Quote to live by:

"If everything seems under control you're not going fast enough."  -Mario Andretti

NCSF discussion: Consent Counts

I have been a supporter of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom for the last 3 years.  I usually give the first few minutes of every workshop I teach to talking about the NCSF and why they are important to kinked people.  What they do is change the conversation on a social level about kink. I am very excited that they are putting on these two lectures/discussions today to give people an idea of what it is the NCSF does and what we as a community can do to further the mission, too.  Hope I see you there!

Media Strategies and Tactics AND Consent Counts

What:	Two workshops/discussions by NCSF founder Susan Wright and Activist Judy Guerin
Schedule:	Sunday, March 28, 2010
When:	1:30 PM to 3:30 PM
Where:	In the annex
Who:	18+.
Cost:	$10 donation requested, all proceeds go to NCSF

Description:
Don't miss these two exciting discussions/workshops with the founder of the National Coalition of Sexual Freedom, Susan Wright, and activist Judy Guerin!


Media Strategies and Tactics: Winning the Culture War (1:30-2:30 p.m.)
The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) has developed winning strategies for dealing with media persecution. Concepts such as privacy rights for consenting adults, minority rights, and adult sex education are now being used to transform the media coverage of alternative sex. It's not just sensationalism anymore.
Susan Wright will take you through the most notorious media incidents over the past decade dealing with BDSM, swinging and polyamory - from Jack McGeorge's outing in the Washington Post over his involvement with the UN Weapons Inspection team in Iraq, to the recent attacks against Folsom Street Fair and Winter Wickedness by religious political extremists.
Tactics will be discussed - what worked, what didn't and how the incident was dealt with on an ongoing basis as developments happened. You'll also get interview tips and soundbites, and will learn about hot button topics and how to develop a media plan of your own.
Don't miss this exciting discussion with Susan Wright!

Consent Counts: Our communities' major sexual freedom initiative -- what you should know and how you can help (2:30-3:30 p.m.)
A discussion of, and call to action for, the nationwide Consent Counts initiative (led by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom) to decriminalize consensual BDSM. This discussion will include the breadth of criminal law problems we need to address, major issues that need analysis - such as defining what "consent" means in the various contexts of BDSM - and the evolving strategic plans for the initiative. Particular attention will be devoted to what you, as a BDSM/leather/fetish person, can do to help in this important cause.
Brought to you by Judy Guerin and Susan Wright.

Add 2 more injuries to the list!

One smashed ring finger and a first degree burn to the neighboring middle finger.   And I haven't even written about the injury on Saturday of Kinkfestivus.  I am so far behind, I know.  I need to consult with my partner-in-shenanigans of that evening before I post anything about that one, though.

Last night's performance was off the hook!  I went a bit overboard in my exuberance to be performing again.  While the Mean  Man & I have made it a habit to perform every 6-8 weeks,  we haven't done so at the Little Red Studio in quite a while.  Not only is this my home stage, it is also the place that is safe enough to try new things and allow ourselves those authentic moments when they arise.

With the first throw, I decided I was going all out.  An old friend of the Mean Man's was visiting from Chicago and I wanted ensure that he was impressed and enjoyed our act.  As a result, I used far more strength than necessary to pull myself up after a series of tricks and my right hand went through the ring.  This is the hand that is connected directly to my left foot.  This has always been a danger, but until last night, an unrealized one.  As the angle of the swing changed, my weight shifted so that pressure on my hand was increaseing, making it difficult to extract my hand.  Fear at the pinch in my middle and ring fingers introduced the burst of adrenaline I needed to pull my hand back through the ring.  I could feel the ache in my fingers through the whole performance and when we were done, I reported the injury.  Ice was fetched and the badgering for the rest of the evening commenced. I know ice helps, but I hate being cold.

All in all, I am pretty damn lucky that after 3 years, a smashed finger is the worst injury I have had doing the aerial bondage performances. Sure, there have been some strained muscles here and there, and once the Mean Man was kicked in the head, but my straight aerial work has been far more injurious. 

LRS tonight!

 Little Red Studio
Friday, March 12th @ 9PM
400 Dexter Ave. N. Seattle 
Buy tickets online until 5pm or at the box office between 8:30 and 9pm.

Wow, it's a very bondage filled show tonight!  Not only will Jim Duvall and I be doing one of our Aerial Bondage acts, but we will have a bondage tango and tantalizing bondage eye candy throughout the evening!  Other performances include story-telling, poetry, burlesque and live music.  Of course we'll have the usual chances to get involved by dancing or playing in the costume department, too. 

In honor of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom being in town for their annual meeting, LRS is offering a 2 tickets for the price of one  deal if you mention NCSF when buying your tickets at the door.

SEAF needs your buttons!

We need your buttons!  See Roger's (the director for the 2010 Seattle Erotic Art Festival show) message below.
Can you help?  Please forward to anyone you think might have buttons they can share with us. Email me at dynamic dot load at gmail dot com and we can arrange drop off, pick up or shipping. Thank you!





---------- Forwarded message ----------

Hey Folks,
I need your help. I want to create a costume for Buttons, not unlike these outfits by artist, Nick Cave. (No hood, obviously.)
In order to accomplish that I need ..... buttons. LOTS OF BUTTONS. of any color. Please send out a request to everyone you know, especially your mothers, grandmothers and aunts, who have entire bottles of buttons sitting somewhere waiting to be used.
And let me know if/when you acquire them. I'll need them early in April!
thanks
Roger

My weekend at the pervy convention. Pt. 1

First off, it's really not animal play.  Just wanted to get that out there.

For the first play party of KinkFest, the Mean Man and I were the Handler and the Creature.  This is based on a performance piece with an elaborate back story.  As a form of play, it is more about getting feral than pretending to be an animal.  In fact, I don't think of myself as animal when I am the Creature.  Certainly not a kitty or a puppy or anything pedestrian like that. The Creature is definitely humanoid. Upon reflection, it's more primal or feral play;  indulging that aspect of me that does not recognize civilized conventions. 

KinkFest was the second time I was in public as the Creature and the first time we geared ourselves more toward play, rather than performance. It was fascinating how the transformation progressed.  The hair and make-up is essential, but until the collar and chain were on, I just wasn't the Creature.  Interestingly enough, when I wear that particular collar without being the Creature I tend to growl rather than yell during a scene.  It seems the collar triggers the feral energy regardless of the scene.  Also, being low to the ground really changes one's perspective.  Rarely did I look above anyone's knees.  I didn't purposely do this, with all the amazing footwear, it's not a surprise that's the way it ended up.  For the record, Mistress Matisse had the most gorgeous shoes of the evening.

Interacting with others was varied, exciting and occasionally difficult.  The Handler set the parameters when people would ask if they could touch me, and I held to them.  He encouraged people to let me approach them and to only offer out what they didn't mind having nibbled.  I was very careful to not actually touch people I didn't know when I went up to sniff them.  Having them accept my approach by reaching out to interact with me was an important way for me to gain consent since I was non-verbal.  Many people were too nervous to interact, clearly unsure of what was appropriate and of what I might do.  Two lovelies descended on me with ooohs and ahhs and pets while letting me nibble their hands, forearms and rub up against them.  On the other end of the spectrum, a friend of the Mean Man repeatedly tried to push me away so I started nipping at him.  This short lived scuffle resulted in a bruise on my temple and a perfect dental imprint on his shin.  I would be hard pressed to say which of the two incidents was more fun.

After a good while of walking around, we shifted gears.  The collar and chain came off and we visited with friends while waiting for a play space to open up.  KinkFest had rented 3 large lighting trusses for use a suspension racks and they were perfect and beautiful!  They were so sturdy that we were able to do a round of aerial bondage with only one trick causing a little bit of rocking.  Sophie Proof and Approved!  Now, if we could just get Shibaricon to rent trusses like that, life would be wonderful during Memorial weekend.

Next up, the results of Saturday's 15 second scene.

At KinkFest!

Settled into our hotel room after a lovely Thai dinner with friends and almost finished dressing for this evening's play party. The Mean Man and I are going to play Creature/Handler tonight.

This is my 3rd year at KinkFest. Located in Portland, OR makes this a fun event because it's far enough away from home to be an adventure, but close enough to Seattle so that a whole bunch of people I know will be there. A great combination for shenanigans!

SEAF Press Release

Seattle Erotic Art Festival Presents

World-Class Visual and Interactive Art

SEATTLE –Thousands of patrons and attendees will enjoy a world-class visual art exhibition at the eighth annual Seattle Erotic Art Festival, April 30 to May 2.

Festival jurors selected a wide variety of art from the over 1,600 entries submitted by more than 400 artists from around the word.  The jurors this year are Jen Graves, Daniel Carrillo, Dianne Elliott and Sharon Arnold. Artists selected include photographers Jim Duvall (Seattle, WA) and Phoenix Voltaire (Houston, TX); illustrator Wendy Ding (Toronto, ON); painters B.T. Borchard (Oceanside, CA) and Christopher North (Vancouver, BC). International artists include Gert-Jan Van den Bemd (Breda, the Netherlands) and Von Victor (São Paulo, Brazil).

Guest curator Chris Crites invited local favorites Troy Gua, Sara Lanzillotta, Shaun Kardinal, and Charles Krafft, among others. Festival invited artists include David Steinberg (San Francisco, CA), Michele Serchuk (New York, NY), Michael Rosen (San Francisco, CA), and Michael Manning (Los Angeles, CA).

This year the Festival offered its first grant to artists to create interactive installations. Grantees include Nancy Peach (San Francisco, CA) who will invite the audience to paint one of her massive canvases with her; six teams of local metalworkers, spearheaded by Kevin MacDonald, who will showcase luxurious beds for lounging; and local luminary Ellen Forney, with her partner Jacob Peter Fennell, who will encourage participants to write and receive love letters.

The Festival is still seeking submissions. Jason Plourde, programming director of Three Dollar Bill Cinema, is creating a program of short erotic films and is accepting entries through April 4. The museum-quality Festival Store will present about 4,000 small works of art from 100 artists.  The Call for Store Merchandise is also open through April 4. Entry forms and guidelines are available at www.SEAFArtist.com.

The Festival will be held at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall.  It runs Friday, April 30, 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., Saturday, May 1, 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.  Returning this year is the popular Sunday open house, May 2, 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., where admission is free.  18+ until 6:00 p.m., 21+ after.

Tickets (1-Day $25 advance/$30 door, 2-Day $40 advance/$50 door, Velvet Package $500) may be purchased at BrownPaperTickets (http://www.brownpapertickets.com/producer/1659).

The Seattle Erotic Art Festival supports a vibrant creative community, promotes freedom of expression, and fosters sex-positive culture through public celebration of the arts.

LRS tonight!

Little Red Studio
Friday, March 12th @ 9PM
400 Dexter Ave. N. Seattle 
Buy tickets online until 5pm or at the box office between 8:30 and 9pm.

I am very excited about tonight's show.  We have an interesting evening laid out before us.  Interesting in that the threads that shook out during rehearsal are movement, voice and bondage.


The bondage will feature Punzel & TwistedMonk.  Among the movement aspects of the evening, we offer contact improv dance and knife juggling. Poetry, song, comedy, and the story behind Jeff's grand altar piece, Suffering Change, will fill your ears while your eyes drink in the luscious sights. I am very excited to have Suffering Change opened for viewing. This is a rare treat for us all!

See you tonight!

From one of my favourite bloggers:

Figleaf's Ultimate Definitions of Good and Bad Sex

It’s good sex if you feel as good or better about yourself and your partner(s) as you did before.
It’s bad sex if you feel bad or worse about yourself and your partner(s) after than you did before.

I want to discuss this with a variety of people in the kink community.  There is a lot of play that walks the edge of this dichotomy. 

"Content Removed on Tagged"

This self-portrait of myself in my "Dynamic Load - Safety 3rd" was flagged for inappropriate content on a networking site called Tagged. 

Wow.  Really?  For a place that looks like the whole point is to hook up, I am surprised that this photo was removed for sexually explicit reasons. I can't think of any other reason on the list below that pertains to me.  Is there some slang reference to sex I am making without realizing it. If you know what the deal is, please share!

Here's the list of reasons why it may have been remove:

• Promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual
• Harasses or advocates harassment of another person
• Involves the transmission of "junk mail", "chain letters," or unsolicited mass mailing or "spamming"
• Promotes information that you know is false, misleading or promotes illegal activities or conduct that is abusive, threatening, obscene, defamatory or libelous
• Promotes an illegal or unauthorized copy of another person's copyrighted work, such as providing pirated computer programs or links to them, providing information to circumvent manufacture-installed copy-protect devices, or providing pirated music or links to pirated music files
• Contains restricted or password only access pages, or hidden pages or images (those not linked to or from another accessible page)
• Displays pornographic or sexually explicit material
• Provides material that exploits people under the age of 18 in a sexual or violent manner, or solicits personal information from anyone under 18
• Provides instructional information about illegal activities such as making or buying illegal weapons, violating someone's privacy, or providing or creating computer viruses
• Solicits passwords or personal identifying information for commercial or unlawful purposes from other users; and engages in commercial activities and/or sales without our prior written consent such as contests, sweepstakes, barter, advertising, and pyramid schemes 

That's quite the list. Maybe I don't want to be a part of this networking site. The worst thing I was doing was subtly promoting myself with a heaping dose of deniability. Oh well, I mostly just wanted to grab the "SophiaSky" handle before someone else did.  The Twitter confusion about people signing up to follow the "SophiaSky" who is not me is a bit of a bummer.

Going to class.

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of the month, that means it's time for another one of Max's bondage workshops.  The workshop has been moved to 410 Dexter Ave. N.  Lunch at the Little Red Bistro is the plan.

March's workshops is Bondage from the Bottom's Perspective.

Here's something a little different - a bondage workshop that starts with headspace and works backwards to technique.

We'll start off with a demo showing several different types of bondage scenes.  We'll pull volunteers out of the audience for this portion of the workshop.

As we exit the scenes, we'll ask the bottoms to talk about their experience and how the specific elements of the bondage impacted them physically, mentally and emotionally.

After a short break Max will present a model for categorizing bondage bottoms and will facilitate a panel discussion on the bottom's experience in bondage scenes.  We'll be sure to leave plenty of time at the end for questions and discussion.

If you're looking for a "beyond technique" bondage workshop, this is for you.  Hearing what's going on in someone's head when they're bound will make you a more capable bottom and a more creative top.

Plus - you might get tied up.

This workshop assumes no previous bondage experience, and is appropriate for all genders and orientations.

My week.

SEAF SEAF SEAF LRS SEAF SPA SEAF SEAF ROPE SEAF ROPE ROPE SEAFSEAF SEAF

One of my rope adventures this weeks was quite extreme. I was put in hog-tie done with one 20 foot piece of 2mm hemp.  I am a bit sad that I didn't get a photo of that.  For as intense as it was, I was able to process the pain and work through it nicely. I find it fascinating how one person can have varying degrees of success processing different physical stimuli.  The strictness of the tie was like candy to me.  It was delicious, the sensation of the rope biting into my wrists, chest and ankles.  Restriction of movement inspired me to discover the limits of the rope and just how much motion is possible within its bounds. Yum.

Of course I have been engaging in other activities that aren't nearly as fun or time consuming. Right now I am reorganizing my personal transportation.  I am going back to being primarily a motorcyclist.  My little car is now up for sale on Craigslist.  This will be the first time I have sold a vehicle. Should be an interesting experience.

2 mm hemp is ouchy.

And a lot of fun in the hands of a sadist.  But you already knew that.

Limbo

My car might be dying.  Looking on Craigslist for the next new-to-me car is a little depressing. The only thing interesting was coming across Domenico's ad proclaiming his race bike is available for purchase.  This is truly a hooligan bike.  He never bothered to get it tabbed because it's so fast he would just end up getting arrested if he ever rode it on the streets.  This was the bike that inspired the quote: "It is possible to giggle like a school girl at 182 mph." At least he is supposed to go that fast on the race track.

Tempting, but, no, that won't work. I already have a motorbike.  If I buy another vehicle, it should be one I can haul stuff around in. I wonder if the Ninja would look silly with a side-car?

At least the DVD version of my favourite workout tape arrived so that I can get some regular exercise.   Callenetics is something I have done on and off since I was 15.  For the longest time I only had the VHS tape, which I snitched from my Mama.  It's copyright is 1986, so do keep that in mind when you see the leotards and hear the music.  It's great toning workout, though, that focuses on protecting one's lower back.  The exercises don't aggravate my lordosis and make my butt look good.  Hard to go wrong, there.