From the tranquillity of an 8-hour train ride between Vienna and Warsaw, I have just started my summer tour—and it will be a summer of ceremonies exploring why it makes sense to move play outside the bedroom. Why make it a semi-public or communal act?
Some upcoming spaces to explore this is: the weekend-long Xplore festival in Berlin where I’ll curate an agenda for this. And the longer KONK experience in Sicily where I’ll prototype new workshop concepts. And in Zurich, in the precursor to this autumn sadomasochistic tea ceremony. See more in the overall agenda.
I hope to see you around this summer.
Sadomasochism offers many modalities to explore and master, such as swinging a flogger and knotting a rope. And many philosophies to understand, such as the distinction between submission and surrender and the cognitive dissonance of being both cruel and loving. However, philosophies and modalities are fundamentally very doing-focused, as if there is something to achieve. Of course, one can spend a lifetime perfecting increasingly obscure techniques or uncovering increasingly radical theories. Sadomasochism offers plenty of them—why it’s a literal candy shop for us nerds. But there is another way—a way to practice being dominant and submissive by simply being—by learning through experience. These are the sadomasochistic ceremonies.
ceremony /sĕr′ə-mō′′nē/
noun
- A formal act or set of acts performed as prescribed by ritual or custom. “a wedding ceremony; the Japanese tea ceremony.”
- A conventional social gesture or act of courtesy. “the ceremony of shaking hands when introduced.”
- A formal act without intrinsic purpose; an empty form. “ignored the ceremony of asking for comments from other committee members.”
- Strict observance of formalities or etiquette. “The head of state was welcomed with full ceremony.”
Through example and experience, this space will break down the ceremonial elements of generic sadomasochistic play—to understand the details that carry great importance—or, in other words, to decide what details should carry great importance. In a power dynamic, I, as the dominant party, don’t need to control everything—but I would rather have one undeniable detail that clearly communicates our hierarchy, serving as a constant reminder of how things are. It may be as cliché as controlling the gaze of the submissive—eyes open, gaze down—or the way they may talk, or not—the words they use. Or it may be more abstract. Or symbolic. Or humorous. Or degrading—cementing the power dynamic.
Through shape and rhythm, this space will invite you to participate in the idea of communal play—the reasons for bringing sadomasochism out of the bedroom and into a celebratory setting—where your internalized forbidden fantasies are planted as seeds for the desire to be shared with others. By practising directing one’s attention, attraction and rejection can be communicated without a doubt. Triangles represent choice, and lines inevitable meetings. Circles are the centre of attention, and squares are to be locked inside. Eventually, gradually, they’ll also transform into bondage and restriction, pain and suffering, and all the other experiences often associated with sadomasochistic play.