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Fetish Wars
[Please note: Most of the parties written about here are no longer happening.]
Can you hear the sound of stiletto heels scraping the pavement, the
snap of latex against bare skin, the gasps of women being cinched into
corsets? They are the sounds of war, my friends--the fetish war. In
Manhattan, a fetish war is raging, and it means everyone with a pair of
dominatrix boots or a rubber T-shirt is preparing for battle. Let me
explain. Three years ago, I began co-producing a weekly fetish event,
really just a nightclub with a kinky twist, actually. There were rave
reviews and stampeding pervs eager to parade their private passions.
Onstage we feature whipping and disrobing. People gyrate to the DJ's
sexy soundtrack and work up a sweat attempting to discern the gender
and sexual preference of the preening masses. It is, ladies and
gentlemen, very good.
Since then we have been joined by others. Many others. If imitation is
the sincerest form of flattery, then we should be quite flattered
indeed. Not that they are all imitators. Certainly we weren't the first
to discover fetishism as a party theme. Many had previously plumbed
those depths for fun and profit. We didn't invent the dress code,
either, or the velvet rope keeping out the creeps in khakis. But we did
dream up our own personal vision of nightlife as erotica fantasy. And
it has proven inspiring in more ways than we could ever have imagined.
Now, on any given night of the week, you can dress up in your most
expensive latex and strut to a club, confident that you will sweep past
the sentries enforcing the dress code. Let's run through them all,
shall we?
Sunday evenings you can groove to goth/synth/darkwave (?!?) and enjoy a
sumptuous meal simultaneously at La Nouvelle Justine's Forever Fetish.
This now-legendary SM restaurant has never given up hope of being both
dining establishment and a dungeon. Or is it a club and a bar?
Whatever. You can get tied up, filled up and tanked up all in one
place. Just don't try to dance, as that's one thing you can't do
legally here. Of course, why you can't dance but you can spank
someone's bare ass cheeks is a whole other story. For those of you who
can't be bothered getting all dressed up in some ridiculous ensemble
for only one soiree, if you can keep track of which Sunday of the month
it is, you have another option. On the first Sunday of every month, you
can crawl a few extra blocks for The Baroness's Royal Amusements, held
at a classy little boite on Avenue C. Faithful followers of The
Baroness, purveyor of fine latex fashions, flock in their, well, fine
latex fashions, and mix with a smattering of clueless locals and die
hard kinksters. The performances tend to the extreme and a handful of
attendees maintain a reverential humorlessness that lends a certain air
of mystery. Consider yourselves warned. On
Tuesdays, the infamous Mistress Formika presides over a sloppily drunk
and sloppily dressed rock and roll crowd. There is that hint of fetish,
however, with the co-hostess Candis Cayne baring her breasts and
staggering on stylishly high heels. All this happens in a casual
neighborhood watering hole, Manitoba's, which further sets it apart
from the more serious soirees.
Wednesdays are a large and elaborate affair at the historical
Limelight, still open for business despite numerous attempts to jail
the owner and shut the place down. Lust is a group effort, essentially
bringing together what were three separate parties in one space. In the
Giger Room you can watch Manhattan's reigning queen of plastic surgery
as she bumps and grinds her implants to rock kitsch. Downstairs you'll
find ubiquitous go-go girls Viva Kneivel and Jaiko gyrating to Brit pop
mere yards from the fetish room, where the DJ spins and dominatrices
spank. Those dressed for pleasure rub elbows with those dressed to
sweat, and the yuppies hardly stand out for all the gawking tourists.
But it is another opportunity to wear that rubber T-shirt...
Thursdays you can go goth with a wicked kink at Long Black Veil, one of
the varied offerings at Mother. Bondage boys with fangs and spooky
contact lenses are led about on leashes by Earth mother types in
flowing garments and Anne Rice accoutrements. The scene tends to be
young and full of feigned ennui.
On Fridays, you are invited to Gil T. Pleasure's Fetish Planet at Now
Bar, where the clientele tends toward the drag queen persuasion and
hundred dollar cash prizes are awarded to the best costume on the
evening's theme. And that party is every Friday. If it's the first
Friday, you can check out Vyagra/Vyagra Falls on your way to the Fetish
Planet. Rumor has it this monthly will be moving to a third (or is it
the fourth?) location. And on the last Friday of the month, you can try
and track down Xorvia. Every month means a new venue; will there be a
bar? Will you be frisked? Nothing's more exciting than the unknown!
And finally, Saturday, which would mean my event, Click + Drag, at
Mother. Since I can't exactly be objective on this one, I'll merely say
it's a bit of everything. Or is it that everything else is a bit of
Click + Drag? Who knows.
The bottom line is that, at every party, you'll probably find the same
people in the same clothes. You'll dance--or be prohibited from
dancing--to the same techno industrial dreck. And you'll wonder where
the hell these people find the time to cultivate such elaborate
appearances night after night. But as they soldier on in the fetish
war, the only clear winners are the people selling all those clothes!
[Written in the late '90s.]
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