Lead me on

Earlier this year we agreed to do an interview for trashy magazine here in the UK called Closer. We approached it all with caution, not wanting to be portrayed by a very main stream publication as the ‘D/s freaks’. They said they wanted to show a truthful D/s relationship/marriage and publish the piece to coincide with the release of the 50 Shades of Grey movie. To say we were skeptical would be an understatement but after a few meetings with the journalist and an agreement by her that nothing would be published that we had not read in full we decided to go ahead.

The interview lasted about two hours and we talked about lots of different aspects of our kink and D/s relationship but one of the things the journalist kept asking us about was collar and leashes. She really wanted us to say that they were a big part of our kink and a regular feature in our daily life…

“Does Michael lead you round the house on a collar and leash?”

The answer was no but she asked a version of that question a number of times. I eventually worked out that she was looking for a headline for her article.

“My husband leads me around the house by a leash” was one she thought would attract attention.

Sadly for her, he does not and no matter how hard she pressed us on the matter we were not prepared to say that he did. I think for the journalist, who knew very little about BDSM, the collar and leash was something she assumed was a standard part of a D/s relationship. We did educate her about the diversity of D/s relationships and as you can see from the article she got her headline.

Now the topic for Kink of the Week is leashes and it reminded me of this conversation and the fact that she believed it was a default part of D/s kinky play and I am sure she is not alone in that assumption. I think the reason for that is that is a visual image that is so often used to represent fetish and kink. How many images of both male and female submissive on their knees with their leash being held by a dominant partner (or some variation of) have you seen? Go on think about it, I bet the answer is, Lots!

It might be a clichéd, over used image but I think it has become so because it is a powerful visual representation of the power exchange dynamic within D/s. Which leads me onto myself and leashes. When I told the reporter it was not really our kink I was telling the truth. I have never worn a leash for @domsigns but I do own one. A bit like the chains I wrote about for the last topic, a leash was also one of the few kinky items I purchased for myself when I was just starting to explore kink. I saw it on a stand at a kink/sex fair. Even looking back now I don’t really know why I bought it but it just seemed to call to me and so I got it, took it home and put it in with my growing collection of new purchases in the hope that one day I might have a partner who would use it with me/on me.

I have that partner now and apart from being slightly curious about maybe going wearing it to a play party at some point, something we have discussed but never got round to doing, I really have very little interest in it as part of our actual kink play but it does come out of its storage place from time to time because even though it is clichéd I just can’t help myself…