SHIBOYGEN, INDIANA
Outside of this year’s Annual Leather EduFest, some of BDSM’s best known and most successful presenters paraded in from of the Shiboygen Best Western chanting “No Money, No Class” to protest the refusal of the event to pay presenters.
Tom Rizz, 45, a well known political organizer and BDSM stalwart, organized the event to create a sense of solidarity among presenters.
“All we are asking for is a living wage,” said Rizz. “They expect us to pay to come to the event and offer no compensation. We can’t live like this.”
Zelda Fitzgerald told The Daily Flogger that this is an educational event and that they barely make enough to fund the event “much less fund the grandiose fantasies of people who teach an 90 minute class on how to hit someone with a flogger.”
As a professional class of presenters emerges in the BDSM community, these sorts of faceoffs will become more common.
“You get what you pay for,” said a well known presenter who asked not to be named. Looking over the program he pointed to a class by a presenter named “Phoenix” on “Physiology for rope.” Unlike many BDSM presenters who have been on the circuit for years, Phoenix is a “relative unknown.”
Presenters on strike mocked and jeered the “newbie” presenter.
According to the program, Phoenix is a practicing sports medicine doctor who works and has been in the field for 20 years. He has been studying rope privately in Japan for 12 years. While this is his first BDSM class, he is known in medical circles as a professional speaker and presenter on topics ranging from nerve compression and injury to increasing flexibility for arial performance.
Fitzgerald said his class was a big hit and they want to have him back next year.
Photo credit: LIVING WAGE CC: NC SA
