We're snuggled on the couch going through Magister's latest haul of independently published newsletters and small-press BDSM periodicals. The air conditioner is going full blast, and the couch is right in front of it; on a miserably hot day like today, this is the only way to stay comfortable. I'm getting a crash course in scene etiquette and traditions. From what I've seen so far, I don't think I want to get involved, but Magister thought it would be a good idea for me to at least be familiar with my own subculture, which seems sensible enough. There are, at any rate, worse ways to spend a muggy August morning.

There is apparently a bandanna for every kink that exists - at least, for every common and relatable kink. Somehow, I don't see too many people advertising a fondness for inflatable doll worship, or for sex with luggage, or for necrophilia.

Wearing a scarf or some other prominent accessory on the left side indicates a preference for doing, while wearing the same article on the right side of the body indicates a desire to have the same action done to you. There doesn't appear to be much mixing and matching. The convention also doesn't seem to be strictly limited to gay bars anymore, although that's where it originated. Now I know why he tied the black silk scarf onto my right wrist when he gave it to me. Black is for edge play, pain, and extremes in general. Extreme. That would be us.

"I must admit, I find some of these paraphilias baffling, but de gustibus non est disputandem. I wonder what a tie-dyed scarf would indicate?" I ask him.

"An LSD fetish?"

I elbow him in the ribs and go back to reading.

And grimace.

"Good grief, this is sexist," I complain. "Where are the women who play the top? Are we really that rare?"

"Hardly. Professionally, for instance, the vast majority of female sex workers who cater to kink are dominatrixes - which makes sense, if you think about it. It takes a lot of trust simply to submit to someone you know. Submitting to a client whom you've never even met before getting sent out by an escort agency? That takes a rare and special kind of nerve. And unfortunately, sexual assault is a very real hazard of sex work, and women who do sex work are disproportionately at risk. Add to that the general perception that people who play the bottom do so because they want to be abused, and - well. Professional submissives of both sexes receive very high client fees as a result, about twice as much as dominatrixes do, because dominatrixes are so much more common. In the scene, meanwhile? It depends on where you live and what group you belong to. Most of the groups I know of in the Midwest do indeed cater to male dominants and female submissives, when the couples are of both sexes. I'm not sure why. It might be because we live in a conservative part of the country, and there's some unresolved tension regarding gender roles. Move west to California and you'll find it more common for groups to be predominantly comprised of dominant women and submissive men, if they aren't single-sex pairings. Dominant men like me are as scarce as hen's teeth in San Francisco, at least, those of us who also happen to be heterosexual."

I make a sour face. "That's lopsided, too."

"You might like one group I heard of that is based out of Los Angeles. It was founded by a married couple that happens to lead a Wiccan coven. They're also, independently of their spiritual roles, both BDSM switches. Dominance and submission, sadism and masochism - the full axis. Between Beltane and Samhain, the half of the pagan year ruled by the Goddess, the wife is the High Priestess of their coven and has dominance over her husband. Between Samhain and Beltane, the half of the year that is associated with the Horned God, Consort of the Goddess, her husband is dominant and is the High Priest of the coven. Mind you, I don't think there's any deliberate overlap between their domestic lifestyle, and what they do in the coven - oh, yes, they're lifestylers, too, their roles aren't limited to play that goes on in the bedroom, they actually live as Mistress and slave or Master and slave in the rest of their domestic life as well, depending on what time of year it is; it just worked out that whichever of them is currently dominant also happens to take the active leadership role in religious ritual, probably because the polarity affects their energy. The BDSM group that they are the public face for, meanwhile, has a higher-than-usual incidence of switches, and among the less switchable members of the group, the number of male dominants and female dominants is roughly equal."

"That does sound nice," I say. Nice is an understatement. It's the sort of arrangement I would probably find ideal for my own life if only I could swing it, if I ever felt a need for something resembling a social life. "Why can't all groups be like that?"

"I don't know."

"Why are the switches brushed off in so many other instances? Most of what I read assumes that a person must be one thing or another: dominant or submissive, sadistic or masochistic, no playing both sides of the fence or you're not serious or you don't know who you are. It's like being bi, only worse, to everybody else - I've told you how lesbians won't accept that I like men, and straight people don't like that I want women, right? What am I, chopped liver?"

"You, dear one, are not chopped liver." He turns my head around so that he can reach my lips with his and gives me a kiss that starts out warm and eventually sears me down to my toes. "Alas, I have no easy answer for you as to why so much of the subculture does not like to acknowledge its switch hitters. It does seem rather odd, especially given that arrangements like ours, where one partner plays the submissive to a more experienced dominant to learn the art, are fairly common, although the majority of those relationships do not also involve a magickal apprenticeship such as the one we have. I think perhaps many people are uncomfortable with grey areas. Ambiguity can be challenging."

I still don't think I would find a home in the scene. I find it surprising that he was so active in it when he was younger, but then, he doesn't have the advantage of extreme flexibility that I have - his switchability seems to be limited at best. Learning by being done to wasn't an option for him. He doesn't talk about his experiences much, but I'm getting the impression that while he might have had a fair share of women in his bed years ago (it was, after all, the 1970s when he came of age) he played the role of voyeuristic wallflower more often than not if the setting was a public one. Every time I try to imagine him getting involved in a public scene in a nightclub or at a play party, my mind trips up on the image. He's so intensely private.

"So 'zines like this are how other pervects communicate with each other and try to meet up, if there are no actual social groups or support groups in a given city?" I ask. "It's like looking at the bastard child of an amateur press literary magazine and a mail-order bride catalog, with Hustler acting as the drunken fairy godfather at the naming ceremony."

"Pretty much," he agrees. "If you live in a major metropolis, where the BDSM scenes are large and active and extremely diverse, there's little need to communicate via pen pal lists and periodicals. If you live in a small town, or even a mid-sized city like ours in a conservative part of the country, finding folk of like mind, if that is important to you, gets rather more difficult. It's a common enough kink, in its milder expressions anyway, so finding a romantic partner to handcuff to the bed or give you the occasional spanking probably won't pose too many problems, but if you want to socialize with birds of your feather, or find someone to play with who is more hardcore, it gets problematic."

"Hence the various ways to use the mail to meet other people."

"Yes."

I glance down. "Well, the personals speak for themselves. I could see how someone who lived out in East Oshkosh would want to advertise availability in a magazine, because spontaneously meeting someone compatible in East Oshkosh would be rather unlikely. Though not impossible. I seem to recall bumping into someone randomly in a bookstore." I smile. "I could also see where going through one of these magazines would be like consulting a cookbook for food preparation ideas - the bondage illustrations in particular. I can just imagine someone pinning one of the pictures up to use as a pattern while trussing their partner up with rope. So that's useful. I really like this one picture, by the way, the one where the woman has her girlfriend tied up to a tree - it's very artistically done. Also very romantic. You can see by the way they're looking at each other that they love each other very much. The photographer must have had fun doing that particular shoot. You know, I bet my first ex-girlfriend would have wanted to see this."

"Down, girl," he says, with a grin. "I don't want drool on my periodicals."

"Then distract me or move the periodicals out of my way. And you're drooling, too. You've been poking me in the back for some time, now."

He proceeds to go about distracting me. As it transpires, I am easily distracted.