Bawdy Storytelling

12 Days of Girly Juice 2021: 4 Fun Events

Kate Sloan
Bex introducing me at the 101 Kinky Things book launch – photo by Rose Glass Photography

It’s hard to write this annual feature about events I’ve attended when I’ve (like all of you) been living through a global pandemic that limits the types of events we can safely go to – but I did manage to attend several cool happenings this year! Here are 4 of my faves that I went to…

 

Bawdy Storytelling

I’ve wanted to perform at the sexy storytelling event Bawdy for years, after seeing videos online of sex-ed heroes of mine like Mollena Williams-Haas, Allison Moon, and Tristan Taormino telling stories there. And when Bawdy moved onto Zoom during the pandemic, I finally got my wish!

It was so magical telling a romantic, sexy, strange story to the ever-enthusiastic “Bawdience,” even through a screen. Working with Dixie De La Tour to get the story up to snuff was like an oration masterclass in and of itself, and actually performing the story was a massive thrill. My fellow performers all knocked it out of the park too. I hope one day I get to attend a Bawdy event in person!

 

This American Wife

The theatrical weirdos at Fake Friends (and I mean that epithet in the most loving way possible) have done a couple of different livestreamed theatre events over the course of the pandemic, and I think This American Wife was my favorite of the two. The cast and crew had rented (or otherwise negotiated the use of) a giant mansion, and used it as their set for a twisty, dramatic, adoring pastiche of the Real Housewives franchise. It did things with the “Zoom theatre” format that I’ve never seen anyone else do.

Most surprising to me were the interludes where performers seemed to be telling real stories of their traumas and struggles, in the spirit of “reality TV,” only to later reveal that it may all have been theatrical trickery. It was a deeply disorienting piece of art, in the best way. I look forward to seeing what else Fake Friends get up to in the future.

 

Stay At Homo

The Toronto comedy scene has been a source of such joy for me during the pandemic, with their wacky Zoom improv shows and other online offerings. I was especially excited to see two of my favorite queer comedians, Tom Hearn and Ajahnis Charley, do a livestreamed sketch and music show called Stay At Homo. Originally it was going to be streamed from someone’s back yard but they had to move it indoors onto the stage of Comedy Bar for weather reasons, and as a result, watching it from home almost felt like I was back at that beloved venue.

The show (which you can still watch on YouTube) contained a bunch of solo sketches and musical numbers from these gifted performers. I laughed my ass off especially hard at Ajahnis’s song about being “a gay who loves basketball” – the bridge about “things that are both very gay and very basketball” makes me shriek with giggles.

 

 

Doing a hypnokink demo at the launch – photo by Rose Glass Photography

101 Kinky Things book launch!

Of course, I’d be remiss not to include my own book launch in this post! In October I held a little (vaxxed-people-only) event at the KGB Bar, a dimly-lit communist bar in the East Village of New York City. With the help of my “tech director” and wonderful spouse Matt, I was able to livestream the event over Zoom so people could watch it from home too.

There were readings from the book, signing of copies, and (most excitingly) a few live kink demos featuring me, Matt, and my friend Bex. It was so cool getting to demonstrate things like pre-scene negotiation, erotic hypnosis, and impact play to a crowd of eager literary perverts. Much love to everyone who attended, either in person or online, and to Matt, Bex, and our terrific photographer Ashe for all the help making this event happen!

 

What were your favorite events this year, online, offline, or otherwise?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2021: 5 Sex-Savvy Superheroes

Kate Sloan

With so much of my life this year taking place indoors, I relied even more on my favorite media-makers to keep me entertained, informed, and uplifted. All 5 of my picks for this year’s sex-savvy superheroes list are people whose media creations I adore, but they’re also just wonderful, smart people. I hope you check out their work and that you enjoy it as much as I do!

 

Rachel Rabbit White is mostly known as a poet these days, and while her poetry is indeed transcendent, I first encountered her work about a decade ago, when she was one of the only people I’d ever heard of who was successfully making a living as a sex journalist. I actually interviewed her in 2012 for a first-year journalism school assignment where we were tasked with asking for advice from a journalist we admired; she was gracious and kind. Her debut book of poetry, Porn Carnival, felt like a useful reminder this year to lean into hedonism, glamour, and messy joy, even in times of great global strife.

 

Tuck Woodstock is the host and creator of the Gender Reveal podcast, one of the best sources of high-level gender discourse on the internet (IMO). They’re also a journalist who has covered anti-police protests in Portland, among other topics. One of the things I admire most about him is his commitment to mutual aid: over $150,000 has been redistributed to trans and nonbinary folks in need, due to Tuck’s work and advocacy, and the generosity of the community they have created. There is always more to learn about gender, regardless of how you identify in that area, and I’m so grateful for Tuck’s work and all that it has taught me.

 

Princess Kelley May is a spanking fetishist and professional disciplinarian. This year I absolutely fell in love with her YouTube channel, Spanking University, which is full of indispensable advice, not only for spankophiles but really for sadomasochists of all stripes. Her advice is more thoughtful, thorough, and experience-backed than most I’ve seen; I love, for example, her thoughts on accounting for differences in body size and ability level in her video on the over-the-knee position, and her detailed explanation of how to play safely without a safeword. Her education is life-changing and I wish I could show these videos to every spanking newbie!

 

Kai Cheng Thom is a writer, performer, and former therapist who writes my favorite advice column on the internet, and I was so grateful for all of her words this year. She writes with such kindness on topics like sex, gender, dating, mental health, addiction, and abuse. She also studies conflict resolution techniques and has (bravely) publicly opposed the widespread harassment campaigns that often result when the left turns against itself in cancel-culture spectacles of misguided, performative rage. She’s one of the most courageous and compassionate writers I know of.

 

Dixie De La Tour is the host and creator of Bawdy Storytelling, a sex-themed storytelling event that I was lucky enough to perform in this year (you can listen to my story on the Bawdy podcast). Prior to speaking at Bawdy, I had no idea the extent to which Dixie makes herself available to storytellers for help shaping and sharpening each story to make it gleam. She transformed mine from a quirky little anecdote to a fully-fledged emotional tale with a beginning, middle, and end. She’s also just incredibly charismatic and a joy to watch on stage (or on Zoom, as the case may be) – she has a way of making the audience much more comfortable with explicit subject matter, even taboo stuff, with her easy charm and matter-of-fact approach to all things sexy. Definitely check out the Bawdy podcast if you need more sexy stories in your life!

 

Who were your sex-positive heroes this year?