Kink Observed: a small stab at hypocrisy everywhere 

20 Nov 2022 - Leather man images by Sean Leber, Model: Fady Zablouk

"People may walk out," says Sky Gilbert of the upcoming workshop production of Kink Observed. "We also plan on an ‘aftercare’ session for the actors and the audience, where people will be able to talk about their concerns." 

Gilbert, during the course of a prodigious career including Who's Afraid of Titus?, Shakespeare's Criminal, I Cook, He Does the Dishes, Sad Old Faggot, It's All Tru, The Terrible Parents, To Myself at 28, My Dinner with Casey Donovan, A Few Brittle Leaves, Dancing Queen, Hackerlove and The Situationists, has always been a provocateur and has indeed frequently shocked. But I wonder if, in a post-50 Shades of Grey world, if kink and explicit sex in theatre have become mainstream. "I think that talking about anything becoming mainstream is kind of spurious," says Gilbert. "Of course we are now supposedly tolerant of everything, and children watch porn daily on the internet, but does that mean that everyone here and across the world accepts these things? We live in a tiny bubble around Toronto, a bubble where everyone pretends to be tolerant of everything. But most people are quite orthodox, meaning they have very harsh puritan kinds of values. Disapproving of many people for many reasons."

'Kink' is a very broad category encompassing a multitude of fetishes, sexual acts and even the mundane everyday repertoire of many, but Gilbert is succinct about Kink Observed, "I am talking about S&M, especially in the gay community." He then expands, "I’m hoping the next time we watch a TV show about a gay serial killer—Jeffrey Dahmer anyone?—we will think twice about assuming that all promiscuous gay men are either killers or deserve to be killed for their promiscuity. There is no connection between gay sex and murder or promiscuity and murder. There are serial killers period, and sometimes it’s your kindly uncle who pretends to be a pillar of the community who you have to be afraid of, not the uncle who hangs out at the Eagle."

The credits for Kink Observed read “Directed by Sky Gilbert, devised by Ryan Cunningham, Sky Gilbert, Ray Jacildo [Who's Afraid of Titus?] and Brandon Nicoletti [The Crucible, Turtleneck” and it is billed as a collective creation by Kink-On-The-Run Productions. I ask Gilbert how the production was conceived and created. "I was inspired to do a challenging collective creation after seeing Five Easy Pieces directed by Milos Ray just before covid in New York City. That play is about a Belgian serial killer — who killed children — and featured children in the cast. The show was amazing and challenged the audience, making me think about sex and violence and voyeurism. I communicated my idea to Ryan Cunningham, who is an old friend, and to a couple of other actors, and we applied to the Canada Council for money and got it. We had a couple of rehearsals before Covid hit, but had to disband for two years. And then I gathered a new group of actors around Ryan because two original people were unable to continue with the show."

The press release also states that Kink Observed will explore the question “can an audience watch a representation of ‘kinky sex' without demonizing the players?” Again I wonder if, in a world where porn of all kinds is so readily available, if 'demonization' actually occurs. Then I remember that porn stars are still stigmatized and that even appearing nude in a film or play can cause a media upoar. I remind Gilbert of a scene in his play Hackerlove where the audience is deliberately confronted with their reaction to nudity. I ask if Kink Observed will do the same for kinky sex. "Hopefully," says Gilbert, "That’s the idea." And in this case, it will be done more intimately. "Basically, as Ryan describes the design for Kink Observed, we are all sort of sitting around at an AA meeting so we have very little in the way of design. We have very little money and it’s a workshop. Ange Beever and Robin Woodward are creating some beautiful and evocative objects that we will display, and Marty Rotman is overseeing the outfits, but basically there is no set, it’s just us and the audience."
 
The press release also teases “an opportunity to view gay male sexuality performed live — and up close.” Gilbert is coy but does note that "Kiran Friesen is our official intimacy coach, and she is working with myself and the actors on the S&M scene we are presenting as part of the show. But our stage manage Mattea Kennedy is also an intimacy coach, so we have intimacy coaches basically coming out of all our orifices." I wonder how Kink Observed will keep the titillation factor from overwhelming the ideas. "That’s a tough one. Remember in my memoir Ejaculations from the Charm Factory, I called theatre a 'charm factory.' And it is, and it’s difficult for all of us to not to be charming sometimes, it’s so much fun."

Gilbert also believes that gay men have forgotten how to openly have fun sexually. "I’m afraid that most gay men—although they are very active on Grindr, other apps on their phones, at the baths, at The Eagle, and god knows where else—seem to be claiming that their aim in life is to get married and adopt children and vote conservative and attend their local church as much as possible. It’s a shame that our culture is officially disappearing. The good news is that behind closed doors guys are still getting up to dirty stuff and gay male promiscuity still thrives. What I’m doing is what I’ve always done, and will always be attacked for, I’m telling tales out of school, bringing the real gay culture above ground with no lies. It’s a small stab at hypocrisy everywhere."

Why have gay men become so hypocritical? "AIDS. That’s it. Look what Covid has done to us. The new puritanism is very appealing. The suggestion is that if you get ill it’s your fault, if you die it’s your fault or the fault of the bad people who exposed you to illness. There is no notion of illness as inevitable or just irrational, there has to be a human reason, and that we feel a little more protected as if we are good people we won’t ‘get it.’ In other words illness is now a moral weapon, and that all started with AIDS. It’s all very Christian at the core. I believe that many gay men believed, after AIDS, that they would not die if they never slept with anyone ever again. So they just stopped. It’s very sad, because living is not the cause of death: death is simply a side effect of living."
. 
Passionate provocative ideas in theatrical form, Kink Observed promises to be what Gilbert does best. I ask if there is anything that he wants to add. He does, "That art is not rational, that it comes from the subconscious, that we don’t know why we do it, that it can’t be analyzed, that it is not science, or a moral or political tract, that art will save you if you let it carry you away, and, that, as Oscar Wilde said, there is no right or wrong art, and no good or evil artists, there is only good art or bad art."