’ll try to look for some smaller more intimate parties in the future in addition to this one. I sure did feel nostalgic for the old Club Fantasy parties as I drove home!

Since my sublet here is winding down I’ve been packing up again for yet another move, a short one this time, at the end of the month. I was going through some old papers and found an old diary that I’d written way back in the mid-nineties, when I spent a year in New York City. What really struck me the most was how desperately unhappy I was back then. I’ve talked a lot on this blog about my struggles from time to time with low moods, so I can’t say I’m really a happy person (wish I could), but I’m certainly better than I was way back then. Geez, I did not have a clue and was terribly dramatic – everything seemed weighted with significance and life or death importance. I hope I’ve come at least a little ways since then.

The real lesson I took from reading that again is just the obvious conclusion that none of us can predict the future. When I moved to L.A. about nine years ago I thought I would probably spend the rest of my life there. Not so. And now that I’m in Denver I can see that I have no idea what the future will hold or how long I’ll really be here (although being in a sublet and moving twice in such a short time does heighten the sense of things being temporary). I do like it here pretty well and think things will work out in the long run, but really, who knows? Nothing profound about all this but it does take some of the pressure off. I was writing about things back in the nineties that seemed so important at the time and now they’re just vague memories.

I also found some old Harmony magazines too, old favorites from years ago, and scanned a few photos from them, though I apologize for the image quality. I really loved these pictures of Sarah Foster Tate in this bronze rubber dress – she was always terrific! And here’s a favorite set of Lyndia in a sexy white blouse with a wide corset belt, nicely tied and gagged. (I know these are still under copyright but, hey, they’re old and I don’t think they’re on any pay sites. If the owners of these images see them here and want them down, though, just let me know and I’ll do so right away. In the meantime, enjoy!

When it’s night and I part the curtains and look out a window, I almost always have a moment’s hesitation where I’m sure that there’s going to be a face looking right back at me – not a reflection but someone actually standing there. When I was a kid, those lines from the schmaltzy song “Those Were the Days” about the strange reflection in the glass used to always give me the willies in the same way. I’m not sure why this is, or why I’m blogging about it ;-)

It is, though, mid May and I just looked out the window. We still have snow rolling in again!

I’ve been staying in a short term sublet here in Denver and am moving to a new place in town at the end of the month. Every time I move I always feel a little nervous about the prospect of dressing and going out again and inevitably being seen by the neighbors. That little walk from the front door to the car always seems to be the toughest. Going out and being in a club or even out on the streets aren’t that big a deal in comparison, although to be honest I’ve never really enjoyed going out in the daytime all that much.

For someone who has their pictures all over the internet I’m really kind of private and don’t like that much attention in the real world. And the thought of being seen by the neighbors always makes me worried. I always wonder what would happen if they were totally freaked out and wanted to make a situation out of it, although that’s never happened. Back in L.A. there were lots of neighbors in a fairly concentrated area and I was seen many times, without any issues about it. I know there are some crossdressers out there who have this incredible confidence and who will go anywhere and not feel any doubt or anxiety about it. I’m not sure how one does that! I mean, I’ve been out many times and can’t say I’ve had any major problems, but it’s never been something that I just love to do.

I do suspect everything will work out fine at the new place, as every other place I’ve been before has worked out fine. And there’ll be a little more space than I’m used to, so I’m looking forward to that, especially for future photoshoots. Wish me luck though. I’ll be loading up the UHaul truck yet again in about three weeks, but only driving a few miles this time.

Thanks to everyone who’s sent me happy birthday greetings – I really appreciate it! Some years my birthday gets me down but this one was pretty good. I think I’m getting to the age where the continued passage of time just feels inevitable and is not such a shock (at least until I hit the next big milestone, in which case I’ll freak out again!)

A good friend and I went out the other day on a hike down to some famour dinosaur tracks in Southern Colorado. When you see something that’s estimated to be over 100 million years old it just leaves one with a sense of awe, and somehow my own worries and concerns seem pretty insignificant, and pretty fleeting. If my math is right, it would take over 50,000 repetitions of our modern 2,000 year era to get back to the days when those tracks were made. To quote Keanu, “Whoa!”

I’ve noticed more and more that I have big anxiety issues with email. It seems that in the last year the volume of incoming email has really ratcheted up and I find myself having a harder and harder time responding to all of it. I even find myself feeling deeply guilty when I don’t respond and sometimes moaning when I look at my inbox and see this huge lists of unanswered emails with those little checkmarks next to them. Oftentimes I’ll just close Outlook Express in despair, realizing that the list will only be bigger tomorrow and knowing that I’ll probably never get it down to zero. Last week I was answering some email and realized that I’d spent three hours on it and had still only made a dent.

Now I don’t want to complain and I don’t want people to not write me, as I know that the reason there’s all that email is that lots of people like Trannies In Trouble, for which I’m truly grateful. The website is a ton of work but it’s been one of the better things I’ve ever done in my life. But I also realized recently that at the present moment my relationship to email is out of balance and causing me a lot of mental anguish and I have to accept that until I get better at it and improve my email skills the sense that I’m overwhelmed by it is going to continue to cause me anxiety. Right now I can only accept that my inbox is way out of whack, my abilities to deal with it are lacking, and I haven’t even begun to figure it out yet.

As I’ve mentioned here before I’m the kind of person who typically has a guilty conscience. I want to please people and, like most of us, I want people to like me. And the unanswered emails make me feel like I’m letting people down, hurting others’ feelings, and making people resentful – reactions that are most likely way overblown and just coming from my own worried and overheated brain. So in a way I’m asking for forgiveness in writing this blog post. If I haven’t written back, it’s not personal. I just don’t know how to stay on top of it, and I know there are a lot of people who will probably never get a response. I don’t like that but I know that until I figure out a better way that’s how it is. Email (and the internet) is a blessing and a curse. Thanks for indulging me if you’ve read this far and leave me a comment here if you’re in the same boat or have any thoughts. Actually blog comments are way better than email and are probably way likelier to get a response, though at this point I can’t even promise that ;-)

The last couple weeks I’ve been out with my friend K. at some restaurants and we got the “Hi, ladies” greeting during two different outings, even though I was in guy mode both times. Now, for a crossdresser it’s kind of cool to be mistaken for a woman when you’re not even dressed, though I always feel for the poor server, as they immediately see their error and apologize. One waitress actually did it twice during the same meal and then apologized each time. It’s the hair. Mine’s not really that long but it’s longer than most guys, and because I’m fairly slender, when they approach from behind they sometimes read me as a girl. When the waitress apologized the second time, I just said, “Don’t worry, I get that a lot.” Which isn’t really true. It doesn’t happen that often, but again it is kind of cool when it does.