BDSM RTV MEDIA NEWS!!!!



09 january 2011


Leather getting kinky in Kanpur


Source: www.theage.com.au  - Theage - Australia


INDIA- KANPUR- ONE of India's dirtiest and most polluted towns, Kanpur, is a byword for leather goods. Its 400 tanneries churn out handbags, shoes and belts for sale in India and around the world. But they also cater to sex fetishists, kinky sex addicts, masochists, sadists and bondage lovers in the West.


This is not a fact Kanpur's big leather exporters advertise but some of them say the smaller factories in town manufacture leather hogties, sex swings (a type of harness used for sexual intercourse in which one partner is suspended while the other moves freely), arm and ankle binders, blindfolds, breast harnesses and thongs.

This is a far cry from Kanpur's respectable origins as the 'Manchester of India' in the 19th century under British rule when ruddy-faced English industrialists set up factories to make saddles and leather goods for the British army back home.

The main buyers are in the US, Britain, Australia, Germany, Canada and south-east Asia and include sex shop owners and individuals who order online. The appeal of Kanpur leather sex goods is that they are good quality, well made and cheaper than elsewhere.

''Even though there is a recession in the West, they say it hasn't affected sales,'' said Dhiraj Puri, who does not manufacture such goods but knows smaller exporters who do.

''It began as a small affair initially some years ago but I believe it's good business now though people don't really want to talk about it.'''

Specifications are online but buyers do visit Kanpur to make sure deliveries meet specifications. One exporter said occasionally couples from Europe visited his factory to give specific designs for their own use.

The best selling items are sex swings, ankle and wrist restraints, whips, and hogties - used to tie all four limbs together, rendering a person immobile.

The demand, it seems, is entirely from abroad, not from Indians. ''My gut feeling is that Indians are not really into bondage and sado-masochism,'' said New Delhi author Satish Kumar. Nor are there sex shops in India as any such outlet would be attacked by right wing Hindu groups as ''debauched'' and ''anti-Western''.

Even the Kama Sutra is light on sado-masochism, confining itself merely to describing consensual slapping as ''erotic''.

Balwinder Singh (his name has been changed), who makes leather furniture, believes the sex accessory trade evolved from the equestrian goods manufacturers in Kanpur.

''Saddles, harnesses and whips are all hand-made, use good quality leather and rubber and require special skills from the workers. Someone, somewhere in Europe, probably realised that these skills would be perfect for making bondage goods,'' he said.

Some exporters dismissed the idea of Kanpur as a centre of kinky sex products. Subhash Gupta, who owns Zorba International, which makes goods for the pet industry, said reports of containers of whips and restraints being shipped out of India were exaggerated.

''Look, I make very smart dog collars and leashes for sale in pet shops. If people in London or New York use these things on themselves or their partners when they have sex, then that's nothing to do with me,'' he said.