S+ ASSOCIATION FOUNDERS: Group promo shot featuring six representatives from the founding UK event brands. Left-right: Zara DuRose (ZDR Events); CK Nam (Burning Nest/MicroBurn/London Decompression); Ben Manflesh (rear); Lara Murray aka Divine Theratrix (front); Sinead Mac Manus (The Fox Den); Yasmin (Torture Garden)
S+ Association: new UK trade org launched for sex-positive events
AUGUST COVER STORY: London saw the launch in June of S+ Association, a not-for-profit trade organisation for the UK’s sex-positive events industry. Founded by a group of event organisers and welfare monitors, S+ aims to establish shared safety standards and better all-round understanding of the laws applying to sex-positive events such as fetish and play parties. Seven speakers representing the Association’s founders gave short talks to the launch’s invited industry audience at Electrowerkz, followed by an enthusiastic Q&A. Report and event pictures by Tony Mitchell. Top banner image: speakers at the launch included Fox Den founder Sinead Mac Manus and Torture Garden co-founder Allen Pelling
A group of event organisers and their invited audience at London’s famous Electrowerkz venue made history in June, by participating in the London launch of S+ Association, a new, not-for-profit trade organisation for the UK’s sex-positive events industry.
S+ Association — launched after a year of behind-the-scenes development — has been formed to represent the interests both of organisers of sex-positive UK events such as fetish and play parties, and the individuals working at those events as welfare monitors.
It was started by a group of volunteers from the event world — including Torture Garden — who share a passion for the industry and a common goal to make it as safe as possible.
The group argues that working towards a set of shared safety standards, as well as a better all-round understanding of how UK law applies to sex-positive events, will lead to better relationships with police, councils, venue managements, banks and insurers.
And there’s a real need for better relationships when kink event hosts and other sex-positive promoters regularly encounter issues with one or more of these bodies that make organising events unnecessarily problematic.
Zara at Blade Runner, her ‘last London event for the foreseeable future’ (photo: Hyder Images)
The latest evidence of this need arose as this article was in preparation. Zara DuRose of ZDR Events (above) — one of the founding members of S+ Association — announced on August 1 that ZDR’s Blade Runner party on Saturday August 3 would be its last London event “for the foreseeable future”.
Zara cited the shortage of suitable venues as one of the key reasons for her decision to put her London events on hold.
Redevelopment of venue sites (often for housing) is a major issue all over the place — cities like London were already experiencing it well before covid, and it has accelerated since the pandemic.
But anyone who has followed ZDR’s recent fortunes will be aware that its events have suffered venue cancellations unconnected with redevelopment.
Rather, they’ve been the result of action by venue owners/managements, withdrawing their venues at the last minute over licensing concerns or other external pressures from authorities. And this was an issue raised by many industry folk at the S+ launch.
The launch on June 12 in the Courtyard Bar at Electrowerkz saw seven speakers from its founding organisations address a capacity crowd of industry folk.
The audience were then given the chance to voice their own points and to ask questions in the following Q&A — demonstrating an impressive level of enthusiasm for the Association and engagement with its declared objectives.
Both parts of the programme were chaired/MC’d by Sinead Mac Manus, founder of The Fox Den, who combined an undeniable gift of the gab with stern control over the five-minute time limit for each presentation
Sinead gave the first talk; the other speakers, in order of appearance, were:
Lara Murray (aka Divine Theratrix); Allen Pelling (aka Allen TG of Torture Garden); Emma Hartmand (co-founder of Dominium Vita); CK Nam (consenting lead for Burning Nest, MicroBurn and London Decompression); Scott Jordan (community manager at Electrowerkz); and Logan Star (co-founder of Quench).
In addition to the founding organisations represented by the speakers above, the following events had applied for membership at the time of publication: Art of Darkness, The; Chardmore Society; Climax Parties; Divine Darkness; Imaginarium; Naughties Entertainment; Riot; Sexquisite; 7 Sins.
splusassociation.org.uk
WHAT EXACTLY IS A SEX-POSITIVE EVENT?
Sex-positivity is self-evidently the core ethos of the events S+ Association has been formed to represent. So we thought we should begin with the definition of sex positivity embraced by the Association itself — provided by Sinead Mac Manus:
‘Sex positivity is an attitude towards human sexuality that regards all consensual sexual activities as fundamentally healthy and pleasurable, encouraging sexual pleasure and experimentation’
It’s logical, therefore, that S+ Association member events would be expected to subscribe to the same principles. But this does allow for different interpretations when defining exactly what a sex-positive event is.
We found a thoughtful article on Vice.com, originally published by Thump Germany, that addressed this question under the headline:
‘Sex-positive parties are not the same thing as sex parties’
Discussing the Berlin party scene (but applicable to other scenes like London’s too), the article asserts that there’s a common misconception about certain popular parties and clubs with darkrooms such as the legendary Berghain.
In most cases, explains author Thomas Vorreyer, the parties held at these venues aren’t, strictly speaking, full blown ‘sex parties’; instead, they’re sex-positive events, where sex is allowed but is not the main focus of the event. In other words:
“At sex-positive parties, people mainly go there to party, not necessarily to specifically engage in a given sex act.
“Partygoers are welcome to live out their sexuality, whatever it may be, in these settings, which are specifically designed to enable them to do so. But there’s absolutely no pressure intended.”
The author goes on to quote ‘Kathi from the poly motion party team’, who offers: “It’s more about sexual self-determination, and defining yourself in line with that. The term ‘sex-positive’ mainly comes from the feminist fight for equal rights in English-speaking countries.
“It primarily refers to seeking equal rights for minorities who continue to be oppressed. That includes recognising a wide range of sexual orientations as well as dispelling prejudices and untruths.”
Vorreyer notes that sex-positive parties are also mainly about providing a space for everyone who wouldn’t be able to feel comfortable elsewhere — or wouldn’t even be allowed in the door somewhere else in the first place.
“At sex-positive parties, you’re welcome to show up naked or in a fetish outfit, as long as everyone remains respectful and there’s no element of coercion according to such parties’ often publicly displayed standards.”
You can read the full Vice article here. And for a good backgrounder on the whole sex-positive movement, this Wikipedia article is recommended.
Interested in learning more about the sex-positive community? Check out the upcoming Fox Den Forum organised by Sinead Mac Manus, taking place in London on September 8. More details in the box at the bottom of Page 3 here!
WHAT THE SEVEN SPEAKERS SAID AT THE S+ LAUNCH…
This page: Sinead Mac Manus, Lara Murray, Allen Pelling
Speakers are featured in order of appearance. Texts have been slightly edited for length
SINEAD MAC MANUS (founder, The Fox Den)
SINEAD MAC MANUS, Fox Den founder & S+ Association launch MC (S+ launch photo: Tony Mitchell)
After introducing the speakers, Sinead asked audience members from various groups — industry workers, monitors, performers, police, local councils, mayor’s office — to stand and show themselves, which drew cheers from the crowd.
“We’d love to work together with you to have more venues, she assured those groups. “Nothing we do is illegal. We’d love more venues so it doesn’t go underground where things can get a bit hairy.” And she wanted the Press to know “we’re not a bunch of weirdos”.
Sinead revealed that the original idea for S+ Association had come from lawyer Lara Murray, the evening’s next speaker.
“When Lara approached me a year ago, saying she was thinking of setting up a trade association for all the industry, I absolutely jumped at it.
“Nothing we do is against the law but a lot of venues have preconceptions about what we do. We need to show that what we do is really positive for people.”
The Fox Den founder admitted she’d had a “really challenging three years”, including being turned down by one payment processor and having four bank accounts refused.
Last year was incredibly difficult, she said, yet many more sex positive events were starting up. “They [banks etc] are ruining businesses and we’re doing nothing wrong. I’ve had numerous venues shut down or pull out on me at the last minute.
“We need you guys to support the industry or the industry will die,” she warned. “I think we can create the best events for everybody but especially women, people of colour, and people from the LGBT community.”
LARA MURRAY (aka Divine Theratrix)
LARA MURRAY (Divine Theratrix): S+ Association was her brainchild (S+ launch photo: Tony Mitchell)
A professional kinkster who’d created Theratrix in 2018, Lara had previously been working full time in law, specialising in regulatory law and dispute resolution.
“The reason I had this idea is because my primary kink is policies and procedures,” she quipped.
“I spent years advising businesses on how they could comply with the law, how they could resolve problems when those problems arose.” On the kink side, she had run small events and worked at other people’s events as a welfare monitor.
“So I’m well aware of a lot of the problems that occur in that space, and what’s needed. It’s a really challenging environment — and challenging environments need policies and procedures!
“We all just need to be singing off the same hymn sheet — really, we need some standardisation.” And S+ Association, she said, had been formed to address issues like the uncertainty about what laws apply and how to navigate them.
“Because although we’re all very sure that we’re not doing anything wrong, the amount of times you get knocked back by a financial institution, a venue or something else… it really knocks your confidence and you do begin to doubt yourselves.”
Lara found herself frequently approached for advice from friends in the community.
“But as a lawyer I’d always had somewhere to signpost my clients to. I’d be able to say ‘You should really join this association, or subscribe to this service that’ll give you all the information you need. And the sex-positive industry didn’t have that, so I thought I could help out with that.”
The result is a group of people who’ve come together to volunteer their time and pool their expertise and industry knowledge
plus a little bit of a legal nerdery, to create what is “essentially an educational library”.
This means a new event host would immediately have access to “all the stuff we would have wanted to exist when we started out”, like how to make an event management plan, and how to be sure your event management plan will give an event that complies with the relevant regulations.
“Local councils know how to do this, and we know how to do this now! We’ve got guidance notes that will cover all sorts of things and hopefully we’ll get to work with other groups as well.
“Other groups out there are doing similar work, but we’re all kind of siloed-off and that’s fine, but we can still work together in our separate groups.
“And one of our calls to action to you is to come and talk to us, whether you’re in another group or you want to join us. There’s more work to be done — there’s a fuck ton more work to do.
“One piece of that work is going to be attempting to create something like an industry standard code of conduct for events. Which is really bloody difficult because we run our events differently.
“That’s why we need all of us to talk about it. I know directly from the Metropolitan Police that they are very supportive of our events and they really want us to say to them, ‘Hey, as operators, were telling you, this is how we do things, this is the standard code of conduct‘.
“They want that information from us. If they have that information from us, they can more confidently liaise with venues and liaise with us — we can provide this information to stakeholders.
“By coming together as a collective, we amplify our voices. We’re all doing excellent stuff — but we’ve been doing it separately.”
ALLEN PELLING (aka Allen TG, co-founder, Torture Garden)
ALLEN PELLING (aka Allen TG), Torture Garden co-founder (S+ launch photo: Tony Mitchell)
Allen began by noting that Torture Garden started in 1990, as part of a new wave of fetish clubs that would emerge from the backstreets and basements of London into the mainstream.
“The fetish scene was a safe place for us to go and be ourselves, free to dress how we wanted and free to experiment sexually,” he recalled. But at this time, the police and councils were “considered the enemy, with events getting closed down at the last minute under pressure from the council, or even getting raided by the police”.
So, like other early fetish event hosts, TG kept their heads down. “Finding venues that would host us, like today, took a lot of work, with many venue owners scared of losing their licences. There was no communication between the authorities, the venues and the promoters.
“In 1994 the fetish club Whiplash was raided by more than 60 police, some with dogs, and Whiplash was charged with running a disorderly house. This caused even more fear and uncertainty for promoters and venues.
“But thankfully nearly two years later the case was thrown out by the judge, due to the fact that the customers were all consenting adults. This resulted in the police leaving us alone.”
As the scene grew and the police and councils became more familiar with fetish nights, they realised there were fewer issues at these events than at other events.
“Fetish crowds did not create the kind of problems that mainstream club crowds did, so the authorities became more helpful and are now very supportive.
“But they have always mainly spoken directly to the venues and not to us, the promoters — perhaps because the venues are the ones with the licence on the line. Or perhaps simply because they didn’t know how to approach our less-conventional businesses.”
Allen’s hope, with the formation of S+, was that promoters could speak to the authorities as one through the Association, and come together to make the scene safer.
“Fetish clubs by their nature have often been considered safer than normal club events. In the early ’90s you only heard about them by word of mouth, through other events in the alternative and gay scenes, flyers in sex shops etc.
“This led to a real sense of underground community. Coming to a fetish club would have been a quite daunting affair for the first time, but people generally behaved. The scene policed itself in many ways and in the main it was the same core people at each event.”
However, with the emergence of the internet, events started promoting via websites, message boards and email lists.
“Our reach expanded massively and magazines featured us. People could just go online and with a quick search could find out more about the scene. The scene became instantly more accessible, and as it’s grown, so has the acceptance of fetish in the mainstream.
“As TG’s customer base grew, so we had to adapt our safety policies at the club. We witnessed a new range of customers who were not so au fait with the — at the time — unwritten rules of fetish clubbing.”
The size of the nights and the volume of parties rapidly expanded, and TG had to make changes to cater for this. It introduced dungeon monitors in the late 1990s, although there was no training, and no guidelines to follow.
“Terms like ‘safeguarding’ and ‘welfare staff’ weren’t to come into common use for a long time yet. We were just learning and adapting on the job. We were just reacting to issues as we faced them, constantly evaluating where there were gaps, and what else needed to be done, just as we do today.”
After lockdown, there was “another huge explosion” in the scene, which put Torture Garden somewhat on the back foot.
“We had to review all our areas of health and safety. This included additional training of management and monitors with an outside agency, increasing welfare officers at our events, wearing bodycams, plus more awareness and communication both before and during the event with our customers.
“We had to make sure customers knew we were there to assist, and how to identify staff, and pushing home that we really do want to know about any problems so we can fix them.
“The hardest thing being not finding out until after the event that there was something we could have helped with. Again, we found ourselves being more reactive and all this took a great deal of time and money.
“So when we were approached about being part of the Association for the sex-positive scene, we could only think of positives. By utilising all of our collective knowledge and experience of running events, we can develop training, policy and resources that help us all.
“It would speed up the learning curve for us, help us be more proactive than reactive, and help venues, police and councils feel confident that association members are informed. Working as a collective should help us and allow our community the opportunity to thrive.”
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