Lo, I have seen my future and it contains an out of town trip. Like, I’m gone as of now. (grin) Back at the end of August. Out of phone contact entirely, and in email contact only once every few days or so, if lucky. Please keep the city safe while I’m away.

Over and out.

Mollena is coming to Vancouver. I’m helping the Nubian Imp herself in bringing Mollena to hang with us and bestow some of that brilliance on us.

Check out the details:
http://nubianimp.com/projects/mollena-imsl-2010-vancouver-tour/

More details to come. Watch this space

We’re at Rhizome today until 6pm, selling advance tickets to the Bride of Pride party. C’mon and join us!

If you ain’t got tickets for the July 30th Bride of Pride party yet, Here’s your chance! On Sunday afternoon, July 24, some of the grrls of Canadian Mayhem are hanging out and selling the fuckers at advance prices (15$) at Rhizome (317 East Broadway) from 2pm to 6pm, or until we sell out. You’ll know us by the multiplicity of images of the Butt We Dare Not Post on Facebook.
( http://canadianmayhem.com )

LEATHERDYKE Post-Pride Picnic in the Park

(5th Annual. Holy cow.)

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144929105520045

When?

MONDAY, August 2, 4pm –> 8pm
(*In good weather only)

Where?

Trout Lake / John Hendry Park
3350 Victoria Drive, southeast corner

Highly informal. Gloriously $Free.
All welcome. No, really. Everyone welcome. ALL WELCOME, so long as they’re leatherdyke-friendly.

What?

A bunch o’ leatherdykes are throwing down blankets, laughs, and good company. Come on down, bring your partner/s, friends (kink-friendly), a blanket, food n drink, something to share, chairs, sunscreen…and most importantly, yourself!

What Then?

We lie around and eat yummies and share goodies with everyone nearby. We mingle around and chat. We introduce ourselves to strangers. We play catch. We wrestle. We enjoy having a blissfully relaxing time.

http://elainemiller.com/pride-2010/

It’s that time again. Do please join us!

**BRIDE of PRIDE**

Friday, July 30st, 2010

A kinky, sexy party for Women in Vancouver

Bride of Pride is a BDSM/sex playparty for kinky women* into queer,
woman-to-woman BDSM. Dress in whatever makes you feel good, bring your
toys and your playpartners, and come join us! We encourage costumes
and flights of fancy, but we won’t turn you away if you’re not in
fetishwear! Just for fun, we’ll have a few special theme areas, like
puppy play, and ageplay and more!

TICKETS ON SALE JULY 4th! Tickets will be $15 in advance, or $20 at
the door.

**Who’s Invited:

All past, present and future women (of any taxonomic category) who
enjoy woman-to-woman kink and BDSM are welcome.

When we say past, present and future women, we mean:

Homo, hetero, bi, transwomen, newcomers and women whose leathers are
older than Beyonce: all welcome. Locals and visitors alike; all
welcome. All ages (of legal adult), all cultures, all colours, all
ability levels; welcome! Transguys who feel themselves part of, and
comfortable in, the women’s community are welcome.

WISE Hall accessibility details here:
http://canadianmayhem.com

Other upcoming events:

- Dead Sexy (party) – Halloween weekend, 2010

If you can’t see the yummy image that Facebook censored, click here:

http://elainemiller.com/blog/2010/bride-of-pride

Read the rest of this entry »

About a billion years ago I was on a kinky women’s listserv with the most excellent Gayle Rubin, and there was a spirited discussion on the qualities of leather groups, and she posted the following mini-essay to the list. I read it and was gratified to see that my own budding experience with group dynamics was not uncommon.

Years later, a local leather group was having… er… growing pains, and I write to Gayle and asked her if I might be allowed to make a public post of her insightful email, and she graciously said I could do so.

Now, years later still, a local leather group is having growing pains, and I trot out Gayle’s wise words once more. Perspective, it is a comforting thing.

- Elaine
leatherdyke
event organizer
unabashed community-lover

===========================

From: “Gayle S. Rubin”

Herewith some stray thoughts on SM groups.

Subject: Re: a question about membership groups

This is concerning the place of s/m groups in our lives.
One might use “membership groups” and “s/m groups” somewhat interchangeably here, and I think that opens replys to address some very different kinds of groups that have some functional differentiations.

These functionally distinct purposes in turn can be served both by membership and non-membership based organizations. The basic kinds of groups I see in the SM community include:

1. “gangs” or groups of friends, play partners, and co-conspirators. These are usually informal, and shifting, and have little structure. They only last as long as the interests of the participants are more or less in common, or until interpersonal conflict force a different constellation of social ties. These usually also rely on one individual or a couple or a small coalition of pals to maintain their activity level. They are mostly for fun and socializing. They also generally rely on institutions produced by other kinds of groups or structures such as the local clubs, bars, play parties, or organizations, in which to socialize and cruise, as their activities don’t generate or maintain such contexts.

2. More formalized groups whose purpose is to put on social events, such as play parties. These usually do rely on membership, and are more stable (although still subject to internecine conflict). Classics of the genre include the Chicago Hellfire Club, or San Francisco’s 15 association (both all male organizations). Because these are more enduring over time and have some intitutional stability, they are able to accumulate and maintain considerable resources with with to put on such events– such as relationships with sites, knowledge of the organizational necessities of such big events, equipment that can be stored, brought out and set up, and then returned to storage, some monetary reserves with which to meet expenses, mailing lists and knowledge of players, etc. Sometimes these party and social functions are also provided by businesses, such as bars, baths, and commercial sex clubs, but that’s another subject.

3. Special purpose organizations/institutions: these would include, for example, groups like NCSF which is politically focused, the LAM, which is archivally and historically focused, etc. These are more recent additions to our institutional repertoire and extremely important. Some will tend to be membership based, and others will have, over time, other organizational formats. But their functions are generally not primarily social.

4. What most people mean by “membership” or “s/m” groups– general purpose volunteer umbrella and intake groups that emphasize education and social functions– these would include groups like Eulenspeigel and Janus (mixed), GMSMA (gay men), or Outcasts (women, defunct) and Exiles (women, extant). The rest of my comments are in reference to these kinds of organizations. — end part I, see next installment for continuation —

These groups play an enormously important role in our communities, but also tend to have recurrent problems.

One such problem is that most of the members don’t participate in running and maintaining such groups. So the work of keeping them going falls on a smaller group of active members and officers. These officers and activists often feel like unpaid, unappreciated laborers whose efforts are not recognized by the inactive “membership;” the inactive members often grouse about how things ought to be or don’t much care as long as someone is taking care of business.

My perspective on this matter is colored by many years of having been one of the activists, and being frustrated by a lack of participation by much of the membership; now I’m a happy civilian and am delighted to get my newsletter and have the option of dropping into an occasional program without having to worry about booking the room or putting out the damn chairs.

But having put in so much time doing so, I feel entitled to my retirement; I still nurture some annoyance at those who year after year don’t lift a finger to keep institutions we all rely on afloat.

In one group that I’m part of, at business meetings we often end up talking about “what the membership wants”. And I’m not confident that we have any idea what the general membership wants. As a way of well, that’s part of the structural problem of those who do maintain these groups– they can speculate about what the membership wants, but it is often damn difficult to find out. I personally think that most of what the membership wants is for someone to make sure the newsletter comes and the programs happen and for them not to have to do anything for this to occur. Sometimes an activist individual or faction will have an agenda which is justified by an appeal to “what the membership wants,” with little verifiable knowledge thereof.

Some members will always want the moon, the stars, love, happiness, adoration, perfect “safety, and a steady supply of play partners– it is difficult for them to grasp that these are not part of the services they can reasonably expect. Or they have some pet thing they want that they assume should be granted– that all the members are 100 percent pure dyke, no bisexual experience allowed, or that refreshments will always be vegan, or that there will always be refreshments, or that they can bring their pet biological boys to women’s events no matter what, or …. well, fill in pet desideratum. So individual members often have unrealistic expectations that they will get something they want, not realizing that such groups have to cater to a more diverse crowd and can’t meet everyone’s idiosyncratic expectations.

And indeed, such presumptions — that one can have all one’s needs met by such groups, or that everyone will be an ideal play partner, or that one’s needs are simply so reasonable they should be met, or that one can get perfect emotional safety in such environments– are, IMHO, completely unreasonable and the leadership should not spend two seconds giving them the time of day.

Such needs are better pursued in more private or more select environments– ________’s gang, for example, could indeed be a group in which everyone wanted to play with everyone, or in which invitations were based on desirability. This is appropriate in small groups of friends, but not possible in a more public membership group, which can only maintain a place in which there is a larger pool from which people can then choose with whom they want to socialize more intimately.

(Another factor for me is, this group has open meetings, so approximately half the attendees at any meeting are not members. Why not? What does membership give to those women who are members? What do women want from the group, who are not members?) well, that has to do with decisions made in how this particular group was set up.

Other groups try to limit participation of non-members in some way so that members get some extra benefits. For example, Outcasts used to allow members to bring guests, which meant that visitors had to at least know a member to attend a program; members got a lower door fee; and members got the newsletter. If there is no structure of incentive, then “what members” get is a good question. I’m generally content to know that I’m helping to maintain some kind of public space for SM women in town; many others tend to want something more tangible.

What do you look for in an s/m group?

What do you get from the well, I think that what is often overlooked about these general purpose membership groups is that they provide an extremely important social function, particularly in lesbian, women’s, and mixed gender contexts where there is a very rudimentary community infrastructure.

That is to say, bluntly, gay leather guys have less need of them in the sense that there are so many other institutional supports for gay male leather/SM community and social life. There are leather bars, and publications, and many social clubs and party groups, as well as a constant round of events such as title weekends and theme weekends (such as the recent bear convention here in San Francisco). So GMSMA does not have the job of providing a minimal space in which to meet other men with similar interests; for that there are many other commercial businesses and organized social clubs and events. GMSMA has the luxury of providing education, a different kind of social interaction than that available at bars or sex clubs, for example, and doing political activist work.

At the other extreme, women who want to party with other women have a completely different landscape and a different set of problems in that there is little else in the way of established geographic or social territory. For example, San Francisco still has, to my knowledge, no women’s leather bar. There are only a couple of women oriented major national events a year, if that; and we have few if any real dedicated women’s SM publications.

Groups going back to Samois, and including Outcasts and Exiles, have had the job of providing pretty much the only reasonably reliable, ongoing, point of entry or re-entry or face to face contact for local SM women. It is the paucity of other institutional formats that make such organizations so essential. They provide a way for new women to find out what’s going on and make friends and find play partners; they provide a way for people to come back in and check out what’s happening if they’ve been dropped out for a while; they provide some way to disseminate and receive updated information on parties, housing, contacts, equipment, services, leather friendly businesses, etc.

Until there is considerably more institutional development, proliferation, and differentiation for SM women, the lack or failure or absense of such general purpose groups will create problems in maintaining community life.

Nonetheless, the activities of maintaining such groups tend to be rather thankless.

Typically, at the early stages of the group, there is excitement and even competition over leadership positions; as they mature, the excitement fades and responsibilities seem to fall to fewer and fewer individuals. Finally, such groups tend to fold, leaving a vacumn, which is then filled by a new group that can start the cycle and be more viable for some period of time.

If that vacumn did not exist, such groups probably would not exist. But the vacumn is real enough, and experiencing it tends to motivate new group formation and inspire new committment, at least for a few years. It usually turns out that at least one thing worse than the boring old group (or the drama damaged old group) is not having any group at all.

What group you belong to? What do you think is missing? If there’s a local group and you’re not a member, why not? (Or: What would you want from a group, if there was one in your area?) What have you liked or disliked about groups you’ve joined in the past?

Well, see all of the above!

What I’ve disliked is this cycle of disinterest, the tendency of members to expect too much from such organizations, the tendency for individuals to use them as stages from which to enact their personal psychodramas (My mantra: keep them in the dungeon, don’t bring them to business meetings), and the tendency for folks to underestimate the importance of such organizations and to assume that they will always be there no matter how much apathy or melodrama is inflicted upon them.

I like groups that are well maintained, provide basic services (newsletter, programs, ongoing events at which one can make contact with old friends and new members), and have a mimimum of melodrama and factionalism. It is also important that groups have enough leadership toughness to marginalize rampaging egos and pathological personalities, and prevent users and criminals from taking over, dominating the domain, and subverting the group to meet some other agenda.

The latter are far worse even than apathy, are even more lethal to group survival, and if not controlled will eventually ruin the organization.

What have such groups done for me?

They have, in the absense of a more developed commercial and institutional framework for women’s SM life, provided the basis of community for over two decades. They have provided information, communication, technique, contacts, the possibility of social life, a way to meet people, a pool from which to draw friends and partners, and sometimes platforms from which to perform political work of other kinds for kinky folk.

Without them it is difficult to know how I would have ever run into many of the individuals who have enriched my life as friends, lovers, and play partners; how I would have encountered so many of the events and institutions of the leather social calender; or how I would have functioned as an SM community and political activist.

Such groups don’t provide friends, or give people lives, or make people happy; but they do provide pools of opportunity from which one can draw to construct lives and build sustaining networks of people who matter.

my 2 cents… Gayle

I’ll be in SF with my sweetie from the evening of Wed, June 16 to noon on Sunday, June 20. We’re looking for fun, adventure, and… fun and adventure. Okay, and some crash space, here and there. What’s doin’ in SF, guys?

Elaine and Johanna’s Town and Country Yard Sale

Sunday, 23 May 2010
Time: 10:00 – 17:30
2304 East Georgia St, Vancouver (by Nanaimo & E. Georgia)

I’m clearing like as if I’m moving. I have boxes and boxes of my own stuff, plus things donated to the sale, plus Johanna’s bringing in a truckload of nifty things from her farm.

Some funds go to support Elaine’s upcoming trip to Newfoundland, and some to the Catherine White Holman Memorial Fund.

A tiny percentage of the list would be…

CLOTHING (scads and scads of it)
hats (men’s and women’s)
shoes (women’s 10, mostly)
boots (men’s 8, mostly)
men’s clothing, for waist size 38 – 40ish
women’s clothing size 14 – 16
women’s clothing, size 18ish
women’s clothing, size 24ish (2X) , tall, good quality, as-new with no sign of wear, coats, jeans, shirts, blouses, jackets, jammies, skirts, sportywear etc.

DOOHICKIES
decorations, xmas and otherwise
new-in-box and Eaton’s store bag perfume
craft materials
fabric
candleholders
tchotchkes of great fascination

SPORTING GOODS
giant cooler with a fancy lid
swim fins
camping gear, various
backpacks
and more

HOUSEHOLD
fine china, glassware, silver
kitchen gear, both small and large
an upright grand piano (unless it sells by then) http://techdonkey.com/piano
vintage baking table
arts and crafts era oak library desk
interesting chairs
antique commode chair – a real party chair!
vintage pinball machine
wee wooden dresser

BOOKS
oh YEAH, there’ll be books! SF/Fantasy, Mystery, Erudite and Misc
hardcover, paperbacks, trade paperbacks, and magazines

FREE
There will be a great big pile of freeness, as in, please adopt it and take it away.

===============
===============

Sale will go on in ANY weather. If it’s terribly inclement, we’ll set up indoors.

A local group has been having a bit of upheaval lately. If you’re part of it, you know what I’m on about. If you’re not, then this is irrelevant junk, and you should skip the rest. Here, I’ll break the post and make it easy for you to skip.

======

Read the rest of this entry »

The Sexy Sweaty Kinky Spring Sauna Party!

Friday, May 7th, 2010
7:00 – midnight
$20@ the door
Hastings Steam & Sauna – 766 East Hastings, Vancouver
(A NubianImp.com Project by !Kona and Elaine)

for past, present and future women.

2 sauna rooms
& 2 shower rooms
& video area (dyke porn!)
& lockers & six semi-private cots,

free snacks
& free non-alc drinks
& byo towel & sandals & toys & safe sex gear,

anything consensual+sanitary goes
& you don’t haveta if you don’t wanna
& we don’t care what you wear!

we reserve the right to refuse admittance

=====================

Detailed-type details:

COME PLAY WITH US!

It’s time to gather your towel and sandals and come bust a sweat with us as we celebrate the springiness of Spring!. Come naked, nude, wrapped in a towel, wearing your swimsuit, jean shorts and Tshirt, or rubber bondage gear! (eg. We don’t care what you wear.) If the last few years are any measure, expect there to be plenty of hot times, and lots of hawt women of all shapes, all sizes, all colours and sexual orientations.

THE SPACE

We’ve rented over 2000 square feet of privacy for us all to sweat, play, shower, fuck, talk, and laugh. The space contains a video area (who’s got great dyke porn?), 25 lockers, two large dry saunas (hot and hotter), two large shower rooms (ever eat melon in a shower?), and 6 semi-private areas with cots.

Do it clean and sweaty, or make it mild to wild – there’s lots of room and anything goes! This ain’t no ladies spa though. It’s grotty and rugged and perfect! Flip flops, sandals, combat boots or other footwear encouraged. Don’t forget your towel (and maybe some old sheets if you think you’ll need ‘em for back-up)!

THE DETAILS & SMALL PRINT

This is a semi-private event (we retain the right to refuse guests). Space is limited to 60 guests so get there early to avoid disappointment!

We’re covering our costs for the space rental, free beverages and free snacks by selling tickets — $20 per person

where:: Hastings Steam & Sauna – 766 East Hastings, Vancouver, BC

tickets:: Tickets will be sold at the door.

*Bring your own towel and sandals

http://NubianImp.com/
Accessibility = not at all. This below street-level sauna has a lot of stairs leading down. No elevator. Once the multiple stairs are navigated, everything else is on a single level, but the two washroom stalls are small.

Allergens: We’ll have no strawberries present. Conventional grooming products are generally absent. Eucalyptus sees frequent use.

Reading this anywhere else rather than on my website? Coding b0rked? See the original:

http://elainemiller.com/blog/2010/random-butch-femmery-from-twitter

It’s SOLD! Thanks, everyone!
Shaira’s selling her Volksie van. You want it. You know you want it.
- Elaine

I’m gettin’ all AWOL. I’ll be unreachable by email, telephone, or in person, from Feb28 – March 7th. For those who need geek help, elaine (at) techdonkey (dot) com will be monitored by a helper. See you in a week.

My site (elainemiller.com) got hacked, so there’s been all sorts of crazy geeky running around to get everything back up. If something’s missing, well, that’s because I didn’t put that particular thing back yet, as I have to go all slow and careful (one carefully vetted bit of software at a time) since we can’t tell what caused the initial security breach. Phishing bastards. Gad.

Anyhoo, if I was supposed to get back to you since I got back in town, and haven’t yet, that’s why. Sorry. Soon!

If you’re a hosted client of mine, contact me (elaine (at) techdonkey (dot) com) please. I want to check in with you.

- Elaine