The scene in front of me is strange: A young woman, wearing
a unicorn mask, is lying across the knees of a bearded man in glasses. He is
spanking her. She counts out each blow out loud, pausing only to add “Lord
Vader” at the end of the number. “Five, Lord Vader,” she says, her voice
muffled by the mask, then “Six, Lord Vader.”
For some reason, we are all giggling. This show, part of a
demonstration about BDSM, is way outside the well-trod Fifty Shades of
Grey realm. In the thirty minutes Sunny Megatron and
her partner Ken
Melvoin-Berg spend teaching a small crowd at a porn convention about
the joys of dominance and submission, they go from talking about light spanking
to a terrifying account of using a razor and Icy-Hot to trick a sub (completely
willing and consenting) into believing that her throat had been slit upon
accident. The goal of BDSM, they say, is to give the submissive a roller
coaster experience. And even though I’m only listening to Sunny talk cheerfully
about screaming “Oh no, we’ve made a horrible mistake!” as she and Ken
convinced a woman (for a split-second) that her life really might be over, my
body still feels exactly the way it would right before the first drop of an
amusement park ride. By the end of the presentation, I’m breathing heavily and
really confused about my feelings. Do I ever want to try BDSM or do I want to
stay away from it forever? Isn’t my fear a suggestion that I should try it?
I first met Sunny Megatron earlier this year when I wrote
about her excellent show Sex
With Sunny Megatron, which ended its first season run on Showtime
a few months ago (Sunny and Ken are crossing their fingers for a second season;
so am I). Delighted by her excitement about a man who loves the
feel of bugs crawling all over his face and body, I followed her on
Twitter. Then, I met her at the AVNs. And then, after watching her and Ken flog
a woman with a rubber chicken, I knew I had to talk to them about getting into
the world of BDSM. There’s something about Sunny and Ken that’s different from
other sex educators, many of whom are so sex-positive that any awkwardness or
reticence on the part of the student is met with judgment. Sunny and Ken are
funny, real, not always serious—as sex should be.
I spoke to Sunny and Ken on the phone just after midnight on
a day in late February.
I call you guys the friendliest couple in BDSM. Can I
call you that?
Ken: Yeah, absolutely.
Sunny: Yeah, we will beat you but then we’ll
give you a cupcake afterwards.
Ken: I turn into a Jewish grandmother if I think
I hit you in a place where I didn’t mean to.
I want to get your take on what people who are interested
in trying BDSM and should do if they want to try it in a safe, effective way
that isn’t scary.
Sunny: First thing they should do, is start
reading. There are great sites. There are so many books out. (Tristan Taormino
has a great kink book.) Start learning. Don’t feel that you should pigeonhole
yourself into a role. Do a lot of self-examination. Stay open-minded. What you
think you are interested in today, you may hate when you do it. Or, you may
love it. And then next week you may be into something totally different or want
to play a different role. That’s fine.
Ken: I would also encourage people to take a
look at different TV shows and movies that portray BDSM so that they can start
getting a feel for what’s real and what’s not. Reading Fifty Shades of
Grey is a great starter area for people to look at. Then, they might
want to readMaster of O or The Story of O. They might
want to take a look at Anne Rice’s Beauty series. Somewhere in
the middle of that and Fifty Shades is probably going to be
the truth.
I think a lot of people who I’ve talked to about trying
BDSM have done this thing where they go to a sex shop, get an instructional
manual, come home, and find it really dry and prescriptive. Is that a
misconception about BDSM? The fact that it’s really prescriptive?
Sunny: It is. When you’re looking at the
educational material, yeah, a lot of it is going to be dry. It’s educational
material! And then, when you’re looking at some of the books, erotica, movies,
etc., that’s way over the top fantasy—stuff that maybe you’re not really going
to do in real life but it gets you hot to read about it. Where you need to meet
is somewhere in the middle. To make your fantasies come alive, but recognize
you can’t do it like it is in the movies or the book; to follow safe protocol
and know what you’re doing at the same time. It’s a balance.
Ken: There’s something Sunny always says that I think
is a great quote and that’s “you don’t watch pornography as a manual of how to
do sex.” Much of it’s for its entertainment value.
But don’t believe the dry manuals on BDSM that say “there’s
only one true way.” There is no one true way. You have to expose yourself to a
variety of different things. I really encourage people to go on FetLife or a
similar website and find out where there’s a meet up of just regular, everyday
people that have a meeting at a restaurant. That’s called a munch. You don’t
have leather on. You have your regular clothes. You’re drinking a cup of coffee
or a beer and talking to other like-minded souls. It’s like a church for
perverts.
Sunny: One thing that I think is really
important is don’t just go with one source as the end-all, be-all. Different
things that different people say are going to resonate with you. What you’re
going to do is construct your own way out of that. The more sources you can
use, the more you can open up your kink-portfolio so you can find more of what
calls to you.
One of the things you’ve mentioned before is that if
you’re into BDSM, you don’t have to be into all the preparation that goes into
BDSM. People who are into BDSM are going into all different types of things.
Ken: Absolutely. Me and Sunny, there’s sometimes
where we have unicorn masks on, we’re fucking each other. There’s pumps
involved and floggers. Sometimes, we’re just going at it.
Sunny: I think most of the time people think
S&M and BDSM sex is a lot of hard work and planning. Most of the time,
it’s, “Hey, I want to get off.”
When I think about BDSM, I actually have a pretty skewed
view because I started reading De Sade when I was 16-years-old and was afraid
that BDSM involved a crazy Frenchman coming to to my house to kill me after
castrating me.
Ken: You wish!
I do! When I saw your workshop, BDSM looked so much
friendlier. Other workshops that I’ve seen, even on a college campus have been
much more intense. Halfway through I’m like “This is just scary. I’ve got to
go.”
Ken: Yeah. You see a lot of that. Sometimes
Dommie McMasterton is the one who’s teaching the course. They’re very leather,
very serious. But Sunny and I, before we even told each other we loved one
another, were dating for one year with no protocol set up other than constant
communication. I think that was the key. We both laugh during sex. We joke a
lot.
As we explored one another—and I’ve been doing this a lot
longer than her—I’ll tell you what I learned: I haven’t found anybody as fun or
as sexy or as entertaining as my wife. We have fully explored many aspects of
BDSM together. She started off bottoming. She didn’t really like it very much.
She’s like my evil co-pilot. She’s my evil sister.
Sunny: Before I was involved in BDSM, that dark,
serious aspect of it turned me off. Not that it was scary, but it made me
laugh. I was like, “Are you people serious? I can’t do that.” Really, BDSM to
me is about play. It’s about assuming different characters, playing with
different roles. It’s like play theory. Why do little kids play? Why do kittens
play? Why do, when we grow up, some of us play Dungeons and Dragons or go
golfing?
There are lots of different reasons that we play. It’s an
outlet. BDSM is another extension of play. When you’re playing, you don’t
always have to play the same game or have the same attitude. I’m a laughy,
jokey, light, fun person. That comes out in my play. I can’t play a character
that’s dark and scary that I don’t relate to. That’s not me.
Ken, you’ve talked about the serious stuff. I remember
you mentioning going to a dungeon and told them your name was something like
Thunderpants.
Ken: Yeah. They kept asking me. “All right.
What’s your name?” “I’m Ken.” “Well, what’s your name here?” “My
name here is Ken.” They kept asking me, repeatedly. I had to have
some scene name.
Sunny: ”What’s your scene name?”
Ken: I just used the only thing I could think of
that was in my mind at that time, which was my Starbucks name. When I go to
Starbucks, I either call myself Fatty McFatAss or Thunderpants. One or the
other, just because I like to see them laugh. They write it on a cup. They’re
like, “let’s see. We have a Double Chocolaty for Fatty McFatAss. Fatty
McFatAss. Are you in the house?” Thunderpants was the one that I was using at
that time. I’m “Lord Thunderpants,” which also happens to be just enough
characters to completely fill out a FetLife profile.
Are people responsive to a profile like that? [Ed
note: Sunny told me her fetlife name but asked that it not be published.]
Sunny: Oh, yeah. They’re like, “Oh my God!
That’s hilarious. That’s great.” We’re poking fun at ourselves. We’re poking
fun at the seriousness of BDSM. It’s not about, “Who can wear the most leather
and latex and be the most serious?” It’s about playing, having fun, tapping
into your psyche. It’s learning things about yourself, about your partner,
tapping into yourself physically and learning the things that your body can do.
That’s fun!
After your workshop I thought “Huh. I might want to try
this again.” The only time I’ve ever tried it was we went down to the porn
store and bought the BDSM beginner’s guide, which came with a small booklet and
I think a flogger or something. I remember thinking “This is boring. I don’t
know what to do here.”
Ken: There’s one really great book that isn’t
being referenced very much these days. Were you ever in the Boy Scouts, when
you were a kid?
No.
Ken: You’ve maybe seen like a Boy Scout Handbook
before?
Yes.
Ken: It shows you this kind of knot does this,
this is how you do basic first aid, this is what a poisonous spider looks like.
There’s this great book called, Screw the Roses, Send me the Thorns.It
was like the bible for S&M when I first started out because it told you how
to do the most basic things that all of these other books aren’t telling you to
do. How to do the knot, how to do a single tail whip, how to make a gag. Also,
how to have fun with it and how to talk to somebody. It’s a great book that is
very much overlooked. It’s all we used up until like 1998, as an instructional
manual for almost everyone.
Sunny: It’s kind of like BDSM’s answer to The
Joy of Cooking. You pick up The Joy of Cookingfor “How do I
pluck a chicken again? How do I do this basic thing? Or, what temperature do I
bake a potato?” Just the basic stuff.
Ken: Instead of The Joy of Cooking,
you look at Screw the Roses, Send me the Thorns. It tells you every
basic thing that you need to know. The authors are Philip Miller and Molly
Devon.
How did you discover the laughing and the unicorn masks
and the rubber chickens? Why did you start doing it on stage?
Ken: I’ve actually got a couple reasons. Every
time I do something like that, I very carefully think it out. The first thing
is that I want her [the submissive] to feel at ease. That
little bit of humor puts it at an edge where she feels comfortable on stage.
The second thing is it’s actually a sensory deprivation device. The only thing
that she can see out of the unicorn mask are those two nostrils. Everybody in
the audience is at ease because they’re looking at her looking ridiculous. She
knows she looks ridiculous but she’s more at ease because she can’t really see
or hear anything other than what’s going through the nostrils. It also helps
her hyper focus on whatever I’m doing to her.
If I’m spanking her, she’s feeling it more. If I’m doing
something that is arousing her sense of smell, she’s smelling it more. So on
and so on. It’s a great tool overall, for a number of different reasons. That’s
also one of the reasons why we do things like clowning in BDSM. It puts us and
other people at ease. They’re more likely to want to do fun things in that kind
of a situation.
Think about it, you’re at a piano bar. There’s a bunch of
guys there. They’re all cruising around. Are you going to want to look for the
guy who looks like super, duper creepers that are checking everybody out or
would you go to the guy who had the unicorn mask out who was blowing up
balloons and having fun?
Probably the latter.
Sunny: I always regarded sex as fun. I would do
silly things and laugh during sex. But I’d get partners who were like, “What
the hell are you doing?” The thing for me was BDSM allowed you to be whoever
the hell you were. It was okay just to be.
Ken: It worked great for both of us.
It seems like you really have to find the right person
and place. Some people you can go to for really great information and laughing
and such. Some, however are so “sex-positive” that it feels like it’s actually
kind of harsh.
Ken: They’ve been so politically correct that
you’re not able to have fun even in a very simple way.
Sunny: Mm hmm. I look at people who are
attracted to the BDSM community or any alternate community. They are looking
for something different. Oftentimes, they’re looking to find the part of
themselves that’s been buried or whatnot. But sometimes they just become one of
the stereotypes, like everybody else.
Would you say that some people are coming into BDSM in
search of an identity?
Sunny: Right. They want to belong. They fall
into what they think they should be. If, what they honestly are inside is the
person who’s very serious, who wears latex. That’s awesome. For some people,
that’s really them. So many other people are going along with it because
they’re not sure. In any kind of group or society, we have the pressure to go
along with status quo.
Ken: A young girl who just came to me for some
assistance who just recently got involved in S&M about three months ago.
She had been with her dom for, I want to say, two weeks. Suddenly, they were
collared, which is like an S&M version of a marriage—that’s a really quick
period of time to have it. As you can imagine, a week later, they were hating
each other. After talking to her for a bit, I actually recommended that she
simply consider just being monogamous and doing normal, not normal, but like...
Sunny: Average.
Ken: ...Having an average sort of relationship
instead of looking for fringe. She was recently out of a bad marriage and
wanted to explore. But she wasn’t seeking the sort of person that she is really
like. I think that that’s a lot of what S&M is. What makes it good is when
you’re seeking someone within your own tribe.
It sounds like that would be difficult, though. I think
it’ll be a bit different now that Fifty Shades Of Grey has
come out, but I think that I could easily go on OkCupid and find somebody who
likes to laugh and play Nintendo. It’d be much harder to say “I’m really into
BDSM. I’m also into laughing while I’m doing it.”
Ken: It’s funny that you say that. My Tinder
profile, not too long ago—and both of us have Tinder profiles and OkCupid—said,
“Hi. I’m Ken. I like comic books and science fiction and zombies and blah,
blah, blah.”
A week ago, or two weeks ago, I said, “Fuck it.” I decided
to change it. I wrote, “I’m going to abduct you, stick your head in a toilet,
and anally fist you. That would be our first date.” Within five minutes, I got
ten times more responses than I ever had in the other profile.
All legitimate responses?
Ken: Some legitimate and other people who just
thought I was being very clever and kitschy. Most people that respond to
profiles, on any form of social media, are looking for something specific. For
the demographic I’m looking for, those people really responded well to me being
very honest about what I would do, or they assumed “Oh my God! This guy must be
joking.”
Sunny: “He’s hilarious!”
Or he’s a psychopath? Have you had any of that reaction?
Ken: No. They meet me and they realize that I’m
cracking a couple of jokes along with it, and the risky stuff I do, I explain
to people in detail before I do it. I want to make sure they’re consenting to
do this, but also to know if anything I do might trigger them later.
But, do I do risky, kind of crazy shit? Absolutely. I’ve
done everything from being involved with abduction scenes to interrogation
scenes, clown stuff. Believe it or not, Mark, it’s the clown thing that freaks
people out more than anything else. Coulrophobia, as I’m sure you know, is
probably one of the top phobias in the world. It boils down to one thing.
Inability to read facial expressions. If they can’t tell what emotion I’m
feeling versus what’s being displayed on my face, suddenly people think I’m the
creepy clown from American Horror Story season four, as
opposed to Ken, the funny guy, who just happens to have clown makeup on.
Sunny: That reminds me of another thing. A
benefit to being funny, when it comes to S&M and life: your serious seems a
lot more serious compared to your funny. You can get a lot of mileage by being
psychologically diverse. You can be more psychologically sadistic when you have
a larger range of behavior or emotion.
Ken: You know what’s an interesting example of this.
Are you married? Do you have a boyfriend that’s living with you right now?
Yeah.
Ken: Is he in this room?
No. He’s in another room.
Ken: There’s a joke that is a perfect example of
this. I would like you to do to him at some point just to see how he reacts. It
goes like this. “Knock, knock.”
Who’s there?
Ken: KGB.
WE ASK THE QUESTIONS AROUND HERE!
Ken: Yeah! Then smack him in the face.
I will tell you I have done that joke on my partner
several times. He thinks it’s funny. I actually got a lot of hate mail a while
back when I made him see a gross
movie and he was fine with it, but the internet wasn’t.
Sunny: Yeah. You know that you have a
relationship with him. You know what his boundaries are. You wouldn’t really
purposely hurt him.
Would you say that knowing the person and being able to
communicate clearly is more important than any actual skills you might have in
the BDSM world?
Ken: I would actually say that communicating to
that person in a way they can understand is more important. You need to know
what your submissive has desire for.
Sunny: For me, I feel more comfortable knowing
the person to some degree. If I don’t know you, I could fuck some shit up. I
need to be able to look at you and be, “Wait a minute. Something’s not right.
I’m going to check in.” If that’s a stranger or somebody you don’t know very
well, the likelihood of you being able to do that effectively is diminished.
That Icy Hot thing, where you put Icy Hot on the flat end
of a straight razor and then run it against the throat of someone who’s
blindfolded. You make them believe that you’ve actually slit their throat. I
would probably never want to do this, but I can’t get my mind off of it.
Ken: We just did that in LA.
Was that with people you knew or people you didn’t know?
Ken: No. It was with somebody that I had vetted
very carefully, and I actually talked to her top for an extended period of time
so we could do this in a way that it would be safe.
He was there during the whole thing, and she jumped a little
bit but I don’t think she was nearly as frightened as other people that I’ve
done this to in the past because she knew that her dom was in the room—that
there was no way he would let somebody put a straight razor up against her
throat and cut her. I asked her afterwards, “Why didn’t you jump or react as
much?” That was her exact answer. She knew her dom was in the room.
Sunny: Right. She said she was confused. “Wait!
What’s going on?” She said, “I think if you would have done it to my arm, I
would have been more freaked out.” She said, “The fact that you did it to my
neck, I knew that he wouldn’t let you do that for real.” It was interesting.
She was disoriented and confused for a couple of minutes.
Did she enjoy it?
Sunny: She did.
Ken: She enjoyed it very much. She sent me a
long thank you note afterwards.
It’s very different from the Fifty Shades type
of BDSM. There’s no laughing there.
Ken: Some people expect the title “Master” to be
branded on you and then people have to assume that what you say is correct, but
one of the best lessons I ever had about this was from one of my former
submissives before she was my submissive. I was in a bar. I was playing with
her. She said, “No, you can’t do that.” I’m like, “Why not?” She says,
“Although I am a submissive, I’m not your submissive.” That
was something that really resonated with me.
Sunny: Right. I think overall when it comes to
BDSM, especially new people coming in, yes, there are absolute truths that you
need to follow. When it comes to technique and safety. When it comes to
obtaining consent. Hygiene. That’s sort of thing.
Ken: Nobody likes stinky balls. That’s the other
thing I think I’ve learned. I’ve had some S&M sessions where I’ve shaved my
nuts. I’ve washed myself really well.
You can’t just jump right into risky play, right?
Ken: Yeah. I’d say wait for anything that’s
risky. Really, really look into watching TV shows, books, website. Go to a
munch before you dive right in.
Sunny: I would just also tell people to take it
slowly. Once they dip their toes in the water, they are like kids in a candy
store. They’re diving into everything. But kink is not going anywhere. Your ass
is not going anywhere. You have all the time in the world. It’s much better to
leave yourself or someone else wanting more than doing too much and being,
“What the fuck did I just do?” and traumatizing yourself or somebody else.
Ken: In fact, I still have tricks that I have up
my sleeve that I haven’t shown Sunny. We’ve been together for six years now. I
purposely hold stuff back just because I want to be able to tantalize and amaze
her with some cool trick that I’ve never used on her before 20 years from now.
That’s an important thing to do. If you have this repertoire of knowledge then
you don’t want to expend everything in the first year or five years. Pace
yourself out a little bit.
