- Please tell us a bit about yourself including any identities you hold.
I am a queer poly Leather Daddy and a Top-heavy switch. I use the pronouns zie/zir to describe my gender-queer identity. I am in a Service-Knight relationship with my Lady-Wife Madame Butterfly and she and I live with my other partner. Madame also has another partner who lives out of town. I have a metamour relationship with him and his other partner. We all share the caregiving duties that Madame Butterfly has needed since she had a stroke 10 years ago. I have two people who wear my collar and I am the head of a complex leather family that includes my partners, mentors, ex’s, and metamours.
- Please share some things about your history in alt-sex communities.
I have known that I ‘like girls’ and that monogamy does not make sense to me from about 5 or 6 years old. But as I grew up in an extremely fundamentalist Christian group that attacked such sexual and relationship identities with shame, judgments, and shunning I struggled for a long time to come out. When I did finally escape, over 20 years ago, I leapt into the alt-sex communities with both feet. I was super excited to be able to explore things that had always felt very natural to me.
- Please share some of your current projects or activities related to our communities interests.
I am passionate about community service and helping others. With my early experiences of intense social control and coercion I knew that I wanted to support others’ journeys to explore alt-sex with consent and equality as the foundation. This path ultimately led me to joining Dossie Easton in 2018 in her “The Ethical Slut Presents: Navigating Consent” educational program.
We hold our series of 12 classes twice a year. We work with both Survivors and Transgressors teaching 6 classes per group. We also offer team trainings to teach others how to run this type of program. We work with people to practice asking for what they want, setting and holding boundaries, as well as communication, recovery, and self-care after a consent incident. We are currently writing the syllabus up into a book.
Additionally, I hold a weekly workgroup using the Alive Program tools, which was developed from Hamish Sinclair’s Domestic Violence Court Intervention program called manalive (or Men in Progress). I work with people in the alt-sex community who are committed to doing their personal work to notice their habits of control and coercion (including towards themselves), stop these behaviors, and practice equalizing and consent. It is an opportunity to support each other as peers in this type of awareness.
- Please share a bit about your journey in polyamory.
Polyamory has been an important part of my identity since long before I had a term for it. When I came out, I was eager to join the alt-sex community and find others like me. I joined the local LGBT center and found not a single other poly identified person. I spent a lot of time educating people about what this means and looking for other women who also lived in poly relationships, or even thought it was possible. Finally I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area seeking community. It wasn’t until I joined the BDSM community that I was able to find other women who identify as poly. The most important part of my poly identity to me is my deep relationships with my chosen family and the real-life support we provide for each other. We are here for each other when life’s reality hits whether it is heavy yard work, serious illness, or celebrating the birth of a new member of the family. We help each other by cooking meals, pet sitting, or talking through life’s challenges. I love that!
- What do you hope to witness in the future in poly communities or in alt sex communities in general?
One thing I would really love to see is more education, social awareness, and demystification of what poly life looks like. I want various alt-sex ways of life to be normalized. I have spent much of my life feeling completely alien from everyone around me with regards to my gender, sexual, and relationship orientations. I want to see that change so people know they have options and access to information about different possible ways to structure their personal relationships…including talking about things that might be difficult and sharing ideas that can help to work through these issues.
Ms. WillowKat’s Bio:
Ms. WillowKat is Lead Facilitator/Co-President, with Dossie Easton, of the non-profit educational program Navigating Consent. Zie is the Pacific Coast and International Power Exchange 2015 titleholder as part of a triad. Zie brings a creative passion for healing to zir endeavors as Daddy, BDSM caregiver and midwife to the dying. WillowKat has taught in the US and Canada, on topics including communication, healthy power exchange, poly, and whips. Zir passions include painting, teaching, ritual, D/s, and BDSM edge play. Zie heads a growing leather family. Zie is known for a dynamic teaching style and passionate commitment to consent.
For more info, go to: www.navigating-consent.com, www.sunrisecreations.com and www.thealiveprograms.org