Ever since E.L. James’ first rectal-extraction, the book Fifty Shades of Grey, hit the market like a drunken Rip Torn ramming his car into a tractor-trailer, the merchandise spin-off has been explosive — or catastrophic, depending on your point of view. Stockings, garters, underwear, pajamas, robes, kitchen and bath décor:…
Revelers at Friday’s Exile Fetish Ball at Tracks Nightclub strapped in and strapped on for a large-scale celebration of sex. The ball is an annual highlight on the kink scene, whose denizens stopped in for burlesque, drag, fireplay and suspension events in a night full of supercharged sexuality. Continue on…
Denver kinksters have big balls — bouncing both to the left and to the right — as they’ll prove at the Exile Fetish Ball at Tracks this Friday night. The ball will also feature fetish demonstrations, dancing and other examples of darker artistry, including live musicians, DJs, stylists, visual artists…
The Colorado Burlesque Festival returned to Denver July 12-15 for a third annual twirl of the tassels, showcasing the art of burlesque with performances by some of the top women in the field. Jim Wills brings back these photos from the festival, which included performances by more than 75 women…
Who should learn — or re-learn — how to give their lovers the best oral sex possible? Everyone. Local sex educator Shanna Katz has a new book out this week, Oral Sex That’ll Blow Her Mind: An Illustrated Guide to Giving Her Amazing Orgasms. Her inspiration for this guide was…
In her 1996 novel Push, Sapphire ventured into the profoundly dark territory of a young black girl’s experience growing up in late-’80s Harlem. The book dealt with the difficult topics of incest, rape, AIDS, illiteracy, poverty and violence toward infants, yet none of this prevented the 2009 film adaptation, Precious…
Like gay marriage, marijuana use and tattoos, public perception of female sex toys is not what it used to be. While male sex toys still weigh heavy on the shame scale, a female pleasure device is mostly seen as a cute novelty. Encountering one while snooping is comparable to finding…
There was great fashion, loud music and heavy-pours, and probably some hooking-up and broken hearts: Yes, it was Derby day again in Denver! Apparently, there was also a horse race in Kentucky or something, but those people are all backwoods rednecks, anyway. There were giant hats to be worn, people!…
Becoming sage, by Kasi Alexander, has everything a reader could want: sex, violence, mastering, slaving. And the emotional autobiographical novel also two things that can’t be safe-worded out of — cops and family drama. In it, Alexander, a local author, tells the story of a woman who leaves the vanilla…
A group of Denver kinksters staged a protest at the KinkForAllDenver conference last weekend. The demonstration was planned and executed amid accusations — prior to the event — that two KinkForAllDenver organizers censored presentations to discourage too much BDSM content and actively sought to exclude local kinksters. The event, which…
The main virtual hall Most conventions are pants-mandatory kinds of affairs — even those of the adult nature. For the world’s first virtual porn convention, however, I’m not wearing any (relax…I’m in my PJs). This past weekend, XBiz and Red Light Center hosted the Adult Entertainment Virtual Convention, porn’s first…
If you are kinky, want to be, or are just curious about sexuality and different lifestyles — check out KinkForAllDenver, a full-day conference taking place tomorrow at the Community College of Denver’s Auraria Campus. The conference will be a hands-on (crack a joke here, pervs) teach-in with presentations by sexual…
As a kid, playwright Sean Paul Mahoney was “totally obsessed” with the Madonna/Rosanna Arquette movie Desperately Seeking Susan. Both the voyeurism and the romance fascinated him, but in his mind, he was Arquette’s character. “I always wanted to be that person that someone saw on the subway and thought was…
The Mi Pueblo Market at 125 Knox Court in the Barnum neighborhood might be the best grocery store in the entire world. On any given day, the clean and brightly decorated market is warmly bumping a reggaeton Rihanna remix as shoppers peruse cascading bins of fresh avocados, bananas and tomatillos…
This year’s holiday play at Denver’s Dangerous Theatre has everything you could ever want to see: rednecks, guns, cussing, sex, violence, intrigue — and an angel in his underwear. Kentucky Claus & the Rebel Elves, which opens tonight, is an hour and 45 minutes of backwoods insanity, starting with six…
Have you taken the Westword sex survey? If not, you have until Friday to lay yourself bare. In the meantime, let’s get kinky with Mistress Saskia. So you’re comfortable whacking your wife with an electric flyswatter, chaining your husband to the hot water heater, watching your girlfriend hump a mop…
Mistress Saskia, Denver’s premier dominatrix, is headmistress of Pavlovia Denver, a house of professional domination where she trains apprentice dominants, teaches private lessons for singles and couples, and offers such delightful and demented services as cross-dressing, role-play, spanking, whippings, fetish play and bondage (subjects you can learn much more about…
BDSM-themed movies, and films with hot kink scenes in them provide us with two very important things: mainstream popular-culture acceptance, and something to jerk the gerk/smack the peach to when we’re bored. See also: The best BDSM movies: Five more options for your viewing pleasure…
For people not involved in the BDSM, or kink scene (the subject of this week’s cover story), most forms of sadomasochistic or SM play would be considered edgy, but within the scene there are certain activities that are generally recognized as being high-risk, even for experienced players, and these are…
Jenn Wohletz is the author of this week’s Westword cover story, “Field Guide to Denver Wild Life.” Here’s her first-person account of how she got involved in the the kink scene. I used to tie up my Barbie dolls. I’d strip them, smother their smiling little mouths with duct tape…
In a perfect world, firefighters would not wear those heavy, shapeless jackets they wear when fighting fires — they would be doing it shirtless, that all might see their turgid pectoral muscles and washboard abs as they glisten and twitch with the exertion of heroes’ work. But this is not…
Geeks, as we all know from Anthony Michael Hall’s romance outcome in The Breakfast Club, have a hard time getting the girl. Nevertheless, they’ll get some help tonight at Single Bytes, a dinner and singles night designed by chronic personals section editor Audrey Klammer to bring geeks together and let…
