Wicked Women
One of my sexier strokes of luck was moving to Seattle just in time to attend the first all-women’s SM conference ever held in the U.S. It was August, almost 11 years ago, and the event was called Powersurge.
Throwing Powersurge was a bold move in 1992. The queer women’s community, even now, has an uneasy relationship with kink. But I remember much more open hostility then. I had many encounters with politically correct lesbians and bi women who were angry with me because I was espousing “violent expressions of patriarchal misogyny”–or something like that. I suppose I was lucky–some less articulate lesbians beat up a friend of mine in a women’s restroom for being a leatherdyke. In spite of some controversy, several hundred women attended the successful conference, and Powersurge was put on again in 1994, 1996, and 1998.
But one ongoing feud created schisms in the event organizers’ unity: Who can attend? Powersurge 1992 was actually billed not just as a woman-only event, but as a lesbian-only event. However, sexual orientation proved too difficult to police, and that requirement was subsequently dropped.
However, battles over transgender attendance grew steadily worse. The discord over male-to-female transsexuals was fervid: Some people said let them in, others advocated a policy of “women-born-women only.” In 1996, contention centered around female-to-male trannies, who looked like men, but still had an “F” on their driver’s licenses. Some people voted to admit them, others argued that FTMs had chosen to stop being women.
Powersurge was a breakthrough event, and in some ways I’m proud that I was on the Powersurge organizational committee. But there were too many times when it deteriorated into a microcosm of larger society, as personal anxieties about gender identity led organizers to attack each other. The emotionally loaded clashes exhausted my energy and eroded some of my pleasure in attending. I’m not sorry the conference wasn’t produced after 1998.
Still, I think all-women’s events have a place in the leather community. That’s why I’m pleased to see a fresh, new all-women’s SM event on the horizon: the Wicked Womyn conference. Its attendance policy states, “All S/M dykes, straight, bi-sexual and transsexual women and FTMs are welcome.” All you need is valid female ID. Sounds like none of the bickering, and all of the fun–I’ll be there.
The Wicked Womyn conference takes place Oct 3-6.
over and wierd looking