INIQUITY NEWS #22

Greetings everyone!
It's been several months since the last issue. I am happy to say that this issue is a particularly good one in my opinion as several major, highly informative and even humorous articles were contributed by IQ Readers. This brings the issue a wider scope of topics to be certain, of which I am sure you will approve. :-)
     AN IMPORTANT REQUEST TO THE IQ: It has come to our attention recently that several online bulk e-mail filters, such as those at Hotmail and Yahoo, filter out INIQUITY e-mail because of our use of the "Bcc" function to maintain each member's privacy. We considered using a List-serve, but there were too many complications for our unique needs. THEREFORE, if anyone out there knows of a Software Program which can effectively allow a more efficient List-serve-Like process from an end-user desktop, please send us info about the software and how we can get a copy. THE MAIN CRITERIA of any such software is that it must be able to have the IQ Member's e-mail address appear in the "To" box of every e-mail (as opposed to the current situation where it says "From: Zen" and "To:Zen" by way of using the Bcc process) -- this will insure that every IQ Member gets the e-mail in their main Inbox and not in the Bulk/spam folder. THE SECOND CRITICAL FACTOR is that the software must be able to handle HTML documents, reproducing them faithfully to the original in each and every mailing. If any of you out there know of such a software program that can be loaded onto a standard Win 98 system, please contact us ASAP. THANKS!!!! :-)

     In this issue we have a couple of reviews, including a review of the recent -- and totally amazing -- IQ/GGPET Party at the Power Exchange, and a review of the South Florida Scene which is EXCELLENT. We also have an article from a reader in England about a B&B with a distinctly Fetish Flavour, local club news, info on a new Fetish Fashion line, and even a couple of journalistic reprints from the mainstream regarding S&M.

A few more cool notes before we launch into the Table O' Contents:
     It seems that INIQUITY recently caught the eye of someone at AVN Online, who gave the IQ website a perfectly respectable review (dated Sept. 2000).
     On another note a local screenwriter is in the works for what sounds like will be a fine Fetish Film for the mainstream -- more word on this as we here at IQ are given permission to tell you. Who knows? If they do a "Fetish Club" scene in the film, we may just need all of you IQ folks in the area to come down and be verite' extras to the set and make the club scene as real as can be. :-)
     In addition, there is another related rumor that a part of one of the MATRIX movies is going to be filmed in San Francisco. At this time we are putting out the feelers r.e. another potential need for superior extras. Can you imagine? "Yes, we need several hundred people who can look great in Fetish clothes." Heh heh.....IQ to The Rescue! ;-)

     A final note regarding the IMPROVED INIQUITY Website. We AT LAST landed a FANTASTIC new webmaster who has been working diligently day and night to overhaul the IQ Website. The new site is about 100 times easier to navigate, but the original feel and concept has remained. Now that the new site is up, you can expect better updates at the site, more event listings, and smoother surfing. With the new format we are also looking at adding some of those new sections that have been talked about for some time now. Stay tuned and be sure to check out the new site layout. :-)

And now lets bring on the infamous......

Table O' Contents
1. Reviews: INIQUITY/GGPET Members-Only Party & Temple of Athena
2. Report -- South Florida
3. "The Pleasure of the Pain: Why some people need S&M" from Psychology Today
4. New Fetish Fashion Collection Hits San Francisco
5. UPCOMING Club & Fetish News Briefs
6. An S&M B&B in England: Fetters B&B
7. Early Info on the next RUBBER BALL
8. Historical Oddity: The "Orgasm" Treatment
9. Wrap-Up & Stuff For New Readers
We highly recommend that people who are NEW to INIQUITY and
INIQUITY NEWS take the time to read the section at the end
"Stuff For New Readers."

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INIQUITY Member's Only Party
and Temple of Athena: Review
______________________________

IQ PRIVATE PARTY
    OK. Now straight off I want to remind those of you who missed this party not be jealous or envious of those who made it to this AMAZING event. For those of you who haven't heard (for some reason), INIQUITY was invited by the POWER EXCHANGE of San Francisco to Completely TAKE OVER the lower two floors, which includes the Main Dungeon, on Sunday Feb. 18th. For this President's Day Weekend event we were given the full run of the these two main floors, which included completely re-arranging the furniture so as to create a proper dance floor, adding a bar and food area, creating a workshop space in one large room, burning incense everywhere, and completely changing all the lighting around to make the PE into a proper "nightclub."
     It was truly an anything-goes environment, with the sole criteria for entrance being Fetish Attire and membership on either this INIQUITY List, or the list of the co-hosts GGPET (or a guest thereof). This one-of-a-kind event was made possible by way of the fact that it was a True Private Party and not a single cent was charged for anything.
     Let's see: how about some statistics.....
Number of guests expected: 200
Number of guests who showed up: 350
Hour of opening: 9 pm
Number of people there at 9:01 pm: ~30
Hour of closing: 5:30 am
Number of people there at 5:29 am: ~50
Number of DJ's total: 5
Added wattage of 25 and 50 watt colored lights, etc, to make the Power Exchange into a TOTALLY UNIQUE environment for the night: 1000
Average number of people in each of the 4 workshops offered: 40

     In short, the event absolutely exceeded every one of our expectations. As the numbers show, there was enough excitement about this event that we had a small crowd waiting outside before the doors ever opened. The sheer volume of food and drink that people brought allowed for an entire evening of delectables, from home-baked cookies to the usual chips and salsa to more exotic dishes to pizza, etc. Everyone was able to imbibe to their heart's content, and we even ended up deputizing extra bartenders to meet the need. There was enough variety in that department as well such that a veritable supply was left at the end of the night.
     Players played, dancers danced, and for the first time this author has ever seen, Every Single Corner of the POWER EXCHANGE was filled with Classy Pervs at Play. Some soft scenes, some heavier play, some sexy scenes, some....er, ahem "very" sex-y scenes (heard about those from the participants), and simply a magnificent crowd having a fantastic time.
     The owners of the Power Exchange, Mike & Marie, had such a good time themselves that there is already talk of future similar events. In general, all of us who put this event together are thoroughly pleased with the results. We cannot say how often we can do such an event because as you know the entire event was free -- no one made a dime which means that every one of those fantastic people who worked for us that night did so as a volunteer. For this we'd like to issue a HUGE Thank You to the DJ's (several big San Francisco names who donated their skill in pursuit of the Fetish excellence that is the IQ Aesthetic), the Bartenders and Bar-backs who must have moved at light-speed to keep up with the demand, the workshop leaders who took their time to help open doors for all the interested newcomers (and some intermediates....) who attended that night, the Power Exchange staff and security who did a superb job keeping out the general public for the night and keeping the nuts n' bolts running smoothly all night long. :-)
     And of course let us not forget Jason himself, the facilitator of the GGPET faction, who's co-sponsoring of this event certainly helped make it into the fantastic evening that it was. :-)
     If you have any questions for the workshop leaders, here's their contact info:

WORKSHOP	INSTRUCTOR	E-MAIL
Candle Wax	Malcolm	WickedlyFunDom@aol.com
Budget Bondage	Lynx (the other one)	captlemming@yahoo.com
Flogging	D'mitri	DmitriLHW1@aol.com
Intro to S&M	Knotty Boy Dan	danarama@hotmail.com

Temple of Athena
     Like one finds at so many new underground clubs, it can be a pleasure to be there at the start of a great new club that immediately shows huge potential. Such was the night this author experienced at TEMPLE OF ATHENA located in South San Francisco. The venue, the LOST CITY 23 CLUB, is superb, with a large dance floor, plenty of ambient booth seating, an upstairs room ideal for an S&M play area, a well stocked bar, and...get this.....a built-in, full-functioning coffeeshop/restaurant Right There open only to nightclub guests! The capacity in my estimation would be about 200-300 people (Perfect for a small, SUPER-STRICT Fetish Dress Code S&M club wouldn't you say? Hint......hint......).
     The proprietrix, Athena, the original founder of Club BOUND in San Francisco is also the venue owner, so you KNOW that this club is being run by someone who's heart is genuinely into it. Temple Of Athena is her latest adventure into creating a reasonably strict Fetish-Goth Dress Code club. The upstairs does get used for light S&M play, but mostly people enjoy the Gothic-Industrial dance mix being spun all night downstairs. At the time of this writing, the owner is applying for a late-night permit so that future events will be able to pass the vestigial& Victorian annoyance of the usual 2.m. closing hour.
     Although the Dress Code is not exactly as strict as INIQUITY, I did personally observe the door people politely turn away the completely clueless. Pretty much any Fetish or Goth attire will get you through the door, although there is talk of tightening down on the dress code to eliminate black jeans and t-shirts (currently allowed if worn in a presentable fashion).
     In short, if you happen to be free on the Saturday nights of Temple Of Athena (1st Saturday of every month at this time), I would like to recommend it to all INIQUITY MEMBERS everywhere. Our support and generally exquisite attire can only help shape and mold this budding beauty of a Gothic-Fetish-S&M-Dance club. :-)
DETAILS:
Dress Code: Leather, Latex, Formal, Uniforms, or hard-core fetish goth .
Separate play area upstairs.
Spinning - Techno, EBM , Euro-House, Trance, And Club Classics
7am until 2am
FREE BETWEEN 7 AND 9PM
$10 after 9pm
Cafe open all night until 3am in case you get hungry. :-)
LOST CITY 23 CLUB
23 VISITACION AVE.
BRISBANE , CA 94005
PH 415-467-7717
     (Ed. -- IMPORTANT: do not be dissuaded by the "Brisbane" address!!! This author has personally timed the drive from the financial district of central San Francisco to the club to be A MERE TEN MINUTES! The exit for Brisbane is right next to Candlestick Park, so yes, it really is in our backyard). :-)

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Report: The Scene in South Florida
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     Perpetual sunshine and perfect weather (never mind the occasional hurricane or sweltering summer day), long hot nights, and a purely perennial party vibe in the air -- what better place for a Fetish Scene could there be? Well I am happy to say that it exists in the South of Florida. Primarily in the Ft. Lauderdale area by way of the boon to the South Eastern Fetishist in the name FETISH FACTORY. FF runs a monthly Fetish club that I have got to tell all of you out there seriously.....and I do mean SERIOUSLY meets the INIQUITY Aesthetic. For those of you who have been on this list a while, you know what an appraisal like that means. For you new comers, it means QUALITY, plain and simple, and having all the corners covered.
     ALTER EGO is the name of the Fetish Factory's monthly party held on the Second Friday of every month, and now something like a healthy 3-4 years in the running, with 600-900 person crowds every month. An INIQUITY-Quality Strict Dress Code is enforced at the door and the crowd fills their latest venue, The Saint, quite nicely by 11pm. In many cases the FF also hosts a regular after-party at a venue a mere mile away from The Saint, so partying until 5 a.m. is as easily done as said. At the main gig back at The Saint, the folks at Fetish Factory have all the fixins: GREAT DJ's spinning a mix of house-techno-goth-industrial, shows, plenty of play space with 4-7 play "stations" at every event, including their infamous outdoor "dungeon-alley" where you can shackle your lover to a wall in the shadowy confines, three bars including one outdoors in the open backyard area with several more places to run off with your friends, AND a separate DJ spinning a more traditional Goth-Industrial mix outside there. In short, 5 stars out of 5 stars in this author's opinion, and a do-not-miss if you are in the area. :-)
(Check out the end of this article for info on the NEXT ALTER EGO party!)

     But it doesn't stop there. FETISH FACTORY (http://www.fetish-factory.com) has been a long running name in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area with their shop of that very name. They now have TWO shops to choose from (one at 855 E Oakland Park Blvd; 954-563-5777), and they carry all the big names in Fetish Fashion, as well as a good selection of Fetish boots and shoes, S&M gear, and even an excellent selection of dance music. They have an EXTENSIVE online shopping set up, and the owners are very cool, top-notch people who are completely sincere about their love of the Scene.
     Also in the Ft. Lauderdale area you'll find another shop called HOT BOX. Although not as overtly "tapped into" the local Scene as Fetish Factory, HOT BOX does have an excellent shop worth visiting as well. Several of the pieces you'll find there are custom made by the hands of the owners themselves. The shop is 100% Fetish Fashion, so do a search on the web or in the Ft. Lauderdale phone book for their address (at the time of this author's visit, HOT BOX was in the process of creating a website).
     The next heads-up is for the South Beach area, a land of amazing restaurants, bars and clubs so "chic" that they each redefine the term in their 6-month shooting star fame, people lined up at "the rope" hoping to be selected for entry, and a whole lot of people who are very serious about their partying. Amidst all this, running the length of the "Cool Zone" is Washington Avenue. Washington Ave. is your walking tour for the bulk of your Fetish shopping in that area. Not to overstate it however, a lot of what you'll find on Washington Ave. is more "Street-Fetish" than serious Fetish Fashion. If you are looking for that urban-cool Street Fetish style, then you'll find plenty o' places to slap down the plastic. Happily, amidst all these "almost hardcore but not really and not quite" shops there ARE two exceptions: GLITZY TARTS and AFTER DARK.
     GLITZY TARTS really is THEE Fetish Shop of South Beach. They have a rack of SKIN TWO designs and a load of other "Pure-Fetish" clothes from various manufacturers. The shop is pretty tiny but it's also a good place to find out about any Fetish Events in the area. That said, South Beach itself is actually known for a shockingly sad LACK of Fetish Events, considering all the many other clubs where it gets pretty hot n' heavy in their Vanilla extremes. One group put on what they called "The Only Fetish Party in South Beach" recently for the World Music Conference. The group that sponsored the party seemed to be a mixture of special-interest websites and not a regular promoter. The event was held at the infamous TANTRA Restaurant and Club, a place where your mouth will first orgasm upon tasting the food and then scream upon seeing the bill (but if you can afford it, it really IS that good).
     The runner-up on Washington Ave. is the shop AFTER DARK, another petite shop carrying a good selection of PVC material items. GLITZY TARTS is located at 1251 Washington Ave, http://www.glitzytarts.com AFTER DARK is located at 1321 Washington Ave. http://www.afterdarkinc.com

ALTER EGO: Friday, April 13th
     "Please join us for Alter Ego in April on Friday the 13th ! at The Saint Nightclub in Fort Lauderdale. Alter Ego continues to be the largest ongoing monthly strict dress code fetish party in the South Eastern USA. We have been marketing our event nationally and internationally for years now and we are happy to see the many people that travel all the way to Fort Lauderdale to participate in our event. I thank all of you who have attended our events over the years.
     We are proud to announce that Galerie Macabre's Lady Vanessa will be exhibiting new erotic artwork by herself and several artists and showcasing her new artist, Michael Betancourt, who will delight us with digital collages of bodies entwined in various surrealistic landscapes and poses. All work will be available for purchase through Fetish Factory online or at Galerie Macabre. We have been wowed by the creative touch of all those associated with Galerie Macabre and are happy to have them as our guests once again at this upcoming event in April. Please visit their website at: http://www.galeriemacabre.com/
     We are hoping for clear skies and look forward to the warm spring nights. The Saint has a wonderful outdoor area to enjoy, with an outdoor patio and garden area. There is a full bar and we have wonderful DJ Guy spinning outside. For the players, we have a lot of great bondage equipment to play on in the enclosed alley way along the side of the club.
     If you are still motivated to party after Alter Ego, please join us for our after hours party at The Venus Room behind the Coliseum Nightclub just 5 minutes drive from The Saint club. The Venus Room opens at 3am and this party goes until 6-7am. Details about the after party are available at the Fetish Factory or at The Saint the night of the event."

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Reprint: "The Pleasure of the Pain:
Why some people need S&M"
________________________________
(thanks to IQ reader Tom)

Psychology Today
September/October 1999
By Marianne Apostolides
      Bind my ankles with your white cotton rope so I cannot walk. Bind my wrists
so I cannot push you away. Place me on the bed and wrap your rope tighter
around my skin so it grips my flesh. Now I know that struggle is useless, that I
must lie here and submit to your mouth and tongue and teeth, your hands and words
and whims. I exist only as your object. Exposed.
     Of every 10 people who reads these words, one or more has experimented with
sadomasochism (S&M), which is most popular among educated, middle-and-
upper-middle-class men and women, according to psychologists and ethnographers who
have studied the phenomenon. Charles Moser, Ph.D., M.D., of the institute for
Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, has researched S&M to
learn the motivation behind it--to understand why in the world people would ask to
be bound, whipped and flogged. The reasons are as surprising as they are
varied.
     For Mark, the desire became apparent when he was a child playing war
games-he always hoped to be captured. "I was frightened that I was sick," he says.
But now, he adds, as a well-seasoned player on the scene, "I thank the leather
gods I found this community."
     At first the scene found him. When he was at a party in college a professor chose him. She brought him home and tied him up, telling him how bad he was for having these desires, even as she fulfilled them. For the first time he felt what he had only
imagined, what he had read about in every S&M book he could find.
     Mark, a father and manager, has a Type A personality--in-control, hard-
working, intelligent, demanding. His intensity is evident on his face, in
his posture, in his voice. But when he plays, his eyes drift and a peaceful
energy flows through him as though he had injected heroin. With each addition of
pain or restraint, he stiffens slightly, then falls into a deeper calm, a deeper
peace, waiting to obey his mistress. "Some people have to be tied up to be
free," he says.
     As Mark's experience illustrates, sadomasochism involves a uniquely skewed
power relationship established through role-playing, bondage, and/or the
infliction of pain. In the sub-category known as Domination and Submission, or D&S, the essential component is not the pain or bondage itself, but rather the knowledge that one person has complete control over the other, deciding what that person will hear, do, taste, touch, smell and feel. We hear about men pretending to be little girls, women being bound in leather straps, people screaming in pain and ecstasy with each strike of a flogger or drip of hot wax. We hear about it because it is happening in bedrooms and dungeons across the country.
     For over a century, people who engaged in bondage, beatings and humiliation
for sexual pleasure were considered mentally ill. But in the 1980s, the American
Psychiatric Association removed S&M as a category in its Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This decision--like the decision to
remove homosexuality as a category in 1973--was a big step toward the
societal acceptance of people whose sexual desires aren't traditional, or vanilla, as
it's called in S&M circles.
     What's new is that such desires are increasingly being considered normal,
even healthy, as experts begin to recognize their psychological value. S&M, they
are beginning to understand, offers a release of sexual and emotional energy
that people cannot get from traditional sex.
     "The satisfaction gained from S&M is something far more than sex," explains
Roy Baumeister, Ph.D., a social psychologist at Case Western Reserve University
"It can be a total emotional release."
     Although people report that they have better-than-usual sex immediately
after a scene, the goal of S & M itself is not intercourse: "A good scene doesn't
end in orgasm, it ends in catharsis."

Escaping the Modern Western Ego
     "Sadomasochism is a way people can forget themselves." Roy Baumeister, Ph.D., Professor of psychology, Case Western Reserve University.
     "Nothing matters except you, me and the sound of my voice," Lily Fine, a professional dominatrix, tells the tied-up and exposed businessman who begged to be spanked before breakfast. She says it slowly, making her slave wait for every sound, forcing him to focus only on her, to float in anticipation of the sensations she will create inside him. Anxieties about mortgages and taxes, stresses about business partners and
job deadlines are vanquished each time the flogger hits the flesh. The businessman is reduced to a physical creature existing only in the here and now, feeling the pain and pleasure. "I'm interested in manipulating what's in the mind," Lily says. "The brain is the greatest erogenous zone."
     In another S&M 'scene,' Lily tells a woman to take off her clothes, then dresses
her only with a blindfold. She commands the woman not to move. Lily then takes
a tissue and begins moving it over the woman's body in different patterns and
at varying speeds and angles. Sometimes she lets the edge of the tissue just
barely brush the woman's stomach and breasts; sometimes she bunches the tissue
and creates swirls on her back and all the way down. "The woman was quivering.
She didn't know what I was doing to her, but she was liking it," Lily remembers
with a smile.
Escape theory is further supported by an idea called "frame analysis," developed by the late Irving Goffman, Ph.D. According to Goffman, despite its popular conception as darkly wild and orgiastic, S&M play has complex rules, rituals, roles and dynamics that create a "frame" around the experience.
"Frames are like fantasies--they suspend reality. They create expectations, norms and values that set this situation apart from other parts of life," confirms Thomas Weinberg, Ph.D., a sociologist at Buffalo State College in New York and the editor of S&M: Studies in Dominance & Submission (Prometheus Books, 1995). Once inside the
frame, people are free to act and feel in ways they couldn't at other times.

S&M: Part of the Sexual Continuum
S&M has inspired the creation of many psychological theories in addition to the
ones discussed here. Do we need so many? Perhaps not according to Stephanie
Saunders Ph.D., associate director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex,
Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, "a lot of behaviors that are scrutinized because they are seen to be marginal are really a part of the continuum of sexuality and sexual behavior."
After all, the ingredients in good S&M play-communication, respect and trust-
are the same ingredients in good traditional sex. The outcome is the same,
too-a feeling of connection to the body and the self.

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New Fetish Fashion Collection Hits San Francisco
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The Moral Minority, Inc., the company that brings you the ‘Pandemonium’ line of couture latex clothing has moved to a new headquarters located at 2670 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94107-3115.

The new ready to wear collection will be available throughout North America in the New Year but is available now exclusively at ‘Stormy Leather’. (http://www.stormyleather.com)

Alternatively you can contact the workshop directly by calling (415) 821 7673 or (415) 789 8513 where we can cater for all your custom and ready to wear latex needs.

Watch out for the new sci fi flick ‘Candy Von Dewd and the Girls from Latexploitia’ currently in production but coming to a movie theater near you soon. All costumes were designed and made by The Moral Minority, Inc. ( http://www.werepad.com/candy )

March 29th 2001
The Moral Minority, Inc will be launching their Ready To Wear Collection and giving you an exclusive peek at their fabulous new appointment only boutique in San Francisco.
Call (415) 789 8513 and leave your snail mail address to get your invitation.
There will be no admittance to anyone without an invitation.
     Prepare yourselves people........