![[home]](/images/house.gif)
![[contact]](/images/email.gif)
(613) 789-4646
VenusNews » Ottawa
March 2005 . contents
- Patrick Califia
- Workshops
- Future Events
- Venus Envy on Rogers TV
- Reviews: Bottoms Up: Writing about Sex, WET warming lube, LayaSpot
- Local Events
- Art at Venus Envy
Patrick Califia
Patrick Califia is coming back to Ottawa for two workshops and a talk! All sessions are being held at Venus Envy, upstairs in our new seminar space. Please note that payment is required for registration and that space is limited.Having A Loving Impact: Flogging 101
Saturday, April 23rd at 4pm
Whips and floggers are an extension of the top's loving, skillful, and demanding hands. There are many different types of floggers, each
requiring a different sort of skill to wield (or endure) effectively. Flagellation fetishist and way too experienced sadist Patrick Califia
will help you to classify the toys that are used in impact play, and give a demonstration of how each is used. We'll talk about why some people love spanking, but hate caning, or vice versa, and how to set up your play space to help the bottom relax and enjoy the sensory feast of a good, hard whipping. What do you need to know about each other before you embark upon this archetypal, sadomasochistic adventure? Safety considerations and aftercare will also be covered.
The Burning Keyboard: Erotic Writing
Sunday April 24th at 1pm
Erotica is a fast-growing market for freelance authors, and it's also a wonderful way to explore the history, mores, politics, relationships, and desires of people with many diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. Find out how to construct a sexually explicit short story for publication in an anthology or in a book of your own. The workshop leader, Patrick Califia, who has been publishing innovative erotica for nearly three decades, will talk about common pitfalls and and where to go for inspiration. Bring something to write on as there will be a writing exercise in class.
Transgendered Identity And Sexuality
Sunday April 24th at 4pm
At the age of 45, Pat Califia, a well-known leatherdyke author and sex radical, made a gender transition from female to male (FTM), and now lives in a male identity full-time as Patrick Califia. It seems as if more and more female-born people are identifying as FTM. Why do some people feel an intense discomfort with the sex they were assigned at birth? Does it really help to take hormones or have surgery to alter your body? What does it mean to be a gender resister, or genderqueer, as opposed to being an FTM or MTF (male-to-female) transsexual? How is the growing visibility of the trans community affecting other queer people, i.e., lesbians, gay men, and bisexual men and women? Patrick will address some of these issues, and also talk about the trials and bonuses of being a bisexual, sexually active FTM who wants pleasure and intimacy in his life even though his body is not perfect. We've all heard about gender dysphoria; but can there also be gender euphoria?
BIO
Patrick Califia is a 50-year-old sex educator, author, activist, and radical pervert. His first book, Sapphistry, electrified the lesbian community with its frank discussions of butch-femme role-playing and S/M. During the 45 years he identified as a woman and a leatherdyke, he contributed to the growth of sex-positive feminism. Patrick lives in San Francisco where he has a private practice as a therapist, and ministers to queer pagans and their allies. He's the divorced father of a five-year-old boy. And he continues to be a strong advocate of responsible sexual freedom, a foe of censorship, and a pervy proselytizer. His newest book is Mortal Companion, an erotic vampire romance, and Hard Men, a collection of kinky gay male smut. He's published two volumes of essays, Public Sex and Speaking Sex to Power. A sequel to the vampire book, Immortal Empress, and a new book of erotic short stories are forthcoming
Workshops
| April 4, 2005 @ 6:00pm For women | I'm Coming! A Women's Guide to 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 ($10 students and seniors) 2 hours |
| April 6, 2005 @ 7:00pm For everyone | Intro to Tantra for Couples |
| Explore lovemaking that is more than physical. Men learn the art of ejaculation mastery. Women learn to embrace their joyous sexual-sensual potential. Basic Tantric principles and practices help you take your connection to new heights. No sexually explicit exercises in class. Al Link and Pala Copeland, authors of Soul Sex: Tantra for Two have been practicing Tantra since 1987 and teaching since 1997. Extensive media coverage includes: the Wall Street Journal, the Sex Files, Playboy Radio, Fashion Magazine, and Canada AM. $40 per couple ($30 for students and seniors). For all couples.2 hours |
| April 11, 2005 @ 6:00pm 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 |
| April 19, 2005 @ 6:30pm For women | The New Bump and Grind: Dress up, Show off and Talk Hot! |
| Erotic dancing is all the rage right now and Venus Envy has created an interactive workshop along those lines. "The New Bump and Grind" will offer women a chance to explore sensual movement, sexy communication skills, and generally allow women to feel more comfortable being their sexiest selves. "The New Bump and Grind" is held in a cozy and comfortable space with fun props and no expectations. If you don't feel comfortable with the movements or exercises you can feel free to sit out and watch. Facilitated by Èmilie and Shari, who bring a fabulous combination of experiences including erotic modeling, dance experience and teaching, and a love of burlesque and showing off! $30 ($15 for students and seniors)2 hours |
| April 23, 2005 @ 4:00pm For everyone | Having a Loving Impact: Flogging 101 with Patrick Califia |
| Whips and floggers are an extension of the top's loving, skillful, and demanding hands. There are many different types of floggers, each requiring a different sort of skill to wield (or endure) effectively. Flagellation fetishist and way too experienced sadist Patrick Califia will help you to classify the toys that are used in impact play, and give a demonstration of how each is used. We'll talk about why some people love spanking, but hate caning, or vice versa, and how to set up your play space to help the bottom relax and enjoy the sensory feast of a good, hard whipping. What do you need to know about each other before you embark upon this archetypal, sadomasochistic adventure? Safety considerations and aftercare will also be covered. $25 ($15 students and seniors) 1.5 hours |
| April 24, 2005 @ 4:00pm For everyone | Transgendered Identity and Sexuality with Patrick Califia |
| At the age of 45, Pat Califia, a well-known leatherdyke author and sex radical, made a gender transition from female to male (FTM), and now lives in a male identity full-time as Patrick Califia. It seems as if more and more female-born people are identifying as FTM. Why do some people feel an intense discomfort with the sex they were assigned at birth? Does it really help to take hormones or have surgery to alter your body? What does it mean to be a gender resister, or genderqueer, as opposed to being an FTM or MTF (male-to-female) transsexual? How is the growing visibility of the trans community affecting other queer people, i.e., lesbians, gay men, and bisexual men and women? Patrick will address some of these issues, and also talk about the trials and bonuses of being a bisexual, sexually active FTM who wants pleasure and intimacy in his life even though his body is not perfect. We've all heard about gender dysphoria; but can there also be gender euphoria?
$10 per person 1.25 hours |
| April 24, 2005 @ 1:00pm For everyone | The Burning Keyboard: Erotic Writing with Patrcik Califia |
| Erotica is a fast-growing market for freelance authors, and it's also a wonderful way to explore the history, mores, politics, relationships, and desires of people with many diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. Find out how to construct a sexually explicit short story for publication in an anthology or in a book of your own. The workshop leader, Patrick Califia, who has been publishing innovative erotica for nearly three decades, will talk about common pitfalls and and where to go for inspiration. Bring something to write on as there will be a writing exercise in class.
$25 ($15 students and seniors) 2 hours |
| May 9, 2005 @ 6:00pm 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 |
| May 16, 2005 @ 6:15pm 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 |
| May 17, 2005 @ 6:30pm For women | The New Bump and Grind: Dress up, Show off and Talk Hot! |
| Erotic dancing is all the rage right now and Venus Envy has created an interactive workshop along those lines. "The New Bump and Grind" will offer women a chance to explore sensual movement, sexy communication skills, and generally allow women to feel more comfortable being their sexiest selves. "The New Bump and Grind" is held in a cozy and comfortable space with fun props and no expectations. If you don't feel comfortable with the movements or exercises you can feel free to sit out and watch. Facilitated by Èmilie and Shari, who bring a fabulous combination of experiences including erotic modeling, dance experience and teaching, and a love of burlesque and showing off! $30 ($15 for students and seniors)2 hours |
| May 24, 2005 @ 6:15pm For women | Butch/Femme: Unravelling the Myths, Celebrating the Erotic |
| Join Marie Robertson for an evening of exploration, learning and excitement. In this workshop participants will have an opportunity to: This session is open to lesbians and bisexual women only. You don't need to identify as butch or femme to attend 2.0 hours |
| May 30, 2005 @ 6:00pm For women | Lesbian Sexuality |
|
Most lesbians feel some degree of confusion, fear or awkwardness about sex and sexuality. Attitudes, beliefs and sexual practices are often based on misinformation and myths about lesbian sex. What do we do sexually? Why do some lesbians have trouble initiating sex? How do our sexual fantasies affect our sex play? Why do many lesbians in committed relationships make love less often the longer they are together? How can we re-eroticise our relationships?
This presentation offers participants the opportunity to:
2 hours Facilitator: |
Looking into the Future
Pride Sale!
Saturday July 9th: 11am-6pm
20% off all toys!
Midori!
Fetish Diva Midori will be at Venus Envy on August 25th and 28th for three workshops. Check our web site in the coming weeks for more details about her visit!
New workshop
"Writing Erotic Letters" with Megan Butcher. This new session will be held for the first time in early summer: check our web site for dates and descriptions in early April.
Venus Envy on Rogers TV!
You can check out Venus Envy on Rogers Cable once a month: we'll be chatting with Daytime hosts Catherine Marion and Derick Fage about lots of fun topics. Daytime airs Monday to Friday at 11am, 5pm, and 11pm!
Here's our schedule:
March 30 - Writing erotic verse
Whether it's a love poem or an erotic letter for your sweetie, Megan Butcher can help you get there. Megan is a sex educator, poet, and librarian who's been leading erotic writing classes for 3 years.
April 27th - Organic Sex!
The organics movement has taken our kitchens by storm and now it's trickled into the bedroom. Organic massage oils, lubricant and tasty ideas from around the house. Topic includes why you might want to use organic products on your skin as well as in your food.
May 25th - The New Bump and Grind: Dress Up, Show Off and Talk Hot!
Venus Envy's newest workshop helps women show off their sexiest selves. Erotic communication, sensual movement, and dirty dancing are all part of this fun workshop. Shari from Venus Envy will show off pasties and frilly underpants and talk about the philosophy behind the workshop and what women can expect at the workshop.
June 22 - Hot Product for Hot Days!
New stuff from Venus Envy to enjoy throughout the hot summer. Short erotic stories, massage dust (much better than oils in the summer), cooling gels for sensitive areas, travel size lubes and lotions to take on the road.
Reviews
Bottoms Up: Writing about Sex. Edited by Diana Cage, $19.50
Review by Megan Butcher
This isn't a review of erotica, though in Bottoms Up: Writing About Sex you'll find lots of fucking, touching, gazing, wanting, getting and a whole other long list of gerunds to do with desire and bodies meeting. It's what local author Matthew Firth, in a lecture to the Ottawa Independent Writers' Assocation, called sex writing. Not porn, not erotica, direct: the text as exploration, titillation an aftershock. Diana Cage, the editor of this book, puts it this way: "[good sex writing] should get you hot because it evokes a greater understanding of sex, not because it makes you come at your desk."
I'm not sure this book would do either for its likely audience. For someone new to gender and power play, not to mention their lovely interstices, this would certainly enhance and expand conventional categories of gender and sex; however, the cover photo, names on the back and the jacket blurb are all likely to draw a pretty sex-savvy reader. Anyone who has spent any concentrated time thinking about those two subjects is unlikely to come away with new thoughts. There is no topic in Bottoms Up that hasn't been written about before.
That isn't a criticism. We don't ask every new novel about a family to be groundbreaking, and writing about sex shouldn't be treated differently. This isn't a bad or boring book, and I enjoyed reading it. For starters, I'm glad to see writers taking sex seriously, as a legitimate part of a narrative that may or may not be centred on any one kind of sex act or relationship. It's refreshing to read a book that takes such a loose definition of sex. It means you don't get a bunch of stories that all follow the same trajectory. Habit is as bad for a collection of fiction as it is for your sex life. By choosing stories that try to tell their tales in different ways and different voices, Cage has created a book much more likely to keep you moving on to the next piece.
As to the writing itself, I can only say that none of it is terrible and some of it is quite good. For example, there were phrases in the story by A. Emergency that both made me thankful to be reading them and intensely jealous that I had not thought of them myself; their author could be brilliant, but has to learn to hold back with the post-modern posturing. My favourite sentence from the book is in "Relationship": "This time a low shiver ran down me, as though a dark bird had swooped along the length of my body and would return with my sex in its mouth." And once you get into the meat of the story, you forget where you are, slipping through the page into the rhythm of the words.
There are also several good first person narratives written by people who make you want to know them: T.J. Bryan (a.k.a. Tenacious), Michelle Tea, Lori Selke, and Eileen Myles know how to write a good story with transparent prose. The writing is good and doesn't much get in the way.
One thing I will not miss is the loss of self-conscious writing about trans people and gender fuckers. May such writing give way to more natural rhythms soon. The one story that took genderqueering for granted, rather than trying to teach me something about it, was Jess Arndt's tremendously fun and well-paced run through goldrush San Francisco.
All in all, if you've done a lot of reading about sex (in any of its forms) and gender, you probably won't find anything new, but you'll probably enjoy the read. If you don't know much about such things, you'll find a damn good lot of experiences and a good time too.
Wet Warming Lube
3.7oz $7.95, 5.1oz $12.95, 10.7oz 19.95
Review by Maggie Haywood
The new warming lube from WET International is a welcome addition to the scads of warming products on the market. It's water-based and not too hot — there's fine line between "warming" and "burning," after all. I found it worked best in moderation: too much of it just gets sticky, and a little goes a long way. It does stay slicker longer than any other warming lube I've tried — which is good thing, since, like any lube that contains sugar, it's best not to use gobs of the stuff. Used externally, Wet Warming lube acts a bit like many of the clit-stimulating products available by increasing clitoral sensitivity and blood flow. Internal use is another matter altogether! It makes everything feel just a little bit...MORE, although after a while, I did begin it think "well, maybe less IS more". After a few go 'rounds I think I'd file this under "Special Occasion Lube". Maybe not the greatest lube for long-haul lovin', but really fun for a quickie where every second counts.
Laya Spot Vibrator
Made in Germany, silicone and hard plastic
available in red/silver, teal/silver, pink/red: $49.95
Review by Patty Thille
Laya Spot, the newest addition to our Fun Factory selection, is a definite hit. This clitoral vibrator is shaped to fit very well with a woman's contours, though can be used almost anywhere on the body. Add the range of types of vibrations it produces (a choice of 7 different vibration settings), and it's obvious why the LayaSpot is the newest staff pick. Made of an odorless and hypoallergenic material, the toy is easy to clean. Other perks include the true-to-form Fun Factory playful colour options and one year warranty.
Local Events
Ms Ottawa Leather Annual Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser
Sunday, April 17
Jim Durrell Community Centre, 1265 Walkley Road
$10 per person, proceeds to the Women's Corner Stone Safe House
Tickets available in advance at Venus Envy and Mother Tongue
Moans, Groans & Unfinished Sentences II
Tuesday, April 26th: 8pm
Universecity Lounge (over the Agora Bookstore)
Performers for this event feature Oni the Haitian Sensation, Ritalin, the Cerebral Stimulant of Capital Slam fame, Xpress columnist Sylvie Hill, and other new poets. There will be a raffle by donation for door prizes, as well as an open mic segment for those wishing to share in the fun. As well, singer/songwriters Melissa Laveaux and Gloria Song will be performing. This is a fundraiser for the Capital Slam Poetry Collective.
Dyke City Dance
Friday, June 17, 2005: 8 pm to 1 am
National Arts Centre, Fountain Room
53 Elgin Street, Ottawa, Ontario
$15.00 in advance; $20.00 at the door
Tickets available in May 2005 from Mother Tongue, Venus Envy and Wilde's
Artists
March and April
Ima Ortega
Intimacy is a thing shared between two people whose ultimate desire is to become completely vulnerable. It is a time for setting aside a world whose reality often oppresses, in order to experience the sensual and the sublime ... a realm of pure fantasy. Through experimentation, one learns to know the body and the ways in which pleasure can be given and received. Some might choose to experience the act of bondage; a game based on trust which explores roles of power and submission, and the importance of creating a safe place whereby, two consenting adults become totally and completely aware of their own fragility and strength. In other moments the subject is alone, as if contemplating her own sexuality. The viewer feels a compulsion to look and in doing so, becomes a voyeur, thus, lending an exhibitionistic quality to the work.
May and June
Colette Coughlin: "Sense and Sensuality; Self-Portrait as an Erotic Being"
This process started out as a challenge for me to make peace with my own body by using the timer on my digital camera to take pictures on a daily basis. The silence of this objective observer allowed me more objectivity in my own observations, and slowly helped to silence the inner voice of judgement. The transformation of these images by simple line tracing and block-colouring also has a distancing effect; the drawings became "a woman" instead of me with all my glaring imperfections, and the process has opened up a space where a very real part of me that had long been stifled was allowed to express itself.
As part of the Living Body Collective (l'Atelier Corps Vivant) Colette offers body image workshops in English and in French, working with both men and women in groups and on an individual basis. Digital photography and a simple line-tracing method are used to allow people to get more familiar with the human body and to see themselves and others in a different light.
July and August
This time is available for any woman who wants to show her work at Venus Envy!
