#domcon

This topic was the most present in my mind all weekend whilst at Dom Con 2014. I attended the convention as Hilary Branner’s Representative for Hilary’s Vanity this year. It was my first time at this convention and I saw much that could be discussed. As a gothic girl, accepting what was seen and what was happening wasn’t too hard of a task. I did however hear some interesting things. 

At this convention goth is considered vanilla, meaning light or soft core in terms of the extremity of the alternative communities. I found it incredibly amusing. 

There exists elitists in the fetish community as well and that was also interesting to see. As the representative of the Hilary’s Vanity Clothing line, I had to primarily focus on the fashion and demonstrate the extent and flexibility of the line. I was surprised by one of the comments I received this weekend. I was wearing a PVC cut shelf top, and looked smokin’, but I was discovered by a woman as not actually part of the scene but aesthetically fitting. She told me  that I could not dress the way I was dressed if I was not kinky and told me to go and take it off. I responded very well and she backed off very quickly. Being a veteran of having people judge my appearance prepared me well for my rebuttal.  I consider what I was wearing as a pretty goth outfit but given the setting, it was also fitting. 

 Aesthetically, there are a lot of overlaps in the fashion. Granted, the fetish communities do a lot of leather, latex, and more sexually explicit designs but the general look is similar. Of course that is a generalization but you get my point. The fetish community, like the gothic community, is very accepting of others which I really enjoyed. I feel like there are a lot of people that are goth and fetishists and a lot of fetishists that have a goth look. Besides being alternative communities that adopt a similar visual aesthetic style, they are very different.

I find that goth is primarily based on art, music, fashion and dark intellectual themes. The fetish communities emphasize a lot on the dynamics between doms and subs and their lifestyle relationships; It’s very people based, while goth is much more of an internal culture. I believe both communities can be as extreme as the other, just in different ways. Both can take you to the most darkest and private corners of the mind just in different executions. 

I have learned so much at this convention about the human mind and the human spirit and am grateful for that opportunity.