3 a.m. thoughts

The following are some of the ramblings of a very tired Baby Rope Top. 

Philosophically speaking … 

I’m not somebody who’s in the world of kink to get my rocks off. I mean, kink is an important part of my life and I enjoy doing kinky things, yes. But I’m in this world, long term, because I care about seeing people be people. 

 

Earlier today, while sewing together part of my tall black boots, I was watching a video about the Mormon church. Specifically, about the impact of Mormon doctrine on the lives of women who live in Utah. Like so many other people, I enjoy learning about large systems of control because it helps me to understand the world I live in and the people I interact with. It gives me perspective on the human experience and what exactly it is that we are all searching for. A lot of the world around me is focused on conformity and following doctrines that don’t meaningfully benefit the individual, but do benefit the people in power.  

 

I get a lot of comfort from the idea that I can make myself into a fabulous, kinky, sexy person. I didn’t have to be born that way. My family was progressive in some ways, but a lot of things were left unsaid. The idea of sticking out, striving for more, and being meaningfully different wasn’t really encouraged. It was okay if you strove to succeed in permissible ways, but you would get some uncomfortable glances if you strayed too far from the norm. 

 

Coming away from Rubber Ball this year, I feel … like a more recognizable version of myself. This was a night of complete self creation by everyone there. Everyone there was putting in effort to transform into a truly over the top version of some part of themselves. It may have been a part they keep under lock and key, or a part that comes out to play every day. 

My evolution 

When I was about 13 years old I stumbled upon an interview with Dita Von Teese on Youtube. Thinking back, it was probably mostly done to promote her lingerie brand, but I took something far more profound from that video. She talked about the difference between beauty and glamour. How beauty is something you have, while glamour is something you can create. 誰でも can be glamorous as long as they are willing to put in the time and effort. 

 

Tonight I felt like a glamorous version of me. It gives me a lot of comfort to think that I can make myself into something – I don’t have to have been born or be something. I can be what I want. I can create glamor and intrigue and excitement by playing pretend, playing dress up, and I can be a fetishist if that’s what I want to be. And that is all about my own power, autonomy and choice. And when I go to an event like Rubber Ball, I see a crowd of people who have all made that same choice: to create something magical and empowering and fun and weird, because they want to. That kind of authenticity and self-actualization and joy and humanity is something that I encounter very rarely in the vanilla, regular, mainstream world.

 

I wish that wasn’t the case. I wish I saw people expressing and experiencing joy and silliness and play and incredible style choices all of the time. Especially given that I live in the Midwestern United States, where people are rolling up to a Walmart in their pajamas. The bar is on the floor as far as fashion goes! 

 

Fetishwear feels like a relatively accessible form of fashion, because there’s so many elements of fetish and BDSM that are so very DIY. In fact, that’s one of my favorite aspects of BDSM history: the creativity of the freaky people who lived before Etsy and the internet.  I had a moment while doing my makeup where I thought “what would my grandma think if she saw this?”. But then I thought, “Well, there were fetishists when grandma was young. There have been freaky people doing freaky things like this forever”. I am partaking in a long tradition of people playing dress up and exploring who they are. There’s something so comforting about knowing that truth. 

The event itself 

Tonight, I tied nine people who I did not know.

 

I did が絶対必要な totally fuck up any one thing, hooray! …That said, I had multiple moments of panic. We’ll call it muted panic, because I was totally cool and collected on the outside. And the first person who I tied probably didn’t notice, but my hands were shaking, at least in the beginning. But he seemed to be really enjoying himself. So that’s good. I met some very interesting characters. I was in a position I am not used to being in, which is almost a pro Domme-y sort of thing. It’s kind of weird to be a femme presenting Top, because I think people kind of expect, to some degree, that I’m going to be kind of confident, or just like, know what I’m doing. Be directive. And that would be great if I knew how to do that. But I don’t know how to do that. 

 

I had a few moments where I felt confident enough to show up as myself and be a little more playful and kind of silly and goofy and down to earth in the way that I usually am. And you know what? It was all pretty okay. As far as quality of tying goes, I was glad that very few people wanted to wear the tie as part of their outfit.When only I had to see the back of it, that was preferable, because, oh my God, things were a hot mess. But I’m also comparing myself to my Master, who has been doing this for longer than I’ve been alive! … So not a fair comparison. 

 

I did at one point have to run over to Him for a quick review on a chest harness that I totally forgot, but He gave me a very quick crash course, and I pulled it off with just enough rope! I did a pink pentagram harness over a person’s black latex two piece set, and they also had tattoos. And it looked so good! It looked だから good. 

 

My fingers got sore for sure. I had to use some highly repairing hand lotion multiple times throughout the evening, which helped. I have long fingernails right now, and they survived all right! There were multiple times where I was trying to maneuver people around because they checked a box on the negotiation sheet that said that they wanted to be “forcefully tied” and moved “where I wanted them”.  The thing is, I didn’t know where I wanted them, so I was very awkwardly moving them just to check that ~desired experience~ box.  Well, it felt awkward to me; I hope they didn’t think it was awkward.

I was so grateful for our assistant. Oh, my God. She was swarmed multiple times, but held down the sign up area with skill and aplomb. And she helped me wipe down my mats, organize my ropes and keep me somewhat on time. I did not always start on time, but I did finish on time, and she was just such a joy to hang out with. That support from both my Master and our assistant made all the difference. I didn’t get to see hardly any of the event, because I was getting ready, and then I was “on”, and then I kept being on all night! You really do fall into a hole when you work an event like this, you don’t really get to see the event itself. Unlike when we’ve performed in the past, then when we were not on stage, we got to mill around and dance and take in the vibe and the pageantry!

Yeah, none of my ties were perfect. None of my ties were of a quality that I would take a picture and show it to the world, but they served their purpose, and I think people had a mostly good time. I’m tired. It’s 3am. I looked really cute. My giblets fell out of my pants once. So I’d call that a win, given how tiny they are … my pants, not my giblets…

 

Basically, every pro Domme I have ever met is the coolest ever, partially because they’re crafting a cool appearance, but oh my god, they’re the coolest people ever. I am so star struck by Jean Bardot and Queen Pea and also Temptress… everybody. They’re the coolest people ever, and I want to be them when I grow up. Not necessarily a pro Domme – It would very much depend on what kind of vibe I curated and what kind of services I provided – but a person that expresses that command of the room, that power, and that glamour.  They’re so beautiful and awesome and nice! That’s the most disarming thing: when you see this drop dead gorgeous and powerful woman, and then she’s extremely, genuinely nice. Okay, shut up, stop, what? Well, okay, glamorous is really the better word there, because it’s very much a creation, an art form, a thing they have crafted and perfected over years. Just … Oh, my god. 

 

After we finished tying, I went to sit out on the balcony area with Master and look down at people, and I suddenly felt sadness and like I wanted to cry because I was overwhelmed.  I had been very much *on* socially, and had just done a lot of new things, and I kind of felt insecure about the quality of the things I’d done … but that was less important.  More important was my feeling of being overwhelmed by the loveliness of the event and the people who came together.  It was a thing of beautiful self-creation. A thing of wonder. A glorious contrast to so much of what we see so often in this world.  

 

Latex: intimate for thee, not intimate for me 

I tied multiple people who were wearing latex. I am by no means a latex expert, but I have worn a few pieces in my lifetime, and the sensory experience was very unique. However, being the Top in this case, touching people who were wearing latex did not feel particularly intimate to me. I mean, besides the obvious physical proximity and social vulnerability, touching them did not feel especially emotionally charged. But I know that was not the case for the people I tied. 

 

Latex clothing is not only a sensory experience for the wearer, but it is a protective barrier in more ways than one. Maybe that seems obvious to you, but the power and gravity of latex as a tool wasn’t clear to me until I experienced it myself, from both sides.  

My thoughts a few days (weeks?) later

Well, it finally happened. I did the scary thing and I tied up a bunch of strangers at a BDSM party. Pretty cool. 

 

I say that like it’s casual and I haven’t been avoiding writing about this for weeks. It feels both like a very big climax and が絶対必要な at the same time. The process moving up to Rubber Ball was inconsistent. I was practicing a fair amount in the beginning, at least compared to what I have been doing prior, but the time coming up to the event itself was filled with a lot of procrastination. Unfortunately, not even productive procrastination. 

 

And, truthfully, that’s about where I am right now. But I’m going to try and push through and do it anyway. 

 

The morning of Rubber Ball I kept things pretty low-key and focused on making sure all of the things I needed to bring along were ready to go. I focused on fixing an annoying part of my tall 7-in black strappy boots. 

 

Master and I arrived at the venue and set up our station before going over to a nearby sandwich shop for dinner. After eating we returned and I got myself ready in the restroom area. It was very fancy and I really enjoyed it. 

 

I decided to move in a slightly different and new direction with my outfit, hair and makeup. And I think it turned out looking pretty nice. I needed everything to be very functional and not annoying for the sake of what I needed to be able to do that evening, but I also really wanted to look cute. 

 

Temptress was working on the other side of the VIP dungeon area. She was also very, very popular, but despite having multiple attractions, our assistant/schedule coordinator got swarmed by people several times. The first swarm came as soon as the door opened. We could only take so many people, and the slots filled fast. 

 

There was a moment when Queen Pea stood before me while I knelt on the floor tying someone. She was so drop dead gorgeous. My jaw hit the ground. My God. 

 

I met several interesting characters throughout the night. None of which I’ll go into specifics about for privacy reasons. But I was in a very new position myself. I felt like people expected me to know what I was doing, probably because that’s a very reasonable expectation of someone in my position. But to be entirely honest with you, I felt extremely out of my depth. Luckily I did remember how to do almost all of the ties that people requested that evening. 

 

For the most part I was “on” for several hours without any breaks. I only had a few moments between sessions when I could take some time to moisturize my hands and wipe down my station without running to get the negotiation form for the next person. It was a pretty hectic evening. At the end, I felt a lot of relief. But as Master and I watched the evening come to a close end of the dance floor slowly empty, I felt tears well up in my eyes.

 

It was all a pretty overwhelming experience, especially for my first time Topping other people in a professional environment. I felt insecure about the quality of my tying, and drained from being ‘on’ socially for hours on end. Usually I prefer a more quiet environment. 

 

I experienced some drop that evening as well as the day after, needing a little more reassurance and care than I normally do. 

— I kind of want to talk about how I’m feeling now. 

 

I’ve talked to a few people about this series as I’ve been writing it, and a few have thought of this event as being the unofficial end of Diary of a Baby Rope Top. I was motivated by this deadline, and now that it’s over, the series can wrap up. 

 

But the thing is, I don’t feel like I’ve improved all that much from where I started. I began this journey to challenge myself to become more grounded in my own life. But I keep falling off of that horse. I keep cycling between nihilism and optimism. I keep making progress and stumbling further backwards. I don’t *feel* like I’ve achieved my goals. 

 

But I did. 

 

I did achieve some very important goals. I learned several new ties. I tied multiple people and pushed through the panic. I thought on my feet and adjusted things on the fly. I was vulnerable and asked people to help me practice. I took up space in a world that I admire, among people I respect. 

 

That’s pretty huge. 

 

And yet, I find myself minimizing it all. Again, I feel beaten down by the state of the world, my own lack of purpose and drive, and uncertainty about my life path. 

 

This isn’t a perfect happy ending, and it isn’t an ending at all, really. I’m going to continue writing and learning and trying. I’m going to keep learning how to Top, but it won’t be as big of a priority for now. I don’t have another performance deadline looming. I’ve got other things to focus on. But I will return to this series from time to time, hopefully. 

 

I’ve been considering shifting my focus to some bottom-led/focused education on TheDuchy. Workouts, discussions, checklists, essays, etc. Something that’s been bouncing around in the back of my head for a while … 

 

Being on the other side of the rope has given me so much valuable insight. I believe it has absolutely improved my bottoming skills and my ability to communicate with my Tops. I understand what annoys me or gets in my way when tying someone, and what helps me. I understand what kinds of insecurities and concerns may pop up, and I can anticipate them and communicate before the scene starts. 

 

The end

To close this whole thing out … so much of Me is still a work in progress. I hope this series was helpful, entertaining, or maybe a cue to think about what *you* want to be when you grow up. Maybe it was just a window into someone else’s mind at a point in history that feels simultaneously excessively voyeuristic and deeply isolating. I hope we both continue to grow, whatever that means. I hope we both find meaning in that growth. And, most importantly, I hope we can recognize the process of growing for what it is: a consistently inconsistent series of stops and starts. But always moving forward, towards something. 

この文章は、カジラ・ブルーによる「ベイビー・ロープトップの日記」というシリーズの一部である。 TheDuchy.com/ブログ.

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