Chris O. Cook The Baroness and entourage.

The annual NYC Fetish Marathon kicked off last night in the basement lounge of One and One with a “Beat & Greet” thrown by fIXE Magazine. “We are the new mainstream,” said Cary Monotreme, the impresario of the fetish-pinup photo mag. “There’s a nut commercial with a dominatrix in it. I don’t know how much more mainstream you can get.”

Indeed, the atmosphere was one of a convivial dinner party thrown by old friends – that is, if one could mentally adjust to the revealing PVC gear sported by nearly all attendees and the occasional bound-up transvestite getting worked over on a giant X-cross. Once in a while, a band of vanillas inadvertently stumbled downstairs and got scared off, but their squeamishness was unwarranted, according to top-hatted longtime scenester Dale Whysper. “If you talk to the bouncers,” he boasted, “they’ll say, ‘We have fewer problems at your parties.’” Read more…