Recently Partner 1 and I were at a public dungeon party, and we had an annoying experience. She had stripped down to her panties and gone over a spanking bench, and I had just begun spanking her, when a gentleman came up and started asking me questions. I tried to be polite but disinterested. Fortunately, it was the start of the scene, and Partner 1 was able to articulate that the guy was being rude and he should step away, which he did.

About ten minutes later, the same guy (I’m like 95 percent sure, anyway) came back up and asked: “can I slap her ass?”

No, you may not.

I then told him it’s impolite to talk to people while they’re doing scenes. He asked if he could watch, and I said yes, but not talk, and then I went back to what I was doing.

I noticed him, though, going over to a nearby St. Andrews Cross and start talking to someone else who was doing a scene.

Sigh.

To get into this dungeon party, you have to have your Fetlife profile vetted by the hosts, so clearly he was on there. The dungeon rules are quite explicitly laid out. I’m pretty sure one of them is “don’t talk to people while they’re doing scenes”. I’m absolutely certain one of them is “don’t touch other people’s things or people without permission”, so at least he asked, but I’ve been doing public scenes for 11 years now and this is the first time someone’s actually asked to join in.

Some people are new. I get it. But if you’re going to be new, the least you could do is familiarize yourself with dungeon etiquette. If this guy had caused Partner 1 to exit her headspace, I would have been very, very upset. I mean, I wasn’t thrilled in the first place, but building up a scene takes time and energy on both people’s parts, and if a scene goes sideways in the middle it’s often difficult to recapture the magic.

There was definitely some magic happening that night.