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Kinkfest and London

Posted by Tanos on Mon 13 Dec 04, 11:18 AM

What a success! 500 people came to the workshops, stalls and stage performances at the Conway Hall on Saturday. Most of the meeting rooms were full with people having to be turned away (and we were using just about all of the rooms Conway Hall has.) The cowardly threats to disrupt the event didn't materialise. Everyone there seemed good humoured and positive about the subject matter, and it really felt like people coming together, and leaving the petty politics and empire-building at the door.

Ishmael Skyes gave a very impassioned opening speech about the problems BDSM has faced in the past, progress we've made (we're no longer worried about the police raiding or otherwise harrassing a BDSM event like Kinkfest), but also about the problems over issues like child custody and discrimination at work that BDSM people can still face. I felt that one of his most important points was how the ego-driven desire some people have to create divisions within the BDSM scene, really harms all our welfare when we are under attack from outside. Ishmael's speech was quite angry in some places, and it's understandable, but we mustn't forget that these issues are totally unknown to some of the people entering BDSM today (you do now get people on discussion boards saying "BDSM rights? it's not as if anyone has got sacked for being into BDSM.")

lili, popi and I had a look round before doors opened, a bit of a practice with the table we'd got hold of (thanks Feractal!) and then looked at the stalls and watched the stage speakers for most of the morning.

In the afternoon, we went to the poly workshop: once it got past the stammer-inducing round-the-room "My name is Tanos and I am an alco-, sorry, BDSM person" stage, it went ok, and towards the end there were some very interesting points about the interaction of D/s and poly.

We finished the day off at the bondage sessions in the Brockway Room. This started with a brief overview of why you'd want to do bondage, with some mention of safety issues by Bruce/Esinem. The room quickly filled up during this 101 section, and we had to start controlling the numbers coming in.

After that, the Demo proper started with the audience milling around in the middle and with four bondage demos going on in the corners: Bruce and Kazayu with the suspension frame; Douglas doing some hands on "try it yourself"; Violently and Wayne each doing more intricate pieces of full body rope work; and then me and the two girls going through a steel bondage demo.

We'd worked out our routine over the last couple of weeks, starting off with simple chains and padlocks from B&Q ("Bondage on the Quiet"), and then going through different types of modern and historical handcuffs, a piece of positional bondage (a hogtie) using Darby cuffs and legirons, and then another positional piece using iron stocks. To fill in the safety issues that we didn't have time for, I made some handouts of the Locked-Shut checklist from http://www.tanos.org.uk/locked-shut.html

It all seemed to go very well. We got through the 25 minute demo routine twice in the afternoon, with informal chatting-round-the-table questions and answers to fill in the gaps. Given that steel is quite a minority interest within the wider bondage subculture, I was quite impressed that the high-water mark was half the room watching us, in the middle of both run-throughs.

After Kinkfest ended, we went to the Munch, talked to some people we'd not seen in ages and then to the after party (which, again, was sold out and packed.)

Unfettered, the umbrella created to organise Kinkfest, plan on continuing with more events in 2005, including some monthly workshops in London: www.unfettered.co.uk will have details of what is being planned when things get moving.

Sunday saw a trip to the Clink and the Tower (there's a bit of a theme here ;) ) and a first chance to see the Tower's new displays about torture and its collection of instruments (now separated, in the Wakefield and White towers) and a more realistic historical assessment of what each item actually was.

So I'm shattered now :-D

Edited Tue 22 Jan 08, 11:53 PM by Tanos

 
 
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