Summer classes!

I have a fair number of workshops that I am teaching this summer. One is tonight. I know, I'm a slacker about this whole promotion thing sometimes. I got caught up researching the 5 senses again, and of course I found new information. Jim and I are in a low level battle about how much geeky info I get to include in the workshop.

Here's the current line up and I hope to see you tonight!  

Below are the full class descriptions. Please feel free to email me any questions you may have about the classes. Thank you for your interest in learning more about the body so you can have more fun with it!

Using All the Senses in Play, co-taught with Jim Duvall - TONIGHT 7/21 at the CSPC! Doors open at 6:30pm, 7pm start.

Paradise Unbound 2011 - August 9th through 14th. I'll be teaching Triage for Pick-up Play with Jim on Wednesday the 10th, 3-4:30pm and Floating Bliss for Partners on Thursday the 11th, 1-2:30pm.

Graydancer's Ropetastic Unconference Extravaganza - Agust 19th - 21st. I'll be organizing this event and since attendance means that you are participating in knowledge sharing, I am counting this as a teaching event for me. I have some ideas about analyzing/assessing/adapting physical limitations that don't work well as classes, but will probably work great in an open space situation like an un-conference.

Libido Events in Vancouver, BC on August 27th will host 2 classes Anatomy for Impact Play and Anatomy for Edge Play with the Head & Neck. Details such as times are still to be determined.

Using the Senses in Play with Sophia Sky & Jim Duvall
CSPC, in the Annex. 1608 15th Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119
Cost: $20. per person
Time: 7:00-9:00pm (Doors open at 6:30pm)

Sensation play is often thought of as gentle or introductory play with blindfolds and bunny floggers. Utilizing all 5 senses can enhance any type, level or intensity of play and gives a richer texture to any scene. Knowing the anatomy and physiology of all the structures associated with touch, taste, smell, sight and sound will give you an advantage when selecting which senses to down play or sharpen in keeping with the goal of your scene. From setting the space through after care, tops & bottoms will learn via demos, lecture and exploration numerous ways to increase the depth of their play by manipulating sensory input.

Graydancer's Ropetastic Unconference Extravaganza
A GRUE is an un-conference - a gathering that is participant driven and self-organizing. Rather than impose an outside agenda on the attendees, the schedule is generated through a fast-moving group exercise facilitated by Gray. The group creates a day filled with a variety of subjects, some of which deal with rope and some of which stretch far beyond. Gender theory? Power dynamics? Scene design? STD awareness? Kinky spirituality? Cyber-security for perverts? All of these topics and many more have been covered in past GRUEs.
The one thing that every topic has in common - whether presentations, discussions, hands-on skillshares or laughing explorations into new territory- is passion. Everything that happens at a GRUE is something that an attendee is passionate about. The day is filled with energy, open exploration, unexpected connections, realizations, and discoveries. Like a structured contact improv dance, working within a proven framework every GRUE is different, beautiful, and unique to the needs and abilities of the people there.  
Learn more at the GRUE site.
Be prepared to be surprised. As over two dozen other GRUEs in the U.S. and Canada have proven, the unconference and kink go hand in hand to create something amazing.
The Seattle GRUE will be donating a portion of the profits of this event to the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and another portion to support independent sex-positive community educators.

Cost: $80 in advance ( http://center.ticketleap.com/grue/ ) or $95 at the door
Schedule:
Friday August 19th, 7-10pm or so: Meet-and-Greet. Location TBA
Saturday August 20th: 9:30am - 6pm GRUE! at the CSPC, Main Space. (Doors open at 8:30am and close promptly at 10am. Lunch is provided on site.)
Saturday Night, 9pm-2am: 2 Play Parties at CSPC, included in GRUE price. (Non-members must fill out consent forms.)
Sunday Morning: 10am-whenever: GRUE pancake brunch at the CSPC, Annex.

Triage for Pick-up Play

Or, how to negotiate & have a successful scene with someone you just met. We will teach you negotiation shortcuts to get you out into the play space faster; how to pick up on body language cues; and physical assessment skills to determine the right scene for 2 strangers to engage in. Basic communication skills will be demonstrated and practiced. Please come prepared to participate in verbal class exercises with strangers.

Floating Bliss for Partners

Learn how to float your partner(s) into bliss!  Being held is a powerful act for all involved that fosters connection, emotional catharsis and relaxation. This techniques incorporates full body skin contact, slow movements and gentle stretching to relax, comfort and bring serenity to your partner and yourself. Learn how to cultivate connection through breathwork and body positioning in an aquatic environment. We will be in the warm pool for the majority of the time. No swimming skills are necessary to be floated. Nudity is encouraged. Due to full body contact, I suggest you attend this class with someone you are familiar with or someone you are comfortable being held by.

The Anatomy of Impact Play

Or, “How to whack on every possible surface of the human body without ending up in the ER.”  As a massage therapist and anatomy geek, Sophia will share her knowledge of the human body and all the various types of impact it is capable of withstanding.

In this class, we will cover:

-the basics of human anatomy

-the inflammatory process

-how various body parts respond to impact

-what can be hit, and what should be avoided

-how to judge how hard you can hit any particular area

-demonstrations with various implements and toys

Please come prepared to engage in discussion, participate in demos and don’t forget to bring your questions. Intended for tops, switches and bottoms of all skill levels, genders and orientations.

Anatomy for Edge Play with the Head and Neck

Our faces and throats are usually the first part of our body that we try to protect. Edgier forms of play such as face slapping and choking gain much of their charge from the psychological aspect of man-handling such a delicate part of the body. Understanding the nature and location of the intricate structures of the head and neck can make your play more enjoyable, whether you are pulling hair or doing breath play.  The knowledge of where these structure are and how to find them will inform your skills so that you can more effectively and safely engage in these activities. 

This class will include lecture and demos that incorporate participation with plenty of time to get your anatomy questions answered.

Wear clothing with a loose neckline.

A great event for Queer Youth

Born This Way Kafé
Fridays 5 to 9 p.m. 
ALL Queer Youth

Ages 13 - 19
Free!

Born This Way Kafé: a welcoming place where GLBTQ youth + Friends + Allies can gather, be themselves, and have fun.

Cal Anderson Park Shelterhouse
1635 Eleventh Avenue on Capitol Hill
Just east of Pine and Broadway
Metro Routes 9, 10, 11, 12, 43, 49, 60, 84

4 info or 2 help make it happen:
Randy @ Seattle Parks
206.883.6110 txt/phn
randy.wiger@seattle.gov
Google "SeattleParksCOD" for Facebook

a POWER of PLACE  (tm)  program
Seattle Parks and Recreation
Shelterhouse occupancy capacity: 44

Reducing the Risk of Brain Damage During Faceslapping

In my recent class on the "Anatomy of Impact Play" someone asked how one could minimize the possibility of sloshing someone's brains around in their head's via slapping the face. I said there really wasn't and there was some back and forth about supporting the head/neck vs. no or little support and how that affected the amount of sloshing inside the head.

After talking with a few people with experience with mild brain injuries, I learned that the more stable the head, the less sloshing of the brain upon impact, then the less that delicate grey matter gets banged up. The amount of force transmitted through the head when the head/neck are firmly supported is much less than the force on the brain banging against the inside of the skull from the head whipping around and stopping fast.

End result: firmly supporting the head and neck not only decreases the possibility of injury to the jaw and neck during face-slapping, it also decreases the trauma to the brain.

There is still risk of damage, mind you. Have fun and be as safe as you can.

Next Class is July 21st!

Using the Senses in Play - Sophia Sky & Jim Duvall

Location: CSPC, in the Annex

Cost: $20

Time: 7pm - 9pm (doors open at 6:30pm)

FSPC Workshop - CSPC discounts do not apply

Non-members welcome.

Sensation play is often thought of as gentle or introductory play with blindfolds and bunny floggers. Utilizing all 5 senses can enhance any type, level or intensity of play and gives a richer texture to any scene. Knowing the anatomy and physiology of all the structures associated with touch, taste, smell, sight and sound will give you an advantage when selecting which senses to down play or sharpen in keeping with the goal of your scene.  From setting the space through after care, tops & bottoms will learn via demos, lecture and exploration numerous ways to increase the depth of their play by manipulating sensory input.  

So, I really like this class. I love teaching with Jim, it’s a whole lot of fun blending our strengths. Add in the geekery possible with this subject and the amount of fun and fascinating information is staggering! Aside from all the anatomy and physiological goodness, this class focuses on setting, maintaining, propelling and concluding a scene. An experience that engages all of our special senses is often more powerful in the moment and as a memory. We will make small forays into conditioning responses and manipulating mood, of the space and the people within it. 

This class is intended for all skill levels and play interests of tops and bottoms and most of all, those not into any power exchange.  If you have any questions about the class, please feel free to email me or message me on FetLife.

Here is the link to the FetLife Event page so you can see who is going and let me know you are going.

Graydancer's Ropetastic Unconference Extravaganza Comes to the Suspension Capital of the World!

Seattle GRUE

	Friday, August 19, 2011 06:00 PM
	Sunday, August 21, 2011 01:00 PM
	Center for Sex Positive Culture

Tickets -	$80 per person

A GRUE is an un-conference - a gathering that is participant driven and self-organizing. Rather than impose an outside agenda on the attendees, the schedule is generated through a fast-moving group exercise facilitated by Gray. The group creates a day filled with a variety of subjects, some of which deal with rope and some of which stretch far beyond. Gender theory? Power dynamics? Scene design? STD awareness? Kinky spirituality? Cyber-security for perverts? All of these and many more have been covered in past GRUEs.
The one thing that every topic has in common - whether presentations, discussions, hands-on skillshares or laughing explorations into new territory- is passion. Everything that happens at a GRUE is something that an attendee is passionate about. The day is filled with energy, open exploration, unexpected connections, realizations, and discoveries. Like a structured contact improv dance, working within a proven framework every GRUE is different, beautiful, and unique to the needs and abilities of the people there.

Be prepared to be surprised. As over two dozen other GRUEs in the U.S. and Canada have proven, the unconference and kink go hand in hand to create something amazing.

The Seattle GRUE will be donating a portion of the profits of this event to the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and another portion to support independent sex-positive community educators.

Schedule:
Friday August 19th, 7-10pm or so: Meet-and-Greet. Location TBA
Saturday August 20th, 9:30am-6pm: GRUE! at the CSPC, Main Space.( Lunch is provided on site.)
Saturday Night, 9pm-2am: 2 Play Parties at CSPC, included in GRUE price. (Non-members must fill out consent forms.)
Sunday Morning: 10am-whenever: GRUE pancake brunch at the CSPC, Annex.
Register here: http://center.ticketleap.com/grue

Crashed

So I stopped writing in here for a while due to not having much to say beyond my 140 character tweets. So much going on in my life right now is privately tumultuous. Add all that on top of needing to recover from the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, too.

I'm starting to come out of the depths.

"For consent to count...ASSENT has to matter."

I am not generally of a mind to re-publish the writing of another person in this journal. However, I recently read an essay on FetLife that made me say, "Yes, that is what I have been trying to say for years!"

Below is a FetLife Journal Entry by SherynB titled Assent Matters, posted July 6th, 2011.  All emphasis are by SherynB, copied exactly from her journal entry. She has given me permission to repost this and encourages reposting with attribution and a link back to the original post. Please respect her copyright and wishes if you would like to republish this essay.

Assent Matters by SherynB

Okay, there's a 600lb gorilla in the room, and I'm done pretending it's not there. What we do isn't pretty or politically correct, and frankly, it's dangerous if we can't get (and stay) honest about the reality of it. So here it is as raw and real and un-PC as it is:

There is a cult of victimhood building in the scene. It's being cultivated and nurtured in the name of something I don't believe the originators ever intended their catchy phrase to stand for. Its endgame is dangerous for everybody involved, physically, emotionally, socially, and legally...and it's going to harm us all if it isn't nipped in the bud, right fucking now.

For consent to count...ASSENT has to matter.

What we do is VOLUNTARY. It's not assault, battery or rape in any moral sense of the word, regardless of what the laws that were meant to protect people against involuntary harm actually say. We have message boards, clubs, businesses, parties and social groups where people come and ask, sometimes beg and plead, for others to hit, kick, scratch, burn, shock, bleed, humiliate, degrade, subjugate, frighten, outrage, piss on, piss off, and/or make them cry. Not because they are helpless victims, but because it sexually gratifies them to participate in those things. And there are people who agree to do it...want to do it...love to do all of those Terrible Horrible Very Nasty Things. Not because they are predatory assholes, but because it sexually gratifies them, too. And every one of those reputable organizations, and the ones that exist to protect them, insist on two things above all others: You must be an adult. You must be consenting.

And that applies to BOTH (or all) of you, dammit.

We can pretend whatever we want to in the confines of that emotional, theatrical, energetic bubble that is our "scene", whether it's for an hour or most of our 24/7 life. But the reality of the situation is that we are free, sentient, competent adults with a responsibility to take care of OURSELVES. If you're not, get out of the pool. Go home. You're not old enough or competent enough to play here. The roller coaster might look like fun, and it is, but if you aren't tall enough to ride this ride, nobody wants you on it...because when you fall out and get harmed, it not only hurts you, it closes down the ride for the rest of us.

I've been following an epic thread on consent for months now, watching sadly as many of the comments devolve into dangerously magical thinking and wishing somebody would speak up, and say "Whoa. There's a point at which personal responsibility comes into play here." It took far too long. I waited longer than I should have. I said nothing at first because I respected the poster. Then because it was Sexual Assault Awareness month. Then because I was busy. And finally realized, I just didn't really want to be the lightening rod for the reflexive push-back that would follow, when I called bullshit on the parts of it that were batshit Pollyanna craziness. But hey, there's more than one way people can get hurt in this game, and somebody has to stand up. I've been on both sides of this ride, and I'm out of patience with the silence, so today, it's me:

Being a top in this game is dangerous. Publicly, privately, with new partners or old. Being the one who does the Terrible Horrible Very Bad Things puts you in an untenable position that you cannot defend legally or morally no matter how many times they asked you to do it. As soon as somebody says "Oh, I changed my mind, I didn't want that after all," you are the one facing accusations of rape, boundary violations, incompetence, or predatory behavior. And it doesn't matter how careful you were, or how ethical you were, or how well you think you negotiated. You stay in this game for more than a couple years, you're gonna live through it whether you want to or not. Ask the biggest, baddest, kindest, most skilled, reputable and ethical tops of either gender that you know. Every single one of them has a story. Or two or three.

There are predators and crazies of all genders and every BDSM persuasion in this game. And yes, those poor tender delicate flowers of submission, slavery and painsluttery are more often than anybody talks about...dangerous, and occasionally, actually predatory. Some are crazy. Some are just uneducated or immature. But the thing the dangerous ones have in common sounds a lot like this:

"I didn't tell you, and you didn't know, and I didn't say anything while it was happening, but what you did I didn't want, and you should have known that, even though I was saying you could, because well...it's your responsibility to know better than I do what I want. And besides...I was in subspace/headspace/dissociated/whatever the fuck...and wasn't in my right mind when I said you could. So...I didn't really consent to that."

I can't say this clearly enough:

If you go to a place when you play that makes you incompetent to give or revoke consent, you have a disability that makes you a danger to yourself and to the people you play with. And if you're going to play this game AT ALL, you have a responsibility to choose your partners VERY carefully, disclose that problem UP FRONT, and negotiate truthfully, intelligently and with major self-awareness around it.

Because I've got news for those of you that think that "bottoms" can't do or consent to this or that or the other inside of a scene...a whole fucking bunch of us can. And do. And those of you that can't or won't, and still ask for pick-up play with people you barely know, are the worst nightmare of every top on the planet. Especially if your version of negotiation sounds a lot like "oh, um...you're hot...and I've heard good things about you...and oh, um...you know...whatever you want to do, I guess. I like [whatever it is that you do]."

Whether or not you want to live in that fantasy for yourself...or yell at me for calling you on it...keep this in mind: If you sell the notion that bottoming takes everybody to a place where consent is impossible...then ALL the work being done to make what we do legal and defensible and give us CHOICE is for naught. If we aren't competent to consent or withdraw consent once play starts, then everything we do will always be criminal, for our own protection. You can't have it both ways.

I know a couple that speak, teach and demonstrate some of the heaviest fear, humiliation & taboo play out there...they play deep in emotion all the time...and every time I've heard them speak or seen anything they've written for the last several years, I hear the bottom in that couple pleading for people to hear and understand: TOPS ARE NOT MINDREADERS. Her husband nods. But she's so frustrated you can almost hear her scream. It's a cry in the darkness I hear over and over, from tops, and from their partners, of either persuasion, and a whole bunch of bottoms who gag at being lumped in that "helpless subbie victim" category. Most of us are good with body language, with nuances of energy and emotion...some aren't. But NONE of us are mind-readers. And when you tell us things are good, when you ask for what you want, when you use words that are understandable and in plain English, and then tell us later that's not what you MEANT and we were supposed to KNOW that...we are helpless to respond. Because it's NOT RATIONAL.

Physical and emotional landmines happen. Endorphins and adrenaline allow things that the rational mind isn't comfortable with. We ALL wake up the next day sometimes thinking "What the FUCK was I thinking when I did/allowed/asked for that??" Or with more marks or bruises or embarrassment or physical or emotional hurt than we wanted, for ourselves or our partners. Sometimes it takes months to untangle whatever knots we surfaced. Sometimes we trigger stuff that needs therapy, or even medical treatment. Sometimes we do it on purpose, sometimes we don't. Shit happens, and often it's nobody's fault...unless you knew that shit was there, and didn't disclose it.

But when you wake up the next day and think to yourself: "Wow. I'm not comfortable with how far that went." Ask yourself what you actually did or said. Ask your partner what you did or said. Ask bystanders what you did or said. And own your part in it. Because whatever you were thinking...if you actually held the conversation and all the responses entirely in your head...you can't hold someone else responsible for what you didn't say or do here on the planet where the rest of us are. And if you couldn't possibly have predicted the outcome, how rational is it for you to expect that your partner should have?

Safewords exist for a reason. Plain English exists for a reason. All those classes on negotiation exist for a reason. Read the book The Gift of Fear (Gavin de Becker) and learn not just what a real predator looks like...but where YOUR responsibility to recognize the obvious signs and protect yourself begins. Find your emotional power to recognize and say "no" to what you don't want BEFORE you get naked and tied up and give up your actual physical power to walk away to anybody. And if you find, after the fact, that you don't have a voice in that situation...get one. Therapy and education and finding your own power will serve you far better in this life than setting yourself up for perpetual victimhood again and again, and wondering why it keeps happening to YOU.

Because your consent DOES count. And when you give it...you have a responsibility to give it honestly, and to expect to be taken at your word. And when you withdraw it, which you have a perfect right to do at any time, you have responsibility to communicate it clearly, and to act on it. Anything else puts you and everybody you play with at risk. Once you've done THAT, there's no excuse and no apology for anybody violating it. But until you do...it's magical and dangerous thinking to believe that someone else is going to "know" what you want, and do it, despite what you say or don't say. In fact, somebody who would discount your communication that way, is far more dangerous than someone who takes you at your word, as a competent, sentient adult, who has decided for yourself that you're big enough to be on this strange and wonderful ride.

Now somebody get that gorilla a banana. We've been ignoring it for far too long.