Old and New

I recently found another good puppy blog.  http://puppyaven.wordpress.com/  Puppy Stryker is relatively new to the BDSM/fetish/human-puppy world, and I love reading about how new pups come into the lifestyle and find their path.  His story is interesting and his writing is very honest.  I recommend you take a look.  Highlights include this too cute video of a puppy taking a bath:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZl58Y6IB5Y&feature=endscreen&NR=1 

Reading about his first couple of years in the lifestyle provided yet another angle for me to reflect on my journey in the lifestyle (which has now lasted over 10 years).  It’s funny b/c in some ways I feel very much like a veteran of the community (if, at 37, still not an “elder”… just a grumpy old fart in-training), but in other ways this is all still new to me and there are so many things I haven’t done.

On the one hand, it’s fun and exciting to know that there are still so many great things I have yet to experience!  On the other hand… the fact that’s taken me over a decade to get this far and I still have so many things not checked off my bucket list also makes me feel like I’m running behind the curve or something…

I first tried puppy play (something I was always curious about) in 2005 (already several years after I entered the BDSM community), and I’ve identified as a “pup” since about ‘06 or ’07.  I only bought my first tail last year and my first hood this year.  I only got to play in my first (and really only) proper mosh this year – so we’re talking 5 or 6 years after becoming “Pup” Emrys.  I played w/ other pups prior to that, but only one-on-one.  I’ve been to several kink conventions, but I’ve yet to visit one of the really big puppy events like IML’s Woof Camp or CLAW, or even International Mr. Puppy (either one); that’s still on the bucket list.

One thing that’s slowed me down is that my home community (Charlotte, NC) and home club (a pansexual group w/ mostly het-male-Top/female-bottom, Master/slave, S/m players… consequently I do have a lot of S/m experience) has never had a general interest in puppy play.  For many years it was basically just me.  We used to have several littles in the group, and they were fun to pup-out with, but even the littles are gone now.  Even at Frolicon and Fantasm, for years, I was the only pup there… but now they seem to be coming out of the woodwork down there in Georgia.  It’s been fantastic for me, in 2012, to start sniffing around the Atlanta community this last year and find it (now) crawling w/ puppies!  I’m not alone any more.  *wags*

The other factor that has slowed me down some is that my Owner doesn’t have the same level of interests in puppy-associated fetishes.  We’re very compatible in many ways… but one thing that has slowed me down from buying puppy gear (I’d love to one day have a rubber pup-hood and latex “cat”-suit; I think I’d look pretty fetching) is my Owner doesn’t really have a fetish for rubber and she doesn’t like masks.  To me, masks are very spiritual.  Having read a lot anthropology and mythology, I associate masks w/ shamanism, and I think of pup play is very much a shamanistic transformation.  (And I think skin-tight rubber looks hot!)  But, for my Owner’s part, masks and hoods just creep her out.  And that’s okay; it’s just an interest we don’t share.  Of course rubber masks and suits are also pretty expensive, and so I’ve never yet been able to justify the expense… as much as I want to.  Maybe this will change in 2013 as I now have a new venue (Atlanta’s bi-monthly Dominion parties) where such gear would be appreciated.

As I said, in some ways it’s fun and exciting that (after so many years and so many cool experiences… and, yeah, one or two not so cool ones) to once again be feeling that newbie energy.  I’m now building up a wish list of what I want to do in the upcoming year (or two).  I have some puppy-life catching up to do.  *wags*