Get your freak on

Fetish Flea & Freaker’s Ball, Saturday, May 29: Flea, 11 a.m.- 6 p.m. ; Freaker’s Ball, 9 p.m.- 3 a.m., Gentlemen’s Club 10 (205 Mundy St., Wilkes-Barre Twp.) Tickets: Flea $10, Ball $15, Combo Pass $20. Ages: 18+ Info: www.wix.com/NEPAFreakersBall/freakers-ball

Being tied up and gagged is not fun ... unless you ask for it.

Implied trust, a characteristic at the core of so many successful relationships, is a vital undercurrent in the erotically themed workshops and fetish play of the first Fetish Flea & Freaker’s Ball scheduled for Saturday at Gentlemen’s Club 10 in Wilkes-Barre Twp.

“You have to have the trust and an understanding of your partner,” said Ms. R, event organizer and resident of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

“If you don’t have that, you shouldn’t be going into those realms.”

The graphic live demonstrations and sensually charged activities scheduled for the fetish event are commonly practiced and widely accepted behavior in the BDSM (Bondage and Discipline/Dominance and Submission/Sadism and Masochism) community, says Ms. R, a 30-something domme who plays a dominant, disciplinary role over a submissive male or female in a relationship.

“Each submissive, or bottom, wants to be dominated for different reasons,” she said, adding that she is a non-professional domme who is not compensated for her actions.

“Some are alpha males who are in charge all day long and just need to feel less responsible for everything.”

In addition to vendors offering erotic photography, medical equipment repurposed for fetish use and more, the Fetish Flea will feature exhibitors such as Bill Andrews, whose whip flogging and rope bondage will be among workshop demonstrations of activities such as needle play and violet wand branding.

During violet wand branding, one partner allows the other to use an archaic electrotherapy device to deliver low-level shocks that can result in an electrical burn. The resulting sensitivity, which sometimes causes scarring or discoloration of the skin, provides a sensation that is current, and also a symbol that can extend the desired fantasy long past the day of the branding.

“It’s sort of like an inkless tattoo,” Ms. R said. “It can be permanent or semi-permanent.”

The day-long event, which is only open to those aged 18 and over, is designed to merge the vendors’ commercial interests with the kinky pursuits of what Ms. R says is a very active and well-populated BDSM community in Pennsylvania.

She added that interest-specific social networks such as FetLife.com and other online communities allow adults with erotic interests that gravitate to the freakier side to stay connected and, if they choose, meet up at public gatherings.

“They go out for ‘munches’ — it’s just dinner or lunch, but everyone there is part of the BDSM community. It gives them a chance to build trust with one another as well as feel like they aren’t alone in their kink,” she said.

“People should know that there is someone else in Northeastern Pennsylvania that likes to suck toes besides them.”

Ms. R, along with her husband and her children, lives in a well-known town in Northeastern Pennsylvania. She is very open with her desires and fetishes within her circle of trust.

“I don’t drink or do drugs, yet I get just as high — a euphoria — from fetish play. I get off on variations of sensations and through a sense of trust in and from my partner.”

After the flea is finished, the Freaker’s Ball, an event which takes its name from a 1970s Dr. Hook song about sexually open lifestyles, brings additional adult entertainment with the incorporation of the club’s dancers into the presentations. Their bodies will act as living canvases for what Ms. R calls “Human Graffiti” — the hand- and finger-painting of the G-Club performers, who will then shower for the crowd.

“Fetish attire is encouraged.” Ms. R said. “We want people to feel like they are at a circus, a three-ring, erotic circus.”

One thing attendees won’t find: sex. Pennsylvania law prohibits it. Additionally, any costumes worn by attendees must cover their genitals

“We want it to be erotic and educational, not sexual,” Ms. R said. “We will have dungeon monitors everywhere, and the minute a situation becomes sexual, those people will be removed from the premises.”

The idea for this week’s event grew out of two elements: the Fantasy Fetish Fair, a successful, erotic fashion-centric event held in Wilkes-Barre in 2006, and the “9 within the 10,” a fetish play group which meets each month at Gentlemen’s Club 10.

“The fashion show was great, but the fetish community wanted even more,” she said.

Ms. R estimated more than 400 attended the event four years ago, adding that the organizers have focused their advertising throughout the entire Mid-Atlantic region into New England.

“There are events like this, but nothing in the remote (NEPA) area,” she said. “There are a lot of people living ‘the lifestyle’ here. This is so they can get together.”

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