No One Can Tell A Bunny What To Do

So thanks for letting us interview you. Alright, so how do you first get into fetish? How did you discover that for you?

So, I moved away from my family home when I was just about 18. I got an apprenticeship in a totally different part in the UK, and had a boyfriend who lived in Manchester and went to Uni where I used to live. We ended up in a bit of a long-distance relationship, and were trying things out. And obviously the first thing you do in a new area is to try and see who are the gay guys around you. So, I got on grindr and found this pup and thought “Oh this is weird – and interesting. I don’t know what this is about, but I’d like to.” But also I still had a boyfriend, weren’t open, so we just chatted, and that was sort of my first element of kink that I met on this app.

Fast forward. We broke up. I met a couple that were quite kinky, and had a group session with them. And I started from there on to do more kink sexually with them, and started exploring in groups a bit of very light bdsm. And then, finally, talked back to that original pup from the beginning, and started chatting a bit more about what pup play was, and after my 19th birthday, got my first pup hood.

And now, nearly a year later, I progressed from being a pup to quite a lot of BDSM.

At this point he shows me his cabinet filled with toys and gear, and his pup hood on another stand besides the bed. His whole room looked kink oriented. He also has a little pup bed for when some come over, and other things.

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Wow, so it really just came “WHAM”, like opening the flood doors and going all in for you, didn’t it?

Yeah, I just went to events, started exploring, and thought I enjoy this. Not just… – not always sexually, but, it sort of alleviated some of the pressures of my work day to day. I’m not in a high intensity work, but still in quite a professional one.

I work as a scientist, so it’s very hard sometimes, you always have to behave very professional, have to think what you do in the workplace, and also be very intellectual. And in bdsm and pup play, I don’t, I can just be a crazy little puppy. Although in some areas my biology side comes in quite handy in some aspects there too, as I know about the human body and learned it.

The mischievous look in his eyes and smirk as he tells that already gave me a good impression of what it was handy for.

It’s easy for me to find all the different points that you can do things to get some reactions. If you speak to some of the people I play with, they can tell you how they sometimes get a bit “How do you know all these points?”, and go “You fucker!” when I just place a finger somewhere hehe 😉

I agreed that sounded indeed very convenient, and secretly made a reminder to look up some searchwords on google for such points before asking him:

You’ve become very immersed in these things. Has it become a lifestyle for you?

Yes I’d say so. I tell people at work some of the things I do. I have friends at work who even know all about my pup side. One of them there I don’t see all that often, but follows me on twitter now. I’ve got people who come in to the event I’m organizing that I work with, to see what that’s all about. Some of these are very close work friends.

I’ve also once accidentally brought my hood to work, and then accidentally also got very drunk at work event and gotten it out as well. That might not have helped my standing.

He breaks out in embarrassed laughter as he remembers this situation.

But it brought me open talks with my coworkers, Some of which actually helped them as well. I’ve had conversation with work mates who’ve had problems in their relationship, where they’re not feeling sexy when playing or having time with their partner. And they wanted to explore a more kinky side in their bedroom. They’ve come to talk I’ve talked about how to do it safe and properly, and what to look at. And it’s helped them and it’s opened a bit more the topics I can talk about at work too.

You’re talking about fetish very healthy for oneself. Do you see it as something positive?

Yes, because I’m quite a logical person and I’m quite open. And I think if you reserve a part of yourself away from other people you really trust, you sort of put up a barrier around you, and that shuts you off. And when you challenge an area of yourself that’s valid, then you get worked up, you get worried that someone’s gonna find out, that you shouldn’t feel this way, because it’s a taboo, this shouldn’t be talked about.

But if people actually talk about it, and you don’t have to talk about everything. I’m probably on the larger end of the scale here…

He laughs nervously again, and scratches the back of his head in embarassment.

But if conversations happen, in some sort of aspect, just like “Okay, I’m kinky”, then I think people are just so much more alleviated. It feels like coming out for a second time.

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I very much agreed with him. “Although, even if you do that”, I had to add, “in my experience, once you start with another fetish and discover that, it starts all over again.”

Yes, its literally like coming out multiple times, for multiple different things. Though not always to everybody like your family etc. Which is – not a bad thing, but – it raises the question… why though? Why should we need to come out in some aspect? I identify as a queer person. That’s what I do. And it’s quite hard to say that already, today still. And then you have to add the level of kinky to it as well. I imagine that’s even harder for young people especially.

Yes, although I guess it depends on the person, and the environment. If it’s one that easily judges other people, then of course, you’re right there.

Yes, I for example work in a environment that’s very much dominated by judgemental white old men.

That of course, is not ideal. I guess I’m quite on the other end there in that regard, writing for this magazine.

Yeah, you can say whatever you like. I’m envious of that. I find it hard in some workplaces I think. Especially when it’s an older work generation that’s close-minded. This is a very general stereotype, I know, but it’s also sadly a very common one that occurs.

I agree, and often those very same people still have some sort of kink that they don’t live because they have that old mindset. Or live secretly and in shame of themselves. Especially the higher their success at work, because they need to blow off the steam they accumulate.

Oh yeah, I know a few bosses of companies…

You see his eyes wander as he thinks about them for a minute. There was a small silence as we both suddenly felt a little too melancholic, and since we were getting off track with the interview, I asked him about his pup side and also second animal play role that he discovered: Bunny play.

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Yes, about that… so pup play I’ve been into just almost a year now. It’s weird, it feels longer, but I’ve only got my hood end of march last year. Time flies it seems! But I’ve not looked back at it really. It’s something that I think will always stay with me.

I don’t know if you’ve seen it at my twitter, but I’ve got a paw print tattoo a few months ago. Pup play sort of really helped me express myself, and relax, and been an introduction into kink. And it is a good entry level kink.

“This actually holds true”, I told him, as it seems to have become very much a phenomenon we can witness with all our interviews as well.

It’s a fetish that crosses bridges and that you can connect with pretty much everything else, and it’s look doesn’t have the intimidating taste other fetishes, especially classic BDSM, does.

Yes, and it doesn’t have to be sexual. Most of the time I’ve worn my hood, I’ve done it SFW. I very rarely wear my hood for sexual play.

It’s inconvenient to do that anyways, I stated, and he smiled.

Oh I know. Try and kiss with a hood on, it’s almost impossible.

At this point we started almost started to ramble a little bit about that, how you almost drown yourself drinking out of a bowl sometimes with hoods, and that straws are one of pup’s best friends, before getting back on track.

We were actually trying to talk about bunny play right?

Yeah, well, how I started that is actually quite a funny story. So my name’s Thumper, because that was my rugby name. I’ve got that since I was a bit mean in rugby. When people up my neck or dumped me on my back, I’d give them a little jab into the ribs just in the place it really fucking hurts. But I’d do it so the ref wouldn’t see it. And they, as a reaction, would pick me up off the floor and start trying to beat the shit out of me. And the ref would give them a yellow card, I’d go off scot-free, and carry on.

So everybody gave me the name Thumper, because I was like the little bunny from Disney with some people, and then act all little and cute. And that was absolutely the best name for me, and I carried that on into pup play. But obviously it got that rabbit connotation to it, and of course I’ve got one or two friends who’d piss at me with sentences like “Ohh you’re a bunny, don’t deny your bunny” and so forth.

And one night, I was browsing on amazon, and got some really cheap, sort of waitress? Cotton bunny ears, a nice collar, cuffs, and some nice feminine long high socks, wore it and and went “Actually, I really like this. Not sure if I like the feminine side, maybe we’ll think about that, but I really like the bunny ears, the play”,

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He made some quick examples of his bunny behavior, how he hopped around, sniffed, looked what’s going on and then continued,

and I liked being able to do what I want. So I started to try it out a bit, and then got my muzzle, I went to LAM, met these lovely people and gotten these lovely bunny ears I have now and just played around with the idea: “What is a bunny? What does it generally do?” I started to talk to other bunny players and it sort of came out for me. Bunnies are untamable. Even though you try to tame it, it’s sort of naïve, it’d bounce around, it’d try not to get caught, and it’d be a little bit mischievous.

With puppies you can kind of control a bit more, you can give treats and commands. But with bunnies, you can’t really do that, you just sorta gotta let it do what it wants to do. Which kind of resonates with me. He does the dismissive hand wave impression and goes: Just let me do what I wanna do, just leave me alone. Just let me go and bounce and play and whatever I want and just act all cute 😉 That fits me very well.

I was curious to know that since it’s another animal, whether there’d be another headspace. Is that completely different than pup space for you?

Yeah. I mean there’s obviously links from one to the other, since it’s all pet play in some sense, and each are part of me, but it is a separate headspace. He draws two circles in the air. If I were to make a chart, they’d overlap to some part, but still be different things. Like brothers or sisters.

Did you also ever consider getting into other kinds of animal roles? Or is the bunny just something you can really connect to?

I think I can connect to bunnies a bit more than most. There are a few animals I could think of in the far future, but at the moment I’m quite set on bunny and pup. But there’s all kinds of out there, I’m sure. I’m currently trying to organize a pet event, and have spoken to ponies, kittens, pups and I’m probably gonna find out there’s some of an animal I have never even thought about being possible to play before. I think someone once proposed turtle play: Wrap up in a duvet and pop your head out!

I jokingly told him you could also wrap someone in foil and tape and start snake play, and we both had to laugh for a few seconds as we imagined all the animals we could come up with in our heads.

There’s an endless list of how you could go about such things, and I love the idea of that! It’s one thing that makes fetish great. But I think bunny and pup really resonates well with me, and I wanna first focus on exploring these.

“How did most people react to you as a bunny? “, I wondered, as it’s after all not something people, even in the scene, often get in contact with.

So in the pup community? Well some people go there quick. I just say bunny and they go: “Oh yeah, I get it”. Many are quite perceptive in that way.

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Some question it a little bit more, like “Oh really? Bunny Play? That sounds a bit weird, but fair enough.” But I think when I show them pictures, they start being a bit more receptive towards it. Then it becomes more of a “Oh yes, I see where you’re coming from. You dress up as bunny, you do sorta the same stuff as I do, it’s just a little bit different. And different isn’t bad.”

And I think that’s the community in general. Most people in the kink community are very receptive to all diversity and different kind of kinks. I’ve only very rarely met someone who is not of that mind where they’ve gone “You should not do that kind of play, that’s not for you.”.

“I mostly had the same experience”, I told him. Kinksters seem to want to broaden their minds. “And that’s special.”

Yes, that’s what I love about the community actually. Everyone’s so open about learning and ready to trying out new stuff.

It’s something that you don’t see in the general day to day world as much as you should do sadly.

“How do you discover this bunny side with other people,”, I asked him next. “when there aren’t many people for it around yet?”

So at them moment I’ve just been bunnying out with someone, and they were a bit confused what’s going on, cause they were in puppy headspace, and I was in bunny headspace, and they were a little bit headtilting, like “Uhhhm… How do I interact with him? How do I react?”. So I sort of switched back to pup mode when I realized that.

I think I would like to explore bunny with other pets like kittens and pups, maybe also other bunnies if I meet them. In terms of handlers, I don’t really think my bunny persona is something to handle. I don’t think there is such a role to be filled.

As a pup I have a pack and a sexual handler just recently as well, and that made sort of sense to me. But having a handler for Thumperbunny just doesn’t really makes sense to me.

I jumped into it here, and told him that instead of handler, the only thing that’d make some sense here would be the term of a keeper. But the only real things I could think of as interaction with him really would be to cage Thumper, and occasionally feed and pet him.

Haha yeah I think that would probably be the only where interaction that would be possible with a human and my my bunny persona. You sorta have to catch me, put me in a cage and then feed me and they’ll be happy. Let me out every so often, and I’ll let you put me back in the cage if you’re lucky and won’t hide under furniture. And I’ll kick you if I’m angry or you mistreat me.

Some bunnies do have of handlers, in some sort of sense. I think they do have them because, as pet play is, in a very soft way, still like a sub/Dom type of relationship.

Of course you still also got them in packs too. But, and I’m still exploring it, but I think if I did meet up with bunnies there would be some … not defined structure, but more the sort of “I’m bad/soft/mean bunny. Watch out for me”, more personality based rather than hierarchical structure.

“I mean, this is more and more something practised nowadays”, I stated my view. “Compared to how fetish relationships used to be, as well-defined etc, they’re becoming more and more cluster-y.”

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I know, I like it when it clusters, cause most people would say that I’m generally quite dominant person, and I’d agree with them. I generally do dom quite a lot. But I do sometimes also have these submissive moments where I really just want to be tied up. I want to be used. I just want to be forced to do something. And the thing is, if I’m in this defined Dom or Handler relationship, it’s sort of like “Oh, okay. I have to be dom all the time.” You’ve got these expectations. That’s why I like this more cloudy sort of structure. I mean, it can be some semi-structure but not the sort that’s obstructive.

In my pack, I’m called Lieutenant. I haven’t got an alpha, beta or omega title. I’m called Lieutenant because I don’t really fit into the pack structure. Some that still have punishment and do whatever to help with my Alpha.

At this point, I remembered and told him about my recent adventures that I’ve been doing with a group which fit very much this “cloud and cluster” structure we’ve been talking about.

There was no real alpha or omega of a pack. Most were just exploring their spectrum what they felt like situatively like, both dominant and submissive, whatever fitted each of them in the moment, and everyone would help and encourage in their mindsets, and have fun with each other as much as they could.

There was no predefined set of order and rules. And even though I still love the order and purpose being a slave to a Master can bring, I also thought this new thing to be very freeing and special.

And I think that’s how sometimes, not always, doesn’t always work, but sometimes how people should think. That it’s not always so hierarchical, sometimes good to have this sort of soft structure where they’re not imprisoned in a role and can sometimes be a bit more dominant in some situations etc. Actually allow themselves to explore and actually allows them to find themselves. And find what they’re more comfortable with. Instead of just trying to fit in, and doing the same mistake we talked before of keeping something shut in and never exploring.

It’s something that gets me annoyed from time to time actually. Pups are still often seen as submissive by default: You’re bottom, you’re submissive, you’re told what to do. And I think this is what also brought out my bunny side more. Because for a bunny, you can’t say those things. I can be dominant, I can be top, I can be whatever I want.

That’s true, it’s often automatically assumed that pup’s are in need of a handler or alpha. That’s a common steretype thought. Although I imagine there are also some as a bunny, for doing, uhm, well, “aggressive mating”?

He bursts out in laughter at this description, and told me he recently had a discussion about this with a group of kinksters in the car.

I’m partly known to be quite rampant, in some perspect. Not as bad as some , but I play with a lot of people and friends, cause, well, a lot of my friends are quite cute and I get on well with them. And if I get on well with you, I want to have time with you and play with you, because and it’s rare to find that and they’re precious. Yeah, so it did fit me that bunnies are quite rampant and I was a bunny.

But, in all fairness, it needs to be said that pups biologically perhaps are more rampant than probably bunnies are. They just breed more often and have more cycles of litters. But I think I do say I semi-fit that stereotype yes. Or at least peoples expectations of me do fit that stereotype at least. I do have my dry moments and times where I’m not as rampant, but I like exploring.

So you don’t take this as something negative when you get that reference?

I have done and I think I still do. It’s sort of ending up getting me a bit slut-shamed in some sense.

I do put a lot of myself on Twitter. I get off on the idea of people wanking off and actually having fun watching me on Twitter. And it turns me on and I really get excited by it. But obviously, by doing that, it opens this side of me where it seems like I’m a slut, because I put everything online. I put everything out there. And I talk a lot about what I do. And because of that people go: “Oh you’re a slut, because you have so much sex!”. But I just show that I have sex.

In fairness I’ve got to say that yes, most of the times, not always, but often when I’m saying I’m meeting a pup or someone it has been “in a certain way”. But then I rarely meet people and that fact’s not posted. I don’t not really do much. I might go see my omega once or twice, but I generally don’t play that often. But it’s that stereotype of, I’m putting so much on twitter, I put so much here, that I’m a whore, I’m a slut because I’m having so much sex, which is not always true.

“It’s the Facebook effect, right”, I told him, “you just post about the fun things. You don’t post about the days you’re sitting in your office every day and are working with scripts, tables, letters etc. that are also part of your life.”

Yes and sometimes you finally have time at a weekend, and have stuff lined up each day, because they’re rare occasions, and you want to pack them full with as much as you can. And then when people see that they go: Oh you’re doing so much every day¨”. And I’m like: “No I just did a lot on saturday, and I’m posting stuff everyday because my week is very boring! I go into a lab at nine o’clock. I get out of the lab at six o’clock. I don’t do anything then, go home, eat, bingewatch some Netflix and go to sleep!”

And that creates the false image then.

Yeah, and it’s something that I think I may get over a little bit more in my time, and I think have since the few months this has been going on. I’m also taking it less too heart, cause naturally, some people are joking. I don’t always get humor that well, and I’ve sometimes take it that just a chip on my shoulder, just go: ” Oh they’re joking or that’s not actually me. I know me. I know what I do. I know what happens. I’m going to trust in myself. ”

I mean, some people do know this situation themselves, and they make these jokes because of that, and don’t mean anything by it. And others do them sometimes cause they may be also are a bit jealous situationally. I’ve been in the shoes of both sides there. In the end, you gotta learn just to not let it get you. Don’t let their comments affect you negatively. And joke with them too 😉 That even deepens friendships mostly.

I also gotta say, I mean, it’s impressive already what you have gone through just during that year that we’ve discussed now you’ve been into fetish. it’s easy to forget.

I worry sometimes about how far I’ve gone xD I don’t really see an exit anymore. I’ve sort of gone so far in that I can’t find the way back just keep heading straight on. Some people that I’ve had it quite friendly on at this weekend, I went an event, and they were doing some showing on how to do some candle wax play. I’ve never done that before I was just showing it off, and they went to me and went: “Oh, yeah. So FetLife, bla bla bla, you’ve been on their few years haven’t you?” And I just went: “…A few years? Uhhhm…9 months?” That’s a bit scary haha.

“You’re already becoming a veteran!”, I joked with him. We were quite at the end of our half our talk now, and as a last question Iwanted to know how much, and how in general, he felt becoming kinky affected him and his life.

I think it’s affected me a lot. Sometimes it’s affected me badly and sometimes it’s affected me really well. I’ve had moments where kink relationships get complicated and that affects me badly.I’ve had problems in certain situations where my kink side has helped.

And there’s been times where actually kink has really helped me. I’ve been quite open person all my life. But it’s made me even more open. And I’m actually helping people a lot more. I feel open to help people. I’ve got friends that I would have never thought I would ever get, where literally I just message them and they’re like: “What’s up?” in like two felt seconds. And I sometimes really almost feel “Do I really deserve this much good?”

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It’s really lovely that there’s such a community in kink that’s so supportive. And I think kink also in some sense just alleviates some of the stress of my day-to-day pressures and stress. Family. Social life. It’s actually enabled me to break away from that go to something which I really enjoy. I really feel happy to do. And put me in a totally different headspace that I wouldn’t be able to get really any other way. I used to play rugby a lot, still do play rugby alot, that gets me to my head space but only can do itbe once a weekend maybe, if I’m lucky and I’m not busy that weekend.

But kink I can sort do of any time I feel stressed. I can put my hood on, play around in it, get a ball. Yeah, or if I’m really stressed out and put on a diaper and wear it all night and wake up the next morning and just be like ” I had the best sleep I’ve had in about three months. I feel so relaxed. I feel happy. I feel so much better. Now find a bag to put this in.”

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And yeah, it just that great community, happiness and comfort, and I’m trying to bring about more of these feelings to others by trying out my hands on organizing an event now too xD

He really does, from the way he spoke to me at least. So if you’re interested to know more this event, go take a look, it’s called Pile-o-Pets!

And thank you for talking to us Thumper, it was a real pleasure.