Figment of Imagination

Nimhneach X

wow, we're up to Nimhneach X. We've come a long way from the Henry Grattan, the location of our first gig. There has been a lot of work going into the detail of Nimhneach and a lot of help. Thanks, folks!

Background stuff
We've been busy in the meantime, we've been doing some background stuff. We've got business cards done. This makes it easier to promote the event, when we dont have flyers. We've got a load to give away, anyone want some? ;) We've got wristies ordered and in. They are plastic wristbands of different colours, to identify who should be upstairs at the voodoo lounge and who should not.

Poster work
The latest poster is our best yet. We were down with Hector our event photographer, looking through his extensive portfollio of gorgous scantily clad women (its a hard job, but someone's got to do it) before picking out the current photo. I really like the photo as there is so much depth in it. Everytime I look at it, I see something more. Excellent work by Hector and even more excellent work by Jack our designer for arranging the poster with text for printing. We look forward to more quality work from this dynamic duo.

Search Engine
Jon our website designer has been doing some cool techy stuff behind the scenes to keep the Nimhneach website high up in the google search engine list. An example is try typing in "fetish dublin" should bring the nimheach site up on the first page. We've also bought the www.fetish.ie domain for the irish language challenged amongst us.

There is still more to go, but for future events, the background stuff should pay off.

See you on the 21st April!

http://www.nimhneach.ie

Posted by Fig at 03:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stereotypes in Internet BDSM
One of the things I've started to see a bit more clearly is the problems of meeting genuine bdsm folk. While the internet has made it easier to reach out and touch people, its also allowed the folk whom think bdsm has something to do with easy lays reach out and touch folk. A lot of misconceptions of the average horney geek guy leads to the pollution of the pool of genuine bdsm seeking folk. for example, on when I was last on alt, there are 3000 profiles of guys seeking girls vs 300 girls seeking guys. I've made up a bit of a scatter gun list of catagories.

Miss Conception
Some of the misconception is so common they could have their own stereotypes.

The Married Guy
Attracted to the bdsm scene as a method of a easy lay, no questions asked sex. An attribute of the married guy includes the inability to tell the truth. They cant even lie in bed straight.

The Horney Net Geek.
Classification from bondage.com, the HNG attributes include confusing fantasy with reality. Attracted to the bdsm scene as a method of an easy lay, no questions asked sex.Partial to sending pictures of his willy as an opening email.

Dangerous Dom.
While initially seeming quite reasonable and grounded, will slowly rope their mark in, destroying their subjects personality, confidence and self worth. An attribute of a dangerous dom would be their demands that their subject drop all contact with the outside world, especially with close friends.

Fantasy Sub.
A little knowledge is dangerous. While having the balls to acknowledge thier desire for submissiveness, the reality of submissiveness escapes them. An attribute of a fantasy sub is the galaxy of space between desire and reality a common tag line would be - "will fulfill my Domme's most hidden desires"
oh yeah? Like some woman's hidden desire to shoot all men in the head?

Unhinged Women.
An attribute of the unhinged woman is an unrealistic expecation of men's clairvoyant ability. Usually ends up in an abusive relationship time and time again, due to inability to get off the heroin of the bad boy syndrome and sort out her head differentiating being emotionally smacked around vs being physically smacked.

Differentiation and Segmentation
How to tell them apart? I feel there are a couple of tactics that can be taken.

In the first instance, meeting someone off the internet fairly fast can help with weeding out those who will and can and those who can't or woun't. Using instinct is your best tool that you have when selecting someone, however giving one's self head room for instinct to work is a art form in itself. There are a series of best practices for meeting folk from the internet, and that is to meet in a public place, organise safe calls and such like.

Scheduled Meetings
In meetings, there are a couple of stereotypes as well

Time wasters for subs.
They dont turn up or postpone meetings repetedly. They promise much but dont deliver, or safeword out quickly.

Dandy Doms
Would have some of the following characteristics. Have a great understanding of the limitations and freedoms that bdsm provides. Understand at the heart of what sane safe consensual (SSC) really means. Alternatively understand Risk Aware Consenusal Kink (RACK) They would have a knowledge of what their tools do to the flesh.
They would have have an advanced sense of intuition. If you're going to beat someone, you'd better notice if the beatee suddenly loses conciousness. For example, like.
have great self knowledge and be willing to talk through a scene before enacting it.

suffering subs
Suffering subs would have some of the following characteristics. Have great self knowledge. Know what they like and dont like. Have a good intuition. If you're going to let someone tie you up and beat you, you'd better have a good sense that the person is going to do it in a manner thats sane safe and consentual.

Once there are two genuine seekers of bdsm willing to give each other a fair go, then open non judgmental communication - expression of self and listening without placing judgement on the concepts.

Self Honesty
Only the participants can really honestly say whether their particular relationship is physical and emotional abuse or a cathartic beating with a cool mind fuck twist. Essentially either life reducing or life enchancing.

Posted by Fig at 03:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're getting to be non virgins at this fetish organising craic. The new play space was successful, we had the play space segregated out. The hanging handcuffs where well used, and the double A frame was put through its paces this time.
We had more people than ever before, I'm thinking we could hire the entire venue instead of just the mezzanine level.

Nimhneach has also bought www.fetish.ie domain. The plan is for the irish language challenged, remember fetish.ie and there you have our website :)

Wrt blogging, I'm hoping to have at least one entry every two weeks. Wish me luck!

The next fetish and bondage event is planned for the 21st April 2007, see you all there!

Posted by Fig at 03:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

21st October
This Nimhneach seemed to go well. The feedback is mostly postive. We had some observations made about the play space being too tightly packed with voyeuristic folk to be able to get a good swing at your sub. I'm thinking that for next time we'll close off the play area, so that only players can enter. We'll probably need a viewing gallery, but we'll figure that out over the coming weeks. The other thing that we've gotten feedback on is the dresscode. I've been letting folk in whom have not gotten any fetishwear, based on chatting to them for a few minutes to assertain their motivation to be there. If they seem like genuine folk, I've allowed them in, so long as they go topless or something. This policy seems to work, as I've seen the same folk next time in full fetish outfits. However, this is all going to change. there will be no more chances given out.

So all in all, a good night, with some great play happening.

Next!
For our next night, its scheduled to happen on Saturday 24th Febuary 2007.

Midori and rope bondage
Scheduling our next few events for next year, we may have an opportunity to bring Midori to our shores at the end of May. Midori has written a few books on shibari and such like, and is well known in the fetish trade. So far we have been negotiating on the price and such trivia known as "bang for your buck". Its looking promising to bring her over for some lessons at least. We may even negotiate a performance at a nimhneach.

We're also going to close out our books for the end of the year, and plan for new equipment and such like for next year. We plan to re invest our savings back into Nimhneach to keep it invigorating and exciting to come to.

See you all next year!

Posted by Fig at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I rembember the first few bdsm pictures I saw when I was first starting off on the bdsm trail. Ropes and spanking. blindfolds. They all tend to blur into one, now. Some I still remember,though. A young woman with big tits tied to a wheeled tressle. Partially clothed, it looked like her tee shirt had been ripped open, exposing her tits. She was well tied. big ropes, using her limbs wrapped around the tressle to immobiles her. But thats not what really was the attraction. Her boobs where driven through with long needles. These were not surface wounds. These were close to the base of the breast. Blood was dribbling down from where the skewers had puncured the skin. The look on her face reminded me of a drowning rat. Bulging eyes, weak from the terror and exertion of having large and long needles skewering her breasts. How could anyone could have consented to such a painful process? She certainly didnt seem like she was enjoying it. Surely there must have be something non consentual about it. Surely it must have been staged, like the sword through the head trick. I kept the picture out of horror, fascination and for the emotions it stirred in me.

Time stands still
Years later and several disk crashes later, I've lost that picture. I've gained more knowledge though, I learned about deep needle work, and the deeply personal level it may take its practictioners. it was just that I didnt fully understand the emotions involved at the time. I know better now. There were other pictures I kept - a doggie series of a woman with a rather large alsatian. The dogs front paws where encased in little cloth bags. Presumably to protect the woman from the dogs claws. And who remembers the days when company email porn was popular and a series of movies did the rounds, including the one with a woman choking on horses sperm after she had blown the horse. Everyone had access to those movies.

Nightmare senario
The police could run a dawn raid on my place, arrest me and whomever is the current sub and tramp jackbooted over all my stuff. Then bang me up for 3 years, because they dont like me (and sweetcuddlything) running a Dublin fetish night club.

Far fetched? Couldnt happen here? Not in this country?
Not under the new proposed UK violent porn laws.

Go to Jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go
All those images could land me 3 years in jail, if the new proposed UK law of violent porn goes through. And potentially land me on the sex offenders list. This is particularly terrifying stuff. Here is a website that lists the effects being on the sex offenders list does to a young woman who got caught at 17 with a 15 year old - she mentions how the police tell her to move house because there is a church two doors down from where she is living. Lots more scary stuff like this on this website

Why me?
I'm in ireland. Why should it affect me? Because whatever happens in the UK is reflected in Irish law at a later time. The new law doesnt include placing convicted offenders of this law under the sex offenders list. But it will come. its the next logical step after the law goes live.

Media tends to the nearest dramatic cliche
This law has got a lot of backing from the ignorant public and a highly manipulative media. I can hardly believe what I read in the media about this law. highly misleading, poor reporting of facts. Sickening. I complain where ever I see it.

Hope
There is hope. The law is only proposed.

Backlash
Backlash is an organisation dedicated to fighting this law. it needs cash. That is why Nimhneach and myself is contributing to its war chest. I reckon all club organisers from all over the world could contribute. All fetish enthusiasts should contribute.

Its our only hope of defeating this law before it affects our way of life.

Corollary
I've only met one candidate for deep needle work play in the many folk I met. I dont want to get arrested for following my soul.

Posted by Fig at 02:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Western love. its all the rage these days. Meet someone and fall in love and then everyone lives happliy ever after. Except the harsh reality is that love is not all that its cracked up to be. Western love has'nt managed its expectations very well.

Ahhh!
There is no denying that mystical, magical feeling that makes grown men and women do stupid things. (there again people dont need love to do stupid things) Its just that there is more to love than meets the eye. psychologists might describe the base emotions of humans as all sex and aggression, but I'd like to describe base emotions as love and hate.

Romantic love
The western style of love is the romantic style, where two people meet and then they fall in love, Romeo and Juliet style. This type of love is a short lived type of love, usually about 6 months to 2 years. Longer married couples (should) know that love is something much more deeper, mystical and ever changing. A friendship, a respect, a meeting of souls to create something that is more than a sum of their respective parts. Then there are other types of love. Franky goes to holywood talks about "revolutionary love of comrades in arms and those whom you socalise and eat with". Love has many ways of making itself felt, so that its like something that cant be seen or described but only felt. How we humans choose to express that quality comes out in different ways. For example, western love has only been acknowledged in the last few decades. It didnt really have a name beforehand, but its effects where still known.

Definition of Love
I'd like to define real love as something undefinable, but is felt more that can be described, moves as soon as the spot light is trained on it, and is a connection to god (which cant be described anyway)

Love cats
The problem with todays perception of love is that its all western style love. While there is a partial truth in western love, to hold it up as the only method for couples to express themselves to each other is perhaps a failing in western society. I'd like to see more acknowledgement of other the types of love and its effects, not only between couples and family, but the wider society.

Love of comrades
When I was describing to my muslim collegue about the reasons for my recent breakup (her desire to be loved), his reaction was to suggest I try an eastern european woman. They have a much more practical attitude to love, he said. Love like western love is for teenagers, where as the older women will be more knowledgeable.

Russian Brides

So I'm certainly open to the idea. Do I need to go to the russian bride sites and make myself known? Wanted, one bride to beat. Humm.

Posted by Fig at 07:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Laid back

A good night. A very laid back night, by all accounts.

Prepare for boarders!

Alot of preparation went into this Nimhneach. We had the spanking bench that was coming down to the wire to
be completed, the hooks in the ceiling to be drilled and screwed in to hang the camouflage, supplied by Miss Fantasia and also to bring the A-frame and assemble it at the venue. We had assurances from our dj and we had contacted the afterparty venue to ensure that everything was honkydory. We were done a bare half hour before zero hour. We couldnt have done it without our helpers.

Arrival

Folks started flooding in at the dot of 10pm. We turned away a number of folk who should have known better than
to turn up at a fetish party in vanilla clothes only and expect to get in because they know someone in side.

Conversation

The night was quiet with a lot of conversation going. The backdrop of camouflage seemed to spread out the people. We had a good number, but certainly well spread out. We split the dungeon this time, with the double-A frame in the back room, and the new spanking bench out the front. We had camouflaged this area, so this formed a small seperate room. while this kinda worked, it seemed to separate out the people as well. I'm thinking for the next one we'll put all the equipment together. The camouflage seemed to put a whole different air to the place, certainly more cosy and intimate. I think I like it.

Bummer

Our DJ never turned up so that was a bummer. Poor Conor, our warm up dj expecting only a short gig, was caught short with a limited selection. Thanks dude for making the best of it.

Do you like photos?

Hector our photographer was in full swing, and got a number of really cool photoes. Our usual procedure is to hand themback to the people who are in the photos, so thats what will be happening again. Contact Nimhneach for your photo if you got one taken.

Hector has also loaned us an old image to use on our next poster. So thanks Hector! He also shoots for the
suicidegirls website So if anyone fancys to be a fetish model, contact Hector. I've seen the studio, its dead cool.

Surreal

I suppose the most surreal moment of the night was a bright eyed older woman showed up at the door. She looked like yer gran or the old dear up the road who's always got family visiting.

Tits oot for de lads!

Later that night, I spotted her, tits oot for de lads, with a leather harness keeping it all together, having a hell of a time! Well done that couple! so next time you think you might be all alone in the world with your secret fetish, remember your grandmother might have been there before you.

So all in all a very laid back night.

Next!

Next one is on Saturday 21st October 2006. This time I'm want the place to Jump. We're hoping to get a DJ and setup which can really do that.

http://www.nimhneach.ie

Posted by Fig at 12:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)