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London Fetish Week 2010

Came back yesterday from a nice week-long trip to the UK, whose highlight was the London Fetish Week. Me and three friends of mine spent the weekend in London. The Week included several hot parties, and also some nice discounts in fetish stores around the London area.

On Friday, we unfortunately came too late to the Welcome Drinks at the host hotel (Novotel Vauxhall), and found the lobby to be empty, aside a few random leather dudes. After a quick drink we walked straight to Fire, where the first real kick-off party, Leather Nexus was. Having arrived quite early, the party started slow, but became really heated after midnight. When we were leaving, after 3am, it seemed that everyone had cleared the dancefloors and packed into the darkroom area. I guess the desperate stage had begun.

On Saturday, it was time for some sightseeing and the Recon’s main event, Full Fetish which was in a club called Scala near King’s Cross. The venue was a regular, albeit huge, dance club, which worked fine for the dancing aspect, but failed miserably in the cruising aspect. The dark room area was a smallish area on the top floor of the club, with a few makeshift metal fences and plastic sheeting providing cover. We left relatively early, but later I heard people had started to break lights in the toilets to get more dark space. Man, people are really desperate…

On Sunday the highlight came, the d-vote rubber party at The Hoist. Upon first entering I was surrounded by middle-aged naked guys, but apparently it was because there had been a naked party at the same venue before the rubber party. Some of the naked guys remained for the rubber party, which was a bit jarring and not fair, because the rubber party had a strict dress code of just rubber. However, there were tons of hot rubber dudes around, and the party was quite enjoyable. After 10pm (the party started at 6pm) it turned into Deconstruction, the official closing party of the week, which packed the Hoist to the brim, and I left soon after it had started.

On the shopping side, I bought a nice S10 mask with attached hood and collar from Regulation. I also bought a rubber belt, which didn’t appreciate the partying I put it through, but Regulation nicely exchanged it for a leather one which will most definitely stand even the worst torture…

All in all, it was a successful trip, partly because London is such a fun city to travel to. There’s always something to do or see, even during daytime…

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Cologne CSD vs. Helsinki Pride — Pride Extravaganza vs. pepper spray

Came back yesterday from a three-night weekend in Cologne, Germany, where I attended the CSD weekend events. This was my first real pride event. And wow, what a parade it was! There were about 100 trucks in total, plus a lot of people walking. Audience was in the hundreds of thousands. I got the privilege of riding in the FetischU30 truck, for fetish guys under 30 years old. It was smokin’ hot!

The temperature in Cologne was unusually high for the whole weekend, maxing at about 34 C. I couldn’t but feel sorry for the guys wearing full rubber and hoods in the parade… it must’ve been bordered on lethal!

Even though I feel love towards my home country of Finland, this weekend once again proved the vast gap between Germany and my home country. In Finland, there was a pride parade last weekend as well, the Helsinki Pride, which was attacked by anti-gay activists with pepper spray. Even though the attack has been condemned by many, discussion boards still flow with wry messages mostly emphasizing how gays should keep it more low key. Attitudes like that once again make me ponder about the option of moving abroad to more receptive cultures.

I’ve been wondering with a few Finnish friends if we should do a rubber group in the next Helsinki Pride. At least we would have gas masks in case of another tear gas attack 😀