End of the Month Update: March

We’re already a quarter of the way through 2013, and it feels like no time at all has passed. Thankfully, I have something to show for the last month.

I’ve let my fitness slip a little bit. I’m back up to 306 lbs as of today, which means I’ll have to put some focus on eating right and exercising in the coming month. I’m sure the pizza we ordered last night didn’t help, but in the middle of the month I was down to 296, so one meal didn’t undo all that work. I’ve been ignoring my Fitocracy for other online media, and I haven’t been balancing my intake of starch with everything else. This is the one to watch for next month.

My house continues to be mostly in order. My storage and laundry room need work, but the rest of it is tidy for the most part. The kitchen is a constant battle, and it doesn’t help that one of my lodgers seems to be incapable of taking responsibility for himself, but he’s not the only guilty party, only the most visible. This will be something to address at the next household meeting, and I’ll have to watch how much I eat over our extravagant monthly meal.

My skills have been improving on schedule. I’ve reintroduced myself to the local Kink community and attended a munch, and a play party. Both were fantastic experiences, and helped to bolster my personal confidence. Also, watching other people and their techniques gave me new ideas which I’m going to have to practice and adopt. I had a setback near the start of the month due to depression, which prompted my last blog post. Thankfully, I was able to shrug off the March SADs, and keep buggering on.

I have been updating my blog later in the day than I’d like. I’m really going to have to work on this. I want to have a post ready to update first thing in the morning, which means I’m going to have to do the final edits the Sunday before. In spite of my late updates, however, I woke up this morning to a pique in traffic, which may be because it’s Monday, or may be due to my very good friend Tailsteak (the author of Leftover Soup) tweeting about me. Speaking of Twitter, if you want to know when I’ve updated, I do send out a tweet after each post, so feel free to follow me.

Now to my business plans. I’ve yet to order business cards, and as nobody has yet taken me up on my million dollar offer, I couldn’t afford a new suit, but I have made progress. I’m working on social networking at the moment through Twitter and FetLife (which is the JerkFace equivalent for the kink community), as well as at local events. I’ve designed contracts and waivers for professional play, and the next step will be to design a questionnaire for potential clients to fill out so that I may better serve their individual needs.

That’s all for this month.

Thanks for reading,

-Step.

"Help"

Time and again, in slightly dated media, you hear someone say “you need help, like, seriously” or something to that effect. This is usually said in the context of an insult to imply that the person in question is crazy. Thankfully, I haven’t seen this in more recent media, though I haven’t really been looking either.

The stigma surrounding mental illness and the brain is slowly changing, but most people still seem to take the line that seeing someone for mental or emotional problems means that you're crazy. Forgetting that crazy isn't a technical term, the idea of applying it to anyone in a serious context is dangerous. For one thing, if they really are unbalanced, pointing it out is a foolish thing to do, and if they are just a little bit off kilter, then we as fellow human beings ought to be helping them find stable footing, not sending them spinning out.

I think everyone knows that “help” means psychotherapy. Seeing a Psychologist, Psychiatrist, or other form of therapist is a healthy step in personal problem solving. I recommend that anyone who is having trouble in their personal lives consider seeing a therapist of some description. They are there to help. Personally, I find that Psychologists go about things in a much more constructive manner. Psychiatrists are great for dealing with the chemical side of things, but in my opinion, looking at behaviour, living conditions, and attitude is a much better place to start, and that’s what a Psychologist will do.

In the vein of “practice what you preach”, I’ll mention that I’ve been to a Psychologist at times in my life. As a child I had anger issues, and the anger management training helped me to attain control over not only my emotions, but my A.D.D. as well. When my wife and I were having trouble, we went to a marriage counsellor. Ultimately,in our case, the best thing was for us to go our separate ways, but seeing the counsellor allowed us to recognize that, and gave us the push we needed to live our own lives. After we split, I still needed some help dealing with my fears and anxieties, so I continued to see him for a bit. It helped a great deal.

The first step in solving any problem is admitting that it exists. Everyone, at some point, will go through something which they don’t know how to deal with. Admitting we have a problem is hard enough. Admitting that we can’t work through it on our own is even worse.

Most of us have no problem with admitting that we’re only human. We may be able to admit that we’re not strong enough to pull a bus, or light enough to float on air. It’s quite different when we find ourselves failing at things at which we see other people all around us succeeding. At this point, some of us think “It would be better to try and fail on my own, rather than ask for help”, and thus the cycle begins.

Some of you may be feeling quite uncomfortable by this point. It’s an uncomfortable subject, but an important one. We need to be able to discuss anxiety, depression, and the like just as we would a broken leg or arthritis.

Arthritis may be a lifelong condition which will mean changes to your way of living, but a broken leg can be set right and healed, almost better than new. Depression and anxiety, likewise, may be chronic, but they may also be caused by something immediate, and they may be able to be worked through with only two or three visits to the right Psychologist. You can think of a Psychologist as a Nutritionist for the brain. In the same way that a Nutritionist can see eating habits and suggest minor alterations to promote better bodily health, a Psychologist can find out what triggers a cycle of depression or anxiety and teach you ways of avoiding or defeating it. What a Psychologist is really there to do is to give you the tools you need to solve your problems, and the guidance to use those tools effectively.

I should mention that Psychologists are people too, with opinions, habits, and flaws, unique to each one. Remember, they’re working for you. They’re there to help you. That’s what you pay them for, so treat it like a job interview. Find the right fit for you, your problems, your personality, your lifestyle. I didn’t like the first Psychologist that I went to see. We didn’t get along and, to be honest, he seemed shocked when I mentioned BDSM. That wasn’t helpful, so I tried another and got much better results. If you feel like you’re being judged, go see someone else. It’s not their place to judge you, only to teach you what they know, to give you the tools you need to unravel your own knots.

Fear of being judged is a big part of the reason people avoid talking about their problems. There’s also the problem that many people who know they should talk to someone find themselves unable to do so. Anxiety and depression are like a big dark pit, and once they’ve slipped into it, finding the will to climb out is hard. The difficulty is that there’s no telling how deep the pit is, and the longer they wait to try to climb out, the harder it can get. It may only be a foot deep, or it may be bottomless.

So, next time you find a person on the edge of a precipice, don’t give them a shove to send them over the edge. Instead, throw them a rope. Let them know that it’s okay, that everyone goes through things they can’t handle by themselves, and that there are these places, with nice comfy couches, that they can go to find assistance. Maybe they’ll return the favour some day.

Thanks for reading,


-Step.

P.S. Listen to The Beatles - Help! after reading this. It'll brighten or darken your day accordingly. Oh, and you're welcome for getting it stuck in your head. =)

Furnal Equinox: A Conventional Experience

I've done one furry post already. I figured another was in order, and right after a convention seems the perfect time.

Furnal Equinox was held in Toronto, Ontario this past weekend. This is one of the many, many, many cons of this sort. Furries are all over the place. You may know one and not even realize it. You may be one and not even realize it. At any rate, I’m going to try to describe the experience of going to a furry convention.

If you've been to a nerd con before, the layout may look familiar. Most of these cons have the same set pieces (a dealer’s room, video game room, traditional game room, panels, etc.) with different window dressing (In this case, fursuits). There were foxes, cats, bovines and dogs. There were scalies, and featheries, and even a moth. Fursuits were everywhere, and the dealer’s room sold everything from fantastic nerd jewelery, to ears and tails, and back through leather armor and boffer weapons.

The panels were on things like “What does it mean to you to be a Cat?” and “How to draw human to animal transformations”, as well as the usual art, podcasting, and writing panels. There was a Rock Band tournament, and a Munchkin tournament, and people just hanging out and chatting with others who are interested in the same things as they are.

I, for my part, took advantage of everything. I went to the panels, I cruised the dealer’s room, I played Rock Band for the first time for more than two minutes, I flirted with cute catgirls and bunnyboys, and I had a good time in general.

Now, someone out there is probably wondering if I have a suit. I haven’t described my Fursona to anyone, and I don’t even have any art of him specifically, so I think I’ll hold off on that topic for another post.

Anyway, the convention ran from Friday through Sunday. My group got there Friday morning. We’d pre-registered, so all we had to do was pick up our badges. Con badges are important. They let the staff know you’ve paid for your admittance, and what level of access you should have. Our room was on the main floor, which is convenient, since the elevators at these things tend to get clogged by quickly overheating fursuiters who are desperate to make it back to their rooms to cool off. We unloaded, and were instantly out the door. First stop, the dealers room. Several of my friends had tables, and were selling their arts and crafts. There was hugging, laughing, and the obligatory bid for my money. I managed to hold onto my money, no matter how I was tempted by the pretty wares. I did end up buying one thing. “Something Stupid”, which was drawn for me by the fantastic KV1NN4. I may add the picture to this post later, once I’ve obtained permission from the artist. After the dealer’s room, we checked out the videogame room, with the aforementioned Rock Band, and rocked out until it was time for tea.

At the tea social, we got to sit and chat with several new people, most of whom I’m sure I’ll see again and remember at another con. Conventions are a great place to network. Next time I’m going to have business cards printed before I go.

Following directly on the heels of the tea social was a poutine party which was being hosted by a group of furries from Montreal.

The poutine served as both lunch and dinner for me, and after dropping back at the room to change, I went back out to explore the convention's nightlife. There was a black light rave which didn’t really hold any interest for me, but I managed to fall in with a group playing card games and passed the night that way. It would have been 1am by the time I was escorting one of the girls back to her room... where I left her in order to return to my own. A boy needs what sleep he can get if he’s going to enjoy the con!

Saturday came too early, and after scrambling to get up and showered, find some cheap breakfast at Perkins (when you order coffee, they leave the pot!), and hit our panel on podcasting. There were only four people there, but it was still a good conversation. Following that was another trip to the dealer’s room while waiting for our writing panel. The writing panel was good, with about twenty people, and I put my name on a list for a writer’s group. There were a bunch of amateur writers who all want help with their stuff, and trading critiques is a great way to do it, so we’ll see if that goes anywhere. More Rock Band and more looking around before the fur parade. This was really an event. Most of the fursuiters (all those who wanted to be in the parade), gathered for a photo, and then they formed up and marched through the convention, showing off their creations. I had a perfect spot at the end of a hall to see them all marching toward me, perfectly lit by the large open windows behind me, and then turn into the dealer’s room. After that it was more of the same, and if you haven’t been to a comic, gaming, or sci-fi con, you probably wouldn’t see the appeal, but I found it well worth the ticket.

By Sunday morning, you get pretty worn out from overstimulation and lack of sleep. At the same time, you don’t want to miss out on any of the awesome, so you try to cram as much of that in before heading home as you can. There was another writing panel and a nap, and once the dealer’s room closed for the day, we decided to head home. There were going to be events running all evening, but I needed to work in the morning, and by that point, wanted to be home.

The day after the con is always hard. Ordinary life creeps up on you and being back at work can just be drudgery. It didn’t help that we lost an hour over the weekend (one less hour to not sleep!), but coming from the fantastic world of fursuits and fun to the everyday is somewhat jarring. It feels like I have to put a little bit more of me back in the box and tuck it in a corner until next time, or at the very least, until the next full moon.

Thanks for reading,


-Step.

Submission and Self Improvement

I want to take a few moments this morning to explain something about BDSM which may not be clear from the way it’s been portrayed by the media, the internet, or even by me up to this point.

I’ve mentioned that Domination and Submission isn’t necessarily all about sex, and most people who aren’t intimately familiar with the practices probably didn’t believe me. After all, isn’t giving a spanking arousing? Isn’t blindfolding and binding your lover at the wrists a possible precursor to sex? The problem with those statements is their context. Of course blindfolding your lover is sexy. That’s the point, but it doesn’t follow that a prisoner who is being blindfolded feels the same way, nor does a child being put over a parent’s knee.

This post is going to be dedicated to those individuals who, though not themselves Masochists, would still come to a Dominant to be bound and spanked. There are reasons a person might do this aside from sexual gratification. Some people do it to free themselves from guilt for something for which they cannot forgive themselves. I have known people who, forgiven by those they have wronged, could not forgive themselves. That sort of guilt can fester and cause serious harm to a life. It’s true that there are other ways to help a person to overcome guilt and forgive themselves, but these can be costly and time consuming. The time that it takes to forgive yourself is not something that everyone can afford, nor can everyone accomplish this even with help from a Psychologist or Priest. Sometimes the best way to overcome guilt is to confess your actions and then be punished. The world says to these people “You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about”, and they might hear “There must be something wrong with you for feeling that way”. Coming to a professional to be punished for their wrongdoing can be that crucial step in moving on. They may have been punishing themselves for years over something as simple as the loss of a possession, the dissolution of a relationship, or even just a little white lie. Being recognized as guilty and punished by an outside authority, accepting their guilt and finding absolution through corporal mortification can be just the thing to free them from soul crushing remorse.

Another type of person may view a professional Dominant as something like a Personal Trainer. We can help people to stay on track in ways that ordinary Coaches can’t. By giving the Dominant the ability to inflict pain, there is something tangible to be gained (or rather, avoided) by staying on the wagon. Substance abuse, including alcoholism and tobacco consumption, and in some cases overeating, can be treated by weekly conversations followed by harsh and swift discipline.

Why would a person not just lie to avoid the spanking? A person might, but that would be a pretty silly waste of money. Also, it’s part of the Dominant’s job to be able to read people and tell how they are feeling. A person who lies to avoid punishment is usually nervous, and a good Dom will be able to pick up on this. Lieing to a Dom in a good way to get added punishments, which is usually best to be avoided.

Business relationships such as I’ve just described should ALWAYS be worked out in detail ahead of time and put in writing. A client who comes to a Dom for a specific purpose like that is not considered a submissive, and all parameters of the relationship must be understood before training or punishment can begin. Remember that a Dom has only as much power as the client gives them. A client, just as a submissive, cannot be forced to accept punishment, but if they don’t, then the Dominant may very well end the business relationship and stop wasting their valuable time on someone who doesn’t wish to accept their services.

A caning, even to most Masochists, is not a pleasant thing to undergo. We’re not talking about light teasing impacts here, but something you might imagine in a headmaster’s study. These paddlings or canings can be done over clothing or on the bare, and may leave marks which last for days to weeks. Leading up to this type of spanking there is fear, during the process there is pain in no small degree, and afterward there is discomfort, but there is also a great sense of relief. Done properly, a good hard spanking can absolve a person of past failures, and the following encouragement can truly help the client wish to succeed in future. Not only so that next week or next month the client can avoid the unpleasant experience, but also that he or she may succeed in reaching their own goals. After all, that is the primary reason these clients had sought out the Dom.

If you’re interested in more information on anything I’ve written, please don’t hesitate to email me at blog.nextstep@gmail.com, and if you have anything to say please comment!

Thanks for reading,


-Step.