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Ever have this happen to you? You wear that special kinky fetish outfit -- the one that makes you feel all hot and sexy -- wear it out to a big kink event looking forward to all the admiring glances. Then you get there, only to find that no one's looking at you, no one gets why your outfit is sexy, and others are dressed really differently. You feel like a total dud. It's happened to me. Yup, me.
Do you travel around to different fetish events? Have you traveled long distances, crossed borders and oceans to revel with the local sex freaks? If you have, you may have noticed that there's some difference in how folks dress, what's expected for attire and what turns the locals' cranks. There is a regional difference, and if you don't know this, you can end up with the "dud" experience like I had. I figure you'd like to know about the differences in advance if you want to make the most out of your pervy globetrotting. I've got some personal theories on this, too, that might shed some light on the differences. After all, we do want to get the right sort of attention, don't we? It was about 10 years ago, at one of my earlier attendances at the Skin Two Rubber Ball in London, when I really noticed this regional difference in fetish wear worn at the clubs. This is also where I felt like a total dud. My sexual and kink life's been spent growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Here we have a really rich and diverse community of kinkster, leather folks and sexual adventurers dating back to the late 1950s and 1960s. (Yes, folks, SM was well-developed in pockets around the US long before the Internet -- and I'm not talking about some make-believe "Old Guard" groups or "Euro Houses.") With a half a century of an active community to teach me, I had a pretty good education on the importance of how to dress for fetish/leather events, and the importance of the adorning objects and symbolism I projected. CJ Custom made a full leatherman's uniform for me. It was all about honoring the history of San Francisco leathermen that I so cherished. The colors were carefully selected. Red-brown for most of it, as Joseph Bean had told me that the leathermen originally wore brown, not black leathers. The pipings were black -- for heavy SM, and hunter green -- for daddy. Although I read as femme, in my D/s relationships I was most often the Daddy.
The boots were custom made Dehner Motor Patrol Boots. An official police belt pulled it all in. From the epaulets on the left shoulder hung black and gray leather cords, signifying heavy SM and bondage top. In the back pocket I sported a hankie, red for fisting. Slicked my hair back, painted my lips red and I topped it all off with a black leather "daddy" cap with a shiny brim. I enjoyed what I saw in the mirror. The attire was intended to send several signals. First, that I knew my leather history. Second, that I came from a leather community. And third, this one being most controversial -- that I would dare to ware the regalia of masculinity while flaunting my femininity. When I had worn the outfit to some leather events in the States, it was definitely received with strong emotions. Some loved it, others got turned on, a few were upset at my defiance of tradition. It aroused and aroused ire. Of course I enjoyed all of this. Meanwhile, back in London at the pre Rubber Ball VIP party, I'm arousing nothing. A big NADA. I'm surprised. I'll even admit that I was a bit hurt, but I got over that soon and let my curiosity take over instead. When it comes to fetish wear there are the clothes we wear (or have our partners wear) for private pleasures and the there are the clothes we choose for public display. Often the categories overlap but they're not always the same thing. Our personal fetishes come from many influences, most of them quite private in origin. One person might have acquired a fetish for shiny things from his satin baby blanket. Another may have acquired a taste for high heels because of her toddler fascination with her mother's shoes. The root of our personal fetishes is a worthy discussion, but let's leave that to another installment of this column. Fetish wear that we choose to wear before others' gaze, whether for just for one person or for a few thousand of your closest fetish party friends, involves factors beyond one's particular personal paraphilia. This is where I believe the symbols and images of a culture's heroes come in to place. For the sake of this conversation, let's lump together North America on one side and Western Europe on the other and take a look at the fetishized male. (We'll leave my beloved Japan off to the side in the clutches of the wide-eyed schoolgirls and tentacles for now.)
In North America, who are the archetypes of power? With it's relatively young recorded history, agrarian background, an ideal (but not reality) of egalitarianism and democracy, and its propensity to shun hereditary aristocracy, who have become our archetypal heroes? It's not the royalties, nobility, kings and queens of Europe built atop its literal and figurative foundation of the Roman Empire. The court jester doesn't even enter our lexicon, as he's jobless in an egalitarian farming and industrial society. The archetypal heroes of North America are often associated with the visible professions holding power and authority over the everyday citizens. We tend to sexualize and eroticize the ones with power and authority and social relationships based on power and hierarchy. Other heroes are the archetypes of masculinity. So, in a society that still clings to the myth of the "Cinderella Man", the wild west and Horatio Alger's style of self-made working class lad, the list of heroes have looked something like this: the policemen, soldier, sailor, cowboy, Indian chief and fire fighter. Yes, I know, this sounds a bit like the Village People. Where do you think they got the idea of the caricatures to play? The anti-heroes, the villains and the rakes get their place as well in our list of eroticized icons of the North American males. You have Brando in The Wild One and Dean in Rebel without a Cause. The cool motorcycle gang member and the disenfranchised American youth enter our visual and sexual lexicon and combines with the police and the soldier. What you now have in macho uniforms, biker leathers, etc., is the range of fetish attire worn by many men in North America, especially the gay kink cultures. In Western Europe, the cultural fabric doesn't cling to these mythical ideals of the egalitarian hero. Even in today's democratic Western Europe, history influences the choice of erotic attire and the sexualized fantasy relationships expressed by clothing at the fetish parties. The fetishized re-interpretation of the common constable doesn't quite hold the power there as it does in North America. Power and authority were not historically associated with a working class occupation, but instead were modeled on inter-class relationships. Lords and Ladies had servants; masters of guilds had apprentices.
In such a culture the images are associated with the trappings of wealth, high society and hereditary positions. You have Howard's End, Pygmalion, and Venus in Furs. Those who held social dominance wore furs, corsets, silks and lush materials. In a culture accustomed to grand balls and masquerades, excessive dress and the party fun of dressing up as something entirely fanciful, it is not surprising that fetish wear would be highly theatrical. In comparison, North American men's fetish wear seems down right utilitarian and austere. The gay leather community has had a greater impact on the development, styles and practices of the pansexual and heterosexual BDSM community in North America than in Europe. Many in the US scene themselves aren't necessarily aware of the impact that early gay leather culture has had on contemporary North American SM/fetish styles. Much of the gay leather fetish wear and visual codes depended upon hyper masculine behavior. Part of this was that it was just super sexy to members of that community. Another part was that it cast off the "pansy," "nellie" and "nancy boy" stereotype that mainstream society had of gay men. A super macho gay man was less likely to be gay bashed than a guy with fully or partially feminine attire. There was also a time when a guy could get legally arrested for a number of items worn that were 'feminine". (This is how you can have "Queens among the Kings" -- very queeny men in totally butch attire.) In Europe, the fetish communities for the pansexual and hetero community had an early start compared to North America. Published materials were available in the 1920s such as fetishistic lingerie catalogues and photo collections. Gender bending images were quite common for both genders. With so much material available, there seems to be less reliance on the gay male community for information, resources and imagery. Again, the balls and the masquerades gave the Western Europeans precedence on gathering for the fun of fanciful dressing. The men (and women) had ample excuse and examples to dress wildly purely for pleasure. This is just a part of the explanation for differences you see in men's fashion in North American and European fetish culture. Here's another set of factors: With North America's Puritan and working class roots, "effeminate" attire or clothing associated with women became very taboo when worn by men. There is a strong adherence to gender dimorphism in attire in North America that just doesn't exist in Western Europe. In North America we associate make-up, wigs, frills, corsets and heels with being feminine. But in Western Europe it wasn't all that long ago that these very same items were the objects of beautification for the rich, aristocratic men and women. The accessories and ornamentation were aligned with class, not gender. Sexual mores also tended to be, and still prove to be more conservative in Calvinist-influenced North America. The tradition of Libertinism and sexual openness has been long viewed with suspicion in many North American circles, reflecting a general suspicion for most things that reflect upper-class chauvinist perspectives. (When you stop and think about this is oddly Marxist, coming from the mouths of a society so avidly anti-communist.) So at a European fetish event people would enjoy a guy dressed in a bizarre costume that mimics the male and female, while that same outfit would be met with dead stares in many circles in North America. Likewise, a kinkster wearing all the austere symbols of the American fetish hero might be met with looks of incomprehension or at least underappreciation by the Western European fetishist. If I had known this, I would have left my sexy leatherman uniform back at home and would have just worn all my crazy-colored latex outfits, super-tight corsets, and grand ball skirts with wild make up. So, ladies and gentlepervs, each region has its own ways of dressing sexy, and more often than we realize it, our cultural roots and ideas about the symbols of sex and power influence them. Dress to impress and turn people on by understanding where their freak comes from!
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