Sex Shows
It may have been the radio or something in a local urban newspaper that took me to my first Sex Show; it was such a long time ago I just don’t remember. And when I say sex show, I’m not talking about people fucking on stage or the intimate corners of an exclusive club but rather a trade show where vendors of all sorts come together to sell their goods and services. It’s something like the auto-show but with neon-coloured dildos.
I find myself going alone most of the time, sometimes by choice but sometimes not — as I like to say, I go to see if there is anything new when it comes to sex. As you can imagine, there never is. What it can offer though is a perspective on what is “trending”. At the last show kink had found its stride with its own section and workshops on tying knots and I was a little surprised that swinger home parties had become a viable service. There is something comfortably ordinary about a Sex Show as you watch ordinary people wandering around doing ordinary things like picking up silicon dildos as if they were avocados in a grocery store. I am sure there are some like me who are there for the voyeurism, but I suspect most are looking to be a little provocative or naughty with thoughts of wearing latex or buying a butt plug.
As I pointed out, I go to Sex Shows to get a feel for shifts in mainstream appetites and simply watch, but I also go for the artists and the art they create. They are always in the minority, and sometimes hard to find on the floor map, but well worth searching out.
My erotic art collection is humble and began at a sex show — erotic artists don’t always find their way to a Sex Show which is one of those trends I referred to but when they do, you can find some of the most beautiful interpretations of the human body, sexuality, and most importantly, sensuality. A photograph of a beautifully laced corset ending in big bow covering her bottom, a wooden panel with carvings of the Kama Sutra, water colours of fishnet stockings that look like a photograph and a complex-coloured glass dildo that is more about art than function — all part of my collection. I suppose my erotic literature collection is an extension of this, it’s also humble but is curated with a desire to understand the human experience. Sex Shows, erotic art shows, sex workshops, erotic art and erotic literature have always captured my interest from the moment I purchased my first erotic novel — the story of a man and a woman having a conversation over the phone and sharing their personal experiences; not overly sexual but intimate.
Sex in crass mechanical terms involves cocks or mouths or cunts or asses in a multitude of combinations but sensuality is intimate, and it’s this intimacy that is the attraction for me — the sharing of desire, the vulnerability of surrender and the conversations that only happen between lovers. The art and the literature are simply expressions of these intimacies, and because I am particularly tactile, it gives me an opportunity to touch and hold and feel the sensuality of others.
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Photo: Pixabay
