Is there a community for Kinky Queer Women in Melbourne?

The origins of women exploring kink in Australia seem hard to define. The earliest local records I can find are in the short film Wicked Women by Anna Brownfield of Poison Apple Productions. Anna’s film was part of the Love Bites series based on the story behind the BDSM magazine Wicked Women, created in Sydney in 1988. Established by Francine Laybutt and Lisa Salmon who were a couple at the time. The pair launched the magazine after realising that the Lesbian Community in Sydney hadn’t much to offer for a couple of lesbians who wanted to explore BDSM. Francine found the Lesbian scene in Sydney quite conservative and bland. Lisa and Francine admit in the documentary to have selfishly started the magazine to find and connect with a community of other kinky women that they could relate to.

In true lesbian ’get shit done’ form, the pair purchased a second-hand typewriter, and so Wicked Women was born! The girls had a chilled boss, who let them design and print the magazine at work. They published everything they received to begin with, so that everyone had a voice. This included images, erotica, poetry and comics. Wicked Women was first distributed from two Sydney gay men’s leather stores and the lesbian feminist bookstore, where apparently, they hid it under the more wholesome rags. Creating a magazine from scratch was costly, so Lisa and Francine fundraised to keep it in production, by throwing kink parties for everyone to meet. The dance parties started in 1990 and everyone was welcome, even heterosexuals. The biggest event they reminisced, was the Ms Wicked competition, where participants performed a fantasy based on their interpretation of the word ‘Wicked’. The competition saw a lot of negative community feedback at first, but with some time and exposure, a turnaround, finally engaging some of the more conservative queer women who had originally complained.

Near the end of Wicked Women’s magazines time (1994), head editor Francine transitioned and would be known as Jasper. This saw some of the first TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) resistance to trans men and gender diverse people being in what were known at the time as ‘Lesbian’ spaces. Today, we understand the nuances of our communities around gender, sexuality and the attractions that exist within them and no doubt the work done by Jasper and Lisa with Wicked Women has contributed to this. The magazine finished production in 1996, due to lack of funding. Solid effort! We encourage you to watch the short film Wicked Women.

History tells us that Sydney leads the way when it came to sexual liberation. It’s important to remember that before the internet, all communications happened via landline or snail mail, so news travelled much slower. Melbourne jumped on the BDSM, kink and fetish bandwagon in the early 90’s when Tracey Wall brought Ms Wicked competition with her from Sydney to Melbourne. This was the biggest day on the lesbian calendar and the performances were said to be more theatrical compared to Sydney and less about BDSM.Cabaret royalty, Maude Davey won Ms Wicked Melbourne in 1991.

A key player in building and maintaining Melbourne’s kink scene is Dianne Mallice, Founder of Fetish Expo, OzKinkFest, and Provocation. I interviewed Dianne to learn more about the local history. Dianne used to work at Saints and Sinners, one of the first known swingers’ events running in Melbourne since the 90’s. Then, swingers’ events were mostly heterosexual and completely different to BDSM, it was a purist activity. At these events, the majority of dominants were cis, straight men. Dianne, a queer woman herself said that her introduction to kink was through online chatrooms, where she first met a man who identified as a ‘Master’ ‘.He mentioned Saints and Sinners parties, so her first experience of attending Saints and Sinners was in 2001. She describes it as ‘wall-to-wall sex’, that had a BDSM area filled with mostly heterosexual couples. It was there she saw her first ever ‘Mistress’ and described being taken by her ‘great big boobs’. These environments were alcohol fuelled and consent was certainly not a thing yet. Dianne remembers the experience being rather eye opening and having some concerns about safety around BDSM practices in those earlier days.

In the early naughties *wink*, circa 2002, Mistress Tan, who was a professional dominant at the time, was running Hush parties upstairs in Sircuit which is now known as Mollies Drag bar and Diner. Dianne described Mistress Tan’s Hush as being like a playschool version of BDSM. Hush was all about safety. Back then there weren’t many femme dommes in Melbourne, most were pro dommes who would go to BDSM clubs to find or play with clients. For Dianne as a domme in the making, learning from pro dommes at events like Hush was how she gained her early knowledge and experience. At this time, BDSM events were small, with maybe only 50-80 people in attendance. The Melbourne kink scene was pretty closed off and male dominated. Most dominants were men and women were submissive because the spaces were predominantly heterosexual.

In 2005 Dianne was contracted to produce her first major, commercial kink event called L’Erotica. This event would go on to inspire some of the biggest events that currently still take place annually here in Melbourne. Dianne noted that finding venues to hold kink parties in was always difficult. Even today, most BDSM/kink events are held on King St, where they have old strip club nudity licences. Another of Dianne’s BDSM events that’s still going strong is Provocation, an inclusive kink event that takes place monthly (when there isn’t a pandemic at play). In the beginning they might see around 80-150 attend Provocation, but recently celebrated their Sweet Sixteenth with a whopping 600 patrons attend. Similar events came and went in the mid 2000’s. Sundaylicious produced a one-off kink event for women called Scandalicious at Abode, in St Kilda (now known as St Martins Place). Another exclusive event for women that had a brief moment in history was Subway atSt Martins Place in the late noughties.

From 2004-2006 Dianne published a BDSM themed magazine called Kink-E. Before the internet had relevant resources, Kink-E was a great way for people to connect and share stories. A print magazine was the only platform to find information and play partners. Kink-E was for sharing stories, even Melbourne kink royal highness, Mistress Elektra would contribute a story every edition. You could also find photos from other BDSM clubs and events worldwide. As online presence for kink communities built and websites like Fetlife picked up traction, it was difficult for print media to continue. Kink-E called it a day after producing twenty-seven issues and Dianne focused on her other ventures.

The most notable event Dianne founded is Fetish Expo, which was born in 2006 out of a want for a more inclusive community, that women felt welcome to be part of. Inspired by Leather Pride and her part time job with Sexpo at the time, Dianne birthed Fetish Expo at Fitzroy town hall, which is literally an expo for all things kink, BDSM and fetish. After the first few years of Fetish Expo being a labour of love and barely breaking even, Dianne expanded the event to fund growth, creating OzKinkFest, an entire festival of events to welcome international performances and workshops, in turn expanding community knowledge and exposure. Without this, communities such as kink could become insular and stale. One of OzKinkFests well-known events is Hellfire Resurrection, where you’d see local queer women on the line-up over the years, such as, Mistress Tokyo, Mz Sprinkle, Glitterfist and Freckles Blue perform in Chasers Nightclub on Chapel St.

Dianne’s events have always been about inclusivity and creating safer kink spaces for everyone. When asked about Women’s spaces Dianne remarked that as far as women’s only events went, for a short while there was a girl’s only BDSM club called Off the Cuff, but it didn’t last long. Dianne attempted a women’s event at Wet on Wellington Sauna back in the noughties and struggled to get women to come along. The next endeavour for Di was in 2007, when she opened a Café / Gallery / Kink space on Johnston St, In Fitzroy called Kink. The venue was in operation for about a year and during that time you could find Shibari, cigar nights, kink events and exhibitions on any given day.

Anonymity is important to Dianne, she admits that she doesn’t do it for her, but reflecting on the time that she’s been involved in the kink community in Melbourne, it’s wonderful to see the scene becoming genuinely inclusive. Diversity has certainly been a community effort. At the very beginning, it would’ve been rare to see a trans or gender diverse person in a kink space and now Dianne sees the most diverse crowd to date at Provocation, with maybe only 20% heterosexual/cisgender identifying. She said people there are wonderful at practicing consent, pronouns and inclusivity.

The local kink community doesn’t mind travelling to attend events and learn too. Sydney produces Extra Dirty, an inclusive BDSM party running since 2009. Another brilliant event worth travelling for, produced by a couple of rad queer women is Rule 34 Club. Produced by Amie Wee since 2017, Rule 34 celebrates weird, kinky, shock burlesque and circus performance and is often controversial. You can see local stars like Zahra Stardust, Ruby Slippers, Jordan Raskopoulos and Alex De Porteous perform at Rule 34, be sure to check it out next time you’re on Gadigal land.

A prominent moment for me as a kinky queer woman, was the discovery of Fantastic parties at Club 80. Fantastic has been running since 2014 and was originally held at Club 80, a sex on premises venue (SOPV) for gay men. Club 80 was truly an institution for men in the kink world and sadly closed for good in 2020. All SOPV spaces in Melbourne are men’s only, so to have the opportunity to play in Club 80 at Fantastic before it closed was truly memorable. In 2019, the ultimate Fantastic Party at Club 80, women and non-binary people were allowed to venture upstairs into the play space that had been limited to men only, and hell did we have fun. Glory holes, peep holes, cages, slings and much voyeurism… My girlfriend and I stood outside a cage, with our gimp in latex kneeling, as we watched a trans woman getting gang banged in a sling. Lasting hot memories.

It seems the landscape for queer women and kink is changing for the better. In 2019, Tomboy launched their first queer, Kink event centred around women and gender diverse people called Tomboy After Dark. Fast-forward 15 years from when Dianne first attempted a women’s Sauna event, and we see Lady Like and Melbourne Swingers producing successful women’s only events at Bay City Sauna and Wet on Wellington in 2021. In 2021, Folsom came to Melbourne and the board are making a concerted effort to include women in future plans.

We have been on quite the journey with much to do and continue. We’re seeing more Inclusive, queer aligned kink events such as Fantastic, Provocation and Tomboy after Dark that are changing the game for queer women and gender diverse people exploring BDSM. As women, we need to feel safe; to know that consent is being taught and practiced, to feel comfortable in our bodies and feel accepted by one another. We can thank the many women mentioned in this article who have paved the way in these spaces and look forward to what the future holds when we can reconnect post pandemic.

Image Credits (top to bottom):

• Jasper and Lisa in their G.O.D. jackets, Sydney, c.1990, unknown photographer, Records of Wicked Women, Australian Queer Archives, gift of Jasper Laybutt
• Ms Wicked Competition 1993: Options Nightclub (upstairs), Brisbane, Poster Collection, Australian Queer Archives, gift of Trish O'Reilly and Jo Wong 2015
• Bree and Toni, Fantastic 2019 by Imago Design
• Mistress Tokyo Fantastic Promo 2018, by Steve Scalone
• Tomboy after Dark 2019, Themme Fatale and Bam Bam by Laura Du Ve

Renee Russo is a bisexual woman who has been talking about pleasure since she was old enough to masturbate. Renee is combatting the shame that women, especially queer women, experience by writing about her own escapades in sex, kink and being a proud slut. You can find her on Instagram.