Sex, Kink, and the Erotic: “My Dining Room Is A Dungeon” by Tijanna O. Eaton

1970s Aunt Betty was a churchgoing woman. Built like a prize heifer, she was cow colored and plump. After church, she and her womenfolk would sit up there watching Roller Derby, her arm flung over the back of the couch in an expression of exhale.

“Ooooo did you see that? Grabbed that other girl by her helmet and threw her into the railing heh heh heh!” Aunt Betty cackled.

“Oooooo yeah,” cooed her churchgoing friend, “I’da knocked her over the railing myself with that last move she made heh heh heh.”

My Altar to Black Kink contains pictures of my paternal relatives, hers chief among them. Last November, I made some peas and greens, set up the computer in front of the altar, and put on old Roller Derby episodes. We all watched as this big blonde jammer elbowed her way through the pack, sending two girls over the guardrail and a third into the infield. Me and Aunt Betty’s picture cackled as I flung my arm over the back of the chair.

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I’d built an Altar to Black kink because I was leading a workshop on introducing self-identified Black women to kink, so I dragged out practically every toy — floggers, cudgels, cuffs, rope, knives, tasers, scalpels, hooks, bondage tape, etc., you know, serial killer shit — and arranged them on my dining room table. I plunked down a step stool in one corner and built a Wakanda scene with figurines and party favors on each step and the landing. A giant stainless steel suspension ring hung from another corner. Plastic ritual combat spears left over from my 25-year sobriety play party menaced a wall.

Mudcloth formed the base.

It’s the type of class that makes me want to dive fist first into teaching kink workshops, leaving my desk job behind for good. Oh wait, I got laid off a few months ago after 23 years at the same corporate company? Oh well.

Now might be a good time to, um, pivot, as the lady execs would enthuse.

And who better than a kinky Black masculine-of-center dyke to take other sistahs down this magical road? If this was what my future of work could look like, then I’m signed up already and just need to grab my little go-bag.

We spent the next ninety minutes talking about consent, negotiation, terms, risks, nice outfits, and more. There was so much participation that we didn’t even get to the vignettes or the skill practice. Sistahs did it for ourselves and each other!

After the class was over I started to take down the altar and thought, “What if I just left it up for a while?” I mean, it was beautiful and nourishing and spoke to some of my core needs for connection and I’ve been in California way too long. I practically giggled every time I walked past it.

That was last October.

For Day of the Dead I added Aunt Betty, Aunt Hattie, Aunt Al, and others to the altar. For Kwanzaa, I added the kinara, candle residue slowly chipping onto the mudcloth. For Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day I added my favorite picture book of him that always has me crying by the last page, even though we all know how the story ends.

The sling went up a couple of months ago, straddling the dining room and the living room when in use, a different kind of African print draping the leather. A pop of color, as people say. The spanking bench followed soon after and sits across from the altar, its worn surface in desperate need of a bootblack.

For play dates, I pick out a few toys, put them on a smaller table next to the sling, and see to or get seen to, being careful not to rock the chandelier whose baubles took over an hour to install. Large cocks, large chucks, and small gloves are arranged tastefully. Lube bottles dot the landscape. The harness peeks out from under gold-rush colored hankies.

I mean, who really needs to eat in a dining room anyway?

About Tijanna O. Eaton

Tijanna O. Eaton (Tə-zha-na) is a Black poly kinkster queerdo pocket butch with a high school diploma and a rap sheet. Her upcoming book, BOLT CUTTERS, is the story of her twelve arrests in three years in the early 90s. She is the proud recipient of the Unicorn Authors Club's first Alumni award. She plays from the top down and gets dressed from the bottom up. She is also a fucking Boomer. Read more about BOLT CUTTERS here: https://www.bolt-cutters.com