Alright so the All Grrls Suscon was this past weekend, the third year running. I’m starting to lose what little faith I had in the industry. This may sound absoloute bonkers and make no sense to you if you’re male. Or female.
Anyways, as a history lesson, the all-”grrl” suscon was conceived out of the idea that women were not respected in the body suspension community. Personally in my limited experience of body/flesh suspension community, I saw none of this disrespect or sexism that were alledged to exist. Then again, I did have very limited experience. So the all-grrl suscon was coined, and the first was slated to happen with the first BMEfest, back in 2004. It brought in a lot of experienced women into Toronto who probably wouldn’t have made it to the event, because it was organized around BMEfest 2004. I was honoured to be asked to be one of the staff members of the event, and at the end of the event I was pretty happy how it all went down.
The second event didn’t have the backing of a BMEfest, since for 2005, the ‘fest moved from Toronto, Canada to La Paz, Mexico. It was organized for some odd weekend in August, and simply wasn’t quite as popular as the first. My theory behind this was simply because there wasn’t a massive BME party to accompany it. It was still a wonderful event where I got to meet wonderful people, and also tried to work my wonderful tail off.
This past event… well… Let’s see if I can figure out why I think it just didn’t go as smoothly as the others.
- BMEfest was first slated to be a multi-day event, which took place during the suscon. (I originally declined to work the suscon because I planned on being at this multi-day event)
- Rachel (one of the organizers) no longer lived in Ontario & was now at the ass-end of the country.
- Jill (the other organizer) seems quite overworked for someone trying to organize such a large event.
- The event just wasn’t promo’ed very well, probably because of the above two points.
- No one really ever mentioned the event. It wasn’t promoed on any high-profile pages as previous events were (Shannon Larratt, Allen Falkner etc.) who were all very publically supportive of the first two events.
- It’s just not taboo anymore.
The last point I think is what made this event the kicker. It’s not shocking or horrifying to have an all female event anymore. It’s been done. We’ve made our point. Us girls are just as hardcore as you boys, and can throw successful ‘cons as well as you can.
I’m hoping with next year’s BMEfest there’s a co-ed event. If there’s an all-grrl suscon, and a co-ed suscon, I’m all for the co-ed suscon. I don’t see “the boys” seriously throwing an “all boys suscon” to counter the all-grrl suscon, but if they do, more power to ‘em. At the same time, I’m thinking I’m ready for more hooks, and I want my best friends there, who got me to where I am now, who are almost exclusively male.
And I never was one for exclusive events.
