Canadian Mayhem presents... The Bride of Pride Party Friday, July 31, 2009 A kinky, sexy party for all Queer Women in Vancouver

http://canadianmayhem.com

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 wrestling space and more!

Doors 8 pm - midnight, Party until 1 am. The WISE Hall, 1882 Adanac St, Vancouver.

*Who's Invited: All past, present and future women, of any orientation (homo, bi, hetero, trans), who enjoy woman-to-woman kink and BDSM. Women of all experience levels are welcome! Transguys welcome!

Tickets will be $15 in advance, or $20 at the door. Advance tickets are available as follows: (On sale July 10th!)

* Little Sister's (1238 Davie Street)

* The KISS Store (2512 Watson Street)

* Banshee Clothing (1566 Commercial Drive)

* ONLINE: via PayPal through the website

* IN PERSON: One Day only, Mel will be at the MVK Play Party Saturday, July 4th (that's tomorrow!), she'll be the one in a girl guide uniform! MVK - www.vancouverdungeon.com

http://canadianmayhem.com

It never ends

So last night, on the way home from getting groceries, I noticed that my brakes were acting a little funny. This morning I checked the brake fluid and indeed it was super low. I'm going to go pick some up and top it up. However it's hydraulic, *if* I do have air in the system, it's a problem. So I wend around looking for some info on how to take care of this. I found this lovely sexist article.

How to bleed your breaks

The article is actually the most useful in terms of giving you the most useful information on how to do the job, but then there is lovely tidbits like this:

Sneak into the kitchen and appropriate the small turkey baster.

Which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't followed up with:

Cue the Helper
Your helper needs to be someone who can follow instructions exactly. He or she won't get dirty hands so you don't need to pull one of your pals away from the ballgame. A teenager in a white dress will do fine.

Because clearly you are the family man who would *have* to sneak into the kitchen to steal a turkey baster, it certainly wouldn't be your own. And there is no way you could pull your pals away from something so precious as a ball game to perform some menial helper task. That would be far to degrading. Really, was the white dress image necessary?

That said, anybody want to be my teen in a white dress sometime this weekend?

However I do really love living in an age where I, who have never done this before, can hop online and read a ton of articles and watch video clips on how to do it and then feel confident enough to do it myself.

Random body acceptance post!

I like my facial hair. Really I do. I have come a long fucking way in the last 6 or so years. From hatred and loathing, to OMG must be rid of it at all times and oh one day I will have enough money to have it permanently removed and blah, blah, blah, to whatever, people can deal, but I still don't *like* it, to hmmm, the people *I* like, like it, to actually liking it myself.
That said. I properly shaved this morning and it was pure delight. It was done without shame that I *had* to do it. Also with the knowledge and joy that by the next morning I would have the usual stubblies but for the moment my jawline would be silky smooth. It was also a lovely fresh feeling. Mmmm.

My cousins wedding is coming up this weekend.

It's interesting, while this isn't something I ever envision for myself, I mean they are a picture of typical monogamous het couple, I'm happy for them.
I think I'm also a little envious of the attention that our family will pay them for something that doesn't actually *require* a lot of effort and/or personal growth. Not at all saying that people *don't* put in effort and experience personal growth before they get married, but that it doesn't require it. People get married all the time, it doesn't require a test or a minimum time length on the relationship or anything. It's celebrating the *start* of something.

I fully acknowledge that I am freaking lucky. I can bring home a same sex partner and not have dire consequences. However just cause I have it better than many, doesn't mean I don't want more. I'm envious because I will never get to have a big party where my *bio* family will celebrate a milestone I have with my lover and maybe my other lover/girlfriend/whatever let alone have them acknowledge the worth and validity of having more than one relationship.

Ha, and now I'm getting to the point. I was thinking about writing something to maybe read at the wedding. We often have an opportunity to go up and say something at stuff like this. I usually never speak cause I'm shy and don't have anything prepared, but more and more I've been finding my voice and realizing what I have to say isn't stupid. So I sat down to write and really, the only thing I want to say is maybe a bit of advice on the importance of communication and honesty. Here, with my family, I run into the prejudices around age and heterosexism. Also my own closetedness. They only see the very few people I bring home and they certainly don't hear about the huge opportunities for growth and learning. Who am I to them, to give relationship advice?

But I think as a poly queer, I have developed some decent relationship skills, many of which are transferable to a mono het relationship. So here I am pondering what lessons to attempt to pass on and how to do so in a manner appropriate for a cousins wedding. While I want to be true to myself, I still want this to be about them. It's their freaking day, I actually want this to be more of a gift than a podium for myself.

I am an omnivore. I like meat, though I totally respect the many reasons why people might go vegetarian.

I was reading today about people eating invasive species. Squirrels and the like.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/eating-aliens-invasive-species.php

I must say, I'm all for it. One of the reasons I would consider going vegetarian is the sustainability factor and this would greatly reduce that impact. Locally hunting your own meat, great! I think we are far to removed from the source of our food. One of the reasons I love the farmers market so much, at least I'm meeting the people who grew my food. I know that I would have to want meat a great deal more to go out and hunt and prepare wild game.

A number of friends of mine have attended UVic, which has a bunny problem. I have heard many stories of students eating the animals and again I am behind it. There was an article in the UVic newsletter about how to kill, skin and prepare rabbits which stirred up a lot of controversy.
This is a response to the article here:
http://www.rabbitadvocacy.com/hunting_uvic_rabbits_is_illegal.htm
There were a lot of comments about not hurting the bunnies which I think is a bit hypocritical if the posters are omnivores. The expanding bunny population is a problem and the suggestion that the only SPCA approved way of dealing with them is to have them neutered and have homes found for them is ridiculous. The problem was supposedly have started because people abandoned their pets. Do they really think that they are going to find homes for approximately a thousand rabbits? I don't think so. Shelters often have to kill their residents due to over population.

I'm not an expert on the most humane way of killing rabbits, I do think that it is important to do quickly and humanely and I think that torturing animals is awful and disgusting. AND I think that eating animals is a natural thing. Falcons, owls, hawks and off-leash dogs already take care of some of the bunnies, I would think that the fear and suffering would be about the same if not less being killed by a human vs animal.

So all in all, if you eat meat, why not eat rabbit? Local, free range, cheap and sustainable!

More aricles:
Bunny Complaints Multiply at UVic
Bunny Boom Bugs Victoria Campus

Mayhem!

This is going on in my lovely city, you should come! Enter the Mayhem!

So I'm sitting here perusing the feminist blogs as I am wont to do on a long day of filling, and the topic of workplace harassment came up. In this case a female flag person was being honked and catcalled. Now I've worked in a male dominated field for several years now and I've been part of the system (school) even longer. I rarely get any flak these days and more often in comes in undertones rather than anything outright. I really believe that we should have workplaces free from *any* kind of harassment, but what to do about it? There was a call to readers to put in their own ideas. Hell I should just link to the article in question already.

It's over at I blame the patriarchy. So there are some good responses and some that require the assistance of men. Like the suggestion of having two men stand by her while she's flagging and they don't get let by if they catcall. My instinct is that it puts out the idea that she still needs the protection of big strong men. Something I try to get away from. Everything I do at work I try my hardest to do myself. If something is too big or too heavy to move myself, there is usually some way to do the job safely with the right tools. I try to find that way by myself.

This reminds me of an episode recently at a local party. A friend (rougegentleman) had set up a kinky demo area at a party that is not specifically kinky, so of course there are a lot of spectators. Myself and another friend (wolfe) arrive later in the evening and decide to do a light flogging scene. Things are just fine until two rather drunk longshoremen came up and wanted to pay to have a go at me. If rougegentleman hadn't stepped in, the two would have interrupted wolfe more than just verbally. As it was we stopped because they were being quite persistent about wanting to pay me to hit me. That in and of itself was stupid, but rougegentleman was keeping between me and the two longshoremen with the idea of protecting me. I admittedly went along with this, but part of me balks at needing to be protected. I should be able to protect myself. However the system is not set up for this to be so. I have no illusions that if it came down to it, physically I would loose to two longshoremen.

So I think that maybe enforcing protection from abuse by using a big strong man furthers the idea that women are property to be protected. Whether it be by a partner, brother, coworker... whatever. It says to me that women need a guardian. I can't speak for anyone else, but I move through my life often by myself, I value my independence greatly and I realize that it comes with a risk, but I'm willing to take that risk. I think that maybe what the person recounting the story about the flaggers experience, idea was, might be a better idea. Fines for harassment, legal recourse. A process that doesn't require a person of a particular gender. (That said, I don't want to discount the big strong women, however they are a minority)

What am I trying to say here? I think that we need to be able to confidently pursue legal recourse when there is gendered harassment. Regardless of the extent of the harassment (verbal to rape), regardless of what is being worn (the flagger was wearing coveralls, I was in a short skirt and topless) and regardless of anything else, status, situation, location, etc. This needs to be *able* to happen and it needs to happen publicly enough that it sets an example. That people know that harassment is not okay and that there are consequences. Too often it is brushed under the table, women are too afraid of the very real consequences to themselves or justice is not served.

Thoughts?