Listen to the Silence

 We have a word --- Pretendian.   (Okay, mostly we just roll our eyes, and the words we use aren't in your language, or when they are -- they're in southern accents, or First Nations accents, and they're pretty rude, vulgar, irritated, and tired.) But let's look at that other word.   Pretendian.  Someone who pretends that they're an Indian.  Why would they do this?   I honestly have no fucking clue, in modern America.   This is because...shock and horror...I actually am one.  But in the last few decades it has become trendy, and lately even fashionable, to claim native ancestry.  To the point where there are those who are now inventing their own Native tribes.   (Hey kids, it's all the rage!   Invent your own native tribe by stringing together some words, incredibly-offensive-John-Wayne-movie-style!  Or claim your ancestors were on our land before we were, and that makes you the "real" natives!) Yo...

...a bad week. No matter how you want to describe it, paint it, view it .. whether you ascribe to the differing view points that are pro-protestor, pro-police, anti-riot or ACAB (all cops are bastards) -- it's been a week for the record books.  And I find myself today having "the talk" with my 14 year old daughter, and trying to explain it to her.   Because I know she's getting some things from her friends, and some from online (which is essentially left slant heaven, every major media source), and from my ex (which is essentially ACAB), and...she needs perspective.  She's growing up as someone with dark skin in America, and more and more her features are developing into those of a young lady - she can't pass for a darkly tanned white girl anymore.  It's past time she's had the talk, for all that I despise the fact that she has to receive it.   So where to start.  Start with this.   If you aren't a minority in America, you don't understa...

A knee across the neck will not (except for very rare circumstances, or circumstances involving deliberate impact, not simple pressure) cause death.  The death in Minneapolis was NOT caused by a knee on the neck.  It was caused by positional asphyxiation.  They are two different things.   They are two very technically different things, and the differences are fairly technical and specific.   But they are also fairly simple - and extremely important.  Because you can say you "accidentally" put a knee on the "wrong part" of the back, and it slipped onto the neck.  You can NOT say that you left a man, face down, chest muscles seized due to skeletal-muscular constriction/positioning, for seven and a half minutes..."accidentally".  One, a knee on the neck, can be claimed to be bad training, or an accident.  The other, positional asphyxiation, is murder.  Plain.   Simple.  Murder.  When you handcuff the hands behi...

Minneapolis is Burning.  The city on the lake is on fire, and not just with tension, racial and economic.   It's literally on fire, as police are forced to abandon their stations, and fires go untreated as the sheer press of bodies keeps firefighters and first responders from being able to respond to alarms.  And for the first time, I have to think... maybe this time its' right.  In Minneapolis, an officer committed murder, while wearing the shield and uniform that I've considered sacrosanct for the 40 years of my life.   Before I could pronounce the words to the oath, I considered the badge of an Officer something sacred.  It was up there with the uniform of an Army Officer or a Marine.  You took it, and the oath that came with it, and you bound yourself to a meaning larger than yourself.  Only God, and your brothers (and sisters) could judge what you had done, and be the final arbiter of whether you deserved to be called a good cop, or...

Can we please, please, PLEASE just be fucking civil? The various media and newspapers and indie papers and social groups...they're stirring up shit. I get that. That's how they get ratings. "Let's You and Him fight," is one of the oldest games in politics. More than a few journalists have been caught lying about sources, making up articles or doing "he said, she said" to start a newsworthy piece of drama. Groups like that have agendas. Ones that rarely have all of our lovely hearts in mind. I get that. I hope /you/ get that. Because that's the kicker. We're angry people, and they're fucking liars trying to make a buck off us being angry. They're doing the talking for us. They're lumping you into their shit piece of a story and selling it prepacked to channels. And we're just taking it. Fox tilts center right, CNN tilts hard left, NBC waffles, Breitbart has cleared so far out into right field it's out of the park and the WaPo a...

Okay, so, I'm going to put this up there.  Feel free to ignore it - I'm used to it.   *Nobody loves me, every body hates me, I guess I'll go eat worms...* Ahem.   Sorry.  I wish everyone who participates in the Deactivation boycott good luck.   I hope it fulfills some emotional need they have to participate, and that it will cause notice in the community (outside of Fetlife) and maybe bring even more (and hopefully more effective) discussion out of the shame closet and into the common core of our culture.    That said.   (No seriously, it was said.  Really.  Look above.  It was meant, too!) It is highly unlikely to actually change anything here on Fetlife.   And not because Fetlife is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.  Although it can be.   At times.  (and at other times.)  Not because John Baku is a misogynist, or a dissent silencer, or a villainous villain.  (He might...

Recordin'ses - Questions about Torquemada Paddles for CreativeKink Because you people have asked before what I sound like - and you deserve to suffer to find out.

I was married from 2002 to 2009 to a woman who had me convinced that I was abusive, for all seven years.   Even with a thick file of hospital visits and scars from cuts, I "should have known better".  She was just a "passionate woman" and I should man up.  With a lump of scar tissue on the back of my skull from a cast iron skillet....still the hospital social worker pulled her aside to ask if she was "okay".   Blood and stitches to the contrary, I was 6'4" and 250lbs, she was 5'4" and a hundred pounds lighter.  I was the bigger one, I was the man, so I was the abuser.  End of story. The police only ever spoke to tell me to spend the night elsewhere because she asked them to.  I was having my scalp stitched the first time that happened.  I learned to just keep quiet and go along with it after the second time.  My one and only call to them for help (after I left the ER with broken fingers) never received an officer response. I sle...

Whatever happened to Innocent until Proven Guilty? (Some of my rants are a bit like going to war – you won’t all be here at the end.  This is one of those.) In our lifestyle, I see a frightening trend.   I see it coming out of a good place, and (mostly) good hearts – but all I can think of is the adage about the road paved with good intentions. I’m sure Joe McCarthy had good intentions too. We live in a society (in the US) where we’re presumed innocent, until proven guilty. Yes, that does mean that sometimes the guilty go free, or unpunished.   The system isn’t perfect.  And what of the victims?   And future victims?  Why do we let these criminals go free when we could keep them all locked up?   Because it’s better a dozen bad men go free than one innocent man languishing in prison.   That’s the whole point of the Innocence Project and Amnesty International.   Aren’t those wrongly accused...

Please. FUCKING PLEASE. If you need to find a sliding scale therapist or psychiatrist, or an open clinic, or a county health office, or a welfare diagnostician - I'll help you.   I will PERSONALLY help you - it's something I do every single weekend as part of my volunteer work. (That's on top of being a cop, on top of building toys for Creative Kink, and on top of being a full time Dad, btw.  So yes, I really commit to the work, and yes, I really will help you.) But this self diagnosis shit?  This shit has got to go.   There's a reason why so many people go through years and years and YEARS of graduate education to be able to make a diagnosis of psychological or psychiatric treatment needs.  I realize self diagnosis is the latest fad.  I realize having some 'mental illness' makes you seem trendy, and I realize all your celebrity favorites are "coming out as having...".  I get that it makes you feel better to have a label to hang o...

So, things to consider.   All wise-ass-ery aside.  (except for some.   Because I'm, you know, Kenova.  The asshole - but having a beard makes up for it.  Ask half the girls I've spanked.) Rule 1.   If you post it - they will come.  They being web crawlers, and post it meaning put it out there, anywhere.   On your phone.  On a private server.  In an IM to friends one on one.  On a memorial site, ten years ago.  In an article that some grandmother eventually scanned as part of scanning a newspaper into archives.  As a joke tweeted then deleted.  On a .Gov email that you both "got rid of".  On a private selfie that you keep in that hidden folder on your phone, where you hide all your gay (and selfie) porn.  On a friend's phone.  On a screen cap.  Walking past someone with a digital camera or a phone held up in the "selfie" or "I'm-a-tourist" pose. If it was taken - web crawle...

If you don't have a green or red butt plug in your bottom by the 24th, I'm ashamed of you. I'll settle for red bruises, and a green thong, though. Still - for shame.

Don’t ever try to judge me, dude, You don’t know what the fuck I’ve been through. Don’t like it?   Don’t listen.  Same as all my writings.   I get plenty of hate mail.  I’ve long ago stopped holding my tongue at left leaning events (which most are in the lifestyle, these days.  *dramatic sigh*) So. “If you really wanted to be an ally to POC, you’d give…” “If men were actually allies for women, they would…” “If you ever want to be an ally to <insert group>, you have to…” Okay.  Here we go. You ain’t gonna like this.  I’d say trigger warning – but I only give those when I’m already halfway through the trigger squeeze.  (And it sounds like “drop the weapon!”, not “be careful of your feelings!”) Preamble.   I’m Native.   My people were here before yours.   ANY of yours.  Yet we still have the highest poverty per capita (by person, AND household) in the US.  We recei...

Groups in the lifestyle who are taking it upon themselves to begin "investigations" of consent violations. You may very definitely and in most cases are most definitely, going to be compromising any future actual legal investigation and prosecution. Thereby making more victims who are not getting Justice from the justice system, and are unwilling to go to the justice system because the justice system can't help them.   It becomes a vicious cycle in that case. They can't get Justice because the investigation or the prosecution are compromised due to well-meaning efforts by non-law enforcement beforehand. Please also try to remember, you are not police, prosecutors, or licensed investigators. Anything you find, any interviews you make, any accusations you make, any "blacklists" you publish, or any personal and private information you release to the community at large, can result in lawsuits against you or the group or the publisher. There's a reason why ...

My father died the day before Thanksgiving, in 2008.   My wife left shortly before, and our girlfriend left shortly thereafter -  It's pretty fair to say I was a mess.  Raising a little girl on my own, with two holes in my life, and my biggest support gone...I definitely wasn't Kenova anymore.   I withdrew from Fetlife.  I withdrew from my own consulting company, and sold it off (the name, the rights, the client list, the equipment, the whole deal).  Every time I felt like I hit rock bottom, I hit auto dial for my father's cell phone.  It was just a reflex - if things were bad, call your Dad.   It took a few times hitting his voicemail, then hitting the shut off notice, before it really sunk in that he wasn't there anymore.   My sister was a missionary and moved in to help with my mother.   I'm not ashamed to say she also came over on 2 hour drives to help with my daughter.   When t...