Friday, August 27, 2010

There used to be a cable access TV show on Seattle called Sex Life Live, hosted by Dane Ballard. It was actually a pretty cool, DIY production, pretty decent and watchable as public access goes (which is not saying a lot) and they had lots of the local kink community there to talk about… kink. And sex in general. I’d give detail but I didn’t really watch the show. I’m one of those homos who’s not terribly interested in sexually empowered women, at least not as an entertainment, and Dane’s show was full of them, being a very balanced show.

I appeared on SLL a few years ago in my “official” capacity as the JackDaddy of Rain City Jacks, to talk about JO clubs, our club, and the general phenomenon of safe sex as a preferred choice of play. I ran into a few people I knew, both from the club and outside the club. Seattle does indeed have a community around its kink.

A few minutes into the conversation, Dane said, “It’s a… kink, isn’t it?”

That actually took me a little by surprise. I’d never thought of group JO as a kink. I’d always thought of it as really hot vanilla group sex. I think I answered. “Yes, I guess it is, but it has to be the most vanilla kink in the world.”

I’ve thought about his question many times since then. I now think that JO clubs are indeed a kink, though definitely less prop-heavy than leather or uniforms or a lot of fetish-based kink. I don’t think of group JO as a fetish, but it is definitely not the norm in the carnal world. Indeed, it seems to stand somewhere between whatever “normal” is and explicit “kink.”

Some of the things that make it a little kinky are the exhibitionism and voyeurism elements, the group sex element, and the all-orientations, all-men makeup of the group. JO clubs seem to invite a lot of straight and bi-curious guys because of the romance-free promise of a masturbation-only orgy. They can step into a realm of utter familiarity (masturbation) mixed with some very unfamiliar factors (company) to make progress on a suppressed desire to have sex with other men.

For the gay guys, they get to deal with actual straight guys beating hard dicks alongside them, and all the men get to interact intimately with different generations. RCJ has members ranging from 23 to 83 years of age. We all tend to get into a familiar groove so it shakes things up a bit…

In my core, I don’t feel “kinky.” That doesn’t really fit for me. I do feel sexually alive and participating in life with my whole body, dick included, but it just feels normal for me.

I know that there are lots of people who won’t feel comfortable explicitly talking about the reality of groups of men masturbating together on a regular basis. I have to watch that, since to me it’s not a novelty anymore, although I do enjoy it every single time My inclination to mention it is checked in most professional situations, even though it has been a problem for almost nobody I’ve discussed it with. Mostly, people congratulate me and say it sounds really cool.

I definitely live in a progressive place and my friends seem pretty unshakable if this is no big deal… and it supports my own feeling that it’s no big deal. I hope it never becomes an issue for someone, the mere fact that a club like the Jacks exists, because it feels like this is something some people value and in some instances, actually need.

I guess I’m still conflicted on the kink question. Is a JO club a kink? Is kink in the mind of the beholder?