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.

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.

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.

That’s a picture, taken by Chelsea Miya, of some of my work for the Keyhole Sessions. I think this was taken in early May, quite possibly the second or third session. Chelsea was in the class that night writing an article for NOW Magazine, a local Toronto weekly. She spent most of the class taking pictures of the models, and during the intermission and after the class spoke to the models, the organizer, and myself, about the experience of putting the class together, and a little bit about the ropework that makes up the majority of the second half of the night.

In the article I’m first referred to as “bondage enthusiast” which is appropriate. I’m not sure if the writer chose that particular phrasing after receiving the URL to this site, but regardless, it certainly sets the tone for the rest of the piece. It’s a solid article that really paints the class and the experience of it in a very positive light.

It also uses my name.

It uses my name, to be clear, in a totally consensual way. As soon as I heard that someone from NOW was going to be at the class that night, I knew what was going to happen. Immediately I knew what I was doing, at the end of the night as soon as I started answering the questions the journalist was asking me. In the back of my head, I guess I’d been waiting for the moment to make myself more public – if for no other reason than to be able to stop thinking about having to conceal this side of myself.

In an earlier post, I wrote, “I’ve been thinking of the power behind naming a thing, especially in an environment like this one where a name, once said, is always present.” This is how things are for me, now – it is and will always be present. As it stands, when you google me, the NOW article shows up on either the first or second page – usually right after a bunch of old theatre links and some Twitter highlights. Not that I think I’ll be googled that often, but I do work in the digital media field. You never know. Googling people you meet has become a pastime for some, these days, with SO much information available online – often as a sort of pre-date credentials check.

I don’t care, much, if at all. Things going on in my life right now make hiding any part of myself, especially a part that has given me and continues to give me so much, self-destructive and self-denying to a truly upsetting degree. To continue to spend even the smallest amount of energy in any kind of masking is counter productive to the point of insanity. LIfe is stressful enough as it stands right now to add to it, in any way.

My father’s body is full of cancer – bones, blood and brain. After three years of clean tests it’s come rushing back at a pace nobody could have foreseen. He’s started chemo & radiation, but it’s still too early to tell if it’s had any effect; even if it has, what he is full of is incurable. It’s going to take him, sooner or later. I have no illusions about that. I also cannot help but think about my grandfather, who also (I found out, quite a bit later) died of cancer.

To be clear – this is NOT me sounding some kind of genetic death knell. I am Not quite that degree of pessimist. I have been warned, many times, against holding on to thoughts like this, to “putting that kind of energy out there”. Regardless of what I might think about that sort of energy-philosophy, truly, I’m not. What I am doing is thinking more about how I want to spend my time, and my focus, and my energy.

I’m thinking more about what it means to be named, now, and what it’s going to mean to my life from this point on.

Some key things from the two episodes that rang very true for me. The idea that after all this time, BDSM is no longer something that Max does, but something that he is. Not to say that I’m quite at that point yet, but the more I find myself both enjoying and recognizing a small degree of skill in “getting my hands bloody in somebody’s head” (another quote from a podcast I enjoy, this time courtesy of Flagg on Power in Practice), the closer I get to that place. He talks a bit about whether a Top needs to have been a bottom, a philosophy I realize many believe to be true but is not my experience nor anything I feel pulled towards. He talks about the difference between adrenaline and endorphin play for bottoms, which resonated with me quite strongly, and how BDSM experiences might or might not include a sexual component.

He also talks about the difference in the return from a scene a Top gets, and how it can very much differ from the return a bottom gets. This was key for me. I find I will often Top from a somewhat distant or removed place, especially as what I’m doing to someone requires a very heightened amount of focus. I am forced, in those moments, to be a concentrated as possible on the actions and influence I’m directing towards the bottom. This can sometimes come across as being somewhat robotic or cold. I often describe my dominant energy or drives as being cold, while the more sadistic or sexual drives are more hot. In this framework, cold equals control. That focus on control means I can’t absolutely sink into the moment and lose myself in what I’m doing – so much danger in that.

Max follows this up with the idea that once he’s brought his bottom to a place of safety & completion, only then is it his turn to get lost in the rush, to give up a bit of that left-brain focus and get a little bit wide-pupiled. This is important, he says, to avoid any resentment on the part of the Top: the bottom gets to have all the fun, why don’t I get any fun?

There’s a lot of truth in this. It’s easy I think to just focus so much on what I’m doing to someone and giving them as deliberate an experience as possible that I don’t concentrate on my completion – because that completion is totally unnecessary. I get FED so much from what I’m doing – from the very fact THAT I’m doing – that the push to finish, to get myself off… it’s just not there. It’s not the point, in that moment. In my experience, however, that’s not the main focus of the resentment. That mindset, when not communicated clearly (and even sometimes when communicated clearly), can result in a sense of dissatisfaction from a bottom; a sense, in fact, that THEY should be doing more for ME.

As if in the simple gift of their body for no small amount of time – blood and bone, nerves and brain – they haven’t already given so much.

Not even considering the little thrill I got from listening to a discussion of D/s on the streetcar, it’s a great interview, and actually sets up many of the things she’ll probably be covering in the Zen Submissive workshop at Northbound. She references the workshop specifically in the interview, in fact. After I heard it, I emailed her and asked if it was something she thought those who would be attending the workshop should listen to.

Her response was that I should feel free to share it with anyone who has signed up or who might be interested in the workshop… but that no homework is necessary.

Here’s the link. If you don’t feel like listening to it, the entire interview is transcribed. I do recommend giving it a listen, no matter what where on the D/s spectrum you plant your feet. There’s certainly things I’ll be thinking about, from this, the next time I get my hands and my focus on someone.

(*internet style)

Sunday, April 26, 2-4 pm, Northbound Leather, 586 Yonge Street

$30 per ticket, pre-registration only

Click Here to Purchase Tickets

Most of the information on BDSM focuses on the skills that tops need, but what about the tools that will help you be the best submissive you can be? Madison Young, author, bondage model, porn star & director, will help you find the tools you need! You’ll learn how to process pain and strong sensations, ways to take care of yourself physically and emotionally while in service to your dominant, visualizations and vocalizations that will help you ride the energy of the scene, tips for connecting with your top, and more. Madison will also give you a list of resources for future exploration and discuss the role of a zen submissive in the BDSM community. Come find out how strong a submissive can be from someone who knows! Please wear comfortable clothes that you can move in. This workshop is recommended for dominants, submissives and switches of any gender. For more information about Madison, please visit www.madisonbound.com.

Madison Young comes to Toronto for the first time, brought to you by Northbound Leather, Good For Her and TheControlEnthusiast.com.