The Control Enthusiast

My good friend & rope compadre Graydancer of The Ropecast and all sorts of GRUEs (including the ToroGRUE and the ToroGRUE 2) has just launched a new content in conjunction with Monk of TwistedMonk.com in response (as I understand it) from a request from a listener of his podcast.
Gray & Monk will be giving away a 50$ (that’s US dollars, to be clear; a bit of a deal for we Canadians) gift certificate each month for the next four months. Each month has a theme, announced on the Ropecast – and ONLY on the Ropecast, so if you’re not listening to the podcast you’d best start – when the winner from the previous month is also announced. As Gray says in the post about the contest, “In other words, if you don’t listen, you won’t know you won. Or how to win the next one.” Click on the sentence for more complete information about the contest.
There will be other prizes given out each month in recognition of particularly creative or laudable work, but really, the fifty bucks is the big deal here. That’s fifty MORE dollars of rope than you had before. And there’s always room for more rope.
I’ve been thinking for a while of talking with Monk about arranging some kind of starter kit for Keyhole Session participants who might be interested in learning a little more about the kind of work I do on our models. Checking out his site, I imagine something like his Value-Line kit would work nicely. If that’s something any Keyhole readers would be interested in, let me know and I’ll start the conversation and see what I can work out.

Tags: GRUE, Rope, ToroGRUE, ToroGRUE 2, keyhole by control
No Comments »

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
1 Comment »

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
No Comments »

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
1 Comment »

So finally, it’s been sorted out. Thanks to Graydancer’s flexible schedule, a bit of a break in my workload, and the wonderful people at Goodhandy’s, the GRUE is at last coming to Toronto: Saturday October 4th, 2008.

Graydancer, a friend from down south, is a man of many titles: Podcaster, RopeSlut, Published Author, Burlesque Performer, Sex Blogger, Educator and fellow sukebe. The GRUE is an unconference that he has facilitated around the US, giving people of kink a chance to come together in a non-mediated way and discuss issues they themselves find important and compelling. He wrote about the first GRUE, held in his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, and had this to say:

“The GRUE was held this last weekend near Madison, WI, and was an experiment in running a kink event. The acronym stands for “Graydancer’s Ropetastic Unconference Extravaganza” (why, yes, I did actually come up with the acronym before the words, why do you ask?). The key word was “Unconference”: this is a model of group organization that has been used extensively and successfully in the tech & social media circles, and is also involved with something called “Open Space”. I would suggest, if you’re really interested, looking up both subjects on wikipedia.

In brief, the idea is to have a conference that is self-organizing. In our case, about 30 people converged on a house with a well-equipped dungeon at 10am on Saturday. Announcing the theme of “What do you get out of Rope?” I pointed to a blank wall and said “There’s our agenda.” I suggested that the participants come up and write down some subject they were both passionate about and willing to talk about, and about 1/2 hour later we had 11 classes scheduled for the three rooms to do over the next seven hours…”

You can read the rest of the post here. As well as in Madison, the GRUE has also been held in Lansing, MI, Minneapolis, MN, and St. Louis, MO, and the techniques have been used to teach at events like Shibaricon, TES Fest, and the Spankfestival.

A bit of an explanation of the schedule, as vague as it is at the moment. On Friday the 3rd, we’ll host a Meet & Greet somewhere close to the venue, and give those who want to come out a chance to mix and mingle with the other participants of the event. 10am Saturday we’ll start the ToroGRUE at Goodhandy’s (120 Church Street), and ending the day at 6pm. Food will be provided at some point during the day, but we don’t actually stop for a break – the classes just continue. Participants will have a chance to grab some dinner, explore Toronto and take in some of Nuit Blanche, the giant art exhibition taking over much of the city that night, before coming back to celebrate at the monthly party thrown by Goodhandy’s and Northbound Leather. The admission for the party will be covered in the cost of the ToroGRUE. After the partying is over, there’s still more Nuit Blanche to explore – the exhibition continues until sunrise. Sunday we’ll arrange a pancake brunch for those interested in participating and continuing the discussion.

Tickets for the ToroGRUE are 40$ CDN, and are limited. Due to the size of the venue and the intimate nature of the Unconference, we are making 80 tickets available for the event. If you’re interested in taking part, email me at grue@thecontrolenthusiast.com with any questions about the event, or to reserve your tickets. 2 per person, first come first served. I will email you back with confirmation of your tickets. The actual form of payment still needs to be determined, but I’ll let everyone know once I’ve sorted that out.

Keep checking here for more information and updates about the Toronto GRUE. As details become clearer I’ll both post more on the site and email updates to those who’ve expressed interest in participating. I’m very excited to welcome Graydancer to Toronto, and facilitate what I hope will be the first of a series of events for the community on the whole.

(thanks to kk & a for the image)

Tags: Events, GRUE, Rope, ToroGRUE, theorosexual by control
10 Comments »