The Control Enthusiast

No, not in Toronto – at least, not yet. I am thinking about bringing Graydancer back up here, sometime in the autumn and holding the second annual (?) ToroGRUE. I can only imagine, based on the number of people who wanted to but couldn’t make it out the last time, that we’d have more than enough interest to make it worthwhile. I know there’s things I’d like to cover in a GRUE that I wasn’t able to get into last time (oh, the trials of the organizationally-minded…) and while it would be fun, I won’t be able to make it* to St. Louis at the end of June for the GRUE In The Lou 2.
The GRUE: Graydancer’s Ropetastic Unconference Extravaganza. Gray writes a bit about the history of the GRUE and the upcoming incarnation in St. Louis here, on BestSexBloggers.com. There’s a link at the bottom of that post to an earlier post on “The Care and Feeding of a GRUE”, which gives a very clear idea of what to expect if and when you choose to attend this most unusual of experiences, the kinky unconference.
And you SHOULD attend. Yes, I’m biased, but I still believe the unconference model leaves the participants with more actual takeaway than an strictly programmed and scheduled-to-the-minute traditional conference. At the GRUE, everyone is a listener, a speaker, a teacher and a student. Everyone participates. Everyone has a say in what gets covered; if you don’t see a topic you want to hear more about stuck on that wall at the beginning of the day, you damn well get up, grab a piece of paper & a Sharpie and you stick it up there yourself. It doesn’t take long to realize that, no, you’re not the only person who’s interested in that very thing. And that’s a good feeling.
There’s more information about the GRUE In The Lou 2 on FetLife. If you’re in the St. Louis area, go. Spend the 25 bucks, book the day off and engage.

* I won’t be able to make it because I’m flying to Berlin on that day. A fair tradeoff, I’d say.

Tags: D/s, Events, GRUE, Images, Rights by control
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Last night, I had the chance to introduce someone to rope bondage.  Her reactions to the very simple tie I put on her were a great reminder of why I love rope so much, and how powerful it can be when used correctly. How the very simple things can be used to great effect.

It was, to say the least, eye-opening.

It made me realize that more often than not, for the past while, I’ve been concentrating too much on form and not enough on energy. It’s easy, I think, to get caught up in the mechanics of tying, that it has to look like THIS and use THIS knot and have THIS many wraps. That kind of specificity appeals to my Capricornian brain in a pretty major way – but that doesn’t make it right. It’s way too easy to get caught up in a Lab frame of mind. That’s the part of me that wants to just geek out about what I’m doing – again, the form – and put the WHY I’m doing it aside for the moment. I am realizing I need to change that approach, and try to reconnect with what it is about rope that thrills me.

I’ve also been having lots of conversation recently about taking D/s energy into the public space. The more I talk and think and plan about this, the more I realize I’m getting hungry to flex those muscles again. It’s one thing to give assignments over text, email, voicemail. It’s another to have someone in front of you and be able to reach out and grab them with something as small, as simple, as subtle as a gesture or a soft word. More thoughts on this form of control are sure to follow.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Other bits & thoughts I want to mention, while I’ve got your attention:

Graydancer has released the two latest episodes of the Ropecast, both of which center around the ToroGRUE. The first one is more of an overview of the entire event, with a bunch of recordings taken on the first day Gray and phaedra arrived in Toronto. There’s a tour of Northbound Leather, as well as us chatting on public transit. Yes, you can hear me on there, and it sort of disturbs me at times how much I sound like English is my second language. Strange. The second one is a recording taken during the ToroGRUE of the Fishbowl, a session where one by one the Doms, Subs & Switches sit in the middle of the room to answer questions thrown at them by the other two groups. It’s always interesting, so check it out. Gray has also started offering individual sponsorships on the Ropecast. He’s officially sponsored by TwistedMonk.com, but is opening it up to others. The Ropecast has a lot of listeners, and is still growing, so it’s worth looking into if you’ve got a kink event or product you want to let people know about. And it’s not restricted to rope.

I’m going to be taking a vacation to NYC in late November/early December, and am open to suggestions of things I should do while I’m there. It won’t be my first time in the city, but it will be my first vacation in the city. My time will be pretty much entirely my own. I’m not only looking for kink-related activities, either. Any suggestions are welcome.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here before, but a while back I was introduced to the Power in Practice podcast, put together by Soulhuntre, Daddy David, and Flagg. The latest episode addressed a lot of the questions I’ve asked myself in the past, mostly around the way I focus my energy in a dominant but very much non-Alpha way. I recommend starting from the beginning and listening to them all. There hasn’t been an episode yet I haven’t pulled something valuable from. A great resource.

Tags: D/s, Events, GRUE, Rope by control
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Tuesday night I’m writing this and I still don’t think I’ve quite recovered from the weekend of the ToroGRUE. It was fantastic, don’t get me wrong – a good time was had by all, some amazing conversations and new connections were made. It was a LOT in one day, and that’s what I think I’m still recovering from.
Friday morning I drove out to the airport to pick up Graydancer and phaedra. Back to my apartment and then out to a local joint for breakfast. A quick jaunt over to Northbound, which resulted in a spur-of-the-moment tour of the facilities there. You think the thick smell of leather downstairs is enthralling, try upstairs where they actually CUT it. Delicious. Picked up some supplies & headed back to my place where Gray & phaedra passed out for a few hours, and I did some last minute planning.
The Meet & Greet was small but valuable. A great intro to the weekend. I got a text from Sascha around 22:00 that she’d landed, so we left the Rhino & headed home to meet her in her cab. As we were walking up to my apartment, the cab was pulling up. Now that’s timing. Upstairs, later, hot chocolate was made & enjoyed, and then the sleeping.
Saturday was a long day. Up at 7am, at Goodhandy’s a little before 9. People started showing up right at 9:30 – thankfully phaedra and I were back with the lunch food by then, so not too many people made it in ahead of our return. What was so great for me was the mixture of people in the room, some I knew well, some I’d seen before, and some I was meeting for the first time in person. The day started at about 10:15 and went pretty much non-stop until 18:20. Eight solid hours of amazing discussion. In that time we covered the following topics:
*  Rope 101: Intro to Bondage
* Gender and sexuality in the kink scene
* Tying the male form
* Scene names & difficulty coming out as kinky
* DIY Projects: making your own kinky gear
* Bellydance
* Graydancer’s Fishbowl (recorded to be featured in an upcoming Ropecast)
* Substance use and BDSM
* Developing a Humiliation Play Scene
* Group therapy & aftercare for humiliation play scene
* Integrating poly relationships with BDSM
* Decorative long-term rope bondage
* Negotiating scenes across social barriers & taboos (cultural, class, race)
* Maintaining Scene Dynamics: the dance of BDSM
At the end of the day, Gray gave me a piece of rope, purple hemp from the previous GRUE organizers. I have a feeling that rope is going to be pretty charged, for me, as I’ll always associate it with this event and all the time & energy I put into it. It also makes me think I want to come up with something to pass on to the next person who organizes a GRUE, whoever it might be. It would be very interesting to attend a GRUE as a participant, and not as an organizer/facilitator. I hope one day I’ll be able to do that.
The ToroGRUE ended on a very intense level, which I think we all felt as we streamed out of Goodhandy’s and went to a local pub for some food. In a cab on the way home to change for the rest of the evening I could already feel my energy waning. Even before that, I’d been hard-pressed to keep my head up over my grilled cheese dinner. When we got home, M was already there, having gotten a jump on the sleeping before we showed up. We got changed, I decided on the kilt & a light sweater, and we headed to Koma where Gray was going to do some tying for Morpheous’s Salon de Refusé event. Gray started tying Sascha almost as soon as we showed up, and when Morpheous realized I was there he invited me to tie as well. I did a body corset tie on phaedra in the window (that one tie is getting me lots of return, thanks again out to Leon for the inspiration), taking a little more time than I might to get the cinch-points even. Another rigger from the ToroGRUE, Dart, did a dual inverted suspension with his boy inside the shop, and another tie with another boy in the center window, while I was finishing the corset on phaedra. Lots of attention paid, by the outside audience – not all of it appreciative. My guests from the south had their first encounter with rude Canadians that night.
All in all we were there for about two hours, and by midnight we were ready to leave. A quick check-in took place in a (relatively) quiet corner of Koma. We were all exhausted, physically and emotionally drained. We stumbled out of Koma, started walking back towards home, having decided the party at Goodhandy’s was not the place we had to be. I pulled the three into one of my favourite local joints, Café Taste, where we each had a unique glass of fantastic wine as recommended by Jeremy, the owner, as well as some lovely chocolate ice cream and a dessert called The Cthulhu that has to be tasted to be believed. The emotionality of the night spilled into our time at Taste, resulting in a bit of a rant by me. We were there until we all started nodding, then stumbled our way home through Nuit Blanche crowds.
Gray had (for some reason) suggested a 10:00 start for breakfast the next day. I convinced him that maybe 13:00 would be more reasonable. Of course, when we hit the breakfast joint, it was PACKED and a table for all of us wasn’t going to happen. We decided on two adjoining booths, and tucked into our pancakes and sausage and (admittedly substandard) coffee. Leaving there, I grabbed another rental car (thank you, ZipCar) and we drove Sascha to the airport for her flight away. Back to my place, and more crashing. Dinner plans had been made earlier, sushi at Il Bun Ji on Bloor street. We were joined by M. and Andrea Zanin, and were there until quite late, talking and laughing and engaging with all sorts of raw fish. Back to my place again, and already I could feel the con drop starting to set in.
Up far too early on Monday. And then, after putting Gray & phaedra in a cab for their trip back to the airport… I went to work.
Which was just… wrong. And still feels wrong.

Tags: Events, GRUE, Rope, ToroGRUE, theorosexual by control
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Gearing up for the weekend of the ToroGRUE I thought I’d post a final itinerary and some thoughts. I don’t expect everyone reading this to have booked a ticket or two to the ToroGRUE, but I want to put the information out there, in case anyone is undecided and just needs a bit more prodding to change their mind.

I want to thank Northbound and Goodhandy’s again for their support in this event, as well as Graydancer for being able to fit the trip into his schedule.

So – this weekend!

FRIDAY 19:00 – 22:00 – Meet & Greet

Trying to book a place just for us on a Friday night was a challenge. So, I’ve decided to go the Munch route and grab a table or two (or three)(or four) in a regular bar/restaurant. We’ll be meeting at the Rhino, located at 1249 Queen Street West (http://www.therhino.ca/images/map.jpg), one of Parkdale’s great bars. It’s big, with lots of tables, and we should be able to carve ourselves out a little space. Look for the (hopefully) subtle pieces of rope coiled on the tables we’re sitting at. And also, if you’ve got friends who might be undecided about attending, bring them and we’ll help make their minds up. It’ll be casual, and in public, so dress for it. Common sense is the order of the night – we’re among non-Kinky folk, odds are, so keep that in mind in your dress, actions & language. This is just for the chat – it’s tomorrow that’s for the playing.

SATURDAY 09:30 – 18:00 – ToroGRUE @ GOODHANDY’S

It’s a 9:30 AM call for a 10:00 AM start. It’s important that everyone is there for the beginning of the day – that’s when the schedule gets made. We want everyone’s input, so show up early. Goodhandy’s is located at 120 Church Street in Toronto, which is east of Yonge Street, South of Queen Street ( http://tinyurl.com/4kyfrm ). There’s parking and coffee in the neighbourhood. Show up early & with your brain on.

SATURDAY 18:52 – SUNRISE – NUIT BLANCHE @ all over the city

Not actually part of the ToroGRUE, but a pretty amazing event in it’s own right. Before – and after – the Northbound Party, check out this massive art exhibition event that covers most of Downtown Toronto. A highlight – Graydancer will be joining Lord Morpheous in the window at Koma (1239 Queen Street West – yup, right beside the Rhino) in tying up some very lucky people as part of the night.

SATURDAY 21:00 – 02:00 – NORTHBOUND PARTY @ GOODHANDY’S

This is the full-on fetish night, so bring your gear, you garb & your goodies and play. Doors open at 9, and I’ve arranged for everyone who buys a ticket to the ToroGRUE to be on the guest list. Show up anytime after the doors open, and stay late.

SUNDAY – TBA

A wrap-up kind of event for the ToroGRUE is going to happen on Sunday, but only those few who actually attend the GRUE will get the details. We’ll reveal the plans for this at the end of the day on Saturday.

Bring your ropes. It’s going to be a good time.

Tags: Events, GRUE, Rope, ToroGRUE, public, theorosexual by control
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Days away, now.

I had a meeting at Northbound Leather yesterday with the lovely Enza, talking about the ToroGRUE and how Northbound could be involved. And, frankly, it’s more than I expected.

As well as being a part of their latest newsletter, the ToroGRUE is also posted on their site, on their Upcoming Events page. Scroll down a little bit and you’ll see the posting for the GRUE. (That’s my rope, A’s arms, and KK’s photography.) To buy a ticket for the ToroGRUE from Northbound’s website (yeah, they set that up for me as well… like I said, more than expected), click on the poster for X-Posed at the top of the events page and it’ll take you to a menu with the GRUE graphic. Click on that, and you’re on the purchase page.

They are also lending me a suspension frame for the day, which will be helpful for the session on suspension harnesses I HOPE happens. Everyone gets in to the Northbound Party that night, for more playful antics. I’m looking forward to all of it.

And later that night, Lord Morpheous will be hijacking Nuit Blanche with a three hour long piece called “Salon des Refusés partie deux” taking place at Koma Designs, 1239 Queen West, just a bit west of Dufferin on the south side. Graydancer will be joining the show and tying for some of that time. That’ll just be the beginning of the evening, with the Northbound Party & the rest of Nuit Blanche to follow.

Tags: Events, GRUE, Performance, Rope, ToroGRUE, art by control
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