Belated update on Dungeon (II of II): Talk.

After the tour and chatting with my friends, the talk began... About 20 people had wandered in, most of them fat and all of them (white), and they sat very attentively for my friend to talk about the documentary series and the activist work she hoped it was doing...

Discussion was interesting, with people talking about BDSM and normalcy.

My favorite part was when the old grandpa guy talked.

"People think sex and violence always go together!", he was like, "But it doesn't!"

At that, he reached over, and without looking at her, he took a big hunk of the granny-lady's hair and pulled it back-and-forth, and was like, "I mean, I can do this, and...", and as his voice drifted off, the granny-lady just stared straight ahead and smiled this big, inward, lusted-up smile, that was nevertheless innocent and sweet.

Anyhow, afterwards I hung around forever and talked, including with Steve the BDSM guy, and then as I was about to leave, I noticed this big fat (white) lady on the couch, and people had mentioned she was the owner, and since I wanted to talk with her, and since I knew she had sponsored the movie series so they could buy pizza, I used thanking her as a chance to start a conversation.

"I am so glad," she was like, after I thanked her.

"And you know," I was like, "It's not just a help to people who come to the series, but they can relay good information that they've learned onto others," and I told her that several times since, when BDSM had come up in a conversation and people knocked it, I had told them that people who are into that aren't sex-depraved perverts, but rather people just like you and me who work all week and if they can get a babysitter decide to do something different on Friday nights.

"Exactly!", she was like, but when she said she couldn't have put it better herself, I said that Steve the BDSM guy had said the babysitter thing, and I just repeated it.

Then, we talked more, and I learned some interesting stuff -

- they nickname the long staircase the "Stairway to Heaven".

- the no-alcohol policy is so everyone is conscious, since they have 'risky sex', and she's a hard-ass and will kick out anyone who comes in with alcohol on their breath, and everyone knows it.

- the low-profile entrance is so no-one wanders in off the street and expects to join, they used to do that and the club was shut down as a place of entertainment, now they're a private members club and you can't join the same day, and there's no cash at the door, and there's no way the city can bust them.

She also told me how she talked once to an A&E program about a serial killer and everyone told her not to because they'd make her look like a freak, but she talked about how people with such desires can explore them safely, and what she said was incorporated into the way the show talked about the serial killer as a rogue who'd meet submissive women off the internet and tie them up then kill them, and he was not represented as typical of BDSM communities.

I can't remember how we ended the conversation, but she somehow said something about how being tied up can be a powerful thing, and she had this big, inward-looking smile like the granny, and I was happy for her, but a little uncomfortable, so I took my leave.