This rather silly article popped into my inbox today. It features a smartly dressed man being led around London on a leash. Apparently it provoked a twitter thread with the hashtag #manonleash. I realize it’s not something you might see everyday, but for a cosmopolitanism city of over 8M people, I’m surprised it provoked that much interest. I’m pretty certain if you did it in San Francisco nobody would bat an eyelid.
It’s a good job it wasn’t this couple taking their daily exercise. It might have provoked a twitter meltdown and articles in the national papers.
This photograph is from Serious Bondage.
You have to remember that London is a far more conservative place (in general) than San Fransisco.
I followed the link and had a hunch I knew where the scene took place so I put ‘farringdon underground station london UK’ into Google maps and had a look on Street View. I can confirm that the Domme and her sub are walking up Cowcross Street heading roughly east away from Farringdon Underground Station and towards Barbican – thats the skyscraper appartments you can see at the end of the street. This is probably what the UK police would call ‘conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace’!
Yes, you’re right. At least when it comes to the public spaces. Male public nudity was only recently banned in some bits of SF, and I can’t imagine that ever being tolerated in London. I’d be interesting to know what the police would do here. Given he was smartly dressed I can’t see it being an issue, although on a crowded shopping street somebody would probably fall over him 🙂
Thanks for the geographic info. Been many years since I was in London, but I have been around that area in the past.
-paltego
Hi, Paltego!
I saw that photo (London couple) on Twitter. I loved it, but I just can’t imagine that the man will be able to keep it up without knee pads!
There were a couple of videos where he seemed to be moving pretty slowly. I’d think it’d be horribly uncomfortable without knee pads, so I hope they weren’t going far. I just hope all the dog owners around there had picked up after themselves!
-paltego
I think people got mindfucked because the couple were dressed as common folks lol
@miss Margo
Thats also the 1st thing I thought! But i’m pretty sure he was wearing some underneath his jeans. I hope for him anyway :p
Yes, the lack of any kind of BDSM gear does make it even stranger! I’m not sure about the knee pads, but I really hope he had some sort of protection on there.
-paltego
I’m always baffled at the reactions to this sort of thing from kinky people.
Cue predictable “forcing your kink on other people is wrong and BAD, won’t anyone think of the children!” thread in a kinky discussion forum.
I swear vanilla people are mostly bemused and amused by this kind of thing while kinky people are full of apoplectic outrage.
Ferns
I’m a big believer in not pushing your kink on others. At the same time, I’m also of the view that public spaces should be available to the benefit of everyone, and we shouldn’t all be driven to the lowest common denominator of acceptability. If anyone’s offended by this kind of public play it’s their problem, not the kinky people. In this case everyone twittering about it seemed either bemused or amused. A bit of strange street theater is always good for a smile!
-paltego