Vice
By Cliff Joannou
Remember the opening club scene in Blade? Imagine that, but instead of men in short-sleeved bowling shirts and Kangol hats, you have guys in rubber jock straps and stilettos. Women in corsets and pasties rather than capri pants and pleather jackets. Fire eating, angle grinding, and sex acts instead of human blood raining from the ceiling and Wesley Snipes attacking a load of vampires with a shotgun.
That place is Torture Garden, where a guy getting a blowjob by the bar or a woman whipping a man tied to a St. Andrew’s Cross is all part of an average night out. Started in 1990, the iconic fetish club—the largest of its kind in Europe—is throwing a big party this weekend in Elephant & Castle to celebrate 25 years of torture.
My first experience of Torture Garden was in 2003, when the club took over the Brixton Academy for another birthday ball. The main floor overflowed with bums, tits, and gimps strapped into figure-hugging rubber, leather, latex, and spandex, in traditional fetish black to bright and bolder colors.
In the couple’s room (the main “play” area), I wandered around with a guy I was casually dating. We were two young gay guys looking on incredulously as hundreds of people in various states of undress made out, sucked, and spanked one another. From mild make outs to full-on butt whacking, the unapologetic indulgence of it all was arousing and entertaining—the kink having an almost Carry On aspect to it.
My previous experiences of “sex in clubs” were either horrid dark rooms in tacky Gran Canaria gay clubs, or the full-on fuck fest of London’s queer fetish scene, which was usually far too extreme for my tamer vanilla tastes. By contrast, Torture Garden was—and still is—playful, cheeky, and sexy. And, of course, extreme if you want it to be. But above all: It’s fun.
I lost my friend in the playroom and came across a table where a woman—naked bar her heels and a diamante bra—was fucking a guy. She was beautiful, and he was incredibly fit. I wasn’t sure which of them I found more of a turn on. A crowd gathered around, a mix of guys and girls watching. Some of them other couples, kissing. Nobody took advantage. They just watched the guy and girl fuck, while the couple clearly appreciated the attention. I didn’t perceive her as acting whorish or slutty, or any of the other names society likes to throw at women who openly enjoy their sexuality. She was completely in control, of the guy and of her audience.
To really comprehend Torture Garden’s uniqueness, you have to understand where the club came from and why it’s so impressive that it’s still here, over 25 years later. In fact, that it still exists at all is something of miracle. …