Interview With Susan Wright

Susan Wright is the organizer of the first International Little Miss & Mister Little Pageant. She was kind enough to grant us an interview to help preserve our history.

How did International Little Miss & Mister Little get started? It started as an international contest in Chicago at Kinky Kollege. They have two events each year and we got started at the fall event. I got the idea with my husband, Kelly Beaton. We do littles stuff occasionally, very casually in private--not usually in the community.

I would watch Lolita Wolf, a good friend in New York City, age play at events. I was fascinated by the reaction to her. There would be all this really extreme stuff going on, but a girl sitting in a dress, coloring, was freaking people out. I thought it was really cool.

This was back in 1991, ‘92, ‘93. Being a little was considered to be inappropriate play in public, but people were doing it on their own, even though it’s complete role play and there shouldn’t be a problem with it.

I’m also absolutely fascinated by reality TV, so Toddlers & Tiaras was an influence on the contest. The scene felt about age play the way that most people felt about Toddlers & Tiaras, even though Toddlers & Tiaras was essentially non-consensual with parents dressing up these kids.

Do you prefer it to be called a pageant or a contest? We had the first Little Miss & Mister Little in 2009, as a title holder contest for girls and boys. We wanted to increase visibility and be a symbol of the leather community. We wanted it to be funny, but also hopefully raise visibility of our community.

Lolita Wolf, the first Little Miss Little, did go to IMSL and went up on stage in her sash and competed!

Are you still involved in producing Little Miss & Mister Little? We were living in New York City when I started it. In 2010, we started moving from New York City. I went back to the Floating World and I was the MC and we produced that one. I’ve been in one contest and I’ve been the MC twice - once in Chicago and once at Floating World.

I would be interested in doing it in Phoenix. It’s close enough that we could send the winner to SF for International! When we got started, I did envision that there would be a lot of little local contests.

Do you prefer to see Little Miss & Mister Little as a beauty pageant, a means of rewarding community activism and knowledge, or something else? I see why you started calling it a pageant. In a lot of ways, it’s more pageant-oriented. You don’t have to be a community leader. It really is more about that little at that moment and how they catch that little spirit. It really is how they embody the spirit of the little in that moment.

I like to bring in judges who are not particularly little-friendly. I asked Master Z Dallas and Hardy Haberman, hardcore leathermen, to be judges at the first one. Because part of it is confronting these judgements about littles. At one contest we had Jay Wiseman as a judge, and I do very inappropriate things when I’m an MC, like when I introduced the judges, for example I said Jay Wiseman has a deep, deep, deep, deep, deep love for littles. It kinda freaks the judges out.

But the whole part of starting it was to confront the squick. Rock Cotton, when he won, he is a fit man, and he came out and the judges were turned on by him--and he’s wearing a diaper! For his talent he dripped candle on his diaper, holding himself up by just his arms with the candle on his feet. That’s kind of my aim when I do these things, is to create a safe space for the littles so that they can really express their individuality. We’re confronting your preconceived notions about this.

It’s best to do the jokes with the judges rather than the audience. In all three that I’ve participated in, it started out with a small audience, then more and more people flooded in and stayed to see. Which is why I haven’t rushed to do a contest here in Phoenix. It works better in a big event. They realize, Oh! This is really interesting! The audience doubled during the event. Of course, now the word is getting out.

The best thing about this is that each little brings their own talent, spunk, and style, and it’s completely different every time.

Would you please describe your ideal title holder? I don’t have one! It’s such an individual thing. You could have a title holder who’s role playing 12-years-old or 8-months-old.

That’s why we have a male and a female. We’ve had women compete as boys and men compete as girls. We don’t have one ideal in mind. We just want you to bring the best little that you’ve got and the funnest little that you have inside of you.

I’ve never won. I just wanted to get up and wear a cupcake dress. My first dress took months to create. I got an Indian sari and scrunched up the skirt. It was this glittery thing that, when the lights hit it, it just blinded you. That’s what I love, is to get up there and do that stiff-necked walk like Toddlers & Tiaras.

In the first context, Lolita brought Rita on the stage as her “doll” and they had a tea party and the doll broke a cup so Lolita spanked her doll. I lip-sang the Good Ship Lollipop. It was fun to do it in front of a lot of people who are clapping and excited.

We do an hour beforehand where we show the age play kids the stage, they get to get dressed up, and meet each other.

We had a Mistress show up with her sub and he was not a crossdresser or a little, but he did it because she wanted him to. And he was kind of awkward and kinda leaning to one side in his little heels. And he went up on stage and she would yell “SPARKLE CLARICE!” Then she would draw her finger across his toy’s neck, like she was going to break the toy to punish him! And in the question, he admitted that if he didn’t win he was going to get punished. And the judges were like, well, we’re not going to let you win, because we want to see you get punished! So it carried on to the dungeon later that night, where Clarice did have a scene and got punished!

There has been some controversy over the gendering of the titles. How do you feel about that? We don’t care if you’re male or female. The problem is that you have a sash, so you’d have to be prepared beforehand. My instinct is, sure! Compete as not a Miss and not a Mister and if you win, you’ll be a littles contest winner. We’ll just call it a littles sash and we’ll have Becky create a non-gendered sash. We could make a sash afterwards, if they wanted to. I can see that there wouldn’t be that much demand for it, but I’d hate to exclude a non-gendered little.

How did you work out scoring? We would just score. We had to make a uniform scoring method - 1 to 5 stars with 5 stars being the best you can get in each category. We would just score the whole thing and look, okay, these are the two Misters, which one won? We had a contest where there was only one Mister and of course he won. At Floating World we didn’t have any Misters compete.

What did you wear when you competed? I wore a cupcake dress. My sister made it. She’s a seamstress. She can make a cupcake dress to die for. She already made my wedding dress and had all my measurements, so I knew she was capable.

This is my real sister! I’ve been out since 1991. I have to because I’m the spokesperson for NCSF [the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom], which I founded back in 1997. I get quoted in the media, so it was impossible not to be out with my family. I told my parents, I’m off to compete in this little’s pageant! It’s like Toddlers & Tiaras for adults.

I like being an MC more than a contestant, because I never win. I just want to get up and show off my cute dresses.

What advice would you give the current pageant committee? Stay flexible, because I think that too many rules might kill the spontaneity. And the spontaneity is one of the funnest things. Continue to reach out as wide as you can. The littles need the visibility and a place where they can come and celebrate their littleness. I wanted us to be able to celebrate our little space, however you want to express it.

Were you involved in deciding the format of the pageant? Dress, talent, and question? Yes. We had questions like, “What Sesame Street character does each judge remind you of?” I always try to get the judges involved. I always try to get some incongruous judges. I think the questions can be a lot of fun to put humor in there and get some bizarre questions.

I like questions that are more detailed. “If you were to have a scene tonight in your little persona, what would it be like?” I want to get them to talk. “If you were a bad girl, how would Mommy punish you?” So that they have to tell a little story. I try not to get one-word answers. Prompt the little to tell a story.

I coach the kids, too, in the hour beforehand. I’m always trying to recruit people to compete during the event. I’m dying to have a little crawl to the edge of the stage and cry for thirty seconds as their talent. That loosens everybody up. We had someone come up and show their coloring book. “See? Daddy said I went out the lines here, but I did good here.” I try to keep it accessible.

I wasn’t sure if it was going to go. I sometimes tell people I’m going to be remembered for the Littles contest, not NCSF.

That’s a good way of doing it! We had set up our question section to see if the contestant could talk to the media. I do media training for NCSF. If you’re not completely out and don’t have kids and have no kind of government or job with a moral clause or a family, you can be a media spokesperson. I wouldn’t encourage your average little to talk with the media, especially since it’s so misunderstood.

What prizes were given away at the pageant? Well, the sash, and a medal that I have made. A lot of times people would rather wear the medal around than a sash. It’s about two to three inches across with pink ribbon and roses on the front, then engraved on back is the title.

Do you feel the title holder needs to be a public figure? No, not at all. They can take their sash and go home and we can never hear from them again if they want to. We don’t expect them to get out and represent because there are too many barriers to that. It’s hard enough to get littles out to complete. If we told them they had to do the whole title circuit, too? No.

What titleholder responsibilities, if any, were there? It was Lolita herself who decided that she wanted to go to IMSL and she had the balls to travel all the way with her little dress and her sash. And they let her! You can do anything you want to. If a titleholder wanted to go to every local event and raise money--fabulous. A titleholder can do anything they want to.

When we developed this contest, it was about the moment, then whatever you wanted to make it afterward. They would have little spaces, like coloring rooms, but they were separated from the rest of the event. We wanted to bring non-littles into the little space and de-stigmatize it. So we wanted the contestants to be in the moment, rather than think about the whole titleholder year.

Do you consider “Little” to be a kink, an orientation, an activity, an identity, or something else? Why? I think it can be all of those--it depends on the person. For some people it really is an orientation, because it’s how they express an important part of their sexuality. For some it’s just fun to do. For me it’s more an activity than an identity. Maybe that’s why I have a more lighthearted view of the whole thing. It’s a treasured activity for me. My dynamic with Kelly, he’s more of a Daddy than a Sir or a Dom. He’s a more cherishing, caretaking kind of top. That’s our personal dynamic, which is really important to me. I’m always so serious doing the NCSF stuff. I’m having to deal journalists and professionals all the time. Being little is a way for me to let go of all that. I’m not Susan Wright of NCSF having to answer questions. I can be a little and be a brat. I can’t be a brat as Susan Wright. Just because I’m in little mode, it’s taken in a different way.

What do you consider to be the biggest challenge facing the Littles community? It’s just so underground. We’re not all networked together at all. I think that there’s still some disapproval within the BDSM community for the littles. You’re supposed to accept other peoples’ kinks. We don’t think it’s right that anyone in the kink community should make a little feel bad about what they’re doing. Bizarrely enough, we’re considered to be on the edge, even though we’re not doing anything dangerous.

That’s why, when I’m a judge, I will ride that edge. Do you know AJ from Chicago? We asked her to dress like a guy when she was the MC and she wore a tracking device around her ankle, like she was on probation and she leered at all the littles! We had this role play pedophile MC! I like making it a little inappropriate. Getting people to laugh--this is the spirit in which we’re doing it. We’re not being serious.

But every contest that I’ve done, somebody has complained that they’re not going to come back to the event if they keep doing this contest. I feel like I’ve done my job if that happens. We’ve challenged people’s preconceptions and shown that some people are still very disapproving of this kink.

Which is your favorite way for a Little to code, as in the Hanky Code? I think it’s, like, Hello Kitty barrettes. Little, real kid gear that people wear, like two pony tails on top of their head. I think hair is a great way for littles to flag. You KNOW that person is a little. It’s a universal sign of little.

Was there a resource that you found to be particularly helpful in orchestrating the contest? No, not really. We did it all on our own having watched titleholder contests. I've been a judge in a couple of leather contests as well.

Do you have any ideas to attract more Mister contestants? My way is to go around at the event and talk to everyone. Some of my best Mister candidates happened because I told them it would be fun and they should try it. The winner the first year you wouldn't know to look at him that he had a little in him, and I'm so glad I encouraged him to compete. He had a fabulous time and everyone loved him.