When you whip somebody, it’s important not to hit the kidneys, behind the knees, or that small part just below the solar plexus. “It’ll make you throw up,” explains Gabrielle Antolovich, the 1990 International Ms. Leather, who is pacing back and forth in the front of the Executive House’s Miro Room with a slow, deliberate casualness.
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Still, Antolovich, selected at the women’s contest a few months ago, is a bit of a celebrity among the men and women here. But there’s little besides her presence here for women. Her workshop is the only women’s event on the official schedule. In the “crafts” area, merchants sell cock rings, something called Anal Glow Cream, cock sheaths, handcuffs, a toilet target game called Potty Pot Shots, and videos of men in chains. Nothing except–possibly–the tit clamps (which come in clothespin or scissors styles) might be used as toys by leather women.
“So women need to be more imaginative, more creative about it,” says Ruby, an immaculately dressed woman who could pass as a lawyer on her way to court. “The boys aren’t going to show us. How are they going to know what we like? Besides, if I want toys, I buy them at the Michigan festival. There’s a whole store of them there–things like dildos that look like fingers and handcuffs in women’s sizes.”
“That’s not abuse?” asks a tall, plain-looking woman, a technician with the Gay Cable Network, the local-access producers of The Ten Percent Show, a program aimed at the gay and lesbian community. The network is taping Antolovich’s appearance.
Antolovich says trust is imperative between partners. She doesn’t recommend that people jump into big scenes right away, but advises that they do little scenes for a very long time. “We go through a lot, work through a lot of stuff. You have to be there when someone else is in trouble, so that you deserve the same kind of attention when you need it.”
“Look, it’s not about violence,” says Lorien. She has brittle blond hair sprouting from the top of her head, and she’s shaved around her ears and in the back. “First, there’s a feeling, a turn-on. You build on that. I don’t know why I like most things I like. They just get me warm and wet.”
“Look, I go to S-M parties and sometimes I think, ‘I can’t believe I’m into this,’” Antolovich confesses. “It’s ugly. I want to throw up. So I go to the bathroom and tell myself, ‘This is your old attitude.’ Sometimes I look at my lover and say, ‘I can’t believe I want to do this to her.’ But I know it’s just the old stuff, the old propaganda.”
