Possibly “the most important victory in SM rights since Spanner” (according to specialist sexual freedoms lawyer Myles Jackman) took place last week. (If you click on the link, you will need to scroll past the first decision, which refers to a food outlet). Effectively, a local council agreed that a venue hosting various LGBTQ and kink events can go about its business without unneccessary interference from the authorities.
In my serious kink-clubbing days, there was something of a shift in attitudes: firstly after Spanner, which unnerved plenty of people – but then again, after the Whiplash trial, which was also something of a victory. After the jury acquitted the defendent, it was generally accepted that the view of the Crown Prosecution Service (and plenty of police officers) was ‘stop wasting our fucking time’ with regard to complaints about fetish clubs that were not reports of assault or theft but just puritanical whinyarsery about the fact that these clubbers didn’t wear much and were interested in kinky sex. Gossip at the time suggested that most police officers considered the fetish crowd to be a lot less worth harassing or raiding than regular clubs, though this may not have been entirely true.
It’s particularly encouraging for this to have happened now, though. Some of us have been wondering for a while when this dire, brutal, ignorant government would decide that ‘perverts’ are the next target for culture wars and moral panic, and queer people, given the UK history of attacks on kink, there has been reason to worry. It’s always worth remembering that a lot of the absolutely worst anti-trans arseholes have prior form for going after porn and sexual diversity, and much of their anti-trans fearmongering includes elements of ‘pervert’-bashing.
But this little victory might help keep them at bay for a bit… and it might even be a little seed of liberation that, growing bigger, could shelter more people.