When a Friend Inspires
Sometimes simply being your authentic self can teach and inspire others around you in positive, unexpected ways.
Today is the birthday of one of my closest friends, Kristofer Weston, or as he’s typically known throughout the kink communities, Mr, Kristofer.
Certainly within the gay men’s kink and leather realm, Kristofer is one of the world’s most high-profile kinksters. Although his main audience is gay men, he has fans and followers from all walks of the scene. He’s known for his adult entertainment work. He’s ubiquitous across social media. Fans follow him and Pup Amp on their extremely successful and popular kink information and education series, Watts the Safeword. I’m lucky to be a fellow cast member with Kristofer on another show, On Guard Cigar Salon.
But none of those notable accomplishments are why I’m writing this post today. The reason I’m mentioning Kristofer is to use his birthday as a way to acknowledge how influential a single person can be in one’s sexual and kink explorations.
I first met Kristofer when he was 19 years old. He turns 55 today. That’s 36 years of friendship. Throughout those 36 years I’ve come to admire and respect Kristofer because he’s one of those people who lives and thrives as the exact kinkster he wants to be. He doesn’t let external expectations or potential judgments impede his kink joy.
This supremely healthy attitude about sexuality and kink has proven to be exactly the kind of modeling I needed in my life when I was beginning to explore my sexuality outside of my self-created and at times restrictive leather persona box.
Years ago, after decades of being known as essentially an entirely dominant and top player within leather and kink, I quietly decided I wanted to occasionally explore the other side of the role and position dynamic spectrum. I wanted to explore the submissive and bottom sides of myself but doing so initially proved to be problematic.
Why? Because of my own fucked up internal shit frankly. Because I had bought into my own dominant top cred and reputation within the scene. I feared stepping outside of how I’d been perceived for years and risk the judgment of people who didn’t understand my desires.
Yes, I’d taken baby steps toward being more versatile, or being a switch as we often say in kink. But it was halfhearted at first. I feared a backlash from many in the community who I knew had the bizarre but sadly prevalent view that people in certain erotic roles within kink should stay in their lane. Forever. They shouldn’t grow. They shouldn’t change. They shouldn’t explore. They should remain exactly the person and style of kinkster they already were to maintain the comfort of that small subset of kinksters with rigid sensibilities.
Intellectually I knew most people probably wouldn’t care, but I was oddly held captive by that role/position exclusivity bullshit. I’m not sure why. I’d talk a good talk to anyone who’d listen about being yourself, living your truth, and all that self-empowerment stuff. But when it came time to do it myself. I wasn’t someone who took my own advice. Until I did.
Kristofer is one of the people who helped me get past that blockage. And here’s the thing. He didn’t know how influential he was. When I finally told him a few years ago how much he’d helped me by his example, he was surprised. He never knew.
Kristofer taught me by example to be as authentic to your own sexuality and kinky self as possible. Kristofer was a longtime respected submissive, who then became a highly respected dominant, and who has throughout maintained great pride in his versatility and switch nature. I hear countless times how much people respect (and find sexy) Kristofer’s unabashed playing on “both sides of the slash” as they sometimes say in dominant/submissive circles.
So, should you ever doubt that you can influence someone for the better simply by being you, I offer Kristofer as a standout example of someone who did that in my life. Sometimes simply being a good human and living your life out loud and proud is the most important thing you can do to influence those who want to explore the adventurous side of sexuality, kink, and relationships.
Happy Birthday, Kristofer. You didn’t know I was writing this homage to you and your importance in my life. As far as I’m concerned, you deserve all the accolades and notoriety you get and may our intimate friendship and collaboration continue for many years to come.
Check out Kristofer’s adult entertainment work by accessing his mrkristofer dot com website (I tend to err on the side of caution with adult links. So just remove the space and replace dot with a real dot and you’ll get there.)
You can follow Kristofer’s social media on Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads, and TikTok.
You can use this link to access all my writings and social media and ways to support my work.