On the Separation of "Fetish" and Industrial

I've been meaning to write something about this for some time, but was not quite sure how. I'm still not sure how, but I am going to do my best.

From what I understand, industrial was not always associated with fetish, latex, women making out for men, etc. It was associated with pushing boundaries and counter cultures which I am sure at times included BDSM.

I got into BDSM scenes in part through its combination with the industrial scene. Note, I had been playing on my own with whoever was down from the time I was a young teenager. What I am saying is that I met groups of people willing to do nasty things together through these all ages "Fetish Nights" (I'm going to start saying "BDSM" because I think that's what they mean) that began happening, which usually included Dommes, Dungeons (or portable dungeon like things), and industrial/goth/darkwave/etc bands on stage. When I first found it I thought I was in heaven. And over time, I watched each side of the coin deteriorate.

Image: An event flier for "Resurrection Anti Valentines Day" which includes lists of vendors, djs, location, and website. There are two thin young light skinned feminine women with long black hair in underwear performing a lesbian-fetish-porn-style makeout for the straight dude behind the camera. Both of them are wearing black and white nun veils.

What was once nights full of people tied to large restraint structures being consensually abused by experienced people to hard beats and talented musicians has become fruitless nights of mislabeled "fetish" occurrences and bad sound systems pumping out the same 5 songs the DJs wish to play. Newer younger people coming into these scenes see skinny straight women dancing half naked and making out in vinyl for male onlookers and no real bdsm players or skill or experience or show. And let me say, I have met some of these newer DJs doing these nights, they deserve respect, especially for starting events in a scene that has been deteriorating and dying for so long. But events like the above flier make people like me roll their eyes at best.

So what happened?

Something happened. My theory is that the combination of these two awesome things together made the standard for an awesome event go down drastically. You don't have to put much effort into goth night if you tell people there will be BDSM happening there. And if you don't know what BDSM is aside from what you see at goth night, then you likely will be misrepresenting it. That combined with the ever increasing misogyny in industrial scenes, the expectation of women to be eye candy for men, and the bro-fest that encourages men only to be dom top masters who will own all of the ladies, is a recipe for disaster. And frankly, boredom.

I encourage everyone into BDSM to delve deeper, find munches in your area, meet real BDSM players with experience, let them teach you, learn from them, or at the very least, do some research and test things on yourself and experiment wisely.

To industrial promoters who have fallen into this trend of "fetish nights," consider getting back to the music, not simply what will turn a few heads. There is one promoter in our fine city who's stuck to the music for decades now and he's succeeding and has done some amazing projects. Sure, "fetish" and vinyl might look nice on a flier. But if that's not what you're bringing, consider focusing more on the music. I took a friend out to an industrial BDSM night once hoping to give her an easy introduction to a few things she was interested in and I got to a club, with horrible music, no bdsm or leather or anything whatsoever happening, two girls in their underwear flirting with the club owner, and when I asked one of the organizers where the BDSM was, he said they were supposed to have topless jello wrestling but the girls cancelled.

And let me say, props to the young guys for trying to start something here and make it work. That takes bravery and persistence. But, to be very honest, as a queer female who brought a girl I was semi- interested in impressing to this night, I felt like I was at a frat bar. I was embarrassed and I didn't even design the thing. I was embarrassed of my scene. And to be honest, at the time I had little right to be because I was rarely around. So, take my complaints with a grain of salt. Perhaps I should get up and do something instead of complaining.

I will admit I did go to one night recently with a couple of DJs and an experienced queer woman rigger doing a rope suspension demo and while it was kind of a boring night, it was at least giving heed to some experience.

So come on now. Give me back my goth. Give me back my BDSM. Remember that there are a hell of a lot of vanilla folks who want to go to shows once in a while without being subjected to our weird bdsm shit. And if you insist on combining BDSM and industrial, please do it in a smart and creative way that shows respect for both scenes.

Graceless: A Journal of the Radical Gothic - HELLS TO THE YEAH

I'm gonna give the floor to I Die You Die on this one as I do not have the time or energy currently to write a post as coherent and as well thought out as this Radical Gothic Journal deserves. From idieyoudie's post by the same name (It has better formatting, consider going to that link instead of reading my copy/paste below):

Image: Cover for "Graceless:. The image is a blurred black and white image of a person moving taken with slow shutter speed. The text in the middle says "graceless a journal of the radical gothic"“We demand that the goth scene be more than a black-clad reflection of mainstream society.”

I’m sure there were dozens of factors which contributed to the appeal of goth, in all of its expressions, when I first stumbled upon it as a typically clumsy teenager, but looking back, one in particular stands out: the promise it made. The promise of something better, of a more thoughtful, expressive and heartfelt life beyond the suburban parameters I woke up to each morning. My early forays into it – dial-up trawls through newsgroups to which I was too nervous to contribute, tracking down suggested records as though they were panaceas for all of life’s ailments, those first giddy trips to the fog-shrouded nightclubs I’d been hearing about – all bore that promise out. There was more, there was something better, there were other ways to be. I’d found something else and I was home.

But, having been a part of that scene in some shape or form for fifteen years now, and having DJed in it for ten, it’s all too easy to become disillusioned with whatever transformative potential I once saw in it. It’s easy to point to and kvetch about stale records, off the rack fashion, crass commercialism and mindless conformity. And, while I didn’t initially connect my nascent political ideals with my fledgling gothdom (apart from the scene’s apparent acceptance of folks of all sorts), I’m disheartened today when I see the same reactionary, patriarchal bullshit mainstream culture foists upon us reinscribed within a scene that supposedly rejects normative mores (a recurring theme cannier readers of ID:UD may have detected on these very pages). In short, it can be difficult to locate the legitimately alternate modes of thought and living which this scene promised.

Bollocks, says editor Margaret Killjoy and the contributors to the first issue of Graceless: that radical tradition’s been right under your nose this whole time, and if it hasn’t, there’s nothing stopping you from helping to foment it. Assembling under the rallying cry of the “radical gothic”, Killjoy and friends have assembled a collection of interviews, editorials and historical monographs with an eye to the intersection of politics and goth aesthetics (in the broadest terms: film, literature, photography, art and all subgenres of dark music are embraced).

Image: An illustration in black and white of a tall, slender person with light skin wearing a long gown leaning backwards on their elbow. The text says, "These mascara-wearing fascists are ignorant of their own history. Even the early fascists that embraced subculture and gender fluidity were most ruthlessly oppressed by their own 'comrades.'"

Flipping though Graceless‘ pages, I felt that same rush of hope and possibility in alterity that I first did lo those many years ago. Only a handful of records, concerts, and trips to clubs have ever prompted it since, and it’s certainly been a damn long time since anything printed did (delving through back issues of Carpe Noctem in ’99, perhaps?). Suffice it to say, any publication which opens with lines from Swans and closes with the final stanzas of Shelley’s “The Masque Of Anarchy” is one after my own heart.

There’s lots to love in Graceless‘ hundred-plus pages. Of the interviews, I particularly enjoyed those with Martin Bowes of Attrition (huzzah, another vegan to add to the list in Our Thing!) and Unwoman, who draws some fascinating parallels between genre and gender. A piece on “illegal dandyism” which somewhat recalls Greil Marcus’ pioneering work on the history of counter-culture in Lipstick Traces sits alongside glosses of morbid Victorian children’s lit and German expressionist cinema. While touching upon various strains of anarchism, as a rule the theoretical side of politics in Graceless is kept accessible, so you won’t have to brush up on your Kropotkin before diving in (though come to think of it I’d love a paper which triangulated goth, Baudelaire, and The Arcades Project…).

Particularly inspiring was “How To Start A DIY Goth Night”, which is chock-full of solid advice for those wanting to get something going in smaller cities. The DIY theme which runs through Graceless perhaps isn’t surprising given its extensive connections to zine culture, but it’s great to see it applied to genres and cultures outside of the punk and hippie umbrellas. That attitude’s also reflected in a report on the wholly independent and off-the-radar aspects of the scene in Germany.

Talking about printed material is a bit out of the ordinary for us at ID:UD, but like I said, there are far too many of the things which first drew me to Our Thing, and far too much consideration of the problems and issues I find in it today to be found in Graceless‘ pages to not comment on it. This scene desperately needs commentary and insight like that afforded by Graceless, and I am utterly thankful for its arrival.

The first issue of Graceless can be bought for $6 or downloaded by donation.