Candid_Fire

Candid_Fire is a masochist, submissive, slave, sadistic top, switch, kink educator, community leader, and the owner and maker behind Thready or Knot. With more than 15 years in the kink community, she’s spent a lot of time exploring different sides of BDSM and she’s still learning. Curious by nature and rarely afraid of an uncomfortable conversation, she brings lived experience, openness, and a healthy sense of humor into the classroom. Her interests range from the technical side of impact play to the messy, complicated human side of BDSM – power exchange, relationships, communication, consent, and all the gray areas that don’t fit neatly into a textbook. She believes some of the best conversations happen when we’re willing to ask questions and admit we don’t have all the answers. “Progress, not perfection” is a philosophy Candid_Fire carries into both kink and education. She doesn’t believe there is one right way to do BDSM. Her goal is to share useful skills, honest information, and lived perspective while encouraging people to keep exploring, learning, and finding what works for them. 

Love, Lies, and Red Flags – Recognizing Manipulation Where It Masquerades as Love (2) 
Have you ever looked at a list of relationship red flags and thought, “I’d know if that happened to me”? This Class goes beyond simply naming warning signs to explore what manipulation, coercive control, and unhealthy dynamics actually look and feel like when you’re living inside them. Red flags rarely arrive waving a giant red banner. Control can look protective. Manipulation can masquerade as love, care, or concern. A boundary shifts, there’s an explanation, you question yourself, and slowly the unusual becomes familiar and the familiar becomes normal. Through personal experience, discussion, and real-world examples, we’ll explore the progression from charm and subtle control to deeper manipulation, healthy power exchange versus control, cycles of abuse, self-doubt, and the erosion of boundaries and self-trust. Most importantly, we’ll examine why these patterns can be so easy to recognize from the outside – and so incredibly difficult to see from within. 

Strike and Submit: A Hands-On Caning Workshop (2) 
Strike and Submit is a hands-on exploration of caning that goes beyond simply learning how to swing a stick. We’ll cover cane types, targeting and strike zones, body mechanics, positioning, thud versus sting, rhythm, anticipation, and techniques for building intensity intentionally. Through demonstrations and short practice rounds, we’ll focus on accuracy, control, reading your partner’s responses, and how small changes in technique dramatically change sensation. 

Participants are encouraged to bring a partner and canes to practice with, but a partner is absolutely not required. Flying solo? Bring a pillow, or a stuffed friend who’s feeling particularly adventurous. Observing is always welcome, too. We’ll learn, demo, practice, regroup, and build on each skill as we go, giving everyone a way to participate at their own comfort level. 

Dungeon Etiquette 101: Don’t Be the Buzzkill (1) 
Dungeon Etiquette 101: Don’t Be the Buzzkill is your guide to enjoying public play spaces without accidentally becoming *that* person. What do you do when you see an amazing scene? How close is too close? Can you ask about someone’s toy? What happens when the DM tells you to knock it off? And seriously – who left that bench wet? Instead of spending an hour reading dungeon rules, we’re going to have some fun with them. Through ridiculous mock scenes, audience voting, demonstrations, and plenty of “buzzkill or not?” moments, we’ll tackle scene bubbles, consent, watching versus hovering, dungeon furniture, cleanup, privacy, approaching people, Dungeon Monitors, aftercare, corrections, and the unwritten rules nobody explains until you’ve accidentally broken one. Come ready to participate, laugh, and leave knowing how to be part of the fun without killing the vibe.