TammyJo Eckhart

Authority Dynamics & Personal Journeys

In this episode of the Subspace Exploration Project Todd & Clay talked with Ancient Historian, Educator, & Erotica Author TammyJo Eckhart. TammyJo walks us through her journey of studying and experiencing kink, polyamory, and authority dynamics. TammyJo explains some of the challenges of being part of these communities and offers advice on how to make sure to take of you and your partners’ needs.

TammyJo Eckhart’s Website: https://www.tammyjoeckhart.com/

TammyJo Eckhart 1 Episode Transcript

Welcome to The Subspace Exploration Project, a personal journey into kink, non-monogamy, mental and emotional health, gender expression, and building community.

In this episode, Clay and I had a wonderful talk with TammyJo Eckhart, from ancient history to writing fiction and or kink, to community building and activism.

At the heart of all of that is a thoughtful and caring person living and teaching about polyamory and authority dynamics.

So let's go ahead and jump right into our talk with TammyJo.

We're so excited to have this conversation today, and I'm so glad that we get to say hello to you as well, because we've been doing so much thinking about you and the relationship that y'all have.

Okay, I know he doesn't want to be here for the interview, though.

Yeah, that's totally fine.

Okay, you too.

I went back and I was remastering that old podcast episode from when Janet, Janee, and Sarah interviewed you.

And I was just like re-inspired by it.

And I'm like, you know what?

We need to get TammyJo on and get a chance to talk to her, you know, and find out what's been going on since 2011.

And also ask some of the questions that we didn't get to ask on the previous show.

Well, a lot of time has passed, so...

Yeah.

And a lot has changed in the kink community, too.

Like, especially since COVID hit, it really seems like there's a lot more people that they had time at home, they were isolated, they got to thinking, they got to being horny, but they had to learn how to express themselves differently.

And they started learning about kink, and I mean, along with, you know, a new generation of kinksters, and a completely different approach to how it was back in the 90s and the aughts.

Let's go ahead and just really quickly have you introduce yourself.

Hi, everyone.

I'm TammyJo Eckhart.

I'm an alternative sexuality educator and activist.

I'm also a published author, and I am a historian with PhD in ancient history, folklore, and the history of gender and sexuality.

I am also the head of a polykinky household and have been since 1994.

I'm really excited to talk to an ancient historian.

When I started out in college, I kind of thought about classics, and I did a little bit of English studying.

But I really loved history and ancient literature and old culture.

So I'm happy to hear what you have to say.

So how did you discover kink?

You know, it really is something that I learned when I was in college.

I learned the words and the concept that there was this thing called at the time SM, because this is like 1989.

And I started in a women's studies program because that was important to me.

I think at some point in high school, I said, you know, this isn't right.

Why don't I get the same things that the boys in my class get?

Why don't I seem to get the same respect?

I don't like that.

Is there anything I can do?

I discovered feminism.

And then through these women's history classes, we started looking at SM.

And usually it was like, isn't this a horrible thing?

Doesn't this just perpetuate patriarchy?

And instead I looked at it and said, no, wait.

These are the things that I've always filtered the world through.

You know, slavery, power, authority, bondage, all these things, that's just how I kind of filtered the world into my brain.

And I would just ignore things that didn't fit into what really resonated for me.

So it's kind of a weird way to find it, right?

Through class, which is anti-kink.

I feel like that's also like, perhaps it is also within that same vein of feminism that is perhaps kind of turfy, where it's like trans exclusionary feminism and anti-SM and, you know, some sort of kink proclivities that people have that would be, in principle, anti-feminist, anti-woman.

Yeah, I don't know how old each of you are, but, you know, in the late 80s, there was this ungodly marriage between the right and feminist to be anti-pornography and anti-SM.

But in the 90s, other feminists who were like, no, you don't get to tell women what to do because it's just the same thing.

We started fighting back.

And I remember being part of that, especially when I moved to New York City, saying, no, you don't get to tell me what to do any more than anybody else gets to tell me what to do.

Period, full stop.

Yeah.

So, you know, it's hard for people to realize that, yes, there are different types of feminism.

Oh, no.

It's just like any other social movement, right?

Uh-huh.

And I want to say thank you for saying trans exclusionary feminist.

I refuse to call them radicals because you want to get in classic stuff you meant in.

No, no.

I am a radical.

Radical is tacking the root of a problem, and the root of the problem is this idea that some people are better than others just because of how they're born.

That's the actual root.

That's radical.

They're reactionary.

They're, you know.

We have reactionary is a much better R word to use for turf.

I like that.

So how did you guys learn about kink?

Well, like similarly, I've always had, I wouldn't say I was like necessarily filtering the world through a kink lens, but I was also very aware of power dynamics that were happening.

My mom, my mom read and wrote erotica, and I like to play around on her iPad and on the computer, and those tabs were always open.

So I found some erotica at an earlier age than maybe I should have, but it lit some flames of the taste for alternative relationships and like a lens to look at sex through.

That just kind of set me on a path of finding more extremes and more different taboo things.

And yeah, I mean, like, as a young person, it snowballed into like, not just, just like not like seeking out sex that could fill that need for, I guess, power and control play.

But as a young person, it just ended up being super harmful to myself, and I wasn't doing it in a way that was fulfilling for me or the other person probably.

So it wasn't until, I want to say, like, maybe two years ago that I was like, okay, I realize the kind of person that I am, and I'm tired of not allowing myself to do those things because I know I can do them.

I'm seeing all of these other people do it.

Why the fuck wouldn't I be able to?

So I just talk to more people.

That really resonates with me, what you said about when you're younger.

We don't necessarily do these things in the healthiest ways.

Because since I didn't know the terminology, right?

I didn't know there was such a thing as you should talk about things.

Because in mainstream culture, you're not supposed to talk about stuff.

Love just is, right?

Sex just is.

All this stuff is just supposed to happen, which is why we have so many accidents and injuries and hurt feelings and ruined relationships.

But I'm 100% sure that there are many boys that I let on with the promise of sex, so they would let me tie them up and boss them around.

And I had no intention of ever getting them sex.

Would I do that now?

Now I would say I'm into this because of X, Y, and Z.

If you are into this, do it.

But I didn't have that concept.

I guess, like, for me, as someone who has always leaned on the S side of the DS and MS dynamics, for me, it led to absolutely shutting down whatever kind of, like, understanding my own pleasure and what I thought would be fun.

So doing kink in a much healthier and fulfilling way now has been a reconnection to pleasure and actually identifying what does and does not feel good.

So, yeah, that...

And we're leaving poor Todd out of the conversation.

My journey isn't nearly as interesting, but, I mean, like, I'm just starting now starting to piece it together, like, as I understand the gradual evolution of my kinks.

And I more or less avoided the kink community when I did start to learn about it.

It was like I hopped on to that life, and that's, like, not the best place to learn about anything.

You have to know at least the basics going in, or else it's just going to be gross and very heteronormative, you know, and, you know.

But so I've kind of just been kinky on the outskirts.

But when I was four or five years old, I witnessed some things that were immensely fascinating to me.

It was like some goddess worship kind of thing.

I consider myself a switch, but I haven't really found any one, two, sub two yet.

That goddess worship kind of thing evolved into more of like a pleasure dom disposition.

And I'm now, at this point in my life, I'm understanding and embracing more of the actual dom.

Uh oh, we lost Clay.

Learning to embrace what a dom is, learning a lot about it, learning from a lot of the right people, what it means to discover and embrace my dominant side.

And I do it out of an appreciation for the interests, the needs of my partner.

I mean, I'm definitely, I can get sadistic and appreciate that for what it is, but I do it kind of out of love.

I'm very much a sensual Dom, a sensual statist.

I think I may be a lot older than you guys, because, of course, in the early 90s, there were online bulletin boards, which were basically like email lists, right?

And that's how we first started talking about it.

The man who became my husband eventually found them, and I lived in Italy for a year, and that's how we talked in email, and he would send me things.

I'm pretty sure that's how I met Janet Hardy and Jay Weisman were on these bulletin boards, and I didn't even know who they were yet, but they were willing to talk in these conversations.

And so when you say you go to FetLife, going to FetLife when it first begins, when you have more experience, I think kind of makes you cynical about it.

And I'm not like one of those old people says, well, I had to suffer, so you have to suffer.

You know, that's not what I think.

It's just it's so much information that there is such a thing as information overload.

You know, from one extreme to the other.

So I missed the talk about FetLife, and it's uselessness, but also sort of usefulness.

Go on.

No, I was just saying, I was just recounting, learning to appreciate my dominant side.

And, you know, that's more or less been the last two or so years learning quite a bit, you know, especially especially this last year, I've met the right people, learning from the right people, and I can't get enough.

I mean, there is definitely such a thing as the information overload, but like right now, I'm soaking it all up.

You know, I just, now that I've found a community that shows me how to do things in ways that work right for my neurodivergent brain, relationship containers and how to negotiate very specific terms to achieve a shared experience that's beautiful.

And I've only ever found that here in kink, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

It can feel that way, right?

It can really feel like this is a unique place where we can be our true selves.

And I think that's because we value communication so highly.

You know, the ideal for any kinky relationship is you communicate.

It's not like just a one and done thing.

It's a there's ongoing communication.

And so that I think makes you feel safer to explore.

And when you feel safer to explore and you share more things, then you start to feel like you can accept more about yourself.

One of the classes I teach is about being out.

And one of the first things I tell people is the first clause that you will ever come out of is to yourself.

And that is also going to be the most difficult clause that you will ever come out of.

Because you will probably have to throw away everything that you've been taught since the moment you were born, possibly the moment you were conceived, depending on how much you believe fetuses here and can pick up the world around them.

And that's scary.

That's really scary to let go of everything you think is proper and right.

So what did your journey look like going from initial exploration of kink to discovering and embracing long-term power exchange dynamics, or as you refer to it, authority dynamic?

So I mentioned that I think I always filtered the world this way.

So I have this amazing memory when I'm like three or four years old.

I'm going with my father into Menards.

Do y'all know what Menards is?

It's kind of like a Lowe's.

It's a place where you get lots of home supply stuff and yard care stuff.

And we're going in there, and outside they have sheds, right?

Pre-med sheds you can buy.

Now we're walking along, and you go past this aisle, and it's got nothing but chains.

And really clear in my mind is I'm getting the baby house, I'm getting the chains, all the boys in the neighborhood are going in that, and they're not coming out until they agree to do what I say.

It's just like, boom, just like, and it, you know, I just had that plan.

And the truly weird thing is I never had a shed, and I never locked anyone in it.

But I was the only girl in literally a four-block square where I grew up, and I was in charge of those four blocks.

The boys wanted to play with me, they wanted to play my games.

If I didn't like a game they had, I would like say, no, no, no, this isn't working, this is what we need to do.

And so somehow, that's just kind of how I processed the world and the world started to process me in a very similar way.

But when I discovered this in college and the terminology, we got on the bulletin boards and learned about those things.

That was all very interesting, but it was all very private too, right?

Because we were anonymous at the time, we weren't using our real names.

And I was only practicing, trying out stuff with my boyfriends at the time.

When we moved to New York City, because I got accepted to a graduate program at Columbia, there was the Oil and Spiegel Society, so TAS, T-E-S.

And there just started something that's called the Apple Munch.

So do people know what an apple munch or what a munch is?

And I didn't get to go to the first munch because I actually, I had pneumonia.

I've had pneumonia multiple times in my life, and this was unfortunately one of them.

So my husband went, and he came back and he said, these people are real nice.

They're real nice.

They want to meet you.

And so for the second one, I went.

And it was eventually, I think it was like four or five months after that, some of the people coming to the Munch were also from Columbia.

And they said, we would like to start a group.

You're a graduate student.

We're undergraduates.

Would you help us do that?

Because it will look better if we have people from all different, you know, years.

And we did.

And we created a group called Converse your ovarium, which I think is still technically around, though it's, you know, has ups and downs it's gone through.

But through that club, we would do more like support group stuff, right?

Because we didn't want to bring things onto the campus that could be used against the university or against us.

That's a whole other story about stuff that went sideways there.

But, you know, but I got to meet things like Cecilia Tan, Laura Antenu, Vi Johnson, Mama Vi, if people know who she is.

She runs the Johnson Carter Library and Collection, which is actually just in southern Indiana, so like two hours away from where I live.

And I met these people and through the munch, started going to places like Petals and the Hellfire Club.

I don't think any of those exist anymore.

And going to test meetings and, you know, going to a public dungeon can seem really scary to people, especially if you're single and if you're a single person who presents as female.

But it doesn't have to be that scary.

And what I got out of that was I got to observe a lot of people playing, right?

I got to talk with people at the munches and at meetings.

And I sought out people who were doing things I was interested in.

You know, and I went up to them and said like, Hey, you're doing this flogging with, you know, this nine-tail flogger.

I would like to learn to do that.

Is there a way I can get you to teach me?

Or, you know, you're using rope and bondage.

Can you teach me?

And it is actually pretty amazing how open people are to say, Oh, yeah, I'll teach you that.

Because if you meet them through these venues, you know, you've been vetted a little bit.

They've seen you around for a while.

And so it was sort of like informal series of mentorships where I learned to do things.

And then I, you know, as I got more experience, I tried to turn that around and teach people who asked me things.

So it's, you know, going to New York City was a huge plus for my development in SM and BDSM in general, because I got to see all these examples.

It would have been much harder if I had stayed in Iowa, you know, or if I'd gone immediately to Indiana University.

But big cities can be helpful in that way, but they can also feel very impersonal, depending on the group you go to.

Looking back on it now, Baltimore, Maryland, which is where I'm from, where I grew up, they have a fine kink scene down here.

I don't know that much about it, nor if I'm sure that I want to, because I just don't want to be involved in my hometown kink scene.

But when I graduated high school and moved to Portland, I got to meet a lot more people and hear about a lot more things.

And that really blew the doors open for me.

So I get that, like, going to the right city, especially a large, happening city like New York, has got to be a huge reservoir of like-minded people and functions that are happening.

I mean, you can read every book in the world.

And as an author, I'm not going to say, don't read books.

Now, you should read books.

You should read articles.

You should, however, find out more about how they're being published.

So, you know, these things are being vetted.

We're currently in a situation in publishing where basically anybody with a computer and access to a publishing house, a print house, can make a book and put it out there, whether or not they actually have the experience behind that.

So, I still recommend greenery.

I still recommend actual presses started by kinky people.

And all that reading that you do can give you a sense of what you might be interested in, but it can't actually teach you how to do the thing.

You know, the best guide to bondage can show you the knots, but until you have someone actually there with you, showing you, helping you do it, them watching you doing it, critiquing it, and saying you need to practice, that's a very different level.

I mean, I am a person who loves knives.

I would have never felt safe to do knife play unless I had actually learned hand on from someone.

You know, it's, you just, I really think you need that one to one, and that doesn't mean that you can't learn about this stuff here in a small city or a small town.

It just means you may have to travel a bit.

You may have to use those online connections to find someone and meet it like a neutral place and talk and chat and get to know them and see if they're real and before you learn from them.

Safe calls are real people.

Whenever I meet someone for the first time, that's the second question out of my mouth is, do you have a safe call arranged?

And if they're no, then we're not doing anything today.

Did you say what a safe call was or did I just, did I miss that?

A safe call is when you arrange with someone you know and trust that you're going to call or text in to say, I'm okay or possibly I'm not okay.

And this is a way to protect yourself.

And my assisting upon it is also a way to protect me.

If you're the top or the dominant in a scene and things go sideways, police might show up at your door.

So yes, safe calls are important for you too.

And I'm a big believer in everybody is adult and everybody has to do their adult thing and make it as safe as possible.

And maybe that's a thing from the 90s, the idea of safe calls, but I'm still going to insist on it.

Sorry.

Now, anytime I go somewhere and meet someone new, I always have a safe call.

I've never called it that, but I'm like, I always have someone who knows where I'm going, has my location, and is expecting a text message from me with an update.

Absolutely not.

You don't want to be on the evening news, you know.

Unless it's for something fun, I wouldn't mind.

Local streaker.

If someone calls me and interviews me about my books, let's do that, but not because I'm missing.

Yeah.

No, thank you.

So yeah, that's kind of how my journey went was through finding these communities.

And then, you know, currently it's just keeping in touch and trying to be aware of what new thing or new terminology is out there.

And I've actually found getting a Patreon page has been really helpful to me for that because I wanted to do both my fiction and my education.

And so I have a weekly piece I put out called Wednesday Discussion.

And so I look for things in the news, whether they're pro-sex or anti-sex, whatever they are that relates to, you know, kink or polyness or fetishes, anything like that.

And I'll link to it and then I'll give my opinion and ask people their opinion.

But it, you know, makes me read, right?

It makes me keep up on what is coming out.

And so I kind of, that's a challenge to myself.

Like, I never want to feel like I know everything.

So you've kind of created a community through your Patreon.

I guess sort of have created a community.

I don't know that much about Patreon, and I think it's different based on what you decide, your audience can interact with you.

But you've created a community there, even if you're not out at the events all the time.

There is a space.

And also, I'm the secretary of what's called the Erotic Creators Club.

So there are a bunch of people who do not save for work.

So it can be the whole range, right?

It can be strict education to flat out, dirtiest, filthy porn you can imagine.

It's a whole gambit, anything that's not safe for work.

And I have learned so much from those people who are creating things that people are interested in enough to support them financially to some degree.

And again, that keeps it fresh, right?

It keeps me learning something.

Even if I'm like, yeah, that's not for me, I can still say, well, now I know about it.

And I don't understand what's really interesting about it, but the way you draw that or the way you word that or the poetry you created or the videos you made, I appreciate the skill of that.

And it helps me understand the complexity of human beings and human sexuality.

So if I could talk about one of the things that I really like about a DS or an MS relationship is the love and care and nurturing that comes with it.

And a lot of times in conversations with people who are on the outside of kink or are new to kink, they are surprised at the expectation of just how much thinking and nurturing goes into a relationship like that on the Dom master side.

And so the expectation of this love and nurturing care that the Dom shows is, I think, is one of the more important parts of the relationship, because that's the foundation on which your submissive or slave can feel safe with you.

Could be different for each, but what I would like to ask you is, do you think it's possible for someone to be a healthy and effective Dom without those traits?

And what are some of the characteristics of a healthy DS relationship?

So we have a thing that I created and my slave created with me, where we talk about how these relationships empower both people.

So I really believe that a healthy relationship helps everyone involved, whether it's two people or three people or however many, it is become your best self.

So that's why we use authority instead of power when we talk about a relationship, because we don't think you actually give up any power, we think you actually gain power through the relationship, even if it's just the power to become more yourself.

So in order to do that, that means you have to have the ability to empathize and sympathize with someone.

So my understanding of these two terms is, empathy is when you yourself haven't experienced that, but you can kind of extend, okay, I haven't had that, but I can see how that would affect you.

I feel for how that might affect you.

But sympathy is when you've had the same experience or a similar experience, so now you're like literally feeling equivalent feelings.

So, and I think that's for both people, by the way.

Both the S-type and the D-type need to have that.

The technical skills, like how to tie a knot, where to flog someone, first aid, all that stuff, probably don't really need a lot of empathy or sympathy, just as long as you have a safe word and you're going to respect that.

But I think if you're going to deal with emotions or spiritual or mental situations, then you really do need that empathy and sympathy.

And I think so much of what the general public and even people who are new to the scene, so much of what we see is based on pornography or if you prefer Hollywood and pop culture.

And it's really focused on the surface, right?

That stereotype surface.

You don't really get into the emotions or the intellectual basis.

And so I think a healthy relationship means that you have to go beyond that surface.

And if you lack role models, and most of us probably did lack those role models, it can be hard to figure out what that means.

On the top side, and Todd, tell me if you've seen this too, there's so much talk about how to take care of a submissive, how to take care of a slave, mental feelings, all about everything on the submissive and the slave side, that a lot of times it feels like, oh, if you're the top or the dominant, you are supposed to be that sort of one-dimensional and uncaring machine.

And the problem comes where someone who's doing this doesn't have the community, and so they start to only be that stereotype.

Yeah.

And, you know, let me also be blunt and say there are plenty of people who were not capable of having empathy or sympathy, and if they learn the terminology of SM or King, they can use it, you know, to define people.

Every so many years, you kind of hear that in the King community, like, oh, something's happening in such and such a city.

When we lived in New York, it was like, you know, somebody was targeting the gay men, and some of them were just disappearing.

You know, and I don't know, is that explaining it?

I feel like I'm starting to wander on a tangent, and I don't want to do that.

No, no.

All right, so what I'm hearing you say is...

My brain kind of...

between topics, right?

What I'm hearing, what I heard you say was that yes and sometimes it's not necessary for what you're partaking in.

Like, if you're just...

like, having the sympathy and empathy there isn't always necessary unless you're partaking in some more deeper mental, psychological, spiritual space that is being occupied, or you have an intended goal to go there.

Yeah, and it's also balance, right?

So, like, you can be the most caring, empathetic, sympathetic top in the world, but if you don't actually know how to do the technical stuff, somebody's going to get hurt.

And then you might feel really bad about it, but they're still hurt.

So there's this balance you have to find.

And someone's going to get hurt in not the fun way.

We want them to get hurt in the fun way.

There's going to be harm if you don't know what you're doing.

Something my slave has known for a long time now is I like to hurt him, and I am going to hurt him, but I never want to harm him, and I will never harm him on purpose.

It also takes a lot from your slave or submissive to be able to tell you when harm is happening and not retreat into a space that allows the harm to continue, because then that sucks for the both of you.

You didn't want to give that harm, and you didn't want to get that harm.

So that also takes some strength from the submissive.

It takes practice and reassurance that you can do that.

You know, if...

There's been this movement in some quarters of the kink world where people think they've advanced to this higher level because they no longer need safe words or slow words or whatever, right?

They've just advanced beyond it.

And I'm like, I have nowhere become a mind reader.

I did not suddenly develop telepathy.

You know, that hasn't happened.

So I need a way for my partner to let me know what's going on to their body and inside their head.

And I need to know so I can stop or we can slow down.

I can find out what's happening.

And, you know, when Fox first came into my life, I had two other partners at the same time.

And it was hard for Fox because he would see me with them.

And I've been with one of them for like a year already.

The other one, she was ending her training period.

And so here he is brand new.

And he's just like, ooh, they can take X, Y, and Z.

Maybe I should take X, Y, and Z.

And I never see them ask for things, so I shouldn't ask for things.

And one day, he came over early in his training, and he had brought some rope with him because he really wanted to tell me that he really thought he liked bondage, which, by the way, he really likes bondage.

And he like sat there and kept looking at his backpack clip, looking at the backpack, and like, is there something in your backpack?

And, you know, and I'm like, well, we're just going to sit here and stare at each other until you, you know, tell me what it is that you brought.

So he gets it and he opens it up, and I'm like, that's not telling me what it is that you brought.

And so I like literally forced him to do that.

Was it hard?

It was really hard.

But I needed him to be able to do that because I had to trust that he was going to give me all the information, especially as we transitioned into an owner slave dynamic, because then I took the authority to make a lot of decisions, and I can't make those decisions unless I have information.

So if I can't trust that my partner is, one, giving me information, and two, giving me all of the honest information they can, then, and this might sound harsh to some people, not only can I not make a decision for us, but I actually can't then give my consent for what we're going to do.

Like, I have two things to say about that.

One, I got uncomfortable in my body just listening to that, because you want me to tell you what I want?

I didn't mention that.

I know, I was like, how awful and delicious that must have been.

What was the other thing?

I think this kind of underscores the point that like, that your top, your Dom, your Master is not in the business of like, just doing whatever they want without any consideration for you.

They're doing whatever they want within the parameters that you set for them to do what they want.

And they want to know all your thoughts and how you're feeling about things, so that they can continue to make these decisions for you that you can agree with and you enjoy and you are feeling fulfilled and happy.

Yeah.

So there was a group at Indiana University called Headspace, which I joined when we moved here from my doctoral program.

And I started off, you know, just going to their munches, going to their events.

And then I was asked by the president, hey, can you help me?

We get requests from like professors in like psychology courses, sociology courses, and human sexuality courses to come in and talk.

And I'm like, okay.

So I kind of became the education liaison.

And one of the things I used to do in that class, which you just reminded me of, is I would draw a Venn diagram.

And I'd say, here is the top and everything they're interested in can do.

And here's the bottom and everything they're interested in doing.

I said, see this part where they overlap?

And you know, Claire goes, that as a top, that's mine.

That's where my authority is, is where we are overlapping in MESH.

And that was a simplistic way to talk about it.

But, you know, these are people between 18 and 22 years old, who probably barely have heard of this stuff.

So they needed it simple, but also as honest as I could make it.

I mean, if I was one of those 18 to 22 year olds in that room, I would have been blown away by it.

Like, I was like, it's a really good way to think about it.

Oh, my God.

So how long have you and Fox had this master slave dynamic?

So we signed our MS contract beginning of June in, I want to say, 2001.

No, because we're coming up on two.

That's right.

In 1999.

In 1999.

Because we are coming up on our 25th anniversary.

So, yeah, so 2000.

That's right.

Because we started in 1999.

He moved in the summer of 2000, and that's when we signed the MS contract.

I'll tell you, folks, when you've been doing this for so long, the dates just kind of blur a little bit in your mind.

But we started, as I mentioned, I had two other partners at the time.

It was the busiest poly time in my life.

It was probably actually the happiest time of my life, because I seem to get so much more done when I have to be very, very careful with my time and very, very focused.

And also when I feel like I have someone I can do whatever I want with at almost any given time, there is somebody there that I can reach out to.

But I have, and I still have, a very formalized training program that I will give someone who has made it through the hoops already to try a relationship with me.

And I have done this training program for people who actually had no interest in being with me simply because they had heard from other people that I was a safe person to like explore things with.

So it kind of functions as both, right?

A sort of education, but also it's a way to test out and see if we are compatible.

And that is a 16-week program.

And at the end of that 16-week program, Fox said, I want to continue, but I think I have more to learn.

Can we expand this program?

And I said, sure.

Yeah, let's keep going.

And I think that was in part because we did not fully grasp yet how quickly our emotions and how deeply they were developed, sustained in the training period, helped us slow down.

Because, you know, it's exciting, but if you go too fast, you can make errors.

You know, it can be a setup for having your heart broken.

And after the end of that second period is when we signed the owner-slave contract.

And we did that in part because we were no longer existing outside of a DS dynamic.

And we, you know, had a training collar that went on.

That was supposed to be when things started.

It came off.

That was supposed to be when we were just Fox and Tammy Jo.

And that just wasn't happening.

And it wasn't because either of us were like, nah, I don't want to give it up.

It just felt appropriate for us to interact that way.

And Fox calls that natural.

It was just natural for us to do that.

You know, we don't see eye to eye on this, but I would point out that we could see that.

The structure, right?

So as natural as it felt, we already set up that structure.

It just turns out the structure we created was what really worked well for us.

So it'll be 25 years, and he has lived with us in the same house for 23 of those years.

So he moved in for one summer, and then he went back and lived in the dorms.

And then the next summer, he came back and then he just stayed.

So there were like the first two years, he was mostly in the dorms.

And he stayed in part because of his biological family situation and not wanting to go home.

It wasn't safe for him to go home.

And we had just bought a house, and I had a room.

I was so excited, y'all.

I hung up my floggers, I had it all set, and then he had to live in there.

I was like, I'm giving up my dying for this boy.

You know what?

Boy was the better deal in the end.

In the end.

So, though it was very interesting, the first time his parents came, he didn't remove stuff, and they were like, what the fuck is going on here?

You know?

Surprise!

And he came out to them at least a dozen times.

And there was right before the pandemic, and I mean right, like, but November 2019, we invited them for an early Thanksgiving.

And he said one more time to them, I'm in a relationship with TammyJo.

I am part of this family.

They are my family.

You have to accept it.

And they literally looked at us, looked at us and said, we're never going to accept those.

That was probably one of the top 10 worst experiences of my life.

You have to be told by people whose child you have loved and cared for and housed and fed and, you know, introduced to terrible wicked things and been introduced to terrible wicked things by for at that point, you know, 20 years, 21 years to have them say, we're never going to accept you.

That was hard.

Particularly weird because my parents accepted it.

My family all accepts it and like knows, like knows everything.

And they're just like, you happy, then we happy.

You know, they don't.

Yeah.

They just accept it.

But it's it's been a while and ideally would like other relationships, but they just have not really, really worked out.

With so you and Fox are coming up on 25 years.

And just to just to age you, when you guys started your relationship in 99, I was being born.

So it's been a long time, huh?

Is there a need to keep it fresh?

And if there is, like how drastic are those refreshers?

So I was 30 and Fox was 19 when I met him.

Would I see someone that young now?

Well, not now, I'm 54, but at the time, I was a little younger.

But for us, it's not really a matter of keeping things fresh because the SM, the bondage, the plane, that's sort of like the little things we do when one of us wants to or both of us wants to.

But the core of our relationship really is that DS that grew into MS.

And so because of that, there's nothing really for us to refresh.

It'd be kind of like, you know, married to Tom.

Do we need to refresh our marriage?

Well, no, we're married.

We accepted those roles.

That's what we have.

But that doesn't mean we don't do things to let each other know how we feel and to connect.

So things that we have are rituals.

So we have daily rituals that we do.

Some of them I created.

Some of them Fox created.

We have this wonderful ritual at night when I go to bed, where he removes my shoes if I'm wearing shoes and my socks, and he kisses my feet, and then he lays his head between my thighs, and I close my thighs around his head really hard and pet his head.

It's these few moments where he has to just be.

He's not going anywhere at that moment, and I need to really be focused on him.

We don't always do that really well, but it's that time we set up so we can do it.

And we feel it when we miss it, like if I have to go somewhere, or the rare times when he has to go somewhere, and we miss that, he will come back, and he'll just go like, okay, I was gone three days, so kiss, kiss.

You know, just like, like count it out and stuff.

And you know, things like that.

And those little rituals are important to keep us aware that we've agreed to this relationship.

And some of them are protocols.

So this is a complicated question.

Like, what's the difference between a ritual, a protocol, a guideline, a rule, all these things, right?

But a protocol is like how you're going to live, like how you're going to relate to each other.

And we're usually very low protocol.

We can go higher.

Like if we're going to an event, we'll go into a higher mode of protocol simply because it makes Fox feel safer, but it also tends to make the people around us feel more comfortable because we're behaving a little bit more like they might expect.

But one of the most important protocols, rules we have is that he never ever uses my first name unless there's something he really needs to talk about.

So my first name has become a safe word basically.

And I train myself through repeated practice to react that way.

So if he says Tammy Jo, I'm immediately, what's going on?

What's happened?

And the rest of the time it's mistress, mistress, mistress, mistress.

Year after I got my PhD, it was doctor mistress for a while.

But those are the things that we do so that's important.

So it's not really refreshing.

It's keeping those protocols and rules and maintaining them.

One of the things I tell tops or dominance when they come to me and ask me to kind of mentor them or ask me questions.

There are a whole lot of pornographic expectations about rules and rituals and protocols, right?

Back when I came into the scene, there was this thing like a thousand and one slave rules, and you could find it online, right?

Ridiculous thing.

What I tell them is if you cannot recite all your rules, then you shouldn't have them.

Never have more rules than you can recite, because if you have it, you've got to enforce it.

As soon as you don't enforce it, you're sending the message that that's not really important.

And if that's not really important, maybe your partner is not really important, or maybe you think you're not really important.

So, you know, I think if your relationship is really about playing, then yeah, I imagine it can get tiresome to do the same thing over and over.

But you know what?

Not necessarily.

There are really people out there who are like, you know, if we take this back to the vanilla world, they have sex on a Tuesday evening, 830 to 9.

It happens every night because the kids are with mom or at Boy Scouts or whatever it is, right?

And that's what they do.

And then they just get tired for them because they expect it.

There's that buildup.

There's that expectation.

So, you know, it's what works for you.

It's really what works for you.

And I'm sorry if that's not the answer you're hoping I would give.

What books or are you writing or new editions might you be releasing soon?

Yeah, so some people may have heard of this book.

Fox and I wrote it together.

It's called At Her Feet Empowering Your Femdom Relationship, and it came out in 2010, and we still get paid annual royalties on it.

So people are still out there buying this book.

So we have revised this book, and it will be out.

The last time the publisher talked to me, they're still thinking it's going to be a May release.

And the new edition of it, so edition two, actually has 28% more material in it, brand new material in it, including because a lot of the things we talked about turned into being asked to teach about this.

We created an actual set of exercises and questions that go throughout the book that we hope people will take the time to do so that they can think about it.

And we've also addressed gender more explicitly and talk about how when we say femdom, we're not meaning biological female, we're meaning that you see yourself in that type of relationship.

And these are the things we're then talking about.

And we talk about new things like we're older, what's happened, what's changed with that.

So that's a book that's coming out.

And I had a really good thing that happened in 2020 as the pandemic hit, and that was that I signed a six book contract with a new publisher.

And so I had a book out, I've had three books out now with that publisher, I have three more.

And we are right now, I'm right now, going through the first round of edits on the second book in my new series.

And the new series is called Almost Partners.

And you can find it on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, things like that.

So if you look for my name, you'll find it.

And I'm really excited about this series because now I mentioned when I was little, I was filtering the world.

When I was in fifth grade, I wrote a short story for my teacher.

And it was like this space adventure, right?

This woman and the man she owns, I'm in fifth grade, remember, the man she owns, goes to another planet and investigates a drug cartel.

I'm in fifth grade.

She gives like a, I guess it'd be like a Xerox of it.

She sends it to the University of Iowa Writers Workshop without telling me.

At the end of the year, she gives me an envelope, and they've read it and they've critiqued it, and they liked it, but the thing they said was, you know, this is not a short story.

And that has now become a 10-plus book series that I have like sketched out.

And so I'm really excited that, you know, the first book came out just last fall.

This new book will come out probably in August, and I have a contract for the next two books with them too.

So I hope people buy it because literally this series is like my life's work, you know, what I've been working on.

And I think it should appeal to people in the scene like us because this is a world where, yes, women are in control.

So it's a matriarchy.

It's the whole lesson about, you know, you don't treat people right, injustices will get, you know, things are just going to flip and it will be even worse.

That's sort of, you know, a feminist science fiction idea.

But more importantly for me, the main female character is Polly.

She's normal, which in that world means that she's bisexual.

And she's kinky.

And that's just accepted.

That's fine.

It's fine in that world.

And I'm like, wow, can you imagine that?

Other things in this world suck.

But wouldn't that be nice just to, that's just who you are.

Just one facet of what you are, you know?

That's very cool.

Thanks, thanks.

I'll have to recommend some books to my mom.

She, she, actually, I shouldn't speak on her interests, really, but I'm going to, I'm going to recommend a few of these to her, I think.

I hope she will read.

The book before then was a vampire novel told through, we interconnected short stories.

So it's also a different sort of narrative style.

And I like to do that.

I like to, you know, try new things, challenge myself.

And as you can tell, I can keep talking for a long time.

So it's just up to you all how long you want to talk.

So the new edition of It At Her Feet, does that include the outline for the 16-week course?

It talks about it, and there is the sample training contract.

But I don't go into the specifics about what happens during those 16 weeks.

I talk about the materials I used and what I base it on.

And in part, that's because while it's formalized for me, there are points in that where things shift and change based on the reactions that we're each having.

So one of the two people, the woman I was training when Fox came into my life, one of the neatest things about our training for her was she discovered that she's actually a service top.

That's what really drives her.

And she's like, I could not have figured that out without this.

I'm like, I'm glad you figured it out.

And she wants to be in charge, and she wants to make decisions, but she wants to do it for the other person.

You know, she wants to consider what they want and need.

That's the first thing in her mind.

She's like, is that a real thing?

Is that a thing you can do?

I'm like, you can do whatever you want.

This is what I would call it.

But, you know, as long as it's consensual, you can do whatever you want.

Todd, you're like that.

You're a service top.

That makes it sound like a utility worker or something.

But I mean, I think it doesn't, the name doesn't really, I mean, that's not all that I am, but I don't think it really speaks to the depth of what you're doing in that role, you know?

Well, and I think everyone does this, I would think, first and foremost, for themselves, for what you get out of it.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

I think it's actually pretty empowering to realize, I'm doing this because I want to.

I'm doing this because I get something out of it.

Otherwise, why are you going to invest the time and money to do it at all?

I mean, we have to do so many things in life that we really don't want to do.

You know, don't make your sex life like that, please.

I think that's one of the things that, like, my kinky sex life has helped me in my vanilla day-to-day life is, like, one of my kinks is to, like, I mean, relinquishing control, I guess, authority to somebody else.

And I guess, like, having a bad time, but also kind of a good time, it has taught me to not accept that kind of domineering, do what I say, behavior or something that I'm not into from other people, whereas, like, in a dynamic, it is my container with which I am there to please whoever else is around me.

But not in my day-to-day life.

That is reserved for only certain people.

So that has helped me to separate that people-pleasing behavior and save it for something that is actually helpful for me and more fun rather than damaging.

I think when you get started in kink, especially if you do DS or MS, it can be really eye-opening to then look around the world and realize how much is driven by power and authority.

And it's almost always power over or authority over.

It's not power from or authority from.

And that's important.

One is about consent, and one is about bullying basically.

The only straggler thought that I have left in my head is I remembered what I wanted to say.

When you were talking about rules, and if you can't remember all the rules, then you shouldn't have all the rules.

My issue is that I struggle to remember any of them.

There have been several times where I'm asked to repeat what I'm supposed to repeat and my head empty.

But I suppose it's more so my mind goes blank when it's kind of like a call and response ritual, like when you're asked a question and you know the response you're supposed to give.

But maybe if I was asked to remember and repeat actual rules that I had like scaffolding of like, you know, why this rule is a part of the dynamic, that would be easier to recall than some sort of like ritualistic affirmation that I'm just like memorizing out of like rhythm and words and not necessarily because I know them.

Does that make sense?

Yes, and actually this formal training I do, that's part of it, right?

Because we sign a contract, but before we do that, we go over like, why is this here?

And we talk about it.

And then one of the exercises that is repeatedly done is not just repeat the rules, the protocols, the rituals, but explain why.

And then explain how they make you feel.

So that, you know, you're incorporating all this at multiple levels, right?

There's the intellectual level, there's actual language or the actions.

There's the emotional level, like how it makes you feel.

And then there's just practice.

So one of the things I learned in graduate school is I took several pedagogy classes.

That's pedagogy is the study of how you teach.

And the more ways that you can teach the same thing, the more likely someone is to master that material, which means to really incorporate it and fully understand it into them.

And there is a general rule that's called fivefold mastery.

So if you've gone through something five times, the odds are very, very high that you're going to maintain that.

So like, to give you an example, I have a set of positions that I teach people.

It's because it's very formal.

If we go into high protocol, these are things that I expect, which meant I had to remember all these things, what they look like, how they work, how they're numbered.

And I could either call them by their names or I could call them by their numbers.

And for Fox to learn these, he also had to take it upon himself to practice them when he was alone.

I think that's something that we might not consciously think of.

We might think when I'm with my partner, that's when these things matter.

But to achieve really understanding them, making part of yourself, it means when you're not even with that person to kind of practice that on your own.

Yeah, there's a few rituals that I take part in, in like my morning and nighttime routines that I do with myself.

That, you know, I'm not in front of anybody.

It's just for me, but it connects me back to the dynamic that I am willingly and happily in, even if sometimes I'm like, big eye roll about it.

I love it.

I eat that shit up.

Okay, I admit it.

Yeah, so I agree.

There has to be that, like, you have to do homework.

Unfortunately, you have to do homework and practice by yourself.

Yeah, and my training has homework.

One of the training things we do is I actually make someone go and take a class, either at like the community college, community center, college, university, some place where they take like an actual class.

And it can be anything, but needs to be something which they think will help them in that journey to be a submissive or a slave.

So when Fox had that assignment, he took a class on meditation and massage because he can be a very high, strong person.

I can be a very high, strong person.

So learning to do that not only helped him, but there are times when he can come to me and know the language to use and work with me to help.

Like, okay, I'm going to breathe with you or eyes on me.

We're going to breathe.

We're going to go through this together.

Another partner I had, he took dance.

He took belly dance.

And yeah, I did not miss up those pronouns.

He took belly dance.

And in our entire city, he was the first band to take a belly dance class.

And I went to his recital.

I was like a mama.

I was like just so proud.

And he did it because he wanted to be more comfortable with his body and to feel like he deserved to be seen as a sexual being, which is something he didn't feel before.

And after him, other men started taking it too.

And I was like, that's really cool.

Look what you've done.

You know, and sometimes we want to do things, and having another person say to us, yes, go do this, and holding us responsible can really be helpful to us.

Hard agree.

Well, I just wanted to refer back to something you were talking about earlier, and it got me thinking, the lack of resources around how a dom or master or owner would care for themselves I think makes it difficult to get into those deeper levels of connection with your submissive, or at least to go in without being equipped with the right tools of self-care.

It could potentially get dangerous for what you're trying to create.

And I think there definitely needs to be more resources for people on the left side of the slash, because of the responsibility you're taking on.

And I don't know, maybe what would be some books or resources you might recommend for people on the left side of the slash on self-care and taking on that level of responsibility?

Well, of course, I'm going to say my book, first of all, but also look for organizations or clubs that are top or dominant only.

I would caution against having clubs where that is also connected to someone's gender, because I think you will learn more from a diverse group of people.

So if there's a top club, let's say, in a city that's an hour and a half drive away from you, that's only women, I wouldn't necessarily do that.

But if there's one that's pansexual, do it, because you're going to get different opinions, different experiences.

Be picky, test these groups out, right?

And if all they're talking about is the technical details of flogging or not tying, and no one seems ready to answer your questions about like...

For example, do you ever feel sad the day or two after you've had a really intense scene?

And if no one wants to talk about that, then that's probably not a group that's going to give you that emotional depth, because they're still stuck as a unit in that surface level, technical level of being atop.

And when you find people like that, really nurture it.

You know, find those mentorships, and then turn around after you've been mentored and offer that to other people.

Also, talk to people on the other side of the slash.

You know, not just about scene stuff either, but just about stuff in general.

When I learned knifeplay, I learned it from a person who was a bottom.

You know, he showed me on another person, and then he had me practice on him.

He knew what it was like on both sides.

And he had been a switch before, and he realized he was, you know, it's really, really helpful to get these different perspectives.

There have been at some different leather conferences or kink conferences out there, there is now a tendency to have more workshops and classes in these areas.

There's a conference out near the DC area that's called the Master-Slave Conference, and I think they're approaching their 25th year of being active.

They're the folks who gave me a teaching award in 2019.

But, you know, the first event I did with them, another couple called Master Penguin and Slave Gina, who were the MSC, so Master-Slave Conference, Master-Slave Couple of the Year last year, they had the very first class in that event where it dealt with abuse.

Like, we are people who are survivors of abuse.

And because I'm very open about that, and Fox is like this much open about it, we were on that panel with them.

And doing that, so many people then talked to us afterwards about, you know, I've been afraid to say anything because I'm a top, and I'm not supposed to have these problems.

So if you see events like that or activities like that, attend them, go to them, but also give that feedback, right?

Because if we just done it, and everyone was there, and they just sat at the end quiet, or never reached out to us, then we would feel like, well, that was...

Yeah.

Was it worth it or not?

So that's what I think you can do, is really reach out like that.

Usually hidden within a lot of these how-to books, you'll find glimpses of stuff about emotions and mental concerns, sometimes spiritual concerns that people on the top side of the slash go through.

But it's oftentimes really hidden in there underneath all the technical talk.

Like Jay Wiseman has SM 101, which is a very old book, but still a very good book.

Within that, he does talk about some of those things.

John Moran had a book called Loving Dominant, where he talks about technique, but he also talks about emotions, and not just the bottom's emotions, but your emotions.

And that book is from the early 90s originally.

So there were a few people doing this, but by and large, we still buy into this idea that this is how you're supposed to be when you're in this role, and this is how you're supposed to be in another role.

And I'm going to say something, and it might sound a little harsh, but I'm not going to apologize for people to say this.

One of the worst things that can happen to you if you're a top or a dominant is to have the person you care about, when you open up to them, say, well, then you're not the top I thought you were.

I can't tell you the dozens of women, but honestly, mostly men tops, who've come to me upset, that they got dumped by their partner because they admitted that they love them, or they admitted that they had really mixed feelings about doing SM, or they feel really insecure, and when they opened up to their partner, their partner said, well, then you're not real dominant.

That is really hurtful.

Okay, well, they're wrong.

It reinforces the stereotype, and it probably actually scares away men and women who could have become excellent dominance and wonderful tops because they then were given the message, nope, you're not, you're wrong.

This world isn't for you.

So aftercare is for everyone, right?

Checking in is for everyone.

Yeah, that's really sad, but I imagine it happens quite a bit.

And especially more of the more casual kink end of things, you know, those that lean, you know, less towards the long-term dynamics.

You don't mind.

I think that's why you said, Todd, that you're probably more of a switch, that you haven't really found someone to explore the other side with.

I think that's also a reason why a lot of people don't say they're switches, especially if they started off on the top, because they can get the same pushback.

You know, someone doesn't want to think of their top submitting to somebody else.

And, you know, it's...

We're just human.

Worship me like a goddess if you wish, but ultimately I am just a human.

The pedestal is there for the play, not for real life.

Well said.

Thank you.

Because I'm probably going to need help up and down on it anyway.

And that's why you're there at the bottom, to help me up and down.

TammyJo, this has been so much fun.

I'm so glad we got to...

Thank you for having me and for talking.

You know, you shared some of these questions earlier in it.

You know, past few days, it made me think about things and try to remember dates, right, and pull them in.

And I find that sometimes people say I think too much, but I actually really do like the re-evaluating and reflecting.

I think it helps me grow and feel more grounded at the same time.

There are plenty of times where my initial thoughts are just...

Like, how am I supposed to give you a well-thought-out answer that truly reflects all that I've learned and my values if you're giving me like two seconds to think about it before you're expecting a response?

You're getting a one-star response.

Sorry.

So that makes total sense.

I really enjoyed, you know, having...

looking at these questions and answers ahead of time a little bit more and looking at some of your work of...

I felt a lot happier and excited going into this.

Thank you.

More prepared.

And hopefully down the road, we can catch up with you again.

We'll get caught up on some of your newer books and talk about those some.

Great.

That sounds great.

That was Tammy Jo Eckhart.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Subspace Exploration Project.

Every episode, you can join us for a plunge into kink, non-monogamy, sex education, deconstructing the gender binary, queer culture, and building healthy communities.

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