The SM Pride March

I already knew a little about the march from it featuring in Fetish Times a couple of years before. I will not go heavily in to the politics now but I felt it was something we should attend. We had a lot of personal reasons for going too: We were both at a stage in our involvement with the scene where we wanted to show our support more visibly; where we did not want to deny who we were and what we were; we wanted the shared experience and a thousand other emotive thoughts that can not be summed up in words.

Finding your way around London can sometimes be a challenge, even with a good map. With the winding streets, you almost always seem to get turned around. We knew we were running about fifteen minutes late and were convinced we'd never find them once they'd set off. Pretty much the usual then, in terms of something-new-in-the-scene nerves. We need not have worried - as soon as we left the station, the sound of drums carried for miles and it almost felt as though everyone was surging to get there. In the typical tradition of my life, one of the first people we bumped in to, in the surge of people hurrying to get there, was someone we had met at a play party in Minnesota six months earlier.

As we rounded the final corner, we finally realized just what it was we were joining. In a large amorphous group, filling the street, were: ponygirls and carts; every leather, PVC and rubber outfit imaginable; Dommes in cowled rubber cloaks; men in baby 'romper' suits, drummers; subs on leashes (including kitten); those dressed simply in black and a lot of police officers. To the great credit of the police and the organizers, the police were there for our safety, closing off roads as we passed, preventing trouble - the complete opposite of the stereotype.

People ran up and down, getting in touch with friends, handing out fliers for the after-march events, praising each other's outfits. There seemed to be no huge direction things were going in as we were still assembling half an hour after the march was due to have left, just a great atmosphere of scene folk having fun and passers-by enjoying the spectacle. Then, apparently without conscious thought, the drummers set off with everyone in tow.

Marching with kitten on a leash was a new experience. While she wears her collar 24/7 and we had had a leash for it for months, we had never really felt the need to use it. The march seemed an appropriate time, so it was fastened on. At first it was quite uncomfortable, having to hold my arm up, ungainly bumping in to each other. Quite quickly however, we settled in to it as though we had been doing it all of our lives. You start to find that leading someone on a leash is much like driving - you do not stare at the road straight in front, jerking the wheel constantly, you apply gentle pressure, making little corrections when needed and the rest seems to take care of itself as though you are both linked telepathically. While not at all what I expected, it actually felt like we were 'mentally' closer.

The route took us through some of the more prominent parts of London. Having the police close off Trafalgar Square for us is something I will never forget - nor the look of amazement on the faces of the tourists in the square and those on the tour buses held up by us.

As we went from Trafalgar Square towards Oxford Street, a woman with a baby in a pushchair stopped and turned the chair towards us, pointing for the baby to look. That was the moment when the meaning of the march came home to me the strongest. Yes, we were a spectacle, no doubt prompting more amusement than thought about the scene, yes we were an entertaining slot on the evening news, but that was not what mattered - everyone who saw us, whether they thought about it or not, will remember us, will realise that scene folk are not one-off dangerous perverts, and maybe their reactions will be a little more understanding the next time a friend confesses to their feelings or they are on a jury for a case that should never have come to court anyway. They may be subtle changes, but we made thousands of them that day and I have always thought that even a small change for the better is more than worth the effort it takes.

Then it started to rain. Not just a little but the kind of all consuming, freezing, miserable kind that only England seems able to do. Those in precious leather began searching for ways to protect their treasured items. Those in rubber simply ignored the rain, safe and dry under it all. The ponygirls were the ones I felt for the most. Dressed in little more than bikinis and riding tack they must have been freezing - the experience of their riders showed in the way they would drop to the back of the group then ride hard forward, keeping them exercising hard and their body temperatures up. Despite the rain, which even for the stoic English would normally have broken up any given group, spirits were so high it just became another thing for us to overcome.

Eventually we reached the end of the march, ponygirls were freed from the carts, submissives were released from leashes, warmer clothing put on and everyone made their way to the hall where the after march fetish fair and technique demonstrations were to take place. kitten's ability to regulate body temperature was damaged in the accident and the rain had proved too much for her so, while we stayed on for a little while, seeing if we could raise her temperature there, we left early. Apparently, dead subs do not make Doms look very good.

A lot of people we have talked to about the march worry that they could never do something so public. For us, the reality was that with hundreds of other people also putting themselves forward, you became one of a crowd, part of a concept but not individually identifiable by friends or employers. The television cameras that tracked the march did not linger, certainly not on those of us who were less outrageously dressed, so it became a safe entity to be a part of.

In exchange for being prepared to make ourselves visible, the rewards were incredible. The sense of community, the sights, the experience of closing off Trafalgar Square, seeing that mother show us to her child rather than shield the child's view, the thoughts that ran through our heads, knowing that we were actually making a difference. While everyone has their own feelings about being seen to publicly support the scene, for me at least, it is one of my most treasured memories.

Soulthief