Gloria's Oversexed Mind

Cleo Dubois, Part Six: The Predator and his (willing) Prey

I'm delighted to feature the sixth amazing installment in the autobiography of the wondrous Cleo Dubois. Today's photos are, again, marvelous treasures, and Cleo's life-story continues to evolve in astonishing ways. This essay ends with a cliff-hanger that will leave you hungry for the next development. Viva Cleo!

---

CLEO DUBOIS _{is a BDSM Educator, ritualist, creator of the Academy of S/M Arts, and Leather columnist . A versatile sadomasochist whose private interests lay in caring sadism, switching and cross-orientation play, she came out in the San Francisco Leather Scene in the early 80's. Her two popular docu-films, "The Pain Game" and "Tie Me Up," are available on 1 DVD, "The S/M Arts Collection," on her website www.sm-arts.com, where you will also find details about the Erotic Dominance Weekend Intensives for Men and Women. She offers private guided play to individuals and couples in the privacy of her San Francisco area dungeon, as well as office and phone consultations.}

---

The Predator and his (willing) Prey

As the century turned I dug deep into my psyche with my kink-aware therapist. I dredged up old traumas, cleaned house, so to speak, and freed the flames of my creative energy. I decided to make a film that would show the heart of BDSM and I found what I wanted. Creed had signed up to be my willing masochistic bottom at Thunder in the Mountains Leather Conference. We met and connected at first sight: her eyes were so vibrant, her attitude so powerful in her proud desire to serve, and she was beautiful! Our scene blew the roof off Denver’s Hyatt!

I just had to ask her if she’d be in my movie, the one I was definitely going to make, and gave her a year to answer. I had no experience, but I had friends who did: Annie Sprinkle featured in several videos I respected, Neon Weiss who worked with a production company and offered to be my director and Fakir who has a great eye for visual composition. I followed their advice to get a professional crew for sound, camera, and per Annie Sprinkle, a make-up artist too. In my home and dungeon, on a shoestring budget, over one unforgettable weekend, we shot The Pain Game, a queer and passionate endeavor. Everyone shared the vision: capturing the magic of BDSM in real play, safe, hot and connected.

   

   

In 2001 the Pain Game premiered at San Francisco Frameline LGBT festival, soon also screened in Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam… I felt empowered beyond my wildest hopes and very much in demand. Couples of all orientations looking to reignite their erotic connection despite disparity of taste and fetishes found their way to my Academy of SM Arts. I became a BDSM coach.

It was time for me to learn what I was teaching! Not “my way or the highway” but mutual transparency and negotiated agreements. Fakir and I made a weekly date night and honored it.

Fortunately in our San Francisco leathersex community we also got some of our needs met openly with informed consent at semi-public play parties. Black Sheets, the bimonthly pansexual SM sex party for gay and bi-kinksters a friend of ours ran, gave us a hot playground where, after 15 years at odds, safer sex and SM merged in pure raw encounters.

Opening the door to release your inner beast can be quite explosive. I was ready to reclaim a part of my sexuality shut down by the violent rape I survived in my late teens. Fakir could not embrace rough dominance, not his way! The fiery warrior I was deep inside craved to be made to give up erotic control to an aggressive man in whom I had trust and lust.

For years I had had a serious crush on John, our bodyworker. Although he presented as a charming Don Juan with no experience in the Scene, I sensed his appetite for dominance and rough sex. Each visit, he set his massage table up in my quiet little dungeon, where many of my toys grace the walls. That could not have helped but feed his erotic imagination.

A lone wolf whose untamed energy I found irresistible, I pursued him. I wanted him to take me down hard and make me fly. I asked only for a RED safeword. I knew bottoming to him would be a very powerful reclaiming sexual experience. The night John took me home, his inner predator came out full force. He pinned me down, spanked me hard, demanding I remain still and take it for him. He did not think twice about grabbing my hair and fucking my face. My orgasms were his to command. Our torrid dates made me beg for more.

Not from the BDSM community, he was not schooled in aftercare. He did not want to talk about the ritual violence of our sexual encounters. Without support, it was only a few months later he that dismissed me with the click of an email. I was a mess. Fakir stood by me and pointed out that my lone wolf was a coward who scared himself with his own dark side. Still, with all the support I had, it took me a few months to let go of him, my anger and my lust. Stronger, I realized that intimacy does not always come in the hot sex package. I had an extra ordinary loving partner and counted my blessings….

And then, one evening in late October, Alan walked into my dungeon looking for Top training…little did I know he and his wife would really become our family.

--Cleo Dubois

---

I bet you can't wait for December. If you haven't already, read the full series of Cleo's autobiographical essays now:

Part One      Part Two      Part Three      Part Four      Part Five

---

Interested in Fakir’s explorations? Visit his web site for photos, description and video clips of his feature length documentary movie DANCES SACRED & PROFANE and huge photographic art book SPIRIT + FLESH at: http://www.fakir.org/store/index.html

Cleo Dubois Academy of S/M Arts
email: CleoDubois@sm-arts.com
http://www.sm-arts.com
Tel:(650)322-0124

Time is running out to sign up for the next Erotic Dominance Weekend Intensive for Women: Tops and Switches, November 14-15 at the SF Citadel. Dominate with presence and passion, competence and compassion! Hands on playshops with our trained Academy volunteers bottoms, workbook and lots of personal attention from Cleo Dubois, Eve Minax and Selina Raven.

Enrollment is now open for the January 29-31 (2010) Weekend for Dominant Men and those who Switch.

Find out more at  www.sm-arts.com/intensives/women.html

Anyone, Top, bottoms, switches, curious, partnered or not, visiting the San Francisco Bay Area is welcome to contact me for a private consultation or guided play in my San Francisco Peninsula dungeon.

Cleo today!

It's time for another wonderful installment in the fabulous autobiographical series by Cleo Dubois. Check back at noon today for more amazing photos and her latest essay "The Predator and (his willing) Prey."

Cleo Dubois, Part Five: Rocky Road

The fifth gripping installment in one of the world's most remarkable autobiographies! The courage and honesty of their lives truly is inspirational. I am honored to be able to share this rich and beautiful story and photojournal of the ups and downs and ins and outs of the amazing Cleo Dubois and Fakir Musafar.

---

CLEO DUBOIS _{is a BDSM Educator, ritualist, creator of the Academy of S/M Arts, and Leather columnist . A versatile sadomasochist whose private interests lay in caring sadism, switching and cross-orientation play, she came out in the San Francisco Leather Scene in the early 80's. Her two popular docu-films, "The Pain Game" and "Tie Me Up," are available on 1 DVD, "The S/M Arts Collection," on her website www.sm-arts.com, where you will also find details about the Erotic Dominance Weekend Intensives for Men and Women. She offers private guided play to individuals and couples in the privacy of her San Francisco area dungeon, as well as office and phone consultations.}

---

Rocky Road:
“sometimes the light’s all shining on me, other times I can barely see…”

We all know our play personas and the roles we explore give voice to our inner Child, Slut, Master, Queen, Servant, Sadist, Mentor… Fueled by the heat of our sexual hunger we re-visit stifled or shamed desires on our own adult terms. During our kinky erotic explorations, profound connections and deep healing happen. Lessons are there to be learnt.

Master M was the right Top to nurture Fakir’s female persona. They shared a mutual fetish and turn-on for corsets, garters, bondage and gender play. Master M got quite turned on by cinching him up and sensually adorning his legs with silky seamed stockings. They also shared heart space. Master M’s “Daddy” side seduced the hidden young queer boy in Fakir to come out. A good Daddy, he brought much healing to the complex visionary Fakir is.

Indeed our passionate lover was quite a shapeshifter. Dominant sadistic Top or sex slave, he excelled in both. I greatly enjoyed using him for my pleasure and was happy to become his masochistic sex toy when the mood took us there.

You know how archetypes are, both the light and the dark co-exist and it can be so easy to slip out of the light. One Saturday night 10 years after we connected and while I was away at a leather conference, Master M let out his predatory self and gave Fakir an ultimatum: him or me. Although my husband’s “submissive self” did not want to let go of his Daddy/Master, he knew his life commitment was to me. We parted ways and did not see him again.

Our mutual loss pitted us against each other and resentment built. A skilled kink aware therapist helped us focus on and honor what we valued in each other. We renewed our sacred contract. We loved each other and worked great together as Shamans and ritualists.

We went in search of the live roots of ecstatic piercing rituals. In 1995 during our trip to Malaysia Fakir encountered Murugan the Southern Hindu Archetype to whom the Thaipusam Festival is dedicated. Kali made me Hers when I visited one of Her small temples in Penang. These energies were so awesomely real, there was no denying them. We were on our path and it was NOT a surprise that our BDSM lifestyle was part of our mission.

Up until the late 90s requests for our work abounded: Avant garde art festivals hungered for Fakirs’ photo exhibits, our body performances and shamanic ceremonies. Copenhagen, Lisbon, Tokyo, Osaka, London, Santa Monica, Paris, everywhere we went, we met wonderful folks eager for the rituals we were honored to bring them. Canal +, a French film production company, financed a short documentary on Fakir. I was glad to translate and add my touch to the film.

When the curtain closed and we got home, I realized I was not happy. I felt a huge gap between our archetypal selves, my warrior queen and his shaman, and our everyday realities. Our erotic connection was tenuous. My dominance outside the dungeon took an ugly turn. Looking at where we came from (both our mothers were the boss at home) it is not surprising that I, too, was domineering instead of consensually dominant. I must say that his passive aggressive habits did not help one bit! The Oppressor/Victim tandem rarely leads to hot play or harmonious home life!

I entered deep private therapy again. I wanted face my demons, find more balance in my life and deepen our relationship. It was the beginning of a new century.

---

Sixth installment coming in November! Read previous installments now:

Part Four
Part Three
Part Two
Part One

---

Interested in Fakir’s explorations? Visit his web site for photos, description and video clips of his feature length documentary movie DANCES SACRED & PROFANE and huge photographic art book SPIRIT + FLESH at: http://www.fakir.org/store/index.html

Cleo Dubois Academy of S/M Arts
email: CleoDubois@sm-arts.com
http://www.sm-arts.com
Tel:(650)322-0124

My Academy of SM Arts is now enrolling The next Erotic Dominance Weekend Intensive for Women: Tops and Switches, November 14-15 at the SF Citadel. Dominate with presence and passion, competence and compassion! Hands on playshops with our trained Academy volunteers bottoms, workbook and lots of personal attention from Cleo Dubois, Eve Minax and Selina Raven.

Find out more at  www.sm-arts.com/intensives/women.html

Anyone, Top, bottoms, switches, curious, partnered or not, visiting the San Francisco Bay Area is welcome to contact me for a private consultation or guided play in my San Francisco Peninsula dungeon.

Cleo Coming soon!

Heads-up to those of you who have been following the monthly series of autobiographical essays by Cleo Dubois, chronicling her life, love and marriage to Fakir Musafar!

The next installment in Cleo's series will be published here on Friday, October 2. Wait until you see what she's prepared for us this month. The photos are breathtaking, astonishing, consuming.

Catch up on the series by clicking on the "20 Up SM Project" category, and join us on Friday for powerful private insights into the lives of one of the world's most amazing couples.

Cleo Dubois, Part Four: Love Triangle

The fourth truly amazing installment in Cleo Dubois' ongoing series of autobiographical essays. Fantastic story, fantastic images, fantastic woman. Thank you, Cleo!!

---

CLEO DUBOIS _{is a BDSM Educator, ritualist, creator of the Academy of S/M Arts, and Leather columnist . A versatile sadomasochist whose private interests lay in caring sadism, switching and cross-orientation play, she came out in the San Francisco Leather Scene in the early 80's. Her two popular docu-films, "The Pain Game" and "Tie Me Up," are available on 1 DVD, "The S/M Arts Collection," on her website www.sm-arts.com, where you will also find details about the Erotic Dominance Weekend Intensives for Men and Women. She offers private guided play to individuals and couples in the privacy of her San Francisco area dungeon, as well as office and phone consultations.}

---

Love Triangle

My husband built me a beautiful little dungeon, everything my Dominant self wanted: a real play space, a room where the routines of our daily life do not enter, a sanctuary.

Of course I, Cleo the Domina, soon made it into my session space. A caring Mistress yet fierce, focused and sadistic, I often took my clients to levels of exploration they did not know existed. I sure scared a few and pleased many with my zeal!  But, more than anything, I wanted Fakir’s surrender on my own terms while he wanted me to “do him” his way!  It became obvious we had control issues!

We created a performance symbolizing our desire to release our unwanted baggage.  We labeled many old-fashioned hard suitcases with our inner demons: fear, abuse, neglect, judgments, and obsolete Christian values… Fakir lifted the luggage with flesh hooks in his pierced chest through a pulley high up to the ceiling of a downtown theater in Santa Cruz. I cut the luggage loose. I was his traveling companion in the hangar of our bruised psyches. Our Torture Circus body performance made the local paper.  Of course it did not “fix” our trust issues!

A word about the influence of our formative years: My father suffered from a lack of formal education and low self esteem. He did not tolerate challenges to his authority and was prone to fits of anger. My mother focused all her attention on her journalistic pursuits.  In Paris, I attended a private catholic girl school.  Bullies from the boys school a block away scared me as I walked by five days a week. My first kiss, pinned to a tree on my way home from school, was stolen by such a bully. Repeated sexual abuse in my young adulthood led me to “collect” gay men as friends.  I felt safe, sexy and preferred their taste and wit. Not that it kept me from taking young men back to my studio to fuck, but no kissing or sleep-overs.  Sexually promiscuous yet emotionally distant was my style. Years later in California, consensual SM play and exotic sex with Leathermen allowed me to experience true connections. Scenes were negotiated, boundaries set, safewords honored. Chaps, leather harnesses and boots added to my turn on!

As it turned out Fakir had a dominant mother and a quiet absent father. Perceived as an effeminate young “mama boy” he too was bullied, a lot. His queer tastes were buried deep in the bland vanilla culture of pre-1950 rural USA. An avid reader of National Geographic, he secretly began his maverick solo life-long experiments in piercing, bondage, corseting, branding, feminization, and even gave himself his first magic mark, a tattoo.

Looking back, I never gave up the close circle of friends I shared erotic energy and body rituals with, my spiritual and sexual kinky gay men. I brought Fakir into our circle. Besides, we both wanted a Top. “Every Top needs a Top,” right?

Fakir was too shy to act upon his desires for a man’s attentions. I sensed he wanted permission and gave it to him so he could give it to himself. A masculine partner who wanted both of us would be just right. Master M. was it: European fetishist, sadistic, bisexual, with an eclectic voracious appetite. He danced with us for a decade.

© Cleo Dubois 2009

Fifth installment coming in October! Read previous installments now:

Part Three
Part Two
Part One

---

Cleo Dubois Academy of S/M Arts
email: CleoDubois@sm-arts.com
http://www.sm-arts.com
Tel:(650)322-0124

My Academy of SM Arts is now enrolling The next Erotic Dominance Weekend Intensive is for Men: Tops and Switches, October 3-4 at the SF Citadel. Dominate with presence and passion, competence and compassion! Hands on playshops with our trained Academy volunteers bottoms, workbook and lots of personal attention from Cleo Dubois, Eve Minax and Selina Raven.

Find out more at http://www.sm-arts.com/intensives/men.html.
Apply at http://www.sm-arts.com/intensives/form-men.html

Anyone, Top, bottoms, switches, curious, partnered or not, visiting the San Francisco Bay Area is welcome to contact me for a private consultation or guided play in my San Francisco Peninsula dungeon. Email CleoDubois@sm-arts.com

---

Archival copies of Body Play B&W photo magazine: http://www.bodyplay.com/current/

Info on Body Piercing Intensives: www.fakir.org

---

SPIRIT+FLESH is a 50-year photographic retrospective of Fakir's body modifications and rituals plus images of those he inspired. It is a 296 page, three pound hard cover art book that graphically illustrates a broad spectrum of physical experiences: bondage, sensory deprivation, tattooing, piercing, fetishes, body rituals and modifications. Introductory text was written by Mark Thompson author of Leatherfolk. For more information and orders go to:
http://www.fakir.org/store/spiritflesh.html

Cleo Dubois, in her own words: Part III

CLEO DUBOIS _{is a BDSM Educator, ritualist, creator of the Academy of S/M Arts, and Leather columnist . A versatile sadomasochist whose private interests lay in caring sadism, switching and cross-orientation play, she came out in the San Francisco Leather Scene in the early 80's. Her two popular docu-films, "The Pain Game" and "Tie Me Up," are available on 1 DVD, "The S/M Arts Collection," on her website www.sm-arts.com, where you will also find details about the Erotic Dominance Weekend Intensives for Men and Women. She offers private guided play to individuals and couples in the privacy of her San Francisco area dungeon, as well as office and phone consultations.}

---

My American Dream, 1990

I moved in. And there it was, my American dream! A home, with a little yard and a sweet cat. We were nesting, getting acquainted, becoming more intimate. We dropped our public personae and still enjoyed each other’s company! I was a good cook but I didn’t know how to drive a car.  I used to say “I drove people” as I rode the commuter train to San Francisco to do SM sessions in my dear friend, Mistress Sybil Holiday’s dungeon.

Clouds that transformed later into blessings brought on a lot of changes. Fakir lost his advertising agency and became a full time body piercer at Gauntlet, the only piercing store in San Francisco in 1990. Soon he started teaching the art and skills of modern body piercing in our kitchen. Now in their nineteenth year, his body piercing Intensives have a permanent home in the city’s leather neighborhood. Of course he remained faithful to his first love, taking photographs!

In 1992 his magazine “BodyPlay and Modern Primitives Quarterly” was born, self-published and filling an information vacuum in the burgeoning bodymod sub-culture. It was his baby and I was all for it!

I had always been a city girl. I continued to frequent the San Francisco Folsom street bars after my afternoons as a Mistress. Piercing, cutting and SM performances to blasting house music were blossoming all over those funky little bars. These young kinky queer performers were my people. I brought many home to pose for BodyPlay.

In turn Fakir took my pictures and designed my Mistress ads.

I shall never forget that these were the years of the plague. Cabbing it from crowded hospital wards to hospices to say goodbye to countless men dying was part of my life after work. So many of my mentors, the fisters and leathermen who had shared their radical sexuality were at death’s door within just a few months. Young men in wheelchairs with gaunt faces were too common a terrible sight in the Castro. Attending memorials became a Sunday ritual. It felt like being on the front line of a terrible war.

The community rallied. Together, Fakir and I designed performances for numerous Aids fund-raisers we were ask to perform at.

Trained in contact and theatre improvisation and proud of my fiery SM, I created White Bird, a vision of a human bird with wings of feathered clothespin zippers. Masochistic women would submit to my sadistic glee as I ripped their wings off at such fundraisers.

We became more and more involved in the SM community. I marched in leather contingents at LGBT pride parades, early Folsom Street Fairs. I met my heroes, the pillars of wisdom and gentle warriors of our lifestyle, Mark Thompson, Geoff Mains, Joseph Bean, Guy Baldwin, Patrick Califia, * formerly known as Pat Califia*, and Gayle Rubin. Following these formidable leather pioneers, I found my voice teaching SM classes on connection, safety and the magic of these consensual exchanges.

Fakir brought into our leather culture the shamanic piercing rites he had explored and loved. He offered ball dances, an ecstatic pierced body prayer to the many seeking altered states and healing. (see pictures of the rituals in Part I of my autobiography)

I had married a kinky guy! Dubbed a magical masochist, he had been his own fetishistic Top and bottom for 30 years, doing himself his own way. I became his apprentice, embracing my role of servant Mistress. I was honing the many eclectic SM skills that would make me a sophisticated, caring Domina: suspension, electricity, mummification, bondage, play piercing, sensory deprivation and the art of taking someone on a powerful ride. We were a pair of daring sadomasochistic switches seeking light in these darkest of times. Our private play made us fly.

I also became a housewife…. And then he built me a dungeon….

© Cleo Dubois 2009

Fourth installment coming in September! Read previous installments now:

Part II
Part I

---

email: CleoDubois@sm-arts.com

Cleo Dubois Academy of S/M Arts
http://www.sm-arts.com

Tel:(650)322-0124

My Academy of SM Arts is no longer enrolling the annual Erotic Dominance Intensive for Professionals August 14-16 ! The intimate 3 day course is full!

The next Erotic Dominance Weekend Intensive is for Men: Tops and Switches, October 3-4 at the SF Citadel. Dominate with presence and passion, competence and compassion! Hands on playshops with our trained Academy volunteers bottoms, workbook and lots of personal attention from Cleo Dubois, Eve Minax and Selina Raven.

Find out more at http://www.sm-arts.com/intensives/men.html.
Apply at http://www.sm-arts.com/intensives/form-men.html

Anyone, Top, bottoms, switches, curious, partnered or not, visiting the San Francisco Bay Area is welcome to contact me for a private consultation or guided play in my San Francisco Peninsula dungeon. Email CleoDubois@sm-arts.com

Archival copies of Body Play B&W photo magazine: http://www.bodyplay.com/current/

Info on Body Piercing Intensives: www.fakir.org

Coming tomorrow: Cleo Dubois, Part III

A heads-up that tomorrow I will be publishing the third installment of Cleo's wondrous illustrated autobiography, detailing her amazing journey through SM life with her life partner, Fakir Musafar. The series has been a knock-out thus far and tomorrow's offering will continue to offer surprises, delights, brain-candy and exquisite imagery from one of the most famous SM couples in the world.

(If you haven't already done so, read the first two parts of her autobiography by clicking the links under "SM 20 Up Project" in the right column of this page.)

Cleo Dubois, in her own words: Part II

CLEO DUBOIS _{is a BDSM Educator, ritualist, creator of the Academy of S/M Arts, and Leather columnist . A versatile sadomasochist whose private interests lay in caring sadism, switching and cross-orientation play, she came out in the San Francisco Leather Scene in the early 80's. Her two popular docu-films, "The Pain Game" and "Tie Me Up," are available on 1 DVD, "The S/M Arts Collection," on her website www.sm-arts.com, where you will also find details about the Erotic Dominance Weekend Intensives for Men and Women. She offers private guided play to individuals and couples in the privacy of her San Francisco area dungeon, as well as office and phone consultations.Read Part I of Cleo's story}

---

A BIG mistake

It was 1988; I had been a professional Domina for quite a few years already. Fakir and I were vacationing in Mexico when I first encountered his inner femme. I did encourage ” her” to come out, bought him a sexy pair of black high heels at that little shop on the back of the church where “Berdaches”, gender bending shamans, and diva/boys shopped. I dressed him in my beautiful white summer dress and had him sashay for me on the hotel veranda at sunset. I had play in mind.

Humiliating cross-dressers was in my repertoire as a Mistress. Deep inside I harbored disdain for men in dresses as poor imitations of women. As our play unfolded, I tied him to a white rattan chair, thighs spread wide, ridiculed and verbally abused him for his lack of masculinity. There was nothing about humiliation that was a turn on for him/her. Our scene turned sour. I got angry, so did he and he felt deeply hurt. He wanted so badly to be accepted for the fetish girl he was inside. Seven years earlier, he had divorced his first wife who despised his kinky appetite and shamanic explorations. He wanted a loving Dominant Mistress, and he thought he had found her.

I took off his rhinestone collar and we both buried that memory as if it never happened. We did not play that way again for several years. When we opened dialogue again on his gender play, he volunteered that for several decades he was his own Top and his own bottom! It took me several years to accept that his gender explorations were part of his shamanic tradition.

In her monthly column “Relaiming Eros” on www.CarnalNation, my friend Margaret Wade explains that “a fairly consistent feature of the stories of two-spirit people is that they were respected within their communities and, in most tribes, were simply considered another gender.”

_{photo by Erin Flynn}

In those days, so many of my friends were dying: young and middle-aged leathermen ravaged by the opportunistic diseases of HIV/Aids at death’s door in a matter of a few weeks! My grief was so big, it blinded me. I was looking for Daddy, security and magic. The magic that would fix all. I did not see the two-paths walker Fakir really was. Sure I had seen photos of him corseted, soft and submissive. It turned out that he had made his first corset in 1958 and pierced his ears so he could wear earrings in private!

The leatherman of my dreams he was not, but the bigness of his heart and spirit touched me deeply. We dated, got engaged and a year later we tied the knot in a beautiful redwood grove in the summer of 1990. Witnessed by our leather tribe, our very close friend , playmate, Wicca priest leather faerie Ganymede drew a magic circle and called in big spirits. Jim Ward, co-creator of modern body piercing with Fakir, was our civil representative. We were gifted the service of a 25 year old “leather boy ” for our pleasure that night!

A little kinky I guess, but really very appropriate for us!

Plus ca change, plus c”est la meme chose.

(to be continued) © Cleo Dubois 2009

Cleo Dubois Academy of S/M Arts
http://www.sm-arts.com

---

Heading to Colorado this summer? Meet me at Thunder in the Mountains July 17-19! I am pleased to be present my new class on Conscious Sadism. "Let Your Beast Out". Will be hot! I am also offering a community needle pull energy ritual with my dear friend and co-teacher at the Academy of SM Arts, Eve Minax.

Find out more
http://thunderinthemountains.com

My Academy of SM Arts is now enrolling the annual Erotic Dominance Intensive for Professionals ! If you are already involved or know someone interested in this work, this full three day course at the SF Citadel August 14-16 is filled with practical and psychological tools! Hands on playshops with our trained Academy volunteers bottoms , workbook and lots of personal attention from Cleo Dubois, Eve Minax and Selina Raven.

Find out more
http://www.sm-arts.com/intensives/pros.html

Apply at
http://www.sm-arts.com/intensives/form-pros.html.

The 20 Up SM Project: Part II of Cleo's Story

Just a heads-up to fascinated readers that tomorrow I'll be posting Part II in the ongoing series of autobiographical reflections by sadist, ritualist, writer and BDSM educator extraordinaire Cleo Dubois. More wonderful photos from Cleo and Fakir's private collection, and more insightful prose from Cleo on the ups, downs and in-betweens of a life in kink. If you haven't already done so, read the first installment of her series: Cleo Dubois, In Her Own Words: Part I

Cleo Dubois, in her own words: Part I

Cleo Dubois is a BDSM Educator, ritualist, creator of the Academy of S/M Arts, and Leather columnist . A versatile sadomasochist whose private interests lay in caring sadism, switching and cross-orientation play, she came out in the San Francisco Leather Scene in the early 80's. Her two popular docu-films, "The Pain Game" and "Tie Me Up," are available on 1 DVD, "The S/M Arts Collection," on her website www.sm-arts.com, where you will also find details about the Erotic Dominance Weekend Intensives for Men and Women and Private Guided Play for Couples.

---

In Cleo's words....

BDSM is my lifelong passion. I am a ritualist who connects heat, heart and spirit with my radical sexuality. I am a dominant woman who also personally appreciates the joys of bottoming. As a community player, I feel that we are explorers on the ecstatic path of conscious erotic energy exchange.

In 1995 I founded the Academy of S/M Arts to empower and guide those on their own leather journeys. In 2002, my Academy of SM Arts offered its first Erotic Dominance Intensive for Women, a small focused hands-on weekend workshop. I now also offer weekend Intensives for Dominant Men and Men Who Switch with Eve Minax and Selina Raven several times a year at the SF Citadel in San Francisco. We host a yearly course for professional Dominas as well. Details are on my website, www.sm-arts.com

My award-winning docufilm “The Pain Game”, 2000 with then Denver resident beautiful masochist creed, has become a classic noted for its authenticity in embodying the spirit of connected SM play. Published in many non-fiction lifestyle books I am thrilled to be invited to share about my life on Gloria's blog.

---

7 Pervs, Three Marriages, One Kinky Lifestyle
by Cleo Dubois

As I drive to the city to meet my sweet kinky lover for our weekly night of romance and focused ecstatic sex, my husband of 19 years is with my boi, Sam, while her husband spends the night with his boyfriend! It’s poly, twisted and kinky, all right! Maintaining a family of caring friends may be challenging, but love is all there is. Really!

I haven’t always known I was kinky. Passionate yes, sexually adventurous certainly, but it wasn’t until my then boyfriend, Bob, took me to Mistress Kat‘s groundbreaking SM seminar in San Francisco that I discovered my deep-rooted sadomasochistic tendencies. She demonstrated her own sense of Dominance, collared and whipped her lover, “mouse,” turning him on and humbling him at once.

A big light went off in my head. Here was the fire I had not found in vanilla sex. Soon after I joined the first California leather support group, Society of Janus, Kat had spoken of.

In those days you had to bottom before you dare top. Volunteering for their monthly programs, I got spanked, flogged, tied up, teased and tormented, fisted and appreciated. I met Fakir at a Janus evening at the famed “Chateau.” A slender man with glasses, a dry sense of humor and the ability to share his body explorations with great warmth, he asked who wanted to slide their index finger through his enlarged pierced nipples. I volunteered! Of course!

He always ended his presentations with a demo, often an exotic body practice of pain/pleasure, and that I found fascinating! He indeed was a different kind of bird! While my playground was the private SM Sex club, the Catacombs, he was into piercings, branding, sensory deprivation and shamanic ceremonies inspired by other cultures. Eventually I asked him to suture balls on my skin for a private ritual to help me deal with the grief of the losses to Aids of so many of my playmates. He gracefully obliged. My then lover beat the drum. We all connected.

Fakir had done his own Sundance and O-kee-pa ceremonies. They had been filmed and were part of a documentary.  In 1986 when the film Bizarre Rituals Dances Sacred and Profane [VHS] premiered at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, I organized a reception for him. I wanted to know him better.

What I did not see coming was falling in love with him that very night! Not with the man himself but with his image on the screen as he was hanging out of his body by hooks off a cottonwood tree!

We fell in love with who we portrayed, it took a long time to fall in love with the real us! Little did I know then that he would someday put a wedding ring on my finger, let alone wear my collar! …sometimes!

© Cleo Dubois 2009

Cleo Dubois Academy of S/M Arts
http://www.sm-arts.com
Read the July installment now CleoDubois@earthlink.net
Tel:(650)322-0124

---

Meanwhile, if you're in the Bay area, see some awesome exhibits of Fakir's photographic art:

Fakir's GenderFlex Photo Exhibit Saturday June 6 exhibit opening and artist's reception 7 to 10 PM at Femina Potens Gallery, 2199 Market Street (corner of Sanchez) San Francisco, California. GenderFlex is part of the Femina Potens IDENTITY show, National Queer Arts Festival and Gay Pride month events. Fakir's GenderFlex exhibit features color portraits of local and community trans persons: those who feel out-of-place on either end of the gender spectrum and have found a more comfortable place in the middle or opposite end. The exhibit will be open until June 28, Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 6 PM. For more info, go to Fakir's web site www.fakir.org.

Cleo will have some very interesting things to say about gender explorations in her July column!

Also check out Fakir's other photo exhibit, EROTIC EMBRACE OF THE CORSET at the Center For Sex & Culture, 1519 Mission Street, San Francisco. Artist's Reception Friday June 19, 7-10 PM. Fifty years of photography of extreme body modification with tight lacing. This exhibit will be up through July. Call CSC for open times: 415-255-1155 or see events on their web site at www.sexandculture.org.