Fetish Dayz

DON’T LOOK NOW

It is impossible not to feel profound sympathy for Liz Longhurst, whose daughter Jane was killed in 2003 by a man said to be obsessed with violent internet pornography.

Even so, it would be profoundly misguided to support the bill to criminalise the viewing of such material announced last week by the British Government. This bill, inspired by the anti-porn campaign launched by Mrs Longhurst after her daughter’s death, aims to make the viewing of extreme internet porn punishable by three years’ imprisonment and placement on the sex offenders’ register.

The bill would outlaw images of pornographic, explicit and real or apparently real acts of serious violence, necrophilia and bestiality — ‘serious violence’ being defined here as that which ‘appears to be life-threatening or likely to result in serious, disabling injury’. It seeks to do this despite every stage of the process which produced these proposals being flawed, from the verdict in the original trial of Jane Longhurst’s killer to the dubious weighting given to special interest groups in the later public consultation…

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POSTSCRIPT ON PETE: A PERV TO BE PROUD OF

There’s not a Brit who won’t already know this. But readers outside the UK may not be so aware that Pete Bennett, the subject (along with his mum Anne Stephenson) of an earlier Fetish Dayz item One Mother Of A Ding Dong did (as widely predicted) win Channel 4’s latest Big Brother reality TV contest.

Pete, from Brighton, is open about being a regular participant in the South Coast resort’s fetish scene. So the reality for the rest of us is that the British edition of this massively popular TV show has been won by a genuine perv. What’s more, he’s a perv who suffers from Tourettes syndrome, and he still managed to come out on top.

No doubt there will be members of the British fetish scene old guard — not to mention the country’s entire contingent of fetish crusties (aka the scene’s foremost whingers and moaners) — who will not welcome the idea of someone like Pete Bennett as a fetish ambassador to the world at large. But I’m willing to wager, even though I hate reality TV shows, that a self-confessed perv winning a big popular vote like this is likely to do the rest of the perv community no harm at all. It has the potential, at the very least, to make fetish look cooler than it has looked for some time.

Of course, Pete didn’t just win the contest. He won £100,000 in prize money too. And what did he do with the cheque? He gave it straight to his mum. Diamond geezer! 

THE WEEK IN PERVERSITY: A NEW FEATURE

A number of private comments received about this blog have particularly encouraged my attempts to explore connections between popular culture and fetish culture in Fetish Dayz. Several people have gone even further and said they don’t think I should restrict myself to kinky subject matter. Why not, it has been suggested, broaden the blog’s scope to include things in the news that I consider perverse, not just those that are more obviously perverted?

Well I don’t want to dilute the focus of Fetish Dayz by making it into too general a blog. But I must admit there are always some things in the news in any given week that are so bizarre or ridiculous or laughable or infuriating that I find myself itching to say something about them. So I’m going to allow myself the luxury of a little spot where I can do just that. I’m tagging it The Week In Perversity and here are three perverse nuggets to kick off with…

POT TO CALL KETTLE BLACK  Ryanair, the low-cost, no-frills airline, is to sue the British Government for £3 million compensation for the disruption caused to its business by ‘ridiculous ’ extra airport security measures implemented since the alleged airline bomb plot was exposed here. If this were any other airline complaining about its passengers being caused stress and inconvenience, I’d have some sympathy. But Ryanair? This is one of those cases where, if it ever got to court, you’d really want both sides to lose.

NO SMOKE WITHOUT IRE  Britain’s broadcasting watchdog Ofcom has demanded that all smoking scenes should be cut from the Tom And Jerry cartoons screened by children’s satellite channel Boomerang. I am no fan of smoking, but I am no fan of f**king about with a historical institution like Tom And Jerry on some completely daft politically (in)correct pretext either. Ofcom apparently came to the conclusion that the cartoons had to be censored to protect children after a viewer complained about one episode in which Tom tries to impress a female cat by lighting up. Let’s just rewind that a bit… a viewer complained. One viewer. One. So presumably it would equally take only one of us to complain that we’d prefer the cartoons kept intact for Ofcom to reverse its decision? No, thought not.

COME TO MUMMY  Not content with bringing into the world another child that she can practise her parenting skills on, Britney Spears is reported to be planning on being buried with her pet dog. When I first read this story, I thought, well, sounds OK to me, as long as we don’t have to wait for her to die first. But it seems I was being premature. What she actually wants is for her dog to be buried with her when she dies, in the tradition of the Egyptian Pharaohs. Which presumably means: if Britney pops her clogs, the dog — who by the way is called Lucky — gets it in the neck. Lucky, if you’re reading this, maybe you should be thinking about a change of name. The one you’ve got at the moment could turn out to be singularly inappropriate.

A TASTE OF FETISH, BERLIN STYLE

The first half of 2006 was a very busy time for globe-trotting pervs, with the temptation of half a dozen big fetish/BDSM weekends staged in the UK, Europe and the US in the spring and early summer.

In-depth coverage of big international fetish fests like these will be a feature of my forthcoming dedicated website, but for a taster right now of one recent European event — the German Fetish Ball in Berlin — check out the GFB photo story in Fetish Dayz Features.

Miss Von Livid enjoys a cocktail at the German Fetish Ball weekend’s Friday night Revolution party (photograph by TM)

www.german-fetish-ball.com

WHEN IS A SHOE NOT A SHOE?

When it’s a boot, apparently. Let me explain.

For at least a couple of decades now, the basic range of shoes available from fetish footwear designers and manufacturers has included a style widely known as the Oxford. Deriving its name from the Oxford brogue, it is basically a classic 1930s lady’s lace-up walking shoe restyled for fetish purposes with the addition of a pointed toe, a stiletto heel, an optional platform and usually, but not always, a nice shiny black patent finish.

Now it so happens that the high-heeled laced-up Oxford is a favourite fetish style of mine. It looks more purposeful, more businesslike than standard high heeled pumps, aka court shoes. The Oxford, combining the sleek viciousness of a regular stiletto with overtones of corsetting ritual and connotations of schoolmarmish authority, is perhaps the ultimate dominatrix shoe.

So naturally when this style filters through into mainstream fashion, as it has of late, there is cause for celebration. Even though most mainstream designers have sought to mute the SM symbolism of the fetish original by using softer curves, less sky-scraping heels, or brown or pastel leathers in place of relentless shiny black patent, the pervy power of the style still shines through. And so on our streets right now you see women strutting around shod in yet another barely disguised derivation of dominatrix chic.

What then, you ask, is there to complain about? Well, it seems that for some reason, fashion journalists have decided that the high-heeled lace-up Oxford shoe is now in fact a boot. In the last week I’ve noticed three separate fashion spreads featuring lace-up Oxfords from various designers such as Stuart Weitzman described in the accompanying credits as ‘ankle boots’. Excuse me? Ankle boots? 

You expect sloppy nomenclature from tabloid newsdesk sub-editors who still haven’t learnt to distinguish between rubber, leather and pvc and can’t tell tights from stockings (at least when it comes to caption-writing).

But journalists working on fashion pages are usually much more careful about getting garment descriptions correct.

I’d love to know which hack started misnaming this classic shoe style as a boot, and why other journalists who ought to know better are, erm, slavishly following suit.

Very nice, but not a boot: Signore lace-up platform shoe in Hickory antique, $285
www.stuartweitzman.com

   

POSTAL RATES RISE? TIME TO START STOCKING UP

It has been closing post offices and reducing counter services with a vengeance, and recently ‘improved’ mail deliveries by replacing our traditional two daily deliveries with just one. So people in Britain don’t really need any more reasons to dislike the organisation that calls itself Royal Mail.

But you know what? It keeps on giving us new reasons anyway. The latest, due to come into force in a week’s time, is the new system of charging for letters based on the size as well as the weight of the envelope.

By now, all British households will have received one of the Royal Mail’s smartly designed, fold-out poster-style guides to the new rates. Careful scrutiny of this document reveals that the new system will not affect you at all — if you’re a granny sending someone a birthday gift of a Ten Pound note wrapped in a single sheet of writing paper and tucked into one of those special miniature envelopes sold by secret shops that only grannies know about.

As for the rest of us: it looks like we’re f•••ed. Especially businesses which tend to have to send slightly bulkier than average, though still lightweight, letter-size packages, or documents that can’t be folded and have to be sent in full-size A4 envelopes.

One group hard-hit by this will be mail-order hosiery fans, according to the latest mailout from Stockings HQ. SHQ, if you don’t already know, is a specialist online retailer of quality stockings of all kinds, and a particularly good source of proper vintage-style fully fashioned nylons. So it cannot have pleased David Bradwell, the affable owner of this friendly and efficient business, to have to announce to his customers last week that, because hosiery is light but the packaging can be bulky, most of the parcels SHQ send will now be classed as packets — which, needless to say, will cost more.

“Unfortunately,” he explains, “packets are bearing the brunt of the price rises. As an example, a 150g packet will cost 87 percent more to send under the new system. A 250g packet will cost 72 percent more.” So, the cost to Stockings HQ of posting their smaller mailings will almost double overnight.

Impressively though, Bradwell’s immediate response was to make his customers a free delivery offer — the last one before his mailing costs become, to use his own words, “excruciatingly expensive”.  He offered free delivery on all orders of any value to any country all through the weekend, up until 11am UK time today.

I wonder about the timing though. I just hope for his sake that someone hasn’t decided that airmailed hosiery constitutes the same security risk as baby milk and toothpaste.

Above: Gerbe Carnations — unquestionably the most luxurious fully fashioned stockings you can buy, according to David Bradwell — are one of Stocking HQ’s big sellers at £18.95 (plus postage, needless to say)

www.stockingshq.com

HOTTER, DAMPER… I’D STILL RATHER BE IN TAMPA

Over this weekend a lot of my pervy friends are in Tampa, Florida, attending Fetish Con, the convention which focuses on the US bondage industry and associated fetish businesses.

Now in its third year at Tampa, Fetish Con has become the summer occasion for the gathering of America’s kinky clans (and a fair smattering of international pervs), and I wish I could have been there with them again this year. Florida may not have the most hospitable weather in the hurricane season but I have happy memories of last year’s event and it would have been great to see all my old fetish friends from the East and West Coasts and points between. Not to mention the inevitable pleasure of making new friends, which events like this pretty much guarantee, given the constant opportunities for socialising and the general camaraderie you find when a bunch of pervs take over a hotel for a long weekend.

On the other hand, had I given in to transatlantic temptation and treated myself to a ticket to Tampa, the day I would almost certainly have chosen to fly out to Florida would have been yesterday, Thursday August 10th, the day on which air travel in Britain was brought to a virtual standstill by a full-scale terrorist alert. Anyone expecting to fly from Heathrow to Miami, as I would have been, would probably have ended up just cancelling their trip.

It’s not a great sacrifice to go without a tube of toothpaste or a pair of scissors on a nine-hour flight, but faced with the prospect of repacking the stuff that I normally take as hand luggage on my US trips — iPod, SLR camera kit and laptop — into my checked luggage, I really don’t know whether I would have wanted to take the risk. Even if someone had told me there was a flight leaving that I could get on, I just wouldn’t have been confident that I’d see any of it at the other end. And would my insurance have covered it, if it had been stolen from suitcases which US airport security personnel already want us to leave unlocked?

The current extra security measures are likely to remain in place for some considerable time. So it will be interesting to see how — or if — those in charge of air travel address the potential problem of people deciding en masse that flying without hand luggage is just not worth it.

For the time being though, clear plastic carrier bag manufacture sounds like a good business to be in.

Below: Lew Ruebens demonstrates proposals for new passenger security measures at last year’s Fetish Con (Photography by TM)

www.fetishcon.com

VICTORIA BAGS A NEW LOOK

So. Victoria Beckham has painted her fingernails black. And this, along with her brand new oversized Burberry handbag (a snip at £795), can apparently mean only one thing, according to today’s tabloids.

Yes — Posh has become a GOTH. Yeah, right. Apparently she’s been getting tips from Burberry’s creative director Christopher Bailey about the Goth look that’ll be in next season. And let’s face it, “black fingernails — and our bags” is as unbaised a piece of advice about how to achieve it as she could get from anyone.

Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth and cries of “If only it was that easy” from real Goths everywhere.

FRM HERE TO ETERNITY

Many moons ago I was interviewed by the charming Jan Birks, associate editor of adult mag Frm, whose title is a sort of code for ‘we’re the people who used to produce Forum’. I had bumped into Jan at Virgin Books’ launch of Princess Spider’s autobiography and she decided that the editor of Skin Two would make a good interview subject.

Of course, at the time, I was the editor of Skin Two. But then there were delays with publication of Frm (or Adult Spy Frm to give it its full title) and by the time my interview came out a few days ago, I’d been disconnected from Skin Two for more than two months.

Fortunately the magazine interview focuses  mainly on my recollections of the early days, how things have changed and  the ways I’d like to see the future of pervery go. So there are only a few lines in it that I wish, with the benefit of hindsight, had not been printed. And anyone who reads the interview (in Vol 1 Issue 13) can probably work out for themselves which lines those are.

Incidentally,  a few days after Frm arrived on my doormat, so did the new UK edition of Forum (left, with Trevor Watson cover), which is now being produced again by the original editorial team of Birks and editor Liz Coldwell, who also produce Frm. Confused? Me too. But I gather this has happened because publishers Trojan have just now secured a seven-year UK licence for the Forum title from US owners Penthouse. Rather than Frm reverting to Forum, as you might have expected, it will continue as a separate title, produced alongside Forum by the same editorial staff working for the same publisher at new Old Street offices.

HOW BRITS VIEW THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE

I think it’s safe to say that most fans of fetish and bondage queen Bettie Page will enjoy seeing her life story (or at least, the kinky part of it) brought to the big screen in Mary Harron’s movie The Notorious Bettie Page, released in the UK on August 4 and starring Gretchen Mol (right). After all, how often do we get to see a movie of any kind — let alone a sympathetic one — about a fetish figure?

But when I saw this affectionate portrayal of post-war pervery’s most enduring icon at an advance press screening in London, I couldn’t help wondering what the British film press would make of the movie. Bettie might be as much of a heroine for British fetish fans as for our American counterparts. But I doubted she would be as widely recognised in mainstream culture here as in the States, where her story is familiar because of the big media fuss there when she was rediscovered a dozen years ago living in Los Angeles.

So how has our UK press received a biopic about a model who may not be that well known here, played by an actress who also is not yet exactly a household name in this country? To get an idea, I took a look at some of the coverage the movie has had here, both prior to and on the weekend of its UK release… 
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