The first time I went to a dungeon party was on a Sunday afternoon a couple of months ago. I played the voyeur, lurking in the shadows like a creep while sipping my beer. Throughout the afternoon I watched two guys getting fisted, four flogged, one spanked and numerous orgies in different areas of the club. The participants were ordinary people dressed in leather, uninhibited in their actions, earnestly exploring their kinks.

A guy who’d been fisted noticed me watching and later asked whether I had enjoyed the show. A bit embarrassed, I admitted that I had. I felt a connection with the people there because of their ability to explore their desires. It was something very new for me.

I’m far too curious for complacency, which is a blessing and a curse. I need to experience all the urges inside of me: the wild ones, the aggressive ones, the perverse and submissive ones. I could’ve suppressed my sexuality, for example, and lived a “normal” life. It would’ve been convenient with my religious background: I wouldn’t have been disowned by my family, and perhaps by now I would’ve had a wife, two kids and live in Oakville. Instead I came out.

Despite this “alternative” way of living I had still been searching for a new type of norm: a perfect boyfriend and husband, the one person to solve all my problems and make life wonderful. I met a guy who loved political banter and being blindfolded when he drank too much red wine, which was endearing in his own goofy way. He was successful, my co-workers loved him, and I’m sure he would’ve made a satisfactory husband, but our affair felt like living in a bubble. The complacency of domestic life got to me, as did the idea of monogamy, which I’d always thought I wanted.

So perhaps it was my curiosity that killed that relationship. “What do you want, anyway?” a friend asked after we broke up, like I was a complete failure who’d never be satisfied even if Idris Elba were served up to me on a silver platter.

My curiosity had left me somewhere in the shadows, trying to find new meaning in the same old world. I needed to look deeper beneath the surface of the city streets. As liberated as I felt, I was equally frightened. There was a lonely journey ahead with no real guide to follow.

>Next: My first dungeon party (part 2)