Toppers, 12th February

Toppers was not my scene. As well you know, I like a fetish night as much as the next guy, but I’m more into a party with a little kink on the side, than making it the sole focus of my night out. The clue is really in the name - it's all about 'topping' someone (though of course you need plenty of bottoms around to do that).

It’s actually a bit of a mix of a social and playing, but there's no dancing element. It’s a super-friendly crowd, but very much skewed toward the older, submissive male (often with cross-dressing tendencies) and femme doms than any other persuasion. Which isn’t really what I’m into. I still managed to quite happily pass four hours in there as I had a couple of friends with me and am always happy to chat to different people. Pretty much anything goes as well and there were a few eye-opening scenes taking place. I’m happy to say I was the subject of some voyeurism myself, while I played rope bunny to my friend’s rigging and was suspended for the first time. If my poor circulation hadn’t let me down I could have merrily hung around for quite some time. It feels odd to not be responsible for the way your body is being held at all. In a good way!

If you’re into your BDSM with a male sub/female dom slant and don’t mind an older crowd then you’ll love it there. Or you just want to chat to some friendly kinksters without really getting into anything this would also be a good place to start. Although I must admit, there were a few guys who, while they didn't exactly creep on me, you could see their eyes light up to have someone new to possibly play with and the eagerness was a little offputting!