Having been a vicious, antisocial geek in High School I fell into the medieval battle-reenactment scene pretty easily and enjoyed it very much. I got to play with the smart but antisocial kids who did it under the guise of a historically correct and parentally acceptable hobby and I got to play with sometimes-smart and antisocial underachievers who did it because they were kinky for armor and liked hitting smart kids. I identified myself chiefly with the latter group, mostly because they had lives outside of the comically-named characters they played and therefore had more to talk about when drunk. Which is important. Life insurance agent shop-talk is less gruelling than medievalist shop-talk.
There are any number of things to recommend the medievalist lifestyle other than conversation, however. Chief among these, so far as I was concerned, was hitting people. The weapons are padded or the people are armored, depending on the testosterone level of the organization, so the chances of actually killing or wounding anyone are quite low. What this means is that you can leave your conscience at the door let your reptile-brain run amuck. If you’ve ever been wandering around a Con aching to just smack the shit out of all the obese, mouth-breathing, hairy-faced glopsacks staring at you for being physically fit and recently bathed, please note: a great many of these fish-heads do reenactment, and you are not only allowed but encouraged to hit them with sticks.
Thing #2 relates back to the “kinky for armor” clause, which should be amended to read “Kinky for armor, chain-mail/fur bikinis, big fucking boots, big leather gloves, studs, tights, and clothing fastened with drawstrings”. I speak, with due reverence, of sex. People who in their everyday clothes would never be able to get play for anything but top dollar can find themselves the objects of real live sexual attention through the simple expedient of dressing up in lots of leather, fur, and steel. Strange, but true. The ratio of males to females is about what you’d expect given what a purely testostoronal activity hitting people is, but the women one does encounter in the scene, whether they fight or not, are an unmissable presence. They range from sort of witchy-poo librarian types to borderline biker chicks, though bear in mind that regardless of appearance, women who are kinked for armor are rarely of a passive and compliant nature. If you like sex neat & simple, stay home and be thankful you have opposable thumbs.
Thing #3 relates back to talking while drunk, which one does a fair bit of at feasts and “events”. There aren’t many other occasions where one can get ratfaced on mead and watch belly dancers writhe by firelight; I don’t really think I need to elaborate further.
I got out of the scene after ripping the shit out of a bunch of muscles and dislocating my shoulder; I didn’t have much invested in the whole notion and wasn’t much of a fighter anyway. But it was damn good fun and I highly recommend it for anyone who likes drinking, fucking and hitting people and doesn’t fancy jail.
by your kindly Uncle William