Queersexual Article for Xtra West, a GLBT print publication of 60,000 readership. (Appeared in September 21, 2000 issue)

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There's nothing like being the on-shift Dungeon Monitor to make a grrl get all hot and wet. Taking the last step, I paused at the top of the stairs for the eighth time that evening, wiping fresh sweat from my forehead. Early August, I reflected, with the daytime temperature over 30 degrees C, was a steamy month for a play party. Despite the multitude of fans we'd set up, the air upstairs here was blood-hot.

The donated box of lubricants and fresh stack of trick towels in my hands were destined for the main play area. I stepped through the doorway, into the huge, low-lit room. Directly in front of me, a player was bent over, leaning against a St. Andrew's cross, legs spread wide. "Thank you! Sir!" he shouted, as a handsome leatherman laid a gauntleted hand smartly across his butt. And again. "Thank you! Sir!" Directly to their left, three dykes--two tops and one bottom--were doing a complicated scene with ropes. The bottom's expression was blissful, exhilarated. From the women-only room, someone reached and held a soprano note. Pleasure? Pain? Guess I'd find out in a second…

Inclusion: Dykes and Fags and Transfolk, Oh My!

Queer-only BDSM events are causing a bit of a buzz in the kink community. Some folk hail the idea with relief, while others wonder aloud why the exclusiveness is necessary. I certainly am not a dispassionate observer, but rather someone who is passionately involved in helping create a very specific kind of play space--queer-centric events. I offer my insider's viewpoint here.

In my ten years of being a Vancouver pervert, and until I became involved in helping organize the Studio Q queersexual events, I had rarely seen fags and dykes do BDSM play alongside each other. It's true that we aren't the same as each other, and sometimes I get the feeling that we puzzle each other a bit. Some of the nasty grrrls play with blood as if it were latex-covered-finger paint. Ew! Ouch! Some of the boys describe themselves as cum-pigs and felchers. What's up with that? We gaze at each other like adolescent siblings, familiar strangers whom outsiders expect to think and feel in unison.

But we do have a lot to learn from each other. We honestly have more in common than Bette Midler concerts and great dance moves. Our language--the one that brands us queer--is much the same for all of us.

I was having a conversation with a sweet fag at Studio Q last month. We'd never met before, but we got caught up in conversation; spoke of our sexuality--comparing notes, almost. I was curious about how he approached sex and play with his boyfriends, and he seemed sincere in his questions about my dykely doings. We spoke the same language, understood the same signals: Fisting, and Daddies and Boys, and how asses respond to fucking, and while he did seem taken aback at the thought of a dyke *feeling* her hard-on, it was only for a second. Then the conversation went on. We didn't have to backtrack, explain, or apologize for confusing the listener with our homo-gender-kink. We just *understood*.

With BDSM, we play with the raw stuff--power, sex, intrigue, fear, or pain--and make it fun. We explore our dark side, and take it for a romp. We hold our fears up to the light, and examine them for the possibility of titillation. In doing so publicly, we reassure ourselves that we are not alone. We weave for ourselves a social safety net of contact, experience and caring. The price of this public form of play--this important affirmation of a marginalized lifestyle--is that we increase emotional risk as we place ourselves, our 'perverted' desires, and our fuzzy little butts in public view.

Our leather-armoured bravado aside, queer players run perhaps a higher emotional risk in public play than most kinksters. We can easily feel ten-percented right out of existence.

Moving away from pansexual -- the queersexual experience.

Almost nine years ago, I took my lover to a pansexual BDSM party. During the party, I was one of five or six bashful types chivvied to the front of the room to participate in a little costume contest. The announcer explained to the room that audience applause would rate our outfits. But he also announced that only women could cheer for men, and only men could cheer for women. I wondered then how I could stand under the direct gaze of a hundred fellow perverts and still feel so invisible.

Many players, like Christopher Fitzgerald, Mr BCBear 2000, feel expected to act heterosexual as a default. Although bisexual, he prefers to top men, and doesn't see that happening around him at pansexual parties. He just feels more comfortable at queer events.

"I have found that queerfolk practice a more structured and ritualistic form of S/M." says Christopher. "It is possible that the queer S/M community as a whole takes 'play' more seriously, as they take sexuality itself more seriously."

The women I spoke to all voiced a common concern--and many an anecdote--about lesbian scenes attracting drooling male audiences. They felt that in sharing a playspace with all orientations, they would have to be more wary, unable to relax. Most felt more comfortable in queer or women-only space, than pansexual.

"I think dykes have become conditioned over the years to be wary of the potential of having their sexuality eroticized by others, so at a pansexual event, the antennae are up…." says Spike Harris, one of Studio Q's valuable core volunteers.

"In queersexual parties, women are more likely to be treated as other players with a right to be there, rather than as free erotic entertainment for any men who aren't playing." says Silva Tenenbein, educator and leatherdyke.

Studio Q

With the unfortunate closure last year of Purgatory, Vancouver's only full-time BDSM playspace, there came the dismal "Time Of No Play Parties", a bleak prospect of silenced whips, no happy howls of ecstasy, and a few specks of dust on our dress leathers. (At time of writing, Purgatory's successor, Club Inferno, has not yet opened.) There still existed the excellent Body Perve Social Club, but these jam-packed fetish dress-up parties, held in a local dance club, remained unsatisfying for those looking for quiet, non-drinking space in which to hold scenes. Now, instead of bitching about what was missing from the parties we attended, we knew… Something had to be done.

Shaira Holman, a well-known local photographer, actor and artist, runs an amazing space in Vancouver known as Studio Q. By day it's a hard-working artist's studio, by night it's often a gathering point for queer readings, shows--and now private play parties.

In October of 1999, Shaira and I were sitting at her studio, and we were trying to describe our ideal play party. It was an easy list. We wanted all our friends there, and we wanted them to feel comfortable. We wanted a safe place for women, and we wanted the guy-energy too. We wanted a space where all our trans friends could come and play without having someone check their driver's license for the little M or the little F.

"Queers!" said Shaira triumphantly. "Let's invite all the queer players we know! We'll have a *big-ass queer play party*!"

Shaira, like myself, wanted a party without the politics so common to BDSM events, and doesn't want to be part of a big organization with an agenda and a mission statement.

"If we had a mission statement it would be that we want to have a party for our friends and their friends, and have fun!" Shaira states. "OK; and to make Little Sister's Bookstore a bit of money, too. They get a percentage of the door."

"Why have queer parties?" says Shaira, "Because they are all--dykes, fags, trans--my people. My people are queers. If I was a guy I'd be a fag, because I *love* queer energy. There's no way, if I was reincarnated, (laughs) that I'd come back as a straight person."

Inclusion or seclusion?

I approve of same-sex only parties, and I love the energy created there. (In fact, no-one who knew me would accuse me of disliking spending time in a dungeon with 75 other women.) I see queer-only parties as an alternative to, rather than a replacement for, men-only or women-only space.

"I like having both (men-only and queersexual parties) as options," states Taylor Made, local body piercer. "…I may want to be in the company of guys. Guys play differently when we're alone together. And, queersexual parties not only encourage people to play with each other, but also let the natural flow of socializing occur. When people begin to feel comfortable with each other, there may be a chance at real community."

I have done a lot of valuable learning and fun playing at pansexual parties, and think that sticking together as BDSM players under an all-inclusive umbrella is a winning strategy. The "narrowing of focus" to queer-only will also unite us, as queers as well as simply players.

"…Being with our own kind strengthens each of our identities, which also helps strengthen the identity of our subculture. It's a symbiotic process." Silva says "Once we're each strong in our individual identities, and have gotten some social stability from being with people much like ourselves, I think we're ready to interact more closely with people more mainstream than us."

Myriam Joire, transgrrl and one of Studio Q's regular volunteers, thinks that gender and queerness shouldn't matter, but that the reality is our own spaces are needed. She cautions, though, that we need to remember why we make our own space--to be comfortable and safe, and not just to exclude others.

"It's so easy to become xenophobic." She says.

Pat Tucker, a director of counseling services agrees with the need for individual space for different groups, and thinks it important to encourage also a true pansexual space, where we can celebrate both our similarities and our differences.

"I do not see (the queer-only) 'narrowing of focus' as a bad thing, I see it as part of a process of clarification." Pat says.

Queer is a transfriendly concept

The term 'queer' fits many transfolk where often 'homosexual' or 'heterosexual' will be either completely inaccurate or too simplistic. Queer can also describe both those who live gender euphoria, and those who simply play with it. Silva notices that queer-only parties offer an easy venue for non-traditional genderfuck.

"At queer parties, there is absolutely no reason to assume that someone's gender presentation is an indicator of their sex," says Silva. "And also no reason to assume that someone's gender presentation will remain stable over the course of the whole evening. The gender fluidity gives another dimension to the party."

Some of the transfolk I've spoken with have had troubles feeling welcome at same-sex parties, where gender was occasionally under suspicious scrutiny.

"(When dealing with trans issues) you go to the women's parties and they say 'you're not female any more', you go to the men's parties and they say 'you're not male yet,' explains Aiden, who is truly multigendered. "There's more understanding in the queer-centric community--you don't have to explain."

What next? More queer-only events!

I've gotten ever-more passionate about the parties I help organize at Studio Q. It's nice not to *have* to be a representative, the ambassador of Queer. It's nice to have a greater chance of doing a scene without horrified fascination from onlookers. (Is that blood?) (Omigod, your *whole hand* goes in there?) But most of all, it's nice to share a paradigm of difference with an entire roomful of people--as then it's not difference anymore. Mmm. Feels just like home.

Shaira and I are just two queers out of many, and we can only put on a few parties a year. We'd love to encourage more queercentric events! I asked: To which kind of queer goings-on would our players open their hearts and their day-planners? My players were vocal. Victoria Atwood would like friendly, ordinary affairs, where we can meet each other, our families, and talk about day-to-day life. Pat wants more events geared towards the youth and the elders in our community--and would love a venue that wasn't a bar or nightclub! Myriam loved the idea of a daytime gathering.

"A conference, or a festival, maybe. Or a picnic!" says Myriam "Then we could all see each other in the daylight!"