This is version 2.0.1 of the WAMFAQ.
This FAQ grew out the FAQ I wrote long ago for the alt.sex.fetish.wet-and-messy newsgroup. This version of the FAQ is in HTML, formatted to fit your web browser rather than your newsreader, and contains substantially more information than previous versions. I'm going to do my best to make a version available for posting to the newsgroup, but as of right now I have no idea if or how well that will work.
Despite my best efforts, I'm sure that this FAQ still contains a number of omissions and errors. Please email me if you find any, or if you have questions, problems, suggestions, or other comments.
This is a community document. If you have anything to contribute, please mail me. I will do everything I can to change this from something slanted by my views into a document reflecting the wet-and-messy community at large. In particular, I would really like to add more coverage of wet, food, and slapstick subjects. PLEASE HELP ME!
Both the newsgroup itself and this FAQ may (and do) contain material unsuited for those under the age of 18 or 21, depending on your area of residence. The information provided in this document is specifically released into the public domain for public use. Because of this, the author of the FAQ can accept no responsibility for restricting the distribution of this FAQ.
Thank you,
Jiminy Thicket
This document contains a list of frequently asked questions. The questions answered herein are culled from a variety of sources:
In my ideal world, this list would be revised and made available monthly. Obviously, this has never happened, but I hope that converting it to HTML form will help the FAQ take on a more "lively" (in the sense of "aware of and responding to changes around it") format than it has in the past six months or so.
If you are not reading this FAQ from the WAMSAT website, you may wish to see if there is a newer version available. The URL for the latest version of the FAQ is:
http://www.wamsat.com/faq.html
We should give special thanks to Rob Jellinghaus (robj@best.com), the author of the alt.sex.bondage FAQ, from which I have borrowed some of the spirit and a few of the really good phrases he included in that document for the original FAQ. Some of that remains, and some of it has been revised as time goes by and we establish our own identity in the fetish community. This FAQ was last modified 02/18/97.
Wet-and-messy is a complicated issue, as diverse as the people interested in it. Hopefully, this list will serve to answer some of the common questions that people have (both newcomers and those here since the beginning). The list is not definitive, and although I have struggled to make the answers as neutral as possible, there will be those that disagree. There aren't many other resources, on the net or in the real world, but if you have questions or need more information, well, that's why the FAQ was created in the first place!
A word about gender and preference... I happen to be, through no fault of my own, a heterosexual male. Because of that, this FAQ tends to represent the perspective of heterosexual men. The wet-and-messy community, however, is composed of people of every sexual flavor... straight men, straight women, gay men, gay women, straight crossdressing men, gay crossdressing men, (although, honestly, I have yet to meet any wet-and-messy crossdressing women) people with dozens of other fetishes, and people with none, bisexuals, transsexuals, and many others. Nothing about the phrasing of this FAQ should suggest that anything about wet-and-messy is in any way oriented toward a single gender or sexual preference, only that my open-mindedness still has a ways to go. I welcome and solicit contributions that will make this FAQ more gender and preference balanced. For a long time, I have had a saying I use as a ruler for determining if people are "more alike" or "more different." That rule is, simply, "Strangest fetish wins." Many aspects of the wet-and-messy fetishes are indeed "way out there" on the fetish strangeness meter, so it's important to remember that as different as we may all seem, we're held together by a common bond that makes us all "more alike" than we might at first appear.
On a related note, I "appreciate" many different types of wet-and-messy activities myself, but my personal favorite is quicksand. I've done my very best to keep from turning this into "The Quicksand FAQ" but that is certainly the area where I have the most information to offer. If you have anything you can contribute to help balance out this FAQ, I strongly encourage you to do so.
Enough with the rhetoric, on with the questions!
The term "wet-and-messy" was co-opted from the tagline for Messy Fun's Messy News newsletter, which reads "For lovers of wet and messy fun." At the time it was selected, we hoped it would serve to attract the attention of like-minded individuals, particularly those familiar with the newsletter. In practice, it has attracted those people and more.
Credit to Foster Blake for parts of this answer.
What's a little harder to categorize is why people find this sort of thing appealing. The reasons are as numerous as the people interested in WAM, and the endless variety never ceases to astonish me.
Many people find that a "hint" of nudity is much more erotic and sensual than actual nudity. For these people, the clinginess, and frequently the transluscency, of wet clothing brings the "hint" of nudity even closer. Some people find the appearance of wet clothing (regardless of who is wearing them) very appealing.
Some people like their wetlook in the underwater variety. For them, fully dressed people completely submerged are very arousing, others prefer the naked form. Many people who are aroused by breath control and sexual asphyxia find underwater scenes involving extended breath holding or the threat of drowning to be incredibly erotic.
Food is another area of interest that is very common. Erotic foodplay appears frequently in television and the movies as a "kinky" element. Food can be used to bring another sense (taste) into play in a sexual encounter, or it can be used for visual appeal, or it can be enjoyed for the tactile (touch) sensations that various types of food can generate when applied to various parts of the body. It is also much better than mud and other nonpalatable substances if someone should decide they wants to lick it off of someone else.
Pies, pieing people, and being pied generate in many people a level of interest that merit seperate discussion from other foodstuffs. Pie fans appreciate shoving a pie into the face (or sometimes some other area) of someone "prim" or "haughty". They particularly enjoy it when the "victim," although a person who ordinarily wouldn't approve of such a thing, relishes the hit. For many pie enthusiasts, the more famous or unapproachable someone is, the more erotic is the thought of a large pie smacking them in the face. Pie-throwing also brings in the element of "breaking the rules" and being "bad" by behaving in a way that would usually be unacceptable, except that the legacy of comic pie throwings grants it some sort of apparent legitimacy (even though the underlying act and intentions are "bad").
Mud and quicksand also have many different erotic aspects that appeal to different people. The most obvious is the tactile appeal of being in it, either for a shallow wallow or a deep sink, the sensation of mud on skin, and pressing against your body is undeniable. Quicksand fantasies also offer many of the same breath control/asphyx aspects as underwater. Beyond that, mud and quicksand seem to draw out the most mental aspects. I have encountered people turned on by the humiliation of wallowing in muck and enjoying it (perhaps in front of others), the melodrama of quicksand as a cliche jungle peril, "danger seekers" who get a rush out of the fear of sinking out of sight, and bondage enthusiasts who enjoy using deep mud as alternate form of restraining device.
Obviously, the varieties of enjoyment that differ people can extract from wet-and-messy activites is endless, limited only by their own imagination.
Contributing to this answer were Shokolada and Jabberwock.
gunge: This is a catch-all word for any kind of slimy substance,
such as food, paint, or mud, that finds it's way onto (often very well
dressed) people. This word is of British origin. It can also be used as
a verb. Noun: "I love it when she's covered in gunge." Verb: "I'll gunge
you with hot fudge if you don't behave."
play: To engage in wet-and-messy activities in real life. "I'm
planning to play this weekend."
scene: 1. A wet-and-messy situation in the media, such as a
TV star getting a pie in the face during a food fight, or a part of a movie
with wet-and-messy value. "Did anyone see that wetlook scene in The
Color of Night?" 2. A (usually preplanned) wet-and-messy encounter
with an emphasis on mental aspects as well as sensory. "I would love to
do a quicksand scene with you."
slapstick: An adjective used to describe areas of wet-and-messy
involving pies, food, etc. sometimes in a humorous way (the word comes
from "slapstick comedy"). "I'm looking for a good producer of slapstick
videos."
vanilla: Ordinary, not wet-and-messy. "I love mud, but there's
something to be said for good old fashioned vanilla sex."
wetlook: A generic term used to describe the appearance of wet
clothing (meaning water) on a (wet) person. "Does the latest Playboy
have any wetlook photos?"
There are also a number of bisexual and lesbian women who strongly prefer to be left alone by men. Please respect their wishes. We all wish they would participate more, but doing so is their choice.
A word of warning, though, many of the women you meet online may not be women at all. AOL, in particular, seems to be infested with female impersonators. Since, once exposed, these individuals tend to quickly disappear, I haven't been able to establish what their exact motivation is. It may be that they enjoy the thrill of "tricking" another man, or they may be transsexuals, or...?? IMs that appear out of the blue "Tie me up and throw me in quicksand!" are almost always of this variety.
To everyone, I suggest that honesty is the best policy, especially in online dealings. Many people enjoy all different kinds of things, and by being up-front, you are more likely to find someone who understands your particular needs.
All of this doom and gloom aside, it certainly is possible to meet people of the appropriate sex (depending on your orientation). Using alternate screen names, I have met and had wonderful chats (yes, including cybersex) with a number of people. I've also met plenty of women in real life who were either already into wet-and-messy, or got into it with very little prompting.
Many people regard this concept as very perverse while many other people think it is no different from the hero in a movie splattering the bad guy so the audience can experience the the excitement of victory. This is an area where you have to make an individual choice and abide by it. All we ask is that you do not try to force others to abide by your choice.
The words "grim" and "death" are sometimes (most often in story descriptions) used to convey the same meaning.
The FAQ is particularly weak in wet-and-messy areas outside my own interest (deep mud/quicksand). Any information you have, such as how-to pointers for real life activities involving WAM substances, helpful tips for online WAM activity, could be a welcome addition to the FAQ.
Send information you think should included in the FAQ to Jiminy Thicket at jimthicket@aol.com. All those whose submissions are used will receive full credit.
An update: this retromoderation process has been shut down for some time as part of the shutdown of the Messy Archive. There will be some new action taken to attack the spam in the newsgroup, but it's not clear right now exactly what that action will be.
Rob sent mail to everyone who had ever ordered anything from him by email, and told them all the details. A couple dozen people stormed alt.config spouting the exact same party line "We need a group called alt.sex.fetish.wet-and-messy", so when I issued the newgroup command (to create the group) a few days later, it was a shoe-in with no real opposition.
alt.binaries.erotica.fetish.wet-and-messy is a somewhat-poorly named group that is used to distribute binaries (such as images, sounds, and video clips) related to the wet-and-messy fetishes. Please post any binary materials you wish to make available here, rather than using the main group.
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish is another location that wet-and-messy binaries are sometimes posted to. People who post to this group do so because they do not have access to the above group. If you have access to the former, it is strongly urged that you post any wet-and-messy binary materials there.
There are not many alt.sex groups that alt.sex.stories isn't related to. Make sure you check (and post) there as well as the main group when dealing with wet and messy stories. This is so much more fun than the days when we all lurked in alt.sex.stories and occasionally popped up to post, "More mud/ quicksand stories please!"
sci.physics and sci.geo.geology are also related groups, but only because the viscosity and fluid dynamics of quicksand are occasional topics of debate there. Most of the good questions have already been asked and answered, and you can frequently find them with a quick jaunt through DejaNews.
alt.sex.asphyx is for people interested in breath control and suffocation fantasies (including drowning). There is a large amount of crossover with underwater and quicksand fans in this area.
Many deep mud and quicksand enthusiasts are also excited by kidnap fantasies, and losing consciousness in other ways (such as chloroform). The newsgroup alt.sex.fetish.sleepy deals with all manner of erotic lost consciousness.
It is usually highly inappropriate and inconsiderate to post telling someone that their interests are sick or wrong, especially if they fall within the purview of the group. There are obvious exceptions for illegal or dangerous activities.
It is a good idea to suggest to someone (in email) that they might receive better response if they referred their posting to another group, rather than starting loud and un-messy flame wars in the group.
800- and 900- number sex service ads are unwelcome in this group (unless someone wants to post one that caters to wet/messy interests). In general, any form of advertisement other than a terse announcement of the availability of a wet/messy product/ service is inappropriate. On the other hand, product reviews and recommendations by happy customers are encouraged, however (see Part V for details on how to retrieve the list of messy vendors).
Wannas (unsolicited requests for sex, cyber or otherwise) are not only inappropriate, but outright rude.
Just like used cars, it's volume, volume, volume! Most of the spam articles you see here are posted to many if not all of the alt.sex groups, either by excessive cross posting (called ECP) or excessive multiposting (posting the same article to many groups, one group at a time, called EMP). In high volume groups like alt.sex or alt.sex.bondage, they don't show up as much (although they are still greatly irritating), but because our group has a relatively small number of posts, they stand out a great deal. Many people feel they make the group all but unreadable.
Another important step you can take is to make a pledge never to purchase from companies that use these business practices. Spam is just another variant of "We screwed the last guy, and we're passing the savings on to you!" which is great until it's your turn to be the last guy. This applies to unsolicited commercial email as well. If someone does advertise a product you are interested in via one of these unscrupulous methods (hello WAVEIDS!), it is to your benefit to contact them and tell them that you are interested in their materials, but that you will now purchase from a competitor because of their business practices. Although this is the hardest time to resist, it's also far and away the most effective route to a spam-free world.
Of course, the most important thing is that you should never, ever engage in spam activity yourself.
None of this is meant to imply, however, that posting relevant and factual notices of wet-and-messy materials available (such as videos & photo sets) to the newsgroup is not acceptable. Generally, it is acceptable to do so for a given product once. Advertising the same product(s) over and over to the newsgroup (hello Femanic!) is just another way to irritate your potential customer base.
When posting to either newsgroup yourself, it is strongly suggested that you prefix the Subject: line of your post with the letters "WAM" or "WAM:". News readers that sort messages alphabetically lump these together, allowing someone to read messages quickly and ignore the spam. Other newsreaders still usually make it easy to spot the WAM mark and avoid the off-topic garbage. If you don't use this mark, you risk having your message overlooked by casual readers.
There are a very few, but as with many other parts of Usenet, they are outnumbered by large multiples by men. Most of us (both men and women) certainly wish there were more, but this culture's chips just haven't fallen that way yet. In the mean time, try to help alt.sex.fetish.wet-and-messy develop a reputation as a safe, friendly, and equal place for women to come explore their wet and messy interests. This is best done by NOT sending them reams of 'wanna fuck?' email. Asfwam is a discussion area, not a pick-up club. If you are here looking for a date, you are in the wrong place. Try a singles bar.
There is a certain amount of flirting that goes on here, as in any social environment. However, there are certain intricacies involved in it, and you are strongly discouraged from participating until you are sure you fully understand what they are.
The first chatroom is on America Online, located in the "Member Rooms" area "Special Interests." The name of the chatroom is "DANGER ioi QUICKSAND" where the "ioi" represents an individual trapped to the neck in a certain sticky substance. This chatroom is frequently open, with anywhere from one to ten people discussing sinking subjects.
The second chatroom is on IRC Dalnet, and is called "#Quicksand". This chatroom is generally scheduled for weekend meetings due to the relatively small number of people that can access it.
If all else fails, create the room yourself. You never know who will drop by.
The IRC chatroom is generally a scheduled event, but there is nothing to stop you from dropping by any time to see if anyone's about. The best information presently available suggests meeting on Sundays, from 11am to 4pm EST.
Here is some more information about IRC borrowed from a document written by FredJ:
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. You can have a real-time conversation with others using IRC. This is a forum with no special equipment needed, other than some software. IRC works with just about any computer/ISP combination out there. A popular IRC software package is mIRC, and it's available as shareware, with complete info, at the following URL:
The purpose of these chatrooms is to have fun and share, so it's unfortunate that we have to have such a grim, reproachful tone in parts of this answer, but experience shows that it's necessary.
Also, don't feel left out if you go into a chatroom and you feel somewhat left out at first. Some WAMmers have known each other almost since birth, and in many cases, people have known each other for many, many years. Those relationships can show through when they're chatting. Also, to a newcomer, the WAM chatrooms can appear somewhat cliqueish, and in fact they are. Fortunately, ours is an easy clique to join, by demonstrating that you are there to participate and not just expecting passive entertainment (I strongly recommend getting some WAM-related tapes if that is what you are looking for.. the chatrooms will disappoint you). The first step into the chatrooms is a tough one, but well worth it for the right people.
Finally, never give your credit card information out in chat. Not to people claiming to be AOL personnel (in the AOL rooms), and not to people claiming to sell WAM tapes or other materials. If you wish to place an online order with these people, take a few minutes to do research, find their email address on your own, and handle the transaction that way. It also doesn't hurt to find at least one person who has ordered from them before if you are not dealing with an established vendor.
The first thing you should do is ask your Internet provider to add them (remember, they are available on AOL via the "Expert Add" feature).
Second, try using the DejaNews search engine. This web site maintains an archive of a large number of news postings, including most sent to alt.sex.fetish.wet-and-messy. By learning a little bit about how this site works (it takes some practice to turn up exactly what you want), you can use this site to read the group fairly effectively.
Third, you can access a pay-for-news service such as Altopia or Zippo.
Lastly, you can almost always switch providers. Odds are someone that serves your area carries the groups.
When posting to the newsgroup, it is very good to make your post's Subject: line closely reflect the contents of the post so that the people who do not like that sort of thing can say "Gross" and skip over it without reading it, and hence without complaining about it. Story posts should contain some standard abbreviations in the header design to show the "action" found in the story. I have included a list of some of those used in the former Messy Archive below, but be warned that these things are subject to change and personal interpretation.
To be sure, real quicksand is not what most people think of when they hear the word "quicksand." For most, this word conjures up half-forgotten Tarzan movies and the like we saw as children in which the person who stumbled into quicksand was almost certainly a goner without a speedy rescue by the protagonist, sucked slowly out of site by the insidious black bog.
Real quicksand is almost entirely different. It is composed of grains of sand acted upon by water flowing through them. "Acted upon" in this context generally means "lifted up." Sand that has been made quick by water moving through it swells, taking up more space than "ordinary" wet sand because there is a larger amount of water present. This water forces the grains apart, and flows between them (such as in a river flowing just beneath the surface).
When a disturbance occurs, such as a person stepping onto the quicksand, the ordinary behavior begins to be disrupted. Frequently, no visible effects result from the first few steps, except for perhaps a slight bounciness, making it difficult to distinguish quicksand from ordinary wet sand. However, the added weight alters the flow of water through the sand, causing it to change course, resulting in softening of the ground as it becomes more fluid. If sufficient disruption occurs (such as stepping in the same place a number of times), the quicksand becomes fluid enough to sink into. Once in the quicksand, struggling agitates the quicksand in lower areas, allowing the person to sink farther, and so on.
The depth to which a person can sink depends on the depth to which the sand is quick (it often occurs over hardpan clay, and most quicksand is less than two feet deep), the weight of the person, the amount and speed of the water flowing through, and the quality of the sand. The finer the sand, the harder it is to agitate, but the more flexible and fluid it will become. Rougher sand (even up to the size of small pebbles, aka "quickgravel") takes more water pressure to make quick, but responds to less weight and agitation (and is often abrasive to exposed body parts). The average person in average quicksand will float (displace sand and water equal to their body weight) somewhere between their waist and their chest. It is impossible to sink completely out of sight in natural quicksand without extraordinary (and extraordinarily dangerous) measures.
Under ideal circumstances, which are extremely rare, a person can sink as deep as their armpits, and the sand remains quick with a minimum of effort.
I am not a physics guru, but something about lateral shear forces (the angled edges of the grains of sand locking against each other) make it extremely difficult to get back out of quicksand. You can witness this if you agititate a small area, stick in a foot, and lift it out, the entire area will be pulled up rather than having your foot just pop out). This creates the behavior often mistakenly identified as "suction." The more "quick" the area is, the less pronounced this effect is, but it leads to an extreme case that is somewhat more irritating... As a person sinks into quicksand, they tend to displace the water more than the sand, forcing it up onto the surface, creating a shallow pool of water around them. Since quicksand is usually quite firm, it can form on slopes as well as flat areas. Unwary individuals who disturb sloped quicksand may find that this runoff water flows away downhill, leaving them buried inconveniently deep in ordinary wet sand. Fortunately, this circumstance is somewhat rare and easily avoidable by avoiding sloped areas or not lingering long enough the water to escape.
Once someone has been into and escaped a certain spot of quicksand, it often forms a round depression there (like a filled-in hole), and that area generally will not be quick again for a period of time dependent on the force of water through the area and the type of sand, sometimes as much as a year or more. For this reason, some quicksand fans are reluctant to divulge the locations of quicksand sites they know about.
For many people, the primary advantage of "real" quicksand over mud and clay is this ability to take several steps out onto it before the ground "betrays" you and you begin to sink. It is also generally the easiest to stumble onto/into by "accident," because it looks just like ordinary wet sand.
For people seeking the "thrill" of Hollywood-style quicksand, the "real thing" is something of a letdown. Good mud and clay both simulate, but by no means duplicate, the behavior, appearance, and texture that Hollywood producers and wishful WAMmers attribute to the stuff better than "real" quicksand does.
A phenomenon similar to quicksand can occur when wet sand or gravel is piled at the water's edge (sometimes occuring underwater, between a shallow section and a deeper section, such as where a river empties into a lake). The sand or gravel accumulates as it is carried downstream, along the side, or at a bend, like an S-trap in a sink. The sand is only loosely piled there, and standing on it can cause a "quick" sinking effect as the sand beneath you slides sideways into the water. This type of muck is generally very shallow (a foot or less), and is completely destroyed by standing in it (as the sand shifts away), but it is far more common than quicksand, and can be a way to see what quicksand would be like if the actual stuff isn't available.
Mud is composed of water and dirt. Since dirt comes in so many shapes and textures, the color, texture, and consistancy of mud vary widely. It tends to be fairly thick, however, because any given type of soil will mix with water more or less at one ratio, rather than thinning out. Excess water collects on top of the mud, whereas excess dirt dries out at the bottom. Mud's color is usually slightly darker than the soil responsible for it, ranging from light brown to a rich, loamy black.
Clay is composed of water and a fine powder, usually talc or some form of dust. It is usually brown, red, or grey, although when purchased as a ceramic supply (see below), it is possible to find it dyed (or dye it yourself). Unlike dirt, the powder will mix with water at almost any ratio, yielding an extremely wide variety in consistancy, from a thin soup barely different from muddy water to thick, almost dry, stuff that is impossible to sink into more than a few inches. Because of the small particle size, clay is uniformly smooth at any consistancy, much more so than either mud or quicksand, and many people enjoy it more than the others for this reason. Clay is frequently called "gumbo mud" by 4x4ers and off-roaders.
Quicksand, as described in the previous question, is composed of water and sand.
This section is kind of heavy on the physics (well, not really, but compared to the rest of the FAQ it is...), so if numbers irritate you, take my word that "sinking in mud/clay/qs is just like sinking in water, only you won't sink as much," and go on to the next question. ;-) Sinking in any substance (water, quicksand, mud, clay, a giant container of styrofoam packing peanuts, you name it) is primarily dependent on density. You reach a point at which you float when the amount of material displaced by the parts of your body below the surface weighs exactly as much as your entire body.
To visualize this better, imagine there is a life-sized statue of you made from your favorite substance (never you mind how it keeps from splattering everywhere). If you weighed the statue, depending on what it's made of, it will weigh either more or less than you do ("Duh," says you). If it weighs less than you, like a statue made from packing peanuts would, it is less dense. If it weighs more than you, like a statue made from mercury (quicksilver) would, it would be more dense. If you had a statue made from water, it would weigh just about the same as you do.
If our hypothetical statue weighed twice as much as you do, we could say that the substance the statue was made from had a relative density of 2 (relative to you). If it weighed half as much as you do, we could say that it (the substance) had a relatively density of one half, or 0.5. Figuring out the exact number for a substance requires long division, so let's be lazy and just say our styrofoam peanuts have a relative density of 0.5, since they're less dense, water has a relative density of 1.0 since it's about the same, and mercury has a density of 2.0 since it's more dense.
Now we can figure out how deep you would sink in a pit full of each of these substances by reversing our question "How much weight does a certain size of something have?" to read "How much size does a certain weight of something take up?" In this case, we're interested to see how much of something we need to weigh exactly as much as you.
Since our styrofoam peanut statue of you weighs half as much as you (relative density 0.5), we must need two of them to weigh as much as you. To get that, we divide the one of you (1.0) by the relative density of the styrofoam (0.5). 1.0 / 0.5 = 2.0. Another way of saying this is that it takes twice as much space filled up with styrofoam peanuts to weigh as much as you do. (None of these numbers are accurate, by the way... see below about water, but the other two are total fiction).
In the case of water, 1.0 / 1.0 = 1.0, so the water weighing as much as you do takes up just as much space as you do.
And finally, mercury: 1.0 / 2.0 = 0.5, so mercury taking up half as much space as you is enough to weigh as much as you (heavy, man!).
Why do we care about this? Because in order to float, you must displace an amount of whatever you'd like to float in that weighs as much as you do. You displace the substance by sinking into it. Take the mercury, for example... by the time you sank into mercury up to your waist, you would've displaced an amount of it equal to about half your size. That's equal to your weight (it's twice as dense), so you float right there (and contract a nasty case of mercury poisoning).
In the peanuts, on the other hand, your weight needs twice as much space as you take up to be displaced in order for you to float (the styrofoam is half as dense). Since you don't have twice as much space as you take up, you drop like a stone into the styropit (hope you brought a rope!).
In the case of water, what happens? Since you take up exactly the same amount of space as the amount of water you need to displace, you sink completely into the water, but unlike the styrofoam, you don't sink any farther. You are free to move around in the water, up or down, as long as you can hold your breath. If you stay still, you neither rise nor fall.
To sum all this up, look back at the paragraphs where we divided the one of you by the relative density of the substance... the number we got is the number of you's that have to sink before you float (half in the mercury, all of you in the water, and two of you in the styrofoam). Obviously, in any case where it takes more than one of you, you'll disappear completely and sink all the way to the bottom.
Okay, enough background, on to the subject:
Water and people have roughly the same density (approx. 1.0 kg/liter or 1.0 kg/10cm^3). So why do some people float blissfully in water, while others can sit on the bottom of the pool and wave at them? Two additional factors are at play... First, body fat (we all have it) is slightly less dense, so the more body fat you have, the better you float. Second, and more importantly, is your lung capacity. If you take a deep breath and hold it, your chest expands, causing you to take up more space, but air doesn't way very much, so your density goes down and you float better. This means that when you jump in water, if you have a lungful of air, you will decrease your overall density and barely float, but if you have empty lungs, you will just barely sink. Your lungs may vary, but not much.
Mud, on the other hand, has an average density that varies from about 1.4kg/L to 1.8kg/L, depending on what type of soil it's made of. Clay varies widely, depending on the water/powder ratio, from 1.01kg/L on up to (I'd guesstimate) well over 3kg/L (that powder is fairly heavy!). The average for both mud and clay is around 1.5kg/L. Quicksand hovers right around 2.0kg/L with some variation based on the amount of water present.
This means that in average mud or clay, you can submerge up to 1/1.5th (2/3rds) of your body, and in quicksand, you're limited to about half your body. This does not take into account the effect of "struggling" or the lack of flow of thick substances possess which emulates a vacuum and tends to hold you in place, but it is definitely the dominating factor, and given time and relatively smooth skin will eventually prevail.
I personally find it very difficult to submerge completely (feet first) without popping up like a cork in most substances. Some textures of clay, however, are thin enough to force yourself into them, but thick enough to hold you in place, or allow you to rise only very slowly (like bubbles in soda). In such clay, it's possible to sink completely under the surface, stay there for a short while, and pop back up once breathing becomes important to you again. Such activity is still considered moderately dangerous edgeplay, and is recommended ONLY for people with years of deep mud experience, if at all, and then ONLY when accompanied by another person with years of deep mud experience who can help out if things go wrong.
Jumping in headfirst is a whole different matter. This is extremely dangerous, and not recommended. Absolutely do not do this if you are by yourself; you will probably not be able to develop sufficient leverage to get back out, and you will drown. Even with other people it is a very hazardous activity (where exactly are they going to stand to pull you out?). Just don't do it.
Another no-no is tying weights to yourself. This is an inviting way to overcome the buoyancy restrictions described above, but it takes too much control away from you. Even something you can get out of quickly (such as a release around the waist) is unsafe, because in thick substances, you may not be able to get your hand to your waist in time, or the mechanism (even a simple one like rope) may get gummed up and not operate properly. Again, just say no.
Now, with that disclaimer in place, it is possible to make a few sweeping statements. All of these things almost always occur near water (naturally). Prowl around any bodies of water in your area, particularly where two come together (two rivers, a river and a lake, etc.). These are all very good mud spots, particularly in low areas (check topo maps). Some people use planes to reconnoiter, but they have reported less-than-perfect results. It helps a lot to enjoy hiking (hey, you wouldn't be reading this if you weren't interested in, erm, communing with nature, right?) so you can get to places that aren't nearby.
Many people like to explore construction sites, but I worry about things like broken glass, twisted beer cans and nails. There are better man-made sites, but we try not to talk about that sort of thing openly, because there are frequently some potential legal (trespassing) issues involved, and no one wants it to look like they are going around encouraging people to break the law.
If you know of any good "public" areas (like Winslow, AZ, see 2.9) where people can go to play in mud, clay, or quicksand, please send me a description (including directions, if appropriate) and I'll add it to the FAQ (and give you full credit).
If you know of any good "public" areas (like Winslow, AZ, see the question about Route 66) where people can go to play in mud, clay, or quicksand, please send me a description (including directions, if appropriate) and I'll add it to the FAQ (and give you full credit).
If you choose outside, kiddie pools are great. You can dig up your backyard if you've got good dirt (too much work for me) or go buy yourself some clay (more on this later). Or else, if you're wallowing in money as well as mud, have a cheap in-ground jacuzzi installed and dump in a few bags of clay. If you are bound and determined to get something deeper than a kiddie pool (8" to 1 foot), you will have to dig a hole. The trick is lining the sides of the hole so the water doesn't get away. Heavy plastic, like tarps or drop cloths, which are available in useable thicknesses at Home Depot, often in several layers, has been used for this, with varying degrees of success depending on the thoroughness involved. If you have any suggestions here, please let us all know. If not, better yet, try it and experiment a little!
If you elect to go indoors, you can still use the kiddie pool if you've got a spare room. Make sure it's a spare room near a bathroom, so you can get clean without dragging mud all over the house. I prefer the bathtub because it makes that eventual cleanup (there's ALWAYS a cleanup) much easier.
Again, everything depends on how deep you want it. A well-covered indoor kiddie pool will last indefinitely for those shallow encounters, but if you want something deeper you'll want to look into your bathtub. If your tub isn't deep enough for your satisfaction, there are a variety of ways to build up the side to make it deeper. This does raise some structural issues, but they are not as severe as one might think.
Ideally, you will want to do this on the ground floor and avoid those issues almost totally, as well as the nasty strain of carrying 50lb bags of clay powder up stairs. Remember that the clay weighs about 1.5 times as much as water, and if you fill a reinforced bathtub to, say, double it's normal capacity you will want to make darn sure your home was not built during the HUD crisis. ;-) Seriously, this is not a problem with a bathtubful or two, but the Quagmire Rider is known to construct larger freestanding basins and dump in as much as a ton of clay powder (before adding water). This sort of thing is best left (as he does) in the garage or, at the very least, on the ground floor. I had no trouble with a one foot deep clay-tub on the second floor, I probably could have built up the sides and gone to two feet without any problem. It takes about 300 pounds of clay powder to fill a normal tub, which probably produces about 600-800 pounds of clay (I didn't weigh it).
For your clay, I recommend Aardvark. It's cheap, mixes easily, and has a nice grey color. A lot of people like Kaolin, which can be purchased in the ever-popular shade of pure white. Either type should be available from your local ceramics supply house for between 6 and 10 dollars per 50lb bag. To find a local ceramics supply house, open your yellow pages to "Ceramics- Equipment and Supplies". Businesses under that heading (or whatever is equivalent in your area) should have small ads telling you about all the different sorts of clay they have in store for you.
When at the store, you may or may not wish to divulge your intentions to the store personnel, depending on your level of openness about such things. The "uh, what?" question they are liable to ask you is "What temperature do you want?" which refers to the temperature artists "fire" the clay at to make it hold it's shape. You're probably not going to be doing that, and you probably won't even know what the correct answer to this question is (I don't), so go for "What's cheapest?" and if they're same, "what's the coolest you've got?" and go with that.
Other useful techniques are "I'm buying this for my sister the artist in a wheelchair who can't come get it herself. She showed me the bag, so I'll know it if I see it, but I don't know about these things myself." I've also gotten great reactions from "Actually, we're going to use it for mudwrestling," and letting them draw their own conclusions. ;-)
The most important thing is to be sure you get 50lb bags of powder. These will look about like the bags of cement and baby sand you find at the hardware store. They may also ask you if you need a bonding agent. You don't.
On the way home, stop at Home Depot for drop cloths to cover the ground between the target bathroom and the cleanup bathroom. While you're there, grab a pack of white dust masks... the powder is very fine and the less of it you breathe, the better. Lastly, pick up some waterproof duct tape if you don't already have any.
After you get the 6-10 bags (depending on bathtub size) home and indoors, you will need to rest, because those bags are very heavy. Once you are ready to start, go into the bathroom, close the drain in the tub, and tape off the overflow hole (very important). Empty the first bag of powder into the the tub, and then add water. It's nice to run the water in a nearby sink first to get warm water nearby, to help warm up the clay. Add water and mix the clay until you've got a soupy mix. This is to give you a feel for how much water you'll need to get the texture you want. With each successive bag, add less water until you're at the desired consistancy after adding the last bag. Remember that it's easy to add water, but impossible to subtract it, so take it easy with the water.
Once you've got your own indoor mudpit, the key is not to let it harden. A bathtubful or more of clay doesn't harden as fast as you might think, so as long as you keep it covered, and stir it occasionally (preferably with body parts ;-) it should be just fine almost indefinitely.
The entertainment possibilities of a bathtub full of clay are left as an exercise for the reader. ;-) Sooner or later, the time will come for you to get rid of it. Do not wait until your parents are two hours away and staying for the weekend for this. Allow at least a full day, more if possible, in case things do not go smoothly. Remember, you also have to clean up all the clay you splattered on the walls and ceiling while you were doing whatever you were doing in there.
When you're ready to get rid of it (assuming it's in the tub) just get in the tub, and fill it as high as you can with water (over the clay). Swirl the water around a little to pick up some thin clay. Pop the drain plug out, then, dig and fiddle with the clay so that the _water_ drains out instead of the clay. Repeat this a few (thousand) times and the clay will slowly be dissolved and disappear. Blockages should be very few, and you should be able to poke them out with your fingers. If you get into bigger trouble, a plunger should work wonders for you, provided you remembered to tape shut the overflow hole before you started. Using the shower head to fill the tub can help break down the clay. Drain-O and friends are not effective against clay clogs unless hair or something else is also involved.
Everything (clay/qs-wise) in that area is naturally occuring, so it moves a lot. Also, it's kind of fragile... once you "use" a spot it can take as long as a couple of months for that spot to recover to its previous quick-ness. Thankfully, the quicksand continues on and off almost all the way to the Grand Canyon. You won't really find much in the other direction except after the most severe flood conditions (rare!).
The best that has been discovered is between the AT&SF railroad and I-40. Off the LCR to the east is a side tributary, dry/underground almost year-round. It carries a lot of clay sediment which can be wet under certain circumstances (fall, after the rainy season) even though the top appears dry. I have photos of me playing in a mudpit that looks like no more than two feet wide. Try not to be disappointed if you get there and the spot is dry; it's hard to time and I'm not totally certain what factors make the clay active. The quicksand is good (though sometimes cold) year-round. Never play there during the rain (flash floods = deadly). It hardly ever rains, so that won't be hard. The wind, however, blows a _lot_ and it's a major contributing factor to the area being so chilly, particularly if you're wet/slimy. (On my home videos you can hear my teeth clicking over the camcorder mike from 20 feet away after the wind came up suddenly. That was in the late summer.)
Take your beachtowel when you go. The white sand that's "slippery when wet" is quite beach-like along the east side of the river on the south side of the railroad trestle. Definitely a fun place for a picnic (adventure?). ;-)
To get there, be on I-40 east of Winslow. Get off on exit 257 (where RT66 diverges and heads toward Winslow parallel to I-40, and where SR87 goes north toward Coyote Wash and eventually to Second Mesa. This exit is probably less than a mile east of the I-40 bridge over the LCR. Get on RT66 toward Winslow and go across the RT66 LCR bridge (you can't miss the spot, it's labelled and there are two bridges and a railroad trestle right next to each other). Just on the west side of the bridge, there will be a fenced-off dirt turnoff to the left (south). Immediately after it is another dirt road that goes down a hill into a small overgrown basin and a turnaround. Park there. If you try, you can get your vehicle out of sight from the road behind bushes. I doubt very much if you'll need 4x4 ability (I've got it, but didn't feel at all like I was using it, the slope is mild and fairly solid), but I sure wouldn't want to drive down there in, say, a BMW.
If you go, please send a report of your experiences to the newsgroup!
Pinckney Island NWR off the South Carolina coast on the way to Hiltonhead Island. There are excellent walking paths and on the sides of the paths are very deep tidal springs (?) which seem to get wetter at high tide even though they are inland. They are not filled with water, but deep mud. (reported by Fro Refo)
Manatee Springs State Park at Chiefland, Florida near the Suanee River. There is a boardwalk into the mangrove swamp to the river. One can hop off the boardwalk at any point and be thigh to chest deep in sandy mud. I'm sure it gets deeper, but I didn't want to try it alone. (reported by Fro Refo)
The Salton Sea in southern California has pleasant weather almost year round. It's subject to a number of water level variations that expose and hide large tracts of mud. I've personally been up to my waist in black muck at this spot, and I suspect deeper areas can be found. This area is frequented by hunters and fishermen so it is important to keep an eye out for discarded soda/beer cans in some areas (others are spotless).
The Great Salt Lake was reported by AlKali to feature several different types and depths of mud, depending on which side you approached it from. He made it sound very interesting.
Orlando, FL is home to a lot of nice mud, in my experience. Developments there are often clustered around a middle area which is left "wild" and used as a flood control area, where all the water runoff goes when it rains. The best, thickest, deepest black mud I was ever in was in one such location, but the last time I was there some infuriating do-gooder had dumped a few tons of dry topsoil on the spot and built a tree swing nearby.
Daytona Beach, FL and neighboring cities have some interesting muddy areas along the intracoastal waterway. Caution is advised, some of these areas are full of many layers of sharp seashells. A person with a boat or an excellent swimmer might be able to find some quicksand or mud on some of the areas in the middle of the waterway that are exposed at low tide, but I can't swear to that.
Because conditions do change, if you go to any of these areas and find things to be much different (or even substantially the same), please, please, please write in and report that so we can keep this list up to date. Ditto if you are aware of other good locations not listed here.
Outside the Internet realm, you're stuck with the good old fashioned way: Ask. Maybe or may not be first-date material depending on your style.
Either way, you should treat finding people for WAM pursuits roughly the same as finding someone for other types of sexual activity. Given the relative rarity of developed WAM interests in the general population, this means that walking up to someone and saying "I'd really like to smash a puffy cream pie in your face," will usually not get you any farther than "Hi, let's have sex."
When convincing new people that maybe engaging in a little wet-and-messy would be a good idea, I frequently find out what they are interested in and point out any similarities. I've also always found that willingness to explore the other person's fantasies and desires first also wins a lot of converts. Having an intense passion for wet-and-messy activities yourself is the most important thing, it can produce an intense, almost magnetic attraction to the idea.
Also, the WAMTEC database reportedly containes an extensive list of wet-and-messy scenes of all sorts from televison and movies that they make available on videotape (WAMTEC = Wet and Messy Tape Exchange Club) for trade or purchase.
There were two problems with the Messy Archive. First, it was too much effort to maintain, in terms of keeping up with everything and in terms of the amount of user mail it generated asking for things I wasn't prepared to deliver. Second, after I took it down, it became apparent that access to the Messy Archive stunted people's creativity by making it too easy for them to access too much material.
I rested and regrouped, and formed a new plan. The WAMSAT Project is the outgrowth of that plan. It is a web site and more, designed to encourage producers, not consumers. Because of the scope of the project a great deal of the functionality of the site is not yet available, but here is a summary of the planned (and working) features:
Messy Fun
P.O. Box 181030 Dept. DA
Austin, TX 78718-1030
Rob reads the newsgroup and is available online as rob@messyfun.com.
Charles Lang
205 Channing Street
Chester, IL 62233
In your letter, include a signed statement that you are age 21 or over,
and a brief description of the kinds of shots you like. Examples would
include color and length of hair, depth of submersion, consistency of qs,
and degree of clothing. He has a wide variety of sample photos, and will
send you a few if you ask. He can also send you a videotape with clips
from some of his photo sessions.
Most of this answer was copied from The Quicksand Page's blurb about Chuck.
Well, that's the end of the FAQ! Hope you learned something! Remember: your sexuality is wonderful, and tasty when dipped in chocolate.
Contents of this FAQ are placed in the public domain. Redistribution
of this FAQ is not restricted in any fashion. Please, do not circulate
superceded versions of the FAQ. And lastly, please let me know if you use
this FAQ, make it available, or find it helpful in some other way, just
so I can know that all this effort is not for nothing.