Rambling on a rehearsal day.

I am starting to feel settled in as the Director for Little Red Studio.  Going from a volunteer to paid staff has been difficult for me.  The Studio has always been about doing what I want to do. Having and element of obligation has been irritating.  Which is strange, since I really don't want to not be involve with the Studio.  It's the idea that I have to do something that feels weird. 

I think the biggest element in this feeling awkward has to do with the philosophy that is the basis for why LRS is so special. There is a book called The Gift by Lewis Hyde that talks about the importance of being in the gift economy when doing anything creative or erotic in order to grow the energy.  It's akin to the saying "You have to love in order to be loved" or any other truism that suggests that you have to give away something in order to receive something. And this is gifting I am referring to; not trade. When you trade, you expect something back. When you give a gift, for it to truly be a gift, you must expect nothing in return, including an acknowledgment. Jeff once wrote an essay about this philosophy that you can read here.

When I became a paid staff member, the portion of my LRS involvement that is administrative in nature was pulled out of the gift economy and thrust into the money economy.  And that makes sense. Jeff needs to know that this work will get done at a certain time and in a certain way.  One can't have those expectations when in the gift economy.  My art and performances will still be in the gift economy and I am glad of that so I can reap the benefits of increase that come with the act of giving away that energy.  That is something I will not give up.  That is an integral part of being involved with the Little Red Studio for me.

So, tonight I go and do my duty as the Director.  And tomorrow, I play at being the Director.  A small distinction, but one that was important for me to make for myself in this transition since I am performing less often.

Little Red Studio tickets are available online at Brown Paper Tickets for $25 until 6pm the day of a show. We then have tickets available at the door between 8 and 9pm for $30.  Since we set the program the night before, I can't tease you with what the show will be like until the day of the show. If you are curious. Check back tomorrow and I'll post a sneak peek.

Done!

I just finished uploading all my information for the classes I will be teaching at this year's Shibaricon.

-Stretching and Conditioning for Bondage
     For both rope tops and bottoms. Covers basic stretching & conditioning exercises, common problem areas and injury prevention for both partners. Participation and lecture.

-Anatomy and Bio-Mechanics for Bondage
     Teaches skills of assessment so that risks can be identified and mitigated and boundaries can be pushed by choosing ties according to specific common physical limitations. Participation, lecture & slideshow.

-Feedback – It’s not “Topping from the Bottom“
     A class for bottoms and tops who want to increase communication skills within a power exchange relationship, with special attention to feedback during play. Lecture & discussion.

-Head Games: Anatomy for Edge Play with the Head and Neck
     Knowledge of anatomy increases safety and options for play. Discuses play that can incorporates head and neck during a bondage scene and the associated anatomical structures.  Lecture with demonstrations.


They have a pretty snazzy system for capturing all the necessary information for the program and web site. I was definitely making mental notes to share my user experience with the team that works on the SEAF Artist Portal.

If you want to do a bit of studying before hand, I recommend these books from my resource list: 
          

Sam is walking the streets to save the girls...again!

Do me a favour, go to this website and if you can, donate. I am very proud of how hard my lovely friend Sam has worked to raise money for research for a cure for breast cancer.

The Breast Cancer 3-Day is a 60-mile walk over the course of three days. Net proceeds benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure and National Philanthropic Trust, funding important breast cancer research, education, screening, and treatment.

Creatures!

About 3 years ago, a friend started doing what she called "the Creatures" as a performance piece at the Little Red Studio.  I was entranced and fascinated with the back story and way that Cody embodied this whole world in these short movement/dance based performances.  I wanted to be a Creature too, but was too- I don't know, scared to intrude, I suppose, by asking if I could collaborate with her.  Instead I took on other roles that fit within the world she had conjured.  That was exciting, but it left me wanting more.

Time when on and Cody included other performers in the Creature' world, eventually moving on to other projects, including starting a business.  One of her last collaborators, Eva, continued on and did a 3 day long story-line and ambient performance at the 2009 Seattle Erotic Art Festival.  It was after SEAF last year that I approached Eva about collaborating with her.  I confessed the pull that the Creatures had on me and my affinity with the concept and performance.  We started rehearsing and injuries kept us from our proposed debute in the January LRS Dance Concert.  Sadly, due to our schedules filling up, we shelved the project.

My sweetie puts on a fetishwear dance and social party called Fete Nuit at the CSPC on the 3rd Friday of every month. Sometimes there is a theme and February's theme invited people to dress up as animals and animal associated humans. (One of the best costumes was the Animal Testing Lab Scientist.)  In a flash of inspiration, I called up Eva. Upon describing the party, I suggested we use it as a chance to rehearse in full make-up with a "Handler", neither of which I had done until Friday.  We made a bit of a date out of it, letting the first part of the evening be about immersing ourselves in the roles and playing with each other and our Handler, aka the Mean Man, as Creatures.  By far, the most fun we had was Eva & I fighting over food.  After a rest, we work-shopped our interactions and refined my movement style as a creature. Incredible fun!  Definitely as satisfying and fun as I had hoped.

An exciting feature of the Fete Nuit parties is the photographer on hand offering people a chance to get a keepsake photo of their costumes.  This month Distinct Glimpse was generously donating his time and skills with camera and lights.  Here is one of the photos of us in character and in costume.  Unfortunately, my Creature isn't a very good model.  I need a little more practice being her.

The only bad thing about being a Creature is being on one's knees for so long.  And most of the Center is carpeted which resulted in my poor knees being abraded by the end of the evening. I will be purchasing knee pads asap.  I want to find something geared toward dancers so that they are not too bulky.  And as far as costuming goes, I would love to find someone who can make me some wrist and hand guards out of leather.  I would love to have something that protected the heels of my hands that could possibly offer a bit of support to my wrists.

Not sure when we will be able to do that again, but we will definitely perform as Creatures again.

A successful Launch party!

Below is a letter from SEAF's Artistic Director. I am so tired that all I can add is that I had a great time while working, which is always a feat to celebrate, and "what he said." Thanks for making it out to support the Festival!

Dear Friends -

On behalf of the Festival team, I'd like to give you the story behind the last-minute changes to our Launch Party, and to thank you for your flexibility and fantastic enthusiasm last night.

I learned yesterday (Saturday) afternoon at 5pm -- the day of the event -- that due to circumstances entirely beyond our control, we would not be able to hold our event in the originally advertised venue.

Jeff Hengst graciously and generously offered his theatre at Little Red Studio, and plans were put in motion to move the party. Volunteers immediately mobilized to make this happen and to get the word out about the change.

Unfortunately, the new location did not increase the number of guests allowed (nor was increasing the venue size the reason for the move). To respect the occupancy limits of Little Red Studio, we honored all pre-paid tickets and permitted additional ticket sales as space became available.

The party was a beautiful success. If you were not aware that there had been a last minute shift, it would have been very hard to notice from the way it came together. The Festival team, the Little Red Studio staff, and a host of other extraordinary people really came through.

We sincerely apologize for the confusion, and thank you again for your understanding and support. We look forward to seeing you April 30 - May 2 at Seattle Erotic Art Festival 2010, our biggest and best yet.

- Clayton Hibbert
- Artistic Director, Seattle Erotic Art Festival

Update for Tonight's SEAF Launch Party

THIS JUST IN: VENUE CHANGE SEAF LAUNCH PARTY! Will now be at LITTLE RED STUDIO to perhaps accommodate more guests. 400 Dexter Ave. N.

Doors open at 9pm.  
The Little Red Bistro is open before hand for food & drink.  SEAF will have a bar inside with the DJ's & performances.


Please pass it on & I'll see you there!

Don't forget to order your Launch Party Tickets!

 Feb. 20, 2010 is fast approaching, folks! Don't miss this sneak
peek into what we are planning for the 2010 Seattle Erotic Art
Festival!

Be sure to get your Launch Party tickets in advance for only $12

Tickets will be available at the door for $15 -- come early before
they sell out!

Feb. 20, 2010
9 p.m.-3 a.m.
Transcendent Church of Bass
920 Elliott Ave W
Seattle, WA 98119
21+ only (full cash bar)

This hot, one-night launch party event features a lineup of top
Seattle DJs for a full night of dancing, hot hand-picked burlesque
performances throughout the evening, a full cash bar, announcement of
2010 Festival artists, early bird no-fee ticket sales for the Seattle
Erotic Art Festival itself, and more!

You won't want to miss it!

More info at the Facebook event page.

Can't make the party on the 20th? Then be sure to grab your Festival passes (including the exclusive Velvet Package VIP tickets) for the full Seattle Erotic Art Festival event April 30-May 2, 2010 at the
Seattle Center Exhibition Hall.

More Festival info will be continuously updated on: www.seattleerotic.org

FEEL FREE TO SHARE THIS NOTE FAR AND WIDE!

Come see me perform tomorrow on VD at Strict Machine.

The Mean Man and I will be doing an Aerial Bondage performance on February 14th at the Mercury. Not sure what time we will be going on, but probably around 10pm. It can't be much earlier than that since I am working the box office for the LRS Red Show until 8pm.

For more information go to the FetLife  event page.

date:	Sunday, February 14, 2010
time:	09:00 PM to 02:00 AM
where:	Mercury at Machinewerks
address:	1009 E. Union (lower)  map

cost:	$10 at the door
dress code:	High Fashion Fetishwear

Description

Please join us for the Strict Machine's Valentine's Day Party! This month we will be having a few special performances as well as vendors (more details forthcoming).
IT'S VALENTINE'S NIGHT so why not make it EXTRA special and DRESS TO IMPRESS! !!PRIZES WILL BE GIVEN AWAY FOR BEST OUTFIT!!

Some themes that could be fun to work with for this party include:
Sexy Pink, White or Red lingerie Cupids and Devils V-Day Inspired body paint (make-up, body, pasties) Red, White or Pink Latex and PVC **Luscious Velvet clothing and accoutrements

NOTE: Please remember the same dress code rules apply to the above suggestions... You do not have to dress in theme to enter but do need to follow the nights dress code guidelines.

DJ's Catherinna (Sin City, Vancouver, B.C.) and Marius (Fete Nuit, Seattle) will be spinning music for your aural pleasures!!
**This is a non-smoking night

The Red Show at the Little Red Studio

***Saturday Night is now SOLD OUT***

Friday & Saturday, February 12-13 @ 9PM
Sunday, February 14th @ 8PM 

$25 in advance or $30 at the door

Tickets are available online.
400 Dexter Ave. N. Seattle

 

The Little Red Studio is very proud to bring you this show for it's third run.  

Please join us this coming Valentine's weekend for our newest production of the Red Show!

An intriguing journey into the world of Verotica143 and a wonderful way to celebrate Valentine's Day... A world of beauty, excitement and artifice where passion and sexual energy run high, not everyone is who they seem to be, and where Eros holds the power to transform the ordinary into magical. 

I'll be working the box office, so do make sure to say hi! This is a great show. A little less interactive than most Studio shows, with the dance party happen after the end of the how.

DSM 5 draft revision is up for public comment.

Check it out: Diagnostic & Statistical Manual V proposed draft revisions

The sexual paraphilias have been changed to sexual disorders so that it is very clear that being kinky isn't a mental illness. The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom has been working hard at achieving this distinction for many years.

NCSF Chair, Leighe Fleming:

The victory is this: the revision committee is giving us exactly what we asked for. ALL the paraphilias are being renamed from, e.g. "Sexual Sadism" to "Sexual Sadism Disorder", explicitly to acknowledge that the paraphilias themselves ARE NOT disorders and bring their misleading names into alignment with the other behavioral disorders already in the DSM. (e.g. eating isn't a disorder, but bulimia is an eating disorder.)

NCSF Founder and media spokesperson, Susan Wright:

NCSF has worked very hard with our DSM Revision Project to make these changes come about. I liaisoned with the work group and supplied a great deal of information about the real-world discrimination and persecution that takes place against BDSM-fetish practitioners because of the DSM.

This change is a huge step for our community - they're separating the behavior from the disorder. According to the new DSM, you can be a fetishist, a sadist, a masochist, or an exhibitionist without having a mental disorder. The work group intends to make it crystal clear that "non-normative" sexual behavior is practiced by millions of healthy people.

NCSF deals with alternative sexual expression, which is why we haven't commented on the other sexual disorders like hypersexual disorder (I do have my personal opinion - it's another word for sexual addiction, which isn't a good addition to the DSM). NCSF is concerned with the Paraphilias - whether we like it or not, we already are considered masochists, sadists and fetishists and are labeled that way in medical and mental health records. But there's a big difference between an observation of sexual behavior and a mental health diagnosis, and now that difference is being codified by the DSM.

Would I have liked to see the paraphilias removed entirely? Yes, but like the gradual removal of homosexuality - to ego-dystonic and then finally gone in 1987 - this is a huge victory for the BDSM community.

Please take a peek and comment appropriately. Please be respectful and clear.

Thank you, NCSF!

First round done!

Got home from the first run through with this year's SEAF jury. 3 straight hours of looking at art and taking notes. I was sitting in a cramped position hunched over my clipboard with my head craned forward so that I could see the tiny print of artist ID numbers. I need a massage, please.

On Sunday, the jury will convene again to do the second run through all the art. Luckily, there is not much work for me to do in the mean time. Which is good. I have to work almost non-stop through Saturday at the Spa as Valentine's Day weekend is always busy for us.

I can do this. After I collapse.

New poly sex survey out.

 This survey is being conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan. The survey is intended for people who are involved in a romantic relationship. We will ask you about your views of yourself, your relationship with your partners, and your sexual encounters with people other than your primary romantic partner.

The wording of this survey made it difficult for me to answer some things. The always/never questions and the ones where it was inferred that any other partner besides my primary partner was not someone I was committed to specifically.  I do consider one partner my primary, because I spend more of my time with him and we have more formal agreements between us regarding our relationship, but he is not my primary because I love him most or I have more of a commitment to him.  I have a varying levels of commitment to and much respect for each of my partners that is not superseded by my "primary" relationship.

Other questions were difficult to answer because my safer sex practices differ with different partners and which toys are involved, i.e. some toys are only used by one person and there for are cleaned, but not sanitized, each time.  One question was impossible for me to answer: it asked when I told my primary partner about my most recent sexual experience with another person and there wasn't an answer that was even close to "was there with me."


So, check out the survey with the mindset that you may not be exactly who they think they are talking to. If you have the time, give them feedback at the end of the survey about how you felt about how it was written.  Let's educate the educators.

inbox presents

Photos by Michele Serchuk.

These photos were taken the day after the 2009 Seattle Erotic Art Festival.  After 4 days of art, performances and socializing, it seemed painful to go back to everyday life.  We decided that making art would be a great form of after-care, as well as a re-stabilization.  A grounding, of sorts.

She and her sweetie, DeLano, were staying at a mutual friend's apartment in the South Lake Union neighbourhood.   The light pouring through the windows was magical and soothing all at once.  I rolled around on the floor and the bed close to a floor to ceiling window.  Michele was down on the floor with me, staying on my level.  All part of that grounding, upon reflection.

She's an Invited artist in the 2010 Seattle Erotic Art Festival.   Here's hoping I'll get a chance to make more art with her this year.

Check out this Carnal Nation review

My dear friend Michael Rosen sent me this link to a smashing review of his book, Vanilla Sex.  I am very pleased for him.  He is an incredible and fearless photographer whom I greatly admire and deserves to do well.

An excerpt that comments on the title of the book:

But Rosen's definition of vanilla is still more expansive than that. If you don't pick that up from the photos, he explains it explicitly in the Afterword: "For me, 'vanilla' means the spectrum of our community's sexuality: what we normally do. So, some photographs are of acts generally considered normal and standard... while others are of acts considered normal and standard only within the radical sex community."

Check out other books by Michael through Amazon.

Update and more SEAF

The "Cheese!" performance now has two ticket options. $15 per ticket, and $30 for a ticket and food. Good deal!

I'm still working on getting everything ready for the SEAF jury selection process. There is some really amazing art in the portal right now. I'm so curious to see what pieces get picked.

Fortunately, I have the time for such a daunting project.  I'm in the quiet time every massage therapist knows about and I am finished with my end of the preparations for the Launch Party on Feb. 20th.  I am organizing the merchandise table where we will be selling previous years' shirts, posters and catalogs. I found some posters from the very first year and they are incredible! Printed on really good stock, too. Make sure to come check it out, dance a little and find out who the accepted and invited artists are for SEAF 2010!

Go see my friend's show this Saturday!

Saturday, Feb 6, 7pm!
 
Who: Friends of Vita Arts, 21+
What: Fundraiser for vita-arts
When: Saturday, Feb 6 at 7pm!
Where: Youngstown Cultural Arts Center,
4408 Delridge Way SW
How Much: $30

Juggling, singing, aerials, clowning and other performances, all infused with the cheesiest of sentiments. Will it be silly? You bet your fluffy cotton socks it will be!

Join us at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center on February 6th at 7 p.m. for a night of fun and frivolity, with all the proceeds going to Vita Arts.

Snacky-food will be provided, and a cash bar with beer and wine will be available.

Seating is limited! Tickets are $30, available RIGHT NOW through Brown Paper Tickets! Don’t miss out!

Bang was awesome!

Saturday night I attended Bang 4 the Buck, an AidsLifecycle fundraiser put on by Midori & Kelly B.  It was fantastic!  The energy was high, festive and supportive. There must have been 200 women in there, many of whom were brave enough to do a 2 minute striptease routine for charity.  There were a lot of really creative and theatrical acts so that I was rarely bored.

Stripping and burlesque aren't generally my cup of tea. let's face it, it' not like I am in suspense as to what is going to happen next.  "Oh, I wonder if she'll take her shirt off?"  That's why the theatrics were so enjoyable. They made it exciting to see how they were going to get undressed. I wondered how much would come off.  And you know what? A lot of them didn't even get fully nude, and those were the acts that were more interesting.  I'm a sucker for a story.

A fascinating moment in the evening came about when our beloved MC, Miss Indigo Blue, asked if there were any Mommies in the house.  After all, there was so much talk about Daddies. I was one of a tiny few who raised their hands.  She went on to tell the crowd about how she was talking about sexy, dirty mommies.  There still wasn't a whooping send up she disabused them of the notion that she was referring to the horrible American stereotype of the sexless mother figure.

How interesting that a community whose majority is comprised of lesbians would be so keen on being or having a Daddy, but not a Mommy.**

As a switch, I have a few different sides of me.  I am a girl who has a daddy.  I am a sadistic rope top who wants to cajole a bottom to strive in a difficult situation.  I am a masochist switch who doesn't follow power exchange protocols.  I also have what I call the "Mama Bear" persona that can come out when I am topping someone: protective, caring and fierce.  Not dissimilar to a daddy.  I don't think of myself as being a daddy primarily because I am a woman.  Mind you, I don't identify with the mother archetype often talked about in New Age or psychological circles.  Think of a wolf or a bear protecting her cubs; that's what kind of mommy I am.

When I was a young girl, between the ages of 9 until about 12, I wished so badly that I was a boy.  I dressed only in jeans with a short haircut and felt it was a victory anytime a stranger mistook me for a boy in public.  In the time when I was 13 and when I was 24 or so years old, I accepted my female-ness.  It took a while to get comfortable, but I did. When I was 25 or 26, I went to the library and got a bunch of books on how to use make-up and commenced learning how to be girly and pretty.   One day, I would love to learn how to style my hair more than just putting it in a braid.  One day.  Mark my words.

My point in sharing this information is that while I'm not terribly girly, I still don't have the inclination to think of myself as Daddy when I am topping.  Now, not all the people in the lesbian community who are into being a Daddy are transmen, or even gender-queer.  I know a very sweet, femme bisexual woman whose male & female partners call her Daddy.  What is it about the role of a daddy that attracts more genders and orientations than the mommy role?


**I am referring to the tops in the BDSM community who have a more caring brand of dominance, not the biological parental units.