When BDSM Company (皮繩愉虐邦) staged its first public bondage/domination and sadomasochism (BDSM) show in June, two Next Magazine (壹週刊) journalists wrote a report on it using sensational language and unauthorized photographs, questioning whether the performance was “a crime against public decency” (妨害風化).
As part of the Taipei Fringe Festival (台北藝穗節), the same troupe will debut a new theatrical performance titled You Can Be the Kinky Star! (你就是SM片最佳男女主角!) about a group of BDSM enthusiasts auditioning for a BDSM movie. After the NT$500 show, audience members can pay an additional NT$500 to gain hands-on experience with the troupe. Experts will assist participants in arranging and engaging in BDSM performances, and a professional photographer will be on-hand to record it all. The activity is limited to those who have seen the performance.
Members of the company stress that while their performances are theatrical, they are not only about entertainment.
Photo courtesy of BDSM
“We share similarities with theater people in the sense that we are more aware of the limitations our society and culture impose on our bodies,” said Song Jia-lun (宋佳倫), one of the group’s founders. “Theater is a medium, making BDSM more accessible to the general public ... Perhaps through performances, audiences will be more conscious of what limits and represses their bodies and try to break free. We would be happy if audiences stopped seeing [BDSM practitioners] as perverts and pick up an easy trick or two, like tying hands or blindfolding, and tried them at home.”
Founded in 2004 by a group of like-minded people who met on Huakuei Sex (花魁藝色館), a bulletin board which supports the rights of sexual minorities and hosts related discussions, BDSM Company was launched as an activist group for Taiwan’s BDSM community. The group is an active participant in the annual Taiwan Pride Parade. Members have given lectures and held discussions at colleges across the country, building a Chinese-language archive of BDSM-related educational materials on the company’s Web site (www.bdsm.com.tw). Some members, including Song, take a more political approach and work at the Green Party Taiwan (綠黨), which supports sexual diversity.
However, the group’s liberal stand on gender roles in erotic practices sometimes conflicts with BDSM enthusiasts who hold more conservative views, Song says.
“What we do now is focus on changing the negative views outsiders hold on BDSM rather than serving insiders ... Our imagination and understanding of BDSM can be vastly different from many other practitioners,’” she said.
The group holds a talk every month with the aim of raising awareness of BDSM. Anyone is welcome to share their ideas or simply chat and meet people.
“There is no topic or theme,” said Song, who is better known as Shihyeh Queen (十夜女王) in BDSM circles. “What happens, happens. Maybe people will show up with ropes and start giving a bondage lesson. Who knows?”
The monthly gathering takes place every second Saturday of the month at G Straight Cafe (直走咖啡) at 18, Ln 27, Dingzhou Rd, Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市汀州路三段27巷18號). Visit the group’s Web site for updates.
BDSM Company’s productions on Sunday at Nanhai Gallery (南海藝廊) and on Sept. 9 and Sept. 10 at the Comedy Club sold out two weeks ago. If you don’t have tickets, but still want to learn about BDSM, bondage artist Shima Malphas from Japan will perform late tonight and tomorrow (“definitely after 11:30pm,” organizers say) at Show House (秀屋) at 161 Daguan Rd, Greater Taichung (台中市大觀路161號). For more information, call (04) 2251-5888 or visit www.show-house.com.tw.
From the last quarter of 2001, research shows that real housing prices nearly tripled (before a 2012 law to enforce housing price registration, researchers tracked a few large real estate firms to estimate housing price behavior). Incomes have not kept pace, though this has not yet led to defaults. Instead, an increasing chunk of household income goes to mortgage payments. This suggests that even if incomes grow, the mortgage squeeze will still make voters feel like their paychecks won’t stretch to cover expenses. The housing price rises in the last two decades are now driving higher rents. The rental market
Fifty-five years ago, a .25-caliber Beretta fired in the revolving door of New York’s Plaza Hotel set Taiwan on an unexpected path to democracy. As Chinese military incursions intensify today, a new documentary, When the Spring Rain Falls (春雨424), revisits that 1970 assassination attempt on then-vice premier Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). Director Sylvia Feng (馮賢賢) raises the question Taiwan faces under existential threat: “How do we safeguard our fragile democracy and precious freedom?” ASSASSINATION After its retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime under Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) imposed a ruthless military rule, crushing democratic aspirations and kidnapping dissidents from
It looks like a restaurant — but it’s food for the mind. Kaohsiung’s Pier-2 Art Center is currently hosting Comic Bento (漫畫便當店), an immersive and quirky exhibition that spotlights Taiwanese comic and animation artists. The entire show is designed like a playful bento shop, where books, plushies and installations are laid out like food offerings — with a much deeper cultural bite. Visitors first enter what looks like a self-service restaurant. Comics, toys and merchandise are displayed buffet-style in trays typically used for lunch servings. Posters on the walls present each comic as a nutritional label for the stories and an ingredient
Fundamentally, this Saturday’s recall vote on 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers is a democratic battle of wills between hardcore supporters of Taiwan sovereignty and the KMT incumbents’ core supporters. The recall campaigners have a key asset: clarity of purpose. Stripped to the core, their mission is to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty and democracy from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They understand a basic truth, the CCP is — in their own words — at war with Taiwan and Western democracies. Their “unrestricted warfare” campaign to undermine and destroy Taiwan from within is explicit, while simultaneously conducting rehearsals almost daily for invasion,
RSS