by Dr. Susan Block

Freedom is the greatest aphrodisiac, but restraint is a close second. It’s one of the many ironies of sex that some of the freest people get off on giving up their freedom—consensually, of course. They may be turned on by being “forced” to experience things that they really want but don’t feel free to receive unless they’re restrained. They may be aroused by struggling against the restraints or surrendering as they enter “sub space.” This is one of the bedrock principles of BDSM.

Another principle is theater. BDSM (Bondage & Discipline, Dominance & Submission, Sado-Masochism) is dramatic, and I don’t mean Fifty Shades of Holy Crap drama; I mean the living theater of intimate power exchange, the potent poetry of mixing pleasure with pain as you play—with an audience. This show’s guests of honor are masters of BDSM play. So it’s natural that they’re now creating “plays,” i.e., theatrical entertainments spotlighting the drama of BDSM, engaging in themes of passion (the latin passio means “to suffer”), intimacy, discovery, healing, consensuality and control.

BDSM Master Orpheus Black, one of the most respected—and theatrical—leaders in Southern California’s BDSM community, now spearheading SexPositive World’s “People of Color” subgroup, is a master of this type of performance play. So I’m happy to have him back on DrSuzy.Tv (past appearances include Gun Shots or Cum Shots: Sex & Violence in American Media and Monogamy Sucks) to promote Mènage Á Trois, in a sensuous interactive performance piece playing this Tuesday in the Anonymous Theater, as well as his other work in polyamory and BDSM sex education.

My other featured guests are the radiant Goddess Soma Snakeoil, editor/publisher of DDI (soon to publish “The Bonobo Way of Female Power”!) and BDSM-loving punk rock superstar Mike Burkett, a.k.a., “Fat Mike” of NoFX, who just wrote a brand new musical, Home Street Home, a masterpiece of BDSM theater. Check out the soundtrack and you’ll hear what I mean. It’ll get you dancing, thinking, singing and even spanking right along with it. Home Street Home tops Rent and joins the ranks of Yellow Submarine, Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Tommy, American Idiot, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and The Rocky Horror Picture Show as one of the best rock musicals ever. With deliciously catchy tunes, dark hilarity, fearless topicality and a remarkable depth of vision, it effectively dramatizes how BDSM can be a form of erotic/artistic expression that can heal the wounds of childhood, even those wounds that are horrifically inflicted by the people we trust the most.

Pretty awesome featured guests, huh? The only problem is that when the show starts, they’re not here. Busy superstars that they are, all three of them—and their entourages—are running a little late. AND I’m short-staffed. But it’s a live show, and it must go on. Fortunately, the lovely Audrey Holiday is here, right on time, and so is Thai Chy, one of the poets in Orpheus’ Mènage Á Trois play. She delivers a sensuous BDSM-themed poem, “Tale of a Throb,” turning the Womb Room into a old-style coffee house. We also talk about her day job as a colon hydro-therapist, which reminds me to shout-out Carrie Weisman who interviewed me for her article on how to make anal sex more pleasurable which appeared in Alternet that morning. It’s all about that bass.

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