Lizzie discovers her inner kink at Paddles

Hurt So Good castmember Lizzie Czerner, as well as several other members of the HSG crew, went with our Leather Liaison Luna to a NYC BDSM club called Paddles to do a little "character research." Lizzie was kind enough to tell us all about it...

Hi! ‘Servant’ here… Ok, so I’m in the cast of Hurt So Good, a comedy about S&M. What could be more fun than that? I mean I get to parade around in a French maid’s outfit with a bunch of other actors who are scantily dressed. It’s good times, people! I confess though, I really didn’t know anything about S&M before joining the cast besides the fact that it involves leather and whips. By that description though, Cat Woman was the only person I had ever seen who was in the scene. (By the way, I have always considered her something of a fashion icon …hmmm…)

When the Director announced that we were going to take a field trip to an S&M club called Paddles as a form of research, I was intrigued. If nothing else, it was an opportunity to wear my fishnets someplace besides rehearsal. (Well, hey…you have to ‘don the traditional garb’, right?) However, having visited the Paddles website, I was a bit nervous. Was there going to be blood? Were people going to be crying out in torturous pain?? Some of the other cast members and I decided to meet for drinks beforehand for some liquid courage, and to talk about how we felt about the prospect of possibly being initiated into a deviant sub-culture. We all felt excited for the new experience but nervous that we might be approached by someone for a game of nipple twisting. Or maybe we were just worried that we would discover we were secretly kinky and then we’d have to come out to our friends and partners. That could be…umm…awkward.

When we got there (“there” being the same block where I go for coffee after acting class…Who knew?) I noticed a few things right away. First of all, Paddles is a ‘dungeon club’ so you go downstairs and they really do a good job of making it look like one - with grey walls, black ceilings, various medieval looking chairs and benches, wall mounts for tying people up, and even a small cage. Although I understand the joint is usually jumping, the night we went it was mostly empty (we were told this was due to the High Holidays, which tells you something about the clientele right there). Once inside, I came upon a counter full of paddles and floggers of various sizes and shapes. But as I looked around and got more acclimated, I realized that it was not really much different from any other NYC club –Oh, except that there was no bar. That’s right. These people were sober….Sober!! There was good music playing…Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and Jefferson Airplane. And the people were friendly! I got into some conversations with interesting people – a teacher, a receptionist – people just like me. (I’m actually starting to think that being into S&M is about as deviant as a henna tattoo). I learned that most people there had taken classes on safety so that great care is taken to ensure that all the rope tying and paddle swatting is done with concern for the person’s well-being.

I started to feel brave and asked if I could get a personal demonstration of one of the paddles. ("When in… Sodom?") So I asked Delia, the receptionist, if she’d give me a little swat on the tush. Her swats grew in intensity, but I was given complete control over the situation and was constantly asked how I felt and if I wanted to stop. In other words, I felt safe. Was it hot? Hells yeah! And so was Delia!!

By the end of the evening, my cast-members and I all felt that we had experienced something fun and new, and it didn’t automatically make us ‘kinky’ just ‘cause we liked certain aspects of the evening…Ok, maybe a liiiitle kinky. ;)