Kinks on parade | lawrence.com

Photo by Dan Rathburn / special to lawrence.com

Friday, January 6, 2006

Vanillas need not apply.

That’s the disclaimer for anyone interested in attending performances by Lawrence fetishists Contra Naturam. “Vanilla,” you see, is code for the kind of people who like their sex straight down the middle; the kind of people who think “kinky” equates to “doggy-style.”

Ribald morality-agitator Jericho van de Velde heads up the nine-piece troupe, which visits local clubs like The Bottleneck, Last Call and The Granada to add a level of S&M sophistication to your weekend hook-ups. Staged fetish performances comprise the meat of Contra Naturam’s show, though improv and audience participation are encouraged in equal measure (see: “groping booth”).

The troupe will bring its “Contra Club” to The Granada on Saturday. Envisioned as 1920’s burlesque show for the fetish contingent, the evening will also feature a cabaret set from Kansas City’s Alacartoona as well as aphrodisiac finger-foods and an interactive S&M play area.

Van de Velde (a.k.a Jericho) and female performer Saphron (her name is withheld at her request) joined us to discuss Contra Naturam and all things kink. Be advised that our discussion borders on mint chocolate-chip.

What makes your fetish show unique?

Jericho: We’re more of a theatrical production than you normally see at a fetish night. If you go to the clubs in New York, Vegas and L.A. — the large cities where they have fetish clubs that just do fetish — usually what you’ll see is one or two feature performers and a lot of people doing random stuff onstage. But it’s mostly focusing on exhibiting the S&M — spanking, hot wax and so forth … There’s nothing other than the shock of it. It’s like the difference between watching an old-style burlesque striptease and going to Allstar’s.

Photo by Dan Rathburn / special to lawrence.com

Saphron (left) and Jericho on stage during the last Contra Naturam show at the Bottleneck in June.

So you’re a fan of Allstar’s?

Jericho: I love strip clubs. I like anything on the underbelly of the human experience, really, and strip clubs definitely fall into that. I like raunchy atmospheres. I like the bars where all the girls are gorgeous and it all looks clean and perfect and I like the ones where it’s kind of grungy and you don’t want to walk into the bathrooms.

That surprises me a little bit. I thought you would be kind of anti-strip club, perhaps, because you have a more elegant presentation.

Saphron: Strippers can be elegant and refined, too. That’s how they portray themselves a lot.

Have you ever been a stripper?

Saphron: No, not a modern stripper or anything like that. I’ve done burlesque-style stripping and stuff like that, but that’s not completely nude. Burlesque stars don’t have g-strings.

Contra Naturam Fetish Night

When: Saturday, Jan. 7, 2006, 8 p.m.
Where: The Granada, 1020 Mass., Lawrence
Cost: $5
Age limit: 18+

Full event details

Jericho: We try to be more artsy as opposed to a bump-and-grind display. We don’t do nudity. We don’t do live sex. We play with the imagination more than “Dude – tits!” But really what it comes down to is sexual freedom and liberation and I think it’s great that strip clubs exist. I mean, there’s sad stories attached to them, of course. But for the most part I’m pro-stripper.

Do you find that your audiences are enlightened? Are they what you would hope for?

Saphron: A lot of our audience comes to our show to get something out of it. If we can provide that for them, then that’s great. If they’re looking for the bump-and-grind then they’re not going to disappointed. They’re going to get more than that.

Jericho: We get a lot of people who come out of curiosity: “Dude — chicks in latex. Let’s go.” I would say that the majority of our audience knows what to expect. They’re people that are in some way inculcated in the lifestyle: either full-time dommes and dominants or into the lifestyle privately. I’d say about 40 percent are people that aren’t quite sure what to expect but they’re hoping to see a sexual display. And they get it to a certain point, but we don’t go to that lowest common denominator … We want our shows to excite. We want people to go home and have sex.

Photo by Dan Rathburn / special to lawrence.com

Saphron: And they do. And sometimes they don’t make it home before that happens.

Jericho: And I cannot legally encourage anybody to have sex at the show. I cannot legally ENCOURAGE people to have sex at the venue. I cannot legally encourage people to HAVE SEX AT THE VENUE. But that has happened.

Are there more places to “not have sex at the venue” at The Granada than the Bottleneck?

Jericho: I would say that the Granada does offer a more potentially intimate atmosphere … We are going to have a VIP lounge in there eventually.

So, when I hear about a “groping booth” I think about Halloween and blindfolded people putting their hands in bowls of spaghetti.

Saphron: That’s kind of where the idea came from.

Jericho: Basically anybody that wants to can go inside the box. Anybody that wants to reach a hand in — as long as they’re wearing a latex glove — can. Again, we don’t promote anything overtly sexual. It’s not like you get people in there stripping down and suddenly getting fist-fucked from every direction.

Saphron: I’ve been inside and out. The first time that I went in it there were two other people in there and there must have been like 10 people on the outside of the box, so there were hands everywhere on everyone … I came out of there and I was like, “Wow — I’m so glad we built that box.”

Jericho: The anonymity really allows for an amazing experience. You have to imagine standing in the corner of a box up against a wall and there are these hands touching you. They’re not necessarily going for any particular part of your body, because the person that owns the hand might be a little bit shy or not know what your gender is. You just have anonymous hands all over random parts of your body caressing you or massaging you. It’s amazing.

Do you think part of Contra Naturam’s mission is to make an underground lifestyle overground?

Saphron: Some people are still afraid of it, or some people still think it should be kept behind closed doors. Really, it shouldn’t. People should learn to express their sexuality, no matter what it is.

Audio interviews

I imagine both of you have private sexual lives as well…

Jericho: No. The show is so hot that we have no more sexual energy left afterwards.

I guess what I’m getting at is that you could have a lot of fun without having the show at The Granada. Why do you want to take it to a public stage?

Saphron: Some of those people who come want to learn more about fetish and they don’t know where to go or how to do it … We have audience participation most of the time and that gives them an opportunity to come onstage and see different types of equipment and try it out or have it tried out on them.

Jericho: We’re armchair authorities on our art. We’ve had a lot of people ask us advice.

How much of your own sexuality are you expressing onstage?

Jericho: It’s not real life. I tell the people in the troupe this all the time. You’re not actually having sex onstage — it’s all simulated. Part of it is acting. If I was onstage, say, flogging somebody, I probably wouldn’t do it for the same length of time that I would if they were at home … And there might be things that I do that I wouldn’t do at home, but I’m doing it for the sake of the show.

We do show a little bit of ourselves, but we’re not exploiting ourselves. It’s like a stripper who keeps her thong on — she’s not showing you her pussy, but you can see where it is and get an idea of what it might look like.

There might be a perception that you guys are some wild and crazy swingers. Are you?

Jericho: Some of the people in the troupe are bonafide hedonists, I would say. There are some people in the troupe that are definitely sexual experimenters — girls or guys gone wild. Some of us are actually kind of conservative, as far as what we show the public. One person in particular I know is just about as kinky as you can get, but you’d never be able to tell just from talking to them. Except for onstage or in their private life, they just don’t show it.

It shouldn’t be assumed that just because we’re playing a role, that’s what we’re like in real life. Brad Pitt doesn’t run a fight club. Anthony Hopkins doesn’t eat human kidneys.

Describe the most conservative person in your troupe.

Jericho: Well, one of the people in our troupe rides horses in competition. I think some people would be surprised at how she applies her knowledge of reins and harnesses to her private life. We had an ex-member who was in the military and very successful. I don’t think they had any inkling of how he used what he learned about discipline and being a dominant personality.

What’s the worst thing about being out-there public figures? What are the things you wish you could leave behind?

Jericho: I can’t get a damn job. I’ve been turned down for a couple of jobs that I was well qualified for solely because I appeared on the cover of The Pitch as the representative of fetishism in the area. These are jobs that required me dealing with the public and businesses, and they felt that would give them a bad image even though it had been a year-and-a-half since that article came out. I didn’t walk in with floggers and leather pants and so-on-and-so-forth, but you get known for being a part of something like this.

There are people that are offended by the fact that we exist and think we are horrible people with these gross sexual displays. There are a lot of people that don’t understand the sadomasochistic lifestyle. They don’t understand dominance and submission and feel that it’s all about exploitation. Anytime the shouting matches do start — and it has happened a few times — really what it comes down to is that this isn’t for you. This is for the people that are into this. Like polka music, or country music in Europe.

Do you think the term “sadomasochism” applies to all of you? Is that a prerequisite to get involved?

Jericho: Not a prerequisite at all. Sadomasochism, of course, refers to exchanging pain — enjoying either the receiving or the giving of pain. There is a certain amount of that in every one of our shows, but being into S&M isn’t necessarily a requirement. Being a fetishist is — being able to have empathy for the stuff that we do onstage. I might be getting spanked by Saphron during the show. That’s not particularly my thing, but I can make it look like it is.

Saphron: More people have fetishes than they even know. It’s whatever it takes to get you off.

What about stuff that’s sort of “entry-level,” like voyeurism or multiple partners. Does that relate to your interests?

Saphron: If that ends up carrying on after college and it’s something that becomes a part of that person’s sexual appetite, then yeah, I would consider them a fetishist.

Jericho: Anybody wanting to join our troupe primarily has to have enthusiasm … and a little bit of stage presence.

Saphron: There are a lot of people, like librarians, let’s say, who like to go home and get spanked and get tied up. Some people have a 24-7 lifestyle of fetish where they have a dominant and submissive relationship … Let’s say you have a husband and wife couple and the man is dominant — the wife may be required to eat out of a dog dish or she might crawl around the house fetching their slippers. That can be a regular part of their life and that’s how they feel comfortable.

Jericho: You can’t assume that because someone looks kinky, they are. And you can’t assume that because somebody doesn’t look kinky, that they’re not.

Saphron: Some of the people that do look kinky and do dress weird are very, very straight when it comes to sex.

Jericho: Freaky goth girls can be some of the dullest chicks in bed.

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Posted by gerisong (anonymous) on October 3, 2006 at 6:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Hi ,DOes the girl Saphron have a tattoo of a Koi fish on her left arm?

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