The chaos and order of play parties
Added 2021-08-06 11:18:59 +0000 UTCIn 2021, going to kink parties feels not just too good to be true, but kind of utopian. Imagine. The room is full of people. You can come up to someone and talk to them up close. You can make out with strangers. Cruising happens so fast it's like something out of queer fairy tales of the last century which I never dreamed of experiencing in my lifetime. People obliviously fucking in dark corners of carefully moderated yet still very outrageously public space. You meet someone's eyes, and it's intense, and then this moment is gone. Basically, heaven.
Last year when I sat around my bedroom in full latex, it felt like play parties will remain in the vague memories of the pre-pandemic life. At the same time, I've always found it interesting that such a ephemeral (and hard to document) thing as a sex party is pretty integral to BDSM history.
There is a great essay by Robin Sweeney in The Second Coming: A Leatherdyke Reader, which describes an afterparty of International Ms. Leather contest in mid-90s in great detail. There is just something amazing in reading about a play party which took place literally decades ago.
Last time I went to UK Leather and Fetish Archive I was looking at materials from The Society of Janus, San Francisco-based BDSM education and support group founded in 1974. Among other things I found this set of rules for a play party in 1989. It's funny that community's internal moderation seems to not have changed that much (see Klub Verboten's excellent Don't Be a Dick from this year). Anyway, enjoy this piece of history below <3
As ever, thank you all for your support, especially in times when vanilla jobs overtake my schedule, it means a lot <3 xxx
