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July 2005 . contents
- Pride Day Sale
- Workshops with Midori
- Summer Workshops
- Product reviews
- Community Events
- Artists
Pride Day Sale!
Saturday, July 23: 10am-6pm
Join us before or after the Pride Parade for our annual Pride Day Sale: 20% off all toys and pride gear. We'll also have a table full of goodies at Sackville Landing after the parade.
Workshops with Midori
The one and only Fetish Diva Midori will be visiting us this summer to offer workshops on a variety of topics. Midori is former professional dominant, an educator, and a writer on SM, fetish, and human sexuality. Her publications include Wild Side Sex: The Book of Kink, The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage, and her bondage-photography website Beauty Bound. Newcomers and experienced players alike can come out and learn a thing or two from an accomplished and celebrated mistress of the arts of kink.
Please see our workshops page for details about costs and registration.
| August 29, 2005 @ 7:00pm For everyone |
Intro to Japanese and other Creative Rope Bondage Essentials |
| Rope bondage can be simple, elegant, effective and sensual. But if you don't know how to do it right, it can be dangerous. Midori will teach you how to use this most versatile bondage tool to maximize fun and minimize risks. Learn basic techniques such as two-column restraint, body harnesses and creative positions. She is an expert in safe and effective Japanese inspired rope bondage. There will be time for hands-on practice, so wear comfortable clothing. $25 per person ($15 students and seniors) 2 hours |
| August 30, 2005 @ 7:00pm For everyone |
The Art of Feminine Dominance with Midori |
| Elegance, power and confidence... Do you want to know how to be a dominant without being a bitch? How do you find a sexy and effective style of dominance? Fetish Diva Midori will share with you her secrets of the feminine art of dominance. She will discuss the psychology, politics, practical exercises, techniques, fashion and more. This class is not limited to a gender, but for all who harbor the powerful woman within! Something for everyone from the novice to the experienced player. $25 per person ($15 students and seniors) 2 hours |
Summer Workshops
Please see our workshops page for details about costs and registration.
| July 20, 2005 @ 7:15pm For everyone |
Up Yours!: Anal Pleasure and Health |
| Make friends with your butt! Join us in breaking myths and cultural taboos surrounding anal play. Also learn practical tips about lube, toys, safety and health. 1.5 hours |
| August 6, 2005 @ 6:15pm For everyone |
Going Down: A Guide to Fellatio |
| If you're interested in licking boys' bits, but aren't sure where to start or what to do once you get going, this workshop is for you. From basic anatomy to tips for the advanced, this workshop will cover a wide range of information about giving head. 1.5 hours |
| August 10, 2005 @ 7:15pm For everyone |
Going Down: A Guide to Cunnilingus |
| This workshop will cover anatomy, technique, communication skills and tricks to please your lady with your lips. And tongue, and teeth, and ... 1.5 hours |
| August 23, 2005 @ 6:15pm For couples |
I'm Coming! A Guide to Women' s Orgasm |
| Many women never experience orgasm, just as many can have orgasms once in awhile, or on their own, or never on their own, or ... you get the picture. The female orgasm can sometimes be rather elusive, and that can be ok, but it can also be very frustrating. This session will look at some of the reasonswomen have difficulty with orgasm, offer suggestions around play to enhance sexual feelings, as well as covering important anatomical information. Discussion includes g-spot, clitoris, and tips to use both alone and with a partner. $20 per person ($10 limited income) 2 hours |
Product reviews
The Spank! Cock Ring
Reviewed by Leatherman
Reprinted from Bleu Review (www.bleureview.com)
"One size fits all" — that is, if you are one of three sizes: Setting 1 (8 inches), Setting 2 (7 inches) and setting 3 (6 inches). I am between Setting 2 and Setting 3 on the Spank! cock ring, but found that I could get away with either, using the looser setting for tease play and tightening it up as the action got more intense.
As with any snaps around the genital area you need to watch out for hair while adjusting the cock ring to your appropriate size. A shaving scene would be a good warm-up (in exchange for the price of a blow job!) because when the snaps get you by the short and curlys they are more than just annoying. When trying to adjust the tension I felt a little pinch which could have been avoided by holding the skin back with one finger as the leather slides through the metal to the next snap.
New leather is a little stiff to start with, but as the Spank! ring warmed up to my body it became quite comfortable. Wearing a tight pair of jeans, however, brought my focus back, and every time I stood up or switched positions I was aware of my constricted groin. Even on Setting 1, I could still feel the heat rising and the juices flowing. I hope everyone gets the exquisite feeling that I do when I put on a piece of leather, no matter how small! (they don't call me Leatherman for nothing!). The quality of this leather is very good—it is one piece of thick leather (maybe buffalo hide?) and not the typical two pieces of dress leather sewn together. This allows the leather to breathe, so you can wear it for a long time and even dance with it on with less chance of developing a rash.
The square metal loop can be either worn on top of the cock or behind the balls, but I'm still not sure which I prefer. Worn on top you need to watch out for hitting your teeth on the metal when giving a BJ. However, this is the most visually appealing, especially when fucking, and who's going to care when you are that far along anyway? If going for visual effect, only Setting 3 looks good with the metal loop under the balls. It is the easiest position to adjust the snaps in because you are pulling up, not pushing down and the mechanics are not hidden by your own hands.
The Spank! Cock ring is very functional. You need not worry about applying lube before you slip it on (unlike solid metal or rubber rings) and you can easily adjust the tension. With a quick snap you can tighten or loosen the ring depending on whether you are pumped up and waiting at the bar or in a "I got to keep that cock hard for the next three minutes 'til I come" mode. Remember, you can come several times in one night and although the first one is quick, this cock ring will help you stand hard and tall for the rest of them.
Redefining our Relationships: Guidelines for Responsible Open Relationships. By Wendy-O-Matik. (Oakland, CA: Defiant Times, 2002. 93 pages.)
Reviewed by Steve McCullough
This heartfelt text is equal parts emotional manifesto and practical guide to living in non-monogamous (or "polyamorous" or "poly" or "open") relationships. Both aspects are important: it takes passionate motivation to face the intricate logistics and social disdain that can result from multiple partnering. Redefining our Relationships celebrates the radicalism and the courage involved in choosing to pursue loving relationships beyond couple-hood, and does so on staunchly unapologetic terms. It is largely aimed at a like-minded audience: if you are already interested or involved in living poly, you may find this book a source of support and inspiration, but don't count on it convincing the skeptical that non-monogamy is a good idea.
Beginning with the chapter "Confronting Jealousy," Redefining our Relationships addresses concrete issues of trust and personal space, and dispenses some excellent advice about making non-monogamy work day-to-day. The "Guidelines" chapter, for instance, presents some very direct and useful advice about boundaries and communication — including "Revise and re-define all boundaries regularly" and "Rivals are not allowed" — that would be well applied in any relationship, polyamorous or otherwise. The subsequent chapters, "Conflict Strategies" and "Some of Us Have Kids" (the latter guest-written), also offer detailed advice clearly drawn from experience that is intended to help the non-monogamous through the challenges of disagreement and the responsibilities of child-rearing. Redefining our Relationships nicely avoids becoming didactic in its advising, in part by including illustrative stories and quotations from the varied lives of non-monogamous men and women throughout. The text ends with advice on sharing a lover with a partner and chapters that return to matters of possibility, fear (featuring a very judicious discussion of "coming out" as poly), and love, thereby moving on from pragmatic details to conclude on a note of cautionary celebration.
There are longer, larger, and more detailed books on polyamory, but none of them sets out to be a personal cheering section in quite the way this one does; Wendy-O-Matic quite explicitly writes to celebrate non-monogamous intimacy rather than defend or explain it. Redefining our Relationships aspires to be a political tract as well as an emotional one, but doesn't carry that goal off particularly well, in that it paints a naively heroic picture of non-monogamists resisting vaguely-defined forces of oppression with the power of love. There's a grain of truth in this description, but it just can't help but sound vaguely adolescent, like a Harlequin romance about star-crossed lovers or Henry Rollins on a bad day. This version of "the personal is political" does, however, emphasize the particular difficulties that beset the polyamorous: our culture is so pervaded by emotional and ethical norms based on heterosexual pairing that notions of non-exclusive love and fidelity can be very difficult to articulate, let alone praise. So the opening chapters, albeit uncritical, offer a salutary celebration of non-traditional intimacies that are so commonly ignored, insulted, or dismissed that it can be difficult for folks with non-monogamous aptitudes to reconcile their expansive desires with the strait romantic possibilities culturally mandated for them.
The author tends to shoot from the hip, and writes out of her own admittedly unusual perspective as someone who has always been non-monogamous. Her confidence is inspiring and reassuring, but the text tends to feel more insistent than persuasive. It rushes through many topics entirely too quickly, making me, at least, wish that some paragraphs had been fleshed out into whole chapters. I found myself quite often wanting more specifics, structure, and background, especially in the opening chapters, where she dispenses less-than-helpful advice such as "Make it up as you go along" (11) as she praises the revolutionary possibilities of love. I hate to pull on grammarian's jackboots, but the text could use a fair bit of editing for clarity and correctness. There are quite a few clumsy and confusing sentences and paragraphs, and between such distracting errors and the hit-and-run discussion, some of the more interesting claims just don't hang together very well. Redefining our Relationships doesn't, however, really intend to argue a detailed case for or about open relationships, but to inspire interested or practicing polyamorists and to give them some very helpful direction along the way. And Wendy-O-Matik's experience, confidence, and enthusiasm make her worth heeding.
Community events
July is Pride Month in Halifax, and this year is hot hot hot!
For a full listing of events, visit www.halifaxpride.com
Second Annual Dykes vs. Divas on the Diamond
Diamond #9, Halifax Commons
2:00pm. Free Admission
Stack the Vote with Ben Dover
Reflections Cabaret, 5184 Sackville
10:00pm. $3 cover
Queer Comedy Night
Special guest star Mary Ellen MacLean, featuringCandy Palmater and many other outrageously funny comics from here, there, and everywhere.
Reflections Cabaret, 5184 Sackville St.
9:00pm. Advance tickets $10 (available at Venus Envy); $12 at the door
Pussy Playhouse
The third bathhouse for women and transpeople, brought to you by SheDogs, and co-sponsered by Venus Envy and SeaDog's Spa. For more information, please visit www.venusenvy.ca/Halifax/bathhouse.asp. This is a bi-friendly, trans-friendly event.
Sea Dog's Sauna & Spa, 2199 Gottingen Street
8:00pm-2:00am. Call 422-0004 to register: $15 advance, $20 at the doorReel Pride Film Festival IV (Night 1)
Oxford Empire Theatre, 6408 Quinpool
7:00pm. Tickets $7 (available at Venus Envy or at the door)
Reading Out Loud
Join us for this fabulou, free celebration of queer words. Hosted by Jane Kansas. Readers include Candy Palmater, Daniel MacKay, Joey Comeau, Mike Gaetz & Benjie Nycum (from YGA Magazine), Jane Wright (of Jane's on the Common). Co-sponsored by Venus Envy and the Halifax Regional Library.
Spring Garden Library.
7:00pm. FreeReel Pride Film Festival IV (Night 2)
Oxford Empire Theatre, 6408 Quinpool
7:00pm. Tickets $7 (available at Venus Envy or at the door)
Parade Day!
Halifax's pride parade starts at 1:30pm at Cornwallis and Maitland Streets. A map of the parade route will be featured in the Pride Week edition of the Coast. The parade ends at Sackvile Landing (Lower Water Street) with a fantastic lineup of entertainment.WetSpot
The Pride party for LGBTT women and their allies. HUGE patio, local performers on the hour, games and prizes, great music all night. Presented by Girl-ish Productions, sponsored by Venus Envy.
Stage Nine (Grafton @ Blowers Street)
8:00pm - 2:00am. $8 in advance (available at Venus Envy), $10 doorHalifax Womyn's 12th Annual Pride Dance
McInnes Room, 2nd floor Dalhousie Student Union Bldg.
$8 in advance (available at Venus Envy and NRG), $10 at the door
Tickets available after July 1st at Venus Envy and the new Club NRG
Artists
July
Pride Show
Various queer local artists.
August
Jen Throop: "Public Cervix Announcement"
Acrylic paintings, portraits of cervical self-examination, imaginative impressions of cervixes in various settings.
September
Victoria Cowen: mixed media
Bright mixed media portraits of women, with a focus on faces, using ink and watercolours.
October
Tanya Zodrow: My Beast
As an artist and as a woman I struggle with conceptions of beauty, pleasure, and meaning. I am taught that my worth comes from what I exude physically rather than intellectually or spiritually. My beast is inside me; I am my own worst enemy. As I live, I have learned true love of myself not only through examining me but through appreciating other women. I have fought my beast and won. I love myself, and play with conceptions of beauty and pleasure and meaning because I can. With an open mind. A mind free of the beast. Painting and creating since the age of 12 have brought me to this wisdom. Sharing this with others brings me power to keep the beast at bay.
