Don't be a naughty little pony

I once wrote an article about a hobby horse competition that is popular in Finland in which young girls navigate an equine jumping course with a stick horse. I pleaded for parents to stop the madness and buy their daughter a real pony so they could compete without looking like idiots.

Alas, it is too late. While I was concerned that taking the horse out of horse competitions would damage our nation’s young girls, something much worse has happened. Hobby horse sport has been co-opted by a sector of society that up to now has only existed in the dark, musty corners of the basement.

The BDSM crowd has invented something they call “pony play.” It is My Little Pony meets the Marquis de Sade. The Pony Play couples wear costumes in which one of them dresses up like a pony while the other one dresses up like a regular pervert. Of course, given the nature of these people, the “pony” wears a leather harness and has a bit placed in its mouth. Finally, they have a reason to wear that mouth gag in public other than the annual Pride parade. 

The pony handler usually wears a dominatrix-type outfit and holds the lead rope or whip. Sometimes the pony gets hitched to a cart in which the dominatrix sits. Sometimes the pony misbehaves and must be disciplined by the dominatrix. It seems there are a lot of naughty ponies in this group.

This new kind of role-playing has become very popular within the BDSM community. EQUUS International Pony Play is sponsoring an event in Los Angeles, California on 10-12 August. The mission of EQUUS is to “provide quality education on Pony Play and a safe space to play and experience new things in Pony Play.” According to the group’s website, the event is “the opportunity for ALL Pony Play enthusiasts to meet face to face. This event is open to ALL styles of Pony Play, ALL types of Ponies. ALL the wonderful people that take our reins and those who love us. We embrace our difference and celebrate our diversity.”

I see the word “all” is repetitively written in all caps. Apparently, some of the pony players are such freaks in their own minds that they think even the regular nut-jobs wouldn’t accept them. That is truly a scary thought.

It is too bad that this pony play stuff didn’t come sooner. If this behavior had been around in the 19^th century, the outcome of some famous battles might have turned out differently. As we all know from history, Marshall Ney of Napoleon’s army was famously defeated by the British squares at Waterloo in 1815. However, if he had appeared as Marshall Neigh, Prince of Moskva, wearing nothing but a black leather harness, knee-high riding boots, and a silver bit in his mouth, I bet the stiff upper lips of Wellington’s troops would have quivered slightly before their lines collapsed in hysterical laughter.

Likewise, if Custer had attacked the Sioux village on the Little Big Horn in 1876 with a regiment of cavalrymen in Pony Play outfits, I doubt he would have encountered as much resistance. The Sioux would have fled in terror in the face of that “bad medicine” and the “Boy George General” would have been victorious.

So, I guess I need to take back my condemnation of hobby horse competitions. In retrospect, it is a much healthier activity than what we see now in EQUUS International Pony Play. Tell your kids its ok to act like a pony. Just don’t be a naughty, sadistic one.