So for
my class’s BDSM unit I led an optional field trip to the local BDSM museum, a
box-y former synagogue with the museum’s acronym painted up high and 2 flags of
a boot’s silhouette beside each door.
Like
dungeons, the one of which I’ve been to in the city has its initials beside a
buzzer but no other outward marking, the museum must deliberately keep a low
profile...
Someone
I was talking to post-visit said they used to live four blocks away and shopped
at the grocery market right across the street, and they always wondered what
that place was.
Plus,
they have a buzzer on the door, so every visitor has to buzz in, so they can
keep out minors easily.
Anyhow,
the balding goateed leather daddy who’s the museum director greeted our class
in a tanktop and little leather vest and then led us in to the auditorium, a
small theater space left over from the group that had owned the building after
the synagogue and before the museum.
On all
sides were murals from an old leather bar downtown, of biker men in chaps and
leather pants and enormous hardons showing down their legs, and occasionally
one of them in chains.
There,
he told everyone about the history of the collection and the groups that fed
into it, and asked for questions. My
students had a couple, but then since they’re all in their very early 20s and
probably have little idea about the gravity of the AIDS crisis, I raised my
hand and was like, “And how did the AIDS crisis affect everything?”.
“Well,”
he was like, “Because the mortality rate was so high, a lot of groups were
devastated, so people drew together more, and there was more unity.”
Then, not
looking you directly in the eye like he always did, he added, “But, fisting
parties used to be one big can of Crisco in the middle of a room, and everyone
would keep double-dipping all the time.
That doesn’t happen so much anymore.”
At that,
I could see out of the corner of my eye my one redhead’s head visibly snap back
in shock.
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