MUD and Pride

Posted by Tanos on Sun 29 Aug 04, 10:18 PM

Yesterday lili and I went in to Manchester to watch the (Gay, Lesbian, Bi and Trans) Pride March. lili has written a bit about her feelings about the March itself already, but I want to add a bit, and also say something about the M.U.D. BDSM venue in central Manchester that we also went to see.

Elsewhere I've written about my doubts about the annual SM Pride March in London, which I worry can do more harm than good:

I think a BDSM march is a bad idea if the motivation is at all exhibitionistic (so if everyone turned up wearing what they wore at work, with banners saying we're a normal cross section of the public, then fine.) However, anything which freaks out the vanillas sets our cause back, in my opinion, since we're not campaigning to flog each other in public, and we don't want them worrying that our sexuality will get out of control and be "in the street" (outside their front door in particular.) That's fundamentally different from the original Gay Pride march motivation, with gay people holding hands and kissing in public - things it was socially acceptable for straights to do in public. No one wants to have sex during a LGBT Pride March, since it's not trying to establish "gay sex in the street" as socially acceptable. However, SM Pride seems to have died on its feet anyway (although its sibling, The Spanner Trust, seems to be getting along just fine.) Efforts are now underway to get something else to happen this year in London, in the absence of the march and the subsequent Pervefest this year.

Anyway, back to Manchester. M.U.D. had an open day coinciding with the pride march day. This is an ex-prodomme venue which can be rented by the hour for couples or groups up to 20, either for BDSM scening or photography. There are some pictures on their site, but in short, they have a main room in a railway arch, with half a dozen major pieces of furniture: a rotating wheel, chair and spanking bench (all by Fetters, in their usual heavily padded leather style), a medical examination table, and a couple of iron frames for restraint. There is a wet room and a couple of tunnel-like spaces off the main area, which include some more substantial items (gyny chair, and a metal cage and stocks.) All the rooms have associated accessories, including floggers, hoods and restraints, and there was evidence of their stated procedures for disinfecting these items after they are used by customers (ie a bucket of rubber stuff being soaked.)

But the best thing about M.U.D. is the location: it's in Corporation Street, about 5 minutes walk for central Manchester landmarks like Victoria Station, the Arndale Centre car park, and the Printworks. There hire rates are also very reasonable: the figures they were quoting on Saturday were 130 pounds for 20 non-members for 6 hours (from memory), they have discounts if you take out an annual membership, and it's substantially less for couples rather than groups of 20.

So this is a bit like hiring a city-centre dungeon space like you might hire a squash-court. In some ways, having this kind of social facility for our way of life (and it not being raided and harrassed by the police - I think I saw a Police Inspector wander in from where the Pride march was assembling in Corporation Street outside to use the toilet) is the kind of acceptance we need. Not the right to do BDSM sex in the street.

Edited Tue 22 Jan 08, 11:50 PM by Tanos