Rubber Soul

Dean Kuipers Rips the Foil off London's Latex Scene

Halloween Night in latex. In London. What do you have to lose? In my hometown of Los Angeles, rubber wear is a hot trend bordering on couture, but we have a squeaky thing or two to learn from the Brits. The fetish that was once a private turn-on has now become an international, public fashion statement. Rubber has made nightlife bounce again.

The planet's most sex-drenched Halloween party takes place in London at the annual Skin Two Rubber Ball, and there is no better place to expand your own erotic sensitivities. Thankfully, rubber is playful and doesn't require the same commitment as B&D or leather gear. Its couture cachet appeals to women, and these events--part runway show, part nightclub--present them with an opportunity for wild release. I had the good fortune to be in London for the 1996 Rubber Ball at the Hammersmith Palais, so I scurried out under the cover of night to party with the pervs (the wonderful Brit term for fetishists). I woke from a wild night out with the following tips for those bold souls who might want to attend this October's pervery:

Plan ahead. There are more fetish boutiques in London than anywhere else in Europe. Virgin Group chairman Richard Branson even mentioned touring them with Pamela Anderson. Such stores as Murray & Vern, Skin Two, Ectomorph and Libidex feature the best rubber and fetish designers. Even so, when I tried to get outfitted the day of the ball, I ran around in a panic with the store listings from the back pages of Skin Two magazine to find that every store had been cleaned out. No joke: There were only a few shirts with torn-out zippers, shorts that would fit a sumo wrestler and full-body sea-diving suits left hanging on otherwise bare racks. I hadn't brought my rubber wear from the U.S., which was dumb, because the stuff can be expensive. I couldn't even find a garden-variety rubber shirt or crappy throwaway PVC jeans.

Swallow your pride and improvise. I scored one of my favorite outfits of all time at a gay London fetish store called Regulation. I bought a blaze-orange jumpsuit and orange shoelaces. I wore the suit with the side zippers open and a black jockstrap underneath. It worked. A German guy and his statuesque girl gave me props with a muttered "Teuer, teuer" ("Cool, cool") as I passed by.

Bring a date. Fashion may be the fetish (as my friend Trash likes to say), but the fetish itself is overtly sexual. Even if you have no idea of what you'd like to do in the bubble-wrap diaper you're wearing, or who you'd like to do it with, you're going to get a few ideas as soon as you rub up against 4000 half-naked techno-grooving pervs. Especially in London, because the celebrants are generally gorgeous. With a long tradition of less prudish attitudes toward nudity, the European fetish balls draw incredibly attractive people. For instance, there was a young Scandinavian woman, beautiful and bald. She was smiling beatifically, her whole body shaved, and she wore only shoes and a collar. A man led her around the dance floor by a leash. I also fell in love with a gorgeous redhead who wore a thin-strap harness that outlined her breasts and sneaked right up the gap of her shaved vulva.

She danced all night long with another woman who was swinging a riding crop over her own head. As you might imagine, all these naked strangers can make a young traveler lonely. I danced long hours, lost among revelers in various states of undress and public displays of lust. The moral is, unless you find some enlightened group action, you're not going to get any. Like most balls, the London event broke down to couples in corners and knots of diehards on the dance floor. Leave by two A.M. This is the lonely hour.

Don't be afraid to invite someone to a ball. I asked several coworkers and acquaintances to go at the last minute, and despite the Brits' reputation for stodginess, none of them seemed put out. Everyone has their secret fantasies and you never know when you might bump right into them.

The bigger the balls, the better. At a 4000-person ball, the No Overt Sex Acts and No Rudery signs are easy to ignore. At balls on both sides of the Atlantic, I've seen people engaged in all kinds of sex acts. The most blatant scene on Halloween was this guy who held an attractive girl on his lap. She wore a cartoonish baby-doll dress--minus bra and panties. Both his hands were in-her crotch, and he twiddled her hugely distended clitoris absently at all passersby. A photographer knelt before her and she just kept smiling. Then she made like she was going to squirt the camera.

The later it is, the more naked it gets. This is especially true for women. A lot of first-timers discover how safe and liberating these events are, then go back to the coat check to dump cumbersome bras and panties. I waited in a line for a stall in the men's room with two totally naked women in stiletto heels, and I saw a man and a woman duck into a stall and emerge wearing considerably less than they had going in. It's a calm, cool feeling to share bathrooms and typically private (concluded on page 146)Rubber Soul(continued from page 103) spaces--like being allowed to party in the dressing room of a strip club.

Safe sex, safe sex, safe sex. The 1996 Skin Two Rubber Ball was a benefit for Cruis-aids, an AIDS research and relief organization. Always wear your rubber--it could save your life.

Favorite sights from the Rubber Ball:

• A skinny guy who'd wrapped his crotch in clear cellophane.

• A senior citizen in a red rubber body suit--including a hood. His outfit was so tight, he couldn't bend over.

• A pair of women upstairs at the photographer's booth. Both were dressed as Heidi (if Heidi were to wear a vampire cap and Vampirella canines). At first they were bending over and pulling their panties up the cracks of their asses. Later in the night they were naked and sweating and doing full-on dildo penetration shots for a crowd.

• A girl with her hair in pigtails that jutted from her head like stag horns. Lit candles were twisted into the ends of each tail. A woman standing next to me let the dripping wax fall on her nipples, one at a time.

Best rubber. A gorgeous model in a full suit of blue rubber from hood to toe. She had blue Mercury wings flashing down the sides of her face. She was quite possibly the most beautiful fetish woman I've ever seen face-to-face. She took fetish gear beyond camp and made it pure couture.

Standard uniforms. Expect to see a lot of men dressed as leather daddies, cops and soldiers. Little Bo Peeps, French maids and vampire vixens are legion. Also, the Goth look refuses to go away.

Be ready for beautiful people. I'm talking about the better of the hotties. These are not old swingers who show up at some sad nightclub. These people are fresh. They're doing it for a hot night out. It's not necessarily a lifestyle. Many of the men are clearly gay, which adds to the party atmosphere, but the girls are mostly hetero or bi. Most of them come in pairs or trios and leave their red-faced macho boys back home, parked on the couch in front of the football game. Then, in the safety of their companions, the girls proceed to get totally wild. If you hook up with one, her girlfriend may join in. (I found this out firsthand at the Los Angeles Fetish Ball and, even though they were both good friends of mine, it was still a pleasant surprise.) Any man who can play into the fantasy without being a sleazy Mr. Leisure Suit (even a naked one is annoying) has a chance to be a hero for his girl--or somebody else's. Your girlfriend or wife probably loves it. So go ahead and ask her. You not only will be rewarded for giving your lover a nasty little treat in private, but you will also be pleasantly surprised when you take the costume out for a test-drive in public. I dare you.

Nightlife

Club Lingo: Blagging is the art of scamming your way into a hot venue. Liggers are people who've pulled off a successful scam, or lig. And deck deities are DJs. So when it comes to London's mercurial nightlife, act important, perfect your accent and join the queue.

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Blue Note (1 Hoxton Square, N1, 0171-729-8440): The most musically vibrant spot in town features everything from jazz to techno. Word of mouth is that it's either the epicenter of cool or so in it's almost out.

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Met Bar at the Metropolitan Hotel (Old Park Lane, W1, 0171-808-8188): Order your martini at the red-leather and dark wood bar. The Met's been packed with such celebrities as the Spice Girls, Yasmin Le Bon and Malcolm McLaren.

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The End (16a West Central Street, WC1, 0171-419-9199): Drum and bass charge the dancing on the main floor. Freestyle house and breakbeats keep the air-conditioned lounge equally cool.

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The Hanover Grand (6 Hanover Street, W1, 0171-499-7977): It's close to the offices of Vogue and is full of scenesters. Thursday is supermodel night.

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Heaven (Under the Arches, Villiers Street, WC2, 0171-839-3852): There's a live PA in the Kinetic Room, or you can head to the Alchemy Bar for ambient sounds.

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LA 2 (157 Charing Cross Road, WC2, 0171-434-0403): This popular indie-rocking club has live acts on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

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Groucho Club (45 Dean Street, Soho, 0171-439-4685): The Groucho was opened as media-and film-types' answer to old, stuffy gentlemen's clubs. Forget about getting in unless you have connections.

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Ministry of sound (103 Gaunt Street, SE1, 0171-378-6528): Ever been in an aircraft hangar? Here's a chance to relive that magic moment.

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Jazz Cafe (5 Parkway, NW1, 0171-916-6000): Attracts big names in jazz, so expect some experienced poseurs.