I first came on The Scene in 1986, aged 22, before we were all online and had munches. In those days you had to dress up, get on a train to London, and go to a play club, and there weren't very many of them.

I have played a small part in the development of this thing called 'The Scene', which some people say isn't a society at all, just some men and women and couples. That's fine, providing you don't mind division leading to an ignoble fall, but I do; I've invested too much time and energy in my right to be kinky.

There are people out there that want us too scared to do kinky sex, and first among them is the staff of the News of the World; those vicious people have been insinuating the lie that all sexual kinks lead to child-abuse for ten years or more, and their agenda is to drive us back into the closet, and then to shut away the Gays and Dykes as well, and all the TV, TS people, in fact anyone that might not conform to a very narrowly defined norm.

Those people have to be confronted and beaten.

I'm also strongly opposed to the idea of any 'right' way to do SM, beyond 'Safe, Sane, Consensual' (and I'm not too bothered about Sane); it doesn't matter if you paint yourself sky-blue and roll around in jam if that's what get's you off - nobody has the right to tell you 'That's not doing it properly'. There is quite enough dogma in the world without our adding to it.

And I switch. Some people seem to have a problem with that, and say that it makes me somehow less of an SMer, and that does piss me off, because you know what? Lots of people you'd never imagine switching do switch. Playing 'Who fucks who?' is as old as fucking itself.

Oh yeah, playing; SM is a game, G-A-M-E, it's a *game* because it's consensual; your top cannot, irrespective of consent, make you homeless, starve you, send you to war, imprison you, or have you shot, and if he/she can, that's not SM because SM is consensual by definition, it is abuse. Der.

I don't care at all for the very patronising 'but it's very real for us' answer either. Don't kid me that you're better at the game by being unable to leave your bedroom personality where it belongs.

I do know that there are a few people on The Scene that aren't really SMers but abusers pretending that what they do is all consensual, when it blatantly is not. This really does make me angry, and I've been on the receiving end of one of them, so you could say I'm on a bit of a crusade. I don't like bullies.

OK, that's all I don't like; I do like Shakespeare, Dr Who, Dickens, Agatha Christie, and great food. Haggis is a favourite.

Kinky stuff - apart from the check list below - boxing, nipple torture, Doc Martens, gloves.

I have seperate profiles for The_Firm, Heraldic and LCPS1986.

Read my resume at http://www.the-firm.org/skyes.htm