Teacher's Pets

I love teaching SM 101. And I hate it, too.

I was struggling with this recently when Max and I were offered a teaching gig. It was a vanilla-but-curious bachelorette party, and the hostess wanted someone to inform/entertain them as they celebrated the impending nuptials. I loved the idea, and the people sounded fun, but as much as I wanted to want to, I just could not get my didactic dick up for it.

I'm always conflicted about teaching intro-level classes. On one hand, it's rewarding to teach people who don't know much about what BDSM can be--there is so much to give them. But I'm choked by my own obsessive perfectionism; dominating someone is a kind of performance art, and I'm damn good at it. Part of that is because with an audience of one, I can refine the action from moment to moment, and thus elicit exactly the response that I--and my submissive--want. But trying to give a large and diverse group of people a broad spectrum of kink information in a short span of time frustrates me. I can't possibly connect personally with each attendee, so I never know if I'm addressing the things they want to know about. I decided I didn't want to deal with the stress. Max, however, is impervious to these kinds of qualms, so he decided he'd teach the party people as a solo act.

But... when the night of the party rolled around, I decided to tag along with him and be his Lovely Assistant. Not that I would be responsible for teaching anything, you understand. I was simply going to help out a little around the edges.

Of course, it was great. The party guests were a friendly, festive bunch--there were only a dozen people, and with such a small number, we got to interact with them individually. And they were game for everything Max threw out--in no time he had them tying each other into rope-diamond body harnesses and trying on leather bondage hoods and arm restraints. Max took out his single-tail whip, just to show it to them, and one little temptress wiggled her behind at him in the most delightfully provocative way. (Note to her: We sure talked about you afterwards, cutie.) It really reminded me of why I love doing classes. So thanks, party kids, for helping put me back into my "I love teaching SM 101" headspace--even though I wasn't the one actually teaching you.

matisse@thestranger.com