Embrace your kink

I'm so excited. I just can’t hide it. The 22nd Bloomington Eroticon is this coming Saturday! Whee! \n“What is Eroticon?” the new-to-Bloomington reader might ask. Oh, it’s only the last event you’d ever expect to find in Southern Indiana and another reason why we should be very proud to live in Bloomington.\nEvery year, gender-queers, bondage slaves, big doms, voyeurs, exhibitionists, queens, kings, pansexuals, polyamorists and otherwise flirty connoisseurs of non-mainstream sexualities gather at Jake’s Nightclub to embrace their fetishes and celebrate sexual education and safety. Part fetish-ball, part education, Eroticon is an opportunity to break out your clothing kink and play with your fantasies in a safe, non-judgmental environment.\nAccording to the event’s Web site, this year’s Eroticon will feature not only the expected fabulous outfits exhibited by attendees, but also contests, including a shoe/boot competition (let’s hear it for foot fetishes!), a kissing competition, toy vendors (riding crops and dildos and edible undies, oh my!) and theatrically performed fantasies. What I am most looking forward to is the return of the Indiana Masters and Slaves/Submissives/Switches, a group dedicated to promoting tolerance, honesty and education regarding Bondage, Discipline, Domination, Submission, Sadism and Masochism as a safe and healthy lifestyle. This Saturday, they will monitor a safe BDSM play space within Jake’s and educate attendees on the principles of safe power exchange in consensual situations. Curious about the safest ways to bond the submissive in your life? They’ll teach you. Want ideas for your collaring ceremony? There will be plenty of knowledgeable folks eager to share their expertise. \nEroticon has come to be known for gorgeous people (the most beautiful people in Bloomington, I would venture to say) wearing outrageously hot outfits, and doing outrageously hot things with each other (thank you, Indiana Masters and Slaves/Submissives/Switches), but it represents so much more. The dedication to safety and education that permeates the entire event every year is a testament to the caliber of people involved in the scene it embraces. Of course the leather is sexy, the toys are fun and the alcohol and pheromones pumping through the club environment act as a social lubricant, but it is the commitment to tolerance, community and education that makes Eroticon more than your average Saturday night meat market. \nThe Eroticon planners are wholly committed to promoting a sense of communal trust and acceptance. Whatever you’re into, they’re into the fact that you’re into it. There is nothing too weird or taboo, as long as it follows the outlines of mutual consent. There will be bins overflowing with condoms and dental dams. There will be a proliferation of pamphlets on safer sex, sexually transmitted disease prevention and BDSM safety. Individuals will be there, exposing their own fantasies with the trust that all in attendance will be open to share theirs as well. \nSo, this Saturday, dress up (or dress down), equipped with an open mind and hunger for kink, and experience everything Eroticon has to offer. What are you going to wear?