Taboos Fall At Fetish Trade Show

By MIKE WELLS The Tampa Tribune

Published: Aug 12, 2007

TAMPA - Pass through the big black curtain onto the convention floor of Fetishcon VII and you enter a place where taboos cease to exist.

On Saturday, at the convention inside downtown's Hyatt Regency Tampa, a corseted man with a horse bit in his mouth pulled a carriage with a woman brandishing a crop in her hand.

A vinyl-clad woman and a few masked guests of undistinguishable gender posed for photos and walked alongside others wearing more conventional clothing.

The annual adult entertainment convention draws about 2,500 visitors each year to the Hyatt, where the trade show has been held for four years.

For some consenting adults, bondage and corporal punishment are more than a spicy hobby, and they'll pay handsomely to get the right equipment.

Among the nearly 80 vendor booths, photographer Brad Ingrao of LifestyleImages.org demonstrated tying a man to a bondage chair in front of the man's giggling friends.

"I don't really think of it so much as rope bondage as I do rope art," he said, symmetrically crisscrossing the man's left leg with red braided rope.

"Everybody has a right to live authentically," Ingrao said. "Events like this give people the opportunity to stretch their boundaries and become more empowered."

The convention began Friday and runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. today. Registration at the door is $25.

Workshops on flogging, bondage and various erotic techniques drew crowds of costumed watchers to the hotel's meeting rooms. Many attendees are experienced, one vendor said.

"We don't do a lot of 'informing' at this show," said a woman who identified herself only as Liz, a rope and medical fetish vendor. "Most of these people are very well informed about what they're doing."

Her booth carries 84 spools of rope in 25 colors and a table covered with clamps, suction cups and other devices.

"We started coming with the very first show in New York and we've been back every year since," she said.

"I think the Internet, TV and movies have helped a lot to make this more acceptable to the mainstream. It has become less of a taboo."