When my Virgin Atlantic flight landed in Miami a few days before Fetish Factory’s 11 Year Anniversary weekend in Fort Lauderdale last May, I was really looking forward to covering the event in my capacity as editor of Skin Two magazine.
By the time I left Florida eight days later, I was no longer working for Skin Two. The owner’s decision to stage an editorial coup while I was out of the country may not have been the best news either for me or for my Fetish Factory hosts, but it came too late to stop me enjoying the parties and seeing for myself why FF events are so highly regarded. Nine months down the line, far from not wanting to return to the scene of the crime, I’m thinking how much I’d like to go back this year and do more serious partying with Florida’s finest. That’s the positive power of pervery for you, I guess!
It’s hard to imagine a climate less amenable to the pursuit of rubber-clad pervery than Florida’s tropical heat and humidity, so it just goes to show how much can be achieved when you have the dedication and enthusiasm of Fetish Factory owners Glenn and Donna. Inspired originally by a trip to the Rubber Ball in London some years ago, they vowed to bring European-style fetish partying to their home city. The fact that their Alter Ego parties have been America’s biggest regular monthly fetish events for some years now, and their Anniversary weekends have become must-do dates on the international fetish calendar, is an indication of just how successfully they’ve interpreted the European formula for US consumption.
The key to European partying style is, of course, the fetishism. Not the BDSM; not the preponderance of ‘serious’ players; not the number of swingers having furtive sex in dark corners. It’s the focus on dressing-up that makes Euro-style perving what it is. Without commitment to a proper and fully enforced fetish dresscode, you can’t do it. Without a critical mass of your audience embracing the pleasures of clubbing in rubber, you can never hope to achieve that distinctly European vibe. So of course, it helps that the Fetish Factory store not only specialises in selling the very kind of latex fashions that are essential for this kind of fetish partying, but also functions as a social hub and support mechanism for the local fetish community in its entirety.
‘The combination of a Cuban heritage and a taste for latex produces some pretty spectacular results — for which there is simply no equivalent in London or Berlin’
In my view, the other key factor that Glenn and Donna have on their side is the enthusiasm of local kinksters for their particular partying style. The twin influences of gay and Latino culture (remembering that Miami, Mecca for both, is just to the South) have not only ensured that there is a young and kink-aware crowd up for FF’s kind of action, but have also helped put a distinctive stamp on the FF party experience. Crucial, I think, has been the energy that the area’s Hispanic kink community has brought to the mix. All clichés aside, it has to be said that the combination of a Cuban heritage and a taste for latex produces some pretty spectacular results — for which there is simply no equivalent in London or Berlin.
No one better represents this cultural crossover than Fort Lauderdale’s fabulous RubberDoll, one of the weekend VIPs and a woman who has graduated in the last couple of years from local kink queen to international fetish celebrity and most frequently requested fetish friend on MySpace. But the Fetish Factory scene has produced other world class performers too, of course — not least among them RubberDoll’s oft-times partner in performance, Rebecca, a seasoned club dancer, proper perv (check out her Rubber Room) and key figure in the production of FF’s big annual events and Alter Ego parties. I was looking forward to meeting them all on their home turf, and getting a first-hand taste of the fetish phenomenon Glenn and Donna have worked so hard to create.
And I was not disappointed. The party programme comprised three club events – a Friday night Beat & Greet at Club Boca, Saturday’s main event, the Fetish Ball at Club Cinema, and Sunday’s Extreme Players Party at Coliseum — plus its now-traditional Pool Party. This latter had been arranged for Sunday afternoon around the rooftop pool of the Marriott North Lauderdale, the event’s official hotel, where FF had negotiated an impressive discount rate on 400 rooms for the weekend’s many out-of-town and overseas guests and performers. The store had also organised coaches from the hotel to each of the venues, which proved both the funnest and cheapest way to get to and from the clubs. What could be better than arriving in the company of 50 highly polished and party-primed perverts, eh?
This year’s Beat & Greet was preceded by a cocktail party for industry people in one of Club Boca’s side rooms. “We were surprised by how many industry people the previous year knew of each other but had never met,” Glenn explained, “so we decided to do something about it.” It was a very successful idea which provided not only industry networking opportunities but also some great photo opportunities for those who, like me, were on camera duty. It’s not often that you’d get a chance in the space of an hour or so to schmooze with such fetish royalty as RubberDoll, Rebecca, Robert Fluty, Gerry Koehler, Angela Ryan, Paige Richards, Aprella, Porcelain Twinz, RubberDoll, Athena Fatale, Allen Falkner, Perish, Rubberella, Bianca Beauchamp and Martin Perreault, Audra, Darenzia and Nicholas, Veronica, Kendra James and of course Glenn and Donna themselves.
Meanwhile in the main area of Club Boca the local fetish folk were working up a sweat, dancing and watching performances by some of the people I’d met earlier in the cocktail room. And as the evening wore on, the two groups mingled freely, giving me the first chance to meet up-and-coming Florida talents such sexy dancer Maria and Jolie Vaughn, who features in the launch edition of our StyleFile section elsewhere on this site.
‘The first thing I remember about Saturday now is getting on the coach and sitting behind a latex catsuit-clad blonde in a gasmask with a long breathing tube attached’
I suppose Saturday daytime must have existed, but the first thing I remember about Saturday now is getting on the coach with Robert Fluty outside the hotel that night, and finding ourselves sitting behind a latex catsuit-clad blonde in a gasmask with a long breathing tube attached. As a result of what happened during the ride to the club, I can now offer fetishism a new term: fluting. It means ‘flirting and cutting’— as in ‘flirting with a complete stranger in a gasmask while cutting off her air supply’.
First thing that greeted us inside Club Cinema was the fabulous Black Rose motorcycle created by Miami artist and bike-builder Carlos Orta, I set about photographing it and within moments, it had gained itself a suitably-clad rider in the guise of Zena, a none-too-shy dominatrix from LA. By the time I got into the auditorium, the place was already really crowded and I thought it was going to be hard to get close to the stage where the shows were soon to start. But I managed to fight my way to the front just as the music started up for the Vex fashion show, which featured a colourful troupe of local and visiting celebs walking Laura Petrielli Pulice’s stylish latex creations.
Next up was a show by Porcelain Twinz which I’d enjoyed watching just the previous month in Amsterdam. Porcelain shows can get quite naughty, given the right atmosphere and enough co-operation from those audience members selected to submit to the Twinz’ onstage torments. This one was no exception, with Jody from Atlanta among those required to take his punishment like a man, and loving it.
Britain’s own Empress Stah was the night’s top overseas attraction, showcasing her unique combination of circus performance and fetish melodrama to a curious and enthusiastic audience. Several people commented to me afterwards that their favourite part of her act was when she hung upside down naked from a rope and produced a hidden string of pearls. Which just shows what a novelty nudity can be in a full-on fetish environment!Not being much of a sun-seeker, I stayed away from Sunday’s Pool Party until the sun was well past its high point. By the time I arrived poolside, most of the fun was being had by a large German Shepherd belonging to one of the kinky crowd. Although you would never have guessed it from his playful behaviour, he was apparently a security dog trained to attack on command. Probably why he pretty much had the pool to himself.
‘The floor of the venue was dotted with dungeon furniture for the use of exhibitionist individuals and groups making their own entertainment. Which they did, most enthusiastically’
Sunday night’s finale event, the Extreme Players Party, was styled in the manner of Fetish Factory’s regular XFP parties where, to quote the publicity blurb, ‘anything goes’. The floorspace of the Coliseum venue was dotted with pieces of dungeon furniture, cages and assorted podia for the use of exhibitionist individuals and groups making their own entertainment. Which they did, most enthusiastically. This was definitely one of those events where the audience was the show, with bondage, discipline and rudery of all kinds wherever you looked. However, there were also a couple of memorable scheduled performances — Allen Falkner doing a classic skyhook suspension to the sombre accompaniment of Johnny Cash’s vocals, and RubberDoll and Rebecca getting down ’n’ dirty with a Vacbed and other pervy apparatus.
By the time most of us got back to the hotel on Monday morning, it hardly seemed worth going to sleep, and the attractions of the poolside hot tub beckoned. After that, the only sensible thing was to hit the local diner for breakfast, and only then to consider bed.
Fetish Factory’s 12 Year Anniversary celebrations this year again take place in Fort Lauderdale over Memorial Day weekend, May 25-27. Full details from the website — see link on left. If you have any thoughts of going, then go. You’ll have a brilliant time.
