The leather-clad guy in the line next to me had a gynecologist's speculum hanging round his neck -- and the accessories didn't get any more normal once I was inside the Sadistic Circus, an all-night fetish event held in Roppongi's Spiral club Nov. 23.
The Circus brought together rubber lovers, masters, mistresses and slaves, and practitioners of erotic butoh and shibari, the ancient Japanese art of bondage, for a night of dancing, cabaret -- and hard-core posing.
There were booths, too, flogging everything from imitation Louis Vuitton cat o'nine tails and spanking paddles to chrome anal probes so elegant you could stopper a Champagne bottle with them.
Gloriously kinky photobooks by publisher Taschen -- one of the event's sponsors -- drew a crowd at one table, while a housewifely type sat imperturbably peddling gay soft porn nearby.
As the evening wore on, the chill-out lounge became the scene of impromptu whippings, but when a turn under the lash failed to revive me, I decided to call it a night -- diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, as they say.
