What’S Your Fetish?

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What’s Your Fetish? Recently, everyone has been telling me that I look great. “Did you dye your hair?” asked my co-worker. “Have you lost weight?” asked my best friend. “You finally found a boyfriend, didn’t you?!” shrieked my Jewish mother. “No,” I said, “I went to the Fetish Fair Fleamarket – the largest, and longest running BDSM event in New England.” It must be the afterglow. I was honored to model in The Fetish Fashion Show, which has been the kick off to the winter flea for the past seven years. The audience was packed full of people and I walked the aisle with hundreds of models wearing outifts from some of the best up-and-coming fetish wear designers as well as the more established ones. The audience was also treated to a dazzling feast for the eyes featuring aeriel silks, aeriel hoops and play piercing: Miss Mischief had majestic, bright blue feather wings (the exact same color as her hair) inserted straight through the flesh in her back. It was a sight to behold. Once the fashion show was over and the flea began, I was like a child in a candy shop with over 60 classes on kink and over 100 vendors selling everything from sex toys to kinky clothing (to even kinkier sex toys). There were so many classes that I wanted to check out like Erotic Hypnosis 101, Kink Yoga and Kissing for Maximum Erotic Effect, but I found myself caught up in meeting all the interesting people who came from all over the East Coast. I did, however, go to Balloon Bondage taught by Roughinamorato. I was drawn by sheer intrigue, as I am sure half of the class was. I spent the first half of the class trying unsuccessfully to blow up long thin balloons. Then, after I was completely high from lack of oxygen, I realized that there was a naked girl on stage being tied up bondage style in balloons. She was locked into place, completely immobile and a man from the crowd raised his hand. “What would happen if she fell? Would the balloons pop?” “Let’s see!” said Roughinamorato, and he threw her against the wall. She bounced back laughing. Then he slowly, and I mean painfully slowly, popped the balloons with a sharp knife while she shook and screeched with fear and excitement. It was slightly horrifying and surprisingly arousing. “I know and trust him,” the model said. “It’s great to be able to laugh in such a serious community.” Somehow, I must have missed the seriousness of the whole event. I will have to go back next year. But for now, I’m off to iParty. Yosefa Leora is a journalist based in Rhode Island. She can be contacted at [email protected] or at DareMe Yosefa on Facebook. She can also be followed at @goagnome on Instagram. Image Credit: Darkwell Studios darkwellstudios.com.

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Do We Really Suffer for Fashion
University of Huddersfield Repository Almond, Kevin You have to suffer for Fashion Original Citation Almond, Kevin (2009) You have to suffer for Fashion. In: Public Lecture University Centre Barnsley, July 2009, University Centre Barnsley. (Unpublished) This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/9663/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. Users may access full items free of charge; copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided: • The authors, title and full bibliographic details is credited in any copy; • A hyperlink and/or URL is included for the original metadata page; and • The content is not changed in any way. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ You have to suffer for Fashion Introduction: ‘You have to suffer fashion,’ has been a much used phrase throughout the history of fashion. Degrees of suffering and discomfort have varied and we have probably all endured agonies, in some way, when constructing our appearance, in order to face the world. This could range from a simple cut from shaving, to the discomfort and pain of folding tender flesh into a girdle! These are only two, of numerous possible examples.
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