Presentations, Porn and Parties: God I Love This City.

In less than 7 days the 2012 Feminist Porn Awards are on, which means Toronto is about to get flooded with a lot of sexy, smart people.  I’ve been trying to sound bite it down.. but you know what?  There’s just way to much going on.  So, blog post it is.

If the word feminist is a turn off for you; I challenge you to push past your prejudices for a moment and read on.  Maybe even hit up Thursday night’s Porn screening to see exactly what passes as ‘feminist porn’; I got $10 that says it’s not what you think.

(Heads up; not everything on this list below is ‘part’ of the FPA line up.  There’s just  a LOT of cool stuff happening next week.)

Tuesday April 17th – Comes As You Are brings in the Sex Geek herself for The Dance of D/s; which is all about using body language and tone to enhance your power dynamic.  Check out this descriptor tidbit:

This class will explore the use of body language and protocol to reinforce your dominant/submissive dynamic, focusing on grace, subtlety, confidence and attentiveness for both dominants and submissives.

Wednesday April 18 – Sexing the Transman, doc and talk with Buck Angel.  This is being held at U of T and if you’re a SDS or Cinema student you’re in for free.  I have no idea when this will be playing again in town, so I’m jumping on my change to see it this week.  Tickets available in advance and at the door.  Over on the East side of the city the Triple ‘s’ (subs, slaves & switches) Discussion Group is having it’s monthly gathering.  If you live or play on the bottom side of the kink scale you should be taking advantage of this fantastic local resource.

Thursday April 19 – Public Provocative Porn.  Hit up the new Bloor Hot Docs theatre for the year’s best in feminist film followed by a Q and A with Erika Lust, Buck Angel, Nenna and N Maxwell Lander (click here and scroll down to read about them. Tickets available in advance and at the door.

Friday April 21 – Feminist Porn Awards.  Welcome to the big event.  If you scored a VIP pass for the weekend you can head in early to mingle before the doors open to the public at 9pm.

Saturday April 22 – Learn hard by day; play hard by night.  In the afternoon Tristan Taormino will be showing different ways you can open up your relationship – and yes, it is geared to people in relationships.  And that night?  SWITCH PARTY!  And since it’s the FPA edition, Aslan is pulling out the stops with live porn shoots, bondage performances, pole dancing, and as always, the lovely playground of Oasis.

Sunday April 23 – Dirty Talking and Fat Sex. At Good For Her,  Tina Horn is guiding you in the world of Dirty Talk.  From flirting to seal the deal to using dirty talk to get in touch with those desires you may not even be ready to admit to.  Over at Come As You Are Courtney Trouble (perhaps fresh of a FPA win?) is talking Fat Sex,  Skip the theory and get straight into a discussion about  body positivity, self esteem politics, fetishization/ hyper-sexualization, erotica/performance, and tips, tricks, and techniques for having fat sex!

So; what are you going to?

Please – Restrain Yourself!

Today – well, yesterday at this point – The Toronto TNG hosted our first non-munch event of 2012; and our first ever skill share!

We ran the skill share in Open Space format – and yes.  Yes.  I’m just going to stop arguing this point.  Yes.  It’s like a GrUE — except shorter, and more focused.

If you aren’t familiar with open space at all; let me give you the quick and drity:

Take 1 group of people who are into creating an experience for themselves.  Give them a chunk of time to come up with things they want to talk about, and what they want others to talk about.  And there you go.  The key factor in open space is that you’re responsible for your level of engagement/participation, so if you find yourself not into what’s going on around you, you need to take yourself to something you will be engaged in*

The topic of today’s skill share was: Restraint.  A nice broad topic – covers everything from corsetry, to chastity, to mental bondage…. Ropes, cuffs, gags, masks, pallet wrap  we went with a wide birth.

We were a small but engaged group today.  It was a good mix of experienced, intermediate, and novice kinksters, and I do believe that everyone walked away with something they didn’t know before today.  Ironically though, it may have had less to do with restraint and more to do with water sports – but hey, who doesn’t love the occasional tangent?

Here’s what we came up with in our create an agenda/outline/schedule time:

Sessions:

1. Riffing with Rope:  Elements and Aesthetics, Teachincal and other wise
2. Hair Ties (Quickie!)
3. Anatomy for Bondage/Restraints (muscles, nerves, positional and pain vs pleasure)
4. Fashionably Wasited; why bustiers are not corsets, and how you can fix that
5. Handcuffs
6. Roundtable Discussion: Psychological Bondage & MindFucking
7. Objects of Restraint – Ropes & Not Rope.

Wish list:

• Pyschological Restraint
• Bondage Risks
• Bondage Materials -> Pros/cons
• Bondage Furniture
• CBT
• Blindfolds
• Safe Suspension Points

So all in all; not bad for our first swing at this ball.  We’re going to have another one of these in a few months when the weather warms up, the topic?  Impact  Why wait til it warms up?  Because then we can take the whips outdoors to swing    If you want to be sure to you don’t miss out on hearing about this; join the Toronto TNG FetLife Group – all the info winds up in there first anyway.

Hope to see you at the next one!

*But that if you aren’t feeling anything?  That happened to me once, and while it’s not something I’d want to do every weekend, it turned out okay.  But this Open Space stuff?  You really are responsible for your own experience.  If you can’t see yourself dealing well in that atmosphere, it may not be the right experience for you.

Building a Basic Bootblacking Kit – Part 2

Now that we’ve gotten the polish boots taken care of we can move onto the more fun ones; more commonly known as oil tanned­ boots, or greases  (consider that my admission of personal bias).  These boots don’t take a shine, and they aren’t meant to.  Instead they’re kept matte and well conditioned with products like Huberd’s, Obenauf’s, or Aussie Leather Conditioner.

In Canada, this will probably be the harder of the two kits to put together since leather conditioner is strangely hard to come by…but it will double as a care kit for all your leather clothing (and furniture!), so it’s worth it.  And just like with a polish kit, this is something you can spend years building up, so start with the basics and then use very trip stateside to build up your stash.
Speaking of the Basics:

• Saddle soap or pure glycerine soap.
• A small spray bottle.
• A soft cotton towel.
• Horsehair Dauber.  With Grease kits you really only need one to clean with (confession time:  My cleaning dauber for polish boots and grease boots is the same brush)
• Horsehair Shine Brush – this you really do want to keep separate from your polish shine brush.  Polish and grease do not play well together.
• Leather condition of choice.  Huberd’s is definitely my local standard, but bootblacks online seem to be just as happy with Obenauf’s and many with Aussie Leather Conditioner and some with Chelsea Leather Food too.  Pro-Tip So far the only place I know in Souther Ontario that carries Huberd’s is Dimar Shoe Repair in Geulph.  If you know of another – please let me know!
• Dubbin

Again, I’m not going to be able to provide you all the goodness you could pick up by joining your local bootblack community….  but I will say (because my google fu has failed me) , the process of cleaning and caring for your oil boots is much like polish boots.  In fact, the first steps are all the same, but instead of applying polish, you apply a thin coat of grease/conditioner, wipe off the excess with your shine brush, apply a thin coat of Dubbin, wipe off the excess and you’re good to go.

One more thing – although is can be really tempting to clean and condition your leathers all the time because of how good it feels to be running your greasy hands all over them, over-conditioning your gear will actually weaken the fabric and shorten it’s lifespan.  Conditioning should really be more of a quarterly activity.  If you find it getting dirty, clean it, but skip the conditioning step; soap and Dubbin only.

Building a Basic Bootblacking Kit

The first advice I got was to go out to a workshop and bring whatever product I had on hand.  It did not go well.   Heads up a Bootblack will become visibly pained if you put liquid polish in their eyesight.

Luckily, I did learn a few things at that workshop though.  Turns out building a kit could last a lifetime – but gathering the supplies you need to get started on polish* boots?  Easy!

Here’s what you need:

Daubers - always for cleaning, sometimes for applying polish.

• Saddle soap or pure glycerine soap.  There are pros and cons to either; personally I’ve found it easier to get a consistency I like with saddle soap, so I use that.  Pro-tip:  choose the colour of soap that matches the stitching n your shoes, and when in doubt?  Use yellow.
• A small spray bottle – easily picked up from a dollar store.
• Polish;  if you have a specific pair of shoes in mind, match the colour to those.  If you don’t know, pick up a tin of black and a tin of neutral polish.  Kiwi is super easy to come by and be found in a grocery store.  If you want more options, visit a cobbler.
• Horsehair Daubers.  You’ll want one to use for cleaning, and you may want one for polish (if you want to keep your hands clean, that is).  If you want to use Daubers to put on polish, be sure to get one for each colour of polish you have.
• Horsehair Shine Brush
• A soft cotton towel – hand towel sized is fine
• A shine cloth.  This can be an old cotton T-shirt, a kiwi cloth – whatevs.  Point is cotton, and the ability to fold it crease free.

Shine Brush

Learning to polish a boot, much like building a kit is both easy to start, and skill  you can spend the rest of your life increasing.  If you’re lucky enough to live in a place that has bootblacks on hand – get out and learn from them.  We’re super lucky to have an active Bootblack Community in Toronto – check out the workshop schedule for 2012 here.  If you don’t have workshops available to you right away, online is a good place to start.  Despite my Google efforts, Fetlife provided me with the only step by step instructions I could find, so I in turn point people this way now.  Bootdog.com helped me increase my knowledge about various products and tools and Ian’s ShoeLace Site has taught me almost everything I know about lacing.

So there you go, enough to get you going on your blacking adventures.  If you have a pair of boots to polish, you’re golden.  If you don’t, hit up thrift stores and pick up a pair to play with – they might make a wonderful gift to someone special one day.

* And by polish boots I specifically mean boots that are meant to take a wax polish, oil-tanned boots require a different process and half a different kit; but that’s another posting.

Toronto Bound

I wanna take a moment to note this is not a TNG event, but you will see some familiar TNG faces there for sure.  If you’ve been curious about Leather or want to keep expanding your kinky experiences, or just want a fun time out with your fellow kinksters/pervs/dirty awesome geeks Toronto Bound is worth checking out.

 

 

TORONTO BOUND 2011 WEEKEND
Friday, November 25 – Sunday, November 27, 2011

Heart of the Flag Federation Inc. / Toronto Leather Pride presents Toronto Bound – Nov 25 – 27, 2011.

The Membership of Heart of the Flag Federation Inc. (HOTFF) / TLP invites you join us for a laid back weekend of celebration, education and play!

Toronto Bound is a Leather/BDSM/Fetish/Kink event for everyone!

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TORONTO BOUND VIP PASS AND WEEKEND EVENTS INCLUDE:

• Friday night welcome party at the Black Eagle Toronto with silent auction & more.
• Saturday informative workshops, demos and select vendor mart.
• Saturday night VIP catered reception with living kinky art
• Keynote speaker: Master Mike Zuhl from Pittsburg, PA
• Full Fetish dance party at The Barn
• Open house at Oasis Aqualounge ; including the use of outdoor heater pool, hot tub, steam room, sauna, dungeon and more.
• 3 different types of play parties on Sunday afternoon
• Surge!  Women & trans only play party (Aqualounge; 3rd and 4th floors)
• Mix it up – party for all (Aqualounge; 1st and 2nd floors)
• The Barracks Black-Out Party; men only (Spa Excess) – includes a demo by Mast R of Master R’s Dungeon Equipment.  Free body shaving and bootblacking services.

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TORONTO BOUND 2011 WEEKEND VIP AND EDUCATIONAL SERIES PASSES:
Toronto Bound VIP Weekend passes on sale to HOTFF /TLP members, and clubs members of The Leather Angels, TORN, Spearhead, TNT, FIAT, Ottawa Knights, Buffalo Bulldogs and The Rochester Rams for the reduced rate of $30.00. Club Members of any of the above clubs may purchase their VIP discount weekend rate pass at the Toronto Bound Welcome Party registration desk at The Black Eagle (457 Church Street) on Friday, November 25th @ 9:30pm.

Non-club members can buy their VIP weekend pass at the door on Friday night at the Black Eagle or throughTICKETWEB on our website at www.torontoleatherpride.ca for $45.00 plus TICKETWEB processing fees.

Educational Series day pass can be purchased for $20.00 at the following locations:

• The Toronto Bound Welcome Party registration desk at The Black Eagle (457 Church Street) on Friday, November 25th @ 9:30pm.
• The front door of Goodhandy’s (110 Church Street) or The Zone at Crews and Tangos (508 Church Street) on Saturday, November 26, 2011. (Please see website for workshop start times)

Catered VIP Reception, Awards Ceremony, Key Note Address and Just Dance tickets can be purchased for $20.00 at:

•  The front door of The Barn Nightclub (First Floor) (418 Church Street) @ 8pm – 9pm.

 

Individual Oasis Aqualonge Open House Party, Play Party and Barrack Black-Out tickets can be purchased at the following locations:

•  Oasis Aqualonge Open House Party tickets may be purchased for $10.00 at the door starting at 3PM at (231 Mutual Street) Includes entry into one of the play parties and use of facilities.
• SURGE! and MIX IT UP! Play Party tickets may also be purchased for $10.00 at the door of Oasis Aqualounge starting at 5PM.
• The Barracks Black-Out Men’s Play Party at the front door of Spa Excess (105 Carlton Street),  Regular entry fees apply.

FOR A COMPLETE LISTING OF TORONTO BOUND OFFICIAL WEEKEND EVENTS PLEASE CLICK HERE
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LEATHER BRUNCH RETURNS:
Join us on Sunday, November 27, 2011 from 11 am – 2 pm @ O’Grady’s on Church (518 Church Street) for the return of Toronto’s famous Leather Brunch at its new location. Your host’s for brunch will be Gary Major – MRT 2012, Tarna -BBT 2012 and Alex Canning – MLT 2012. Additional Cost – Open to Everyone. Please link here for more details -http://torontoleatherpride.ca/events/leather-brunch/
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WHO IS TORONTO BOUND FOR?

Toronto Bound is for everyone in the Leather/BDSM/ Fetish/Kink (sexual minorities) community. Toronto Bound is presented by Heart of the Flag Federation Inc., a membership based not-for profit organization centred on the core beliefs equality, openness, education and pride. Read the About Us section for more info.

 

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More information at www.torontoleatherpride.ca
Contact us:   president@torontoleatherpride.ca
Follow us on Facebook

HALLOWEEN FETISH BALL

Kinky Khristmas is coming–yes I used a “K” for alliteration because it amused me. What is this mystical and wonderful sounding time of year I speak of you ask? Why I speak of the joyful time that is Halloween. Yes indeed the kinkest holiday next to Global Orgasm Day. A day filled with sexy costumes, role play and deborturous fun.

October has traditionally been the most busy month in the fetish and BDSM communities and this year has been no exception. If you recall my last post on upcoming Fall events than you’ll have a good idea how busy it was. You likely attend some of those awesome events and got yourself a bit of culture by doing so, but if you didn’t or if you missed some of those events than fear not as the season hasn’t ended yet.

This Halloween like always SUBSPACE_Craiger, the man behind Subspace Parties is hosting a HALLOWEEN FETISH BALL. This year’s BALL will be held at the Opera House starting on Saturday, October 29 at 10:00 PM and running to 03:30 AM. It’ll be a wild night with performance involving fire to tantalize, fashions to inspire and appropriate to the season blood and gore that will challenge the weakest stomachs. There will be the requisite costume contest with fabulous prizes. Of note for those rope aficionados, your humble writer here will be performing in a rope suspension demo station along with some of Toronto’s best riggers.

So if you haven’t made plans for the season yet then come out and join us for an awesome night.

Change change change…

Tonight’s munch is last the TNG munch that Roopurt and Itami will attend as organizers.  Roo ages out late this month, and Itami early the next.

If you’re one of our newer members, you may not realize that these gentlemen are a big part creating the TNG.  Roo is one of the original founding members, and Itami stepped up to the plate when another organizer was needed.  Seriously; I doubt the TNG would be as successful as it is today without the work of these gentlemen.  Also?  I’m pretty sure Roo hasn’t even missed a munch in seven years!

So come out to the munch tonight; or make plans to join us at the send off party October 14th and be sure to say thanks for all they’ve done.  Or don’t come out to either and drop them and e-mail instead.  Either way, makes sure you take a moment over the next month to say thanks – they deserve it.

And yes… this does mean we’re looking for new people to step up!  Right now we’re looking for some friendly faces to serve as greeters for the munch.  Basically, we want you to help us welcome people.  How is that different from any other night?  You’ll get a special sticker… or button… or… something.  You know how we are with details

Fall Fetish

With the last days of summer waning now I can’t help thinking of the future by which I mean my current Fall events calender. Everything from old favorites to the shiny and new; we have an amazing line up of events this Fall to keep your fetish, BDSM and social calendar’s humming. We’ll skip over the monthly parties and events for now  and instead focus on the one of the kind or annul events.

This year we have a newcomer to season in the TORONTO FETISH BALL. Starting on Saturday, September 24 at the Great Hall this is going to something newbies and old hats won’t want to miss. Organized and hosted by SUBSPACE_Craiger, the man behind Torture Garden Toronto in May and the various Subspace Parties throughout the city. From 12 noon to 7pm Toronto’s and Southern Ontario’s community is getting one massive open house. It’s going to have community organizers, organizations, vendors to satisfy all those kinky itches, specialty groups, workshops for those knowledge junkies, demos to entertain and the wonderful people that make up an amazing community. TNG will certainly have a presence here and of course I’ll be there doing rope workshops and demos throughout the day. Now the question you must be asking yourself is “but how much is it?” and the answer is nothing, zilch, nada, free. That’s right the Toronto Fetish Market part of the event won’t cost you a dime to get in which is amazing considering the demos and workshops alone. Now if you want to pop in for the Toronto FETISH BALL which runs afterward from 10:00 PM to 3:00 AM in the same space it’s only $10. The FETISH BALL will be a massive fetish and play party that will feature local designers and performers. It’ll have a play space stocked with all sorts of equipment for you to play on and Dungeon Monitoring staff on hand to ensure a safe space for your play–which is where I’ll be hanging around most of the night. There is also a dance floor if that’s your thing. Just keep in mind standard fetish wear dress code is in effect so break out the corsets, pvc, latex, leather and if all else fails a black shirt, dress pants and dress shoe will serve you well.

Next up we have a personal highlight of the season MORPHEOUS’ BONDAGE EXTRAVAGANZA AT NUIT BLANCHE. A grand name for a grand event that takes place from 7pm Saturday, September 24 to 7am  in the morning at a yet to be revealed location on Queen Street West. Come see some of Toronto’s best along side some of North America’s most well known rope artists preforming live bondage art. This will be the fifth annual bondage art night hosted by internatinal renowed athour, photographer and rope artist Morpheous. This is billed as the largest annual rope art exhibit in the world and this year is bigger than ever with over 60 riggers and rope bunnies taking part. Those that come out will see floor work, suspensions, shibari, kinbaku, the odd and wonderful, sexy girls and boys in leather, latex and various states of undress. Now keep in mind that this is an open exhibit and thousands of people will stream through, but it’s pretty easy to blend into the crowd if you’re shy like that. As another note this will be my second year taking part in the EXTRAVAGANZA so I’m super excited as well as honored to be tying next to so many talented people. Also this is entirely funded out of pocket as Scotiabank who fund the official art installations wouldn’t fund us with a ten foot pole. So come out to the fundraiser event or make a donation the night of to support the alternative arts. This event never makes a profit and is done out of a passion for rope and art.

Finally we come to the Toronto Everythingtodowithsex Show or the ETDWSS. This year we have a change of venue to the Metro Toronto Convention Center  from Friday, October 21 to the 23. The ETDWSS is an annual convention held in a few major cities in North America. There are stage shows, representatives of the adult industry, vendors and workshop that promote sex-positive culture. Every year the show donates a space to the local community as a community dungeon which serves as a out reach point for our lifestyle.  A good chunk of the TNG should be familiar with the community dungeon as it’s always served as a first point of contact for a lot of people to the community. Every year we seem to get a influx of new people to the TNG after the show. TNG’s Itami is this years co-host of the community dungeon along with MasterJohnF so expect most of the TNG organizers to take part in the show again this year. I’ll be doing demo rope work and chatting people up as per usual so come say hi.

Some people ask me how I can possible stay so busy with fetish and BDSM events. Which makes me wonder how couldn’t you stay busy with so many amazing events happening in the city? There’s always something going in the city every week. Events filled with amazing people from all walks of life. It’s a city and subculture filled with wonder and majesty just begging to be explored.

So what are you guys most excited about?

Happy Seven Years to us!

Seven years and bigger than ever – now with a shiny new website format.

Consider this website an on going work in progress as we continue to update our resource section, event reviews, and hopefully manage to coax more people into contributing to the website.

At this point  we’d love your feedback on what you think of the new site, especially your thoughts on what should be added!