OTTAWA - Ottawa residents lined up over the weekend to see Sexapalooza, which is believed to be the first large-venue sex exhibition ever held in Canada's capital city.
The commonly held belief that Ottawa residents are uptight and prefer vanilla sex was disproved by attendees' rapt attention during an onstage BDSM show held at the Lansdowne Park venue, where local dominatrix Miss Jenn whipped a compliant male sub, then dressed a scantily clad woman in pony-girl gear.
Featuring about 40 vendors of adult products and services, sex-education seminars and racy onstage entertainment, Sexapalooza is the brainchild of Liz Lewis, an eastern Ontario mother of three. Lewis has published issues of the glossy BDSM magazine Whiplash and now runs the online BDSM retailer Black-Kat.ca and a retail adult store in Peterborough, Ontario.
"I've been an exhibitor at adult shows for the past 10 years, all of which have been in western Canada," Lewis told ANB. "It occurred to me that no one was doing these shows in the east. Well, since I know quite a lot about this business myself, I sat down, wrote a business plan and got Sexapalooza launched."
Ottawa's strong turnout for Sexapalooza can be credited to Lewis' extensive advertising in local print media and on morning radio, supported by prize giveaways. Pre-show media response was generally positive and was helped by Sexapalooza being positioned as an upscale, fun event with a female focus.
"Sixty percent of people who go to sex shows are female," Lewis explained.
Sexapalooza will make its second run from Feb. 29-March 2 in Hamilton, a major city just west of Toronto. If the show in Hamilton goes as well as the one in Ottawa, Lewis said, more Sexapaloozas will be held in 2009.
"This shows are a great way for adult vendors to reach shy people who are not comfortable coming into their stores," she said. "Once they have seen that shopping in an adult venue is fun and non-threatening, they're more likely to go to adult stores later on."
