Torture Garden (fetish club)
Torture Garden (or TG) is a fetish club in London, UK. The club started in 1990 and is now Europe's largest fetish club, featuring monthly at the Mass Club in the converted St. Matthews Church, Brixton. It features dance floors, musical acts, performance art, fashion shows, and an S&M 'dungeon'.
Initially threatened with closure by the police,[1] it is now described as "legendary" and "a capital institution" by Time Out magazine.[2] It has also been described as "a combination of a fetish, S/M, body art, Modern Primitives, straight, gay, performance art, body ritual, fashion, techno/industrial/atmospheric music, multimedia, and cyberspace club".[3]
Contents
Atmosphere
The co-founder of TG described the experience as "like entering a scene from a movie", and said that "we are basically about the celebration of sexuality and fantasy in a safe environment".[4] A lack of intimidating or threatening behavior is characteristic of the club, in contrast to most nightclubs.[2] One journalist reported the "welcoming, liberating, anything-goes atmosphere".[5]
There is a strict dress code: "Fantasy Fetish, SM, Body Art, Drag, Rubber, Leather, PVC goes, but no cotton t-shirts, street wear, or regular club wear".[4] This has been summarized as "if what you’re wearing wouldn’t get you stared at in the street, don’t bother even queuing up to get in".[2]
Academic study
An academic study of blood rituals noted that "The concept of Torture Garden may initially be difficult to accept, as it encompasses the most extreme manifestations of body piercing, mutilation, and ritual uses of blood in Western culture" and that the Torture Garden manifesto "clearly demonstrates the anomalous nature of fetish clubs".[3]
Events
TG has hosted club nights in several other cities and countries, including Edinburgh[6] Russia, Greece and Japan, and it also runs a Fetish fashion label.[2] TG ran a live stage show as the centerpiece of the Erotica exhibition at Olympia in 2004,[7] and hosted a night at the Barbican Centre art gallery to coincide with the “Seduced” exhibition.[8]
Rubber Banned, an exhibit of photographs of TG club-goers taken by fashion photographer Perou was shown in London and Paris in 2005.[9]
Celebrity attendees
Marilyn Manson, Dita Von Teese (who had her UK debut at TG),[10] performance artist Franko B,[11] Jean Paul Gaultier, Boy George, Jack Dee, and Marc Almond[4] have all been to TG nights.
See also
- Body modification
- Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures
- Nightclubs
- Performance art
- Sex club
- Sexual fetishism
- Slimelight
References
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External links
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