Our Mascot
“I had a fabulous time at Night of the Senses. I thought that the venue was great, notwithstanding the accessibility issues, and the care and attention that had gone into it all was wonderful. I personally had fun enjoying some beautiful, sensual women in the rubber wall and the cage. I received a wonderful massage on the Tantric tent and enjoy a ‘sensory experience’ with bells and the like in the Salon of the Senses.”
“NOTS is such a highlight of my year, well done on another fabulous and worthy event.”
“I came to the night of the senses for the first time this year and thought it was really good, thank you for such a wonderful space with such a huge variety of people. I heard about it about 10 years ago when it had a different name, and have been wanting to come for the last few years but have always been either a) having to work at an annual work event or b)with a partner who wouldn't let me. however being newly single this year (and no longer with said less open-minded partner) I came on my own and thoroughly enjoyed it, and even realised a long held idea to have some fun with a group of people on a stage (or a platform that was rather like a stage anyway). It was also inspirational to see a disabled man as part of the group, and for him to be just as included as everyone else- I can imagine that is an all too rare experience for many people when it comes to sex. Am looking forward to seeing the photos from the photo booth I visited when they're ready too. Thanks again, and I hope that the night was a successful fundraiser.”
“The night of the senses, was our first, it wont be our last, magnificent, pagan, beautiful, fulfilling, erotic, artistic, creative, warm, welcoming! I'm sure what ever we say you have heard before, we am just so grateful that there are people on this earth such as yourself who take it upon themselves to oranise such a thing.”
"Thank you for a fantastic evening - I am awestruck by the magnitude of the event and by the sincerity and energy you all put into this. Amazing. And even though its not at all about personal gain, but about winning the understanding and acceptance of the generel public and accessability & courage of thee people with disability, it am proud of receiving any kind of Acknowledgement from you guys!
I really would love to do more about it - at the moment things are (un)pretty closed and stuck here in small town, Copenhagen. Maybe we are not as open in Scandinavia as we like to think. Maybe we should just come to London!
I really liked the sensual and sexual atmosphere, combined with feeling safe - maybe also because I had a partner with me. I also liked the theme rooms.. It seemed to work..
Its a very thin line between erotic and sleezy, and I was close a couple of times to the latter. Probably out of my self consciousness and watching needy men standing looking at the action. But again, its just my preconception and probably also fear of being just that: needy and sleezy. In any case, as soon as I let myself follow the flow and just allow feelings of openhearted lust and love, I really had some special intimate moments.
I also enjoyed the great versatility of human sexuality - and that you embrased us all. Maybe that image of love, inclusivenes and empathy stands as the most magic moment. So all in all a breathtaking experience and I am grateful for the fact that you exist."
"It was a life-changing night for me and much more so, I am sure, for all the wheelchair users who attended. O loved the genuine, open-hearted friendliness of everyone there, even to an ugly old bald git, like me. I loved Café Shebeen after about 4.00 am. Oh Lordy, that was something not to tell the grandchildren about...I loved the anonymity. Everyone knew where they stood, so no-one was under any pressure. Really good vibe.
Another great, all-too-short, but mind-opening night – thank you for making it all happen. And thank you for asking for feedback; great to have the opportunity to give a punter’s-eye view...it is always a lovely, friendly, funny, sexy, crazy, eye-opening night, this year we liked the venue, being warm with lots of nooks and crannies to get lost and make new friends in, Café Shebeen was really cosy and enclosed this year which made for a sexy atmosphere. We appreciated the new Treasures and Treats, such as the Oriental room. We especially loved the Ball Pool – it would be great to have more fun and silly areas like this."
"I want to say a big thank you for throwing the best event I have been to, first time dressing up. It was one of the most fun nights out I've ever had. I'm so happy and grateful for everything."
"Three things I liked most about Night of the Senses: It was beautifully decorated, full of fabulous people, and very well organised, laid out and stewarded."
" 'If you only do one thing tonight, make sure it's a visit to the Salon of the Senses', advised my friend. Indeed it was heavenly. I closed my eyes, got stroked with feathers, had nice scents put under my nose, was fed strawberries, followed by a nice massage. It must have been popular, as I met this balloon fetishist who was queuing for second helpings! Almost all sexual persuasions are catered for at the Night of the Senses.'
Mandi Peers, which appeared in Art Disability Culture magazine
"Wow - what a month we have had! Firstly, the beautiful and seductive experience at the Night of the Senses then we got married 2 weeks later and then went on honeymoon in the Dominican Republic! It doesn't get much better than that! We just wanted to say a huge thank you to you and all the other organisers for a wonderfully erotic and sensual evening at this year's Night of the Senses. It was our 2nd visit and the atmosphere was just as relaxed and the sense of community just as strong. We felt able to explore our sexuality even more and the exhibitionist in me is starting to really break out! We spent a lot of the honeymoon remembering the Night of the Senses experience and re-enacting lots of the naughtiness!"
"Haha, hi tuppy, get it right it was 54 and that was just the Sat night. We met up with the greedy guys of London on the Sunday night and i still can't walk properly lol. We had a fantastic night at the ball. Gordy was just saying that he will be on a downer now 4 the nxt 6 months and the nxt 6 he will be hyper waitng 4 the nxt 1 to cum around. When i was in the Anything Goes room there was a wee guy in a wheelchair stroking my leg, while other guys were having fun. They kept kinda pushing him away. I work with disabled people, and I thought, sorry boys, you're not on. So I sat up got a hold of the guy in the w.chair and, well.... He had a piercing and almost blew my head off lol."
luv Marie.xxxx
"I have just had one of the best weekends of my entire life!"
Bob
"How does one find the words to successfully recount a night spent at what has been described as the 'world's biggest and best erotic club'? I want to do my bit towards raising public awareness of the incredible work of the Leydig Trust and Outsiders, two charitable organisations you don't hear much about in the Evening News."
"Dr Tuppy Owens is the mastermind (or should I say mistressmind?) of this monumental event. Tuppy is a courageous activist who has been tirelessly campaigning for a more positive sex attitude in England, particularly towards and amongst the disabled community (see www.outsiders.org.uk) and is well-known in the Highland village, where she recently moved to from the hubub of London, as 'that sex lady on the hill'."
"The Night of the Senses celebrates in style and safety hundreds of different sexual preferences and practices and I was impressed by the generosity of the guests, contributors, helpers and performers. Next year I might even take my mother......."
"Participating in the Night of the Senses, even merely in voyeuristic capacity, is rather like dropping a tab of acid with a large bunch of good friends. About a thousand, in fact (and yes, believe it or not, I can still remember my teenage trips under the influence of the great hallucinogen, even though I've had two children since - pregnancy and childbirth kill off far more braincells than LSD ever could.....but that's another topic."
"Just arriving at the club is an eye-opening experience. Some people turn up fully dressed and others arrive in street clothes, transforming themselves in the changing room inside. There is a well-stocked dress up shop where you can buy a fantasy costume at low cost. Everybody, without exception makes an effort to present the most outlandish image they can create for the night, and wandering up and down the floors of the club one comes across revellers from every walk of life, kitted-out in a vast array of fantastical and eccentric outfits. Anything from sarongs and floaty silks, to high heels and latex rubber wear. You can feast your eyes on leather straps, collars and leads, priestly robes, thongs galore, pvc nursing outfits (on some of the men too) pirate gear a la Johnny Depp, every kind of uniform imaginable: there were a few 'policemen' about, which was faintly disturbing somehow. Fat, thin, disabled and abled, young and old, fit and gym-allergic mingle together in a friendly and heart-warming way, and the atmosphere is electrically-charged as guests move around the club, finding their way in this cavernous venue, which ironically used to be a church. What better way to honour consecrated ground, I say?"
"The finals of the Annual Erotic Awards is even more gloriously satisfying than the semi-finals, held a few weeks previously. Before the performers begin the stage show there is a presentation for the winners of categories such as 'sex worker', 'pioneer', 'blog', 'film-maker', 'sex club'. At a break in the proceedings I lean forward and introduce myself to the most lovely man in a wheelchair sitting in front of me, who happens to be one of the judges. He is accompanied by his amiable cousin and they obliged me by enthusiastically appreciating my eight inch fetish shoes, which are already giving me blisters, and giving me marks out of ten for my outfit. This intelligent and cultured man has been coming to the Erotic Awards since its inception and tells me that even though he's seen a lot of the performers many times, he's never been bored. I can see why. The fine art of strip-tease is taken to a whole new level here, the sado-masochist acts are humorous and imaginative and the pole dancing takes ones breath away. I get to see the impossibly fit and flexible Ekatarina tie herself up in beautiful knots in aerial silks once again and as the show goes on, each act more innovative than the next I can't help thinking that, much as I enjoyed Cats and Les Mis this is a more entertaining show than anything Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber has produced for the West End in thirty years."
"I can't remember who won!'Winning' seems utterly irrelevant in this competition -each performer is so unique it's impossible to rate one over the other."
"After the show I go for a wander, teetering on my heels and wishing they'd introduce bedroom slippers as fetish footwear. I'm determined to grin and bear it for as long as I can 'Glamour before comfort' my mother always used to say. Or was it 'You have to suffer to be beautiful'? Funny how those childhood messages lodge themselves deep inside the psyche. There is room after room, each with a different theme and decorated accordingly, and I find out, with relief that there's no pressure to enter the spaces or to participate - the more cautious can spy through peep holes to witness the goings-on inside. Every sexual fantasy you could possibly imagine gets acted out here with gay abandon. I watch men with men, women with women, more than one woman with men, many men with one woman - you name it, I see it!"
"We come across a large, black box with holes in the walls which you step inside to be, yes you've guessed it - groped. It's a hoot! I take a turn and scream with laughter as half a dozen or so anonymous hands appear and touch me all over. It's so intense I last about forty seconds, but the bare-breasted and obviously seasoned punter after me remains in the box for at least five minutes. There should be an award for Grope Box stamina."
"Unfortunately I'm on my moon time, which is the tantric term for what can only be described in my case as 'bleeding for England'. My partner has a stomach ache, so between the two of us there ain't much action, but I'm happy to prowl the place as enthusiastic voyeur, a cat-o-nine-tails carried religiously throughout the ten hour marathon, showing that yes, I am a sex maniac at heart, even if I'm not about to strip naked and get down and dirty on this particular night. It's five minutes before we're due to leave and a polite gentleman comes up to me and asks, in an Etonian accent, 'Are you available for a whipping?' It's a question one doesn't get asked an awful lot, especially in the middle-class, suburban village I reside in, and I think, what the hell, you only live once (unless you believe in reincarnation, which sometimes I do and sometimes I don't, but on this night I definitely don't)." He leads me to his friend, who's dressed in a kilt (I'm not even sure why I'm mentioning it, by this point no article of clothing is surprising) and tells me that his friend's been a 'bad boy'. My exhausted partner sits down in a corner, quite clearly longing for home and a nice cup of tea. The two men and I move towards the doorway to the Dungeon, but take our place against a wall outside. Somehow the room feels too official and intimidating. I think it's the fear of how far one might go. Safely outside, with no fear of pressure from professionals S/Mers, I do the honours of punishing the man, in a rather Jewish-girl-from-Bournemouth sort of way. I think he may have been a little disappointed by my lack of vigour. The Etonian asks me if I've been a bad girl. I think to myself, 'in for a penny, in for a pound', I might as well get a light whipping while I'm at it'. After all, this will be the closest I get to sexual depravity until the tidal waves of menstruation have abated. As the curtain comes down on the mutual whipping frenzy I realise that rather more than five minutes have passed and I feel a touch of guilt abandoning my ever-patient, tantric love god. I look over and, blow me down, he's grinning ear to ear. That's love!"
Kavida Rei
"The real beauty of the Ball is that it brings together so many creative, wonderful, beautiful people."
"Tuppy, the world is a much better, fun place for your being in it! Contrary to your name, you are worth your weight in gold!!!"
Simon