Left Breathless in anticipation
By ANN MARIE MCQUEEN
Miss Jenn has a motto for all the straight-up
sex-loving vanillas out there: It’s only kinky the
first time.
It’s not her only motto. This fem-domme — kind of
like a dominatrix, though not professional — has
loads.
The bottom line, for Miss Jenn and her counterparts in
Ottawa’s thriving alternative sex subculture, is that
the concept of kinky is entirely relative.
I meet Miss Jenn — who until recently was a dental
office receptionist who was fired after running the
dungeon at Ottawa’s first-ever Sexapalooza show last
month — at Breathless, the city’s alternative
community centre and private club.
No secret location: It’s at 318 Lisgar St., just above
Venus Envy.
It’s all legal now, with the 2005 Supreme Court of
Canada ruling that clubs allowing group sex on
premises don’t harm society and shouldn’t be
considered criminal.
Miss Jenn is dressed in shiny black to oversee the
night’s festivities: A BDSM (an abbreviation for
bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadism
and masochism) pure play party.
ATTRACTS ALL TYPES
An assortment of the club’s 300 members pay a $30
annual fee, along with a per-party charge, to come
here on varying nights. Some whip each other to welts,
others have multi-member orgies on mattresses laid out
on the floor. One man just shows up in a diaper,
drinks a couple of beers, and leaves. There are
vampires and goths. Something called blood play. A
growing number of participants from the gay and
lesbian community.
And, of course, the swingers.
As for who goes, you’d be surprised.
“I have lawyers, I have teachers, I have men and women
from the (Parliament) Hill. I have men and women who
work in the private sector, a lot of people who work
for (the City of) Ottawa, bus drivers, EMTs, just
everything,” says Miss Jenn. “But then I have a lot of
people who work in retail jobs, regular schmos who
like it kinky.”
Miss Jenn, a 40-year-old divorced mom of two,
definitely took the long way to Breathless.
She was one of four children who grew up on a farm in
southwestern Ontario. Though she was the sole kid at
her school to wear fishnets and a dog collar, she only
stumbled on a kindred world of bondage and domination
six years ago.
Frustrated with her sex life, she’d taken an
extramarital lover who pointed her to a local group.
An encounter in a chatroom introduced her to the first
man she would utterly dominate: That included a tattoo
and 24/7 contract of submission and service.
READY TO PLAY
“I thought I was the only freak,” she says. “I didn’t
know there were other people that liked to be tied
down or tie people down or put them in dog collars or
humiliate them.”
Breathless is quiet by day. The front section is a
no-sex, no-play social area. There are usually snacks
laid out there. A row of windows onto the street are
blacked out. The back half features futons and bunk
beds. There are plastic sheets underneath the fabric
ones. Containers with sterile wipes dot various
tables.
Miss Jenn supplies the latex condoms, the lubricant,
rubber dams and gloves.
There are wooden crosses and bondage tables, ready for
that night’s BDSM party.
Before we meet, a man wanders in off the street asking
about becoming a member. He’ll have a few hurdles to
jump before that happens. Miss Jenn will have to like
the look of him, and he’ll need to attend a couple of
no-sex social events for her to get a feel for whether
he’s going to fit in.
There are rules, too. Lots of them. There is no room
for someone who can’t say no, or accept hearing it
graciously.
There’s no gawking and members must sit on towels if
bare or thong-assed. No naming names in public and no
loud confessions outside the club about what goes on
inside it. Near the end of our interview, Miss Jenn
offers to flog me with a tassled, whip-like device.
I am tempted for a second, just to say I did, but
ultimately pass.
Then I duck out into the daylight, hours before the
party inside begins.
http://www.ottawasun.com/Lifestyle/Columnists/McQueen_AnnMarie/2008/02/07/4831751-sun.html