Hi, friends! Today’s 12 Days of Girly Juice instalment is all about sexy and sex-adjacent events I attended in 2018 – and because I am such a lucky lady, there were lots of them. However, these 4 were the ones that stuck out to me the most…
The Playground Conference
Organized, as always, by the inimitable Samantha Fraser, the Playground Conference was easily a career highlight of my year. I was invited to speak in two sessions: the opening plenary about personal storytelling as a form of activism, and a live recording of The Dildorks. As is par for the course at events like these, a lot of the most fun stuff happened “extracurricularly,” like hotel-room spanking parties, late-night phone sex, and a blogger get-together punctuated by boozy, frosty milkshakes. Yummm.
The sessions at Playground this year were as fascinating and eye-opening as always. I learned about kink negotiation, blowjob techniques, BDSM psychology, and lots more. I was reminded once again of how important and uplifting it is to spend time around other sex nerds, especially those wiser and more experienced than me. What a blessing to be able to do that.
On a personal note, Playground was also my first experience with following event-specific protocol assigned to me by a long-distance partner, including wearing outfits he chose for me and sending him daily updates in photographic form, and as such, it’s a fond memory in the history of my relationship. Aww.
Sex Writing 101
I was thrilled this year that the Naked Heart Festival, an LGBTQ literary event, invited me to teach an introductory sex writing workshop as part of their wide-ranging programming. I was surprised at the size of the crowd that came out, and it delighted me to talk to them about the practical, ethical, and creative considerations involved in sex writing: everything from consent to pseudonyms to pitching stories to sexual mindfulness. (My boyfriend was sitting in the front row, gazing up at me like a rapt angel, which helped, too.)
Someday I’d like to offer this class online, since I think I have a lot of useful stuff to say about the sex writing world, having been in it for 6+ years. Let me know if you’d ever be interested in attending a webinar, purchasing an e-course, etc. along these lines, and I’ll see what I can do in 2019!
The Bed Post Sex & Sexuality Variety Show
Bed Post is the brainchild of Erin Pim, a brilliant, kinky firecracker who also hosts a podcast of the same name. I’ve guested on both the podcast and the live show several times, and it’s always a raunchy good time!
I can’t think of any other event that does quite what Bed Post does: it’s a blend of storytelling, burlesque, comedy, and music, all united under the overarching theme of sex. On the Bed Post stage, I’ve crooned ukulele tunes about BDSM, explained the joys of knife play, read my review of a Teddy Bear vibrator, and given fisting advice to strangers. I’ve wolf-whistled at a curvy redhead doing an outer space-themed striptease, hung on the every word of a captivating phone sex operator‘s stories, and laughed my ass off at a weirdly hilarious tale about revenge porn. I never quite know what I’m going to see when I show up at a Bed Post performance, but I always end up loving every minute.
If you live in Toronto (or can get here) and haven’t yet checked out this great variety show, I highly recommend it!
Hookup
I’ve been attending improv shows in Toronto for well over a decade, and the Bad Dog Theatre’s runaway success Hookup is one of my favorites I’ve ever seen – to the point that I keep going back, again and again. Here’s the premise: the cast picks two single-and-ready-to-mingle audience members, interviews them about their personalities and aspirations, and then improvises a one-act play of sorts about what would happen if those two people met and hooked up.
Far from being the lewd or mean-spirited show this could so easily have turned into, Hookup is usually a sweet, incisive, hilarious celebration of love that leaves the entire audience glowing. If your ideal evening out at the theatre ends with your face hurting from laughing so hard and your very spirit feeling replenished, I think you would love Hookup. It regularly makes me giggle-shriek until I can’t breathe, and that’s a feeling we all need more of.
What sex-related events did you love this year?