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London Fetish Week 2011: Complete Report

For the second time ever, Fetish Week was organized this July in London. This year saw an expanded programme encompassing the whole week, although I had only the chance to enjoy the weekend part of the celebrations.

Arriving on Friday, I hit the ground running, with Rubberboyseraph, who was kind enough to meet me straight at Heathrow airport. We picked up a few friends on the way and went through the usual suspects of Regulation and Expectations. All of the major shops were running promotions (and free beer!), but alas I found nothing of interest to buy and settled for window shopping.

The Friday party of choice was the Nexus party, presented under the aegis of the BLF Berlin Leder Und Fetisch organization. Even though the dresscode for the party was black (as in black rubber, leather, or anything), several of my friends had gotten the mistaken impression that it was a Leather Nexus party, and were not interested in going. Maybe a promotion slip-up? In any case, the clientele that night was indeed quite leatherish, but not to the point of complete disaster. There were quite a few guys in rubber, uniforms and other interesting attires. The venue was Hidden, an established venue in Vauxhall, but unfortunately a bit too small and unorganized for a party of this magnitude. Late evening saw a minor catastrophe in the cloakroom, which at that point consisted of a huge, unsorted pile of bags (they apparently had not expected everyone to bring a bag along, which is quite usual in a fetish party).

On Saturday I had the privilege of coffeeing up with a local fellow kinkster (jameskink89). We discussed everything from pain play to UK politics, and popped in to Rob to see what was going on. After that it was time for a good old bondage session with a local top whom I was meeting for the first time. Pictures of that will follow later.

The Saturday party was the biggest event of the weekend, Full Fetish presented by Recon at the superclub Pulse in Southwark. Compared to Scala, the disaster venue of Full Fetish last year, Pulse proved to be spacy and airy enough, with a proper industrial vibe, proper darkroom area and efficient but slightly slow bars. The party died down surprisingly quickly, being somewhat quieter at 3am already.

Sunday concluded the weekend with the double party combo of Rubber Party and Deconstruction (the official ending party). Organized similarly as last year, in The Hoist, the rubber party once again suffered from an inordinate number of naked people, leftovers from the earlier naked party. They should really ask the naked people to leave once the rubber party starts, considering rubber is philosophically pretty much the exact opposite of showing lots of skin.

All in all, Recon’s Fetish Weekend is the only big, multi-day gay kink event in London, and Recon seems to have sorted out the practical organization fairly well. I would definitely recommend that you check it out next year.

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Easter 2011 in Berlin: Complete Report

Following on the footsteps of last Easter, I decided to spend this easter in the marvellous city of Berlin again. Easter in Berlin is — after Folsom Europe — probably the busiest kink event in continental Europe. And it surprised pleasantly once again.

Having optimized my airfare I arrived in Berlin already on Wednesday — definitely not the busiest day of the week. The only party of choice that night was the Black eXXXtreme party at Woof, with a dresscode of all-black; leather, rubber, you name it. Unfortunately my friends did not take it seriously, were turned down and called it a night. I however had packed my black rubber along, and enjoyed first Woof and Mutschmanns after that.

On Thusday we hit Blackstyle once again, and they had a surprisingly nice discounts in the store — I got myself a black surfsuit with codpiece, original price 195 EUR, discounted price 43 EUR! In the evening it was time for Mutschmann’s rubber night. If you’ve ever been to Mutschmann’s, you know how desperately crowded it is during all times — except during special events like the rubber night, which started early and had a strict dresscode. Therefore the mood was pleasantly social — until 11pm when they let the swarm of leather drones in, and it became packed in an instant.

On Friday it was time for the Rubber eXXXtreme at Scheune, same party and same venue as last year, and it was a partial failure. Scheune is simply too small to accomodate a party of such size, and in frustration I saw several of my friends leave to get some breathing room.

SNAX is one of the most under-advertised parties I’ve ever seen, but still huge, held at the dance venue Berghain every Easter Saturday. Berghain is in an old power station and usually houses vanilla electronic music fests. Ticket presales are mysterious, happening somewhere at some day and nobody quite seems to know where and how. Therefore we were unable to secure a ticket, and had to arrive at opening time to avoid the endless queue that forms quite rapidly for the non-ticketholders. We got in easily, but in a venue and party of that size, that was the last I saw of my friends. Everyone goes home from SNAX on their own (or with new friends).

Sunday saw my first visit to lab-oratory, a smaller dedicated kink venue adjacent to Berghain, where Gummi the rubber party was the party of the day. Crowds were more plenty than on an average Gummi, or so I was told, and it was a perfect balance of quality people and enough space to chat and relax.

Overall, there is no considerable difference in the magnitude and quality of parties between Easter and Folsom Europe, although the latter has the legenday street festival that Easter lacks. I often joke about how Berin is the Mecca of gay kink, and that everyone should pilgrimage there at least once, and that still holds true. Schöneberg — the gay district of Berlin — during a weekend in Easter or Folsom Europe — is something that eveyrone should experience, and not just for the parties, but for the kink-friendly atmosphere that is beyond anything the rest of Europe can offer.

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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 😀

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Easter 2010 in Berlin

Got back last Sunday from my four-night trip to the capital of Germany. It was my first time during Easter, but I had heard it would be comparable to the Folsom Europe weekend in September. And it was true; the quantity and quality of parties was almost identical to Folsom, except of course there was no street parade, and the weather was a bit colder.

The nice thing about Berlin is that — unlike many so-called gay friendly cities — it really has a gay district. The adjacents streets of Fuggerstrasse and Motzstrasse form a compound where during a weekend like Easter or Folsom you can walk around in leather or rubber and perfectly blend in. In fact, as I don’t do rubber or leather as casual wear, I felt a bit frustrated walking around the gay district in jeans and with a camera, because obviously I was mistaken for some poor young straight tourist wondered into unknown territory.

I was travelling with two (into kink) friends of mine and we stayed in the city from Wednesday to Sunday. The first night, Wednesday, was a bit quiet on the party front, but from Thursday onwards there was a lot to choose from. On Thursday we went to Mutschmann’s Rubber Night which had suffered an advertising failure and was very quiet; not a problem, since after 11pm it turned into a general fetish event and packed so much to the brim that it had more rubber guys in it than during the Rubber Night!

On Friday we decided to go to Rubber eXXXtreme, and it had suffered a last-minute venue change to Scheune, which is a smallish bar with a recently sized darkroom. The bar area was totally packed and changing into gear proved to be quite a hassle. They had bar tab thing with wristbands, so at least you didn’t have to fumble around with cash. I retreated to the hotel at about 3am, but my friends partied until 7am and went straight to breakfast, but they suffered the consequences of that the next day.

Saturday, final night, was the night of the most underadvertised fetish party I’ve ever seen, the Snax party at Berghain (and Lab-Oratory) combined into one venue. It was huge, and like most huge fetish parties, it was in an old power plant. After an hour of queueing (didn’t have presale tickets) we got in and stepped into the huge hall of dancing kinky guys and electonic music. The Lab-Oratory part of the complex was a huge maze of darkroom areas which proved to be at least as popular hangouts as the dance floor.

If you’ve never been to Berlin during Easter, I highly recommend it. Folsom Europe might be a tad bigger, but the Easter has a definite vibe which I am looking forward to dive into again next year.