went by, and nothing happened. I still considered myself a beginner, and didn’t even have a girlfriend at the time, so I didn’t feel it was my place to do anything about the situation. I kept waiting for the senior members of our community to do something.
Finally, as I am wont to do, I ran out of patience regarding the situation and decided to start a club on my own. I named it “Gemini” because of the “double life” I and many of my friends were forced to live regarding our SM interest. (Gemini is also my astrological sign, but that fact was purely secondary.) I placed ads in a local adult newspaper and spread the news through word of mouth. On my way to the Hooker’s Ball of 1978, I mailed the invitations to the first Gemini event.
And, boy, did we ever start out small. Our first event was a discussion-only meeting held on a Sunday afternoon at some picnic tables in a secluded part of a Berkeley park. (I wasn’t about to invite people I didn’t know to anyone’s private home.) Seven people showed up — five men and two women, if I remember correctly.
The discussion went well enough, and I decided to hold an SM dinner party at which the submissives would prepare and serve dinner to the dominants. That event drew around a dozen people, including both a “lifestyle” couple and a master who brought both of his female slaves.
Gemini grew from there. The parties got more organized, I got better at running things, and we slowly grew. Many people in the community understandably felt dubious about Gemini at first (I mean, who was this guy and what gave him the right to take on a job this big?), but they learned that I was committed to this task and that the organization was here to stay.
Continuing education. During this time, I also attended my first meetings of the Society of Janus. I met its founder, Cynthia Slater, and many other people who were also doing pioneering work in SM sexuality. Janus was almost exclusively composed of gay men in those days, and platoons of black-leather-clad guys filled our meeting areas. Several SM lesbians also attended, along with a few professional dominants and a sprinkling of bisexuals and heterosexuals.
Whenever I’m in bottom space I become sort of non-verbal. It becomes hard for me to remember how to talk.
The level of knowledge and skill these folks possessed was incredibly advanced. I was clearly back “in school” here. Other than once being asked to give a lecture on rope bondage techniques (a subject that remained dear to my heart) I listened a lot more than I talked.
I gained many insights while discussing SM with people who were other than heterosexual. Listening to men talk about what it was like to erotically dominate or submit to another man, and listening to women talk about what it was like to erotically dominate or submit to another woman, proved fascinating. I also talked with bisexuals, some of whom would only dominate one gender and only submit to the other. Again, hearing about that led to priceless knowledge.
I took a certain amount of kidding about being a “token het” in Janus. One day a leather-clad man came up to me and said, “You know, Jay, I have so much in common with you and yet I still can’t figure you out. We’re both in Mensa, we’re both est graduates, we’re both into SM, and we’re both dominants, and yet you’re straight and I’m gay.” When I nodded, he continued, “To this day, I’m still trying to figure out where you went wrong.”
Raising and letting go of my “child.” Gemini was tough to build from scratch. It could have folded at several different points, and many people expected it to do exactly that. But the Gemini Society kept on existing, sometimes for absolutely no other reason than because I kept on insisting that it exist, kept on recruiting new members, kept on putting on parties, and just generally kept on.
Gemini eventually made it “over the hump” and was accepted as part of the Bay
Finally, as I am wont to do, I ran out of patience regarding the situation and decided to start a club on my own. I named it “Gemini” because of the “double life” I and many of my friends were forced to live regarding our SM interest. (Gemini is also my astrological sign, but that fact was purely secondary.) I placed ads in a local adult newspaper and spread the news through word of mouth. On my way to the Hooker’s Ball of 1978, I mailed the invitations to the first Gemini event.
And, boy, did we ever start out small. Our first event was a discussion-only meeting held on a Sunday afternoon at some picnic tables in a secluded part of a Berkeley park. (I wasn’t about to invite people I didn’t know to anyone’s private home.) Seven people showed up — five men and two women, if I remember correctly.
The discussion went well enough, and I decided to hold an SM dinner party at which the submissives would prepare and serve dinner to the dominants. That event drew around a dozen people, including both a “lifestyle” couple and a master who brought both of his female slaves.
Gemini grew from there. The parties got more organized, I got better at running things, and we slowly grew. Many people in the community understandably felt dubious about Gemini at first (I mean, who was this guy and what gave him the right to take on a job this big?), but they learned that I was committed to this task and that the organization was here to stay.
Continuing education. During this time, I also attended my first meetings of the Society of Janus. I met its founder, Cynthia Slater, and many other people who were also doing pioneering work in SM sexuality. Janus was almost exclusively composed of gay men in those days, and platoons of black-leather-clad guys filled our meeting areas. Several SM lesbians also attended, along with a few professional dominants and a sprinkling of bisexuals and heterosexuals.
Whenever I’m in bottom space I become sort of non-verbal. It becomes hard for me to remember how to talk.
The level of knowledge and skill these folks possessed was incredibly advanced. I was clearly back “in school” here. Other than once being asked to give a lecture on rope bondage techniques (a subject that remained dear to my heart) I listened a lot more than I talked.
I gained many insights while discussing SM with people who were other than heterosexual. Listening to men talk about what it was like to erotically dominate or submit to another man, and listening to women talk about what it was like to erotically dominate or submit to another woman, proved fascinating. I also talked with bisexuals, some of whom would only dominate one gender and only submit to the other. Again, hearing about that led to priceless knowledge.
I took a certain amount of kidding about being a “token het” in Janus. One day a leather-clad man came up to me and said, “You know, Jay, I have so much in common with you and yet I still can’t figure you out. We’re both in Mensa, we’re both est graduates, we’re both into SM, and we’re both dominants, and yet you’re straight and I’m gay.” When I nodded, he continued, “To this day, I’m still trying to figure out where you went wrong.”
Raising and letting go of my “child.” Gemini was tough to build from scratch. It could have folded at several different points, and many people expected it to do exactly that. But the Gemini Society kept on existing, sometimes for absolutely no other reason than because I kept on insisting that it exist, kept on recruiting new members, kept on putting on parties, and just generally kept on.
Gemini eventually made it “over the hump” and was accepted as part of the Bay
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