How did you get into BDSM art and fiction?
I've always been kinky that way--my earliest fantasies were about bound women, damsels in distress (blame it on "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop", James Bond and assorted old horror films). I stuffed a lot of that for a long time, then started doing erotic art (nudes, pinups) in my thirties to challenge myself. (I had been doing fantasy, scifi, and "nice safe" landscapes.) I had also been studying Japanese martial arts, which led to a collision with Hojojutsu (martial rope restraint techniques) which expressed itself popularly as the modern Shibari (Japanese Rope Bondage), which I thought was just beautiful. The problem was, I was living in a rather conservative state at the time. But when I moved to far Northern California, the community was rich with alternative lifestyles, and lots of folks (male and female) were really liking my art. That gave me the opportunity to go "public" with it, doing shows, putting on seminars, working with other artists and more models (and test readers). I've even given lectures on BDSM at the local State University (and showed off my questionable skills with a bullwhip in the local erotic circus). Now it's just settled into being my semi-secret "alter ego", since I have to be a different person publically and professionally.
When did you first start writing erotica?
Not until the early "aughts", though the ideas for what became "Tales of the Huntsman" had been stewing in my brain for a long time, along with a few other concepts. I'd been writing my "other stuff" since I was a teenager, but had to grow up a lot before I finally got brave enought to start "Tales" as kind of a creative experiment, a dare to myself, as I'd been pretty inhibited about writing any kind of sexual scenes in my mainstream books. (Hey, my mom reads those!) So I kept the whole thing secret, then slowly started showing it to a few "intimate" friends, who helped me a great deal with the fine tuning. But I sat on "Tales" for a decade, with no intention to ever publish it.
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