Vice UK
by John Lucas
Mary, a petite woman in a black dress, rolls back the sleeve of Ryan’s T-shirt to reveal his newly-scarred flesh.
“Wow, so cool!” she says, examining the still-fresh cuts he’s made that form a lattice on his bicep. Then, without a word, she starts slapping him. She’s gentle at first, just quiet little flirty ones to the cheek, but they get louder and sharper as she screws up her face and starts properly laying into him, genuinely trying to inflict as much pain as possible. Soon, couples from the surrounding tables stop talking to clap and cheer her on.
Given that we’re in a north London gastropub with wrought-iron staircases and ceiling beams—the kind of place where adult men who try to one-up each other with microbrewery trivia might meet up to be awful—this behavior seems particularly odd. But tonight is the venue’s monthly fetish speed-dating event. Having a girlfriend already, I’m not here to get slapped repeatedly by a stranger in front of an enthusiastic crowd. But I figured it could be a good place to get a succinct overview of London’s fetish scene—a series of four-minute encounters with as many subs, doms, pay pigs, sneaker destroyers and scally gear fetishists as possible, all in a venue without loud music or an aroused naked man locked in a cage distracting everyone there.
I’ve never been to a fetish speed-dating night before, so I was initially unsure of the dress code—whether I’d look like a nark in a sea of latex and cock cages—but the event’s website informed me that smart-casual was fine and that above all I should “be myself.” When I arrive I’m greeted by Miss Jo, the organizer, who has run kink clubs in London for the last 20 years. Eating olives out of a ramekin with a cocktail stick, she is jolly and welcoming, putting everyone at ease. She gives me a white sticker to write my name on and tells me to have a good time.
What I’ve always disliked about the idea of speed-dating is its rote, inauthentic, ruthless nature. Like it or not, you’ll be judged heavily on your fitness as a potential sexual partner. If no one enjoys the mental image of you naked, you mope off with no phone numbers, left to get really insecure about your weird neck on the night bus home. But with fetish speed dating there’s another layer—after all, your kinks have to match those of the person you’re attracted to. And what if the kink you’re into is simply too niche for the vanilla nerds who’ve turned up on the night? …