These articles will be printed in THE S & M NEWS vol 6/#4 (June 1999)
but I thought it important enough to place them on the web before the publication even hits the stands.
Copyright Carter Stevens 1999 All rights reserved.

Serious Shit (editorial)
By Carter Stevens

This is a very serious issue of THE S&M NEWS. Usually I try to keep this newspaper light and entertaining. After all BDSM should be fun to do, and fun to read about, but not this issue. This issue we deal with some real "serious shit".

You will also notice that there are almost no pictures, serious subjects require serious discussion and somehow pictures don't seem to fit. Unfortunately, there is lots of this serious shit coming down all around us. This issue, one of the most serious things we deal with is a problem very close to home, the illegal discrimination against our fetish and spanking parties that is coming down in the Poconos. Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident. I wish it was. BDSM scene people and clubs are being hassled and targeted all over this country and its getting worse. Clubs being closed up in Florida, Mistresses being busted in several states. Your rights are being shredded and burned on the bonfire of "Political Correctness". Mostly the result of the horrible Reagan-Bush Supreme Court legacy, of which we are just now starting to feel the results, I'm afraid these repressions will ring in the new millennium with an atmosphere as repressive as the last century, instead of the gains we have made for personal freedom in this one.

First our problems. Due to a series of inflammatory, libelous, and I believe actionable articles in the Poconos newspaper we have had to make several changes in our Spring Spanking only party and for the first time in 8 years cancel our Fetish Fling Party

The semi-good news is our Spankers only party proceeded as planned April 9-11. Although we have lost the beautiful resort venue that we held our last 4 parties at, and almost all the other Resorts in the Poconos will not accept our business due to the publicity, (see article elsewhere in this issue) we managed to make arrangements with Rainbow Mountain Resort in the Poconos to hold our Spring Spanking party there. Rainbow Mountain is a very well known gay oriented resort but as a show of support against the illegal discrimination being waged by the Pocono Township supervisors and the Pocono Mountain Vacation Bureau against BDSMers and Spankers, they allowed us to rent out their resort for our Spring Spanking only Party. As they put it, they are the "black sheep" (their words, not mine) of the Poconos anyway, so why not have our party there.

Unfortunately, that meant that many of our reserved guests may had to cancel, as the Rainbow is less than half the size of the Birchwood. However, those who attended had a good time in the cozy confines of the smaller resort..

The bad news however is that the resort is way too small for us to hold our Fetish Fling. So I am very sorry to report that our Spring Fetish Fling was cancelled for the first time in 8 years. We are in the process of finding a new venue for our fall parties but they will probably not be in the Poconos.

Despite the largess of the Rainbow Resort in taking us in when we were cast out on the street homeless, , my views on the repulsive actions of the Pocono Mountains Vacation Bureau and I only went through with the Spanking Party because many people make plans months in advance to attend our parties. However, unless the PMVB and the PTS puts as much pressure on our old venue to take us back as they did to have them drop us, I believe we will be moving our parties as far away from the Poconos as practical (again, see my plea for an economic boycott of the Poconos elsewhere in this issue) and instituting a suit against all parties concerned in this blatant violation of our civil rights discrimination.

Hunting Season in the Poconos
by Carter Stevens

As you will learn later in this issue, the Pocono Township Supervisors (PTS) and the Pocono Mountains Vacation Bureau (PMVB) have declared that it's open season in the Pocono's, and the species of game they hope to wipe out in this area is YOU! The PMVB and the PTS, spurred on by a series of snide, inflammatory and down right libelous articles appearing in the local newspaper, (the Pocono Record) placed enough pressure on the Birchwood Resort that they were forced (totally against their will) to cancel both our Spring Spanking only and Fetish Fling weekends from their resort. In eight years of holding our parties in the Poconos we have never had a single incident. No complaints, no police, no neighbors complaining about noise, nothing. Starting out as small weekends at a rental vacation house and growing to a larger party held at a local swing club (when we outgrew that place some other opportunists stepped in and started throwing BDSM parties there, and that has grown into Masquerade twice a year). For the next several years we threw our parties at an older Poconos Hotel called The Pines. They also hosted a yearly cross dressing party for another group, but when The Pines was sold and closed it's doors as a public hotel several years ago, we stepped up in quality once again and moved to the Birchwood. The Birchwood is one of the most deluxe, friendliest, well equipped, but still coziest, resorts in the Poconos and the staff was always polite and welcomed us back 4 times over the last two years with open arms. But they have to do business in the Poconos 48 other weeks of the year besides our weekends and the pressure from these petty bureaucrats in the PTS and PMVB was enough to make them cave in and pull out and tearfully beg us not to force them to live up to their contract. (We DO NOT blame them in any way shape or form, the Manager of the Birchwood couldn't let the business go down the tubes just for our 4 weekends.)

Since they never were anything but kind to our groups in the past we looked elsewhere for a venue. Not surprisingly, not one resort in the Poconos (except one, Rainbow Mountain, the famous gay resort) would even consider accepting our group. Over half the resorts contacted, including the giant Caesars resort group (they have 4 different resorts in the Poconos in addition to the Vegas, Atlantic City and God-knows-where-else resorts in their chain) and even Mt. Airy Lodge (of the "all you need to bring is your love for everything" TV commercials fame) stated that fear of tangling with the PMVB and the possible adverse publicity there from was their SOLE reason for turning away our business. So just because our readers (wake up people that's YOU!) like to play sexually as a group, in the privacy of a closed resort rather than in the privacy of the heart shaped or champagne glass bathtubs, the Pocono resorts are always advertising, (or do the PMVB and PTS think people come to the Poconos just to bathe in those kinky tubs?) the "powers that be" in the Pocono's have decided that YOU are unfit to be members of polite society and your business is not welcome in the Poconos because it doesn't fit in with the "decent" people they want to attract. In other words YOU people are perverts, and your money ain't no good in the hills of eastern Pennsylvania. The town fathers of Pocono Township seem to think that if it isn't illegal to admit you enjoy consentually slapping somebody on the ass in the company of others who enjoy the same thing, it damn well should be. (I can just see them pouring over the town statutes mumbling to themselves, "There must be a law in here somewhere against THAT sort of thing"). The head of the PMVB doesn't care if it's legal or illegal, he just doesn't like it. "They" (meaning YOU) just aren't "our" (meaning HIS) kind of "politically correct" honeymooners, families, retirees, or (presumably hetro but sexless) couples. (What the hell does he think those honeymooners are doing in those heart shaped or big round beds, reading the bible till they fall asleep every evening?) Obviously he (Mr. Uguccioni, head of the PMVB) doesn't think that members of "traditional family groups or conventions", "couples, honeymooners, or senior citizens" would ever be tempted to wear black leather or spank a willing ass. Which begs the question, "Who the hell does he think comes to these weekends?" All I've ever seen at our parties are couples, middle class singles, and an ocassional senior citizen couple (some even older than me). Traditional folks like everyone else in the Poconos. Doctors, Lawyers, Truck Drivers, etc.

Putting aside the financial hardships this situation has placed on our company, what it comes down to is, a few petty bureaucrats (I can't even find out who the hell appointed this guy at the PMVB or gave him the power to say who does or doesn't belong spending money in the Poconos) have declared war on YOU and everyone like you and it's damn well time to fight back before you lose the constitutionally guaranteed rights you have to peaceably gather and enjoy a good romp in the natural beauty of where ever the hell you want to do it.

The PMVB has declared YOU and everyone YOU know in the scene to be Persona Non Grata. YOU aren't welcome in the Poconos, stranger. It's time to fight back. It's time to bite the bullet and let the Poconos know they have made a disastrous mistake. As soon as you finish reading this paper, or this web site, sit down and write the PTS and the PMVB, and most important, if you have ever been on a vacation or honeymoon in the Poconos write the resort you stayed at. Write them and tell them you are never coming back to the Poconos. Tell them, from this day forward you will spend your money in the Catskills, in Virginia Beach, in Myrtle Beach, in Hilton Head, in Florida, in Las Vegas, in Atlantic City, in Hawaii, in Europe, anywhere BUT the Poconos. You will take your hard earned vacation tourist dollars and spend them somewhere else, anywhere else in the world rather than in an area that allows some group of uptight self appointed guardians of their own blue nosed morality to dictate what YOU can or can not do for fun in the closed presence of like minded friends just because they don't approve. Tell them that when your local Moose lodge or your Widget company is looking for a convention spot you are sure as hell going to push somewhere you would feel more comfortable. Make sure they know that by trying to regulate your private life they are in turn effecting your public life as well, and that you will sure as hell effect theirs in turn. Learn from the Gays. (as someone pointed out the PMVB and the PTS would never have tried this crap if our group had been gay.) Don't let someone push you out because of your private life. If the Poconos doesn't want your money and very important, the money from all the friends you can steer elsewhere, so be it. Lots of other places in this world would be glad for the business.

If you're too busy to sit down and write, just clip out or print out this article, underline the part about never coming back to the Poconos and send it off to the Resort you stayed at. Sooner or later they will get the message, and when their reservations start to drop off and the already ailing tourist economy of the area drops through the cellar, maybe they will learn that your money is just as green as Grandma and Grandpa Brain Dead, and they will decide that maybe they better tangle with this petty dictator at the PMVB before the senior citizens he so desperately wants to attract die off and the rest of you are at some resort in the Catskills pouring the money into their local economy that you could have poured into the Poconos. Please do it today, right now before you get distracted, because if you don't help crush this kind of discrimination and illegal use of power here it will spread and you will soon find yourself locked out of other places you might want to visit just because you wear leather rather than double knit polyester.

In the mean time, now that I can no longer spend my time promoting local parties (and as a result promoting the local economy) I intend to spend all my time and energy publicizing the illegal and immoral (yes, blackmail and intimidation are a hell of a lot more immoral than anything YOU do at our parties) actions of The Pocono Township Supervisors and the Pocono Mountain Vacation Bureau. So you can expect to hear a lot more about this on the TV talk shows, on the web (and in our publications and web sites if nowhere else.) I don't like being told I'm not allowed to pursue my legal interests just because some self appointed dictator doesn't like the fact that I enjoy spanking better than tennis, and you all know I will never go gentle into that good night. Don't YOU let them screw YOU over, either. Write the Poconos resorts, write the Poconos Vacation Bureau, Write the Newspapers and most important tell all your friends, family, neighbors and business buddies to go somewhere other than the Poconos.

In short, (that will be the day I say anything "in short") I am calling for a full scale economic BOYCOTT of the Poconos by anyone who doesn't want some petty bureaucrat calling the shots in YOUR bedroom.

The address for the Pocono Mountains Vacation Bureau is:

1004 Main Street,

Stroudsburg, PA 18360

The address for the Pocono Township Supervisors is:

P.O. Box 197

Tannersville, PA 18372

The Address for the Pocono Record is:

511 Lenox St.

Stroudsburg, PA 11360