Every once in a while, I meet someone in the larger brotherhood of kinky gay men who reminds me of the power of community, of why we’re here, of why we give of ourselves, and what it means to belong. At a recent event at an undisclosed location, I had the deep pleasure of meeting a young guy who goes by thingnstuffs. He shared his blog with me — thingnstuffs.blogspot.com — and I want to take a moment to say: it’s absolutely worth your time.

What moved me most wasn’t just his writing (though that stands powerfully on its own), but the story he told me in person. During teardown for the event, he shared who had introduced him to the scene, and this man turns out to be someone I’ve known and trusted for decades. I was brought to tears, literally. This connection, this lineage of care and trust, speaks to something profound about who we are as a community. We pass down not just knowledge and technique, but love, integrity, and presence.

I want to especially point you toward this post, where thingnstuffs reflects on his experience at the event involving intense physical impact. His writing captures something rare: that beautiful, brutal alchemy of surrender, pain, and trust. He doesn’t romanticize it. He doesn’t shy away. He simply tells the truth of what it meant to go deep with someone he trusted. And because I know the man he writes about, I can say: the depth and intensity he describes is very, very real.