I suppose it had to happen one day sooner or later. Time has crept on and whilst many friends of my are still in the scene, a lot of young people are always coming into it as well. And then one day, you're at a party and you look around and you realise.. you're the oldest in the room.
Now, don't get me wrong. I have no issues with how old I am. As I say frequently, getting old is mandatory, acting old is a decision. And I do refuse, in part to believe I am the age I am so I certainly won't act it. But it does make you think and look back on the fun times over the years and in some ways, how things have changed.
Tell a young'un that when I started out, making an appointment to see a Mistress for a seesion was stressful. Writing a letter to contact magazine, enclosing a S.A.E (that's a Stamped Addressed Envelope for the young ones) and waiting for the response took ages. Usually it would come back with a scribbled note on the back, telling you to call a number or worse.. nothing would come back! Of course, there were the phone box cards, if you were lucky enough to be in London. But if you lived outside the choices were limited. And of course, clubs did not exist in the way they do today. It was a very secret and underground lifestyle 30 years ago.
There was no ready access to porn either. There were some "specialist" shops selling magazines depicting leather clad Dommes, but few and far between and with the advent of VHS, you could occasionally get some fetish and BDSM movies from "under the counter", wrapped in a brown bag for your later viewing pleasure. Oh how things have changed. A few clicks of the mouse and I can see whatever takes my fancy, from professional studio produced stereotypical porn to home made fetish.
And that really brings me to my real point. Has the ready availability of porn created a totally false expectation of fetish and BDSM for people coming into it now? From comments on twitter, facebook, fetlife etc you often read about guys who have unrealistic expectations of what a session is likely to be and what will take place and in part I suspect this is down to the way that fetish and BDSM is depicted on the internet. Mistresses, for example, do not all have huge busts (OK.. I can think of some that do OK) along with unfeasibly small waits and huge amounts of hair. It's an image that has been created to satisfy the fantasy. Equally, Mistresses do not give you a blow job whilst you're tied up. Saying that, my girlfriend at one time who was also a Pro-Domme did like to do that to me but we were in a relationship that involved us doing the normal stuff as well as the kink. But to expect it in a session with a Pro-Domme? Maybe I am just having a rant as now I'm old (and overweight, balding and very pale skinned - I paint such an attractive picture) I am no catch for a Mistress. But, I'm polite, respectful and understand what is expected and that I hope will never go away, not matter how much porn I watch.
