Mr. Dyke: An Instant Success Years In The Making
Written by Leah (Bunny) Overstreet
Image courtesy of Vanessa Nguyen
I started a lesbian party series with my best friend back in July and it was an absolute success, but if I’m being honest, that success was years in the making.
Just like any aspiring event planner, we were anxious about potentially flopping. It’s hard to pinpoint what makes a party“ good”, and we were challenging ourselves to not only get people in the door but also ensure that they had a fun time once they were there. Determined not to fall flat on our faces, we mustered the confidence of a white man and promoted the fuck out of our party. We were delighted at the turnout, but I can’t not mention how much of the party's popularity was owed to the community we’ve been pouring into over the years.
Throwing a party is way easier if you’re already tapped the fuck in. My bestie, Dylan and I were already chronically outside: spotted at every single dyke function in Brooklyn, in every party photo dump, at the scene of every crime (and by crime, I mean party). We are something between lesbian socialites and club rats, always showing face and making an effort to“ shake hands and kiss babies”, as I like to call it—but mainly just shooting the shit and shaking ass. Not only were we on the overly fog-machined, oontz oontz dance floors, but we were also at the lesbian poetry reading, and the side show drag performance, and the queer gallery opening, and the Monday night karaoke. We were showing up consistently for the dykes around us, enjoying the fruits of their labor, and subconsciously taking notes. Eventually we started to get involved in the function itself, becoming some of the go-to dykes for lesbian oil wrestling, wet T-shirt contests, strap on sucking contests and other various lesbian spectacle events. We were in the damn mix and, eventually, our friends started wondering when we would just host our own party.
Image courtesy of Vanessa Nguyen
We consulted our own experiences in lesbian nightlife and reflected on what we actually wanted out of a lesbian party. Our main priority was to create a space that reflected the vastness of dykedom and all of the dykes we’ve had the privilege of knowing and loving. We wanted a party for trans dykes (across the spectrum) and Black and brown dykes and alternative dykes and dykes you won’t see when you look up“ wlw” on Pinterest. So we made Mr. Dyke: a party by and for bulldaggers, studs, butches, femmes with a hard e, carpet munchers, and lezzies of all kinds.
It was this same cast of dykes who were enthralled by the idea of a party that wanted more for lesbians than just staring at each other across the room, and these same people that would end up helping us make it a reality. We benefitted from a network of talented DJs, supportive event organizers, and hot babes showing up to have a good ass time. After our first party, Bliss—an insanely talented friend of ours—reached out volunteering to photograph our party and collaborate with us on photoshoots in order to expand their portfolio. We couldn’t believe our luck! It was with Bliss’s insane camera skills and willingness to bring our ideas to life that Mr. Dyke truly started to take shape.
For Mr. Dyke, a bulk of the work for the party actually goes into our promo photoshoots. They are perhaps the hardest, most unnecessary part of this whole thing but, to be honest, they are the best part for me. We hired an artist to make a flyer for the first party and absolutely loved it (shout out Mikayla!), but something really clicked for us when we dove into creating our own flyers using our photo shoots. It was so invigorating for both Dylan and I as creatives, and helped us hone in on Mr. Dyke’s vibe. Mr. Dyke has become as much of a creative project as it is a party. We wanted to not only reference the lesbian canon but also insert ourselves (and our sexy friends) into it.
“Mr. Dyke has become as much of a creative project as it is a party. We wanted to not only reference the lesbian canon but also insert ourselves (and our sexy friends) into it.”
Despite our events not usually having dress codes, we love to build out worlds around a central theme for each Mr. Dyke. One of our parties included a wet t-shirt contest and so it had a beach/end of summer vibe: promo for this included a flyer“ tanned” onto my friend Schyuler’s back using sfx makeup, a sunbathing photoshoot with a custom Mr. Dyke bikini, and a video bringing to life the iconic (and historically accurate) ButchFemme tote bag trick at Riis Beach.
Image courtesy of @blissfully.sinful
Another party was a sleepover theme wherein we collaborated with a femme lesbian lingerie designer and friend of mine (Miss September Rose) to recreate famous memes. Through these themes and photo shoots, we’ve been able to collaborate with so many dyke creatives and we’ve opened ourselves up for endless possibilities.
The past few months of throwing smaller parties has led us to the Big Kahuna: Halloween!!! The intention was always for Mr. Dyke to be a fun, chill, monthly vibe that occasionally took on larger beasts. Halloween was an obvious choice for kicking things up a notch and when my friend Brooke—the mind and hands behind Lesbian Hands—reached out to pitch a collab, our fate was sealed. We decided to put on a Halloween Extravaganza with over 450 guests, featuring sexy lesbian blood wrestling, carnival games, a vendor’s market, face painting, and tarot reading! And thus, Mr. Dyke-O-Ween was born!!!
We were inspired by a nostalgic, classic purple, green, and orange Halloween vibe. For this party, we really wanted to take the kitschy, nostalgic, live action Scooby Doo, Disney Channel Monstober visuals and the intimate yet chaotic energy you usually get from a house party and make them kiss.
For this task, we enlisted one of the most visually mesmerizing venues in Brooklyn: DIY arts collective and underground event venue Rubulad. Rubulad is known for its eccentric decor and outdoor space full of eclectic sculptures, and we knew the space would effortlessly lend itself to a sort of Halloween carnival vibe.
This party required a LOT of planning, especially if we were going to sell enough tickets to cover the cost of throwing it, make the bar minimum, and not completely humiliate ourselves by throwing the flop of the century. For promo we had to begin posting as soon as possible and, by Halloween party standards, we were already late to promote considering other parties began posting at the beginning of September.
We ended up creating a 3D collage for the save the date, planning and directing two monster couple photoshoots, filming a full fake blood wrestle to promote the real blood wrestle, drafting up with a wrestling application, doing an open call for vendors, and selecting both wrestlers and vendors— this included a tarot reader, face painter, balloon artist, tattoo artist, latex designer, edibles baker, and more!
Image courtesy of @blissfully.sinful
Soooo much of even just the creative side of things is budgeting and logistics and working around a lot of people’s already busy schedules. We certainly couldn’t have pulled even a little bit of this off without the generosity of our friends who are always so willing to let us play dress up with them. But between our strict production schedule, a ton of DIY, and running our Instagram account like the Navy, we pulled it off. Despite never having put on a party of this magnitude, we were able to completely sell out our Halloween party over a week before it took place.
This was a huge undertaking to say the least, but it certainly paid off. Masc Alvin and The Chipmunks was catching ass from a blood wrestling diva moments before they stretched face down ass up in a kiddie pool full of blood. Dylan and I had the delight and pleasure of squirting syringes full of fake blood onto the wrestlers as they jiggled cheek for the crowd of giddy onlookers. The whole backyard was filled with shouting and cheering and pure dyke delight. All I could think was:“ I am so damn lucky!” With an energy that is this electric, I don’t even notice the chill of the night air on my own naked, blood drenched body, nor do I remember the stress of pulling this all together. I’m just blindingly happy that I get to be a part of something so fucking special.
