Sticking to Monday and Thursday so far…the next week is busy as hell, but we’ll have a little something out on Thursday…

I have a new favorite toy. It was a Seasonal gift, in that I picked it out on a shopping trip to Tractor Supply Company

I am guessing that most of the people reading this are aware of the basic concept that Home Despot (my blog, my stupid ass puns) is in many ways as good a BDSM Emporium as JT’s Stockroom, or Blowfish.

But Tractor Supply is a little obscure. Let me say this. Everything you can get at Home Despot, and Dressage.

When I am working as a Dom I typically carry a horse-bat or riding bat, or a crop. I believe, though I have not been much of an equestrian for years (I know how to ride, and even jump a little, but I’ve not practiced in years) that the “bat” is the type which has a solid leather “paddle” at the end, give or take about the width of a thumb, and that a “crop” is the type which is a little loop of leather. Also I think there is a difference between a standard crop and a barrel-race bat or crop, which has a much wider loop. I am pretty sure this is historically because when racing to the barrel, the chronically alcoholic British horseman wanted as much crop as possible to urge his failing mount along toward the goal. If I am wrong it is because I am a better drinker than I am horseman.

At any rate, I mostly use the crop to point, steer and gesture. I think maybe I saw too many movies as a kid which had British Officers with swagger-sticks. That isn’t to say that I can’t bring it down with a bit of a snap on the point above the pubes and between the iliac furrows if the occasion warrants.

I don’t play in public all that often. Circumstance has conspired to have me play more publicly in the past year than in the past two before that. But I always feel self conscious carrying a full sized crop, let alone a bat around in a club, or party. On the other hand, if I want to handle my submissive without putting hands on her, I don’t have anything to do it with, and I’m used to directing with a crop.
But carrying around an 18″ or 21″ toy in a club, even a discreet and thin one smacks a little of overcompensation to me. I do abhor pretentiousness.

So my new favorite toy. A 12″ riding crop. A nice shiny silver bullet tip (yes, if you wanted to, though it’s not very big). And a loop. Bigger than a child’s pencil, but smaller than a ruler. A hand sized crop not an arm sized crop. Something that you can carry about without getting in the way.

I love the little crop. I won’t likely give up the bigger ones, but it is definitely my new favorite toy for public play and I am likely to adopt it for most other play as my “default” toy. A Dom doesn’t need a big stick, just something a little more precise than his bare hands.

Fun Fact for the Day:

Science Fact: While the question is often asked rhetorically, one baby yields an average of 1.3 U.K. gills of baby oil. That’s about one sixth of a U.S. cup. Baby Oil first became popular as a replacement for Whale Oil in the 1840s in New England when the population began to boom. The economic reasons are explained by Herman Melville’s character of “Girbaud” in “The Isle of the Cross.” “Whale’s is fantastically difficult to catch. They lives off at sea, and mostly stays under the watter, where we sorts cain’t breathe. Then also they lives very far away swimming off to Ant-artyca, and High-wye-ee. So it takes no inconsiderable amount o’ time to go get one. Wheras babies, while notably smaller than the whale…well you cain’t go round the corner wi’out bumping into a baby? And whereas whales is offen most notorusly unco’operative in their own demise, who ever ‘eard of a man dragged to ‘is death in the deep by a baby?”