INIQUITY NEWS #23

Hello everyone. Hope all of you in the Northern Hemisphere are having a wonderful summer and those of you in the Southern Hemisphere are keeping warm this winter.
We have a few events to report on and a tale or two to tell. So without further ado, here's the

Table O' Contents
1. Review: DRESSES TO THRILL in Las Vegas
2. Upcoming EVENTS
3. Review: The LOS ANGELES FETISH BALL
4. A Shocking Tale....
5. Fetish Factory Sale
6. Wrap-Up
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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Dressed To Thrill
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Most people have never even heard of the Alexis Park Hotel in Las Vegas. Unlike most hotels there, the Alexis Park does not have a casino, does not have a few slot machines in the lobby, and it does not have an excess of neon in your face. In other words it's a great place.

Exactly how the people at Dressed To Thrill stumbled onto the Alexis Park is a bit of a mystery, but suffice it to say that when we checked in we were greeted by a friendly staff who did their best to look completely aloof at all the leather-clad, pierced, tattooed folks showing up on their relatively conservative doorstep. The Alexis Park layout is nonetheless a bit strange -- you constantly feel as though you are walking the length of a cement football field each and every time you need to get from your room to the main DTT event area. The management staff must have been somewhat unaware of exactly what DTT was, seeing as how they decided to book both a Jewish and a Catholic wedding during the DTT weekend. At least one singularly outstanding factor for the Alexis Park was the semi-free coffee 24 hours a day at the bar, which approached the rocket-fuel strength of my own home brew (very rare to find in the world, and news to those of you out there who have not previously been exposed to my caffeine habit).

In any event, Thursday check in for the event was quick and efficient. I was called in to the event to more or less make sure that the opening night's "Cocktail Meet & Greet" party had a fully operating dungeon which both titillated guests and did not give the hotel management a coronary. Shortly after 9pm I was introduced to my "staff" -- a handful of women from various areas of the U.S. Fetish Community. About half of them had sincere talent and understanding in S&M and Dungeon Etiquette, and the other half just looked good. Some were pro-Dommes and others were from mixed backgrounds. My job was simple: bring this group up to speed on how to control the area, how to handle a situation if something goes awry, how to enforce the rules, and most of all how to let the guests push the limits without freaking out the hotel staff. All in all a handful of 20 minute lectures pretty much aimed at those not in-the-know shored up the leaks and we were ready for a party.

The Cocktail party was a slow-starting but sincere success. By 10 pm there were only about 2 dozen people in the mini-ball room, and no one in the dungeon. Then suddenly at around 10:30 the wave showed up and within what seemed like a few minutes the room was pleasantly full and every station in the dungeon was being used. Due to some weird arrangement with the hotel this party unfortunately had to end at midnight, which was about the only thing people complained about. Nonetheless, as would be expected at such a Fetish Fashion oriented event, enormous quantities of latex and PVC and leather strutted and made their way about this opening night, with Black being the predominant color of choice for that evening.

The following day saw the first set of raised eyebrows from the Jewish wedding party, who ultimately took it all in stride. By the last day of the event, a handful of that wedding's attendees would end up paying to get into the Fetish Marketplace in that same mini-ballroom to watch the infamous GORD fasten his slave into a bondage-bookcase, and these new inductees asked handfuls of polite and intelligent questions. Most of the raised eyebrows occurred around the main swimming pool open to all guests of the hotel. One would expect a fairly nice looking crowd around a given Las Vegas pool, but the conservative atmosphere of the Alexis Park made the contrast with the Fetish bodies in their bathing attire somewhat more in-your-face.

As mentioned, the mini-ballroom which hosted the Cocktail party the night before became the Fetish Marketplace for theremainder of the event as well as one of the meeting spots for the diurnal and sunlight-challenged. A wide variety of top name vendors were there, such as WHIPLASH, HOUSE OF GORD, and GWEN MEDIA, as well as several new and very high quality designers carrying all manner of bondage supplies, latex clothing, pony gear, jewelry, whips and other toys. At one point WHIPLASH gave a demonstration of their latex, vacuum-sealed body-bag frame in the middle of the Marketplace.

That night saw the first of two nights of Main Ballroom festivities. Fetish Supermodel DITA performed several shows which the audience seemed to appreciate. Mistress Persephone and friends took out all the stops in a vampiresque bloodbath-ritual (all movie blood that is; seems her fiancé or the like works in movie f/x) that was particularly intriguing as it pushed the limits a little farther than the glossy norm of more innocent Fetish shows. Mostly however, the ballroom was where people displayed their first night of spectacular attire, having immediately moved past the limitations of black for this 2nd evening. Almost every color was in attendance, and perhaps the most spectacular attire was in accordance with the "Renaissance" theme of the evening. A number of people had gone out of their way to create very period-looking clothes out of 100% Fetish materials (latex, PVC, leather, etc) -- VERY impressive!!! Unfortunately (in this author's opinion) the dress code for the night advocated "Renaissance and Period" wear without drawing the limitation that it be Fetish Fashion, as I suppose the promoters assumed that people would make all their clothes at a FETISH FASHION event...well....er....Fetish Fashion. It seemed however that several people took the lack of crystal clear wording on the advertising quite literally and showed up in their Renaissance Faire costumes, complete with yards of muslin and cotton and looking generally shabby. Oh well, at least this was the exception and not the rule. In truth, about the only genuinely negative element to the entire night -- or even the whole event to be honest -- was the suck-ass DJ who they insisted do all the spinning for the dance floor both Friday and Saturday night. How bad was he? Lets just say that he played Brittany Spears for the dance floor.....TWICE in the same hour. Arrrgh. Oh well, most people were there to talk and be social and not do a whole lot of dancing anyway.

The third and final night was the night of the REALLY BIG SHOW. Now the reason I capitalized that was because it was well done, high budget, and it went on...and on....and on..... That said, there were a number of incredible moments, such as the latex fashion show by San Francisco's MORAL MINORITY who showcased their Farm Animal collection as well as a huge number of other fantastic designs. The highlight of course was the actual show by the promoters, VERSATILE FASHIONS. I had only seen a handful of VF stuff prior to that night and although I liked it somewhat I had No Idea what they had planned to unleash that night, and I have got to tell you that I was completely blown away. Outfit after outfit of AMAZING designs were worn by a very hot set of models. Incredibly unique and ultra-cool, VF presented a show that honestly ranks as one of the very best Fetish Fashion shows I have seen in a while. It also ranks as one of the longest fashion shows I have seen in a while, but the sheer quality of what was presented made the show continuously eye-catching. The one piece that stands out even as I write as being both clever, unique and very sexy was a mandarin-style dress made from PVC with a huge section missing as if an enormous shark took a perfectly semi-circular bite out of the side; where the dress should have been was a metallic blue corset actually sewn into the dress, giving a two-layered,
highly contrasting effect that was ingenious. I am sure other attendees saw other pieces which awed them just as much.

The late night activities at the event amounted to a handful of after-parties in various hotel suites, some invite-only and others open to the generally friendly and clued-in guests of the event. Some parties were lively socials, some were arenas for the occasional public S&M scene which could range from very light to very hardcore. This author saw the hour of 5 am almost every night, and so a number of breakfasts were purchased at the HARD ROCK HOTEL's 24 hour restaurant across the street.

All in all a fun event. This was the first year they actually had a dungeon area on any night let alone only the first night -- with dungeon equipment provided by San Francisco's POWER EXCHANGE, some of which was designed by DungeonBuilder.com. Word has it that since the Alexis Park reacted overall quite well to the entire event that next year there will be even more dungeon play. Tickets were not cheap however, coming to around $350 per couple for the entire event. Would I say that $350 would get it's money's worth? Judging merely from the conversations I had with attendees who I saw days or even weeks after the event, the consensus was a definite yes, but everyone seems to be looking forward to turning up the S&M heat in the years to come as DTT more fully integrates FETISH with both Fashion and the roots of where most of that fashion comes from.

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Upcoming Events
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July 7th, San Francisco, California
RUBBISH
"Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen...
Please read the following announcement carefully:
This Saturday July 7th is RUBBISH
We will be celebrating your American Independence day with classic European apathy. Patriotic regalia encouraged, Fetish appreciated. DJ Claire Ahll plans to get funked
Guest of Honor Dr. Carol Queen
9pm-2am Jezebel's Joint Larkin/Turk
$10 before 11pm $15 after
Only $5 with the secret password "back door conquistador"
24 hour Freaks and Perverts hotline: (415) 789 8513
Pepper Design Studios will be setting up in the back room of RUBBISH to photograph willing participants for Skin Two, Fetish and Spectator, so don't be shy, dress up and act filthy and we might just make you famous...."

July 14th, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
ALTER EGO @ The Saint
Our good friend from NYC, Robert Fluty will be attending our Alter Ego party on Saturday, July 14th to promote his upcoming fetish event, Kink In The Caribbean2, October 27th thru November 3rd at the Hedonism III Resort in Jamaica. Robert will be on hand to personally provide promotional literature, answer any questions you may have regarding your possible attendance, and of course, accept your immediate reservations.
As part of the promotion, we’ll co-host a free raffle at the party, with one lucky winner receiving a Free Trip For Two to this exciting event, valued at $3,000.00 (airfare is not included). Your prize includes all ground transfers, hotel room, all meals, all bar drinks, all indoor/outdoor recreational activities, and access to all Kink2 fetish events. Robert will personally pick the lucky winner on stage at precisely 2:30am, so we urge you to all arrive early, meet Robert, fill > out your free entry form, and keep your fingers crossed. You must be in attendance to win, so be prepared to stick around and enjoy the evening’s festivities.
Upcoming Events from Fetish Factory !
* Alter Ego - Always the second SATURDAY of every month *
- July 14th - The Saint
- August 11th - The Saint
- August 25th - Special event at Paradise Club in Fort Lauderdale
Paradise Club - Saturday August 25th & October 27th.
Our Fetish events at Paradise allow for a slightly relaxed dress code. We recommend our typical fetish dress code but make the exception for "All Black Streetwear". We are hoping to get newbies to cross the line! Since our dress code is absolute and strict at The Saint, we are experimenting with the dress code at Paradise and had a great response at our recent 6 year anniversary event.
Our October event will be billed as the "Fetish Factory Halloween Party" and we will be making exceptions to the dress code by adding masquerade for this event.
- September 8th - The Saint
- October 13th - The Saint
- October 27th - Special Fetish / Masquerade event at Paradise Club

(Ed. -- For those of you lucky enough to be in the Ft. Lauderdale area, we here at INIQUITY feel that ALTER EGO is one of the very best Fetish Clubs in America). :-)

August 24th, Bristol, ENGLAND
SPANK-A-G0-G0!
STOP PRESS ...STOP PRESS...STOP PRESS...STOP PRESS...STOP PRESS...STOP SPANK-A-G0-G0! HI-CAMP MARDI-GRAS! BRISTOL'S FIRST MARDI-GRAS AND SPANK GET KINKY!
Friday August 24 2001 @ Creation - the beginning of a very long bank-holiday weekend!DRESS CODE : FETISH, TV, UNIFORM, GLAM TRAN, KINKY, SUPER-HERO, COMIC STRIP, MISS WORLD, MR UNIVERSE, LEATHER LOVERS, PVC PRINCES AND PRINCESSES, FEATHER BOA'D BEAUTIES, BABES, DUDES AND EVERYTHING OTT!

TICKETS : £5 VIP Guest List, £7.50 advance from Religion, £10 on the door.5% of all profits to go to Aled Richard's Trust, and 5% to go to Liberty who campaign for the rights of the individual.Bristol is due to hold it's very first
Mardi-gras this summer, and so in the light of a lack of small monthly venues, we have decided to hold a one-off party in the lush and lavish Creation on Baldwin St. Guests will be given colour coded wrist bands on entry to the club, which afford them exclusive entry to the limited access areas. EXCLUSIVE TO BRISTOL : MISS BE-HAVE THE SWORD SWALLOWER AND FIRE ARTISTE. She Swallows! PLUS DANCERS, VISUALS, PLAY-ROOM AND AN OUTING FOR THE INFAMOUS GROPE BOX OUT OF IT'S CLOSET! Main room and main stage : Mixed gay and fetish, flying the flag for sexual diversity, with Spank Regulars Jake Davis and Foxy, playing house, trance and techno.
> First floor balcony : Girls Galore! a women only area with bar, seating and visuals VIP Bar: Guest List of the promoters and DJs, Fetish and Gay organizations, and performers with the Visible Agency The Red Room : Strict Fetish Dress Code only to gain access to the plush red velvet seating and curtained play-room. Ambient music, lots of mirrors and places to play.
NB - FOR THOSE ATTENDING A DRESS CODE EVENT FOR THE FIRST TIME, FETISH, COMIC STRIP AND SUPER HERO COSTUME HIRE IS AVAILABLE THROUGH RELIGION, 128 CHELTENHAM ROAD, OPEN THURS TO SAT 11-6.NB - ANY ORDERS RECEIVED ON-LINE DURING THE MONTH OF JUNE WILL BE SUBJECT TO A DISCOUNT OF 20%.

Spank Promotions
Web: http://www.spankpromotions.co.uk
Email: info@spankpromotions.co.uk
Suck It And See Web: http://www.suckitandsee.co.uk
Email: info@suckitandsee.co.uk

 

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The Los Angeles Fetish Ball
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What? No 4-story sets of crowded stairs to climb? No 20-minute wait for the antique elevator? No 2a.m. "geez dude, the party just got started" closing time? HOW CAN YOU SO EASILY ABANDON THE VARIETY ARTS CENTER?????

Oh, I see, yes this all does make it pretty damn easy to abandon the Variety Arts Center....yes, quite easy in fact. :-)

So welcome to the HOLLYWOOD ATHLETIC CLUB.

No, it is not a giant gymnasium, although I suppose it must have been so once many moons ago. The HAC is in fact a relatively elegant two story building which happily hosted about 2000 people for the annual L.A. Fetish Ball put on by James Stone and Co.

To be honest, moving to the HAC could not have been a smarter move. I interviewed dozens of people to see what they thought about the HAC and the almost unanimous vote was that everyone loved the new venue.

The main ballroom where the stage was set allowed for pretty good crowds to watch performances by Gen and the Genitorturers, > DITA, and an excellent fashion show by Mr. S and So Hip It Hurts from San Francisco. People seriously dressed to kill for this > event, yet a handful of very out-of-place folks managed to slip through in ordinary clothes. Although the theme of this one-night event was "Fairytales," I cannot honestly say that anything outside of the ads for the event made this theme apparent. Costumes were certainly spectacular in the Fetish sense, and occasionally you spotted someone wearing wings, but that was about it.

Back to the main ballroom, a 360 degree balcony ran around the elliptical room. Unfortunately the venue staff refused to open the balcony until far into the evening when half the shows had past already. Nonetheless there were numerous other nooks and crannies to explore. The main house-music room was situated opposite the ballroom, and off this you found the Goth/Industrial room which was less than half the size of the house music room, another bar or three, as well as the staircase to the second floor. Upstairs was a large chill-out social room, some perpetually crowded hallways, another bar or two, a photography area, a toy store selling the odd whip or restraint, and best of all a fully functioning dungeon play area. Now it seems that the promoters called this room a "performance" space -- wise thing to do for general public purposes. However, almost anyone who seemed to know what they were doing was invited to use some of the intriguing pieces of S&M furniture in the play area, and the room was well-used and well attended all night long. In addition, the play area came with it's own DJ playing various mood tunes.

The energy of the event was as high as ever, perhaps even more so as all attendees new to the Hollywood Athletic Club found the venue to be very pleasing. Keeping the party open until 3a.m. certainly helped as well. It was an excellent night which found much of the final contingent dancing away until the lights came up.

Afterwards, L.A. promoters "AREA101" threw a smaller soiree at a Hollywood studio. Probably about 200 people showed up over the course of the night. Pretty much an "anything goes" atmosphere, guests at this after party were treated to numerous S&M shows, fire > eaters, fire dancers, and even the impressive DJ lit his turntables on fire! The AREA101 party was the only party open to the late-night public who just couldn't get enough. When this author left that event at 6a.m. the party was still going.....

 

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A Shocking Tale...
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Invasion of private space. You know, how they say (they who are THEM who are the ones who say all the stuff....) that everyone needs 3 feet of personal, private space, and only a very few people are supposed to be closer than that. Well take that situation into a basically vanilla party where everyone is trying to have a good time while at the same time due to a relatively sexual atmosphere a lot of people are frantically "hitting" on almost every other person there.

This was the setting where I was asked to do an S&M show as well as entertain various after-party elements. For those of you who have never heard of a Violet Wand, it is a device that emits tiny static electricity sparks via various bulbs that you snap onto the tip. It can be plugged into any AC outlet, and the electricity is then converted into harmless Static Electricity in such a small amount so as to be perfectly safe. Suffice it to say that device was originally intended for body-hair removal. The sensation from a spark from one of the bulbs is similar to the "lightning ball" desk top curios although a Violet Wand can be turned up to produce a stronger tingling shock if desired. At it's very highest setting it still does little except produce a static shock on the skin much like touching a lamp after walking on carpet to generate a charge. Quite safe and a lot of fun.

I was at this particular party with several friends, one of whom was a friendly and attractive woman who was rather new to this environment. At one point in the night, after a buddy had pretty much started the show with a fire and S&M performance of highly erotic proportions, I decided to bring out the Violet Wand. Now besides the bulbs, the Violet Wand comes with one further attachment that allows the user to pretty much electrify themself. Instead of plugging in a bulb, you plug in one end of a cable into the wand and the other end is a metal plate you simply place on your body firmly against your skin so that the static charge is delivered directly onto your skin. Since there is no gap between the plate and your skin, you feel nothing (nowhere for the static charge to arc). With this in place, you can then touch people and emit a static charge from your finger tips, your tongue, etc. Suffice it to say that playing with this at a party is definitely a conversation starter. One further effect of this attachment
is that if you clasp hands with another person (so again there is nowhere for a spark to arc), then THEY become "electrified" as well and they can then shock people along with the person who clasped hands with them. If either party holds something metal, and they go to touch someone with the metal object, the spark is slightly intensified by the arc from the metal. I had more or less finished having my fun with this particular attachment as I was talking with my lady friend, although I remained electrified in case someone still wanted a demo. Suddenly your text book "clueless about personal space" bozo walks up much too close to my lady friend and starts telling her in some scene from the streets of Rome how beautiful she is, etc. I had no claims on my friend so at first I figured she might like the attention and so I did nothing. However, a moment later she looks at me, obviously not wanting to hurt the guy's feelings but equally not at all comfortable with his invasion, and her look without words says, "Um, Help."

Without thinking too much about it, I did what any self-respecting protective-of-their-friends Perv would do: I reached out and grabbed her arm.

The bozo within seconds saw my touch as some invitation to touch and so he went to stroke her arm.

"You are so very beautiful," he said reaching out, "like a kind of.....OW!" Her now electrified body had shocked him as he came in for the touch. He looked stunned, but whatever chemicals were in his blood immediately white-washed the shock away and so he came around for another attempt.

"You have such a very pretty smile and....OW!!!!" It wasn't that the shock was at all strong, but that the guy obviously had not paid attention to what I had been doing with the wand for at least half an hour and so each shock caught him completely off guard as, generally speaking, eels -- not people -- are electrified.

A look of consternation crossed his face. Should he pursue? Should he touch? This did not make sense to his poor, confused, "people are not electric eels" brain. Resuming his patented smile, he sallied forth for a final seductive attempt. This time however he was no longer content conveying his unwanted attentions with a touch......he was going in for a kiss. As it stands, he was perhaps a good 6" taller than my friend so his kiss landed on her forehead.

"I'll see you around here, OK, and then maybe......AHHHH!" as the spark leaped from her forehead to his entirely surprised mouth. At this point the poor fool was finally, openly aghast and had at last put 2 and 2 together to realize that something was amiss. But he had had enough. This attractive woman was not one of the typical conquests he was used to -- she had an unseen defense system!

Taking a step back he nodded his head, put his smile back on his face and made a trite farewell. Poor guy, he couldn't help but make one final apparently conciliatory gesture, thinking he would safely pat me on the back through my shirt which just happened to have metallic fibers woven into it.

"OK, well I will see you two later......AHHH!"

He looked at me, looked at his hand, looked at my friend, and quickly turned away.

After all was said and done, my lady friend turned to me and asked, "Where can I buy a portable battery-powered version of one of those?"

 

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Fetish Factory Sale
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SALE * SALE * SALE * SALE * SALE * SALE * SALE * SALE * SALE * SALE *

We will offer a 10% discount to all IN STORE purchases made either of our 2 Fort Lauderdale shops from June 28th - August 6th -
You must print a copy of this email and remit at time of purchase.

We are offering 10% to all ONLINE purchases from now until June 27th...time is running out !

Please be sure mention the 10% off in the comments area before you check out. http://www.fetish-factory.com

 

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Wrap Up
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Check out the bright green PVC mini-dress on the model in the latest M&M's commercial r.e. "What is it about the Green ones?" as well as the model asking the guy, "I don't understand why you want me wearing (white PVC) gloves as well...." ;-)

If this isn't about as straight-up a reference to a fashion fetish as you can get, then what is?

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