taking apart the personal ad

happyfrosh recon profile
Most of the people who will read this blog already have a recon profile.  I'd like to talk about mine:

• I am submissive.  I am a top.  The former is who I am, the latter is what I do.  Someday I will make a good boy for a dominant.

The submissive top thing is a little odd for a lot of people.  I really do long to be in service to a dominant.  I have been collared, and it had meaning until it didn't.  I will work hard to earn another. (it was a bit strange topping bondage scenes with the physical collar around my neck, and often an awkward pre-meet negotiation)
But bondage topping has been about something different for me.  I realize that I am a service top, and am working hard to own that label. 
Most people tend to ignore one of the two first sentences. 

• In terms of bondage I lean towards chains and locks. I like using the feel of stainless steel against skin, and I really like locks.  But I have been enjoying topping with rope and climbing webbing.   The webbing is the candy colored ribbon stuff in the dungeon photos. It's difficult to use, but it's amazingly strong and really comfortable.
  I like rope.

While I am of course looking for a dom, I don't think I will find him on recon.  So now I need to present myself for the people I am likely to meet on recon.  This could have taken the form of a laundry list of equipment.  A sentence about each of the mediums should convey that I consider myself competent with these media. 
At first people knew me as exclusively chain driven. 
Then I was one of the few people who was posting photos with climbing webbing.  I discovered that I could safely do suspensions with a lot less material than traditional rope suspensions. 
I started studying rope.  At first mostly to prove to rope tops that my fascination with chain was a design decision and not a shortcut from difficult work.  Then I started really intense studying rope on the assumption that my then Dom would eventually withdraw permission to bondage top, and wanting to make a name for myself in the community first.
Then something strange happened.  I began to really like rope. The research and development scenes in the basement were almost a meditation.  And when I was applying the rope I was happy.
I still use chain and webbing.  Chain is easy to clean.  Webbing is comfortable for large suspensions.

• Dungeon construction is finished.  Lots of really nice hard attach points in the floor, walls, and ceiling. Tasteful lighting.  The hard points in the walls are nice for floggings.  The hard points in the ceiling are good for suspension.  The hard points in the floor are excellent for practical bondage.  The winch is fun.
  The playroom was disassembled when the dungeon came online.

Mentioning the dungeon at all is significantly about trying to help with the confusion caused by those first two sentences.
This is almost the continuation of the non-existent equipment laundry list.  But I tried to tie them back to activities that I want to do with the equipment.  I like looking at boys in bondage.  I like flogging boys.  I like suspending boys.  I like making boys helpless on the floor.  Mentioning the winch to me makes it clear that this is really intended as a dungeon and not a mixed use space.
I still have a folder of photos labeled playroom.  People made the easy assumption that the playroom was still the location that play happened.

•  For me the eroticism is largely visual.  I really get off on the visuals of the bondage and light struggle.  I really like watching the body language of a boy feeling pleasure.  This also means that the dungeon is often more brightly lit than people are used to.
• I like taking photos, but respect the rules and comfort zones of others. (that's why some people are not shown and others do not have face shots)

I understand that I am there to service. But it loses a lot for me as a top unless the view is good.  The dungeon is the brightest room of the house.  The lighting controls for the dungeon have more dimmers than the rest of the house combined.  This is not usual. 
This comes from my fetish starting as voyeuristic.  I quickly learned that people are less uncomfortable with a voyeur if he is participating.  And if he is participating with a skill, people may come back.  Becoming a bondage top allowed me to really watch boys in pleasure under good lighting.
I started out not mentioning or using cameras at all.  When I started using a camera a while later I used my cell phone camera.  It was small and obviously not professional. And people seemed relatively comfortable.  I started mentioning cameras upfront and brought out a small SLR.  I mentioned camera on my recon profile and I started shooting with a large high quality lens.  I leave the camera in plain sight in the dungeon, so it is one of the first things that the boy sees when he walks in.  It took me a long time to get the courage to ask for that consent.  I don't usually however take photos of newbies.  Mostly because stopping for the photography moment would require stepping out of the scene, and might make the newbie more uncomfortable.
As a practical matter, one guy didn't want photos, two guys didn't want their faces posted, and two guys didn't want their identifying tattoos posted.  In general people want to give photographic consent.

• there are some things that don't really interest me:
  - cigars
  - watersports
  - blood
  - breath control
  - women
  - animals

In general I don't expect these things to come up.  But the people who are into these things are really evangelical. 
My real limits are a bit less out there.

•  I am always looking for boys to practice on.

Boys respond differently.  While I really enjoy tying up my roommate, I enjoy watching new people and new reactions.  The use of the word practice is intentional.  Things don't always work.  But I want to learn from the successes and failures alike.

• I had a great time on my trip to Delta 2010.

This is to allow the other people from Delta to find my profile through the obvious searches.While I had a great time at Delta I didn't really exchange contact information with that many people.  So making myself easy to find became important.

• Profile picture of my back is September2010. Mountaintop photo of me is November2010. Most of the pictures of me are summer2009.  (I've put on a bit of muscle since then.)  All of the unbound photos in the main profile are of me.  All of the photos in the 'boys in playroom' and 'boys in dungeon' folder were taken by me of my work on other people.

All of the profile pictures were current at the time that they were posted.  As they age they become less relevant.  Making it clear that I am not trying to mislead with the photos is important.

• My experiences as a bottom have significantly shaped me.  I have had some wonderful tops teach me about myself through bondage. Some of the lessons that I have learned in this manner:
  - My nipples are confusing. (standing bondage)
  - I like the violet wand. (chained to a wall)
  - Feelings of helplessness rely on regular reminders. (ankles chained to wrists)
  - The cessation of pain is an amazing pleasure. (carpeted floor after a partial suspension)
  - I like webbing. (webbing full suspension)
  - There is pleasure in the emptiness of completely letting go. (flogging)
  - Submission requires letting go and relaxing. (bamboo and hemp floor work)
  - Even symbolic bondage is profound without visual cues. (leather restraints and hood)
  - higher reasoning is still possible during pain (plastic nipple clamps and spanking)
  - relaxation comes with not watching the engineering in order to pay attention to the bondage (rope harness attached to chain fence)

I am trying to say that I am not an exclusive top.  That I know how to bottom, and that it has at times been a profound experience for me.

• d/d free 12/2010.

I do play with poz boys.  But at the same time I know that I look at the status as presented on rival site manhunt.  If I'm looking for that information I have an obligation to provide it to others.
I hope that the drug free portion of that will get the PNP boys to move along.

• I only respond to people that have both photo and descriptive text in their profile.  I have been open and honest in my profile.  I ask the same of others.

With the introduction of the recon iPhone app, there was a sudden explosion of profiles without photos or text.  With missing fields.  These profiles are sorta creepy.  The requests that come from these profiles are often creepy. (no, not planning to be a 24/7/365 slave to somebody I have never seen or met) 

• People who I list as friends know me or my play firsthand.

The BDSM world is heavily referral/reference based.  This doesn't work as well in the online world.  Presenting my list of friends as a reference list allows them some likelihood of finding a person that we know in common, whose feedback is trusted by both parties.

It isn't the greatest recon profile out there.  But I think it says a lot about me.