Elaine was a columnist for Xtra West newspaper for a few years… here are some links to her articles on Xtra.ca:
http://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Axtra.ca+%22by+Elaine+Miller%22

Chaps at a tea party
SAFE SM / Trevor Jacques wants your eyes to light up when you see a spatula
story by Nancy Irwin / Xtra Aug 22 2002
http://archives.xtra.ca/Story.aspx?s=14651180

A queer, fat, kinky Jew
QUEER HOMO / Silva Tenenbein lubes the wheels of social currency
story by Diane Claveau / Xtra West Dec 11 2003
http://archives.xtra.ca/Story.aspx?s=2269373&k=silva

http://www.queerhistoryproject.com/2008/08/whipping-up-controversy/

http://www.colors-of-leather.com/

Feel free to grab a subject, expand upon it, and post the results, or add them in a comment, or email ‘em to us via the contact form.

• Studio Q
• Mr BC Leather
• Mr and Ms Vancouver Leather
• Club Inferno
• The Other Side
• Dark Circus
• Betty Page/Body Perv
• Sin City
• columns and article in local media
• Barry Piersdorff the photographer
• Doug Gault
• KINK the series
• VASM
• Vancouver Men in Leather
• Vancouver Women in Leather
• Raven
• Womyn’s Ware
• The Pumpjack Pub
• The Leather Loft at Number’s
• Odin’s Eye
• 23 W. Cordova, aka Cruel Elephant aka…
• The Big Red Dot
• The Loop
• Angles
• Xtra West

The Vancouver Dungeon Monitor Team is a group of volunteers who are dedicated to ensuring the safety of ALL those who attend the events we are asked to monitor. We accomplish this by having properly trained Dungeon Monitors and First Aid attendants on staff. Our role is to remove the responsibility and concern of DM’ing and First Aid from the event host(s) and thereby allowing them to focus on the many other details that go towards making an event fun and enjoyable for all.

http://www.vandmteam.com/

This posting needs quite a bit of work, no? Please give us your info! Click the contact link and drop us a note!

Feel free to add comments with your own corrections facts, and memories. (Vituperative and slanderous comments will be deleted)

Feel free to add comments with your own corrections facts, and memories. (Vituperative and slanderous comments will be deleted)

Feel free to add comments with your own corrections facts, and memories. (Vituperative and slanderous comments will be deleted)

In 1994 or so (if I get less lazy, I’ll look into my archives and pinpoint the date) there was Allies in Diversity, a leatherwoman’s conference held in Vancouver. It was put on by KA (must check to see if she’d like to be named here), with an enormous amount of help from volunteers, and attracted queer women from SF, Seattle, Vancouver, and beyond.

Allies in Diversity comprised an entire weekend of workshops, demos, fun, playing, and learning with other women. There were probably about 100 participants.

It was held in a huge private mansion-like home (in the Very Ritzy Area Of Town) that had been gutted of belongings and furniture, and re-decorated for the weekend. There were dungeon-furniture-filled rooms, tarped-off rooms, and theme rooms, and a massage room, and a what-is-your-fantasy area, and a dressup room, where you’d go and borrow fetish/fantasy clothes and then return ‘em.

The *entire* yard and grounds were enclosed in opaque tenting material by a professional firm. One was safe from prying eyes even in the outdoors. The neighbours had all been put on notice that we were having an enormous private family gathering. I can’t imagine what they thought of our “family outfits” as we filed in and out of the tenting at the front gate.

There were security dykes and facilitator dykes, and demo-giving dykes, and how-can-I-help-you dykes, and it was my very first women’s conference, and I almost died from the sheer wonder of it, plus of course I got no sleep at all, because I was involved in the working end as well as the playing end.

I can’t say it was the first ever in Canada, because I’m only speaking for the West Coast (because I’m not always aware of the East Coast’s goings-on), and only speaking of my own community involvement since the early nineties, ’cause before that I was in Vancouver but hadn’t yet come out into the Vancouver Dyke community. So there might be another one that came “first”.

Feel free to add comments with your own corrections facts, and memories. (Vituperative and slanderous comments will be deleted)

http://vancouverleather.com/brideofpride/

The inaugural BoP event was on August 5th, 2006, during the Pride Weekend. It was held at the Anza Club.

Here’s the poster for the first event:

The Bride of Pride collective consists of the following members (in no particular order):

(list to come)

Situated in the middle of Stanley Park, it consisted of 19 floors of theme rooms, one-way glass, and leather-themed amusement-park rides. In 1910, it was torn down to make way for old-growth forest.

Feel free to add comments with your own corrections facts, and memories. (Vituperative and slanderous comments will be deleted)

There’s a bit of biographical info here: (bio)

Feel free to add comments with your own corrections facts, and memories. (Vituperative and slanderous comments will be deleted)

It ran sample events on a yearly basis, and was controlled by a collective consisting of Sample Leatherperson 1 and Sample Leatherperson 2.

Feel free to add comments with your memories of Sample Organization. (Vituperative and slanderous comments will be deleted)

by Elaine Miller

SSC (Safe, Sane and Consensual) is a frequently heard phrase in BDSM communities, and its roots are deeply entwined with a concern for ethics and, more to the point, fair play.

Safe means that even when we play hard, we avoid causing true harm .

Sane means folks don’t play when they’re angry, intoxicated, or otherwise not fully able to determine boundaries, and evaluate risk.

Consensual means that players in a scene have provided each other with knowledgeable and informed consent, and that every participant has the right to stop the scene at any time through use of a safeword or other pre-designated means.

Comments? email talk@elainemiller.com.

SM ORIGIN of RACK: RACK vs. SSC
by Gary Switch

During a discussion of SSC (Safe, Sane, and Consensual) on the TES-Friends list, I proposed RACK (Risk-Aware, Consensual Kink) as an alternative. Here’s my motivation: Nothing’s perfectly safe. Crossing the street isn’t perfectly safe. Remember that it’s technically called “safer sex,” not “safe sex.”

If we want to limit BDSM to what’s safe, we can’t do anything more extreme than flogging somebody with a wet noodle. Mountain climbers don’t call their sport safe, for the simple reason that it isn’t; risk is an essential part of the thrill. They handle it by identifying and minimizing the risk through study, training, technique, and practice.

I believe that this approach will work better for us leatherfolk than claiming that what we do is safe. We want to foster the notion that we develop expertise, that to do what we do properly takes skill developed through a similar process of education, training, and practice.

Negotiation cannot be valid without foreknowledge of the possible risks involved in the activity being negotiated. “Risk-aware” means that both parties to a negotiation have studied the proposed activities, are informed about the risks involved, and agree how they intend to handle them. Hence “risk-aware” instead of “safe.”

The “sane” part of SSC is very subjective. Who’s making the call? Person A might think fisting is insane; persons B and C might enjoy it very much. “Sane” always reminds me of Pat Paulsen’s campaign slogan from the old Smothers Brothers show: “Vote for Paulsen; he’s not insane!” If you go around constantly reassuring folks that you’re not crazy, they’ll start to wonder.  I’ve heard “sane” interpreted as: “able to distinguish fantasy from reality” and “not intoxicated,” which are both perfectly valid, though the latter is similar to the above — you don’t go around constantly reassuring folks that you’re not drunk, either.

“Consensual” is the crux, implying negotiation which implies being able to distinguish fantasy from reality, as well as dealing responsibly with risk factors. If you don’t know the risk factors, if you don’t know what will happen in reality, then you don’t know what you’re consenting to. Meaningful negotiation must always take place on the common ground of consensus reality.

The “kink” part went in to make a snappy acronym and because SSC doesn’t tell you what you should be SSC about. Safe, Sane, and Consensual trout fishing?

Alluding to the rack, an archetypal torture instrument,has been criticized, but to me it signifies our transformation of atrocity into ecstasy, and admits that though we may enjoy some dark fantasies,we realize them harmlessly.

RACK is admittedly more confrontational than SSC. It’s defiant, the same way the GLBT community uses “queer.” RACK allows us the freedom to have non-PC fantasies. Don’t a lot of us enjoy non-consensual fantasies, either from the top side or the bottom side? We enjoy them in our literature; we may very well enjoy them while we play.

But we act them out responsibly and consensually.

******
Permission is granted to reproduce and distribute this essay, as long as it’s reproduced in its entirety and is attributed to: Gary Switch, Contributing Editor, Prometheus magazine, GarySwitch@aol.com.
*****

Abuse temporarily satisfies one person’s need to control or hurt. With no rules or agreed limit, abuse is an uncontrolled act, with out-of-control emotions. A victim of abuse has no rights within the relationship, has no control over when abuse ends, and feels used and hurt afterward. The abuser decides what will happen, and does not respond to the needs, desires or limits of the person they abuse. Abusers mistakenly assume their right to control another by virtue of gender, income, or other similar artificial scale. Done in isolation, a dirty secret, abuse divides relationships and fractures trust.

- Elaine Miller, Feb 2001

Note: The wording and arrangement is of the above piece is in part the product of my own skull-sweat, and much coffee (It’s meant to be the sidebar of a much larger article on BDSM). I read several sources on the web to get some background ideas for this, including LSM NYC’s page, and some of Jay Wiseman’s excellent work. I also, of course, spoke to several players I knew to get feedback, and then wracked my brain to come up with more. If I can think of any more salient points, I’ll weave them in.

This scrap of writing is copyleft (not copyright). That means: take it, copy it, use it freely. Don’t worry about rights, copyright notices, attributions, or links back to this site — unless you’d like to, of course. [grin]

Location: The End Cafe, 2360 Commercial Drive, Vancouver BC

Time: 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm, March 19th, and the third Wednesday of every month.

Location: Boston Pizza, 190-1333 Broadway West, Vancouver BC

Time: 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm, the first Wednesday of every month.

http://vancouverleather.com/brideofpride/