The Control Enthusiast

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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Just an update for all current – and potential! – ToroGRUE 2 participants. We’ll be holding our meet & greet on Friday night at the Rhino, 1249 Queen Street West in Toronto. Here’s a Google Maps link to the location (http://vb.ly/2822) and a link to the restaurant’s website (http://therhino.ca/contents.html). I’ll be reachable by email the whole time, for those who might need directional help.

Graydancer and I will be there as of 7pm, and we’ll grab a table near the back of the restaurant. Look for us towards the right-hand side, near the back. I’ll have a coil of red rope on the table, just so you know exactly where to go! We’ll wrap the meet & greet up around 9pm, giving us enough time to rest up and do some last-minute preparing before kicking the ToroGRUE off at 9am Saturday morning.

We still have a lot of space left at the GRUE this year. In some ways it’s a bit of a hard sell, trying to get people out to participate and not just absorb knowledge. If you know of anyone who might be interested in attending, please do feel free to forward this email to them. They don’t have to pre-register – we can accept payment at the door. I’ve said it before – the more brains we have out the better the event will be.

Thanks again to all of you who are coming out. I’m really looking forward to it this year.

Tags: Events, GRUE, Rope, ToroGRUE 2, 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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I’m bringing you yet another event I’m involved in around the time of the Feminist Porn Awards. This time I’m very happy to be presenting, with the help of both Good For Her and Northbound Leather, a workshop entitled “BDSM and Anal Play” with the lovely and talented Tristan Taormino.
I recently saw Tristan speak at U of T’s “Porn Reborn” conference and it made me even more excited to organize and participate in this workshop. She’s a fantastic presenter and a very engaging speaker. I’d written a review of her book “Opening Up” a while back – a book that remains my primary (ha!) recommendation to anyone interested in exploring ethical non-monogamy in whatever form. You can read that review here.
This workshop will take place on Sunday April 11th from 2pm to 4pm at Northbound Leather. To get more information and purchase tickets to the event, click here. It’s a small room at Northbound, and space will be limited, so if you want to hear about All Things Anal from someone who really knows what she’s talking about, grab your tickets now.

Tags: D/s, Events, theorosexual by control
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Last year around this time I had the pleasure of working with Madison Young for the first time, organizing her workshop “The Zen Submissive” at Northbound Leather, while she was here attending the 2009 Feminist Porn Awards. When I heard from the lovely people at Good For Her that Madison was going to be back in Toronto this year for the Awards, I didn’t waste much time in getting in touch with her and finding out if she’d be interested in working with me again to set up some appearances and events while she’s in town.
And, well, happily, yes.
Firstly, and this is very exciting for me, Madison will be appearing as one of our models for The Keyhole Sessions on Tuesday, April 6th. She’ll be on stage with Dylan Ryan – a combination I believe will make for a VERY interesting evening.
The next night I’ve arranged for Madison to host a presentation and discussion on Feminism and Submission at Café Taste, a fantastic wine bar here in Parkdale, in Toronto. It’ll be a couple hours of chatting and snacking and drinking, with some presentation material besides. Click on the link above for more info.
Thursday and Friday of that week are, of course, the 2010 Feminist Porn Awards. Which you should go to.
Saturday afternoon Madison is giving a workshop at Northbound Leather around puppy and pony play. Check the event page here for more info and a very cute picture of Madison the puppy. That workshop starts at 2pm, so even if you were out late the night before at the FPA’s after party, you can still make it (mostly) intact.
And all that in one week!
And that’s not even all.
More to come.

Tags: Events, Rope, keyhole, theorosexual by control
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