…In terms of this specific case I should be honest: I haven’t been the hugest admirer of the way the previous Leather Weekend Street Festivals have been managed, but this story neatly encapsulates the issues at stake in New York right now. We are faced with a city administration that will do anything to make sure that the preening self regard of international consumption continues without disruption. Having “improved†the meat packing district and Chelsea by making it a safe haven for the overpriced inanities of Stella McCartney, hoteliers can dictate the terms under which their guests can be protected from the horrid prospect of encountering the people who populated the area for decades previous. Shopping must continue smoothly. Elegance and ease above all. Their response to the possibility of public sexuality? “Get a room. Hopefully one of our over priced ones.â€
Why is this a big deal? After all, people can fire up their laptops and pickup a willing play partner on Recon or Fetlife. In some ways more people know about Kink than ever before. We have Folsom Street East every year. Private parties still happen around New York, and let’s face it, it’s more fun if it’s a little dirty and underground, right?
It’s a big deal because of the utter quietism that greeted this rollback of opportunity. New York currently has one and a half leather bars in a city of some eight million. One SM club that periodically issues cries for help. And no one is talking about it in a larger sense. Gay and Lesbian political groups have abandoned any attempts to talk about sexual behavior, in a bid to argue for gay people’s rights to replicate the nuclear family with the blessing of the state. NCSF, which we all should be a member and supporter of, has too few resources to do much more than put out fires, like last years rash of raids and closings of pro-dom houses and the attendant media frenzy.
Sex and urban life are places where we put our bodies on the line. There is a power to be gained from going outside away from the computer and seeing people do something you hadn’t thought of before, watching people in the exultation of endorphins and endurance, or witnessing the formal elegance of certain D/s couples, or being part of the antic fun of doing fucked up shit, that feels far different from having the “permission†to “do what we want behind closed doorsâ€. When I am confronted by other people’s difference, when it’s inconvenient for me, when it disrupts my somnambulism, I am grateful. That’s what being a city dweller means. It does not mean being a mall shopping gated community denizen with better views and an account at “Design Within Reachâ€.
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