 “I'm a semi-veteran Ball / NOTS attender (every year since 2002 inclusive) and I owe you for a string of best-nights-of-the-year and a ton of self-discovery”. David "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 there wicked way with me. They kept kinda pushing him away. I work with disabled people, and I thought, sorry boys, ure not on. So I sat up got a hold of the guy in the w.chair and sucked him off, and what a cock he had - it was solid. He had a piercing and when he came he 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 sex 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, and has been running it for 21 years. 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'." "Having actively studied tantra for ten years, learning through tantric meditations how to merge sexuality and spirituality, I have only recently begun to investigate this world. One thing I discovered in my tantric explorations is that there is no such thing as 'wrong' certainly in the world of sexuality and self-expression in general. The question I asked myself recently was, "So if I'm really going to live that truth then what better way to test the waters of my new-found 'acceptance of all things as they are'." "Surely anything that breaks boundaries and opens ones eyes to the myriad aspects of human nature can only be a good thing? Visiting Wikipedia and typing in BDSM is an education in itself. My observation so far is that, whether it turns you on or not, there seems to be an admirably high level of consciousness and respect within the world of fetish, very little drug taking or alcohol abuse and basically a lot of rather normal and nice people who like to dress up and have a bit of fun." "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......." "I had invited members of the Online Community on www.tantralink.com to join me on this adventure and sadly, only one tantrika showed up. What a shame. I see tantra as a gateway to consciousness, and although tantra per se is not represented directly here, there is a great feeling of connection and spirit running through the Night of the Senses which gives me hope for humanity." "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 perfomer 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 Im 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 Torture Dungeon, but take our place against a wall outside. Somehow the torture room feels too official and intimidating. I think it's the fear of how far one might go. Safely outside the dundgeon, with no fear of pressure from professional torturers, 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 
Press are encouraged to cover The Erotic Awards but The Night of the Senses has a "no press and no photography" policy. Naturally, however, The Night of the Senses still get featured in listings, and written about, raved about in underground publications. The first Ball was listed as the landmark of 1986 in The Observer's history of sex "50 Years of Opening Up". 
“The sexiest event in the UK, and possibly the world.” Eros Website
“This isn't some branded rave, run by cynical young trendies and sponsored by the latest foul alcoholic mutation; the whole thing is presided over by the seasoned campaigner Dr Tuppy Owens, who turned 60 last year, and a merry band of free-thinking persons, many of whom are well over 35. In fact, one of the past finalists was a stripper who went by the name of "Fabulous At Forty". She was also a complete novice at the time but, if I remember right, decided to go pro not long after. Being 40 put her somewhere in the middle of the crowd, age-wise. Men and women of all ages travel from miles around for this party, also known as The Night of the Senses, because they know that whatever they feel like doing, or wearing, will be accepted, and no one is going to point the finger at them because of their age or physical appearance.” The Independent
“The annual burlesque-laden award ceremony rewards creativity ... and has something of a political and philanthropic element too, with anti-censorship and pro-sex education advocates feted and proceeds going to a charity which helps find partners for disabled people.” The Guardian Guide
“The Erotic Awards is the adult version of the Oscars, promoting recognition for the most innovative, generous and gorgeous performers, writers, film-makers and activists of the year – and it's all for charity. Imagine the scene: a roomful of men and women of all ages and sexual persuasions, dressed up in their fabulous best, applauding an array of erotic performers and looking forward to a night of sensual exploration and fun. Welcome to the Erotic Awards, part of the Night of the Senses, an annual celebration of all things erotic.” Erotic Review
“A department store of British sexual fantasies.” The Guardian
"More fun than Shakespeare in Love." - Metro
"A shamelessly naughty celebration" - Flirt
"The most famous erotic event in the world" - TNT
"A ground zero of the libido, the most unconventional dinner and dance imaginable. The crowd is full of merry, lascivious perverts of all stripes." - Screw
"Tuppy Owens coordinates one of London's most interesting parties." - Apple Bomb Bubble Gum
"For good works over the years and her ceaseless efforts in educating people to be more understanding and tolerant towards the disabled, Tuppy Owens deserves to be nominated for the highest honour in the land and receive it personally from an appreciative monarch." - Marquis
"A unique event which promotes tolerance and diversity." - Record Reviews World
"The highlight of my diary." - Penthouse
"Highly enjoyable." - Time Out
"Neat People, wild night." - Popeye
" Tuppy Owens and the Night of the Senses are simply the best! Great people, a great cause, and a big love fest not to be missed." - Annie Sprinkle Ph.D Prostitute/Porn Star turned Sexologist/Artist/Author
" The most carefully arranged and friendly sex event in the world – great fun and the experience of a lifetime." - Jo King founder of the London School of Striptease
" The Glastonbury of Sex. These are the good people in a gloriously mucky business." - Grayson Perry |