The Dungeon Wild

When we enter a dungeon space, we voluntarily leave the rational mind at the door. We enter the Wild, a dark jungle where instinct and pack dynamics reign. When we retreat, we often can be left with fear and confusion.

"I looked at my back and I could not believe what I did last night," wrote my boy after an intense impact/flogging/single tail scene. In the dungeon space, he had given himself to me with abandon. "I want to do this for you," he said in deference to my Dominance. And baring his back in the bar hours later, he beamed with pride beside me. However, at home before the mirror before going to bed, he contemplated the welts on his back and his logical mind countered the remnants of our scene. His mind puzzled over the darkness of his instinctual self.

Understanding that logic does not exist in the dark wild, we try to balance the experience with a discourse of consensuality. We often reason why we do these activities using psychology or spirituality to validate our involvement. These are but feeble attempts to understand the animal inside, the instinct that encourages us over and over again to play in the dungeon.

In the last ten years we have witnessed the acknowledgment of puppy play, and of animal play in general. Using fetish, we conjure up the animal within to enact power dynamics that are as real as our cultural interactions from day to day. As Leathermen we revel in animal play, delving further and further into its depths. Rather than basing the success of our play on technical prowess, arguing kink into the cultural discourse, we continue to invent new forms of play that probe the instinctual depths.