The Control Enthusiast

So this past Tuesday was our last Keyhole Session of the season and it was a pretty fantastic night. Not that that means we’re going to be totally absent over the summer. In August, there’s talk of doing another Girls on Film session, seeing as how the first one was so successful. Nothing’s confirmed yet, but once it is I’ll be posting about it here & elsewhere.
Before that happens, however, we have this: SneakPeek. From July 8th to July 13th we’ll be showing off some of the best artwork that’s come out of the past 55 Keyhole Sessions at the Gladstone Art Bar, here in Toronto. Click through to find more information about both the exhibition and our Gala opening on July 10th. There’s a chance, space & time allowing, that I’ll be doing a bit of a demo at the opening. Hopefully I can find myself a little corner I can tie in…

Tags: Events, Performance, Photography, art, keyhole, media, public by control
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Wow, so, since April 27th…

The ToroGRUE 2 happened. After a lively meet & greet Friday night, Saturday was a day full of amazing discussions from a mix of brilliant minds. Sunday, lots of pancakes happened, made by Men in Kilts, followed by a little bit more GRUEing. I don’t think any of us were expecting the Sunday session to continue quite as it did, but I for one loved it. Graydancer has a post up about his impressions of this GRUE – the second in Toronto, and certainly not the last – as well as what I think might be the best picture of him and I I’ve seen to date:

Men In Kilts With Kitchen Implements

Our first ever Girls on Film Keyhole Session happened. Lots of fantastic shots came out of that night. A sure success, and one we’ll for sure be repeating. I had a LOT of fun, tying for Keyhole in a way I don’t often get a chance to. Fast, and for restraint as opposed to purely aesthetics. A pretty complete collection of shots from that night can be found here One of my favourite shots of the evening, below, was taken by VoulaVous and I think is simply lovely.

The following week The Keyhole Sessions and Art Battle Toronto teamed up for Art Battle 6. The final Battle of that night was two artists painting two of our models. I tied in front of the Art Battle crowd… not sure what they were expecting but they were certainly paying attention. Sonya shot a video of me tying, which is good as it shows the crowd around us but I still find it very strange watching myself tie on video.

As a result of my work with The Keyhole Sessions I’ve been invited to give a workshop on Tying the Female Form as part of Kinky4Play. That’s happening mid-August. I’ll post more details as they come up.

I discovered a new online artist (thanks to a blog post by Violet Blue) whose work I admire and am following with great interest. Ben Newman keeps a blog at bennewmanart.blogspot.com and is very much worth a look. Here’s a sample piece of his. (I am such a fan of the red rope in this.)

"Handle with Care" by Ben Newman

Part of the Sunday session at the GRUE was a discussion I led (after making many pancakes and watching Graydancer wrassle with my partner A.) on Philosophies of Service. I’m expanding that with more notes and thoughts, with the idea of eventually turning it into a class. Yes, I’d like to get on that touring circuit. But I don’t feel any great need to get on that circuit as a rope educator. At least, not at this moment. Who knows, that may change with time.

Tags: Events, GRUE, Images, Photography, Rope, ToroGRUE 2, Video, art, keyhole, public, theorosexual by control
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Sometimes all of this thinking and talking and geeking about sex & technology pays off. My lovely friend Danielle has offered me a spot on a panel at Northern Voice 2010, a personal blogging and social media conference happening in Vancouver this upcoming May 7-8. It’s the 6th annual incarnation of the event and something I’m really excited to potentially be a part of.
My potential co-panelists make the whole thing even more exciting. Dylan Ryan, my performance partner for Femina Potens’ most recent Art of Restraint event; Courtney Trouble director & entrepreneur from nofauxxx.com and Little Pink Book; and Jiz Lee, the prolific blogger and performer from jizlee.com. All of whom I would be totally honoured to share some speaking time with.
Obviously the conference’s focus on all forms of social media make it kind of an ideal fit for all of us. My blogging and social media engagement have kind of gone hand-in-hand, in many ways, with my sexual development and exploration. To say that my online community connections and support structure has played a part in my growing understanding of myself as a sexual being would be an understatement. Those connections, my online engagement, has been integral to that understanding, and continues to be so.
Then there’s my professional engagement with social media. I work for a company here in Toronto that produces digital media events, and this year, for the first time since I started working for the company, we’re addressing the adult industry head-on. Quite frankly I’m happy we’re doing it, finally, as I think it’s been lacking from our events. I feel like you can’t have a conversation about online social engagement without talking about sex, and yet, it seems to be a subject pretty easily ignored – or at least laughingly dismissed – at most digital media events. For Northern Voice to be wanting to address this topic head-on is pretty fantastic of them, and I for one look forward to the chance to throw my voice and thoughts into the discussion.
There’s a travel bursary that Northern Voice is offering, to participants in need. Flying across the country isn’t so cheap, and the travel bursary would help a lot. Hopefully I’m an attractive enough potential speaker to make me worth the grant.
Photo by @kk

Tags: Events, media, public, theorosexual by control
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Not so much new content as a test.

Actually a test of two things. Posting from Wordpress 2 on my iPhone – which seems to be working just fine, thank you very much – and dropping this Formspring question box here, as well as on Twitter. It won’t be on forever but I’m curious to see what comes of it.

Tags: Life, public, theorosexual by control
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I got home from ArtCore last night around one in the morning, a very heavy bag of rope over one shoulder and a bag of chinese takeout in the other. As usual I brought WAY more rope than I used, but I just know if I’d decided to bring less than I did I would have needed more… that’s just how it goes.

The event was amazing, a packed and raucous crowd filling Bread & Circus in support of Good For Her and the Feminist Porn Awards. I’m glad I got to be a part of it. I got to have conversations with various people while I was tying, people both novice and experienced who all wanted, for whatever reason, to touch the rope.

Let me just make this clear: to touch the rope, but not the beautiful people IN the ropes. Now that’s something.

We gave away two passes to the Keyhole Sessions at the end of the night, and of COURSE I know the person who won them. It was a sort of last-minute decision to offer the passes, and having me step up onstage at the end of the night while they were being given away. I do wish, in retrospect, that I’d given a bit more thought into what I was going to say when I got up there. As it was I said nothing. Which I know will be not surprising at all to those of you out there who know me. I can’t think of a time when I’ve not preferred to be more invisible than not. What will be surprising, and what you can kind of tell from the picture above, is that I was wearing a tie. Grey, of course.

The pic above is of my second tie of the night – a bodycorset on Jen in black and orange. I knew before I arrived at Bread & Circus that night I was going to do the corset tie at some point. In many ways it’s the most crowd-pleasing tie I have, a kind of showpiece. A great many cameraphones started flashing away while I was tightening the lacing down Jen’s back. I feel I should say here again that tie was inspired by Leon of Monkeyfetish.com, based on an arm-only version I learned in one of his classes at Shibaricon 2008. Thanks, Leon. I owe you for that one.

I’ve included other pics of each of the models, as well as the piece of writing each one gave to me in advance, as I mentioned in my last post about the event, on this page here. I’m expanding the WORK section of the website. Up until now I’ve had it hidden, but it seems like since more and more work is coming my way, I might as well make note of it.

For example: at the end of the night there was talk of having me back to perform at the next fundraiser Good For Her is throwing in February. Needless to say, not only am I totally game for that idea, but I’ve already started tossing around performance ideas in my head.

Tags: Events, Images, Performance, Rope, public by control
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