{ASSD} Fodder? Seattle Erotic Art Festival
Denny Wheeler
or
http://tinyurl.com/cgdrs
The Seattle Erotic Art Festival is on now--and it's doing nicely:
"The festival is the surprise hit of Seattle's cultural scene.
At its debut three years ago, organizers were expecting a couple of
hundred people. A thousand showed up. Last year, in a bigger venue,
the crowd projection was maybe 2,000. Four thousand came."
(I think that's 'came' as in 'attended'....)
-denny-
--
Yes, I have time for the dumb shit.
Know the signs!
http://www.heartinfo.org/ms/guides/9/main.html
Frank McCoy
wrote:
>http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/visualart/220158_sexart15.html?searchpagefrom=1&searchdiff=2
>or
>http://tinyurl.com/cgdrs
>
>The Seattle Erotic Art Festival is on now--and it's doing nicely:
>
>"The festival is the surprise hit of Seattle's cultural scene.
>
>At its debut three years ago, organizers were expecting a couple of
>hundred people. A thousand showed up. Last year, in a bigger venue,
>the crowd projection was maybe 2,000. Four thousand came."
>
>(I think that's 'came' as in 'attended'....)
>
It's nice to see sex and sex-art handled with a positive slant, instead
of the usual: "Sex is the tool of the Devil!" idiocy.
--
_____
/ ' / ™
,-/-, __ __. ____ /_
(_/ / (_(_/|_/ / <_/ <_
vinnie...@yahoo.com
>
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/visualart/220158_sexart15.html?searchpagefrom=1&searchdiff=2
> or
> http://tinyurl.com/cgdrs
>
In similar news, You Oughta Be in Pictures is coming up in a couple
weeks. This is the sixth annual showing of local amateur smuty movies.
It's a great event for the Boston-area sex-positive community. I
haven't missed one yet. Kim Airs (the organizer) is a born entertainer,
and always puts together a fun and varied show. I'll be there with my
lover on the fourth, so if anyone local wants to get a beer beforehand,
let me know.
http://grandopening.com/about_us.html
http://grandopening.com/classes/108.shtml
Hey, Denny, you're local--what's your impression of the Wet Spot? I
hear about it a lot--it seems like it's a really exciting, effective
project, and I've started wondering if imitators are springing up in
other parts of the country.
Denny Wheeler
>Hey, Denny, you're local--what's your impression of the Wet Spot? I
>hear about it a lot--it seems like it's a really exciting, effective
>project, and I've started wondering if imitators are springing up in
>other parts of the country.
Ummm---local, but oblivious. First I heard of the Wet Spot was in the
article about the Erotic Art Festival. I'm afraid I know nothing
about it.
vinnie...@yahoo.com
about it?
Elf M. Sternberg
> http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/visualart/220158_sexart15.html?searchpagefrom=1&searchdiff=2
> or
> http://tinyurl.com/cgdrs
> The Seattle Erotic Art Festival is on now--and it's doing nicely:
> "The festival is the surprise hit of Seattle's cultural scene.
> At its debut three years ago, organizers were expecting a couple of
> hundred people. A thousand showed up. Last year, in a bigger venue,
> the crowd projection was maybe 2,000. Four thousand came."
I went Saturday night with my girlfriend. My wife, Omaha, went
with her boyfriend. (I had to run and take the kids to the babysitter's
place first, so we agreed to meet up at the festival later.) It
was... impressive. There were fifty pieces up for auction and I think I
saw about 200 pieces total. Omaha and her boyfriend were in the movie
"Slut" when we got there, so my companion and I roamed about, looking
through the pieces.
There was a sign on the door: "no public nudity". Maybe not,
but there were two huge black men wandering around in little more than
scarves about their midsections, true Nubian Warrior style; one fellow
dressed as a dog who read aloud to us from Wordsworth's as the opening
to the auction (held in "The Microsoft Theater"). A woman walked about
in a g-string, chaps, and a tank top with spahgetti-thin straps.
Several different cadres of lesbians moved through the open space, most
of them acquaintances of mine. One magnificently tall "fat gurl" in a
red handmade corset teetered on fuck-me shoes.
The art was arranged in a big open space on the walls and on
stand-alone panels arranged in angles in middle spaces. Photography
rarely impresses me, although there was some interesting photoshop work.
There was some really fascinating triptychs, and a watercolor that I
appreciated simply for the control the artist had. One HUGE five-frame
oil work, twelve feet high and sixteen wide called "Life's Changes"
dominated one whole corner. There was an installation, a circular space
eight feet around six feet tall, from the middle of which a latex
sculpture of eight breasts arranged in a ring dripped honey down onto a
sterile white platform of salt and flour-- very strange. One of the
best photos was of a woman with about two hundred play needles through
her flesh, hung as the base of a massive harp on which her lover played.
My companion and I went to the auction, where we sat in the
bleachers and watched all the pretty people walk by. A friend of mine
walked by wearing a rubber dress and I complimented her on it. "Oh,"
she said as she scanned the audience. "I'm looking for someone to lube
my butt." She held a bottle of dimethicone, basically high-end rubber
gloss and polish. "The car seat absorbed a lot of the silicone and I
need to be re-done to be shiny." So I started out the evening shining a
friend's butt.
We watched the auction for a while. The auctioneer was a
professional and a damned good one, utterly shameless, knew where she
was, and stroked the audience fast and hard to make her sales. And she
did. I've rarely seen an auctioneer that good. Heck, I'd go to
auctions just to watch her work. We sipped whine (the red was better
than the white) and then my phone vibrator told me that my wife and her
boyfriend had left the theatre.
I gave our auction passes to another couple so they could go in
after we left, have their own wine and enjoy the deserts-- chocolates
shapes like penii and vulvae, and the four of us went over to the
Outback for dinner.
I was late getting to the table because I had to park the car.
I went in and said, "I'm looking for a party of three that came in a few
minutes ago."
"Oh. Two women and one man. Was he wearing a blue shirt?"
"I don't think so. There was a lot of leather involved."
"Oh. They're upstairs." She led me to the table.
As I sat down, the waiter said "The woman over there insisted
you'd want an iced tea." I thanked him and Omaha's boyfriend said,
"That's what comes of you two being married seventeen years." The
waiter looked puzzled because it was quite obvious I was not snuggling
the lovel woman to which we referred but to the beauty to my left, shook
his head and said, "So, how's the arts festival?"
Dinner was unremarkable. The Outback *is* a chain, after all.
Omaha and her companion told us about the movie; we told them about
people-watching the auction.
After dinner we went to the Wetspot.
Elf
Elf M. Sternberg
> Hey, Denny, you're local--what's your impression of the Wet Spot? I
> hear about it a lot--it seems like it's a really exciting, effective
> project, and I've started wondering if imitators are springing up in
> other parts of the country.
The wet spot (http://www.wetspot.org) is a large, comfortable
area broken up into several multi-purpose spaces that, depending on the
night, may or may not be in use. The center room is a large space
comfortably furnished along two walls, which in turns isolates a space
that, for S&M parties is dominated by racks, slings, and a suspension
frame hung from the ceiling, and for the "all-ages" dance night (really,
18 and up) is turned into a dance floor with a small space for public
scening, which is encouraged but is not the focus of the parties. There
are also thematic parties on Sundays-- men only, women only, bondage-
oriented, that kind of thing. Friday night might also be thematic, but
is often dedicated to a sex-only (no "loud or dramatic" S&M play).
After my evening at the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival, I and my
companion went over to the wetspot to experiment with hot candlewax. I
had bought four candles in paraffin and two in a 90-10 paraffin-beeswax
mix (which is much hotter). When we got there, however, the two rooms
that allow the use of candles were already full. We put our name on the
waiting lists for the room and then stood in the public viewing area and
made out. A lot. For like, an hour. She wore a loose-fitting silk
shirt that gave me plenty of access to her smooth skin and ample
breasts.
"Wow," said the room monitor, "You two are the most patient
people in the world." Well, we had a plan. I mean, we could have done
other things: I had brought floggers and clothespins with me, and we had
lube and condoms, but those are usually part of the dessert. All around
us, floggings and bondage and other things were going on. We finally
got a table in the white room (the one we wanted was the red room,
because the lighting is more romanting; the white room is made up for
"Medical" scenes, not my kink, but you take what you can get
sometimes).
The hot wax was quite a bit of fun-- as was shaving it off with
a knife afterward, although our scene was interrupted quite often by the
couple on the other table who were doing needle play. A lot of needle
play. A hundred or so. Unfortunately, needle play is a bit of a squick
on my companion, so she kept her eyes closed while I drizzled hot melted
wax over her back and diddled her clit with my other hand until she was
panting and getting off.
Afterward, we disappeared into the back room, which is strictly
for sex with no voyeurs where we, um, had sex with no voyeurs. Next to
us was a very, *very* noisy couple. The woman was insanely orgasmic and
annoyingly loud about it, but it did at a certain... ambience.
After a short recovery, we counted our bruises and bite marks
(what should I say at work if anyone asks? "This hickey was from my
wife on Friday, and this one from my girlfriend Saturday"?), I collected
Omaha from her friend and we headed home. It was nearly 2am. I dropped
my companion off and we picked up the children from the sitter and
headed home. It must have been 2:30 when we finally got to bed.
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg, Immanentizing the Eschaton since 1988
http://www.drizzle.com/~elf/
"The apocalypse may be closer at hand than even John Derbyshire thinks:
what the hell is Elf Sternberg doing reading Derb's columns?"
-- Charles Murtaugh
Denny Wheeler
>So it goes. Are you gonna hit the art show at any rate, and tell us
>about it?
Happens I'm not the only Seattle-area person in ASSD. Elf came through.
vinnie...@yahoo.com
reading his account, but I'm actually more interested in the
experiences of a perverted and hard-headed civilian.
Denny Wheeler
This particular 'civilian' was far too unwell over the weekend to go
to any such event. <cough, wheeze>
Elf M. Sternberg
Gosh, and only a few weeks after someone on alt.polyamory
referred to me as "someone to beware of, as he's become dangerously
conservative."
Makes me feel like there's at least three of me, one of which is
already dead... :-)
Elf
Denny Wheeler
wrote:
> Makes me feel like there's at least three of me, one of which is
>already dead... :-)
Hotblack Desiato is one of your avatars?
Jordan Shelbourne
on a trip to Seattle a few years ago, where a local
writing group was having a pot-luck. I got the
impression of a good, tolerant community. I met
some very nice writers--they have a nice space
there, though it took me and my cab driver a few
minutes to find it.
My host took me on the tour--it wasn't an active
night: there was the pot-luck, a life drawing class,
and about the time we broke up some people were
drifting in to make use of other facilities. I was
pleased by the library.
Granted that I didn't go in with the intention of
scene-play, I saw real potential there. I'd
be interested in knowing what kinds of haggling
and politicking need to be done to keep it going.