This is the first of five posts chronicling my personal countdown to KinkFest. I have to go through all manner of preparations for the event. Things to do. Membership to apply for. Reservations to make. People to contact. Stuff to obtain. Information to devour. Dungeon play party fantasies to masturbate to. Luggage to pack. And, of course, money to figure out just how the fuck I’m going to get so that I can pay for the whole thing. (Here money, money, money . . . )
And since KinkFest is a BDSM/Kink event, and I just happen to do a BDSM/Kink-based sex blog . . . it made sense to do a series of posts covering these preparations.
The plan is for a series of bi-weekly posts. On Thursdays. (I could’ve sworn I didn’t post on Thursdays.) The first one today, the final one the day before the event begins.
This isn’t to say that I won’t talk about KinkFest prep in other posts, or that I won’t touch on other topics in these ‘Road to KinkFest’ posts. I mean, come on. I’m disorganized. Often scatterbrained. And usually just plain wacky.
But at least we’ll have the illusion of some kind of order here, right? Right.
Previously on the Road to KinkFest . . .
I’m not sure how long ago the website for KinkFest 2009 went up. A subject-to-change list of presenters and workshops was announced on FetLife in late November. The more detailed version of this with presenter bios and workshop descriptions went up on the KinkFest site at some point in December. No actual schedule at that time, but enough information for people to start getting excited over.
That list had nine workshops that I really want to attend. (Along with a handful of others that I wouldn’t mind attending, but aren’t of an oh-my-God level of importance.) Sadly, there are only six workshop periods on the KinkFest schedule (spread out over five rooms, giving nearly 30 workshops total – ‘nearly’ because a few of them are double length).
Last week somebody started a KinkFest group on FetLife. I was up at the library on what had to be the day it was started, because I was the tenth person to join. I don’t know what the membership of the group is up to now, but I’m guessing it’s more than ten.
Fifty-Seven Days
The countdown begins. Fifty-seven days remaining. Roughly two months. Just how long that is depends on why you’re asking. If it’s “how long until the event finally gets here?”, then it’s a long, long time. If it’s “how long do I have to get everything done?”, then it’s hardly any time at all. (Isn’t that always the way these things go?)
February 1st is on a Sunday this year. No mail on Sunday, so Social Security checks should hit mailboxes on Friday, January 30th. Once I get my check in the bank, I can go up the hill to the library and purchase my membership from the KinkFest website.
It currently costs $125 ($100 for PLA members – and PLA membership is only $10, so . . . do the math) for KinkFest membership. That goes up to $150 ($125 for PLA members) on February 15th. The cut-off for applications is March 15th. Sooner if they reach the point at which they’ve sold enough memberships to fill the place to capacity. Once that happens . . . you’re shit out of luck.
So, if you plan to go, don’t dawdle. Oh, obviously, you should wait until after I’ve purchased my membership. But once I’m safely assured that they didn’t run out of memberships before I’ve submitted my payment, then by all means – hurry!
Scheduling Conflicts
Last week (I think it was last week) the workshop schedule finally went up on the KinkFest site. Nine workshops I wanted to attend, remember? One of those I won’t be attending because it’s a four hour workshop, it’s first come-first served, and it’s limited to twenty people. And the others? They managed to arrange the remaining eight workshops into three workshop periods.
Those. Fucking. Bastards.
There are three workshop periods during the event where there’s pretty much nothing going on that I’m dying to see. Oh, for two of those there are workshops that I still plan to attend, they’re just not anything from the oh-my-God-I-have-to-attend-this list. And there will be one workshop period that I plan to spend in the hotel’s hot tub. (Ah, the hot tub . . .) Who knows, maybe I’ll find a lusty female willing to meet me there and let me play with her swimsuit-covered tits and slide the crotch of her suit aside so I can finger her under the water and then put a checkmark next to number 39 on my list of 39 Things to Do in Year 39. (Hey, it could happen.)
The second workshop period on Saturday includes a workshop by Panther Prowls entitled “THWACK! – Understanding Impact Play”. At the same time, there’s a workshop by Freya entitled “Visit Uranus – An Anal Pleasure Workshop”.
The second workshop period on Sunday brings us both “Let Your Beast Out” by Cleo Dubois (a workshop about conscious sadism), and “The Siren Song of Oblivion – Why Play on the Edge” by Mo Williams. (I missed both of Mo Williams workshops late year – wanted to attend both, but one was scheduled opposite something else I had to attend, and the other happened after Zorch decided that we were leaving early. Afterwards, whenever I heard about KinkFest, what I heard about was Mo Williams’ workshops.)
The third workshop period on Sunday – and final one for the event – includes “Asymmetrical Bondage – Beauty in Chaos” by Boss Bondage (owner and operator of the Asylum Dungeon), “The Art of Flagellation” by Master Bob (who attends the Salem Munch), “Strapping On and Getting Off – Penetration Pleasures for Top and Bottom” by Freya, and “Fisting and Footing” by Allie.
Some of these are impossible choices. I may need all 57 days just to figure out what I’m going to attend and what I’m going to have to let go of. I look at my choices and try to figure it out, and my brain gets dizzy and falls over inside my skull.
Do I choose the ones I want to see the most? Do I choose the ones I see as being most useful to me (as someone trying to get into things like BDSM and sex)? Sadly, they aren’t the same.
That last workshop period. I know I’m not going to the bondage one. (Sorry, Boss.) But I can’t really narrow the other three down to the required one. I’ve got a huge foot fetish and a major desire to fist somebody. I need to learn how to use a flogger. I’ve got this oft-mentioned desire to get fucked in the ass by either penis or a strapped-on dildo.
How does a person make a choice like that?
Plus . . . there’s the wild card factor. If a presenter gets sick and has to cancel, I’m probably screwed. Because it will either be a presenter whose workshop I need to attend, or it will be someone who wasn’t even on my radar – and who will be replaced by a last minute presenter doing a workshop on Clown Sex, or something equally geared specifically toward my interests. Something to throw my whole schedule out of whack.
The watersports workshop I attended at last year’s KinkFest wasn’t on the schedule until the event started because it was a replacement for a workshop whose presenter couldn’t make it to the event. So even as I try and figure out what I’m attending and what I’m not, I’m trying to keep in mind the potential for the wild card workshop to leap up and bite me in the ass.
Hello? Can Anybody Hear Me?
There are a handful of presenters whose bios include some sort of contact information. Either websites or e-mail addresses. There are also a handful of presenters that I’d like to contact before KinkFest and ask a couple of questions of. Guess what? None of the presenters I want to contact are the ones who have supplied contact information.
The people in question either don’t have FetLife accounts, or don’t use the same name on FetLife that they use as workshop presenters.
So, I’m going to ask. I’ll start a thread asking questions about contact info on the FetLife KinkFest group. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll probably drop an email to whoever’s in charge of programming at KinkFest.
I don’t want to be rude or demanding. If these people don’t want to be contacted by any freak who can access the internet, that’s perfectly understandable. But if it turns out that they don’t mind the occasional contact, and just don’t put that info into their bios so that they aren’t flooded with mail from conference attendees (and wannabe conference attendees, and stalkers, and weirdos, and the like), then it’s well worth the time and effort it takes to ask the question.
Like everyone always says: it doesn’t hurt to ask.
That Oh-So-Pesky Virginity
The major problem that I had at last year’s KinkFest was that it was the first time I was surrounded by openly kinky people. In the workshops, in the dungeons, even in the hallways. I knew that these people were my fellow perverts.
I wanted to learn. I wanted to make contacts. I wanted to explore BDSM. All of this was true. But mainly . . .
I wanted to fuck.
I figured that if there was anywhere that I was going to run into one of these seemingly mythological ‘female fat admirers’, it would be at a BDSM/Kink/Fetish event. Despite trying not to, I had managed to convince myself that I was going to finally lose my virginity at KinkFest.
It didn’t happen. Which both disappointed and depressed me. And I think that my desire for my first-ever round of sexual intercourse probably kept me from experiencing some ‘firsts’ that would have been within my reach had I only attempted grasping them.
57 days. Do you think I can lose my virginity in the next 57 days? I don’t know whether or not it’s possible. But I think that it’s what I need.
If there’s any way that I can attend KinkFest and NOT still be this sex-starved, 38 year old virgin – self-conscious because of my near-complete lack of any and all sexual experience, and desperate to finally be rid of this metaphorical stone around my neck – it would not only increase my enjoyment of the event, but would probably allow me to actually focus on the purpose of the gathering, rather than spending all three days sitting on a stack of unrealistic fantasies and going home unfulfilled.
An Empty Jar
As mentioned earlier in this post, I plan to purchase my membership to KinkFest on either Friday or Saturday. Marking not only the beginning of “The Road to KinkFest”, but also serving as the kick-off to February’s status as “Top Ramen Month”. (All Top Ramen, all the time.)
KinkFest membership comes half out of my February check, half out of money I saved from January. (Come to think of it, there was quite a bit of Top Ramen in January, too.) The rest of my KinkFest funds are currently being kept in a jar.
And yes, that jar is empty. Not even a lonely penny resides there at the moment.
Beyond membership, I honestly have no idea how I’m paying for this. (I’ve got 57 days to figure it out.) If I wasn’t needlephobic – and of course, completely and totally medically FUBAR – I’d start selling my blood. (I’d go out and become a gigolo/man-whore, but I figure if I can’t find anyone to have sex with me for free, who’s going to want to pay me for it?)
I’m not worried about it (or so I keep telling myself). It’ll work out. The money will come from somewhere.
I’m not worried at all. Not yet, anyway. If I haven’t figured out the financial end of things by then, I’ll start worrying when I hit 29 days and counting.
Memo To Myself
(“Do the dumb things I gotta do – touch the puppet head.”)
Another thing I need to do before KinkFest . . . I’ll need to write a couple of blog posts for while I’m at the event, and for while I’m laying in a heap recovering from the event.
I’ll need to write and pre-post a blog entry for the first day of KinkFest (the Friday of my normal M – W – F schedule). I’ll return home Sunday night, but will I be in any condition to write anything? Or to go up to the library the next day and post stuff? Maybe, maybe not. Better safe than sorry. The Wednesday following KinkFest is April 1st, and I’d just as soon skip blogging that day instead of going anywhere near the internet. My KinkFest report will probably go up on the blog on Friday, a week after the event starts.
But I’ll definitely need at least two posts written and set for auto-posting before I leave.
Coming Up on ‘The Road to KinkFest . . .’
I can’t afford to pay for an entire hotel room for two nights! And even if I could, whatever would I do with the additional bed? There must be a solution to this problem.
4/5X costs how much!?!
Contact information . . . on paper.
And:
“Hey, I was kinda wondering – if you’re not busy – would you have any interest in playing with me in the dungeon later on tonight? I just bought this in the vendor’s area, you see, and I’d really like to test it out . . .”
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