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Film Review: Age of Consent (USA/UK 2014)

I don’t usually write film reviews, but every now and then I encounter a film during which I cannot help but to wonder what I would write if I did reviews for a living.

This week, I had the chance to see Age of Consent (Bangor Films, USA/UK 2014) in a special showing organized by Vinokino, a local LGBT film organization in Helsinki, Finland. The following is my opinion of the film.

Filmed, directed and edited by Charles Lum and Todd Verow, Age of Consent aims to discuss the recent LGBT history of UK, while also portraying The Hoist in London as a groundbreaking venue for kinky folk. The film consists mostly of interviews of people associated with The Hoist, with the addition of a few other people in the LGBT scene in both the US and the US.

Unfortunately the film is a failure as a documentary, and features incredible lost potential in discussing important subjects. The historical timeline the film features is lacking, with important cases such as the Spanner trial, mentioned without any context, or even a decade for that matter. Political aspects of LGBT rights are ignored, and politicians are painted as simple devious individuals aimed at destroying the possibility of free, unlimited sex.

All of the serious political discussion is cross-cut with video of explicit penetrative anal sex, which might work as a parody of an over-the-top LGBT documentary, but which in this case is most likely either as an attempt to keep viewer attention, or worse, to gather up some risqué attention for the otherwise failed film.

The documentary does not shy away from simplifying the kinky scene of London, featuring implicitly The Hoist as a savior of the scene, conveniently either ignoring or mentioning in passing the numerous other clubs serving the scene in history or current day.

From a technical standpoint, Age of Consent attempts a cinéma vérité style of documentary, with noticeable absence of narration or background music. Unfortunately this proves mostly nauseating, hand-held video photography juxtaposed with cheaply made B-roll, in a futile attempt to break up otherwise obviously unprepared and blathering interviews. Any historical footage is absent.

In conclusion, any of the topics mentioned superficially in Age of Consent would be enough for a feature-length documentary. Age of Consent, however, fails to discuss any of the serious issues currently challenging the kinky community, or even to provide an adequate historical background to base any discussion on.

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Year 2013 in Review

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Most popular Tumblr picture of the year
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Most popular Twitter picture of the year

In 2013 I visited 18 foreign cities which are, in alphabetical order: Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin (three times), Chicago, Cologne, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Koblenz, London, Luxembourg, Oslo, Paris, Prague, Pärnu, San Francisco, Tallinn, Vienna, and Zürich.

I travelled for 58 nights, of which in hotels I spent 36 nights, on airplanes 2 nights, at friends 15 nights, and in apartments 5 nights.

I met 46 separate foreign persons in meaningful, private meetings. Of those there is 1 person I never want to meet again, but you do not know who you are.

Most common name among my encounters was Florian with 3 persons sharing that name.

I had 37 private sessions in foreign cities, parties and public events excluded.

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Fully Leathered Bikers

Last September me and a local friend did some photos with Jouni Nieminen, who is an extremely talented photographer with a meticulous eye for detail. The pictures also feature my friend’s Honda CB-1000R.

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London Fetish Week 2013: Part 1/2

July 2013 saw the fourth ever Recon Fetish Week in London, and incidentally my fourth Fetish Week as well. As I find London a pleasant enough city to visit once a year, it is convenient to time this visit to coincide with something kinky.

Being in the city from Thursday to Monday, I got to see most of the party action, although Recon nowadays dubs the events as a full week, which it honestly really is not.

Arriving on Thursday afternoon, the first event was the Recon Welcome Drinks at the London Eagle, conveniently next door to my hotel in Vauxhall. I had never been to the Eagle before, and it was a rather nice bar with an excellent backyard outdoors area, which on this occasion even had a grill serving free food.

d6ad8aa5-48be-4ebf-bfba-6362ab1058efThe main party of Thursday was Recon’s Sportswear Cruising Party at The Hoist, to which I once again went as Spider-Man, using the loophole in the dresscode that allowed superhero costumes, though strictly speaking they are not sportswear.

As I had a session for every full day of my stay in London, the first session was on Saturday afternoon at Battersea, where I met a very interesting gentleman into army play.

On Friday evening I managed to get some shopping done at The Regulation and, taking advantage of their 20%-off-everything offer, got myself a black rubber surfsuit.

img_2430_9a145a[4]The first party of Friday was the Fetishbound party at The Underground. Fetishbound is a rather pleasant and social play event, where bondage fans come together to talk and play. I managed to do three bondage scenes there, including a full rope suspension by Tskinboot.

The second party of Friday was the Nexus all-black party, which in the original Recon brochure was advertised as being in a location near London Bridge. This proved to be old information, but luckily I was not the only person roaming the vicinity of London Bridge looking for a non-existent kinky club. After pairing up with a few other lost adventurers (easy to spot since one of them was in full rubber on the street!) we managed to take a bus to Vauxhall, where the actual party was at Hidden, the same place as last year.

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Finlandization 2011 This Weekend!


Just a quick reminder that the biggest gay kinky party of the year in Finland is happening this weekend. The Finlandization main party is tomorrow 30th July in Helsinki at Ravintolalaiva Wäiski, and the official lead-up party is tonight in Tampere at Mixei. More information at http://www.mscfin.fi/en/f25/