Dr. Liz: What tips do you have for preparing for your first kink event?
I mean the tips that I would give folks is like number one, you don’t have to do all of that.
I promise.
All the shopping you think you need to do, all the preparing you think you need to do, you’re going to go through the whole schedule and try to highlight every single class you want to go to but you don’t need to.
It’s OK.
Rebecca: We had backups to like if we can’t get into this one then which one?
We had a whole plan.
It’s not necessary.
Dr. Liz: Right.
Rebecca: We overthought.
Dr. Liz: Yeah.
And that’s the thing is that I think whenever you’re going into a new event, it’s pretty normal for a lot of people to feel like they want to overprepare so that they are ready for everything.
And I think especially with these kinds of kink events, you’re not necessarily going to know how you want to experience that until you’re there.
There have been several years I’ve gone to big kink events and I’ve taught one or two classes, attended like two or three more and spent most of the rest of the time in the vendor hall, hanging out with friends, doing other things because what I needed was more community and those kinds of experiences than like a bunch of classes or learning.
So I would say like do less.
You don’t need to bring 3,000 costumes.
You can.
I support you.
But you don’t necessarily need it.
You don’t need to have every toy you think you’re ever going to need because you’re going to want to buy a million toys there.
Rebecca: Take money or be prepared to spend money.
Dr. Liz: Set your budget before you go because you will talk yourself into spending so much more than you thought you were going to.
Rebecca: Or just have the self-control to follow your budget because we definitely overspent.
Dr. Liz: I never followed my budget. I never do that ever.
Rebecca: I don’t regret it but we overspent.
Dr. Liz: Yeah.
And again, I think figure out what it is you want to get from the event.
What one thing do you want to make sure you get from the event?
Is it one class you want to make sure you make?
Is it one meet-up you want to make sure you go to?
Is it meeting one new person who you feel like to be a good friend or a good play partner?
What one thing do you want?
Because I think focusing on just one thing that’s the most important to you is going to make it way easier to make choices when you’re more tired than you thought you were going to be, when you haven’t eaten in 12 hours, all of a sudden you’re realizing you’re going to have start making choices about what to cut and get rid of.
And so knowing your main goal makes it easier to prioritize.
Another thing I would recommend especially if you are going to a kink event, get on FetLife.
Make a profile on FetLife.
You can be as anonymous as you want.
I actually have two FetLifes.
I have one as Dr. Liz and then I have one to be horny on.
So you can find my FetLife, IAmDrLiz, that’s my Dr. Liz one.
I’m not going to tell you my horny one because I need to be a little anonymous.
Everybody sometimes needs a little anonymity for different reasons.
For me, I have that more anonymous FetLife because I don’t want people to talk to me just because I’m Dr. Liz.
I want people to want to play with me because I’m me, the person, not Dr. Liz, the public figure.
So get a FetLife, FetLife.com.
It’s very straightforward.
It’s the ugliest social media you’ll ever use.
It has a horrendous geocities type interface.
You will feel like you are in 1990s internet land.
But it’s totally – it’s largely usable for the most part.
Most of the bigger kink events will have a group on FetLife that you can join where they will have different threads.
You can start talking to people.
Frolicon, which I’m going to next weekend had a wish list thread and so I put together a list of all the things I might want to do at the con, posted it in the wish list thread, now I’ve got like a dozen people I’m talking to about possibly playing with.
If you are someone who doesn’t know many people and you want to meet with people, volunteer.
Doing even just one volunteer shift will help you feel so much more at home.
If you are going alone without a partner or a friend group, doing a volunteer shift gives you an anchor point where you’re going to meet people, get entry to the event, have a way to figure out what’s going on, that’s a lot easier.
I think also another tip I would give for your first one is just go with an open mind because people go to these events for all different reasons and approach it in all different ways.
So I know some people who go to these giant kink events don’t attend a single class.
That’s not as important to them.
They would rather spend the daytime kind of resting up or like hanging out with friends at the hotel and then go and party all night at the dungeon.
Then there are some people I know who like go for the classes and they might pop in the dungeon but that’s not really what they’re there for.
So give yourself the space to try it out and see what feels better for you, where you want to be spending your time.
Don’t feel like you have to be at certain things or you have to be there for a certain amount of time.
Just listen to your body.
Listen to what’s working for you.
A good rule for any conference weekend is 6-2-1, a minimum 6 hours of sleep, 2 meals, and 1 shower every day.
That’s the minimum.
That is not the maximum.
So if you’re getting less than that, it’s time to check that and make sure you take care of your body.
I think the other tip I would give for your first big kink event is figure out what you’re going to need after because the crash can be a motherfucker.
Well, what’s your experience after this time?
Rebecca: I mean I think we came home like high as a kite and rode that for several days and I never felt the crash in the way that I’ve heard some people talk about it.
But about 4 days later, I just – I physically was not able to stay awake anymore.
I would get home from work, we make dinner, we do all the kid things we needed to do, and I would want to like sit down and hang out or talk or watch a movie or do something and I’m like, “Honey, it’s like 7:30. I’m going to bed.”
I just – I could not physically stay awake.
And so I needed more rest for a couple of days.
Dr. Liz: Right.
Rebecca: But I didn’t have the same emotional crash that I’ve heard people talk about.
Dr. Liz: Yeah.
I do tend to get the emotional crash.
I would get super depressed two, three days after an event and feel like I am super alone and nobody cares about me and nobody loves me and I’m going to be alone forever.
I mean look, my brain has been really on the, “I’m going to be alone forever” train for a while so like that part I’m kind of used to in some ways.
And there can be a very big emotional crash particularly if you’ve done heavier scenes during that weekend or if you’ve really like pushed the limits of your body in terms of sleep, energy, all those things.
If you’ve done a ton of classes, that is very energetically exhausting because your brain is working so hard.
So just make sure that you’ve built in some kind of cushion as much as you can for when you come back.
The same way that like if you do a heavy scene, you need to have aftercare in place.
Going to a conference is going to have its own aftercare.
So just have some space for that.
Make sure that you have some resources for that, some backup or friends who can help you, just something to help you get through that period.
Rebecca: I have two other quick ones.
Dr. Liz: Do it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Go.
Rebecca: Pack food because depending on where the dungeon is or what you’re doing, there may be lots of food options around.
Dr. Liz: No food options.
Rebecca: Or there may be very little or no.
Dr. Liz: The one you went to, almost nothing.
Rebecca: There was so little food option.
But pack food.
Pack good food that helps your body feel well, whatever that is.
I also found like late at night, we pack some gummy bears or some quick sugars like that.
That was super helpful.
And then also depending on what you want to do there, so we did a lot of workshops and then we like take time to go back to the hotel, we get some dinner.
One of the days there, I wound up taking like an hour and a half nap.
Dr. Liz: Yes, nap.
Nap as often as you can.
Rebecca: Exactly.
That was super helpful because otherwise, I was like, “Oh gosh! I don’t know if I can do this staying up so late thing.”
So I took a nap and that helps me rebound.
It gave me the energy I need to go do some other things we wanted to do.
Dr. Liz: Yeah, naps are great.
And I love bringing food especially like at kink stuff especially if you’re going to be bottoming, make sure you have some quick sugar food, so stuff that will make sugar hit your bloodstream real fast because part of what causes bigger subdrops, bigger crashes after scenes is that your body has gone through your blood sugar supplies and it is making you slow down completely so that you don’t die.
If you put sugar in it, it will be fine again.
There’s actually a lot of fascinating research on it.
There’s a whole radio lab podcast where they talk about this and it’s amazing research that you should totally look up where like they had people doing biking or like running and they were measuring their energy levels and their endurance then they have them swish an energy drink with actual sugar or an energy drink with fake sugar and the ones with real sugar, their bodies were like, “You can have more energy, keep going,” even though they didn’t swallow it.
Just like tasting the actual sugar on their tongue, their body released more of its stores to make sure that they can keep going.
So like bodies are weird.
They do weird stuff.
But be prepared.
Gummy bears are great.
I know a lot of people who love dried mango for that.
It works really well for them.
I like chocolates especially if I’ve been bottoming for a heavier scene, having my dom pull out a chocolate bar especially like a real nice chocolate bar and feed it to me piece by piece is a beautiful, beautiful aftercare activity that I really enjoy because it gets my blood sugar up and it’s very like connected and there’s a big sensory experience to it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It’s a lot of fun.
And I think also like these events are almost always way scarier in your head than they are in real life.
Most of the time at these events, people are super friendly, happy to meet new friends.
If they know it’s your first time, they’re going to introduce you to everybody.
It is a very community feeling for most of these events.
And so, it’s going to feel way scarier before you get there than it will once you’re there.
Rebecca: Absolutely.
That is a thousand percent our experience.
Dr. Liz: Yeah.
Rebecca: We worked it up in our heads way more than we needed to.
Dr. Liz: Yeah.
