BDSM RTV MEDIA NEWS!!!!


08 june 2009


Southeast LeatherFest marks 25 years
Attendees span spectrum of sexual orientations, gender identities



Source: www.sovo.com Sovo.com - Atlanta,GA,USA


IF YOU WANT TO LEARN THE BASICS of BDSM, how two tops can make a relationship work, or the art of leather play, then the Southeast LeatherFest is for you.


Celebrating its 25th festival this year and open to all people regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, SELF includes a weekend full of classes, entertainment, parties and role-playing.

Organizers have shifted the schedule so that there is more programming on Friday and less on Sunday, have lowered ticket prices across the board and are offering one-day and vendor fair-only passes.

“We’re a little different this year,” says SELF co-owner Catherine Gross. “Everyone else has had to tighten their belt. We are a community event, why shouldn’t we do the same thing? We know what’s going on with our attendees, everyone has been hit hard... It was the right thing to do, and we did it.”

Instead of going deep into the night on Sunday, organizers changed the schedule to wind down with a cookout Sunday evening.

“It’s easier for people to take off a Friday rather than a Monday, so we’ve moved some of the programming from Sunday to Friday,” Gross says. “The cookout is just a great fun time.”

MUCH OF WHAT HAS MADE SELF A SUCCESS will return, but it will be the last year for the popular Friday night ‘Carnalval.’

“There are dungeon parties every night [and] the Carnalval is definitely a highlight. We take a giant room and there are all these booths and you play games and collect stars and then you get a prize,” Gross says.

Among the prizes given out will be gift certificates to vendors and other prizes such as “evil sticks.”

“It’s really fun and game; it’s a time to just laugh,” Gross says.

Gross says this will be the last time the Carnalval is performed, but dropped hints at something bigger for the 2010 festival.

“This will be the last year we have Carnalval. We have to change every couple of years and so this the second year and we’re done,” she says.

SELF will offer more than 20 workshops on topics ranging from “Cocksucking/Dyke Style” to proper table and tea service. Tea service?

“If you talk with someone about BDSM, you are talking about physical play; when you talk to someone about leather, you’re talking about perfecting our physical skills, from formal dining service to tea service to how to press a shirt,” she says. “Believe it or not, there is a whole genre of what we do that is focused on doing things very well.”

This year will see a new Mr. and Ms. SELF crowned, a boot-blacking contest and a master/slave contest.