Pink Monkey Chatter

This is the God forsaken truth…I thought it would be a hoot to go to the Fetish Fair in Providence on Valentine’s Day. I honestly don’t have any personal interest in all those leather studded shenanigans, apart from what a great story the experience would make. As much as some bizarre fetish would really round out my repertoire, let’s face it..I am considered plenty weird enough without having a thing for fooling around with some dude dressed as a human teddy bear. However, I went with a semi-open mind, saying whatever floats a person’s boat and sneaking my camera in an empty box of sanitary products within my purse.

The whole experience started out quite unsettling. Some crazy drunk women was late for her seminar on S&M prison play and came hurdling toward me on the one way street outside of the hotel where the event was being held. I of course, happened to have my camera out to capture the drama. (See picture below.) I almost died right in front of the Sportsman’s Inn and not even while wearing particularly clean clothing. To be honest, my Everything-Is-Better-With-Bacon sweatshirt was going on its third day.

The Fetish fair itself reminded me of after hours at your typical Renaissance Fair. Boringly commercial!!! The only truly creative thing I saw were these hand painted gas masks by a company known as Broken Brains. However, I prefer my accouterments more on the burlesque/vintage side. And I saw nothing even vaguely Victorian/steam punk. Truth be told, I can appreciate the aerodynamics of Medieval bustiers, but they make me think of having to serve beer to drunk people in taverns. Not very sexy..more like annoying.  Even worse, the sounding stuff, electrical shocking, and medical kits sheared their images into my retinas and basically gave me mental damage. PTS anyone??? Personally, I spend the time in a doctor’s office steeling my nerves and detaching myself from the experience, and the medical equipment really set off my alarms in a “Hostel” type of way..

I suppose that the point of fetishes are to break through mental barriers and to rearrange our perceptions of power and gender roles. I don’t know why I found most of the products to be profoundly depressing and many reeked of loneliness. I should have been happy that people who don’t usually feel like a part of society have found a place to feel welcomed and wanted. That is truly the beauty of a subgroup microcosm.  

I guess its just that I have a problem with some fat dude who looks like he lives in his grandmother’s basement leading a emaciated, dead-eyed Sissy Spacek around on a dog leash. But let’s not be all judgey….HA!

Then, I came upon the grand finale. In a corner room there was what amounted to a giant replica of the same horse barn and paddock my Barbies and Breyer model horses innocently galloped around when I was a young girl. One woman and about five men were tied up and happily munching something out of buckets. A woman in full riding habit from merry old England was driving two strutting steeds around as if she were training them to pull a cart. Cheerful, colorful,fake blossoms were woven through the wooden fencing and green, plastic spring grass decorated the floor of the make-shift arena.

Deep breath….This vision has assured that I could drop dead tomorrow, and I will have seen everything. I grew up riding horse, but never in my life would I imagine such an electric kool-aid melding of human and beast.As regal and serious as these people tried to appear…It didn’t help one bit that the pony men wore name tags with names such as “Fuzzy” and “Trigger.” Oh sweet Jesus..I’m glad Will Rogers isn’t alive to see this.     

I got the following straight off of Wikipedia….

BDSM pony-play

Pony-play is sometimes referred to as “The Aristotelian Perversion,” in reference to legend that Aristotle had a penchant for being ridden like a horse. Ponies (people involved in pony-play) generally divide themselves to three groups although some will participate in two or perhaps all three:

• Cart ponies: ponies who pull a sulky with their owner.
• Riding ponies: ponies who are ridden, either on all fours or on two legs, with the “rider” on the shoulders of the “pony” (also known as Shoulder riding). Note that a human back is generally not strong enough to take the weight of another adult without risk of injury, so four-legged “riding” is generally symbolic, with the “rider” taking most of their weight on their own legs.
• Show ponies: ponies who show off their dressageskills and often wear elaborate harnesses, plumes and so on.

A documentary film Pony Passionwas produced by British pony play club De Ferre in 2003 showing their club’s activities and Born in a Barn, a 2005 documentary film, depicted the lives of several pony-play enthusiasts.