When you become a BDSM player, Halloween changes forever. Not just because you’re looking for costumes that can also fulfill fetishes, but because what scares us totally realigns as we become conversant in the signs and symbols of our subculture. I’ll never forget one Halloween my Dom and I were going through a haunted house, and experiencing the customary tension and nerves that grow as you proceed from room to room, and then we found ourselves in a room filled with whips, floggers, and a guy in a gimp mask who leapt out at us. People around us shreiked, but we were put at ease. “Ah,” our brains said, “this looks nice :)”
Not to mention the myriad ways we all play with fear (I’ve got a piece about that coming out next week, subscribe at the button below to receive it), which can leave us so familiar with the different threads of our own psyches that we can pull on each individually to heighten play, not unlike the chains attached to the Hellraiser puzzle box!
Wherever you fall on the fear spectrum, I’ve got a list of BDSM-y media recs (including a book!) for my paid subscribers to finish out the Halloween season with a bang (and a whimper). If you are not currently a paid subscriber and want a preview of all the stuff your membership will unlock (it’s a lot now!) go here. And of course, upgrade your membership to melt the below paywall and receive my eternal gratitude for showing your support for kink on the internet in these troubled times. We are being gentrified off of every corner of the internet, and Substack is one of the last remaining places that lets us live.