aste the words Desade Magazine in contrast to the silence which has been deafening around here, the inactivity has been an ever present companion as the years gathered the virtual dust on these pages. Just let words Desade Magazine roll across your tongue for a while, I will explain they mean, but before I do let me explain why this website didn’t receive the love it deserved.
I’ve been checking in now and then to keep things up to date. Sometimes I avoided it, because the guilt of not providing was too hard to deal with.
I went on to new projects which had a similar purpose, to spread the ideas and expressions floating around in the global village of BDSM. Projects which had a new shine to them, a new allure which made me enthusiastic and driven to experiment.
They became a distraction from what I really felt about the Island of Pain website, as I honestly didn’t know what to do with it. There have been moments when I’ve thought about cancelling the whole shebang, but I always prevented myself because there is a vast amount of posts which are still being read by a lot of people.
I probably hit a plateau of indifference where I couldn’t find anything to write about. An indifference fueled by a feeling of being complacent.
I was satisfied with my life, maybe too satisfied, and too indifferent to find the energy to write about something interesting that I wanted to share with others. I guess I found it less interesting to write about myself compared to what it was when I started my journey.
Then it all hit me all at once. Redundancy showed its ugly head and I had to leave my job. A couple of months before that I had made the decision to file for a divorce. Two things which could, each on their own, be devastating to anyone.
But I found them liberating.
I’ve always loved my line of work as a consultant, helping people out with their challenges, but now I was on the receiving end. I had to find out what I wanted to do and how to go beyond the challenges that I faced. What I didn’t know at the time was that I was reconstructing my life. The life I had and the way I perceived it, wasn’t something I wanted.
Some might call it a midlife crisis, I call it reinventing myself.
I decided to invest more time in my sexuality and to be honest about it. I went on national television talking about BDSM. I wrote debate articles for Swedish media about BDSM and I traveled around to share my knowledge and experiences. I started a Swedish podcast together with a wonderful team of likeminded people, who also happens to be awesome members of my honorable leather family.
In the midst of all this creative chaos and evangelical work, I met my slave who came to be my creative spark in everything I do. We have endless discussions about ideas and how we should turn them into reality.
Slave scarlett is right by my side in everything that I do and I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.
Gradually our attention, as well as my frustration, turned to the Island of Pain website. Our main questions were: Could we revive it, make it into something new and why would we?
We are both creative people who have been working within creative businesses all our lives, so the answer to the first question was a loud “Yes!”, we would be able to revive it. But the second question was really hard to answer and we’ve had long discussions, challenging each other with different answers to “Why would we do this?”
The answer came from a feeling which has been my companion throughout my creative career.
The all familiar feeling of frustration.
For once I had to admit to myself that my drive to change things comes out of pure frustration. I’ve always been the devil’s advocate, questioning the status quo, pissing on people’s parades and being the one who is usually frustrated about why things are the way they are. I found it hard to admit to myself that this was the case. But once I came to terms with it, then it was liberating.
It became clear to me that the Island of Pain website had to change in the same way that I was changing. It had to become as frustrated as I am, it had to become the devil’s advocate who pissed on the parades and questioned why things are they way they are.
The Island of Pain, as a representation of my personal development throughout the years dealing with BDSM, is no more. The content from Island of Pain is still here, as a foundation for the next level – Desade Magazine.
We are changing our focus to be about the stories of others. We will tell stories about other BDSM-practitioners and phenomenas within the BDSM-community. We will tell stories from the “inside – out” instead of just observing things from a distance. We will immerse ourselves into things we want to taste, feel and experience so that we can tell you about it.
We want to be a part of the story.
The concept of truth lies within the subjective and the personal stories we carry around with us every day. The unconventional will be more important than sticking to what is safe and comfortable.
Desade Magazine will never be indifferent, as I will never become indifferent again.
Our promise to you is that we will do our best to not make you feel impervious to the stories we bring forward. You might be disgusted, you might be upset and you might even laugh.
But our main goal is to always make you think while you feel something.
So where are we now?
At the moment we’ve maxed out my credit card, literally, in our endeavors to turn our vision into reality. It is a scary point to be at but we believe in ourselves and in the stories we know exist out there, among the people who’ve decided to embrace a sexuality which only exists on the outskirts of what society in general finds acceptable.
Desade Magazine will be the voice of the ones who are the unheard and the unseen.
But we will not be successful without your help, you are our reader. When you read this, take a good look around you – Are there people in your vicinity? Good, tell them about us. If you are alone, then spread the word about us on Twitter, Facebook or wherever you find people who might benefit from the stories voiced in Desade Magazine.
Spread the word, because that is what we do.
Pay it forward.
The other kind of help we want from you is more of a traditional kind. We are not doing this because we believe it will bring us big bucks, we do it because we enjoy being in a position where we can tell the stories of others. This comes with a requirement as this is our job right now, we need to be able to make a sustainable living out of this.
Some stories will be available for free, but editorial material and in-depth stories will come at a price. It will be a small one, close to 15 USD a year, but a necessary one to cover costs in relation to what we want to do.
The old material on Island of Pain will stay, even if it was written with a different purpose in mind. We do not believe in rewriting history. Some of the old evergreen posts might even get a necessary facelift.
Will we be successful?
We do not know, the future is a blank sheet right now as we are reconstructing our vocational careers. Our ambition and passion can only take us so far. The bigger part of our success lies in your hands as you will be the one who judge what we do. If you like what we do, spread our stories as their survival depends on it. If you don’t like what we do, please let us know. You are the co-creator of our journey from now on.
The Island of Pain blog is no more, long live Desade Magazine.
We will tell stories about BDSM from the inside and today we pushed the button, tomorrow we push the limits.