And just about anything else. Look at Gucci’s voyeuristic, lust-in-an-elevator ad blitz. How can you not? On ““Friends,’’ Chandler dated a woman with a predilection for handcuffs and dominance. (““She’s the boss of me,’’ he swooned.) Janet Jackson’s album ““Velvet Rope’’ features a bondage fantasy called ““Rope Burn.’’ (Michael’s little sister!) And the Internet? As they say in Brooklyn–fuggedaboutit!
S&M–or B&D, for bondage and discipline–has been mainstreamed from deviant perversion to just another wacky lifestyle choice. Everybody’s into it, from Marv Albert to Marilyn Manson. So whether you’re a disgraced sportscaster, a freaky cross-dressing rock star or the rest of us gawking in disgust/amusement/whatever, it was a very kinky year.
If the Marquis de Sade were alive to see his subversive sexual directives submitted to such mercenary use, he’d be fit to be tied. La Nouvelle Justine, Manhattan’s latest theme restaurant, takes its name from a Sade novel. The theme is S&M. It’s Planet Kinkywood, outfitted with all the requisite tools of this potentially very rough trade. Patrons can opt to dine in a confining little jail called the Prisoner’s Cell. A scaffold with manacles is available for those whose idea of a tasty appetizer is flagellation with a cat-o’-nine-tails. The menu also includes Verbal Abuse and Spanking, at just $20 a pop. (Warning: the chicken receives similarly nasty treatment in the kitchen.) ““It’s a lot like dinner theater,’’ says Hane Jason, one of the owners, adding, ““People bring their clients here to impress them.’’ So much for the three-martini lunch.
New York is the Sodom of the new S&M craze. You can guess Gomorrah. Every Wednesday night a San Francisco club called Trocadero Transfer is themed Bondage A Go-Go. Stockbrokers, lawyers, secretaries, shipping clerks and the occasional off-duty cop turn up regularly for a flogging, maybe some elective shock therapy. ““Most people come here for S&M 101, the introduction course,’’ says Hawk, a burly 28-year-old ex-roadie with a black goatee and satanic grin. Many of the students bear the marks of their major: tattoos, pierced everything, second-skin latex. Tiffany, a 24-year-old former teacher, flips her long jet-black hair and explains, ““When the electric shock runs through your hair and scalp, it’s thrilling.’’ Couldn’t she just stick her finger in a light socket like when we were kids? And lest you think fetish indulgence is a strictly bicoastal phenomenon, club employee Jennifer, 28, notes that when she visited relatives in Wisconsin, they took her to a garage sale where all manner of smutty lingerie and bondage hardware were for sale. Apparently, she says, ““people don’t think of it as perverse.''
Are we that jaded? Is there no shame anymore? Is nothing beyond the pale? In Woody Allen’s new movie, ““Deconstructing Harry,’’ he casually instructs a hook- er, ““Tie me up, beat me, then give me a–’’ Hello! He never talked like that to Annie Hall. But the audience barely bats an eye. It’s seen worse. New York Gov. George Pataki registered a rare note of complaint against creeping kink when a women’s studies conference at one of his state universities conducted a seminar on ““Safe, Sane and Consensual S&M: An Alternate Way of Loving.’’ He decried the event as an inappropriate ““expenditure of tax dollars.’’ But boredom will likely snuff S&M before outrage. ““Last year’s trend,’’ sniffs Kate Betts, a top editor at Vogue, of fetish fashion. ““You can buy leather pants at the Gap.’’ True, but those perky salesclerks really need to work on their verbal abuse.
