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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (June 12, 2015)
Page 4 News Street Roots • Jüne 12-18, 2015 The city that wnips BD SM practitioner Annamarie Stockwell fills us in on one o f Portland's latest titles — 'kinkiest city in America' BY EMILY GREEN Movies such as “Secretary” (2002) and “Fifty Shades of Grey” (2015) have transported BDSM from underground to nnamarie Stockwell stands at the ' mainstream, although some critics within front of a room packed with students the BDSM community say sex scenes in on Portland Community College’s Sylvania Campus, swinging a single-tail “Fifty Shades” are more about rape and less about BDSM. For those in the kink whip. community, consent is key. Anything other She has the full attention of the class. than full consent is abuse, says Stockwell. “I’m not a doctor,’’ she tells them, “but I At age 34, she’s been immersed in play one in a dungeon.” Portland’s kink culture since shortly after Earlier this year, Portland was dubbed moving to the region 11 years ago. While “kinkiest city in America.” The ranking was the local community has been growing as based on the city’s total kink population, the long as she can remember, as BDSM number of kink-aware professionals listed in becomes less taboo and more accessible, the National Coalition ^or, .Sexual<Freedom’s she says she’s seen a marked influx in (NCSF) re source directory, and on * * < . curious kinksters surfacing for the first Tiffi^' pornography purchase; data collected by the at events in Portland. study’s author, BDSM porn site Kink.com. Newcomers have plenty to choose from. While Portland scored low in the latter There are at least three different kink category, it still grabbed the number one events almost every single day on the spot with 4 percent of Portlanders logged calendar Stockwell Updates, PDX Kink onto Fetlife - a social media network for Events. There are whip practices, rope-tying kinky people. And, according to Kink.com, seminats, strap-on lessons and munches. A Portland closely rivals much larger cities munch is a casual gathering for people such as San Francisco, New York and interested in kink. Chicago in the number of play parties, While Portland’s kink community has a workshops and other resources available to packed events .calendar, Stockwell says many kinksters. people come into the community to learn The definition of kink runs the gamut what they need to learn about BDSM play, including any bedroom activity beyond and then recede back into their private monogamous, missionary-position bedrooms. procreation. But in this context, it’s tied “Having a community where you can tightly to BDSM. Think bondage, come meet other people who are doing this dominance, sadism and masochism. There’s stuff, I think, is really important because role playing, fetishes, pleasure mixed with you get a more realistic expectation for what pain and elaborate power exchanges where exploring kink can look like,” she says. there are tops and bottoms, ultimate control People can walk away from reading or and no control - although complete watching erotic material with ideas about submission is an illusion. A scene can be power exchange relationships that just paused at any time by any participant. The aren’t feasible for most schedules and most common safe word is “red.” abilities. For example, setting the Kink can be as mild as a spanking or as expectation that a master and slave dynamic extreme as genital torture. is something practiced 24 hours a day, It’s all about exploring boundaries, both seven days a week. “Nobody does that,” says emotional and physical, says Stockwell. Stockwell. She’s a switch, which means - depending For kink newbies, Stockwell says on her mood - she can be a top or a bottom, munches can be a good place to start. She a sadist or a masochist Some people solely and her partner founded PDX Queer Munch, identify as one or the other. which meets at Radio Room the first And leather. There’s a lot of leather. Thursday of every month,, and Vancouver The largest BDSM membership-based Munch. organization in the Portland-metro area, “If you go to a munch, it’s not a bunch of Portland Leather Alliance, has been around crazy, wild, kinky-looking people,” she says. since 1998. Along with educational events “It’s mostly people sitting around talking and fundraisers, PLA puts on Portland’s largest annual BDSM event KinkFest, which about their pets - and also the fact that maybe they had a really good caning last brought more than 1,000 people to the weekend.” Portland Expo Center in February. ST A FF W R ITE R ■ P H O T O BY NIK RAPIER For introverts," there’s the PDX Kinky Introverts Munch. In fact, Portland has a munch or party for just about every subgroup of kink culture imaginable. “We have a group specifically for kinky women, groups for gay men, there are groups for bears,” says Stockwell. “We have queer groups, we have straight groups, we have groups that are specific to people who are exploring master slave dynamics, there’s rope - Portland is real big on rope.” “There are a lot of events and workshops and groups that meet just to learn how to tie people up.” And while she can’t tie a good knot to save her life, Stockwell stands out as a leader in Portland’s continuously growing kink community. She hosts monthly discussion panels on kink-related topics - June’s topic is dominant-submissive relationship trouble shooting - and she teaches a variety of BDSM workshops from the tamer Introduction to BDSM to Endorphin-Based Needle Play 101. Stockwell also gets to flaunt her inner geek as a regular guest speaker at PCC and Portland State University. She usually takes over human sexuality classes for a day, explaining polyamory, which she’s been practicing with her partner for the past 10 years, or the origins and acronyms of BDSM - there are a lot of acronyms. She’s been a regular guest speaker in PCC psychology professor Cynthia Golledge’s classes for the past five years. Golledge says she’s seen her students’ attitudes toward kink evolve over time. “1 think it’s probably fair to say that in the 10 years or so that I’ve been teaching this, that not only do more people know a little more about kink, or BDSM, but the attitude is generally a little bit more favorable,” she says. “There’s been a slight shift toward more acceptance of the idea.” Stockwell is also one of the coré founders of Sex-Positive Education and Event Center, or SPEEC, a donor-funded nonprofit that sprung up after The Sindicate, Portland’s largest dungeon, closed in November 2013. The group is currently focused on finding a space it can lease for large-scale BDSM play parties and other events. “Although it wás born out of BDSM and the people on the board are from the BDSM world, we really want it to be accessible for any sex-positive group in town, whether they’re kinky or otherwise,” explains SPEEC’s board chair, Chris Olson. SPEEC’s reached out to more than 50 other “sex-positive” communities in the area for support. For those who prefer a more intimate See KINK, page 5
