Halloween: Ghostly Equestrian Ball invites fetishes out to play

For L.A.’s fetish community, Halloween is more than just another chance to go clubbing in outrageous costumes. It’s a night when their sometimes-exclusive world of fantasy, in which patrons roam local “playrooms” dressed as over-grown infants, dogs or dominatrices, is suddenly tantalizing to those beyond their community. It’s a night when the “normies” crash the party.

Halloween gives the kink community an annual free pass that takes it from underground taboo to public spectacle at events like West Hollywood’s Halloween Costume Carnaval and at Bar Sinister’s Bondage Ball, which claims to be the largest quarterly fetish event in America.

On a recent Saturday night, college student Diana Smith, 24, sipped drinks inside the shadowy, web-filled corridors of Bar Sinister, which takes place at Boardner’s Bar on Hollywood Blvd. every Saturday night. She sees Halloween as an opportunity to explore her budding S&M fetish.

“If anything, coming here tonight tells me I’m have to up my game next weekend for this place,” said Smith, a sociology major. She wore a tight black dress and laced-up dominatrix boots with four-inch heels. “I already look too conservative to party in here. But trust me, that’ll change.”

For the third consecutive year, Bondage Ball and Bar Sinister, Boardner’s long-running goth and fetish night, have joined forces to produce the Ghostly Equestrian Ball on Saturday, making room for an array of hardcore fetish scenes to come out and play in the open.

“We had a fetish dog area where people came as puppies,” said Bondage Ball founder Matt Grim. “They had the ears on and drank out of pet bowls on the floor. That was an interesting one.”

The equestrian theme is not new to the fetish scene, and the Ghostly Equestrian Ball has turned into a Hollywood tradition, drawing upwards of 1,200 people on Halloween.

A motivation for those who organize and champion the event is the ability to bring in people like Smith, who are preparing for their first ball, to feed the scene with new blood, Grim said.

And while openly inviting “normies,” or people outside the fetish world, can be looked down upon by veteran bondage practitioners, Ghostly Equestrian tries to go beyond that mentality to make it a night of experimentation. They insist it’s not just for tourists, but an opening for the curious.

“All of the underground scenes come out specifically for our event because that’s who we cater to,” said Tricia La Belle, promoter for Bar Sinister, which is tucked away through a narrow, cigarette-lit alley way behind Boardner’s main entrance.

On a recent Saturday night, clusters of pasty-faced goth and mod revelers packed the club’s haunted mansion-style interior decorated with skulls, gaudy mirrors, candelabras and Gothic church murals. A thriving upstairs bondage play room with leather whips, cuffs and dungeon furniture overlooked a dance floor flanked by female go-go dancers, a floating aerialist and jewelry vendors.

Jim Mill, a regular at the club, lingered near the go-go dancers, swerving his hips and strutting in knee-high boots, black pleather bikini, long black hair and glam-metal make-up.

Refusing to label himself with any particular fetish group, Mill, 52, says his look helps express his personal view of perfection.

“I come to these things obviously for a free-thinking environment,” Mill said. “I can indulge my lifestyle no matter what my job or relatives think of it.”

A lot of parties or play rooms in the scene are largely exclusive. But La Belle says several fetish organizations, like L.A. Pony Collective, contact her prior to the event about getting on the list or inquire about whether or not their scene can be accommodated.

Who’s attracted? Grim says he’s seen everyone from housewives, teachers, senators and judges.

Tommy O’Brien, a well-known photographer in the L.A. bondage scene, remembers coming to his first Bondage Ball. A guitarist at the time, he decided on a whim to try something edgy for Halloween. He took a cheap, tiny camera with him to snap photos. The result was a lifestyle and career change.

“The minute I walked in and looked at everything that was going on around me and how everyone was dressed, I just felt like I finally found my people,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien, or “Tommy O.” as he’s known, has become a leading bondage photographer, shooting covers for fetish magazines and international events from Europe to the Caribbean.

“Everybody takes their chances around this time of year because nobody is looking at them odd,” he said. “Just blame it on Halloween.”

In a Hollywood climate where alternative lifestyles are still a little hidden, the freedom to explore the dark, playful and subversive sides of sexuality in a safe, no-holds-barred party environment is appealing to many.

“I’ve often been to Halloween parties and checked out people’s costumes and wondered what was really going on,” O’Brien said. “It’s not a coincidence that that guy is the pirate and that girl is Cat Woman. They picked those costumes on purpose. If you delve a little deeper you might find out a few extra things about them. I guarantee it.”

nate.jackson@latimes.com