Categories
English Sexual politics

UK report – August 2003

IML 2003 is official supporter of the ReviseF65 Project

Eric and Svein have been rallying support for SM human rights in the UK during august 2003. Representing the ReviseF65 project, they have held four workshops with in all more than fifty people attending. At all the workshops there were represented different gay and straight SM/fetish leaders and mental health specialists from several countries, and during August the number of members on the ReviseF65 mailing list has increased by 50 percent. One of the workshops received the visit of International Mr Leather, John Pendal. Afterwords he decided to support officially the ReviseF65 project.

International Mr Leather, John Pendal (picture left) published August 26th that ReviseF65 is one of five projects that he will support during the year he holds the title. This should provide a good opportunity for informing people about our project work.

John Pendal is one of very few Europeans who has been awarded International Mr Leather. He got the title at the IML contest in Chicago May 25th 2003. He has taken this year off, to give the role his full attention.

Eric and Svein met him at Europride in Manchester 2003. The ECMC leather club MSC Manchester Superchain had invited John to walk in front of their leather-section in the Europride parade Saturday 23rd 2003. For some time Eric and Svein have had mail contact with MSC‘s hon secretary Ian A. He helped us to get a location for our ReviseF65 workshop in Manchester. Friday 22nd Ian presented us to John (picture right) and Sunday John surprisingly attended our ReviseF65 workshop at Malmaison Hotel. It was very interesting and a big honour for us to be able to present our work to the International Mr Leather.

After the lecture we met John at Manchester Legends Bar celebrating MSC Superchain‘s 20th birthday. We asked him if he would consider the possibility of becoming an official supporter of the ReviseF65 project. He answered “yes” immediately and asked Svein to be photographed together with him in front of the Norwegian flag to demonstrate his support (see the upper picture in the right column).

On Monday we wrote John a mail from an internet café in Manchester and thanked him for his support. Tuesday Ian Gurnhill in Spanner Trust (picture left ) told us that John had linked up the ReviseF65 project on his IML Link page. Friday August 29th, we met John and his partner David at the Hoist leatherclub in London. This is John‘s home club where he received the title “Mr Hoist 2003” in February. John told us that he now also had linked the ReviseF65 project to his Support site. This means that ReviseF65 is one of five projects that IML 2003 endorses. This support is of course a big inspiration for us in our work.

In addition to the workshop at Malmaison Hotel, Eric held a “women only” workshop Sunday August 24th at UK’s First International Womens‘ SM Conference in Manchester. On his first trip to the UK, Svein held a successful workshop at the SM Pride festival in London Saturday August 2nd. Another workshop was held at Central Station, Kings Cross, London Thursday August 28th. This lecture was one hour delayed because of the big power-failure (picture right) that stopped all traffic at London‘s Underground system for hours.

The four ReviseF65 workshops attracted from 4 to 40 participants each. At all the workshops central human-rights activists attended. Discussions, dinners and strategy meetings with these SM/leather leaders gave us feedback which will be important for our continued project work.

In addition, our two visits to the UK gave us the opportunity to take a lot of SM/fetish pictures, which we consider an important ingredient of the Revise F65 website.

Categories
English

Europride Manchester 15-25 August 2003 SM/fetish/leather photo gallery

Some of the pictures can be watched in a bigger version by clicking on them

Photogallery 3 “Ladies and gents”
SM dykes in the Europride parade

SM Dykes and Club Lash for Lasses



Club Lash for Lasses



Company Bar

BELOW: Master and slaves from the leatherbar Company Bar in Manchester‘s Gay Village.

RIGHT: Walking to the gay village after the parade Saturday August 23rd 2003



Rob Manchester

RIGHT: What are they arguing about?

Both pictures from Rob‘s leather collection.


Categories
English Sexual politics

Europride Manchester 2003



Europride Manchester 15-25 August 2003

Photogallery 4 “Human rights”


RIGHT: One leatherman from SM Gays together with Eric and Ruth from ReviseF65 August 23rd in Manchester before the Europride parade.


BELOW: This newspaper paragraph in The Pink Paper put us in contact with Ian from Spanner Trust (picture left).



BELOW: Svein from ReviseF65 and Ian from Spanner Trust. Svein exhausted after being one hour delayed to the ReviseF65 workshop August 28th due to traffic jam after London biggest Powerloss ever (picture left). Read the introduction to the workshop HERE.


Gay and lesbian police officers parading during Manchester Saturday August 23rd 2003
Leathermen fighting hiv and aids. The Europride parade 2003.


 

EuroPride 2003, held for the first time in the UK, has been declared the best ever, despite attracting far fewer than the 1.2m who descended on Cologne in Germany last year.

Robert Kastl, President of EPOA, the founding organisation for EuroPride, was glowing about Manchester’s achievement. “This EuroPride has been fantastic, the best EuroPride so far. The Parade was the most colourful and artistic I have ever seen in Great Britain.”

More than 250,000 people attended the 10-day festival, visiting 150 separate events and raising £124,000 for HIV, lesbian and gay charities.

Visitors from all over Europe received a warm welcome with the Rainbow Flag flying from the top of the Town Hall (picture above), and the Greater Manchester Police distributing a very welcoming Europride Special magazine (picture left) all over the gay village during the Big Weekend.

– What a difference today from 15 years ago when I first came to Manchester and marched through the streets against Section 28, said Actor Sir Ian McKellen according to several gay newspapers.

EuroPride started on the 15th August but one of the highlights was when the world’s longest Rainbow Flag stretching a quarter of a mile in length and weighing more than half a tonne was carried in the Key 103 EuroPride Parade on Bank Holiday Saturday August 23rd.

Welcome to Europride in Hamburg 2004 and Europride in Oslo, Norway 17-27 June 2005.

Categories
English Sexual politics

The SM Pride 2003

The SM Pride 2003

Some of the pictures can be watched in a bigger version by clicking on them.




Svein Skeid from the ReviseF65 group, held a workshop focussing on the work to remove the Fetish and SM diagnoses, at Conway Hall, Betrand Russell Room, after the SM Pride March. The room was filled up with more than 25 listeners. An engaged audience and a successful workshop.




From Conway Hall after the march.


Bullwhipping at the SM Pride Pervefest. (Picture by the SM Pride organizers).


Rosie at Conway Hall at the SM Pride Pervefest. (Picture by the SM Pride organizers).

The SM Pride official website



 

he SM Pride official website

SM Pride was founded in the wake of the British Spanner case in 1992 – to promote BDSM as a valid sexuality and to campaign for BDSM legality and equality (see picture in the middle above). The SM Pride organizers invited people to join the march under “the colours (…) black and blue, the official colours of SM Pride”. As wievers have observed, this is not exactly the same flag as the international acknowlished “Leather Flag” designed by Tony de Blase in 1989 (picture right). The original Leather Pride Flag by author and publisher Tony de Blase (1942-2000), was first displayed on May 28, 1989 at the International Mr Leather contest in Chicago. The hand-sewn original now hangs in Chicago’s Leather Archive and Museum. Though the Leather Pride Flag emerged from the gay male leather/SM scene, the flag has got pansexual currency. Today it stands as a symbol for the leather/SM/Fetish community- people who are into leather, sadomasochism, bondage, domination, uniforms, rubber and other kind of sexual fetishes. Though it is obviously inspired by the lesbian and gay rainbow flag, de Blase (Fledermaus) has been famously reticent in giving an explanation of the design. ‘I did have definite reasons for creating the design and color scheme [but] I have never explained them to anyone else’, he says. I prefer that the individual look at the flag and interpret it for him/herself, reading into it whatever he/she most wants to see. One common interpretation of the design is that the red heart represents the love we feel; the white stripe represents purity or hope; the black stripe, for leather; and the blue stripe, denim (both materials commonly worn and fetishised in the leather and SM communities). The original Leather Pride Flag is composed of nine horizontal stripes of equal width. From the top and from the bottom, the stripes alternate black and royal blue. The central strip is white. In the upper left quadrant of the flag is a large heart.

Some of the pictures are possible to watch in a bigger version by clicking on them.

The rainbow flag:
Leathermen and women have always been a part of the gay and lesbian movement.

 

“PROUD TO BE A PERV”
on his chest.

Who are “Les Miserables”?
Sure, we are playing a theater.
Click on the picture for a bigger version.

“TRUE LOVE HURTS”
on his back.

Submitting to his domina.



The sound of the drummers is an important part of the total picture


As alwais,
Pony carts are popular in front of the march


A human horse


More ponies

Some of the pictures are possible to watch in a bigger version by clicking on them

A female pony

Categories
English Sexual politics

Workshop Manchester: How to remove SM and Fetish diagnoses

“How to remove SM and Fetish diagnoses”

Workshop Manchester
Sunday, August 24th at 1pm
Malmaison Hotel, Piccadilly (Gore St), (the mezzanine lounge)

Workshop Manchester (women only)
Sunday, August 24th at 2pm
The Lesbian and Gay Foundation, 15 Pritchard Street (off Charles Street)

Workshop London
Thursday, August 28th 7pm-9pm
Central Station, 37 Wharfdale Road, Kings Cross, (main bar)

You can also read the introduction to the workshop online at www.reviseF65.org/workshop.html

  • The stigma attached to SM and Fetish diagnoses is used to justify violence, harassment and persecution because of people‘s SM-preference.
  • SM people lose their jobs and the custody of their children because their love and lifestyle is still considered as a disease.
  • Even law court verdicts acquit self-identified murderers and rapists because the victims are stigmatized as sick perverts.

Fetishism, transvestism and sadomasochism are still considered mental illnesses by The World Health Organization and most countries, despite the fact that US psychiatrists revised their DSM manual nine years ago, and Denmark, as the first European country, totally removed the SM diagnosis in 1995.

Join the ReviseF65 efforts to remove diagnoses from the International Classification of Diseases!

The ReviseF65 project is established with a mandate from the 1998 Convention of the Norwegian National Association for Lesbian and Gay Liberation (LLH). Our efforts is so far supported by the Norwegian Association of Gay and Lesbian Physicians, the Norwegian Society for Clinical Sexology, the 1999 European Conference of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) and the 2000 General Assembly of the European Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs (ECMC).

The ReviseF65 group consists of Leather/SM/Fetish men and women representing organizations of Leather and SM gays, lesbians, bi- and heterosexuals, as well as professionals in sexology, psychology and psychiatry.

Join the mailing list: to be informed and have your voice heard, join the e-mail discussion group at www.revisef65.org/moderator.html.

From Thursday 21st August to Monday 25th August, you can contact Svein Skeid and Eric Barstad at The Rembrandt Hotel, 33 Sackville Street, Manchester, [email protected], tel: 0161 236 1311.

From Tuesday 26st August to Sunday 31st August, you can contact us at Blades Hotel, 122 Belgrave Road, Victoria, London, tel 020 7976 5552.


www.reviseF65.org
founded in Norway – serving the world

Categories
Norsk

Nok en ærespris til Elisabeth Ohlson

Elisabeth Ohlson er blitt tildelt årets RFSU-pris for hennes fotoutstilling Ecce Homo, melder Dagens Nyheter. Begrunnelsen er at hun med stort mot har synliggjort undertrykkelsen av homoseksuelle ved på en kunstnerisk måte å illustrert Jesu kjærlighet til alle mennesker.

Dette er foreløpig Ohlsons åttende pristildeling på under ett år. Tidligere i vinter mottok hun RFSL Gøteborgs Allan Hellman-pris og under Europride ifjor fikk hun Haacan Fagerströms pris 1998 for sin synliggjøring av hiv og aids i sin fotokunst. På Verdens aids-dag 1. desember ble Ohlson tildelt Lars Radings kulturpris av Noaks Ark. Ifjor høst ble hun utnevnt til en av årets damer av tidsskriftet Damernas v”rld og årets kvinne av jenteklubben Bitch i Stockholm. Til sist men ikke minst fikk den dyktige fotografen Elisabeth Ohlson lesernes pris for Årets bok og Årets Homo ved QXs gaygalla i februar. Da Efva Attling och Mark Levengood delte ut den edle prisen ville jubelen ingen ende ta, skriver QX, om arrangementet der 1000 personer fikk plass innendørs, i tilegg til dem som sto i kø utendørs.

RFSU-prisen er blitt delt ut siden 1991 ble overrakt i forbindelse med RFSUs landskongress i Stockholm.

Denne artikkelen er hentet fra Skeive Nyheter 28.4.1999