February Podcast 060- Kinky Choices, Drinking, and Drugs

Feb 3

Written By

Drinking, drugs, leather, BDSM and sex. All of them involve altered states of consciousness… but are the combinations a good idea in play or kink culture? Join Lee as he looks at drinking at events, choosing to do drugs before getting freaky, and points to consider along the way. In sharing his personal stories and processing, ideas will be shared on consent, how to navigate the choices you make, examining what is behind those personal decisions, and how some events are affecting how we play and connect by putting out bars for easy access.

Announcer:
BDSM and non-standard relationships. Power exchange and polyamory. Sacred sexuality and fetishes.

As well as Simply Fun Kink. You're listening to the Erotic Awakening Podcast Network.

Thank you. Welcome to The Passion And Soul Podcast, an exploration of personal and interpersonal desire, faith, and connection.

Your host, international sexuality and spirituality author and educator, Lee Harrington of passionandsoul.com, will take you on a sultry and intellectual journey through the soul of intimate experience.

Take a moment and breathe deep, and get ready for an adventure.

This podcast is a chance to glimpse into the ever-increasing diverse world of alternative life.

The PassionAndSoul Podcast is intended for mature audiences.

If you are offended by adult topics or prohibited by law, we recommend you stop listening right now.

Lee:
Hello, fellow adventurers of sexuality and spirit, and welcome to The Passion And Soul Podcast with Lee Harrington of passionandsoul.com.

I am so excited to get to be going on a tour very, very shortly.

I leave on February 11th to travel to Washington, DC for Dark Odyssey Winter Fire, and then head off to London to be doing a one-night rope bondage event, followed by a three-day Sacred Kink initiatory intensive.

Initiatory intensive, excuse me.

And then head off to New York City, which I haven't been to since I moved out, since I moved away, to get to do a book signing at Purple Passion, class there, a one-day rope bondage for intimacy and connection intensive, and be part of an amazing three-day conference before heading back to Alaska.

It's going to be a whirlwind book launch party adventure.

And right before leaving, I even get to do a book launch party in Anchorage's own Mad Myrnas on our first Friday, February 6th, which I think is a great series of alliteration, where we're going to have a book launch party, a The Drag Queen show is going to have a theme that night of being kinky.

They're going to launch the ticket sales for the local fetish ball.

It's going to be crazy fun all around.

And I am doing today's podcast on a topic that has become, a heated one to some degree within some of the communities that I have been part of related to the idea of events.

And so buckle up because I'm going to be sharing a few of my personal opinions, thoughts, journeys today on the podcast.

Because I, the conversation I was recently brought into was the question around drinking.

At events and using drugs at events.

Now, for most events out there that are taking place at hotels or in private homes or whatnot, it is perfectly legal, right?

It is perfectly legal in the United States for anyone ages 21 and up to enjoy an alcoholic beverage.

That's lovely that people are making those choices in a number of states around the United States, because that's where I am speaking from.

For people who are international, feel free to translate accordingly, and I will talk a little bit further on about some of my experiences down in Australia and over in Europe and whatnot.

But there's also legal opportunities to smoke hash or pot, depending on the situations and the use of cannabis.

And within Alaska, that's recently been legalized, so that's going to be being part of the discussion too, down the way.

So I had someone talk to me about the fact that at an event they went to last summer, they were really surprised to see the event sponsoring bars, because there's a difference between going to an outdoor camping kinky event and having some of the people at their cabins bring, you know, a couple of six packs of beer, open up a bottle of nice red wine, mix up a Manhattan to enjoy around their campsite.

And if they happen to have a sling set up outside their cabin to enjoy while they are having that drink, that's a delight if that's where they choose to go.

But the individual in question said they were really surprised that at one of the sampling nights that they went to, they're often called samplers or exploratoriums, that there was a bar set up at the exploratorium where people were trying out something new for their very first time, where they were trying something new for the very first time.

And they said, you know what, I really wasn't prepared to hear over here someone next to me, and this was their words, say, I need to have a couple of drinks.

I'm not sure if I really want to get pierced, but if I get drunk enough, maybe I'll talk myself into it.

And as they shared this, they were concerned, and they were a bit upset.

And I heard them, and I heard that concern.

And I heard that concern, and I wanted today's podcast to be about that topic, because I, too, have a concern about the culture shift in the kink community involving the idea of drinking to lubricate.

Now, I, as many of you know, I am pro lubrication.

I am very pro lubrication.

I think the idea of people having anal sex that hurts, if they are not meaning to have it hurt, is wrong.

People use lube.

There's not a story going on saying, Oh, my vagina is obviously too dry.

People have to use lube.

No, lube is fun.

You get to use lube.

Lube is awesome.

There's great lube out there.

There's water-based lube.

I think I even have a podcast on lube, and if I don't, I'll record one.

If I do have one, I promise I'll cross-post it.

I'll post it in the episode notes.

So I think I do.

Maybe it's on condoms.

Either way, I'll post about those things in the notes.

So I am pro lube, but there is a difference between choosing to have a drink or smoke a little pot, if that's where you roll, with a lover or a partner or a closed group of friends who you know really well, having a drink before you go and play, right?

Having a drink with dinner.

That is a different conversation than I need to get drunk before tugging myself into doing something.

People who are new to bottoming might not know that when you drink or do drugs, it changes your mental state.

It's an altered state of consciousness.

And doing BDSM in and of itself can take you into an altered state of consciousness.

When you are being hit by a flogger or spanked, and I was not always aware of it as I have come to be over the years, this is not me saying, oh, you from on high.

I'm saying this is stuff that I had to learn, right?

And I'd rather you learn from my mistakes.

And so in my journeys along the way, that I found that, wow, when I was on something, I didn't always realize how much I was being hurt, and not just being hurt, but being damaged.

When I go into what I consider a subspace or a headspace, an altered state of consciousness, it's already possible when I'm being spanked to get into such an endorphin rush and such an intense high, because my brain is in this crazy cocktail of explosion, I can already take a different type of sensation, a different volume of impact, than my body might be able to otherwise.

I feel things differently because I've ramped up into a sensation.

Alcohol and drugs do similar things to our bodies.

They change our brain chemistry.

They change how we perceive sensation.

Because sensation is something that is touching your skin, it's something that you're experiencing, that's then being translated through a whole series, a whole neuron network, a whole series of firing points of information up to your brain, which is then processing it.

And so if you're processing that information, some of those neurons are shut off, or some of them are ramped up, or if they're wired temporarily or in some cases permanently to different points of information in the mind than they might be normally, you're going to have different things happen.

To the point that nowadays, I tend to ask people not, what are you on?

But are you on anything?

Because even being on mood stabilizer medications or aspirin or people I know who are on Vicodin for knee pain are going to be having their brain pick up information differently than people who aren't.

It's neither good nor bad.

But it is something that I need, capital and need, to know as me tying someone up, me binding someone or spanking someone, or breathing deeply with someone, eyes locked to eyes, heart locked to heart.

I need to know what you're on.

Because if you're on ecstasy, I want you actually falling in love with me, not falling in love with the trip.

If we're choosing to go on that trip where I know you're on E, I am aware of it, and I am entering into that extreme form of edge play.

That's a different conversation.

That's about consent.

But if I am locking eyes to you and hearts to you, and we are diving in deep because I think I'm exploring a tantric revelation of the heart, and you are tapping into your brain chemistry, and don't realize that you're not fully consenting to the energy we have flowing back and forth, because what you consented to was the drugs, and you don't realize that the drugs have opened up a doorway in your skull, and you've left it unlocked.

You've left it unlocked, and it can cause harm to your heart later, messes up your emotions.

And I learned this along my way, and I realized it when I was at Reed Fetish Ball.

This is when it locked in for me.

Reed College in Portland, Oregon, has hired me a couple of times actually to come out and do a performance and interactive experience with their students, which I love doing this for colleges, right?

Getting to do the really academic stuff during the week, and then staying around for Friday night or Saturday night and having a little bit of fun and entertainment.

For people who are doing the whole college thing right now, I do this, and it's fun.

And so what I do is I get on stage with a local bondage performance model or somebody from within the scene who I like working with.

And I have a choreographed performance.

I work with the DJ.

I do some stuff on the ground.

I fly them around.

I set them back down.

And then I say some inspiring words about why sexuality is awesome.

I talk about some of the stuff.

I tap into the things that I already talked about that week so that people who learned get it locked in their skull, right?

Because when you're dancing, it's also a bit of an altered state of consciousness, as I talked about with my podcast on the path of rhythm.

And I say all this, and then I say, all right, who wants to go next?

And people line up, and what I then do is I bring someone up and say, what are you on?

Because if I say, hey, are you on anything, people experience shame.

People experience emotional pain because they don't want to have somebody not like them because they had a drink or they smoked a joint.

And so I say, what are you on?

Because if somebody's been drinking, I don't want to spin them around because they'll vomit on my rope.

I don't want to flip them upside down because they will vomit on my shoes.

And that's no fun for anyone.

I don't want to do that.

They're going to be slow to react.

Same thing with somebody who's been smoking pot.

They will be very slow to react.

And that is my concern with legalization of pot, is do people realize if some kid runs across the street, how slow their response time is when they're driving?

But that's its own political side commentary, right?

And so with slow response times, I don't want to be caning someone because they might not have the response time needed to catch my attention between cane strokes, to really be present.

And I want somebody there who's present with me.

If somebody's on E, I want to barely slowly caress their skin and do sensual rope bondage, rather than fuck them up and hurt them, and take them somewhere that could be dark and scary.

And if somebody is on acid, I want to take them somewhere safe, and probably not play with them at all, because they're on their own journey.

And I want to leave them somewhere where they are happy and they are contained, because they're going to be dancing with their own dragons.

And that's not my job to deal with.

That's their space to set up, unless I've signed up to be their babysitter.

That's not my job.

Now, for some events, right, for some BDSM events, the issue is that their host hotel has a required minimum of what the bar brings in, and it's part of their tab.

So they set up a bar somewhere in the event space, usually in the social area, so that part of their hotel contract gets met.

For people who don't know about this, for people, you know, when people ask, oh, well, why is this, you know, why do I have to pay $200 to attend this weekend event?

It's because they had to rent the hotel, the conference room spaces, rent out the entire block of rooms.

Get the room from the hotel block when you're signing up, please do.

It supports the event.

And a lot of hotels require that all conferences have a bar minimum.

If the bar doesn't make X amount during the weekend, that amount gets tacked on to the fee of the conference.

The conference loses profit and sometimes doesn't have the money to do the conference again.

So I get when that is the case.

I understand when people set up a bar and declare it to be the mix and mingle area, right?

Come on down, have a drink, meet other people who are into erotic pony play or meet other people who are into sacred sexual experience or meet other people who are queer identified.

Wonderful.

That's a choice based on the hotel needs.

And for when I've traveled outside the United States, having a munch or a social gathering or even a lighter play play event inside a bar or a pub makes some sense to me because people, that's part of a socialization culture.

Now, the challenge for me with pubs as well as the leather bar culture, right, of meeting people at a bar, everybody dressing in their leathers, hooking up, and doing that thing, which has been part of the leather culture for an extended period of time, is it means that people aren't making sober choices.

The fact that so many of our titles in the leather title community, right, International Mr.

Leather, International Ms.

Leather, all of those feeder titles, even though both of those are hosted at hotels or other venues, conference centers, the smaller ones are often hosted by the Raven Leather Bar or hosted by The Eagle or whatever it might be.

That they're bars, and that they're places that encourage alcohol drinking, which means that for people who are on a path of sobriety, it can be really hard to be part of a leather community, because all of the socials, all of the mixers, all of the cruising nights, everything is at a bar, where I'm not saying that we need to necessarily have everything be clean and sober so that people who are clean and sober have the ability to attend stuff.

No, I freely admit that people who are clean and sober live in a world where people are doing this stuff, and they need to make choices for themselves of whether they need to not be around that at all, or say, you know what?

I am ready to be around those things, and I have the capacity to be myself and follow my true needs and what I need to do to be healthy to not hurt myself and hurt those around me, and I will not take a drink while I'm there.

It's not what I'm saying.

I'm not saying we have to not have things in bars at all, not have alcohol and events available at all.

I'm saying that it concerns me, and it should concern more of us that we are encouraging, that we are encouraging lubrication.

That idea that contestants get all the free drinks they want at a bar?

Okay, so what I'm hearing say is the people you want to have represent our community.

You want to let them drink as much as they want.

Huh, it's an interesting choice.

It's a very interesting choice.

Now, some titles have declared things like they never want to have a photograph taken of their title holder with a drink in their hand, with an alcoholic drink in their hand.

Cool, right?

I think that's a great way to represent this message that drinking is not needed to be able to have a good time, because we're already playing with altered states of consciousness, folks.

We're already diving into our hearts, and all the things I'm talking about here with BDSM, oh my God, they apply to sex.

We live in North America and so many other places, in a culture of where we're expected to go and get drunk to be able to meet someone, where we're expected to need to loosen up our inhibitions.

And that leads to people waking up in the morning, not knowing where they are, full of regret.

It is so easy when we are hopped up on something, or we've had a few too many drinks, and for some of us that's half a drink, and for some people that's finishing off the bottle.

Had a few too many drinks, and it's easy to say something like, oh, no, no, no, don't worry about that, I don't have a condom on me, but no, let's just play.

Or to push someone's hands away, or to think it's okay to the one guy in Portland, Oregon, who tried to play this shit on me at a bathhouse once.

If you're listening, think it's okay to try to slip off a condom in the middle of fucking.

Don't be that person.

Don't be that person.

That's just rude.

Seriously, people.

I find challenge with the idea that we end up making poor choices, that we do what we wouldn't normally do because we were on something.

For some people, it creates a pattern.

It creates a situation where you find swingers clubs, where women want to get drunk every single time before they go and do a gangbang.

That they need to be drunk to be able to go be in a gangbang.

Now, again, for some people, if they, from a place of full consent, in advance say, you know what, I am so looking forward to pulling a train tonight.

I'm so looking forward to being that person in the middle getting used by guy after guy.

Bring it on.

Let's bring, you know, a nice bottle of red wine, put our name on it, leave it at the bar, and come back and get a couple of drinks.

Let's go and have a good time, baby.

I like both of these things.

I want to put them together.

That's very different than someone saying, you know, I don't know.

I guess we could.

I guess I had a good time last time.

And then they get drunk, and then they go, woohoo, let's go do this thing.

Or their partner talks them into, come on, baby.

You know you want it.

You know you want it.

Here, honey, just have another drink.

I was down in Australia, and I was down there for my birthday, and I was asked on my birthday to go to, hey, there's going to be this mostly men's only event that's happening.

We've got some tickets.

Let's go on down.

And I'm like, you know what?

I'm not a big fan of loud, thumpy music.

When it comes to play, we'll change that.

I can in certain situations, but it's sometimes hard on my brain if I'm not mentally and emotionally buckled up for it or if I'm tired.

And I went, you know what?

It's not necessarily my cup of tea, but it's mostly a dance club space, but it's going to be one of the largest gatherings of leathermen in all of Australia.

That'll be really fun.

And I went there and wandering around, hanging out, watching cute boys.

Oh, such cute boys.

Watching cute boys and seeing people get their sexy on.

And they had a blackout area where they had taped off from floor to ceiling, created all of these big walls, and you could peer in there, and it was a blackout space, pretty darn big.

The size of a midsize conference room, I would guess, from looking at the outside dimensions.

And you wandered in, and it was people grabbing and holding and fucking and sucking and doing whatever, and you couldn't see a bloody thing inside.

You couldn't see anything.

Which, wow, that fantasy?

Hot, right?

Wandering in and having a hot time.

But there wasn't even a condom basket at the door.

There wasn't a trash can, so clearly, or at least there's a low likelihood that people were using anything in there.

And then I ran into someone, who I knew, that was saying to me earlier in that night, hey, that's really hot in there.

And we were talking, and I'm like, yeah, it's pretty hot.

And then I saw him go into the bathroom and do a line.

And he went in and he got high.

And then he came straight out and he went into the dark out room.

When you're high, you make different choices.

Or sometimes you make different choices and then need to get high to follow through, or whatever combo it might be.

It's tough to watch.

It's tough to be around.

And I've also done a little bit of dancing in that direction, and I don't know if I really have any regrets around it.

And I'm not saying I've never danced in those directions.

I certainly have.

And I'm not saying that I'm a clean and sober, entire history, SM always has to be that way, sex always has to be that way person.

I believe that we are all grown adults and we make choices.

But for me, when I am playing with people I don't know, I think it's really appropriate and really important, not just appropriate as like, oh, as a good supporter of somebody in the kink community, as an icon of the kink community in some way, shape or form.

God, I hate that language, but I was told I was that, so whatever.

As somebody whose name is out there, I'm not making my choices just because of that, and I'm not saying this because a leader in the kink community needs to say it.

Though, if I have the capacity to be that voice and if you're going to listen, if people are going to listen because I said it, please hear my words.

If you're meeting someone new, make sure you actually want to play with them.

And if you choose to go into a sexy space, you know, some swinger space or into that blackout room and you want to play with a stranger, make sure you want to play with a stranger and that you would make that choice no matter what you're on.

But I am making the choice at events to not play if I have anything in my system because I want to be present for that person who I am new to.

I want to meet someone where they are and where I am and have us both be present with each other.

I want them to know me.

I want them to get to know me.

And I want the ropes to express who I am.

I want my hand when it lands onto their ass.

I want them to know that I am here and present with them.

When that single tail strikes my back and I arch and I curve up and I growl and let out that guttural moan and turn around and lock eyes with them, I want them to know I'm here.

I want to be there and be present because I am playing with all states of consciousness already.

I am here and present with this thing that I am.

Already, I am buckled up, and there are too many stories where it's gone wrong, too many stories where it's not okay, that not so long ago in Italy, a couple of people got together and decided to do, and if you look it up in the news, it's like Italian Shabari death scene, you know, kind of story titles, because a couple of people got together, even in the article that said they drank heavily and smoked hashish together.

Then they went to an abandoned space, and the rope top, if we'll call him that, the person who was apparently skilled with rope, but he tied two women's arms behind their back, strung a rope around one neck, put it over a beam, and strung it to the rope of the other person with no other safety lines, no other security, and required to have it, you know, that if one person, they had to both be on their tippy toes to stay out of being strangled, and if one of them relaxed their feet, the other person was, lifted it, strangled, and lifted up into the air, and vice versa.

And for some people, that makes for hot porn.

But unfortunately, what happened is that one of the women passed out, and because she passed out, the other woman was lifted up into the air, and she strangled to death too.

And a knife wasn't nearby, and even if it had been, who knows, but I'm not saying to keep a knife nearby, please, keep that pair of emergency shears.

Please keep it nearby.

Please, if you're doing anything near or like this, any form of work, like this.

But, um, and I just like this.

You never know, right?

Keep it nearby.

But they died.

And people go, oh, you know, rope bondage is dangerous.

And I'm like, yeah, there are some dangers to rope bondage.

You can have nerve damage.

You can have circulation challenges.

You can not pay attention, and somebody could have something go wrong.

Things happen.

There are dangers to everything we do, including driving to the dungeon.

But the fact that they were drinking and smoking means that their response times weren't very fast.

And two women died because of that choice, which they weren't fully cognizant for because they'd all been smoking and drinking, and that was the consent they'd had, was that they consented to smoke and drink, and everyone involved, all four of them had impaired judgment, right?

Both tops, both bottoms had impaired judgment, and we make different decisions.

We have different forms of consciousness.

I love, by the way, an amazing and fucking sexy resource out there was produced by the AIDS Committee of Toronto.

It's their BDSM guidebook or Playing Safely.

I'll have it on the show notes.

But if you're listening now and have a profile, it's actoronto.org.

actoronto, ac-t-t-o-r-o-n-t-o dot org forward slash bdsm, actoronto.org bdsm.

I'll have it in the show notes.

But they have an amazingly sexy handout that I got at some conference a couple of years ago.

I think it came out in 2009.

And it is the best handout I've seen on, that's clear and concise and easy, on BDSM safety and, you know, what can be transmitted with different types of SM play, and even has a little section on, you know, if you choose to do drugs.

Here's what it's going to do.

And I say it's sexy because, oh my God, the photos.

Nom nom nom nom.

Sign up for me, right?

I'm going to sign up.

But very sexy.

And if you're not sure how to talk about this with folks, and a podcast like this is going to be too heavy for them, something like that is pretty hot.

Or even saying, you know what, darling?

We had a couple of drinks.

I want to sit here and have a dessert first before we go to the dungeon.

Or let's sit and watch some hot porn before we go and play.

And by porn, that could be the live action porn happening in front of you in the dungeon, right?

Let's wait before we play.

If you know you're on something, I would actively encourage folks to really not play in ways that aren't safe, that aren't secure, that aren't whatever it might be.

And I'm not trying to proselytize.

I want to just have people bring consciousness, because in some parts of our community, we are shifting from, hey, after we're done playing, let's hang out around a bonfire and have a couple of drinks, maybe do some over-the-knee spanking while we're at it, having our partner suck our cock.

We're shifting to let's get drunk before somebody is willing to be playing, you know, playing within a dungeon.

Let's have, you know, let's make sure the event hosts a bar at the Exploratorium.

And I don't want that to be the direction our community goes.

And if our community stands up and says, that's not how I want to do this, it'll change our culture.

I know it's wonderful that, you know, alcohol companies are willing to support our Pride Parade floats, because we need somebody to sponsor us.

But if that means we have to have a giant sign up that says we as a community in turn support Budweiser, I think we need to step back and consider where our values are.

Do our roots as a leather culture lie in bar, lie in bars?

Absolutely.

But is that where we need to live?

I don't necessarily think it is.

I think we have the right to make choices about how we party and where we party, and that if we are the people who like to party in those ways, to create spaces where everybody is clear and consenting, and says in advance, this is what I'm game for, please everyone stay inside these bounds.

Please agree to do only the following things tonight.

We can buckle up, play together, and all be safe, and hey, even have a couple of sober spotters that are there like condom fairies.

For everyone who wants them, because this is how we're all going to play tonight.

I'm going to include a couple of notes over in the podcast notes.

And so please, I encourage you to go over to those, which will have some links to those other podcasts that I mentioned.

And my hope is this, that we create the communities that we want.

That we be the erotic explorers that we want to be.

And if we are the people or if our partners are the people or our best friends are the people who are right now needing to have four drinks before they have the gumption to go play, that we're willing to be the friends or the community activists that say, hey, how about we just do something else tonight?

We don't have to have all these drinks to do this stuff.

Or before they start having that first drink, say, is that really what you want to do tonight?

Because we could go do something different.

Or whatever it might be.

And if we're community activists, we have the choice to say, hey, you know what?

If you guys want to have a social, that's cool, but let's have the event money direct at something different.

Let's have a bar at the things that are labeled socials at this event, but not the things labeled for SM play or labeled for group sex activities, because people are making different choices than they would sober.

And I want all of us to live in a place of excellence, of absolute excellence.

We are all grown adults.

We all get to make choices.

And I want you to make a choice that is right for you, just like I'm going to be making a choice for me as I go to all of these events, and I will not be drinking when I'm going to be going into the dungeon.

And with that, my name is Lee Harrington, and you can find all of these show notes by clicking on the podcast button over at passionandsoul.com.

Or you can find my feed over on iTunes by doing a search for Lee Harrington or Passion And Soul all in one.

And it's passion-soul-podcast-by-lee over on iTunes, which I say just look for Lee Harrington.

And I have an RSS feed over on, that you can see over on passionandsoul.com as well.

So don't hesitate to look me up.

And I am traveling all over the place, like I mentioned earlier.

Please feel free to go over to that website as well.

Click on Appearances, and you'll get all of those details.

And I am looking forward to seeing folks there, as well as all of the other places that I'm appearing here in 2015.

I'm coming out to Indiana, coming to Chicago, Cleveland, Ohio.

I am looking forward to seeing you folks.

And there is even discussions for Iowa and an upper region tour, perhaps even up to North Dakota and Montana.

Fingers crossed, we'll see how that goes, because it's time for an adventure.

And I want to help bring some excellence, because people have asked me to, and I'm really honored by it.

And I'm really honored that I've got to have some new books come out, and get to keep having this be part of my life, because I've been part of the kink community since 1996, and it means a lot to me that I'm still getting to be a part of it.

And you listening are part of these communities, even if tangentially, and you deserve to have excellence too.

So this has been The Passion And Soul Podcast, and until next time, stay cool, have fun, and be authentically you.
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