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On behalf of Mr. International Rubber (MIR), we would like to welcome you to MIR2011, the 14th annual Mr. International Rubber contest! This marks the second year of new ownership and new vision for the Mr. International Rubber contest, and we continue bring new events and exploits to our weekend for your enjoyment.
The market at MIR is so much more than just a place to shop, and now its name reflects that! The Kink Market and Social at Mr. International Rubber is where you can sell your old gear, buy gently used and lovingly abused gear at deep discounts, meet new friends, watch or participate in a demo or just kick back and relax while watching the fun happening around you! Two new events in the Kink Market space include the Rubber Pup Rumpus and the Lubed up Latex Wrestling on Saturday and Sunday respectively. The Kink Market and Social is open to the public (18 years and up) with daily admission.
This year we are thrilled to be working with BOI Magazine as our program partner, and spreading the word about Mr. International Rubber to thousands of LGBT people in the Chicago-land area. In addition to our Chicago-land guests, we welcome visitors from across North America and around the world. With regular attendees from Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom as well as Canada and the United States, Mr. International Rubber has built a reputation of being not only a fun and frisky event, but an event that grows in size and attendance each year.
As always, we are indebted to the Center on Halsted for hosting all of the official events related to MIR2011. We thank the Center for recognizing the vast diversity of the LGBT community and being supportive of our international rubber community. In 2009 Mr. International Rubber was able to make a donation to the Center of $2,500 at the conclusion of the weekend’s events. Your attendance and support of our event this year will help us to make a similar donation this year.
Now, get out there and have some fun. Mingle with the contestants, meet some new rubbermen, do lots of shopping, get in lots of play, and have a wild, fun-filled weekend! Thanks for joining us at MIR 2011.
William Schendel and John Jacobs
Mr. International Rubber Co-Owners
The Kink Market & Social at MIR is so much more than a vendor market. It’s a place to buy new gear, sell your old gear, meet people, participate in a demo, be a voyeur, learn, relax and most of all have fun. Kink Market and Social features demos non-stop during open hours, a live DJ, and the Kinksters Lounge where you can hang out and rest your weary feet.
The Kink Market is open to the public (18+). Admission is included in your weekend package purchase or $5.00 per day.
BEHIV: Better Existence with HIV Chicago, IL behiv.org
Carrera Design: Chastity by Walter Goethals Belgium gaychastity.com
Chicago Dragons Chicago, IL
chicagodragons.org
Chicago Rubbermen Chicago, IL chicagorubbermen.org
DJ Arana Boston, MA
djmarana.com
E7 Gear New York, NY
E7gear.com
Fluid Ikons Chicago, IL
fluidikons.com
Guyz In Gear New York
guyzingear.com
Howard Brown Health Center Chicago, IL howardbrown.org
Leather Archives and Museum Chicago, IL leatherarchives.org
Locker Gear
lockergear.com
Mr. S Leather San Francisco, CA
mr-s-leather.com
Owls Mirror New York, NY
owlsmirror.com
Polymorphe / Titan Media / 665 Leather Montreal, Canada polymorphe.com
Rage Rubber / Bound Muscle.com Orlando, FL ragerubber.com
Raw Candles Chicago, IL
rawcandles.com
RECON Store Chicago, IL
usastore.recon.usa
Shel-don Leather Chicago, IL
shel-don.com
Steamworks Chicago, IL
steamworks.net
Taylor Buck Studios Chicago, IL
taylorbuck.blogspot.com
TLS Rubber Gear Houston, TX tlsrubbergear.com
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 5, 2010
Noon — 7 p.m.
MIR Kink Market Social
Billie Jean King Recreation Center
Vendors from around the globe will be offering their wares for sale and trial in the Kink Market. Meet new friends in the Kinkster Lounge, watch or participate in a demo in the rubber playground.
Noon — 7 p.m.
Registration & Individual Ticket Sales
Harris Family Foundation Reception Hall
Pick up of weekend packages at the Center on Halsted
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
“Greet the Meat” Cocktail Party
Harris Family Foundation Reception Hall
Cocktail hour prior to the start of the MIR2011 Contest, a light buffet will be included.
9 p.m. — 11 p.m.
MIR 2011 Opening Ceremonies
Hoover-Leppen Theater
Meet the contestants for MIR 2011. Introduction of judges, contestants select their order of competition and are judged in the first category of competition, “Rubber Image”.
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 6, 2010
Noon — 7 p.m.
MIR 2011 Registration & Individual Ticket Sales
Harris Family Foundation Reception Hall
Pick-up of weekend packages
Noon — 7 p.m.
MIR Kink Market, Social & Chicago
Rubbermen Gear Sale
Billie Jean King Recreation Center
Vendors from around the globe will be offering their wares for sale and trial in the Kink Market. Meet new friends in the Kinkster Lounge, watch or participate in a demo in the rubber playground. If you have fetish gear that you haven’t worn in a while, sell it at the Chicago Rubbermen Gear Sale.
2 p.m. — 3 p.m.
MIR Rubber Pup Rumpus
Billie Jean King Recreation Center
Rubber pups and their handlers take over the demo space for this MIR Pup Rumpus. Let your primal urges be your guide as your manimal instinct takes over. Pups and handlers both welcome.
8 p.m.
MIR 2011 Contest
Hoover-Leppen Theater
The exciting conclusion to the Mr. International Rubber Contest. Includes judging of onstage question, “mystery-bag” and audience participation. A new Mister International Rubber will be sashed this evening!
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 7, 2010
Noon — 5 p.m.
MIR Kink Market, Social & Chicago
Rubbermen Gear Sale
Billie Jean King Recreation Center
Vendors from around the globe will be offering their wares for sale and trial in the Kink Market. Meet new friends in the Kinkster Lounge, watch or participate in a demo in the rubber playground. If you have fetish gear that you haven’t worn in a while, sell it at the Chicago Rubbermen Gear Sale.
2 p.m. — 3 p.m.
Lubed Up Latex Wrestling
Billie Jean King Recreation Center
It may be the last day of MIR, but there are a few rumbles left to be settled. Vendors and sponsors pit their representatives against each other the ultimate lube wrestling contest. Odds are in your favor as this is one event you won’t want to miss.
Halloween: the Great Gay Holiday
October is an important month in GLBT calendar. It is GLBT History Month, devoted to discovering and celebrating our past. On October 11, we observe “Coming Out Day”, a day in which we “take the next step” in our ongoing, coming-out process. But while both GLBT History Month and Coming Out Day are of recent origin, this month’s most popular queer holiday predates recorded history. It captures the essence of sex and gender variance to a much greater degree than do the activist holidays. Just open the pages of any queer paper during the first weeks of November and you will see what our communities were doing on October 31st. In the words of the Lesbian poet and scholar Judy Grahn, Halloween is “the great gay holiday”.
Halloween is a corruption of All Hallows Eve, which is observed the night before All Saints Day (All Hallows Day). Like other Christian holy days, Halloween was adapted from a pagan holy day, in this case the Celtic feast of Samhain (pronounced sow-end). On Samhain, the Celts believed, the spirit world and the mortal realm come into close contact and spirits can slip out of their domain in order to visit us. The ancient Celts tried to ward off the Samhain spirits by offering them gifts or scaring them away with jack-o-lanterns. Others dressed up in fantastic costumes to impersonate and confuse the wandering spirits.
Though the Protestant reformers tried to suppress All Hallows Day observances as being both pagan and papist, Halloween emerged as a secular holiday during the 19th and 20th centuries. And while Halloween is enjoyed by everyone, “it has been the gay community,” Rogers tells us, “that has most flamboyantly exploited Halloween’s potential as a transgressive festival, as one that operates outside or on the margins of orthodox time, space, and hierarchy. Indeed, it is the gay community that has been arguably most responsible for Halloween’s adult rejuvenation.”
According to William Stewart, “Hallowe’en has always been a time of year when the gay communities experienced greater freedoms. . . . Even in the 1940s and 1950s when police harassment of gay bars was at its height, Hallowe’en was the one fairy-tale evening when the drag queens could come out with impunity.”
In Wide-Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965, historian Nan Alamilla Boyd wrote about Halloween parties that were held at the Beige Room and other San Francisco bars back in the fifties, which “included not simply a drag ball and a ‘parade of queens’ but the selection of the best dressed participant.” In New York City, Rogers wrote, by the mid-1970s “Gay promenades had become a constituent feature of the Greenwich Village Halloween celebrations. Beginning in 1974 as a countercultural event for the Village arts community, this annual parade, with its puppets, floats, and revelers, has become a fixture in Gotham’s calendar.”
Halloween’s appeal to the GLBTcommunity goes beyond the holiday’s historical or spiritual connotations. I believe that it has a lot to do with our role as outsiders in society; our propensity for cross-dressing and gender-bending; our love for the unusual and the fantastic; our ability to find humor in the absurdities and misfortunes of life; our fascination with festive costumes and the world of make-believe; and our special capacity to have fun. The GLBT community observes and cherishes it as a day in which we can do away with dull, ordinary, dumb reality and be our fun, exotic, erotic selves.
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Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance writer and Gay activist who lives in South Florida with his life partner and many friends. Share your Halloween tales with him at jessemonteagudo@aol.com.
If you really want a rockin’ Halloween costume and don’t have the time, energy, inclination or skills to put one together for yourself, there are plenty of resources in the Chicago area, Whether you want to rent a costume, get a few accessories or construct an entire haunted house, you need look no further. (For those of you more interested in drag, pick up our last issue or look it up on line at boimagazine.com.
Beverly Costume Shop, 11626 S. Western, 773.779.0068, beverlycostume.com This off-shoot of a record store that still stocks vinyl, specializes in costume rentals from gorillas to gangsters as well as masks, gags, gifts, party decorations and other goofy delights.
Broadway Costumes, 1100 W. Cermak, 773.384.8448, broadwaycostumes.com With more than 20,000-feet of space, this is the Midwest’s largest source for costume supplies.
Chicago Costume, 1120 W. Fullerton, 773.528.1264, chicagocostume.com The Fullerton shop is the main headquarters, but Chicago Costume has dozens of pop-up locations around the city this time of year.
Lost Eras, 1511 W. Howard, 773.764.7400, losteras.com This family run business has supplied costumes and props for movies and theater since 1969. The two-level, 15,000 square foot showroom is jam-packed with costumes, props and accessories.
Reilly’s Trick Shop, 6442 W. 111th, Worth, 800.474.5397 rileystrickshop.com Since 1937, this southwest suburban shop has been a one-stop source for fun.
