It’s another one of those, ‘so, let me tell you what I did for my summer vacation’ reports here at THE SEX FILES for this week. You know how I like to keep you abreast (or two) of my naughty journeying, my adventures with the like-minded, paint juicy pictures of the places I have been and the people I have seen. This working vacation kink weekend was one of the best trips I have ever been on.

I took a trip two weeks ago to St. Louis to give some classes, as much as to hang with one of my most bestest buds, fellow smut writer and my partner in teaching those classes, M. Christian. We were invited by the STL3, a non-profit organization with hundreds of members, who host and produce both the Spanksgiving & Beat Me in St Louis events every year (Chris and I were being flown-out and put up for Beat Me). For the past 20 years, STL3 has been delivering these August get together’s for St. Louis kinksters-and lots of men and women who come in from parts way beyond-and I am here to tell you they have this down cold!

From our ‘pick up’ at the airport, our volunteer driver (an actual ex-cab driver, among his many talents and jobs), whose name will remain a secret (but who Chris and I instantly took to) showed us top notch hospitality. Really, we were in expert hands, as our driver took us the half and hour from the airport in Missouri over a beautiful bridge spanning the Mississippi into Illinois (catching a good look at the famous Gateway Arch and hearing some interesting info about it), informed us of other sights along the way and had us joking and laughing. Chris and I tend to be slightly insular when we hang, it’s something we both work hard on trying not to be, but as a result of not getting to see one another so much we do get to talking in a way I fear sometimes excludes folks around us. But with our driver (for reasons of privacy I can’t really tell you anyone’s name of the people we met at this event) we just fell right in line like a trio of buds who had known one another for years, joking, throwing out asides and arcane references, so much so when we landed at our hotel, we didn’t even want to get out of the car!

Checked in at both the hotel and for the event, Chris and I dropped our bags and got acclimated. This mid-afternoon saw a goodly amount of folk already in, but for the most part this was the day old friends got to see one another for the first time in a long time, or people were getting a lay of the land. I have been to a handful of kink conventions where the organizers have enough attendees to rent out the entire hotel, and such was the case with STL3, as they have been at full occupancy at this event for some time. It’s just simply easier when people can walk around comfortable enough to know that everyone in their immediate influence shares the same sensibilities, outfits (or lack of them) and can go by unnoticed, or appreciated at the very least, and feel safe and secure.

Chris and I already suspected that from the way the reservations had been handled, that this group had everything working like clockwork. On the way in our driver gave us a crash course on how the STL3 had one person for one job, a guy or gal who did that job well and was part of a crack-jack working whole organization who didn’t micromanage. But when we entered the hospitality suite, started shaking hands and met the organization’s head/event chairperson and his officers you could tell right away this was a congenial group who did what they did well because simply they wanted things to run well. Instantly you realized there was no ego here, at least not in the sense that one person’s hubris got in the way. Big, fun personalities, all, stained (in a good way) with a mid-western sociability Chris and I instantly took to.

You simply could not love every single one of these people enough, really…and the freaking food cooked for us presenters each meal and everyday was spectacular. There was lots of it and of a great variety, snacks and drinks all day too. This is no small point (and to an east-coast Italian boy food is most important), but presenters at these events are often shown a hospitality table that consists of bags of chips, water, maybe a smattering of sad sandwiches come lunch time. Hardly ever do you get three squares, of hot food, cooked by the main dude of the event (a very good cook indeed), copious amounts of snacks (both healthy and not so…guess which I partook of) all day long, plus the STL3 hosted midnight gourmet buffets for everyone.

As for the actual ‘meat and taters’ of the kinks going on about us?

At seven thirty or so, after grabbing dinner, meeting more folks, managing the requisite round of coffees and checking where our classes would be the next day (and even managing to nap for a few hours…by the way, the rooms were perfect, big, clean, etc.) Chris and I stepped into the big ballroom on the ground floor of the hotel to witness the opening ceremony welcome from the STL3 head. He really is a congenial guy, tends to go for big laughs and naughty asides; Chris and I really came to love him, truth be told. Then we took a few steps around what was a make-shift big dungeon area (10,000 sq ft of it actually). Various players were engaging in spanking, some rope bondage, various other pursuits, all under the watchful eyes of DM’s (dungeon masters), and the same was true for what was happening in the smaller Medical Room adjacent. For most conventions of this type the dungeon is what a good percentage of the people come to partake in, and the STL3’s dungeon was run very professional indeed.

This is no vanilla event to be sure, only kinksters are welcome here.

In part two of this report I’ll get into the classes Chris and I taught (there ended up being over 40 classes for this weekend), seeing the famous Arch and all the rest of our adventuring with the wonderful folks at Beat Me In St. Louis.

For now, check out their three primary links and what’s happening from them in the near future:

(Nov 18th – 20th) – Spanksgiving

The STL3.com website.

GatewayALC.com–The Gateway Alternative Lifestyle Center-STL3’s ‘venue’.