Exploratorium
Saturday I went to an "exploratorium" held by a local BDSM group. It was basically an event where a handful of experts kinksters set up stations to demo their expertise, allowing people to check out each station and explore some things (hence the name).

The event was a fairly small and low-key thing, resulting in the stations being thankfully uncrowded. There were six stations set up: 1) electro-play, 2) misc. toys for sensation-play, 3) canes, 4) whips, 5) floggers, and 6) shibari (Japanese rope bondage). My favorite, of course, was that last one. ^_^

So I made my way over to the shibari table first. He had a couple books with some very cool photos of various fun shibari scenes and such which I paged through, and he also had all sorts of rope for demonstration purposes (and an assistant, wearing a shirt with the words "Rope Slut" hehe). I wasn't really sure what to ask, to I mostly just listened to others have their questions answered.

Not wanting to linger in one area too long, I decided to wander over to the electro-play, the only other area there that remotely interested me. I'm not huge into pain, so canes and whips and things I tend to stay away from...but some lighter electro things seem like they could be kinda fun. He demonstrated various things, such as a violet wand, and the different bulbs that can be placed in for different effects. I tended to wait for others to touch it first, and judge from reactions which ones would be too much for me.

One of the other interesting toys he had was a laptop hooked up to a blindfold that looks like a pair of sunglasses. Inside are LED-looking lights. And also hooked up to the laptop is a box for electricity, which special sticky pads can be hooked into...and then these pads are stuck onto your skin. What happens then is, a music file can be played on the laptop, and the sound gets interpreted as light patterns in the glasses, as well as shocks via the pads on your skin. So as you're shocked, your muscles start twitching and things...to the beat of the music, as you get an interesting lightshow going on through your eyelids (you have to keep your eyes closed while it's on).

After watching someone else try it out first, I decided to be adventurous and see how it was. He asked if I'd ever heard of this or that group, some fairly obscure-sounding things, to which I mentioned I listen mostly to rock. He says he has some Who, AC/DC... I thought The Who sounded like an interesting idea. And yeah, "Won't Get Fooled Again" gave an interesting lightshow.

And let me tell you, you'll never be more aware of the soft/loud dynamics in a song than when those dynamics are being interpreted into softer or harder shocks of electricity, lol. For demonstration purposes, he placed pads only on people's arms...but suggested breasts and things might be interesting places to put them. I can only imagine...being tied up, being bombarded with sound and light and sensation...the latter two playing off of the former.

Also, while he had the music playing through speakers so everyone could hear, the demo-subject was also listening through headphones. The effect is almost like sensory deprivation, being unable to hear or see anything going on arround you...except that at the same time you're being bombarded with sensory information. Would definately be something fun to combine with bondage.

And back to bondage...after trying out the electro machine thing, I decided to head back over to the shibari station, and continue listening/watching. Apparently while I'd been in Who-land, one of the girls there had been tied fairly snuggly, with numerous ropes wrapped around her horizontally. Her arms were stuck snuggly at her sides, but she was still able to walk freely. The idea, I guess, with all the rope, was to give her a wonderfully cozy/snug feeling of just the tightness of the ropes, almost like a body hug...I was so jealous, hehe. And in return, she had business cards listing the guy's website (www.ropecast.net, for anyone interested) placed in her cleavage for people to take...transformed into a mobile business card dispenser of sorts. ;-)

Wandering back to the shibari table, I watched him demonstrate a nice rope harness on another girl, with her arms tied behind her back while acting as an interesting sort of push-up bra in the front. He took a few pics with his digital camera to email her later (after asking, of course, and making sure not to get anyone else in the picture), and then let her stay in the harness and wander about a little to take it in fully.

I'd been too shy to ask to try anything out earlier, but after seeing that built up the courage. He asks what I'd like to try, and I'm like "well, I'm not sure..." -- ever decisive, lol. He decides on something similar to that last harness, but different.

However, just as he's begun, one of the organizers mentions to him that they want to wrap everything up in the next 10 minutes. Perfect timing on my part, eh? ;-P Well, he gave it a good try, attempting a slightly rushed thing, but unfortunately it didn't come out as great as I think he would've liked...for one, it wasn't really binding at all (after he snapped a couple of pics, I broke out of it fairly quickly), and as he said himself really mostly functioned just to look kinda pretty, hehe. Alas.

But yeah...was overall a fun experience. :-)