Strapped for Cash

Why won't anyone take money donated by the fetish ball?

by Kristen Humbert

Neal Santos GETTING BURNED: "We've never been turned down," says fetish ball co-founder Kali Morgan. "We've raised thousands of dollars for women's charities. They were able to understand that fantasy is fantasy."

[ adults, etc. ]

While members of the fetish community tend to indulge their particular predilections in private, they come out in droves in Philadelphia once a year — at the Diabolique Fetish Masquerade Ball, a non-nude event held in mid-November since 1997. With a full lineup of latex fashion shows, spanking benches, bondage routines and play dungeons, the ball has catered to thousands of fetishists over the years. Last year alone, 500 attended.

As it turns out, these fetishists are quite giving. All ball proceeds, typically totaling more than $10,000 each year, have gone to local charities, including Action AIDS, MANNA and the Woodhull Freedom Foundation. Regardless of the fetish ball's raison d'être, each charity has taken the money — until now.

This year, the ball's board members were denied by four separate organizations. The first three they reached out to were Hope Animal Sanctuary, Neighborhood Bike Works and the Wagner Free Institute of Science, to whom the board felt a connection due to the ball's 2009 theme — "steampunk," a movement that's inspired by Victorian-era sci-fi and technology. (The founding of animal charities and the bike boom both occurred in the 19th century.)

Hope declined due to the backlash it's receiving from a community in New Jersey where it's attempting to build a no-kill shelter. A Hope board member owns an adult Web site, which, administrative director Christine Lyons says, "has created a hubbub in the neighborhood. So in order to not continue to give them firepower to fight us, this year we felt it wasn't a good idea." Similarly, NBW didn't accept because of anticipated turmoil. "This is a time of social conservatism," says executive director Andy Dyson. "It's scary to think that we could be vilified. I have a responsibility to the kids." Susan Glassman, director of the Wagner Free Institute of Science, declined to comment about why the museum didn't take the money.

Perhaps the most upsetting refusal for the ball's board members came from the financially hemorrhaging Free Library of Philadelphia — a place that ball co-founder Kali Morgan considered a "safe haven for free expression."

"We thought that because this year's theme is steampunk, which is an industrial, Victorian kind of science-fiction literary theme, it would be perfect for the library," she says.

Library officials also declined comment. In the end, the ball found a willing charity: Leather Heart, a foundation that provides emergency funds to those in the BDSM, leather and fetish community.

Ball co-founder Psydde Delicious says that being rejected reinforces the board's decision to donate all of its proceeds to charity. "There are so many people in this fetish or BDSM lifestyle, and it's really unfortunate that it has to be such a secret thing in people's lives. I think that the more you do within a community, the more people will begin to understand that we are people who are doing good things."

(kristen.humbert@citypaper.net)

Diabolique Fetish Masquerade Ball, Sat., Nov. 21, 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $60, Shampoo, 417 N. Eighth St., 215-922-7500, phillyfetishball.com.