 Hello everyone, and welcome to Inside Leather History, a fireside chat. I'm Doug O'Keefe, I am the host and the co-producer of the chats with Mistress Joanne Gaddy. Inside Leather History, a fireside chat is a program of the Leather Archives and Museum. Today, my guest is the pup Fifi, who is a community educator and a motivational speaker. You're in, is it South Bend, Indiana? Is that right? Okay, well, we were supposed to do this interview last year at iPod, but of course, COVID interrupted all of that. So instead, we're doing it via Zoom because I want to be able to capture your story. What are your thoughts about iPod being interrupted and it's looking like it may or may not come back into business? I think it's really sad that iPod may or may not come back, but I also, I want to reserve my judgment for that because I want to stay ever positive that with the hope that we haven't lost this because I think that if we have, we also have GLLA that may not be coming back or, so my lineage, my history is kind of disappearing in front of me and so I don't want to lose sight of the fact that there are still such a need for both those events and both those communities to still be aware that we're all here and still together. So I'm going to try and stay positive and keep pushing and talking to all my little friends and going, hi, you sure you don't want to do something? Hi, can we do something? Can we go play? Can we go play? Tell us a little bit about your early life and your family growing up. Like I grew up in central Illinois, but I always knew that I was a city girl because my mom would take me up to Chicago to go shopping, to do Macy's, to do, you know, Michigan Avenue. And so I grew up going, oh, this is the town. I remember knowing that I liked girls too when I was like, I don't know, nine, but I didn't understand it was different. Like I didn't know that nobody else, like I didn't realize that how I felt wasn't the way everybody felt. I was just such a nerdy kid. I was a gamer, a comic book geek. I was the computer geek from early on and I didn't and I have two younger brothers and we didn't really see eye to eye. So I didn't really get along with them. And I understand family and I understand my love for my family, but I choose to surround myself now with my logical family rather than my biological family. You said you were the black sheep of the family though. Because I was the city girl and I was surrounded by family who were excited to get a shotgun for their 15th birthday. I was like, can we go to a club or something and go dancing? I was the one who was in like the punk clothes and was always a little bit on the edge of everything. And I had, you know, a country kitchen with apples and baked pie, you know? That was, no, my mom, but I've found, especially as I've gotten older, I am my mother's daughter. I'm absolutely my mother's daughter. She got married young to give me a family because she thought she needed to do that for me. At one point in time, she used to get scared because I'm Polly and I have open relationships and I believe in love and that you can have love with more than one person. And the first time I introduced her to a couple that I was with, she was very nervous about it. And it took her years later to say, you know, I just felt very protective of you. I didn't want you to get hurt. But once I figured out that that's what made you happy, I was okay with it. And from then on, my mother doesn't question who I'm with, whether it's male or female, because I'm openly bisexual and I'm openly polyamorous. And so my mother does not question like, everyone else should be like, so is this just a friend or is this more than a friend? Like what kind of birthday present do I need to get for them? So she welcomes everybody into my life and into my home. And so where I came from and where I am now are so vastly different. Cause I came from a very well off family until my parents got divorced. And then my mother and I had nothing. At 18, I was living in my car for a while. I was 17, I was 17 living in my car. And that was 1989. That was seeing, I had friends dying. That was, you know, street kids. You didn't want to, you know, it was like you wanted to be able to go and survive, but being a street kid then was not a good thing. I mean, not that it ever is, but at least there are more options nowadays, I think. There was just nothing there. It was literally, I'd park in a gas station parking lot. So that I could fill up the car with gas when it was cold. Were you alone at this time or was the other with you? No, well, my mother at the time was a drunk. So now she's almost 30 years sober now. So I'm grateful for that. But yeah, it was a bad time in our lives. Oh, you know what? I do not regret a moment of it. It was a step that let me know I was gonna be able to take care of myself. And no matter what, I will survive. How long did that go on? It didn't last, that didn't go on for very long because the guy at the gas station, the gas station guy said, hey, you know what? You can come sleep on my couch if you want. And I was like, all right. Oh my God. So I walked in his house and this girl that I went to high school with who absolutely hated me, that was her boyfriend. So to have me walking in the door, that was just a bad situation. But you know what? It was a warm place that I didn't have to fill up with gas every night. So I sucked it up and took care of it. Stayed there for a few months. In the mean, my friends had let me come over and I would go shower at first. I knew what time everybody's parents left for work so I could go shower because I still had a job. And that was another thing that I learned from that experience. I will never not have a job. The core of me says, have a job, keep a job. Teach the young people that no matter what, just have a job because that will be your saving grace. It gives you a reason to keep getting up every day and doesn't let you fall into that whole of depression. Cause I could have been a very sad and depressed and there were times when I was very sad and depressed as an 80s kid because, well, we thought live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse. We didn't think we were gonna make it to 30. Lord knows, we didn't think there'd be social security or I'd be worrying about a 401K ever in my life. But I made it, I made it through all that and now I get to be here today and now I look back and I go, wow, all those things happened. I shock myself some days that I am still alive and kicking. What was the next step after staying with friends and living in the car? What happened after that? So I had a family that took me in and said a family of somebody had gone to high school, finished high school with the public school at one point politely asked me to leave and go to find a different institution to finish your education. So I went to a private interdenominational Christian school to graduate high school. But so one of the families took me in for a little while, helped me get back on my feet and then I just started to work and I would keep working and got my own apartment and kept working. So then you said as a later team you went into Chicago, tell us about that. Chicago was amazing. The first time that I walked into the vortex on Halstead, I walked in and was like, I am at home. So a group of us, several of my friends and I we were like, listen, and we started, which guy when we figured out we could get in and not get carded. Again, late 80s, they weren't, we were coming in, we had money, we were buying drinks, you know? So I don't know how my friends decided that we were gonna go to Halstead. It was, oh, one of them, one of them had an older brother who was gay and he said, go to Halstead street. So we went to Halstead because nobody cared. Nobody, it was, we could all be who we wanted to be and be who we were. And we would go to Roscoe as we were going out at the vortex. Oh, I love the vortex. That was my favorite cell block and the manhole. And I remember the first time I went to the manhole because all my friends stayed down at vortex. I was like, guys, I gotta go check this place out over here. I was already messing with kink at that point in time. I was into the leather. I was into getting tied up. And I was like, I find if I have to tie you up to have somebody be tied up, I would tie you up, you know? Cause well, we do that, you know, at least somebody's getting tied up. There's hope if somebody's getting tied up. And I remember the first time I walked into the manhole which that's not even there anymore, is it? Well, it's a different place now. Yes, it's a different manhole. And I remember walking in and seeing just the porn on the walls and being like, and I went around cause of course all the entryway you had to go in, bouncer right here, you had to go around the wall before you could even get to the bar. And I went in, sat down at the bar, ordered myself a vodka cranberry and sat there and I went, this is amazing. What's this back room I must go to? Oh, oh yeah, and I, they were like, what was it, that was the back room you had to, it was a manhole or cell block that you had to take off. You couldn't be wearing a shirt to go in the back. I'm sure they were not expecting that a woman was walking in there to do it. Cause that was what they said. They were like, well, you can't be wearing a shirt. I was like, okay. Like, no, no, I was like, what? You said I can't wear a shirt. All right, I took my shirt off. What else do you want? And I guess that like is how I, that is like, how I've always thought about it. Well, if this is your rule, all right, fine. No shirt, fine. I never thought about the different, like men and women being different. I've never thought about the fact that, hey, maybe the guys want to have their own space and maybe girls want to have their own space. And I mean, I think I was at, I never went to any of the quote unquote lesbian bars cause I was always more comfortable at the giant club or the kink bar. Well, tell me about some of the things you experienced at that time. What was new to you? What was fascinating? Kissing a girl in public. I had met a girl and she met up with me at the vortex and I remember standing upstairs at karaoke bar. We were in the karaoke bar, in the karaoke room and leaning against a pole. And I remember putting my arms around her and kissing her. And it wasn't like we were, you know, doing this heavy makeup session or anything. I just remember that moment of kissing her on the lips and smiling and seeing the smile in her eyes back. And it was like, wow, I did that in front of other people and nobody cared. Like nobody around us cared that we were kissing. If anything, it was incredibly tame compared to what else was going on. What else was going on? Oh God, okay. I didn't realize it was Mardi Gras and I didn't understand what a big deal Mardi Gras is to the gay community. Not at 18, I didn't. I think it was 19 or 20 at this point. But I remember walking into the vortex and I had gone up alone this weekend because none of my friends could come with. I was like, that's family, I need to go. And I walked in the door and there is this man with a full black beard, a white wedding dress on and he is carrying a picture frame in front of him. And yes. And the picture frame has little bones all on it. And he goes, I'm bona Lisa. And I know, I know. And at the time I was pretty wasted. When I like, I hadn't expected, like I walked in wasted and I was like, I was not emotionally prepared for this night because the costumes and everything. I remember at one point just standing in a corner going, this is amazing. I never had to go home. I always found somewhere to crash for the night because I lived an hour south of the city. But I never once partied all night and then drove back to Kankakee because there was always an after party and always a wonderful gay man who was like, just stay with me, sister. You can come stay with, oh yeah. I never went home. It was such, yeah, I obviously look back on that so fondly. But you told me when we were preparing for this interview that you used to be able to call the bouncers at various bars and find out what was going on? Yeah, yeah, we would call ahead, find out who the bouncer was at the front door. Hey, who's working the door tonight? Because we knew the names of the guys who would let us in and not card us. And it was like, how did we find these things out? Because that was back before the internet, back before you were texting. We would literally add a house phone, dialing, and we would call up ahead of time, find out who's working the door and then we would know which bars we could get into. Cause like once a month we couldn't go to Vortex, we would get carded. And then once a month, and that's the nights that we usually ended up at Roscoe's for some reason. So it was like once a month we were at Roscoe's and the rest of the time we were at the Vortex and then I would run away from the Vortex and go to the sub block or manhole while my friends were hanging out. Incredible. Yeah. Well, that was back when as you go to a rave you actively had to have a passcode, call a phone number, tell them that passcode they would give you a different phone number to call which would then give you a different passcode which then give you a different phone number call to get an address. And once you've got there you had to give me a passcode to get into the building. Wow. It was, yeah. That was a totally different. These kids today don't know what we had to do to get to a party. But when you went to, for example, the manhole or sub block, what was going through your mind as you were experiencing that element of the community, the kink, the leather, SM, whatever? Like to me it didn't feel different. Like my friends, it was obvious it was different to them when they walked in the door. They were like, what are we doing here? And I'm like, what? Don't you like seeing a nice hot-looking man in a leather vest? Like, I wanna touch their chest. Like, it was never, it just, to me it just, I walked in and it felt comfortable. So I never wanted to leave. A crazy thing though, that girl that I kissed in the vortex when I was 18, she found me last year, Oh. Came out to see me. And we are, so 30 years later, and now I'm gonna be going out to see her again soon. Where is she now? She said, she still lives in Chicago, right outside of Chicago in the suburbs. So we've already made plans to COVID. COVID has canceled three of our different weekends together. But yeah, so after 30 years, we still are getting together. Wonderful. You identified as a slave at one time. Did you not? Or have at least? Yes. Okay, tell us a little bit about that. So when I first started venturing out and found out there was an actual kink community, I was blown away. I remember walking into my first event and my first munch, and it was me, one other, two other women and one guy. The other, one of the other girls, this was her very first munch as well. So there were two of us, it was our very first munch. And then the other two were the people running the munch. Okay. And I remember walking in and going, you mean there's other people like me? And so when I walked in, when I walked in and I remember feeling such a feeling of relief, because I'm like, I'm not crazy and I can do this safely without risking my life. Yeah. I would literally, I remember calling up my cousin on the phone and saying, listen, I'm gonna go do some stuff tonight. And I don't want you to ask me what I'm doing. But if I never come back, here's an address you need to be aware of. That was it. Mm-mm. But walking in there and I went, I knew I was on the submissive end. I always liked to be the tied up. I always liked to be spanked. I always liked to be, but I liked to be of service. And I figured that out really quickly. And I didn't understand that was even a component. It was I always enjoyed, yes, sir, yes ma'am, what can I get for you? How can I make you happy? What can I do to take care of you? Cause if you're happy and taken care of, ooh, you take such a good care of me. Yeah. And when I was out in the community in central Illinois, it was a very small community and it was very sadly, very misogynistic, very heteronormative, very, and so I was always the one who was driving out of town to go try and find another event to go to somewhere else. We had some, we all had homemade bondage equipment. So there was St. Andrew's Cross, this big black St. Andrew's Cross that needed to have the back leg fixed. And I don't know how a bunch of country bumpkins couldn't figure out how to fix it, but they said somebody in Chicago is going to fix it for us for free. And Amy, you've got a truck and Amy, you like to drive to Chicago. Would you mind taking that up to the Leather Rose? I was like, all right, what's the Leather Rose? And they're like, you don't know what the Leather Rose is. I'm like, no. They're like, well, it's a BDSM club in Chicago. I was like, excuse me, I'm packing overnight bag and if you don't hear from me for a month, I'm good. But yeah, literally I put the St. Andrew's Cross in the back of my little Nissan pickup truck, drove from Bloomington, Illinois to Chicago with it. I knocked on the door at the Leather Rose Park right out front. So Fullerton, black Nissan truck and a Giant St. Andrew's Cross sitting in the back of it. And I just walked up to the door and was like, hi, I'm supposed to be bringing this cross today. And I met Mr. Simone. And I had no idea who she was. As far as I knew, she was just the chick behind the counter and then come to the end of the day, I find out, well, no, no, she's the mistress in charge of this stuff. And my hands were behind my back, my shoulders are back. I was like, yes, ma'am, what can I get you, ma'am? How can I help you, ma'am? And I was on point from the minute, like, oh, like, hi protocol is just in me because it's formal and there's rules and there's boundaries and there's expectations and specifics. So I love all that, like, here's the guidelines, stay here and do it all perfect and you get a doggy treat and it is, it's like, oh, perfection. And so yeah, I walked in the door and because I had already known then that service was something that I liked because I would go do things for the male dominance in the community just because I needed time to do it. Even if they weren't a play partner or anything of mine, like I would go clean a kitchen or it just always felt good to help make sure somebody was taken care of. And I'd probably get that from my mother who's been a nurse my whole life and in nursing, nursing homes and has made me volunteer on numerous occasions but it feels good to do it. So as a regular vanilla person, helping others is a joy to me. In the kink world, there is just so much more added extra to it. Yeah. It's just extra. I find that I rarely attend an event that I'm not volunteering at. I think this past year, I did one or well, you know, the pre COVID year, I did one event that I did not volunteer at because I made myself do it. I was like, no, go be an attendee. Go be an attendee and enjoy all the things at an event because that is absolutely hard to do. I hear you. So when I met Mr. Simone and then very shortly thereafter met her husband and I was just like, how am I? There's two of you. Oh, oh, oh, oh, and being, because I'm bisexual and polyamorous. What's better for me? A couple and I love couples. I think it's fantastic. I love being like the little, you know, the little butt in the middle for me in relationships. It means they get to have their, they have their primary relationship when they're over here. And I can still go off and do all the fun little stuff that I want to do with whoever I want to do it with. But I have a safe home and I have people to come home to. And I realized looking back that so many of my poly relationships were that dynamic from the time I was 18. So when I met the girl that I was dating and when I was 18, she had a boyfriend. So I was dating her and her boyfriend. And then I had a different married couple in my 20s that I was dating a married couple. And I found that over my life, that's what I didn't. So when I met Mr. Simone and her husband, I was like, whoa, this is the shit right here and moved to Chicago, dropped everything, got rid of all my stuff, moved to Chicago to be with them. I lived above the leather rose for a little while. And then she was like, that's it. No, no, no, you're just gonna come home with me. I proved that I could keep track of money like to the penny. And her husband, my other owner said, look, I'll get a lot more value out of her if she just works from home with me because he ran an online business, comic books and we ran the video business. So I stopped working outside the house and that last paycheck and that realization that I am a 24 seven slave, that I lived in a collar. And in Chicago, you could do that. Like I woke up in the morning, wherever I was, got, you know, crawled or either crawled over or got climbed out and got on my knees and the collar was put on me the minute I woke up in the morning and it was only taken off when I went to sleep. And it was living a lifestyle that so many people don't get to live. I had an opportunity to like live and play every day. And I found who I was and although I don't think I could ever go back to being a 24 seven slave, my life has changed. I have a career, I have things that I wouldn't want to give up for my own safety and security because I had that opportunity and lived as a 24 seven slave. That faith that I built in myself has helped me get to where I am now. Yes. How were you introduced to the puppy community? So Mr. Simone had a household and we had multiple slaves but I was struggling to find something that could be special and be just for the two of us. I was online and I found this website that was Human Puppy Play and it was all the stances. And I still remember all those pictures of them in his stance and his back and his tail up and face up, face down, sit, stand, beg, all the, and I was like, what is going on here? And this is why I wanted to get this out because I found my journal from that day. Oh. Yes. It was August 21st of 2002 at 3 a.m. Have you ever felt like you wanted to shout out to the world once you figured out something about yourself? Service dog and training. And that was the day puppy pee pee was born. Wow, fantastic. Yeah. So when I found that I was like, oh my God, because I literally saw those sites and suddenly I just printed everything off and I crawled over to her with this paper in my mouth. Ma'am, please look at this ma'am, please, please look at this ma'am, please, please, can we do this ma'am, please, please, can we just, because I knew that this was gonna be time on her. Now I'm about to ask her to do something strictly because I want it. And as a slave, you just don't do that. And, but all I could say was this is for us ma'am, this is for us. I swear I won't chew on your shoes. I did not follow that swearing. I had to chew down the shoes. But it was such this moment of, even now the feeling that I got when I saw that, when I saw that stuff was, it gave me this feeling of, oh my God, that's what you're supposed to be doing, oh my God. And so we started doing puppy play at home and I was looking online again and I'm like, ma'am, ma'am, there's a contest, there's a contest. And we had been going to, like, I was already out doing, like, you know, Mr. Chicago Leather, IML, I mean, being in Chicago, you get to see those things anyway. So I was already aware of the Leather Contest. And I was like, oh my God, ma'am, ma'am, come on, come on, look it, I'll be your puppy, I'll be your puppy, I'll be your puppy. And then we found out it was at the cell block. I'm like, oh my God, it's the cell block. Wow, life sure has come around that she was like, all right, fine, but you have to be perfect. I am not gonna take a shabby dog. So like I knew from the get-go, I better be on point, which was perfectly fine with me. It was like, that's what I wanted. You know, because then we had to start figuring out the things like, what kind of a dog am I? I'm like, I'm a poodle because I'm a princess. And she's like, yeah, but you're a standard poodle who thinks they're a toy poodle. I'm like, that's probably true. So I am a standard poodle that thinks they're a toy poodle and I'm a circus dog because I'm a show off and I love attention and I'm a square two two. So we figured all that out real quickly. It wasn't hard to figure out who I was as a dog and we went to the cell block and showed up, I was like, we got to go do this and Joy and Caddy was there and Mr. Skenda was there and the current Imsel was there. And like, and at the time I was like, who are these people and aren't they adorable? And I'm sniffing their toes. It didn't phase me that I was in a mail bar because I never thought of that place as just a mail bar because I'd been going there since I was 18. And so I remember walking in the door and again, I never knew, I didn't think about any of this stuff being, well, this is the guys are doing this because it was a website and dogs are male and female. Well, we have male and female dogs. We have male and female dogs. Why would I assume that this is the only game in? Now, have you a puppy mask that identifies as Puppy Fifi? Actually, I never did. Recently I got one. I did get one when I traveled this year when I went to Australia because these have always been what gave me, my hair has always been, I used to have electric pink hair. And when I put my hair up in my ponytails up here, these are my ears and this is who I am. And it was like, because we didn't have masks. I mean, like if you saw somebody in a puppy hood then, and this, cause again, this was 2002, if you saw somebody in a puppy hood, they were usually somebody who was a leather bottom, who was wearing it as a form of restriction. Oh. Those were the majority of the puppy hoods you saw at the time. I see. Yes. So now the neoprene, and I do have one now, this is the only one I have right now and I'm working on getting, so I'm trying to find my face. Like it's a thing that guys do, but I ripped the ears out of, I ripped holes into the ears cause I pull my own hair through here. Got it. I interviewed Pup Scout in Australia about two years ago and he was explaining how his different hoods brought out different personalities for his pup identity. And that's where I was asking you because for me, this is still very new information. So last year I had the opportunity to go to Dallas for a weekend and then I left from Dallas and went to Australia and I got to go to Australia for Mardi Gras, be on the parade float with all the puppies. That was amazing. But for the first time ever I bought a hood and I remember the first mosh that I did afterwards with that hood on. Like I didn't truly put on that hood until I got to Australia and I was staying with Sir David who was the current international handler and I put it on with nobody else around. Like I needed to just kind of figure it out and I put it on and I was like, oh, I get it now. Now I know why the guys do this. Oh my goodness. There is such a moment of freedom. When you get to put that mask on, when you get to put that hood on, it changes the game. Cause instantly this human face is gone and instantly I only know people, I only know that dog. I know that that's pup serious cause I know that face. And it's not when that hood's off, that's somebody else. There's- Fascinating. There's that weird feeling of, oh, cause I've been on, I've been out in mosh pits and puppy, puppy, puppy piles and I was playing rough with these two puppies. And I'm weird, like going to town, like wrestling and snarling and barking and there's sweat and there's scur. And okay, so mosh is done. The event's done. It's time to start cleaning up. So we both, all of the three of us crawl over to the side of the thing and kind of sit back on the steps while they start picking up mats and we're like, we need water. And we all three took off our hoods and I looked at them both and I'm like, cause I thought I had known who they were, which is why I felt absolutely comfortable just going to town with them. Yeah, I didn't have any clue who they were. I was like, hi, I'm the puppy baby, nice to have met you guys. Fascinating. But you were the first female international puppy holder. Tell us about that. Yes. So when we went to that first contest at CellBlock, again, we walked in the door, I'm on a lead, I've got jeans shorts on and a puppy tail butt plug. And so we showed up and there was one other dog competing and so do, do, do, do, go. And I looked at him and I remember seeing him go into the back like because we were separated for the different parts of the competition. And I was like, ma'am, all he has on is a jockstrap and a chest harness. And I'm in red ruffle butt underwear, a plaid skirt, black and white plaid skirt, white tank top, my chest harness on. And I looked at her and I just went just second. And I'm like, taking my chest harness off, taking off my bra, taking off my tank top, put my chest harness back on and I'm like, skirt stays because I'm a circus poodle. And I got back on the floor and I went. And so I was like, uh-uh, if he gets to do this without his shirt on, I get to do it without my shirt on. And we went to the back and at that point in time, they would put us up on a table and we got judged just like the Kennel Club. Yes. Got the pop down, got the squeezes, got the, you know, I got a newspaper on my nose. And so I won. I won a Great Lakes Puppy and Handler contest, Great Lakes Puppy 2003. And I was like, this is amazing. Oh, this is so cool. And all I could think of was, oh cool, I'm a Chicago puppy. You know, and that's the way I thought of it. And it was, it was, it was fun. And then Ms. Kendra was like, yes. And so you'll need to know some things for when you compete in Dallas. And I went, what, what? She goes, well, you guys are gonna go to Beyond Vanilla in Dallas and compete for the international title. I went, excuse me. And I looked at her and I'm like, cause now I've just signed up my owner for something even more. Right? Again, she is doing this for me. I have a slave and I am asking and it's like, she goes, there's another contest. I go, yeah, apparently the international title. So we made plans to go to Dallas. And it was held at Beyond Vanilla in Dallas, Texas. And we showed up and I, and so there's this other event going on and it's a event similar to, like it's a very Petro event. And they were holding the international puppy contest alongside it, kind of to share expenses and, you know, work together as a community, which I have always said was amazing. And I met Patrick and he's the owner of the international well, he was the person who created the international puppy contest. And I remember showing up and thinking, oh my God, it really is an international contest cause the other competitors Canadian. But I had no idea what to expect. We're like, here's the things you've got to do. And I'm like, all right, says I got to do my performance. And we go out with Calliope music playing and I do my cones and jump through the hoops and go chase the things and follow her commands and crawl between her legs. And when they said I won, there was a moment where I was like, what? What's going on here? And then I went, of course I did, it's me. And so we came home and it literally, it was at that weekend that I started to figure out that the fact that I was doing this was an anomaly, or was what was the norm at the time, which always made me laugh cause I was like, what? All I was doing was being who I am. I was not running out to try and be the first at anything. I was enjoying my service and enjoying something special between my owner and I. And maybe that's why we won because for us, it was just us being who we were. And we weren't out for the title. We were just really enjoying showing people who we were. Suddenly I'm the first female international puppy title and that has stayed on for quite a while. Well, what advice do you have when you're coming into the community? Honestly, we can do whatever we want. We make the rules. This is a lifestyle where the relationships that we have, we make our own rules for. If I decide that I wanna have a relationship with and be monogamous, guess what? I can have that kind of relationship. If I don't wanna have that kind of relationship, I don't have to. If I wanna have a relationship where 75% of the time I'm in service and 25% of the time, I'm not, I can do that because we make the rules. It is, there was a time when Old Guard had specific sets of standards and rules and you earned your leather and we have moved away from that because I, because we can, because we can accept everyone now. We don't have to be scared and we don't have to keep ourselves hidden over here and have to have the rules so we know somebody's true to the game. Like we had those rules back, well before I got into the community, those rules were there to keep us safe. It let you know somebody was true to the game and you didn't have to fear them. It let us know who really knew what we wanted and we don't have to do that anymore because we can talk about it and say what we want now. So I think to me, that's why we have evolved beyond the Old Guard as much. Not that, but dear God, that we need to remember those things. Thankfully, the Leather Archives Museum is helping to keep that spirit alive. I went in and got to see the patch for my first international puppy patch. Oh. I got my 04. Oh, beautiful. Yeah, so I saw the number one and it made me cry. I actively sat down on the mat and just started to cry to have seen that there because it was so emotional to me to see all of that glory being shown. And we're lucky now because we get to, we have been able to move past what we share in our saving there, but we get to do that because we now have faith in belief in each other. So if there's one thing I can say to somebody new coming into this, it is believe in yourself because you can do whatever you want to do. Wonderful. Another thing you brought up when we were preparing for this interview was the concept of the difference between new pups and old dogs. Would you leave with us a bit about that? It's kind of funny. So for a while I was a member of the Wendy City Boys' Troop and again, whose home bar is cell block. So like that path got started long before I was ready. But back then, Wendy City Boys' Troop, we would be the ones who did all the volunteering and if the other clubs needed something, Hellfire and all the different clubs, they needed something, we were there to help volunteer and do it. And I see now it seems like the pups are now the ones doing that. In the years to come, we will watch as they evolve and watch as they grow both in their human forms and their puppy forms. And that's what I'm so looking forward to that. I had a really amazing experience when I was in Australia and two young puppies walked up to me. They asked me, they're like, how'd you get into this? And I said that, I'm just being who I am. And I looked at them both and I just wanted to, I just wanted to pinch them both and say, well, look, cause they're, one of them was transgender and they were both standing there in each other's arms. And I was like, you're already doing it. Wow. You're being who you are. So it's okay. Yeah. Keep going. That's true. So yeah, sorry, that one got me a little bit. You're entitled. Yeah. What's the biggest misconception about you? Oh my gosh. In the vanilla world, the biggest misconception is that I'm dominant. That cracks me up on a regular basis. Like if somebody cracks a kink joke in the vanilla world, they will literally say, oh yeah, we have no problem picturing her with a whip in her hand. Like that has been said out loud on more than one occasion. And so I laugh about that in the vanilla world cause I will, depending on who's around, I'll look and go, yeah, no, sorry, I'm on the other end of that whip. But it does make me realize that even in my vanilla world, I'm an alpha. And I understand what that means. I am an alpha. I report to somebody and I will make sure everything they need gets done. And all you other little plebs you're going to make sure you take care of it. All this work. But in the kink world, I think the biggest misconception is that because I'm an extreme extrovert, I'm such an extrovert that I'm always ready and I'm not. I need downtime from time to time. Cause I will continue and I will just, but something else is going on, something else is going on. FOMO, I have huge FOMO. Fear of missing out, man. So that's probably the biggest misconception is that I'm always ready to go and I'm not. The pup, Fifi. What an amazing interview. This has been so much fun. I'm so honored to have been here. And in front of a fireplace. Absolutely. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for being part of Inside Another History, a fireside chat.