Interview with Mitch Kessler of Adam & Gillians

     

Mitch Kessler (a.k.a. Sir Adam) and his partner Gerrie Blum (a.k.a. Lady Gillian) have been selling “implements of affection” made at their Long Island, N.Y., workshop since 1987.  Counting small, medium and large variations of their designs, they offer over 200 different toys for consensual sensualists.

Longtime BDSM practitioners, Mitch and Gerrie were founding officers of the Metro New York Chapter of the National Leather Association, the New York Area Bisexual Network and the Bisexual Pride Discussion Group.  They have been guest speakers and presenters at numerous conventions and conferences, and have appeared on HBO’s Real Sex #6, Inside Edition, A Current Affair, and the Joan Rivers and Geraldo shows.

Mitch, tell us a little about your personal history.

 I’m 56 years old, so there’s a lot of it.  I’m a bisexual Switch, largely in retirement at the moment.  I’ve sort of settled down monogamously with my partner Gerrie, who is a woman.  We operate the business together.  I got into the S&M scene at the turn of the ‘80s, actually to prolong my career as a swinger.  I had realized that pretty much most of my sexual relationships, going back to the ‘60s, had included some element of restraint, teasing, spanking or things of that nature, though I had never put a particular name to it.

 The AIDS health crisis, starting in ’82, gave a lot of emphasis to BDSM as a way of reconfiguring your sex life to allow for a certain variety of partners as entertainment value, without exposing yourself to harm.  Public play was a way of moving out of the sex clubs, baths, and institutions of that kind, and into something less dangerous to personal and public health.

How did you get involved in the BDSM toy business?

 Gerrie and I started making toys for our own use around 1986.  We found that if you were going to play with multiple partners, you couldn’t just play with a single implement. It’s like golf that way.  One club is not enough. So we began making toys for our own use, starting out using no leather at all, as a matter of fact.  There was a very limited selection of equipment in those days, and as we were playing in the clubs, it came to the point where a guy tried to buy a whip right out my hand in the middle of a scene.  So I figured I might have a talent for designing this stuff.

Did you have a background working with leather or wood?

 No, in Marlin Spike seamanship, the art of the sailor.  It’s a whole field of study, tying knots and patterns in round cordage.  I’ve been an avid sailor since my teens and this art form is a sailor’s way of showing that he’s been around awhile.  Our original floggers were done primarily in nylon, with a maritime Turk’s Head at each end and a French Whip wrapping in the middle.

 How did you move into leatherworking? 

A friend of mine, who was a Native American fancy dancer, wanted something made out of deerskin, to fit his persona and because of the sensual advantages.  Once I realized I could cut into leather, and have it come out right, I started doing floggers.

 So now it’s 1987 and Gerrie and I are performing as on-stage BDSM demonstrators, and there too we had to make some stuff specifically for stage use.  It had to look good, sound good and not annoy the actress.  We built something of a reputation and got involved in founding the New York chapter of the National Leather Association.  We ran that for about two years, and passed the leadership on to someone else because we wanted to. I’m very proud of our having founded that chapter. 

Having done that put us in a very visible position, so that the floggers I was making at the time got to be known nationally. We started selling them in 1987 and in 1990 we put out a catalog and started selling nationally by mail order.  We went into cyber marketing in 1992.

Why name the company Adam & Gillian’s?  Why not Mitch and Gerrie’s?

 Back when we were making fools of ourselves in public, it was very much the custom to adopt a nom de scene.  I was about to perform in staged event at Paddles and was asked “What’s your scene name?” Gerrie and I had been running a sexually oriented bulletin board and my sysop name was Adam Salene.  So Donnie of Paddles dubbed me “Sir Adam.”  Everybody was Sir and Lady in those days.  But I got it in recognition from Donnie.  And it sort of stuck. Sir Adam and Lady Gillian were known for their interesting scenes, and those were the names connected with our products.

 When the Internet started to catch on, did that change the demographic of your typical customer?

I think there was a certain mainstreaming that took place overall.  There were also some things happening culturally at the same time.  Most of the baby-boom swingers aged out of their effective careers and some came over to BDSM, for example.  The Internet also meant that we were able to reach our stay at home, play at home market, the bedroom players.  The Internet gives them complete anonymity.  They have their toys delivered in plain wrappers and it doesn’t have to be anybody’s business but their own.

 Do you feel like BDSM is edging more into the mainstream these days?

No, I think the mainstream has absorbed and homogenized BDSM.  In 1985, heterosexual BDSM or gay leather was a separate, outlaw, underground, elitist lifestyle to which people were more or less authentically connected.  Now it’s not an identity.  For many players today this has no impact on their sense of who they are.  It is simply something that they do. 

Is that a bad thing?

 No, I don’t think so.  There are some really significant benefits to having spanking, or binding, or flogging in your sexual repertoire, particularly for an aging population.  And the idea that you have to be a tribal member in order to have access to this or to legitimately enjoy it I think is a little bit silly. Certainly my sense of cultural authenticity was very important to me at one time, but it’s all pretence.  The scene leaders are not wiser, or better, or kinder, or even significantly more skilled than anyone else.  This is not ballet and it’s not high diving.  It’s not even ballroom dancing.  Certainly, there are public performers who do the Florentine-style and lift nipple rings with four-foot single-tail whips.  They’re still not Shao-Lin priests.

What distinctions do you see between the CP and BDSM scenes?

The organized spanker scene, far more than the pansexual extreme leather scene, seems to straddle the mainstream and the underground.  CP has a somewhat more limited range of behaviors and the equipment is simpler.  CP players are more likely to be monogamous I think, though I’ve been to some delightful spanking parties, where everybody is spanking everybody else. Spankers also seem to be less role fixed than pansexual BDSM or leather folk. Among spankers I’ve known, the statement “I am a Top,” is not common.  It’s “I’m Bottoming to so and so now.”  The person’s role could always change later. And sometimes, to my mind, the organized spanking scene leads some women into silly behavior and some men into thinly camouflaged bad behavior.

Can you elaborate?

 It’s sometimes a justification for a controlling, punitive, parental relationship between two adults, with all the power on one side and none of the power on the other.  And it’s supposedly okay because “We are spankers.”  The scenarios often revolve around “You are bad and you need to be punished,” because of a plausible, real-world offence.  Certainly people can manage this, and most people do.  For them, it’s simply incorporating one person’s personal weaknesses into a scene in order to have fun.  

But for some people, this goes beyond weakness and into character flaw.  When you have a consensual sensualist in one role, and a person not confronting their childhood demons in another role, there’s a lot of room for betrayal, violation of the spirit and oppression of the body. There are Bottoms out there, or should I say Brats, who intentionally try to make their Tops mad prior to a scene.  But I think that’s different than what you’re referring to. I’d say that’s one of the least harmful aberrations, if you’ll excuse the word, because you have to be pretty thick-headed not to recognize this when it happens.  There is no real offence, and it is obviously a setup thing, and the anger that it stimulates has a lot of make-believe in it.

On the A&G home page you refer to your toys as “implements of affection.” What does that mean?

 It’s my belief that most people play within the context of an essentially friendly and affectionate relationship.  I still say that most of the time, even when you get into the extreme play such as caning, not many CP relationships will survive the absence of affection.

 You’re currently working with leather, plastic and rubber.  What other materials have I missed?

 I’m very proud of what we do with cane.  We make the modern and the traditional crook-handle canes, and we’ve started doing a linseed-oil saturated cane.  It’s a little denser and heavier, but not as much as you would think.  What the linseed oil does is generally prevent breakage, at least for a year or so.

Let’s see, what else did you miss?  Oh, nylon cordage.  A certain amount of what we do is historical-reenactment-quality stuff.  Very powerful implements, like the Ultimate Cat and the Prison Cat.  They are the functional equivalents of implements used in prison and military settings to punish adults.  You know, tough guys. I’m guessing these are usually purchased more for their psychological value than for actual use. I think they are mostly wall ornaments, but remember that our advertising net is cast very wide.  There are people who practice this as a martial art or a competitive sport, who are pushing their limits, and they are more than willing to shed some blood to make their point. But that’s maybe one person in 500.

 One of your more devilish toys is called White Lightning.  Tell us about that.

White Lightning was created specifically for a public event involving a woman whose persona was smart-ass masochist.  She had a big, abusive mouth, and she challenged me to a public display of “Can you make me shut up?” The constraints were no blunt trauma injury and absolutely no shedding of blood.  Knowing what her capacities were, I came up with this idea of making a totally unfamiliar implement: a soft polyethylene rod mounted in a handle.  It’s like a peach switch that doesn’t dry out.

 Then, instead of attacking the back or the butt, I attacked her calves.  They were safe places to hit, with plenty of deep muscle and a certain amount of fat, so there was no real harm being done.  But the sensation was totally unfamiliar.  Not being ready for it, she found it unendurable. That made me realize, “This is a good implement!”  It’s very intense, rarely marks, doesn’t do damage, and it can made cheaply.

 Traditionally A&G hasn’t offered wooden implements.  Why?

Personal prejudice.  Part of it was that wood is harder than bone, and a little bit of stupidity goes a long way using a wooden paddle.  I’m reacting more to things that happened among teenage boys in fraternity settings than anything else.  The notion that you can haul off and hit somebody two-handed with an oar — why did we ever think that was a good idea? Part of it was also that the wooden paddles Gerrie and I saw when we first started looking at gear were crude, heavy and dangerous. 

I’m actually right at the cusp of starting to carry a line of red oak, half-inch-thick paddles, because people do like them.  And I’ve become progressively disenchanted with the whole Safe, Sane and Sieg Heil mentality: the notion that other people can’t be trusted to manage their affairs inside their own limits.

 Recommend a good CP toy for beginners.

 Our hairbrush paddle, in size, weight and texture, is spot on the money for spanking.  Paddles in general are easy to control.  There’s no sophisticated technique.  They can be used very lightly and symbolically, or they can ramped up to the point that they bring tears.  Considering bang for the buck, utility and even the possibility of fetish value, a small paddle is a very good choice.

 

Can you offer a few safety tips for beginning players?

I don’t like the emphasis on safety tips from acknowledged experts.  I think scene leaders like to use rules as a way of topping other Tops.  It’s a way of gaining control over people who have not explicitly consented to be controlled.

 I was one of the Safe, Sane and Sieg Heilers myself for a long time, and it took me a little while to realize that other people are looking after themselves very well.  It’s really all common sense.  We can make this more pleasurable for ourselves by pretending that it is heroically dangerous, but this thing we do isn’t even high school football, even though there are some practices where people can get themselves into trouble.  Rigid bondage, suspension and breath control come to mind.

 On a side note, I understand Gerrie actively lobbied against the use of corporal punishment in schools.

Gerrie had a really illustrious career as a regional officer in the PTA and that was one of her causes.Corporal punishment has no place where children are.  The idea of striking children, in anger or cold blood, is not good.  Nor is institutionalizing it so that strangers get to do it.All corporal punishment does is teach children that the physically more powerful get to dominate the physically less powerful.  It’s really a bad idea to teach kids that when they’re big enough, it’s okay to use force.

Mitch, thank you very much for participating in this Q&A.  Do you have any parting thoughts?

Just that I trust people and their instincts.  People should observe their own limits, have fun, and forgive each other the occasional mistake.

Used with permission from Colorado Spankers.

This interview was originally posted in 2003.