After booking our stay in Amsterdam, Saint did some research and discovered that a large kink event was taking place just that weekend. It's a large, well known BDSM/fetish party that takes place approximately once per month. It's very popular, but luckily we sent emails with some questions a few months before, and managed to get reservations. It takes place a 25 minute drive from the center of Amsterdam, on a large house boat called Showboat. (The rest of the month, the boat is used by a swingers' club.)
We had been advised to come early, so we did. After getting changed and stowing our things into our own private lockers, one of the dungeon monitors gave us a tour. The rules seemed to be mostly the same as in our local BDSM club in Oslo: Clean up after yourself, ask before touching anything/anyone, accept "no" for an answer, keep a respectable distance when people play, and generally don't be an ass.
The major difference between Amsterdam and Oslo was the scale. Showboat is a huge venue! On the ground floor, there was a reception area, toilets, a spacious bar, a large dancefloor, an area for a buffet to be laid out, a kitchen(staff only), two smoking rooms, space allocated for a small kink shop, and several huge, soft couches and other seating areas. There was a DJ the entire night, and dance music was playing loud enough that you had to really speak up to hear each other. The complimentary buffet served both cold cuts, warm food (the paella was really nice), and fruits. At midnight the music stopped for a while, because the dance floor was occupied by a short fetish/bdsm show. The bar and dance floor was fairly well lit with multicolored lights, but there were plenty of dark corners in the seating areas.
In the basement, there were two locker rooms and a "powder room" with mirrors and good lighting so you could get ready for the party. The number on your locker, was also the number on your bar tab. Meaning we didn't need to carry around any money, we just settled our tab at the end of the night. Very practical. There was also the private dungeon of the party hostess, open for anyone to use. That dungeon alone was a bit bigger than the communal play area at our local club in Oslo. It had clear restrictions: Only people playing could enter the dungeon itself. If you only wanted to watch, you needed to stay on the outside and look through barred "windows" in the walls. Also, this dungeon was the only place in Showboat with a clear "no sex"-policy. Everywhere else people were free to do as they pleased, though our guide emphasized that they didn't want the same atmosphere at the BDSM party as you get at a swingers' club (which is much the same as at our local club).
In the basement, there was also two other communal areas for play, both slightly larger than that first dungeon. One was well lit and filled with four padded benches (one with gynecologist style leg rests). This area was close to the showers (not for shy people, they were communal and with only three closed walls), and contained a needle box for those who wanted to do needle play. The second large play area was more dimly lit, soft music in the background. It contained a sex swing, low trusses for rope suspensions, several whipping posts and crosses, and a couch. There was also several smaller playrooms (maybe 4 or 5) with doors that could be closed. Some could be locked from the inside, some could not. You could see into the "private" rooms through small windows, meaning you were never truly private.
We got a really good impression from this party. There were "only" about 180-200 people present, which felt like a fairly thin crowd for such a large venue. (Other people commented upon this being a very slow night, probably because of the summer holidays.) Also, a lot of people started to leave already around 1am, which felt early to me. The bar wouldn't close until 3am, and the basement area not until 4am.
I think it can be hard to come to this party as a single person, maybe especially as a single man. It's not a munch where everyone are chatting, it's a party and I think you can easily feel lonely in such a setting. It was also significantly more expensive for single man than for women or couples. Probably to maintain a semblance of gender balance. While there was no rule against same sex couples, almost all couples I could see were straight. And while there was a surprisingly good gender balance, and surprisingly many dominant women, still the majority was the typical dom man+sub woman. I also didn't see many young people there. The youngest were around 30 years old (like me), with the majority being over 40. So not great diversity over all. Luckily, this wasn't a problem for us personally. We had enough with each other, and just soaking in the atmosphere.
So despite these things, Saint and I had a blast. The other guests were really friendly, and surprisingly easy to talk to. The staff (both dungeon monitors and others) was really nice and welcoming, always ready to answer questions or help out in any way they could. The party has a strict fetish dresscode, which I'm actually quite happy about. It creates a certain atmosphere. People's outfits were amazing, and the aircondition made wearing full latex bearable. The facilities were fantastic. After a long night playing in latex I was soaked with sweat, so taking a shower before changing into a lighter fetish outfit felt divine.
I also really enjoyed the respect people showed for each others' playing. They kept a good distance from us, didn't interrupt or intrude. And when I got involved with something more overtly sexual (more on that exhibitionist's dream in another blog post), people glanced over, smiled, and kept on walking. No one stood and staring at us. (Of course, being an exhibitionist I wouldn't have minded if they'd stood staring at me, with their dick in their hand... But it's the general attitude I'm trying to convey here, not my personal preferences.) People weren't sleazy or disruptive. We all just reveled in each other's kink and tried to enable everyone to have a good time. And we did.
So yeah: BDSM/fetish party at Showboat in Amsterdam. Definitely something I'd recommend!
No comments:
Post a Comment