Question: What
do a volcanic explosion, a fierce monsoon, the Farmers
Almanac, and an S&M fetish support group hold in
common? Answer:
The moon—a Blue Moon, that is!
The expression “Once in a Blue Moon” describes
something that doesn’t happen often, or perhaps never
happens. But
what exactly is a Blue Moon?
Throughout
history, the emergence of an azure-tinted moon seems to
occur in conjunction
with catastrophic events.
For example: in 1883, a volcano exploded in
Indonesia. Its
atmospheric dust turned sunsets green and the moon blue.
In 1927, a monsoon in India also whipped up
conditions for a Blue Moon. Therefore, although infrequent and precious, a Blue Moon does
manifest from time to time, hence the phrase:
“Once in a Blue Moon."
(Hold on! I’ll get to the kinky stuff soon… But first let me throw
in some science and history!) For instance in 1951, Sky
and Telescope magazine also scrutinized the Blue Moon
curiosity. It
found that Farmers Almanac used the term to label the
third full moon in a season wherein four occur, or, stated
another way: the
second full moon in one month, another rarity.
(A search reveals that, in an earlier 1937 article, Sky
and Telescope actually originally delineated this
revelation.)
Why mention this
noctilucent anomaly now?—Especially in conjunction with
S&M? During
2004, in the before dawn hours of July 31, a Blue Moon as
defined by Sky and Telescope will again decorate the
heavens—an astounding circumstance!
And this event,
it turns out, coincides with the
sixth anniversary of PEP-Buffalo S&M Fetish Support
Group, an organization
I created to serve a society of kinky people as special and
memorable to me as the rarity of a Blue Moon.
Long ago, the
term “Once in a Blue Moon” referred to something that
would never transpire.
Today the phrase denotesthe possibility of some odd
occurrence like, say, those two full moons in one month
documented by Sky and Telescope.
In another bygone era, fetishes and kinky obsessions
often stayed hidden, undiscussed, unfulfilled.
They were considered as strange as a Blue Moon, or
worse—sinister, evil. Today, although the Dr. Laura and John Ashcroft types would
not dub the S&M Lifestyle as “normal,” we—the
kinky and sadomasochist—are everywhere: in churches and
synagogues and shopping malls and supermarkets and at
McDonald’s and the PTA.
No more need we skulk amid the shadows of the moon
like some modern-day Jack the Ripper just because we love
leather or ladies’ feet or needles thru our nipples, cunts
or dicks.
Today
via intelligent organizations like PEP, People Exchanging
Power—in Buffalo and throughout the USA; via the
Eulenspiegel Society in New York City (founded 1971 by Mr.
Pat Bond); via the Society of Janus (created by the late
Cynthia Slater in California, 1972); and via hundreds of
other SM networks or conclaves which now dot the land since
Pat Bond’s first courageous stance in 1971; Today—via
this fellowship, co-operation, understanding, education, and
enlightenment, we of the S&M community—who once
dwelled in a netherworld of secret handkerchief codes and
unstated, unexpressed erotic desires (paranoid because we
believed ourselves perverted, sick, odd)—Today we possess
the ability and the comfort to be with others of like mind
and like longings, the ability, thus, to grasp without fear
the fulfillment and happiness which is our due, our hope.
This July 31,
2004, when the next Blue Moon rises, please recall the
anniversary of PEP-Buffalo, a special group of special
people, and how PEP exists for you—the sexual
iconoclast, the dominant, the submissive, the
sadomasochistic, the transvestites, the fetishists, the
kinky.
Once in a Blue Moon? No
longer need we wait for a volcano or a monsoon or some
otherwise huge event to thrust us—the kink-o’s of the
world—towards other beings who’ll accept and embrace us.
Let every day and every night be our own personal
“Blue Moon”—a time to reach out, to experience, to be
our true sexual selves, seeking—like any other
human—rapport, camaraderie, solace, intimacy and love.
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