MIR - Climb Inside!

From a Contestant POV

It's hard to remember when you're at an event, and you're tripping over legions of titleholders, that lots of people have never experienced the gut-wrenching thrill of being on stage competing for a title.  So, we asked Leatherati correspondent Tynan Fox to tell it like it T - Eye - Is, from an insider's point of view, as he competed for the title of Mr International Rubber in Chicago in early November 2010. 

by Tynan Fox

I used to think the contests were just bullshit excuses for kinky guys to convene together and that they really didn’t matter much in the long-run.  International Mr. Leather and Mr. International Rubber were two contests I had been to, but I didn’t really think much of them.  But at MIR 2010, I did go to the Saturday night portions of the contest and got a taste of what it really means.  The contestant from Atlanta had a huge following of people with him, and that really said something to me.  I didn’t quite know what it was, but I felt compelled to explore a little more.  I started discussing it then with some friends in Minneapolis, and on their reccomendation (and threats of injury), I decided to go for it in April.

Then came the months of preparation, working out, buying rubber gear, fittings, and other practicing.  Every step of the way, I had the support of my kinky friends from Minnesota.  They were all so encouraging that I had to keep going.  I was starting to get it. 

I got into Chicago on Thursday night so I could have an evening to myself to relax before a busy weekend.  I got a little bondage in with a guy I new from the area to unwind a little.  I didn’t really want to let it on, but I was nervous about the performance I had coming up.

All day Friday I was on pins and needles.  The vendor market was amazing, as usual.  The smell of all the rubber in that gym alone was enough to turn me on.  I spent some time shopping and catching up with friends, but contestant call was at 5pm.  I turned in my applications earlier in the day.  The deal was sealed.

At call, we were briefly introduced to one another, as well as the judges.  We were also warned that judging begins immediately (not so surprising).  Everyone perked up and did a wardrobe check as soon as Willie said this.  The other eight contestants were rather impressive and I was starting to feel a little bit intimidated, but onward we pressed.  We walked through the logistics of the show for the night, and then had a free hour before call.  We also were given five minutes to write two or three sentences about what we like about rubber.  I don’t even remember what I wrote down now, but it was stupid.  They didn’t tell us what it would be used for.

The contestants all hit it off really well right away.  We helped each other get ready, squeeze into our outfits, shine up, and primp for the stage.  That kinship we had was really reassuring to me that we’re all just human.  I put on my sash and went out backstage, waiting to go on with butterflies in my stomach.  I hadn’t been in front of an audience for many, many years.  I went out, announced my name, trying to smile, said where I was from, and drew my contestant number (lucky seven!). 

First outfit change.  I squeezed into some assless chaps and a Mr. S shirt.  I was hoping it would go over well for the “Rubber Image”.  The whole idea was to look good in rubber, and show the judges how confident you feel in it.  Unfortunately, the emcee was reading the sentences about rubber we had written down earlier.  Grrrr.  I’m glad everyone’s was stupid and not just mine.  The whole time I was posing on stage I felt nervous since everyone was staring at me, but hey, that’s why you’re on stage right?

Friday night went pretty smooth.  I was pleased with my performance and feeling pretty confident in myself afterward.  I went out to the Cellblock afterward to meet some friends, and got to suck face with a really hot guy in Motocross rubbers. 

Saturday was a long, long, long day.  Call for interviews was at 1pm, for which we were quarantined from 2pm until 5:15.  It was terrible.  All this for a 10 minute interview?  The contestant wrangler told us that this was to maintain fairness of who can and can’t get up early, who gets to do what, and to make sure no one is late to their interview.  My thought: MIR is a more professional contest these days, and the contestants don’t need as much babying as they maybe used to.  We’re all adults, and we can deal with it if life’s not fair sometimes.  Moreover, if you can’t be at your interview on time, then you probably shouldn’t be MIR.

The interview itself was okay.  There were a multitude of questions, some of them serious, some of them fun.  As I nitpick how I did, I think there were times when I could have answered more promptly and without repeating myself.  Most of the questions were based off what I had written on my application, which, thankfully, I had spent a good amount of time on.  The question that really threw me was, “Describe each of the judges at this table with one word for each.”  I didn’t know most of them very well, so this was difficult.  I left, overall, feeling proud of myself, but still exhausted. 

After the interviews were over, I raced back to the hotel room, scarfed down some food, laid down on the bed, caught up with the people in my room, and threw together my wardrobe for the night in a bag.  Then I had to run back up to the center, because call was at 7pm.  Overall, I only had two free hours to myself on Saturday before the contest was over – having to sit there during all the interviews really sucked up a lot of my day and I really hope the leadership changes this for the sake of future contestants’ sanity.

For the intervew and for the opening number of the evening, I was wearing my favorite rubber item of all time, the catsuit I’ve owned for 6 years.  I love that thing, I’ve had it repaired multiple times.  At call, we did a walkthrough for our evening’s opening number, which was a variant on “Bad Romance” known as “Shit my Pants”.  The audience loved it.  However, while I was rehearsing, one of the guys noticed that one of the repairs on my catsuit was starting to separate and rip open.  I attempted not to panic.  Instead, I called up my good friend and rubber Martha Stewart and gave him the details.  He showed up as soon as he could, and without me even taking the catsuit off, he secured a patch in place (which is still sticking by the way) ten minutes before showtime.  Talk about a guy saving the day!

The best part about the Saturday night competition was that my husband was there.  My husband is kind of the enigma to most of my friends – he’s not quite vanilla, but not quite kinky either.  At least, not socially kinky.  He’s never met most of the people in my kinky circles, but I talk about him to them a lot.  He can see the fun and appeal of it, but it’s just not his cup of tea.  However, for all of the months I’ve been working on competing, he’s been very, very supportive and helpful.  That he showed up for the competition was a huge boost of confidence for me.  Despite all the kinky terrorism around the house for the last four years, he sticks around.  There must be love there.  I could see him in the audience smiling and laughing during the competition; he must not have been too terrorized.

The first event after the opening on Saturday was the onstage question.  They had given it to us beforehand so we could plan our answers.  The point of this portion was to see how we could speak to an audience with a microphone, since this was really the only portion of the competition that included any speech.  The question was, “If you were stranded on a deserted island with one other contestant, who would you choose and why?”  I was proud of myself for my answer.  “I would choose that hunky, studly, delicious southern rubber guy, G-Man for two reasons.  One, he’s smaller than me, so he’ll eat less.  I’m just thinking of survival here.  For two, with as much yellow as that boy has been flagging, I guarantee you neither one of us will be dying of thirst. *smile, wink, nod, wave to the audience, walk of stage*”  They laughed, and that was my goal.

Back stage, I tried to stay calm as I took off my catsuit.  The next portion of the competition was the one I was most worried about; Mystery Bag.  You pick up a bag of everyday objects on stage, unknown what’s in them, open it up, and create a kinky scene on the spot with the volunteer sub.  I was most nervous about this because as a general rule, I do NOT think well on my feet.  I think I did alright though.  My objects were:  a grabber/claw and a box of cherry tomatoes.  We could also pick one of the objects on the table (all liquids: jelly, mayonaise, mustard).  I picked up the grape jelly.  With a deep breath, here goes nothing: I had the sub get on hands and knees and stepped behind him.  I used the claw to grip onto his neck as I lubed up his ass with the jelly.  Then I stooped down and shoved a few cherry tomatoes up his ass, and in the middle I stopped and popped one in my mouth to munch on.  Hats off to that sub for putting up with nine equally grueling scenes.  I won’t lie; I was pretty relieved as I walked off stage.  The hard part was over.

Finally was the incredbly humiliating audience vote.  First of all, I didn’t like standing there on stage with the bucket for people to drop the tickets in, because it was rather disheartening to watch people drop ticket after ticket into other people’s buckets.  Then you know exactly who voted for who if you paid close enough attention, and it feels awful if no one is voting for you.  Second of all, I don’t think it’s really very fair to people who are not from Chicago.  Many of my friends from Minneapolis couldn’t afford to travel down for the competition, so I had fewer people in the audience to vote for me versus, say, someone from Chicago.  And I’m just from Minneapolis, think about the poor contestants who came in from Europe; they probably had even fewer friends in the audience.  Everyone is going to vote for their friends no matter whether they deserve it or not; the sad truth is, people who don’t know someone competing don’t go to the competition, so the audience vote is generally already set at the beginning of the night.  There’s no changing people’s minds for this portion and in my opinion, this vote isn’t really a true representation of who “should” be Mr. International Rubber.  However, if you look at the scoring guidelines, the vote isn’t really worth much compared to all the other portions, so it would only really make a difference if two contestants are really close or tied.  I don’t know, I think it’s a good idea, but doesn’t work well in practice. 

Not surprisingly, I didn’t get a ton of votes since a lot of my friends couldn’t attend the competition.  I did, however, get one vote that turned my frown upside-down; Tyler McCormick, the current International Mr. Leather, got up out of his wheelchair, up on stage, and voted for me.  I was so flattered, I blushed so so deep…I probably could have passed out right there.  What an awesome compliment.

By this point, all the contestants were a mess.  It had been a long, hard day.  Lots of work, lots of waiting, lots of anticipation and now it’s all over.  I think the common mantra at that moment was, “I’m so exhausted I don’t give a CRAP who wins anymore.”  One final outfit change, and then back out onto stage for the announcement of the winners.

The choices by the judges were good.  All of them deserved it, for sure.  Competition was very steep, and although I’m somewhat disappointed I didn’t score better, I don’t feel bad losing to the people I lost to.  G-man, Roger, and Johnny all very much deserve the top three spots; they’ve done so much for their communities and really performed well on stage.  G-man has a finesse with audiences I only wish I had.  And Roger?  If we could have elected a “Mr. Congeniality”, it would have been him. 

Things were over with about Midnight.  Run back to the hotel, drop my crap, hug all my friends, and get a cab to Jackhammer.  Had a great night underground until around 5am.  Sunday at the kink market was fun, but I was worn out from a long day and a late night.  I also needed to work out some stress from it all, so I went and found my Sir, and we escaped to the CHC clubhouse for some fun that afternoon.  I needed my sub time to be myself.  Then finally, closing out the night with rubber showtunes at Sidetrack was a great way to relax and end another fun and successful MIR. 

Losing was disappointing, yes, but I’m very proud of my performance anyway, and even though I didn’t make it onto the podium, I’m pleased with myself.  I don’t think I could have done any better than I did on a first try, and the experience was thrilling, even if somewhat long and tedious.  In the end, I’m happy I did it because of all the wonderful things it has done for me personally, and for the kinksters in Minnesota.  I wrote more about this on my own blog – check it out for more details.

But the most important thing I learned is that the contests are not just bullshit excuses.  It’s about a community coming together to rally around someone and send their best leader in to go for the gold.  It’s about building communities through friendly competition.

I get it now.  And even though I lost at MIR, it was a huge win for Minnesota.

~Tynan Fox

 

Comments

[Roger (Mr Rubber Netherlands and MIR2011 1st runner up)]

Tynan,

Thanks for the inside review from a contestants view. I think you really gave some insights on it. I too thought for some time that the contest was just an excuse for a big party, but it's much more then that.

I agree with you that the wait for the interviews in tedious and unnecessary. As I understand it, the audience vote will be changed next time as the way this worked out was not satisfactory to anyone involved.

Thanks for voting me Mr Congeniality by the way. I really liked being around the contestants as everyone was friendly and sociable. Hope I was too.

Oh, and I for one think your grabbag show was one of the best! Holding that guy by his neck with that grabber looked great and was the most BDSM-like action anyone of us did in that part of the show. I loved your performance.

Greets from Holland!

Roger