Toronto- From www.eyeweekly.com- Five hot dykes rolling up to a church on a Friday night bodes well. What does not is that my two babely dates have out-dressed me eleventy times over. I kind of assumed that the Feminist Porn Awards, held April 24 at the Berkeley Church on Queen Street West, would be a chill kind of night befitting my hand-me-down flannel shirt and cut-offs.
The show is created and hosted by Good For Her, the inclusive Harbord Street sex-toy emporium and I figured that celebrating politically righteous porn would be very granola, very un-AVN. Not so. By 10pm, the church is full of mostly women, who are mostly attractive, in mostly fancy gear. Oops.
As I enter the church, the award for “Most Sensual Scene” is being presented. Though I am aggressively pro-porn and expect the same of most attendees, it remains a little jarring to watch anything explicitly labelled “sensual” in the auditorium setting. Drinks are procured.
CoCo La Crème — a member local burlesque troop Skin Tight Outta Sight and also the porn buyer at Good For Her — shimmies onto the stage/pulpit, which is lit up from behind with a hot red that suggests something infernal. CoCo is all big-titted abandon, dancing with a birthday party’s worth of exuberance.
The next award is for “Steamiest Education Series.” The clip of the winning Red Hot Touch Series does, of course, include some kind of incense, but also some vulva tapping, which is a few degrees of intensity away from some Hustler-style hardcore vag slapping. It’s OK. The actors featured in most of the porn being projected are much, much more attractive than standard porno bros and hos, so a little fey sexing is forgivable.
A presenter onstage laboriously opens the envelope with her mouth. I take a break in the gender-neutral, all-inclusive bathroom. When I get back, emcee Deb “Dirk” Pearce, a DJ on Proud FM radio, yells “Has anyone had sex here?” No response. She asks again. Nothing. Then she shushes the crowd for talking too much. She’ll go on to shame the audience for talking a few more times, effectively boner-killing the otherwise good vibes. “Sex is loud!” yells one of my dates, from the balcony. Word.
Accepting her award, “Heartthrob of the Year” Dylan Ryan tears up at the podium. It’s adorable. Soon after is the Indie Porn Pioneer award, given to Madison Young, [pictured] wearing a brilliant gold mermaid dress slung with ropes. The award (from a distance it looks like a glass butt plug?) is hidden in the little shorts of the Boylesque dancers and the mermaid crawls around and on them looking for it. “Does anyone have any lube?” she asks, from her hands and knees. One of the matching Vin Diesels beside me yells “Spank him!”
An extended dance number by Daddy K and the Rhythm Method happens, and covers a breadth of saucy set-ups (involving Mormons; a mechanic; a slumber party). Sports bras are in full effect. I want CoCo back. Happily, EYE WEEKLY Love Bites columnist Sasha is up next. Hot shit in animal print, she rescues the stage from the shusher and intros the winner of the movie of the year, saying it’s “the best porn film I have ever seen. And I have seen a lot of fucking porn films.” Champion (directed by Shine Louise Houston) wins, and the cast climbs onto the stage and into a truly porny display: while the star of the movie is accepting the award, there’s one mouth on her front-side and one on her back. Maybe now someone will fuck in the bathroom.