Last night I attended a Bawdy Storytelling event at Busby's East in Los Angeles. But it wasn't your usual wildly-funny and perverted story slam that Dixie De Le Tour had been putting on up in San Francisco for years and just recently brought to LA.
No - this one was over-the-top amazing. In a number of ways.
The lineup of storytellers was remarkable for their notoriety, to begin with. Bawdy Storytelling is real people telling real stories that really happened to them. With people who have a measure of fame there is often a heightened sense of curiosity about their personal lives. Since many of these story tellers are in public sexually-related fields (podcaster, sexologist, author, sex educator, porn star) those of us who follow them online know some about their personal lives already - like you all know some things about me. But these sharings were deeply revealing...and that's when the magic happened.
All of the stories were fantastic but three stood out to me.
Jaiya Ma told her oh-so-vulnerable story about her in-process project of exploring submission for 40 days and the discoveries that has brought her so far. Reid Mihalko chose his most embarrassing story about being at the AVN awards, being invited up to the suite of 9 queer porn stars for a sex party, and passing out. And Sex Nerd Sandra (who was celebrating her 100th podcast) told a story about her first (all female) gang bang, (during which she was the one getting banged) and how that played out with her difficulty in receiving. Deep stuff. Tender stuff.
The degree to which these people let us into the personal details of their lives last night was alternately astonishing, mesmerizing, hysterical and touching. It was a privilege to be there.
I also enjoyed seeing so many of my sex geek friends and feeling a real sense of community. A sense that we shared a common purpose of bringing more sex-positive attitudes to the world. More healing More openness. Less shame. Less judgment. More fun!
I mentioned to a few friends that I was excited about leading a panel at the upcoming CatalystCon West and was asked, what panel?
"Do you have to ask? The Ass Panel!!" Much hilarity ensued.
Come to the conference, find me and get a hug!
