eeeeee...

I've written before here--and would have written more were it not for fear that I'd drive you all away by yammering on about it as much as I'd like--about my ideas of an intentional community for leathermen.

There are hundreds of intentional communities across this great land of ours. Like-minded people buy land, and develop a scheme by which they can live together there. More familiar models might be the kibbutizim in Israel, or, nearest and dearest to my heart, a monastery. (In fact, intentional communities take advantage of that portion of the U.S. Tax Code written for monasteries.

The intentional community I have in mind would be a place of teaching and learning, and an opportunity for the men who are members of the community to delve more deeply into this thing we call BDSM. And as medieval monks learned, when resources are pooled, the result is something like abundance. So it would have a kick-ass dungeon.

Every third person or so I've spoken to about this has commented, "You should really talk to Guy Baldwin. He's been saying much the same thing for years." And so I did. I just sent an email his way.

Guy Baldwin.

Guy Baldwin looms verrrrry large in my imagination. I almost think that so much of what I think and what I've written about could be summed up as "footnotes to Baldwin." For him, SM is not just a hobby or a weekend activity, it's a worldview. And that's what it has become for me. It's how I understand myself and my place in the world. And I don't know very many other authors whom I like and admire who have taken it quite that far.

So, I really had to gird up my loins and stick myself to the sticking place to send off that email just now. A mixture of "Dear Mr. Gable I am writing this to you..." and something I once read about Robert Frost describing how the worst thing about his life was that he had to read so much bad poetry that young poets sent him asking his opinion and guidance.

Ergo, perhaps I'll hear back from Mr. Baldwin, and perhaps I won't.

But hopefully, at some point in the future, I'll be sitting down to the simple but hearty fare we call dinner in an intentional community of leathermen. After dinner, we'll hang in the refectory or relax in the hot tub, and at 10 p.m., the dungeons open up.