Get In Touch With Your Sultry Side

Sitting in her car outside a forlorn looking strip mall, 25-year-old Leena Cash has never felt less enthusiastic about attending a birthday party in her life. In past, the pressure to find a gift, find a date, or find a way to say no to that extra piece of sugary birthday cake was enough to make her turn down an invitation or two.

Today, however, she was less concerned with mustering her self-restraint and more concerned with preserving her self-respect.

The wind was sharp in Winnipeg that morning as Cash confronted a sign hanging above the glass push door, reading 'Pole Dancing'.

Moving briskly through the cold, past the deli and down the sidewalk, she paused at the door, then hesitated a moment below the daunting sign. This party was no regular party.

In fact, it was a Passion Party. She had heard about them -- maybe on Oprah, maybe at the gym, but never before had she personally R.S.V.P'd to a soirée where the theme was unbridled embarrassment.

Passion Parties are a relatively new phenomenon among women across Canada who have grown tired of brunches and potlucks. Hosted in the home or in a designated party space, Passion Parties offer fun and interactive seminars that aim to improve your sex life, be it active or temporarily dormant, and have become a popular choice for party girls who want explore anything and everything Eros.

Some specialize in exotic dance, while others feature seminars on pleasure tactics to be shared with a partner, or without one. Afterwards, some women go home with a new found sexual confidence and a revived, recharged libido, while others just take home sex toys - including the Hitachi Magic Wand, The Pocket Rocket, The Butterfly, and of course, from Sex and The City fame, The Rabbit.

Standing in front of the office of Divas on the Loose, located at 851 Henderson Highway, she prepares herself mentally. She had been dreading this morning all week. The last thing she felt like doing on a wicked winter morning was wrapping her legs around a slippery steel pole.

"When I walked in, I was greeted by a woman behind standing desk that showcased lotions, lubricants, and dildos," described Cash, who was the first of the guests to arrive. "She looked 50-something, like a suburban soccer mom, kind of overweight, with a bad cut and dye."

To her surprise, the place smelled clean, and the inventory was neatly organized on the shelves. After signing a safety waiver form, she scanned the space, and what looked to be a dance studio. She felt oddly apprehensive considering she had spent most of her childhood years in ballet slippers. As the last of the guests arrived, she noticed a costume closet at the back of the open concept studio spilling over with feather boas, cowboy hats, and pleather.

Pleather, Cash thought to herself, was most certainly never a good thing.

"Alright girls," bellowed a loud female voice, intruding on Cash's quiet observations, "Lets get you on these poles!"

What was once a relatively taboo subject among ladies-who-lunch has become their sole reason for gathering. Party facilitating companies in cities all across Canada, including Victoria, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto and Halifax, have become the trend "du jour" among women from every background.

It seems everyone wants a piece of the passion pie these days and as far as Carlyle Jansen is concerned, birthday girls and Bachlorettes are welcome to as much fruity, flakey, filth as they can swallow.

Jansen is the founder and owner of Good For Her party facilitators and sex-toy retailers in Toronto. The company has introduced over 10,000 women in the GTA to the world of lusty luncheons and come-hither cocktails over the past five years.

"There are so many different types of parties to choose from," says Jansen, who conducts all kinds of workshops both in the home and at her store. "The most popular ones are our sex toy workshops, 'giving head' workshops, and burlesque and stripping classes," the mother of two explains.

As she prepares her store, located at 175 Harbord Street, for her busiest day of the year, Valentines Day, she speaks confidently about subjects that would make most women blush or stutter. She says the word 'clitoris' the way most women say 'casserole'.

After having her first orgasm in her late 20's, Jansen made a career decision, and chose to fully devote her life to helping other women have them too. Although a racy endeavour, Jansen claims that her objective stems genuinely from her passion for education, which had initially been her intended career path.

"We want to make people feel comfortable talking about sex. Women are sometimes surprised to hear the way our facilitators speak. We don't giggle, or get embarrassed," says Jansen. "We talk about sex the way some people talk about breakfast cereal," the attractive, brunette with shortly cropped locks jokes lightly.

According to Jansen, home parties are of the highest demand. At her store, these types of parties have become increasingly popular over the past three years.

"One of our facilitators will come to your home, and show you how to use different things you can buy or even find around the house [to enhance your sex life]," she says. "We start with regular household objects, like feather dusters and other wacky things you can get at the dollar store," adds Jansen, who is proud that her workshops can appeal to even the most thrifty seductress.

"On one night, we'll have a party going on in Jamestown and a party up in Rosedale at the same time. Really, everybody does it," she says solidly, as if trying to deflate what she feels is a common misjudgement about her line of work.

However, not everyone is completely at ease when it comes to sleaze. Jansen has come across many women who are often too shy to take part. This, she feels, is a product of many years of a patriarchal social conditioning.

"In the past there has been nowhere for women to talk openly about sex. They can ask their doctor, but a doctor knows about infection, not about pleasure," Jansen states. After being raised in a society where locker-room talk was reserved for men only, many women have been permanently set to mute.

"Everyone was a little bit quiet at first," says Marlene Zentner, 21, as she recalls what would soon become the first of three Passion Parties, facilitated by a company sharing the same name, she would attend last year.

"I was a little apprehensive about talking so openly about [sex]," said Zentner, who is blonde, bubbly, outgoing, and has proudly been sexually active for a few years already - not the type to make shy with anyone or anything. Her very first party was hosted in a home. Imagine a modern day Tupperware or makeup party. However this time the girls were discussing labia not lipstick, and plastic goods designed to vibrate, not refrigerate.

"The facilitator was so easy going and knowledgeable about all of the products that eventually we all loosened up and had fun. I even bought something," she continues with a twitter referring to a small middle-priced vibrator. "And it was very helpful considering I'm in a long distance-relationship."

Zentner found herself utterly hooked on passion. From that moment on, neither Mary Kay nor Rubbermaid could compete. She even admits that the purchase made on her first night of cock-talk has had a significant impact on the success of her long distance relationship.

"Women, by nature, like to pleasure and please others, and they don't focus enough on pleasing themselves," says Jansen. According to her, sex-toys are very common among women who are involved in long distance-relationships, as well as those whose lovers share the same bed.

Her belief is that sex, like locker-room talk, is not just for men. Women have needs too, and they need to be satisfied, with or without a man. "We throw parties for couples, and we throw parties for singles. It doesn't matter who you are, sex is important."

Dr. Didi Khayatt, professor of sociology and sexuality at York University in Toronto, could not agree more. According to Dr. Khayatt, for women, learning about female sexuality is essential.

"Talking about sex is healthy," says Dr. Khayatt, who has spent the last 20 years publishing articles and lecturing on both heterosexuality and homosexuality in today's society.

"The talk of sex in the last four decades has been developing, and increasingly it has become O.K. to talk about it," she says, pausing for a moment. "We have come a long way, and we have struggled to do so."

According to Dr. Kahyatt, feminists, women's rights activists and female authors have all fought to make a woman's voice audible when she says the word sex.

Women might be ready to talk, but is society read to listen?

"Society is coming around," says Dr. Kahyatt optimistically, "but it really takes time."

And perhaps just a little time is all we need.

Cash's black-socked feet tip toed lightly around the pole, as her naturally pinkish cheeks flushed further in embarrassment. With her right hand gripping the cold steel, the slow beat and low synth of a generic hip hop song echoed loudly through the room.

"Just like we practiced, when you're ready just jump," instructed the woman from the front desk, the 50-something soccer mom with the bad cut and dye. All seven of her friends had taken a spin, and now it was her turn.

Looking back at the band of yoga-pant-and-pleather-clad supporters, she took a breath and closed her eyes.

Leaping upwards into the air, Cash grasped the silver post, right hand over left. Just like in the demonstration, she thrust her hips forward and arched her back, wrapping her legs loosely, elegantly around the pole.

Once around, twice around, three times around, Cash let go of the pole with her left hand as she became more confident and used it to keep wide brimmed cowboy hat from falling of her head.

She felt weightless, valiant, unashamed, and most of all, surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, she felt sexy.

"Now slowly, sexy-like, get up and walk away," commanded the instructor.

And she did.