Starting Your Own Munches and Building Your Own Community

Someone smart said a very long time ago “build it and they will come”. You won’t hear me discuss this very much on this website or really any of my other blogs, but I actually organize a pretty sizable BDSM community in the Los Angeles area. We’ve host charity BDSM events and have raised over $10,000 for our local LGBT community. At the time of me writing this post, I currently organize probably the largest munch in the LA area and I’ll tell you that it’s a lot easier than you might initially think.

Organizing Your Own Munches

Like I said, my first bit of advice to any newbie is to go to a munch, so if you live in an area where there isn’t one, consider starting your own. There are a few things I’d keep in mind when trying to organize your own munches:

Firstly, while you might want to communicate with the venue about what you’re doing, I’ve found that most venues do not care that you’re a BDSM meet up as long as you’re not actually doing BDSM. During the time of Covid, I would highly suggest that you choose a venue that has a large outdoor patio. I say large because the reality is you really don’t know how many people will show up. When I first started the current munch I run, we started with a good solid group of about 20 people and most of those people were people we knew, but since our munch has been happening, that number has doubled and trippled. When people like your munch, they’ll tell their friends and those friends will tell their friends and sooner or later you will have a thriving group of people who look forward to every munch you host and organize.

I will warn you, however, taking up this mantle requires a lot of responsibility. You have to be willing to ban people who misbehave because you will absolutely get your fair share of pick up artists and creeps that come thinking it’s a pick up situation, but remember, that’s not what munches are supposed to be about. You want your munch to be welcoming to new people and so you must put a focus on not doing things that might potentially alienate new members and also you want to make sure that you’re heavily discouraging public play at the munch. Public Play or even something like a person walking their partner on a leash will easily be used by the venue owners or other customers to remove you and your group from the establishment. You want to maintain a positive relationship with the restaurant or bar so be sure to patronize, and tip well. Most venues will appreciate the additional business.

There are pros and cons to hosting your event at a restaurant or a bar. Most restaurants do not have open seating so they may not lend themselves very well to a munch. The problem with bars is that you might have members of your community that are sober or under the age of 21 and those people might feel alienated from your munch. We host our munch at a restaurant/bar so people who are sober can order food and people who want to drink can drink and everyone over the age of 18 is welcome to attend.

I think any BDSM Community that has regular play parties needs to have munches or sloshes to balance the community out and as an introductory point for newbies. Some of the local BDSM dungeons also throw game nights where people are invited to come to the BDSM Dungeon, check out the equipment and play some board games. You will find there’s a huge crossover between people who are looking for a DnD group/other people to play boardgames and BDSM. Either way, I highly encourage establishing some sort of non kink related activity that is focused on bringing together folks who are interested in BDSM or actively practicing BDSM. To me, that is the first step to building a community and subsequently organizing BDSM play spaces.

Organizing Play Parties

As previously stated, I organize a fairly large LA based BDSM community, but with that said, We’ve currently only thrown 2, quite successful play parties. So take this section with a grain of salt, but here are some central things that stood out to me when organizing a play party.

When organizing BDSM Play Party, you are assuming responsibility for the things that go on at your event. I would actively discourage you from doing this unless you are willing to take on that burden. It can be, and often is, a very overwhelming and annoying task. Because you can only be in so many places at once I would highly suggest that your first step be securing Dungeon Monitors for your events. You probably don’t want to begin entertaining the idea of hosting events without already having established a relationship with Dungeon Monitors. Depending on your community and its local dungeons, you might be able to pick up DMs from other events, but some DMs only work at certain events and you’ll likely have to prove to them that your event is a good one before they agree to give their time to DMing for your event. These are probably your strongest asset for your events.

Most people to go to play parties for socializing, exhibitionism and a chance to use the equipment. This means that you’ll need a venue and likely equipment if you don’t already have it. I would say that when it comes to equipment, you’ll want to have no fewer than 3 pieces of equipment and if you can tripple and quadruple that, even better; if you have the space. You might want to consider hiring or partnering with a local Dominant/Top who has their own equipment who is willing to service top. I would avoid partnering the with the kind of person who only tops specific bodies/genders/races/etc if you’re hosting a diverse party where everyone is welcome. Most Tops will bring their own tools, but it might be handy for you to have a few you don’t particularly care for available for the newer and more curious people who are still sorting things out. Parties for newer people are going to require either more space or more structured use of the equipment.

Really really ask yourself what kind of space you’re wanting to create. Personally for me, inclusion is very important in the BDSM spaces that I’m in so when I sort out to organize my own events, that was at the forefront of how the munches and events were presented. If you’re a person who really wants for your space to be one where, for example, newly out transgender people can use the pronouns that feel good to them, sometimes it’s as simple as having a pronoun pin/name-tag with a space for pronouns can communicate that they are welcome here. If it’s an event for everyone, say that. You don’t know just how many people are nervous about coming to events because they are worried they might not be welcomed there.

This is my long-winded, but basic advice about getting into the BDSM community that already exists in your area or potentially starting your own. I hope this helps anyone trying to find their place out there! Happy slappin’!