India Das-Brown

Mistress Ayverie perches on the plush black throne in her dungeon. Photo Victoria Vervelsky

India Das-Brown & Anya Tchernikov,
Local Journalism Initiative

Is sex work art? Those who live it every day can provide some answers

Mistress Ayverie greets us in a silk robe at the entrance of her dungeon with a hug and, later, cups of mint tea.

A professional dominatrix, musician, hypnotist and bonafide sadist, Ayverie has set up a cozy space with cushions, candles and incense in a corner of her dungeon, where we sit and ask her what initially drew her to the career of a professional dominatrix.

“I knew you’d ask that. Of course,” she laughs, and launches into a description of her younger, naive former self with no BDSM background, who was intrigued by the concept of dominance.

Initially introduced to the scene when she joined a website for dating wealthy men, Ayverie was often asked by men on the site if she was “dominant.”

“I always immediately said yes without question. I didn’t have to think about it,” Ayverie recalls. “But that got me thinking, obviously, ‘What do they mean by that?’”

From that point on, Ayverie began to explore how she could become a professional dominatrix. 

“[Domination] was fun for me, but I had no idea what the ramifications were psychologically when delving into this play,” Ayverie says, describing what is known as “top space,” where the dominant gets a rush or high from the feeling of power. 

“I could be dark, whereas in normal life that would be unacceptable, especially for a woman,” she says. 

Ayverie began to fly back and forth between Montreal and New York to attend BDSM workshops. Shortly thereafter, she connected with a mentor in Los Angeles, where she enrolled in a dominatrix academy run by Mistress Damiana Chi, who holds a PhD in clinical psychology.

“I honestly thought it was going to be easy to become a dominatrix,” Ayverie says as she pours us tea from a little pot. “Couldn’t be further from the truth. […] It was like six months of intensive training, essentially.”

Ayverie describes the fluid and artistic nature of domination. When she first watched Chi embody the strong goddess energy of the dominatrix, Ayverie was almost brought to tears by the empowerment. 

“It was so beautiful to see and so elegant and not really what I expected,” she says.

Now, after spending much time reading books and attending another dominatrix academy, this time in Montreal, Ayverie feels she is at the point where she gets to play freely with her own creative flavour as a dominatrix. As a musician and performer, she explores musicality in her sessions. She also plans to mix performative art and video art with her music and BDSM in the future.

Having studied clinical hypnotherapy, Ayverie also integrates BDSM as a powerful healing modality, with both erotic and general hypnosis being common kinks in the BDSM community.

“When you understand a submissive’s psychology, or even just a kinkster’s psychology, it’s really easy to break them,” she laughs.

BDSM is like adult playtime, according to Ayverie. Her dungeon, equipped with a plush black throne, a large cage and a row of floggers, paddles and whips, among other toys and equipment, is like a dark and kinky playground for those who are of legal age.

“[BDSM] is inherently creative because we are playing with fantasy, imagination and literal toys,” Ayverie says. “There are endless ways to be creative as a domme, especially because every play partner is different.”

For Ayverie, her work is performance art, but it’s not performative in the sense that it feels like acting or role play―it’s also real, raw and at times surreal.

“Essentially what you’re doing as a dominatrix is you’re creating this world,” she says. “It’s like another dimension that [the sub] enters. […] You slowly take away their old reality, their old self, like stripping it down layer by layer until they’re nothing. And then you kind of own their mind in that time.”

Ayverie’s work also plays with taboo and creates a safe space for things that generally bring the sub shame. This space allows clients to feel seen for who they truly are at their core. 

“It’s this energy of this container that you’re creating,” Ayverie says. “We enter it and we play and dance in that container. And at the end, you slowly bring them back to reality. […] You’re exposing them and it’s scary for them, but ultimately they feel held and they feel safe.”

While Ayverie considers her work as a dominatrix to be an art, other sex workers feel that their work is labour done for financial survival.

“You can find art in horniness,” says Blaire Monroe, an escort who was granted a pseudonym for safety concerns, “but taking something that is unequivocally like a job, it’s kind of like if you walked up to a construction worker and you were like, ‘Isn’t construction work kind of art?’ It’s like, sure, architecture is, but that’s not what I’m doing.” 

Monroe previously worked in a trans-only brothel and has since switched to seeing a private list of “johns,” or clients who seek out prostitutes.

“Classifying those practices of burlesque or queer club performance or sex work is deeply marginalizing and dangerous,” Monroe says. “[Saying] ‘It’s art’ is deeply fetishistic and gentrifying.”

Wolf Storme, who was also granted a pseudonym for safety concerns, has experience selling sexual pictures, videos and clips, but now works primarily as a burlesque performer in Montreal.

“For a lot of people, I think [sex work] is a lot more about survival,” Storme says, “but I was able to make it into art.”

The classification of sex work as art is a hot topic in the contemporary art world, with Anna Uddenberg’s famous work Continental Breakfast making the rounds. The exhibit consists of women dressed as flight attendants walking through a gallery space, with velvet rope tied between the audience and upside-down chairs. The women sit on the chairs behind the velvet rope, in unmistakably erotic positions, face down, ass up, facing the spectator.

Sexuality is endlessly fashionable and risqué in the art world, but Monroe wonders what is done beyond the institutional usage of its aesthetics. With this in mind, she argues that we must ask if the art made about this subject is a sanitized perspective on what modern, digital and sometimes aggressive sexualization does.

For Monroe, it’s unpopular but necessary to talk about the nature of a culture that sells sex and puts workers in harm’s way without acknowledging why clients seek them out in the first place.

“Everyone exists within a tapestry; you can’t be completely devoid of art,” Monroe says. “When you look at the porn industry as art […] they used to be artistic products, now they’re just kind of like jerk-off material. […] What a man wants out of a sex worker is highly influenced by the art of the porn industry. And, what I have to contend with, and do daily, is influenced by art and culture that is happening.”

In a world where sex work is inevitable—at times a survival practice, at times therapeutic and at other times an art—one thing remains clear: safety, professionalism and open discourse are paramount.

“My work is here to […] empower and heal people to be in balance and to be fully expressed, and envision the life of their dreams,” Ayverie says as we finish the last of our tea. “I’ve had a challenging background in my life, as most people do, and what I’m doing right now is building my dream life. And then I’m able to say to other people […] that you can have your dream life too.”

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 4, published October 22, 2024.

Graphic Jude M

India Das-Brown,
Local Journalism Initiative

Evolutionary insight into female sexuality

Before studying evolutionary psychology, I believed that people who claim women are more sexually fluid than men held one of three reasons.

These reasons were: women wanting to feel a part of the norm; men wanting to normalise their expectations of threesomes with two women, but not with another man; or women wanting to express their attraction to other women without facing the societal repercussions of coming out as gay. 

Indeed any of these may be true, and it is true that many feminist and gender scholars view gender and sexual orientation as social constructs. However, it is also true that empirical science provides contrasting evidence.

“Pure social constructivism is… deeply problematic,” writes psychology professor Dr. Lisa Diamond in Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire. 

“As a feminist, I champion its emphasis on the social, political, and cultural factors that structure women’s experiences. Yet as a psychologist interested in the links between mind and body, I am frustrated by the fact that pure social constructionism discounts the role of bodies and biological processes in sexual experience,” she writes.

Like Diamond, I view sexual feelings and experiences as influenced by both the society around us and our biology, and that research in this area should combine the two perspectives.

Perhaps sexual fluidity in women is a conditional adaptation, like how our skin forms calluses in rough conditions but stays smooth in gentler environments—allowing for heterosexual behaviour in specific circumstances and homosexual behaviour in others.

Recent literature reflects growing recognition that male and female homosexuality may have different evolutionary origins, and the diverse forms of non-heterosexuality in women may result from specific evolutionary and developmental processes.

As defined by Diamond, sexual fluidity encompasses the range of stimuli and circumstances that evoke a sexual response in an individual. 

Eye-tracking studies indicate that men often quickly focus their attention on nude images of their preferred sex, immediately identifying these images as sexual.

On the other hand, women exhibit attention towards these images related to both preferred and non-preferred sexes, perceiving both categories as sexual. In fact, most women who identify as heterosexual experience genital arousal when exposed to erotic imagery of other women. 

Put simply, women exhibit greater sexual fluidity than men.

Evolutionary theorists face the task of demonstrating why a significant proportion of women experience attractions toward other women, and why these attractions may fluctuate over time within individuals. 

Until around the age of 18, humans place the primary burden of their caloric expenses and development on their parents, with additional support coming from an ‘alloparenting’ network. This network includes extended family and community members who also contribute to their upbringing.

In the case of an absent or unreliable father, the child’s survival is compromised due to lesser support, and it may be beneficial for their mother to form a close relationship with another woman as opposed to raising her child alone. 

Infanticide occurs frequently in nonhuman animals, as well as in humans, where a stepfather is 120 times more likely to commit infanticide than a biological father. 

A woman with existing offspring would benefit from avoiding contact with other males who may commit infanticide in favour of relationships with other women, who are more likely to show a nurturing response toward her child.

In Australia, almost 37 per cent of incarcerated women identified as lesbian or bisexual, versus four per cent in the population in 2019. However, the percentage of male inmates identifying as gay or bisexual, at 5.5 per cent, did not surpass the proportion of gay and bisexual men in the general population.

Knowing this, it is fair to argue that being incarcerated isn’t what leads inmates to identify as non-heterosexual. Rather, a unique blend of biological, psychological, and social factors might be linked to natural reproductive and life strategies in non-heterosexual women. 

These “fast life history strategies” are characterized by energetic resource prioritization toward mating and other risky behaviours, rather than towards maintenance or parenting. 

It is important to note that despite the potential costs of faster life history strategies, such as risk-taking, substance use, and poorer health outcomes, they might still make sense from an evolutionary point of view. This is because they can lead to reduced time between the birth of one child and the conception of the next child. This leads to more surviving offspring, especially in modern developed societies where child mortality is low. 

Evidence from Italian and Australian studies indicate that non-heterosexual women indeed tend to have lower reproductive success compared to their heterosexual counterparts. However, the Italian study found this disadvantage can be balanced out by having more children over time.

It could also be that women are attracted to other women because there aren’t strong evolutionary reasons against it.  Factors like men placing low importance on intimacy and competing with other men for mates might also result in minimal pressure against genes that make women’s sexual orientation flexible or changeable. 

These evolutionary pressures have less effect with a fluid sexuality, but get stronger as someone leans more towards being exclusively attracted to the same sex. So, a pattern emerges where most women are mostly into the opposite sex, but a smaller group are only attracted to the same sex.

The topic of evolution and variance in human female-female sexual expression is complicated.

This is because of the lack of relevant terminology developed in many cultures and, by extension, because women having sex with women have been marginalized by historical perspectives that discredit female sexual diversity. 

Here, the importance of understanding the evolutionary origins and implications of human female sexual fluidity becomes clear.

“For those of us who question, your whole life becomes a question,” writes Diamond. “Do you then reach some level of understanding, and then it’s static? I don’t think so.”

This article originally appeared in Volume 44, Issue 13, published April 2, 2024.

Science, art and drag collided at Concordia’s 4th Space. Photo India Das-Brown

India Das-Brown,
Local Journalism Initiative

Mitochondrial Drama was at once campy, raunchy, poetic and dreamy

If you’ve never seen a theatre soirée about mitochondria, expect campy costumes, partial nudity, power top organelles and torrents of drama.

Mitochondrial Drama presented all that and more on Sept. 10 at Concordia’s 4th Space in the JW McConnell Building.

“We urge you to think beyond theoretical notions of ‘peace’ and invest time into how science can be used for collective liberation, and not-for-profit seeking ventures,” host Spencer Dorsey said, before introducing the afternoon’s first act, Annie Thao Vy Nguyen. Nguyen, a Concordia student, shared their poem and audiovisual texture, “A Gentle Sprawl.”

Nguyen sat cross-legged as they meditated on the cycles of creation and dissolution, juxtaposing the micro and the macro, from the cell to the landscape.

The poem was followed by a roller-skating clown—the charmingly ditzy Bombalurina (Lumi Mitton). Following this, Beau James delivered a fierce and raunchy performance as Nyx Tamère, or, as proclaimed by Dorsey, “Mitochondria! Power top of the cell!”

Concordia students Grace Stamler and Michelle Shuman presented their short experimental film, “Amorphisms II.” The film explored trance states, where the barrier between being and the universe breaks down. “Amorphisms II” used experimental video to document the smallest and most formless expressions of being: eggs and cells.

Thereafter, Montreal-based drag king Madeleine (Kris Macheque) gave a delightfully stumbling, bumbling, Saran-wrapped performance, embodying a marvelous amoeba. 

Diün Macdonald presented their 5-minute film “Egg Me,” exploring the delicate balance between fragility and resilience embodied by the egg. The film’s nebulous imagery and ghostly narration framed a hypnotic dreamscape.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” said Macdonald, who has an arts rather than science background at Concordia. “I didn’t even know what an egg would look like under the microscope. I didn’t have any expectations, but it was just really funny, fun, and slimy, and super explorative.”

Dorsey closed the show with a fresh, romping drag performance of their own.

Concordia students Zoe Katz, Kathleen Hon and Anna Tchernikov co-organized the afternoon.

“We were really interested in how arts, and in this case, performance arts, can be a medium for translating science,” Katz said. “That comes from being a PhD student and really being broken down by how rough academia can be in terms of access barriers.”

Katz wanted to coordinate an event to talk about science in a more human, grounded and approachable way.

“There’s this notion that science is something that happens somewhere beyond [our] understanding […] that findings just materialize,” she said. “A face-to-face interaction really helps ground what science is, what it’s about, who does it.”

Katz has more ideas for how to merge art and science, including a rave with sounds derived from microbial sources.

“Imagine raving to a mitochondria signature and just fucking it up on the dance floor,” she said. “The possibilities are endless.”

The atmosphere is vibrant with celebration of queer nightlife at LATEX. Photo Dorothy Mombrun

India Das-Brown,
Local Journalism Initiative

At LATEX., hedonism is celebrated, and safety and consent are prioritized

On a recent Friday night, just shy of 1,000 people clad in black, leather and lace came together in the heart of Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles. 

They gathered in fervent anticipation of another night of lust, communion and joyful pride at LATEX.

Since its inception in 2022, LATEX. has made a name for itself as Montreal’s filthiest rave, drawing inspiration from the vibrant energy of Berlin’s famously sex-positive techno spaces.

“[People see] the smoking section, they’re like, what the fuck is going on?” laughed Jeanne Dorais, co-organizer and self-described “legal guardian” of LATEX. 

The most recent edition of LATEX. was a celebration of the Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) community, with only SWANA performers and DJs present. This was the third SWANA edition hosted by LATEX., the first being in July 2023.

Beyond the mystique of its attendees’ nightlife outfits, the rave has established itself as a versatile environment with unique spaces. The BDSM dungeon, with its kinky furniture and toys, is a beloved feature, along with watching onstage performers to a backdrop of throbbing techno and the unifying, ritualistic energy of the dance floor. 

Compared to the polished, vanilla energy of professional, daytime life, LATEX.’s raw but sexy countercultural atmosphere fosters a liberating atmosphere.

“I spent the whole night slapping asses,” said dungeon monitor Goddess Ges, describing her first-ever LATEX. gig where she was initially hired as a professional dominatrix in the rave’s early days.

But Ges’s responsibilities comprise more than just slapping asses and tying people to her St. Andrew’s cross. 

“My responsibilities are to make sure that everything is safe,” Ges said. “To make sure every play scene is done in a consensual way, [and] is done safely.”

Ges has curated the dungeon at LATEX., ornamented with floggers, riding crops, a St. Andrew’s cross and bondage furniture where she gives people a space to experiment. This is different from her usual dungeon work, where she focuses on the submissive. 

“A lot of people see [BDSM] as a bad thing,” Ges said. “When I worked [at LATEX.] as a domme, I didn’t really have control on what we were sharing with the people. I was just there to be a dominatrix and do what I do the best. But now I also instruct the people working with me. It really helps me to just [show] the world the way BDSM should be done.”

LATEX. has strict regulations surrounding dress code and behaviour. Before entering, staff place circular stickers, with “LATEX.” written in its signature hot pink, on the front and back of patrons’ smartphones, covering their cameras. Snapping a photo in the club can get you thrown out after a first-offence warning.

“It’s the only way we can keep control and make it a safe space,” Dorais said. “We want everyone to feel understood, respected, safe, included.”

LATEX. was founded by Taher Gargouri, a Montreal-based DJ and rave curator. Gargouri spent about a year living in Berlin, staying there intermittently for five to six months at a time. Whilst cities like Berlin have relatively accessible routes into the BDSM community through sex clubs and raves, the scene in Montreal lacks space for a younger, BIPOC, queer crowd, according to Dorais.

“There aren’t many spaces like there are in Berlin that are very inclusive. It felt like in the Montreal scene, the fetish scene or the kink scene in Montreal was very white, a bit older, very heteronormative,” Dorais said. “[That] was the idea, to bring that kind of [Berlin] vibe and make it happen in Montreal, and create a safe space for BIPOC, queer people to explore that very fun and kinky way of enjoying raving and music.”

This is where LATEX. comes in—a rave that creates a sex-positive atmosphere, without any obligation to join in with the kink. It’s a place where the focus is on expression and community. For kink newbies, it’s an opportunity to meet like-minded people and learn the ropes of safety and consent. For others, whether they’re experienced in BDSM or just looking to dress up and enjoy the atmosphere, it’s a fun and welcoming space to be themselves.

Rowan Steele, who was granted a pseudonym due to the nature of their occupation, attended their first LATEX. event nearly one and a half years ago, and has only missed one event since.

“In my first experience [at LATEX.], I was a little bit intimidated, even as someone who has unlearned a lot of sexual shame and who’s very confident and comfortable in their own skin,” said Steele, who commutes from Ottawa to Montreal for each event. 

“My first LATEX. experience really taught me that [kink spaces] are places of belonging, curiosity, experimentation and exposure to new sensations and feelings that can actually also encourage figuring out what you like and what feels good.”

For Steele, the fashion side of LATEX. is just as meaningful as everything else. They and their friends plan their outfits weeks in advance of the events.

“I love getting ready just as much as I love being there,” Steele said, “and just figuring out how we can best feel good in our bodies and serve a look, which kind of lends itself to the deliciousness that LATEX. creates.

There’s something simultaneously exciting, vulnerable and sincere about being near nude and sexually visible in a space where everyone else is in the same boat. Compared to other clubs that are primarily dominated by the male gaze and nightlife that does not always feel safe, LATEX. is like a sensual embrace.

“I’ve never been to a party where so many people just kind of walk up to you and ask with so much politeness and consent, like, ‘Can I make out with you?’” Steele laughed. “People are very caring and considerate, and that helps me come out of my shell and focus on connecting instead of protecting. […] I just think LATEX. is a really important part of my journey when it comes to feeling good in my body and reclaiming my sexual autonomy on my own terms.”

LATEX. has partnered with GRIP, a nonprofit that encourages safer drug use practices, and Équijustice, an organization focused on mediating conflicts, cyber crime, harassment, intimate violence and mistreatment.

“Every single party in the city has had situations that either made someone uncomfortable or made a mistake. When you have that many people on substances in one building partying, there are always things to learn,” said Syana Barbara, one of LATEX.’s resident DJs. “One thing I do want to give props to LATEX. for is that they’ve always listened to their crowd […] and actively take the criticism, whether good or bad, and say, ‘OK, we’re gonna make sure at the next party it doesn’t happen.’”

While LATEX. is known for its unbridled energy, throbbing techno and unapologetic, kinky celebration, it is also a political collective.

“A huge majority of the nightlife scene is conducting normal business in total silence as if nothing is happening,” Dorais said. “A major change has to strike the status quo. […] There’s no room for Zio[nist]s, genocide apologists or both-sides neutrality in our events.”

“Celebrating SWANA culture and uplifting our community means the world to us,” read a recent LATEX. Instagram post. 

LATEX. is more than just a rave. For the community, the message on the event’s website is clear: “We are here, we are queer, and we are FREE.”

This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 4, published October 22, 2024.