Spanks for the memories
Chris Paré
The dungeon is silent. The slave's cage sits vacant. And fetishists across Montreal are mourning the end of an era.Last spring the Fetish Café, located on the corner of de Lorimier and Ste-Catherine, closed its doors for good. For former co-owner (and new mother) K8, what began as a labour of love ended when 100-hour workweeks and the prospect of a budding family became too much to handle at once.
"When we were doing this, we weren't making any money," says the mistress turned matriarch. "We did it because we enjoyed it."
K8 took ownership of the Fetish Café in 1997 when it was still on Beaudry, unofficially renaming it the Fetish Funhouse and Cabaret. Legally it was an entirely separate entity from its previous incarnation, owned by German mistress and former legal secretary Sylvia Wahl. After three years, K8 and her business partner Andrew reopened in December 2001, this time as Funhouse. They would reclaim the Fetish Café name three months prior to shutting down.
For some, the fetish community has never been the same since. "It's lost its cohesiveness," says Viktoria Kalenteris, who is the founder, organizer and editor of www.attitudes.cc, an online sexuality education and information forum promoting positive sexuality and community awareness.
"The Funhouse was a major intersection for all people who are in the community," she explains. "When I first came to Montreal and was searching for places to find out more about the scene
and how to get involved, my niche was the Funhouse. It was a turning point in my discovery of the BDSM world."These days, however, technology and a lack of trust have fragmented a once tight community.
"Too many dominants, not enough switches," she suggests (a "switch" is someone who can be both dominant and submissive). "People have lost faith and trust. Segregated little pockets of people have come about because of the Internet, which allows everybody to create their own little space and universe."
Both K8 and Kalenteris admit that it's not what it used to be. One-off events and private parties have replaced the public hub of accessibility that was once the Fetish Café. As a result, people aren't sure what group to hook up with, meaning less accessibility and more uncertainty.
"Everybody got along, everyone worked together," says K8. "But it doesn't seem to be there in the same way [anymore]."
It's sad that communities like Montreal's fetish one seem to be threatened by the rise in dom and S&M websites and more private parties. Although people may feel 'safer' at private parties than an open club, this alienates newcomers or people interested in the scene and thus reduces the strength of the community. I also fear that they serve to make S&M and all things kink seem seedy and dirty, hiding away.
Although not everyone may be into bondage or fuck machines or wearing masks or power games, everyone has a bit of dirty mindedness in them and, as has been discussed and probably proven many times - the brain is the fulcrum of arousal: who hasn't got wet from thinking some real sensual or dirty things before??
The Internet is such an impersonal and sterile place that we can often view the images and words on our computer screens as a product of the machine itself, devoid of any human traits - the flesh is only ours that we caress and excite, the reactions are only ours as our pupils (and other body parts) enlarge; the emotions are only ours as we satisfy our needs then get on with other things. This is the ultimate in non committment: we can just swap screens or shut down and walk away.
Also, there's a lot more to a community than getting some action (or an eyeful), it helps provide support, a meeting place, education, raise awareness and tonnes of other stuff that the Internet or private parties just can't give to people.
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Ellen Reid
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{28 votes}
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Montreal's fetish community is going to find another place to sit their latex asses at sooner or later, assuming that it hasn't already. Every niche community goes through these ebbs and flows at one pint of another. Sometimes the times favor you and sometimes they don't. The fact that Montreal's fetish community had a de facto HQ for all this time is pretty impressive given the way that this city's police has been progressively cracking down on what they perceive as 'improper'. So long as sex is in it's only a matter of time before someone picks up the S&M torch and runs with it.
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Pedro Eggers
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{4 votes}
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The internet has provided great things for those who felt marginalized. It allowed people in remote places on this planet to interact with each other. It broke some people's isolation. At the same time, it prevented people from having to gather their courage and show up in person in places where they would find people like them. Small businesses have closed down, libraries have been overtaken by major chains who now have sections for everything. It is sad to see such a valued part of a community disappear. At the same time, it is not that surprising when we see people avoiding face-to-face contact for the security of on-line meetings in all aspects of life.
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Marc Charette
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{20 votes}
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| ..raiders of the lost arts: |
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..the community as many communities have lost its verve and entered into the tiresome cliches engendered by the ignorance of exclusivity: this applies as well to the relentless fragmentation of the community online as tribes rise against tribes to clash over dead ideologies that no longer matter but reduces the community into bickering dramas un-willing to embrace the further un-explored grounds and realms of sensuality:
the blame doesn't lie with the advancing technology which represents a tool to understand and master -- but the blame must lie within the advancing viral spread of fear and d0gma: that the community has become infiltrated by fear mongers and d0gmatists to such ceaseless levels that the art of the fetish community has become traded for fevered eG0s that seek to turn the community into nothing more than a perpetual plantation for emotional and mental slavery that presses deeply into the thresholds of sinister punishments repressing an individual's ability to seek further freedoms within the parameters of sensual explorations and invocations..
and while the community undergoes the birth pains of death and dying -- the resolve to overcome the dissolution of the fetish community does remain apparent and strong. within the new birthing of the coming fetish resurrection -- the minds will be fairly swift in realising that a community can only thrive when all individuals regardless of their rankings (..dom versus sub...) are allowed access into the waters of exchange and devotional works given towards protecting such vital and valuable waters: too often the former community had become nothing more than games of power and power struggles to suppress and to keep the status well-going despite the obvious lost of the teachings that once promised liberation to all who entered such a community
the new community will gather the best minds with the truest intent to embrace the strength of personal development through honour: dedication: and sensual values.
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Gary Womac
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{26 votes}
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