In a second-floor studio on Augusta Avenue several weeks ago, I sat with 20-odd others, on the floor, wiggling my toes. We were fully clothed, facing each other with legs outstretched, touching our partners with the soles of our feet. We were playing a kind of tantric Ping Pong, trying to transfer energy back and forth between our bodies while an instructor walked between us, swinging his arms wildly to emphasize the energetic flow. There were a few gasps, the occasional groan, a giggle. A girl a few feet from me began to pant, then moan, then scream in delight. Her orgasmic noises filled the room. She hit her peak with a final scream, then collapsed backwards, exhausted.

Welcome to Sacred Sexuality Tuesdays. Run by Atia Marie, a friendly blonde lady with a penchant for flowing clothes, Sacred Sexuality Tuesdays are a weekly opportunity for those of a more mystical persuasion to bring a bit of spirituality into the sack. They are one of a number of projects from Toronto’s Sexual Awakening Centre, which was co-founded by Marie four years ago to link sex education and personal growth. According to Marie, we’re here to “practise expanding our capacity to love and connect with ourselves, others, and the divine,” which sounds ambitious for a 90-minute class. The small studio was crowded with the standard mix of people attending a Toronto sex workshop: younger women with interesting hair, older men with boring hair, couples, students, and a recovering Catholic or two. About a third seemed heavily into spirituality, and were already acquainted.

The good turnout was probably due to the evening’s guest instructors, Reid Mihalko, a sex educator and self-confessed “sex geek” from Oakland, and San Diego’s Monique Darling, who runs a company called Divine Interludes that offers sessions to integrate mind, body, and soul through services like spiritual butt massage. They seem to be somewhat famous in tantric circles. The evening’s class focused on connecting through sexual energy—Mihalko and Darling wanted us to make each other resonate like wine glasses.

But first there was the small matter of relaxing our sphincters. With tongues hanging out of our mouths, we collectively drew a deep breath and let out a long, sphincter-loosening aaaaah. According to Mihalko, this activates the vagus nerve, which has a role in—as he puts it—“a shit-ton of stuff,” including orgasm.

Because time was limited (a martial arts group booked the studio for 9 p.m. and word was they were sticklers for punctuality) we skipped the theory and dove into the practical.

My friend for the evening—let’s call her Jasmine—was a young lady with a gorgeous curly Afro. She’s something of a veteran at this sort of thing and has been what she terms “energetically aware” all her life. We ended up doing the feet-touching thing before we’d even exchanged names. Jasmine seemed to get into the groove and started swaying gently, presumably with the energy flowing between us. In truth, I didn’t feel much and couldn’t help noticing that other people were groaning a lot more than us. I started to wonder if we had a faulty connection. Perhaps my socks were blocking the energy, or maybe I should have worn natural fibres.

I fared better on the last exercise, seated back to back with Jasmine. We were encouraged to visualize opening a door behind our hearts and our bellies to connect with one another. Then we were instructed to concentrate on opening our sacral chakra (which is ostensibly located at the base of the spine and oversees sexuality) by visualizing it. Perhaps it was because I woke at 5 a.m. to go to the gym and spent the rest of the day rewarding myself with caffeine, but I began to feel a light-headedness, a fuzzy feeling in my stomach, and I started to visualize pretty colours. Then we opened our root chakras, which are in the perineum, by spreading roots into the earth and up into our partner. Sadly, Jasmine began to move her head, tickling my neck with her impressive quantity of hair. The colours and fuzziness vanished and I spent the next minute trying not to giggle.

On the way home, there was a delay on the subway and the train, when it came, was crammed. Pressed up against the back of another passenger, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the TTC should ditch its expansion plans and instead invest the money in a campaign to get us all to open our chakras.

Sacred Sexuality Tuesdays, 7:15 p.m., 64 Oxford St. (entrance on Augusta Ave.), $20. Sexualawakeningcentre.com.

The bar was forever raised for indecent graffiti last week, when news broke that NASA had successfully carved a giant cock and balls into the dusty surface of Mars. Surprisingly, this startling artistic achievement was quickly downplayed as the unintentional by-product of the Mars rover turning around. NASA scientists are clearly bashful types, but they should be proud of their interplanetary doodle—not least because I’ve recently come to realize how difficult it is to create a decent replica of a penis.

I’ve just spent the last two days attempting to make a passable approximation of an erect member, with a newly available casting kit called The Understudy that I picked up for $50 at Come As You Are. The Understudy is the latest, hottest thing in DIY dildo making, and promises to “make an exact vibrating copy of any penis or dildo.” DIY dildo kits have been on the market for a while, but The Understudy is among the first to be free of dodgy chems called phthalates, which have been linked to various cancers and hormone problems (meaning you should probably keep them out of your body cavities).

According to Jack Lamon, an owner-worker at Come As You Are, DIY sex toys in general are more popular, but personalized dildo kits really get people going. “We get people absolutely desperate for them,” he says.

Come As You Are is marketing The Understudy as a ”remember-me-by,” which gives me visions of a penis enthusiast whipping out their casting kit whenever they come across a particularly fine specimen. Lamon disabuses me of this idea. “Some folks get them to replicate their boyfriends before they go on a long journey,” he says. “I’ve also seen people make things like cucumber dildos.”

In experienced hands, one of these kits can be used to create the Platonic ideal of a penis—a mould that has bumps and ridges in all the right places. But Lamon advises the novice dildo caster to start simple, possibly with a veggie, or by replicating an existing individual’s endowment. Initially, I was inclined to go down the veggie route, but my fridge offered up only a bag of baby carrots and a squash. So I decided to use the closest penis at hand.

From its packaging, The Understudy gives the impression that dildo creation is something you could do as foreplay. “Ready in minutes—just add water” it cheerfully declares, which is true if you consider 26.5 hours to be minutes. Dildo making is actually a seven-stage procedure involving a bag of moulding powder, a tub of liquid rubber, a tub of something called liquid skin, a spatula, a thermometer and about 20 centimetres of duct tape. You mix the powder with water in the large tube provided, stick your penis of choice into it for two minutes to create a mould, wait a few hours, add rubber and skin, toss in the supplied motor unit, wait about a day, and, voilà, a dildo.

Timing, however, is of the essence, a point rammed home by the instructions, which scream lines like “You’ll need to be ready to insert your penis quickly! DON’T HESITATE!” in bold. My hasty cutting and pouring and mixing—while simultaneously trying to keep the necessary sexy thoughts in my head—created the kind of dust clouds normally seen at a construction site.

Two minutes is a very long time when you have a delicate body part inserted in a tube of a substance that feels like pancake batter. It allows you to ponder questions like: Did I mix the stuff right? What if it gets stuck? Does OHIP cover sex toy–related injuries?

Mercifully, a trip to Toronto General wasn’t required, and I proceeded through the remaining steps: filling the mould with rubber/skin mix, and some distinctly MacGyver-esque business involving chopping up bits of cardboard to hold a vibrator motor in place. After waiting 24 hours for it to set, my first artisanal dildo rolled off the production line.

I’m putting the unexpected nobbly bits down to problems with mixing the moulding paste. It’s also of the wrong ethnicity (I’m white, but the store was out of “vanilla” so I had to go for “coffee” instead). All in all, though, I have a palpable sense of achievement.

Of course, the question remains what to do with my new racially incongruent dildo, since deploying it during sex seems creepily egotistical. It’s currently consigned to paperweight duty on my desk, though I haven’t ruled out decorating it. I wonder if there’s a market for handmade ornamental dildos?

Michele Cauch passes a banana and condoms around the tables and tells her students to work in pairs. One person is in charge of holding the banana; the other puts the condom on it. She ignores the snickers and jokes—what’s important is that participants perfect the fine art of putting a condom on a penis. When the class ends there are dozens of questions:

“How can I bring more foreplay into the bedroom?”

“What can I do to attract women?”

“How do I deal with erectile dysfunction?”

In addition to their interest in sex, the 20 men and women at this session have one thing in common: They are all senior citizens. This session is one of a series of sex-education workshops targeting older adults and seniors that Cauch hosts around the Toronto area—workshops designed to address the taboos associated with seniors and sex. Despite the fact that we live in a sexually permissive society, most people don’t accept or don’t even know that seniors are having sex.

“It’s amazing how resistant we are to the idea of senior sexuality,” says Cauch, the 43-year-old executive director of SageHealth Network, a company dedicated to senior sexual health. “The misconception is that they physically cannot have sex, they choose not to have sex, or that they are not aroused by their partner. But they’re still perfectly capable of having sexually satisfying relationships.”

In fact, Cauch says, having sex as a senior can be just as good, if not better, than having sex when you’re young.

“As you get older, you learn to accept your body and accept yourself, and you’re better able to communicate to your partner,” says Cauch. “You learn to explore all of sexuality, and you’re more open to different forms of sexuality more than just penetration and orgasm.”

Cauch says that, when you’re older, sex is a lot more sensual. In her workshop, she addresses caressing, hand-holding, kissing, massaging, and mutual masturbation.

Michael Gordon, a University of Toronto professor and geriatrician, says the idea that sexual interest decreases with age has more to do with social and cultural factors than actual biology.

“Although in some people it wanes with age like many things, many people at later ages continue to have robust sexual activity,” Gordon says. “That means it’s not built into the species that sexuality has to end with age.”

Like Cauch, Gordon says sex as a senior can be just as satisfying. “There were people who had terrible sexual lives when they were younger and when they’re older, they finally meet the right partner.”

Cauch says she’s always been interested human sexuality, and what she calls the unusual topics in life. “I like to do things not many people are interested in. Sex and death—fascinating.” After teaching for 10 years, Cauch went back to school and did a Master’s in social work at Salem State University, where she concentrated on older adult issues and end-of-life care. She became interested in conducting senior-sex workshops after discovering that the rate of HIV/AIDS is increasing among seniors, although no one was really talking about it.

“Safer sex education for seniors is very isolated and scattered, and something needs to be done on a larger scale,” she says. “There has to be messaging targeted at this group, because whatever safer-sex messaging we’re sending out there, this group of people is missing it.”

Some of the older adults who attend her workshop may be newly single or widowed and returning to the dating world. In certain cases, because they’ve had a partner for so long, some of them don’t associate condom use with disease prevention.

“There’s no fear of pregnancy, and they usually associate condom use with getting pregnant, and that’s not an issue when you’re 75-plus,” Cauch notes.

This reluctance to accept senior sexuality can have dire consequences—as of 2008, the Public Health Agency of Canada reported that 12 per cent of all AIDS cases occurred in people aged 50 or older. PHAC also reported that seniors are at more risk of being misinformed about sex than other age groups.

“They don’t have to watch themselves anymore because they’re not going to have babies, but they don’t think about STIs because they’re not accustomed to it,” says Faith Rum, an 80-year-old woman who participated in Cauch’s safe sex and speed-dating workshops five years ago. “All they had worry about in their time was getting pregnant, and it was a hush-hush thing.”

Rum, who is Cauch’s neighbor, decided to participate in a workshop after her husband died. She says she didn’t even know that seniors were still having sex, and learned that at many old-age homes, seniors are quite sexually active. “I wanted to get back into the groove. Back into the action,” Rum says. Though she felt strange about attending as a widow, she said she found the speed-dating workshop “empowering.”

“There were nine tables and, every 20 minutes or so, the men walked around each table and the women stayed at the tables,” Rum says. “It was interesting, because I was the one interviewing and I was asking questions, and I was never allowed to ask or interview men before, so it made me feel special.”

Rum didn’t end up meeting anybody, but says she is keen to try again. “I think you have to go to several of these and meet with different people. Nothing came of this, but it was an interesting little meeting.”

Cauch’s workshops, which cost $150, serve a rapidly growing demographic: according to Canadian Institute for Health Information, in 2015, the proportion of seniors in the Canadian population will surpass the proportion of youth. For the first time in history, Cauch says, there will be more people over the age of 65 than children under 14.

“Baby boomers are heading into retirement and they’re going to be affecting and influencing a lot of what goes on,” says Cauch. “So this conversation will only get bigger and more important.”

Julie can pinpoint the moment her addictive, obsessive relationship to sex began. She was 14, and had just been raped. The following evening, in a daze of confusion and pain, she went out, picked up a man, and had sex with him—she thinks now that she did it that night to try to regain a sense of control over her sexuality. But over the next 15 or so years Julie (not her real name) would enter a spiral of drink, drugs, and more and more sex.

“I started having more partners, sleeping with other peoples’ partners; I had women, I had orgies, I started compulsively masturbating,” she says. “I kept looking for a bigger and bigger kick.”

Sometime around the age of 30, having spent years engaging in risky behaviour that took its toll on her relationships and her career, Julie walked through the door of her first Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting and began the process of getting her sex life under control.

Although Julie, now middle-aged, has kept her sexual behaviour in check for years, when I made contact with her, the first words she used to identify herself were “sex addict”—not unlike someone who’s been sober for years, but still identifies as an alcoholic.

Julie is far from alone. Sex addiction is reported to be on the rise in countries from India (where Sex Addicts Anonymous just founded its first chapter) to the U.S. In the U.K., demand is so great that one psychotherapist recently told a newspaper she was training 600 therapists a year in sex-addiction counselling.

So it might come as a surprise that, officially, sex addiction isn’t actually a thing.

“We don’t offer treatment for that,” says Michael Torres, a CAMH spokesperson. After a little prompting he explains. “Addiction to sex doesn’t appear in the DSM so is not considered a diagnosis.” (The best they can do is put you down for a bit of OCD or bipolar disorder.)

DSM stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Published by the American Psychiatric Association, it is the holy book of shrinkdom. If your problem isn’t in there, it doesn’t officially exist. The APA is currently updating the good book (the fifth edition is due in May) and for a while it looked like a few pages might be reserved for “hypersexuality”, but in December, news emerged that it would probably not make the grade. In the eyes of the APA, and by extension, medical bodies in Canada, you can’t be a sex addict. And if sex addicts don’t exist then there’s no reason for provincial health plans to cover treatment.

Part of the reason the disorder hasn’t made it to the DSM is that it’s almost impossible to define any behaviour a sex addict engages in that some non-addicts don’t. On diagnostic questionnaires, a man who visits a prostitute, or a wife who cheats on her husband, are considered to be engaging in “risky or illegal behaviour,” while any teenage boy with an internet connection probably ticks the box for “compulsive masturbation.” Online tests to determine whether you’re a sex addict are hilariously out of date—you can almost hear the author of one twirling her pearls, breathlessly asking whether you’ve ever gone online to find a hookup.

According to David Norris, a counsellor at the private Bellwood clinic near Steeles and Victoria Park, sex addiction is a real and treatable condition, and he suggests that much of the discussion of the subject has more than a whiff of moralizing to it. “I think there is a real stigma out there still that is slowly changing, but it is still very prevalent,” he says.

For Norris, the reasons that sex addiction is so hard to define are also the reasons it’s so hard to treat. Unlike substance abuse, where the goal is total sobriety, few people want to become completely abstinent from sex.

Bellwood offers the recovering sex addict everything from a once-a-week chat with a therapist to a three-week all-inclusive rehab vacation. As one recovering addict told me, Bellwood is the “Rolls Royce” of treatment options in Toronto—with a price tag to match. Paying hundreds or thousands of dollars a month is only possible if you’re a sex addict who also runs a bank, so Norris recommends his clients also join a free 12-step program like SAA or Sexual Compulsives Anonymous.

Whether sex addiction is officially recognized or not, the pain and suffering of the SAA and SCA members I spoke with is real. One said, “People think of it as a moral failure, but to us it is a disease,” and all claimed that having a judgment-free zone for support and guidance was crucial in getting their lives back on track. As Julie puts it, “Going to SAA saved my life.”

Tim Alberth didn’t know what to expect the first time he went to a cuddle party. Having discovered the parties online by accident, Alberth was curious enough to search out the event closest to where he lived in Buffalo. The entire ride up to Toronto, he asked himself, “What am I doing?” By the time he crossed the border, he knew there was no turning back.

But he was surprised by how easy it was to find a fellow snuggler. Only a few minutes after the group finished with icebreakers, he recalls, a woman approached and, as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world, asked him, “Do you want to cuddle with me?”

Alberth admits he was definitely “taken aback” by her boldness—but he answered in the affirmative. That first cuddle was so soothing that he decided he would return to another party. Four or five parties later, he started thinking about organizing his own.

“Cuddling is usually sexualized by people. Cuddle parties gave me a chance to cuddle and hug without having to worry about that,” says the 31-year-old blond and bearded Alberth, who has been running cuddle parties in Toronto since 2010. A Buffalo, N.Y. native currently studying nursing there, he continues to make the trip across the border every month to host the parties here. The decision, he says, came about naturally when the previous facilitator in Toronto announced that she was going to step down, and offered to pass details and contact lists onto Alberth.

Last year, Calgary was named the most active Canadian city for cuddle parties, though Toronto holds its own with one party a month, typically held at The Centering Space near Broadview Station. Participants, in exchange for a $40 fee, can go to these three-hour events to receive non-sexual touch and experience everything from hand-holding to hugging to spooning. All participants must wear pajamas, and the floor is lined with blankets and pillows for comfort.

“A lot of people think, right off the bat, that it’s a sex party,” Alberth says. “But there are rules—one being that it’s a non-sexual event, and two being that clothes stay on at all times.”

Alberth says that about 10 people, mostly in their late twenties and early thirties, show up every month, and that facilitators put a lot of effort into making sure people feel safe. Parties usually start off with a “welcome circle” where rules are clearly laid out and ice breakers help loosen people up. If one feels uncomfortable after the welcome circle, they are free to leave and are eligible for a refund.

Participants can also choose whether they wish to cuddle in pairs or in larger groups, and with whichever gender they’re more comfortable with. The most important thing, he says, is that one asks permission first.

“It’s their choice whether they want to cuddle with someone at a cuddle party or do nothing at cuddle party,” Alberth says.

Cuddle parties first grabbed media attention back in 2004 when they were introduced in New York by relationship experts Reid Mihalko (pictured at left above) and Marcia Bacyzinski. A year later, the parties arrived in Toronto and, long after the spike of attendance following initial media interest, cuddle parties have continued to attract participants.

Michelle Hayes, a 47-year-old child care assistant, began attending cuddle parties last year after finding out about them while watching a VH1 reality show. Though apprehensive at first, she looked up Toronto cuddle parties online, thinking that they would be a good way practice her communication skills and try something outside of her comfort zone. What she likes most about them is that she can momentarily free herself of her daily responsibilities.

“That is one of the most difficult things for me to do because I work with children all day,” Hayes says. “When I go to cuddle parties, I find it makes me sit back and say, ‘Okay—I have to practice taking the day off now.’”

Hayes says that, while it took her a few parties to stop feeling nervous before each gathering, she is completely comfortable with cuddle parties now, because she trusts the rules to keep her safe. A facilitator is also always on hand to dissuade anybody who’s overly persistent, though Hayes says that such interventions are rarely necessary.

Cuddle parties may also appeal to Hayes, because, she admits, “I’m a cuddler. My inner circle will tell you that I am definitely a touchy-feely person.”

Jessica Maxwell, a doctoral student at U of T currently researching relationships and those who avoid intimacy, is not surprised by the parties’ enduring appeal. Cuddling is proven to stimulate the body’s production of the chemical oxytocin, which has been called the “cuddle chemical” or “love chemical,” because it has been found present in people engaged in romantic relationships and other intimate bonds (like the one between mother and infant). Oxytocin de-stresses and relaxes, in addition to reducing blood pressure.

“[Cuddle parties] seem like they’re completely non-sexual, which I can understand from a research perspective because we do find that the attachment system and the sexual system are very separate things,” Maxwell says. “I think these cuddle parties are more just a desire to feel secure and to feel loved, and a need for closeness with someone.”

That sense of closeness, she says, is definitely lacking for many people in a big city like Toronto, where career-driven lives leave little time to form relationships. According to Toronto census data for 2011, almost a third of all households in the city were comprised of single people.

Maxwell says that cuddle parties may even encourage participants to find a romantic relationship, a sentiment that is echoed by Cecilia Moorcroft, a life coach who organized cuddle parties in Toronto for more than five years before handing the reins over to Alberth.

“On the surface it seems like this fun, silly thing—grown-ups in pajamas—but it’s actually a really amazing workshop around boundaries and communication and getting what you want,” Moorcroft says.

She credits cuddle parties for having helped at least three couples she knows find each other. The gatherings have also changed Moorcroft’s life. Back in 2005, she was going through a rough patch—single but not looking, she was over-eating and had found out that her father was sick. All she really wanted, she says, was to spoon with someone.

“I think everyone who goes to the parties is driven by… I guess you could call it loneliness, but I call it hunger,” Moorcroft observes. “For me, it was literally like a hunger. It was the way that I was attuned to the fact that I needed more affectionate touch.”

Moorcroft says that cuddle parties taught her to be able to say no to the things that she didn’t want, and ask for what she actually wanted in life. Shy all her life, she recalls how her newfound assertiveness shocked her friends and family, especially when she began appearing on television to discuss something as seemingly bizarre as cuddle parties. Moorcroft believes the parties provide a kind of “community service” to those out there who feel lacking in the affection department.

At the very least, they make great conversation starters to get people thinking about what is missing from their own lives.

“Even if somebody hearing about cuddle parties would never ever go to one,” she says, “it made them think, ‘Well why don’t I hug my friends more? I’ve known these people for years, why aren’t I more affectionate?’”

In December, the Keyhole Sessions, Toronto’s sexy life-drawing class, packed up its easel, threw a fur coat over its scantily clad models, and vanished into the night. All that’s left after three years of charcoal-stained debauchery is a lot of naughty pictures and some horny artists with too much time on their hands. But Sonya JF Barnett, the self-described “madame” who ran the classes, has popped up again, and this time, she’s getting a bit more hardcore.

Barnett spent three days this winter behind the camera (or, rather, an iPhone), shooting her own porno in a rented studio near Adelaide and John. It’s the kind of low-budget, DIY sex film that’s currently putting a frown on the botoxed faces of the fake-tan and fake-tits brigade in L.A.

Called Because I Want You to Watch, it contains only a single model, Nymph, who wanders in off the street and settles down for a quick spot of masturbation. By the end of the five-minute flick, she’s given herself a series of orgasms. Barnett has only released a teaser trailer so far, and it amply exhibits the “alternative” aesthetic familiar to anyone who’s been to her Keyhole Sessions. (Nymph is a lady who likes her piercings and tattoos.)

“My idea of porn, essentially, is shooting a high-end music video that has sex in it,” says Barnett. To that end, she’s currently negotiating the rights to a suitably thumping soundtrack to accompany Nymph’s performance, and hopes to enter the film into the Feminist Porn Awards. She’s also planning to make it, and an upcoming series of films, available to the viewing public online, for about three to five bucks a pop.

On their own, a couple of women in a Toronto warehouse praying for a break in the clouds because they don’t have any set lighting will hardly bring down the multi-billion-dollar mainstream porn industry. But Barnett is surfing a much bigger wave of gonzo-style production. These new pornographers are armed with cheap cameras or smartphones, and are fuelled, variously, by indignation at the porn industry’s perceived abuses, or a burning desire to show their naughty bits to the world.

Mainstream porn, meanwhile, is facing dark days. Reliable sales figures are rarer than pubic hair in the industry, but Forbes puts annual revenues in the US$4 billion range, while a 1998 study came in around US$10 billion. But almost everyone agrees that sales of adult DVDs and printed products are on the decline. Dave Cummings, a 72-year-old porn-industry veteran, guesstimated to the Huffington Post in January that 80 per cent of porn companies that existed five years ago are gone or in trouble. In 2011, Time Warner reported that declining sales of video-on-demand porn titles were hurting its bottom line.

Of course, all fingers point in the direction of the internet. From dudes stroking their egos on guyswithiphones.com to people stroking anything they can get their hands on at XTube, there’s no shortage of free porn online. The general consensus is that if free news doomed the newspaper industry, then free porn must be wreaking seven kinds of havoc in the adult-entertainment world. That’s probably true, but there’s also an increasingly common argument that says the big studios are in trouble because their product is crummy.

“Everything about conventional porn is distracting,” says Barnett, rattling off a list of her bête noires: bad lighting, crappy sets, guys wearing weird-coloured socks. “They don’t consider the actual theme. They’re just shooting the sex; they don’t consider the art around it,” she says.

Worse still, hardcore porn is taking heat for declining standards in real-world bedrooms. According to Cindy Gallop, Oxford graduate, self-proclaimed cougar, and founder of the website makelovenotporn.tv, many young guys have lousy technique because “they believe what you see in hardcore pornography is the way you have sex.” MLNP allows users to upload vids of what they get up to in their real-world bedrooms. For those in doubt, there’s a reference section comparing the porno world (girls love cum on their faces, being called “bitch,” and anal sex) with the real world (for the love of God, ask first).

The staff at MLNP select the videos from those submitted, charge $5 a pop to rent them, and then split the proceeds 50/50 with the maker. It’s a radical model in what has traditionally been a top-down industry, and has the capacity to do for porn what self-publishing did for upcoming authors—except with boners. And the best thing? There’s no time for crappy dialogue. As Barnett puts it, “Online, people’s attention spans are short.”

On a recent Friday night at Oasis Aqualounge in Toronto, everyone is either naked or half-naked. As reggae music plays in the background, everyone is laughing, the hot tub is full, and the bar is busy. No one even flinches as people in towels pass the dancefloor and head upstairs, where more half-naked friends await them.

This is a regular night at most local sex clubs, where many people come to do just that: have sex anywhere they like, all while people nearby continue their conversation amid echoing moans and spankings. What most might not realize, however, is that some patrons are actually more concerned with having a conversation than having sex, and many come just come to watch or be part of a friendly atmosphere.

“There are nights where there’s lots of people having sex together, and it is kind of an orgy,” says Jana Matthews, owner of Oasis Aqualounge. “But there are lots of nights where nobody swings.”

Matthews says some visitors are voyeurs, while others are nudists who just want to express themselves without judgment. Some people go just because they want to make friends without the intention of having wild, crazy sex within the first few minutes.

“There’s usually non-sexual places within these clubs, so if you just want to go and meet sex-positive people that’s great,” says Dr. Stephen De Wit, a sexologist based in Toronto.

People who have never been to a sex club might get the idea that it’s an STD-ridden, amoral sex cave, but regulars protest this stereotype. “The biggest misconception is that it’s dirty, sleazy, and full of depraved people,” says Trisha, a member of Oasis who wouldn’t give her full name. “It’s not that at all. It’s respectful, clean, and a great place to have a drink.” Trisha, like other sex-club members, praises the strict no-tolerance policies: If you insist on talking to someone who’s rejected you once, you’ll get kicked out.

Matt (who also didn’t want his full name used), the manager of Menage a Quatre club in Etobicoke, believes this is what separates sex clubs from non-sex clubs. “As a girl at a regular club, you’re getting harassed, you’re getting grabbed and you’re getting pulled,” he says. “That really doesn’t happen here.”

In fact, many people who come to sex clubs are couples in committed relationships. In an internal survey of about 300 members by Oasis, 46 per cent were married. The club can be an opportunity for them to join other couples, or just go into a separate, private room—a closed door of any room means no one is allowed to enter.

“If they’re really solid in their relationship, and they’re really well connected and there’s a lot of stability, it can be great,” says De Wit of married patrons. But he cautions against trying to use sex clubs to spice up a broken relationship. “If you’re trying to fix something that’s broken, or if one partner’s questioning another in the relationship, it can be treacherous territory.”

De Wit says communication is the most important thing that needs to be established before visiting any sex club. “There’s a healthy way to approach sex clubs where you’re honouring the relationship, there’s a ton of communication that happens, and it serves the couple well.”

As businesses, sex clubs aren’t regulated by the City of Toronto for their activities. “That’s not a business that’s required to be licensed, because they don’t meet the standards of an adult-entertainment parlour, which has licensed burlesque dancers,” says Scott Sullivan, a supervisor with Toronto Municipal Licensing Standards. A Toronto Public Health inspector would not inspect clubs based on their standards of cleanliness, such as ensuring sheets and furniture are clean or condoms are available, but would visit if the club serves food to ensure it is handled in a clean matter. Despite the lack of licensing, club operators insist they are clean and safe—customers wouldn’t return if they felt the place was dirty.

“As an employee, if you’re not willing to say, ‘I can have sex on this bed,’ then it doesn’t pass the test,” says Matt.

A TORONTO SEX-CLUB PRIMER

If you’re looking to visit a sex club for the first time, here are four in Toronto that cater to a variety of crowds. In all of the clubs, sex is permitted pretty much anywhere. Prices vary each night. (Saturday prices are presented below.)

Oasis Aqualounge, 231 Mutual St., #CHS

$80 a couple, $20 for a single female. Single men not permitted on Saturdays.

This club has the most relaxed atmosphere. It features a completely hardwood first floor, spotlights, a hot tub, and heated outdoor pool. The music isn’t too loud (making the space ideal for socializing) and the staff is really engaging. On the second floor, you’ll find naked patrons sprawled on leather beds, watching porn, and hanging out by the bar. Disinfectant wipes (for easy cleaning) can be found everywhere, and one of their most fun features is their ’60s-themed “shag room.” There’s a large and well-equipped dungeon where patrons can be spanked, whippedm and tied and, on the third floor, there’s only a single private room with a king-sized bed and a mirror in front, so you can watch yourself. Once you buy a pass, you can have, ahem, in-and-out privileges for the whole night.

Wicked Club, 1032 Queen St. W., #WQW

$50 a couple, $10 for single females, and $150 for single males.

Wicked has more of a club vibe. On a Saturday night, the music is decent Top 40, while patrons park themselves on white leather couches around the dancefloor, watching dancers in the middle. The music is too loud for any real conversation, and the crowd is younger than in the other clubs surveyed here; it seems more like a place for f—ing than for meeting new friends. But Tatiana, a dancer at the club who wouldn’t give her full name, says she’s danced at nightclubs for 10 years, and “I’ve never felt gross or attacked. It’s more comfortable to be here as a single woman in Toronto than anywhere else.” There’s a hot tub beside the dancefloor and, on the second floor, Wicked has their unique voyeur room: A room with a two-way mirror so the people having sex can’t see you. The second floor is dimly lit, and the private rooms have mirrors lining the walls. If you don’t care for privacy, Wicked’s sex rooms have beds that are half-caged and reach up to the ceiling, accessible by stairs—a neat kinky concept. You can’t bring drinks from the bar to private rooms, but you can order bottle service to them.*

The O Zone, 36 Stoffel Dr., #ETO

$60 a couple, $10 for single females. Single men not permitted on Saturdays.

The O Zone is spacious and has a decent dancefloor, which features a pole on the far left side and tables and chairs all around—so you’re not just standing around awkwardly if you don’t feel like dancing. Surprisingly, on a Saturday night, the dancefloor was filled by 10:30 p.m. and the top 40, reggae and dance mixes were similar to those heard at a typical nightclub. Though just one floor, The O Zone seems to have the most spaces where people can have sex: There’s a large room with huge mattresses, some behind curtains and some in the open. It also boasts the biggest dungeon of the clubs featured here, including a Sybian (condoms provided), which features a dildo attached to a leather seat and a separate remote control that allows you (or a second party) to control the vibration of the dildo. The club also features a dentist chair, a couple of sex swings in a large cage, and three king-sized beds.

Menage a Quatre, 2814 Lake Shore Blvd. W., #ETO

$40 a couple, single girls free. Single men not permitted on Saturdays.

Menage a Quatre is only one floor, but it’s laid out in a circle, so you’ll never get lost. Early in the evening, naked people are mostly chatting in the lounge and sharing drinks, or hanging out by the bar and dancefloor. The music isn’t too loud, so you can have a conversation, and the dancefloor is dark and lined with contemporary furniture and tables. After midnight, the dancefloor is mostly empty as you can find everyone in the play room; conversation is largely absent, save for the employees who walk by to wipe down surfaces. There are a few kink toys in the lounge, including a spank bench and St. Andrew’s cross. Compared to the other clubs here, Menage’s sex room is simple—with the beds dispersed around the room without any real interior-design logic, it gives off a basic, low-maintenance vibe, which may put first-timers at ease.

*NOTE: This sentence has been edited for clarity.

1. Dildos are safe

Contrary to your greatest fears, there is no chance a porcelain dildo or butt plug will crack or shatter inside of you. This guarantee was provided by vendor Maverick Studios, whose wares were all very pretty, and sturdy like a toilet, not fragile like a teacup. They also make nice paperweights.

2. Aluminum is for lovers

Aluminum cock rings aren’t nearly as popular as their synthetic counterparts (it’s a niche-within-a-niche market) but they look quite stylish in a Game-of-Thrones-in-your-pants-type-way. The gentleman (operating as Abraxas Metalworks) who fabricated them said they come in several different girths. There was no penile chain mail, however.

3. Waterproofing is important

If you’re going to invest in a handmade leather strap for a bit of fun à la Fifty Shades (minus the clunky metaphors), it’s important to waterproof it with mink oil to keep it in good working order. They also clean up nicely with glycerine soap, if you’re expecting to encounter much in the way of fluid. Actually, just assume you will encounter fluids.

4. The quainter the craft, the dirtier the product

Crochet isn’t exactly sex on fire. Crocheted pasties, however, are super cute. Going by the name of Sex on a Stitch, one vendor stumbled upon the process quite accidentally while crocheting amigurumi (the Japanese art of crocheting adorable anthropomorphic stuffed creatures). The breast was history, as they say. The pasties on sale featured everything from flaming dice to rocket ships, and they attach with double-sided tape.

5. Erotic baking is alive and well

The cupcakes decorated with labia-shaped icing looked good, but one wonders if getting the anatomy correct is just too time-consuming. Finally, another vendor’s sugar cubes, topped with miniature breasts and penises, turned out to be a tough sell.

Last month, a New York Times article declaring the “end of courtship” went viral.

The piece’s central lamentation—that technology has usurped romance, or, as one interview subject put it, that dating has devolved into “a cycle of text messages, each one requiring the code-breaking skills of a cold war spy”—probably resonates, in some way, with the average Torontonian single.

But the more relevant conversation to be had here in Toronto is about how, arguably, we’ve never, as a city, experienced anything more than a tepid pick-up culture.

In fact, the rise of digital communication notwithstanding, Toronto has earned something of a reputation for being particularly un-flirtatious—a phenomenon that residents from more sexually aggressive Canadian cities, like Montreal and Halifax, are often quick to bemoan.

The question is, why? What is it about Torontonians—or Toronto itself—that makes it so unlikely to get hit on offline, out in the public sphere?

After conferring with a number of twenty and thirty-something Toronto dwellers across lines of gender and sexual orientation, plus an expert or two, I’ve assembled a list of possible explanations:

1. Our keep-to-yourself culture: Known for being rigid, arms-crossed concertgoers and eerily silent transit riders, it follows that Torontonians are reserved when it comes to displays of spontaneous, romantic interest, lacking the requisite ballsiness to approach a stranger.

This isn’t to say that individuals are necessarily aloof, but the mores of our quite-large city have ingrained a culture of shame around talking to strangers without a “practical” purpose—and that includes flirting.

“It’s been my feeling here that people aren’t really receptive to being casually asked out in person,” says Peter, 30, a Toronto social-work student who primarily uses online dating to meet women.

“I feel like if I just walked up to someone in a bar, it wouldn’t be considered ‘normal.’ There’s no kind of known social codes around it. I wouldn’t know if the person was single, or if it would be awkward. Basically, I’d feel like a sleazeball.”

Samantha Joel is a Ph.D student in the psychology department at the University of Toronto. Her research includes analyzing how people make decisions about romantic relationships.

“I would say there’s a strong social norm in Toronto to keep to oneself in public spaces, to not make eye contact or start up conversation,” she notes.

“It’s seen as very peculiar if someone breaks these norms, and even seen as a sign they wouldn’t be a good potential partner. If a stranger expresses interest, I think people here respond to it with suspicion, and might see it as an indicator that the person isn’t completely stable.”

So, not only are we afraid to break the tacitly agreed-upon code of silence, but we may well be perceived as creepy if we do it to express romantic interest.

2. Water, water everywhere: Full disclosure: the majority of individuals I interviewed who complained about Toronto’s lack of sexual aggressiveness were relatively young, professional, heterosexual women, some of whom perceived that the romantic odds in Toronto were stacked against them.

Priya, 35, a Toronto-based freelance writer, observed that heterosexual men outside of Toronto—both in other Canadian cities and abroad—were much more forward.

“Guys in Toronto are spoiled; there are a lot of attractive women here, so men have a perceived notion of abundance, of the interchangeability of women—an ‘I don’t want to be tied down with this one when I can get this one,’ kind of thing,” she says.

She adds that the onus is on women, too, but that she’s never had much luck with asking out a guy she didn’t know.

Heather, 26, recently moved to Toronto from Halifax to attend graduate school.

“Because there are so many people in Toronto, everyone thinks about their other ‘options’ and not about what’s right in front of them,” she observes. “Halifax is small; you know what the dating pool’s like and egos aren’t as big, so people are more willing to put themselves out there.”

Shannon Tebb, owner of the Toronto dating-consulting service Shanny in the City, is a professional dating consultant, matchmaker, and life coach.

“There is lots of competition in this big city—beautiful women are a dime a dozen,” she says, suggesting that Toronto’s straight men may have something of an advantage. Assuming there is truth to this phenomenon, it doesn’t exactly encourage pride-on-the-line courting of strangers.

There’s even some statistical evidence to support this claim: According to the 2010 Statistics Canada census, women accounted for 50.4 per cent of Canada’s total population; in Toronto, the total number of women exceeded that percentage, albeit slightly, making up 50.9 per cent of the city’s inhabitants.

Further, StatsCan data from 2011 shows that, between 2006 and 2011, most provinces and territories saw increases in the number of women aged 20 to 34; in downtown Toronto, the existence of large financial, governmental, health, and educational institutions has made the proportion of working-age people exceed the national average.

One could extrapolate, then, that Toronto is particularly full of youngish people and especially youngish women (whether or not they’re interested in men), giving straight men the sense of having boundless options.

And when you’re not straight? Duncan, a 26-year-old student originally from Nova Scotia, says meeting someone in Toronto is easier than in a place like Halifax.

“Being in a bigger city’s better when you’re gay—though I do agree that out in the public sphere, Torontonians are really standoffish.”

3. We’re work-obsessed: Torontonians have a reputation for being career-focussed to a fault. Mary-Ann, 32, is a public servant originally from Quebec. Though she now lives in Montreal, she spent the last seven years in Toronto.

“I had a huge learning curve with Toronto dating,” she says. “I was used to a dating climate where things are more straightforward. In Montreal, for example, you’ll be in a liquor store or convenience store and there’s this constant flow of flirtatiousness—it’s just more part of the everyday. I didn’t get those little gems in Toronto.”

She wonders if it’s because Torontonains are simply more stressed out.

“People work their asses off in Toronto because it’s such an expensive city—the rent is so expensive.”

Shannon Tebb believes the sheer number of pedestrians that one passes each day makes it tough to connect with anyone. “The constant hustle and bustle tends to limit one from stopping and taking the time to notice an individual passing by. This notion of always being in a hurry, not taking the time to relax and enjoy sitting in the park, can really reduce your chances of finding love.”

Indeed, we may be tenser in Toronto than those in a smaller, more inexpensive city like Montreal. And, compared to a bustling yet engaging city like New York, we’re further burdened by our aforementioned, almost crippling sense of social reserve.

4. The 2 a.m. Syndrome: Some of the people I spoke with argued that, while getting hit on in a Toronto bar isn’t a total rarity, the way in which it often happens is a turn-off. Priya says Toronto’s bar scene suffers from “2 a.m. syndrome.”

“Last call hits, the level of drunkenness and energy changes, and people are seriously on the make. And then you are in danger of the gross come-on,” she says.

Perhaps we can’t win, then, and perhaps these generalizations are too vast to be relatable. And yet, I stand by the claim that, on balance, Toronto mores make it a particularly tough place to meet someone organically—outside of the internet, through mutual friends, or an old-fashioned blind set-up.

So before mourning the end of courtship entirely, perhaps we Torontonians should first contemplate why we failed to be a good pick-up city from the get-go.

Do you think it’s harder to hook up in Toronto than elsewhere? Share your thoughts and theories in the comments section below.

As tech journalists work themselves into a lather over RIM’s BlackBerry 10, another potentially ground-shaking development in the world of Canadian consumer electronics has been largely overlooked. At last month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a senior exec at a Canadian sex-toy manufacturer predicted that today’s vibrators could be museum pieces within five years.

Grant Bechthold, VP of product development at Ottawa’s Standard Innovation Corporation (slogan: “Shaping the future of health and wellness”), told gadget lovers that the next three to five years will see enormous changes in the design of what he coyly termed “personal massagers.”

As sex toys have quietly moved upmarket and into the mainstream, the past decade has already produced sleek designs, quieter motors, and even vibrators that work by remote control. Now, Bechthold—who spent three decades working in military and aerospace engineering, designing everything from banking encryption to electronic countermeasures—believes we’re about to start exploring uncharted territory courtesy of what’s called “materials science”: the study of how things are put together at the molecular level, and how they can be manipulated in new ways. Bechthold foresees a brave new world where toys can move as never before, or stimulate sensitive bits using methods other than the tried-and-true vibrations. “There’s some really out-there material science being worked on,” he says. “There are materials that can twitch and move based on electrical stimulation.”

Despite having a name so bland that it sounds like a front company for a James Bond villain, Standard Innovation is actually one of the perkiest sex-toy makers around.

It’s also one of an emerging breed of sex-toy manufacturers that takes seriously something previously unheard of in the industry: research and development. So far, there are only a handful of companies—like San Francisco’s Jimmyjane and Sweden’s Lelo— vying for a slice of the high-tech sex-toy pie. Lelo is known for making sleek vibrators that look like they could have jumped off an Apple assembly line, while Jimmyjane is pushing ever harder at the boundaries of sexual possibility with its Hello Touch, which has a battery pack you strap to your wrist and two vibrating pads that stick to your fingers for sexual adventures, cyborg-style. Meanwhile, Standard Innovation is busy expanding its research lab and recruiting designers.

This is a major shift in the world of sex-toy development, which is often looked on as the wild west of the consumer-electronics industry, with little government regulation. You could be forgiven for imagining that vibrator design is basically a back-of-the-napkin affair; after all, evolution fashioned the basic shape they have to work with. Designers just add an inch here and a few ridges there and away they go. Companies don’t even have to prove that their products work, or are safe.

So it comes as a surprise to hear Bechthold talk of a “three-year product development roadmap” and a research pipeline that numbers 60 projects. His team isn’t just a bunch of engineering grads. They all have at least 15 years’  experience, and they use such NASA-esque tools as 3-D printers and electronic mannequins in their bid to build ever-better sex toys.

“We are a very traditional, professional engineering organization. The tools that we use, the processes that we use and our people all have traditional engineering backgrounds,” says Bechthold. They even wear suits to meetings.

Apparently, it’s trickier to design for love than war, and Bechthold admits that creating sex toys is hardly an exact science. “It’s not like handing somebody a cellphone for a week and sitting down across the table and having a very open and direct conversation, saying ‘How did you like it?’ The biggest hurdle we’ve got are that people are unfamiliar with their bodies, so when you try to get user feedback it’s very difficult to tell whether they’ve misinterpreted something.”

Sex, being an ever-shifting mix of mood and mechanics, just won’t fit neatly into a consumer questionnaire. But Bechthold remains committed to the idea that technology can help people have more satisfying sex lives. “We’re pretty much blazing a new trail in the science-meets-sexuality piece,” he says.

The ultimate proof that vibrators have made it to the cutting edge of science? Standard Innovation and Lelo have just gotten themselves into a patent war. It’s like Apple vs. Samsung, with orgasms.