Sophia Sky

Camp, Kink, and Queer Art w/ Sophia Sky

In this episode of the Subspace Exploration Project Clay and Todd get a chance to talk with Sophia Sky about art, camp, and the importance of community spaces. Sophia is the Executive Director of the Pan Eros Foundation, producer of the internationally renown Seattle Erotic Art Festival. The Pan Eros Foundation works to change the world’s ideas about sexuality through the arts and education.

Seattle Erotic Art Festival: https://www.seaf.art/

Gallery Erato: https://www.pan-eros.org/galleryerato/

Pan Eros Event Calendar: https://www.pan-eros.org/programs/upcoming-events/

Consent Academy: https://www.consent.academy/

Camp, Kink, and Queer Art w/ Sophia Sky Episode Transcript

This is The Subspace Exploration Project.

Join us for a deep dive into kink, non-monogamy, mental and emotional health, gender expression, and community building.

In each episode, we're deconstructing the gender binary, celebrating queer culture, and creating a safe space for sex education, all while learning from authors, educators, mental health professionals, and folks like you and me.

In this episode of The Subspace Exploration Project, Clay and Todd get a chance to talk with Sophia Sky about art, camp, and the importance of safe community spaces.

Sophia is the executive director of The Pan Eros Foundation, producer of the internationally renowned Seattle Erotic Art Festival.

The Pan Eros Foundation works to change the world's ideas about sexuality through the arts and education.

Let's check it out.

Hello, my name is Sophia Sky and I work for The Pan Eros Foundation.

I am the executive director, which means I am the bossiest of bosses.

And my goal, or the mission of The Pan Eros Foundation is to cultivate and celebrate consent and sexuality.

And we do that through the arts and education.

My biggest role is that I kind of shepherd the organization and move it through all its various programs and make sure the programs are doing that.

I have the most involvement in the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, which is our annual art festival that we do over three days in spring in Seattle.

And then the second biggest program that we have is the Consent Academy, which we have two co-directors for that, which I'm mostly just backup support for them.

Asha and Ariana are amazing people who are running it quite well.

That is almost entirely a virtual education platform that we do for the Consent Academy.

And then we have Gallery Erato, which is our venue, which is an art gallery and event space.

And Gallery Erato's job is to keep a safe space available for any sex positive organizations that want to have events, including play parties, because, you know, everybody needs a safe place to do that, where they're not having to be in a scary warehouse, where someone might get tetanus.

Yeah.

Which, you know, there's a certain kind of exciting danger being in those kinds of places.

I'm not knocking them.

Yeah.

No, it's just, it's the idea of the threat of tetanus happening, but not actually tetanus happening.

That's sexism.

Exactly.

Yeah.

That's my kind of fair play.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My relationship started with the Art Festival or at, or with the organization through the Art Festival back in 2003.

I had heard of the organization back then.

It was called the Sex Positive Community Center.

And I heard about it as soon as it opened in 1999, but I was way too nervous to go.

And so in 2003, I found out about the Art Festival and then through the Art Festival, I started volunteering through them.

And then I started to go into the SPCC for, also known as the Wet Spot.

And I started going to play parties there and getting involved in the kinky community in Seattle.

And from there, you know, I am the perfect example of if you volunteer for a non-profit, long enough, you will end up running it.

Because I've been volunteering since 2005.

Happy 10 years.

No, 15 years.

Yeah.

15.

Yeah.

It'll be 15 years in the next year.

In 2015 is when I became the Executive Director.

The woman who had been the Executive Director the whole time, the organization had been in existence, Alina Gabash, was ready to retire.

And at that point in time, I was the Education Coordinator and managed that program.

And I was the Executive Director of the Seattle Erotic Art Festival.

And those two things were literally 90 percent of Alina's job.

And she was like, you know, I'm retiring.

You should just have Sophia do the rest of it.

You know, basically like the 990s and the insurance and that kind of thing was like the banking.

That was like the only thing we added to my list.

And so that was, and then since then, in about, in 2019, we put together a, we changed the, I used to run the whole organization and the art festival.

And then in 2019, we started doing a steering committee for the art festival so that I was not the only person in charge.

And so now it's a team of seven people that run the art festival.

And I'm slowly working back to being, being more of a supervisory role, which is kind of a little sad because I really like the art.

I was the, I was the exhibition curator for a long time, handling all the visual art.

So that's how I came through into this whole thing was through sexy art.

Yeah, I, because I was wondering about that.

So you like the sexy art and everything?

Because I was thinking, you know, for some people, maybe they're just like really into the kink community or art in general, and they happen to be queer.

So like queer sex art, like what, what is that personal connection for you?

For me, it's like for me, sex has always been such a expression of joy and something that I felt like was very like the core of who I was.

I like ever since I was a, I started having hormones running around in my, in my little pre-teen body.

I was all really super interested in sex and people and, you know, all the fun things that you can do with people and your own body.

I'm a big fan of Sex for One.

I'm a big fan for people, you know, pleasuring themselves and finding out what works for them because that's so fulfilling and mind-blowing.

Yeah.

And so for, so that's where it started for me.

And when I, when I was in my early 20s, I started doing artist modeling for, you know, like drawing classes and sculpting classes.

And then I met a woman and she was like, hey, will you do this?

She found out that I was an artist model and used to be a professional swimmer.

And so she was like, hey, I have a photo shoot that I want to do in a tank.

I bet you can hold your breath for a long time.

Like a fish tank, like it was a 55 gallon fish tank.

And so that was my first erotic photo shoot was, you know, having my wrist tied up while I was inside this, you know, this fish tank.

You know, there's this documentary about mermaid people, like the mermaid community on Netflix.

And I like, like I enjoyed mermaid people.

But after watching that documentary, I was like, damn, mermaid people have a lot of tough skills.

They are holding their breath underwater, cold water, they can't see, and they have to look beautiful and sexy.

And like, that's difficult.

That's really tough.

So like, I'm very impressed.

It was a lot.

It was a lot of fun.

And so from there, that's how I found the Seattle Erotic Art Festival was doing modeling and seeing, you know, I just saw the little card that said, hey, do you want to submit art?

And so I would, you know, told my partner and I told my friend that I did the shoot with.

And coming in through, for me, it was very much like so a little bit of background is that I was a massage therapist for 23 years.

And I became a massage therapist.

I went to school when people were still telling stories about how five years earlier, you used to have to get a pelvic exam in order to get your massage license, because that was their way to control prostitution.

And for me, I had always grown up in a really relaxed household.

And I had a, my mom was a Buddhist when I was a child.

And so I didn't understand why everybody thought prostitution was bad because I hadn't had that upbringing around sex being a really negative thing.

And so I just didn't understand why I had to go through all these difficulties in order to be a massage practitioner because everybody was, you know, it was, there wasn't a way for people to go get sex legally and safely.

And like, there's all these things that, you know, back in the 90s, everybody was doing to be like, make sure that you don't use neon signs to show you're open and don't have late night hours, which is ridiculous because guess what?

People who need massage, they have day jobs.

Yeah.

You're not, you're not working during the day, you're working in the evenings, in the weekends.

Yeah, that's interesting.

And so for me, I was just like, I very young, came to a very young age of like, hey, if we could legalize sex work, then I wouldn't have to deal with all the people who are trying to get their needs met inappropriately.

But it's only inappropriate because there's not an easy way to find the people who are offering those services.

And so I was like, as a 22 year old, I was very practical and was like, well, of course we have to make sex work legal to make everybody's life easier, to make my life easier, to make the people who are looking for it, not have to waste their time.

Not to mention, why are we giving people a hard time, who are giving a good service to the world that's wanted?

Yeah.

And I quickly realized that our attitudes around, our society's attitudes around sex work were an amazing, like blown up, this is what your society thinks about sex.

And I was like, well, we have to fix that.

This is just not acceptable.

And so I started, when I started doing more erotic work, like trying to make it more legitimate, trying to make people like take it more seriously as no, I'm working here.

This is, we're making art.

We're doing something cool.

And I even did a little bit of porn, but found that like I'm not altruistic enough.

I'm like, but I don't want to do that.

That doesn't sound fun.

You know, I tried doing sex work.

I'm not, I'm like, but I only want to do what I want to do.

I don't want to do what you want to do.

I know you're paying me.

So, you know, it's kind of hard to find people who only want to do exactly what you want to do for, or at least it was for me.

And so I gave it up.

I feel like there might be a niche for that where it's like, I will do whatever you want to do, you know, like, maybe.

Yeah, you have to do a lot of emotional labor.

And I'm not, as I said before, I'm not altruistic enough.

No.

Yeah.

Because I really do.

I've known a lot of sex workers and they're the most generous, giving people, and they take care of their people.

Yeah.

So that's how I got involved doing the erotic work.

And then when I found the Seattle Erotic Art Festival and that they were really trying to change the world through erotic art.

And I realized that if you can, like art is a safe way to experience something new without, like you can have an emotional experience without doing any of the physical stuff, without being in relationship with someone.

You know, like you can go through the thought process of what it's like to, you know, think about what it would be like if you were tied up and somebody was hitting you with a vlogger.

Yeah.

How do you feel about that?

And if we can get people to the point, like with, if you're looking at a piece of art and you can be curious about it and not be scared of what people think of you while you're looking at that piece of art, we're changing the world.

Yeah.

And we're going to make the world more.

Like I don't want people to just be tolerant.

I want them to be accepting of differences.

I want them to go, Oh, look at you.

Look, you're having so much fun.

Good for you.

Yeah.

But one of the things that my mom taught me growing up was, is that we're all here to learn.

And when somebody is doing something that you don't like or you don't approve of, you should be thankful that they're doing it so you don't have to.

Because everything needs to be experienced in the world.

Yeah.

Yes.

And it's like, Oh, I see that you're doing this.

That's not my thing.

Thank you for letting me know.

Thank you.

Thank you for doing that.

So I don't have to.

I was having a conversation with my good friend.

And we were talking about what is making something campy, like campy queer art.

And two films, for some reason, two films came up for us.

And one was The Substance and the other one was The Grinch.

Specifically, Jim Carrey's The Grinch.

It's not queer art, but is it queer coded?

I haven't seen it, so I don't know.

I haven't seen either of those.

Now I'm making a mental note of what is the substance I use.

Well, so the substance, I haven't seen the substance either, but I think it's like a femme woman's experience of like, you don't want to age and you want to look beautiful forever, and you're going to do all these.

Oh, I have heard about this.

Yeah.

And it gives you this very visceral, yuck, like hard experience to make you feel something very emotional, that like gives you an idea of what people are experiencing in the world about, you know, beauty and anti-aging and Botox and plastic surgery.

And I suppose, you know, I haven't seen the substance, so I can't really like speak that much on it.

But I'm wondering if like you can also throw like gender-affirming medical care in there, like facial feminization surgery, or I believe masculinization surgery is also a thing, or any other kind of like help me change myself so that I am more comfortable with myself, or so that other people are more comfortable with me.

And then with the Grinch, like, yeah, so that was something, but then we were talking about the Grinch, like there's different types of like campy.

The Grinch is not very queer coded, honestly.

Well, maybe we'll do another episode on the Grinch, because I'll just have to watch it and I'll get my notes together.

I didn't do that with you.

I love like any kind of like media thought breakdown.

Like one of my favorite podcasts is by hashtag anything by hashtag Ruthless, where they're always taking popular media and they're looking at it through a queer lens.

Lovely.

I'll have to answer that.

We'll do something like this again.

They're wonderful.

Yeah, more please.

But yeah, so like in terms of the art that you're seeing in Gallery Erato, are you seeing any like campy art?

Like what is the spectrum of arts that you're getting in there?

The spectrum that we're going for is everything.

I want everything from abstract works that are about concepts around identity, gender, relationships, love, sex, sexuality, orientation, everything.

Then I want everything on the spectrum all the way to really raunchy parts going into parts.

I want to have everything.

And camp, I think, is really important as a style of art because it allows us to poke fun at ourselves a little bit.

And usually there's a little, even though we're poking fun at ourselves in campy things, there's always a pocket to people who are not in that demographic that gives, that usually turns it back on them.

That's a big learning experience for people like, like say the, you know, hetero people or monogamous people or vanilla people.

There's always like, there's always some kind of learning experience in there.

And sometimes it's really subtle and it's more about solving the marginalized group to be like, yeah, we're making fun of ourselves, but it's really you that are the trick is being played on.

That's my, my interpretation of camp.

Yeah.

And there's just, it's so freeing to play with those stereotypes that other demographics have put on us.

And to be like, oh, that's how you think we are?

Well, let's take it to the extreme and have fun with it.

Yeah.

And so we get our fair share of it, but not, not as much.

It's not always super visible to see like it is in movies.

Yeah.

In static art.

I had also, as you're talking, I thought of Romeo and Michelle's High School Reunion.

I don't know if you've seen that movie, but that is also just like, it's very fem girl camp.

Like, oh yeah, we're stupid idiot girls, you know, la, la, la.

But they're actually, they're fantastic.

They're fantastic people in the movie.

And they're really taking on that, like, you know, bimbo dropout type of pretty girl that comes back and is like, oh, I've done all these things.

They haven't actually, they're lying about.

They come back and they're like, oh yeah, I've done all these cool things and I'm famous and la, la, la, la, la, and I'm beautiful now.

They are beautiful and everything.

I think they used to be like nerdy in high school.

But yeah, they come back and they make up this whole story at their high school reunion.

Yeah, we'll have to do some more media discussions.

I feel like I need like a list from you because there's like so much.

So like I am so not literate when it comes to popular culture.

Like I've been in the sex positive culture for way too long.

And like before that I was in my, you know, I grew up very like, I mean, like ask me about like things like crystal skulls and ghost hauntings and I can like talk about that.

But you don't ask me a lot about what happened in the 90s or early 2000s.

That's real.

I enjoy my group of friends because they all have their different pieces of like knowledge of pop culture, not pop culture, horror, like whatever.

Yeah, I'm the, my, my newest partner that I've, that has been pulled into my life, newest, three years relationship.

I move slow.

Has, has, is really in the movies and is like, well, you've seen the Godfather and I'm like, no.

No, that's real.

That's real, but you should see it.

I have seen it now.

Okay.

It's not that.

We have a list.

We have a list of all the movies that, that as, as an American, I should be aware of.

It's just really difficult like with any of them.

There's, I have, I'm very prone to getting nightmares.

So there's a lot of stuff that I just can't, I just can't watch.

It's just that my kid is, yeah, my, my kid is, is 28 now, but has always, ever since they were about 12 years old, they've been like, mom, you can't watch this one.

Or we'll, we'll watch it together.

Yeah.

Or you can watch this one alone if you're, if it's daytime, like my kid is awesome.

That's great.

I'm pretty sure I read way too much Stephen King between the ages of like 9 and 14.

And that's my problem.

That ruined it.

I mean, I read everything that he had read, written up into the point that it was like 15 years.

And I still can't go through a tunnel, any kind of tunnel without thinking about the scene in the stand where he's leaving, leaving New York City and there's all the dead people in the tunnel and you just know somebody's going to get him.

Anyway, back to where we were.

I'm sorry.

I'm going to think about that.

I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

I did not mean to do that.

It's okay.

I'm a big kid.

I'm trying to think about, like, for me, when I think of Camp, I think of John Waters.

I haven't seen all of John Waters' films, but I've seen a fair number of them.

I'm just trying to think of what the name of that one that came out that was called Serial Mom.

That's what it was called.

It was the one about how the neighborhood is totally taken over by all the different deviants, and you've got the three bears and the Goldilocks in the one house.

I'm the only Goldilocks in this house.

Yeah, we need more John Waters in the world.

Yes, I agree.

I'm looking at a rundown of Serial Mom because I was like, yeah, I don't think I've seen enough John Waters films.

Jesus, I got to watch one tonight probably.

Drop Dead Gorgeous.

I think it was A Dirty Shame.

That was whichever of the one was the one where it's the suburban mom and all of a sudden her kid starts masturbating.

Then she gets, and then she starts, she's been infected and all she does is want to have sex.

Hence meeting the bears and the Goldilocks and everybody else.

I really want to see, and I saw a TikTok recently where someone was talking about, we need more lowbrow, raunchy, run out of the theater queer films.

Because we got to have something that is not just like for everyone.

It lets the straight, cis, het, and the millas see queer people and like, okay, so you're like regular, you're actually just like us.

It's like, yes, and also, here's this disgusting shit, too.

Because we're all gross.

I don't know what the actual origins of camp are.

Ooh, that would be fun to look at.

In popular culture, Ballroom.

It seems like to be exposed to queer, kinky, real sexy art, you have to find that on the local level.

Except in camp, like in television and in movies, somehow the kink and the queerness survive there.

And like John Waters' stuff and other more deviant art.

Would we count Pulp Fiction as camp, specifically because they kind of like really over dramatize, you know, drug overtoes, they over dramatize having, you know, the gimp in the in the basement.

I would call that like camp exploitation.

It's like it's subverting the subversive.

It's taking all the really off putting aspects of camp, polishing it up and making it palatable to the masses, you know.

Really?

Did they though?

I don't know.

I mean, it was certainly edgy for its time.

Yeah.

Definitely not sure it made, you know, haven't, you know, they basically equated people who were kinky as needing to rape other people in order to have fun.

Yeah.

So I would argue about that.

It made people aware of it.

Yeah.

Well, that's what I mean.

I mean, it took the subversive and had to bastardize it to make it consumable in all as many theaters as it appeared in, you know what I mean?

Like it's very much exaggerating it.

But like, I don't love the exaggeration in like a and this guy rapes people.

I actually haven't seen Pulp Fiction, so I don't know exactly what you guys are referring to.

I think there's certainly a line.

Movie nights, movie nights.

Movie nights, yeah.

But there's certainly something to be said for like taking tradition and like subverting it and having a different type of understanding or appreciation for an aesthetic and how it is like sort of disrupting like modern standards.

And so when you look at older films, those might be a different type of camp than what camp is today.

And camp, I believe, originated with like ballroom, and like ballroom culture and drag.

So like the over the topness caricature of women in drag and ballroom is like the campier, the better, which is, you know, like all of the pearls, all of the feathers, the biggest dress, the biggest hair, like that's camp in its, I believe, its original context as ballroom.

Which makes me wonder if camp has its, has its, you know, its little roots in vaudeville, because vaudeville is also about taking societal stereotypes and going over the top with them.

Yeah.

Whereas camp is more specifically, I mean, is camp always queer coded?

I think it might be.

I think so.

I don't, like, I don't know if it's like queer coded, but I know it's pretty much always associated with like-

Or it's a queer tool, rather.

Yeah, it's pretty much always associated or like seen in queer lens or queer perspective.

And is vaudeville, is vaudeville like, like silent film, black and white, or what is vaudeville?

Vaudeville is like, think about, burlesque comes out of vaudeville.

And so think slapstick, physical comedy, think telling stories, song and dance, blackface comes out of vaudeville.

You know, think traveling performers.

But not circus is my understanding, which I should be very careful because I don't, I have a very spotty education on that.

I'm out of curiosity.

I'm going to look up the definition of campy because now I'm curious.

Like vaudeville and black entertainers, white entertainers, what were the differences?

Like who's taking shit from other people and making it comedy?

Like with white people doing blackface.

Then we have caricatures of black people.

A style or mode of personal or creative expression that is absurdly exaggerated and often fuses elements of high and popular culture.

I hate the word high culture.

Yeah, I found out that the high brow and low brow are descriptions that come out of phrenology.

Have you ever heard of phrenology?

Phrenology is like the shape of your skull.

It tells you how smart you are and what areas and all that kind of thing.

Well, it was also incredibly racist.

And it was like people with a low brow are not smart.

People with high brow, you know, this part of the area of the head are smarter.

And so that's where low brow humor came from is for dumb people.

Well, I'll be damned.

Taking that out my vocabulary.

Take that out of my vocabulary.

Yeah, exactly.

Shit.

Which is kind of hilarious that like there's all these words that I want to take out.

And it's like, it's like we're going to have to go back to like, you know, old timey and speaking with like more elaborate, fancy words.

Because we can't use the regular ones anymore.

Or I don't want to as much.

Or at least being aware of the background.

Damn.

That makes so much fucking sense.

That's awful.

White supremacy always ruins everything.

It really does.

It is the same thing for Peanut Gallery.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

The Peanut Gallery was usually the segregated section where black people had to sit.

Great.

The term cakewalk is a horribly racist term.

Oh, I don't know the story behind that one.

Me neither.

Do I want to know?

You would make slaves come out and do a dance for cake.

You embarrassed the slaves to make them earn cake.

I'm sure it could get pretty ugly.

And so we use cakewalk to say...

Oh, something's easy, I thought.

I think it's implied that they just embarrassed the hell out of themselves.

Shame and degradation, it's easy.

And then you get cake out of it, you know?

Yeah, it's interesting how those things move away.

Whereas like, I'm now thinking about in non-profits, a lot of times they'll do what they call a cakewalk.

That is a donation thing where they will have people make all these different cakes and pies and desserts.

And then you bid, and when you're the highest bidder, you get to go walk and get your cake first.

Like you get first dibs.

Yeah.

So that also makes me wonder, I'm like, is that related?

Is it unrelated?

Like, is it the whole idea of getting something for free?

Like, I don't know, supposedly for free?

Yeah.

Because it's not like you have to do anything besides like bid and get your number pulled.

You're not doing a little song and dance for it.

Right.

You're just paying lots of money.

Yeah.

But you're giving money instead of doing labor.

No, it's good to know the origins of these things because they get used all the time.

You just don't know until someone's actually like, I learned recently that here's the origin of this, and then you're like, damn, I've been saying this all the time every day.

That's how much it's just woven into our culture.

That's why I had a conversation with someone recently who was like, we don't have to stop using these words, we just have to be aware of what we're saying when we use them.

Sometimes just like when you're talking about power differential, sometimes just acknowledging where it comes from, just by saying something, not to use it in its origins, but to use it in the new way that we now use it.

Even just saying something like that makes people think, and we're slowly changing the world that way, which is really important.

Totally.

It's like when you have a power differential between two people, and you say, yeah, I know this is really awkward, me asking you this as your supervisor, and so I want you to know that I realize it might be hard for you to say no, but I want you to know it's okay if you do, and there won't be any repercussions.

But it makes sense that you're concerned that you can't.

You know, so sometimes calling out those underlying things and bringing them to the surface can sometimes diffuse them.

Yes.

But always.

I wanted to ask if you could tell us some about the other events and programs that Pan Eros is involved with, or helps to facilitate aside from the Consent Academy.

Most definitely.

So we have an education program where my colleague, Leah, is our education director and puts together the offerings that we do around mostly kink and relationship education.

And she's doing an amazing job of really making sure that people have a good opportunity to learn different things.

Like we have a rotating bondage course where there's, every three months, there's a bondage 101 class.

And sometimes even more often depending on if she can, how many people she can get to teach it.

About every quarter, there is some kind of intro to kink type of class.

Like actually she's asking me to do one, I believe I'm doing it in January, where I just basically do an introduction to kink.

And then we also have a program where we do support the community in having skillshares.

This is also underneath the education program, but skillshares, support groups and group meetings.

And so anybody who has, wants to say, hey, I want to get together for like, we have a hypnosis enthusiast group.

And after that was spawned a erotic hypnosis drills.

So once a month, they get together on, I believe it's the first Monday of the month, and first or second Monday of the month, and they go through and they just say, okay, we're talking about these skills.

At this particular scale, and we're just going to practice it and practice it and make sure everybody understands the concept behind it, how to do it safely, consistently, how can you incorporate it in your play, how can you have fun with it.

Yeah.

And Daniel McLoughlin of Visible Restraint has putting that on.

And now they have even started having basically their play night.

So that is like where they're doing a party that is geared towards erotic hypnosis and trance in kink play.

Where they do that, like, I think every other month or yeah, about every other month, I think.

And so that's really important that we support the community.

And we don't decide what those groups are.

The groups come to us and say we would like space, and we make space for them on our calendar at Gallery Erato.

So like right now, we have the Winter Rope Jam, which is they usually do outdoor bondage during the summers, and then they come in November through March, they come in to the gallery.

And then we have the Witchy Rope Enthusiast Group, which is focuses on skill sharing for femme and non-binary tops.

Cis men are welcome to come if they want to bottom, basically, but it's a place to give support and education for people that sometimes don't feel like they get the appropriate attention.

Is that a space that is just like not cis men, this is not for cis men, but this is for like femme non-binary and trans men or?

Yes.

Okay.

So just, well, actually trans men, not trans men.

Okay.

Trans men can come and be bottoms, just like cis men can, but it's meant to be a femme and non-binary.

Gotcha.

Okay.

And of course, those, it's always self-identified.

We're very, you know, it's self-identified with behavior being the way that it is enforced.

Like we don't ask to see people's markers on their ID.

Drop your pants.

But it's, yeah.

Well, that can get fun.

I would hope not.

Maybe for a different party.

Right.

And then we also work with groups that want to, people that want to host like play parties for whatever community they're in, where we will work with them and make it be a fundraiser for the foundation.

We're not in the habit of doing play parties.

That's not what we do, but we want to support the community.

And so like if somebody says, I want to have a play party at your space, but I can't afford to rent it, we can be like, okay, well, if you have the ticket sales be your fundraiser for us, that will be your rent.

And they're responsible for everything else.

Cool.

That's very cool.

Yeah.

And so it's like that way, it's like we're, you know, because there are some people that are like, we have one group that is, we want this to be a bondage only party.

You can do other things as long as it's, bondage is the basics of your event or of your play.

Yeah.

You know, so it can be bondage success, it can be bondage impact play, it can be, you know, bondage and sensory deprivation, that could be bondage and whatever you want, as long as there's bondage.

Yeah.

And, you know, and so we were like, you know, some parties or, you know, some groups will be like, we don't have enough people that want to come to that.

But we're, but we're like, hey, we want to support what the community wants to do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So those are our big things that we do besides the Consent Academy and, and the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, is that we're here to have a space to support the community and what it wants to do.

And as long as they, you know, support consent culture and that they're celebrating sexuality and, and not being, they're not denigrating anybody else by uplifting what they want to uplift, then we're all for it.

Awesome.

Well, that's all very important.

And I think education is like the perfect foundation for all of that.

Agreed.

It's great that this, like the Pan Eros organization, like very much touches a lot of things in the community, like, and creates this web of like, oh, you need this, go here.

You need this, go here.

You can do this here.

Yeah.

Like, that's really cool.

Oh, yeah.

Like, I have people call up all the time and say, well, what kind of events do you have?

And I'm like, well, we don't have a whole lot.

What are you looking for?

What do you want?

Because, are you a male-identified person that's into masturbation?

Here, let me introduce you to the Rain City Jacks.

Oh, you're, you know, you are queer-identified and you're just getting started.

You should go check out the Center for Sex Positive Cultures, Fresh Meat Party, because that's where, that's all about meeting other new kinky people.

And they are a very, they're very hetero-friendly.

Yeah.

But they're, but it's mostly a queer-run organization.

I look forward to getting another chance to talk with you.

Yeah.

Maybe next time, face-to-face and yeah, maybe help capture some of the art that occurs at some of your events.

Oh, yeah.

Yes, please.

Yeah, we'll be changing the art the last week of January.

So right now we have, it's all masculine-based art.

We're, it's a playful masculinity is the theme for the show that was on December and most of January, and then we'll change.

And it looks like we're looking at doing something bondage related.

We're playing around with the theme of bonds of love so that it can be more than just bondage, and maybe get some corset and other confinement in there.

Latex people, vinyl people, like the bondage clothing as well as the bondage elements.

Exactly.

We're trying to make our themes be big enough so that that artist can play with it.

Like one time we said fetish, and I had a painter who came together with, made this amazing painting of a person from, just from like collar bones up, and they had a blindfold on, and their head was tipped back, and their mouth was open, and it was like, it could be anything.

Like, are they, you know, are they moaning, are they screaming, are they waiting for something to be dropped in their mouth, was something just taken out of their mouth?

Like it could have been so, it was, and so that was their take on fetish, was the idea that fetish is in your head.

It could be anything that you want it to be.

Yeah.

I was like, oh, oh, so good.

Yeah, I can't wait to host you again in Seattle.

Yay.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

This was such a joy to chat with you.

I look forward to future conversations and also just following along as well.

I'm excited about the conversations that you're having with people.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

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