20th Anniversary of The Night of the Senses 2006

We proclaimed 2006 The Year of Riotous Pleasures to reflect on the events of 10 years ago, when the Ball was threatened by the Disorderly Houses Act of 1751. This Act was created “to prevent the lower sort of people engaging in riotous pleasures”. In fact, the 10th Anniversary Ball never happened, as it was stopped in its tracks the day before by the cops, and losing us – a charity – eleven thousand pounds.

It seemed that such troubles were well behind us until this July, when we got wind of a true-life farce involving a General, a Bishop and a Raw Sucking Pig, which had focused the authorities' attention on our regular venue, and caused us to switch to another venue at the last minute. To our great good fortune, we managed to find a replacement, the Renaissance Rooms in Vauxhall, an attractive club with an outdoor terrace and pavilion. New flyers were sent out, and the tickets sold like hot cakes. Luckily, the event went ahead without difficulty, but it just goes to show that Britain really needs to rid herself of her ancient puritanical laws – and hypocritical attitudes.

Many of our guests told us that this was, once again, our best Ball ever. Nobody seemed to mind the crush, and our disabled guests were incredibly good-natured about it. It was difficult to squeeze everything and everyone into this venue without creating inevitable bottlenecks.

Here is some of our feedback from guests:

“Thanks very much for organising last night! It was another really special effort and there was a lot laid on. It was our third NOS (in recent years). We're really glad there's an event like this to go to and that is so inclusive, not only in terms of sexual/erotic preference but in terms of disability. Our impression was that there were more disabled people there this year than previously, which is great. It must have been a major effort by the organising team to pull it all together in time. So well done and really thanks for that.”

“I was happy to walk around the ball wearing nothing but a black feather boa and a feather head dress being admired and propositioned and stroked and played with, knowing that I was protected by my Love. And he was happy doing what he does. At the end of the night we came home together with nothing between us but love and happiness. No questions only answers.”

“Thank you for all your hard work at making an awesome event at which we were able to be ourselves without any judgement, as well as being a wonderful way for us to celebrate our first wedding anniversary, most of the time off doing our own thing. Our best wishes to you and your team.”

Mel of Melanie's said, "Where else in the world can you jump up and down on a guy with your spikiest heels for only a pound!" Adam: "Well, I thought I'd seen everything, four hours into the ball, I realised, I'd seen nothing!”

The 20th Night of the Senses took place on Saturday 2nd September 2006, and made a record sum of money for Outsiders – twelve grand! It was a sea of happy faces and the only disappointment was that morning arrived all too soon!

Guests entered through an arch of fresh flowers and stepped straight into the Erotic Awards auditorium. The Erotic Awards exhibition (at the time on show at the Trolley Gallery) was projected on screens beside the stage while guests and finalists settled into their seats. The show opened with the usual blast from Mat Fraser, and the strippers, performers and fashion shows were interspersed with brief presentations of flying penis trophies to the winners in each category.

After the show, everyone wandered through the Playroom and outside onto the terrace where the Infinity Dome and the Messy Eating Diner were in full action.

One of the most beautiful encounters of the night was when a gay couple came up to the Ball's founder, Tuppy Owens, to inform her that they have attended every single Ball since the first one she held in the London Dungeon in 1986, and this year was special for them because, becoming pensioners, they got in half price!

Starkers' Naked Disco produced a slick and completely nude ultraviolet technohaze. Ravers could peep inside the more private Naked Lounge, where amazing scenes took place. At one stage, a woman so enormous that it was impossible to determine the gender of the person beneath her was gleefully flaunting her voluptuousness and passion.

The Sensuality Chamber was a round construction of multi-level beds beneath a parachute, in which bundles of people were making love. Our serenaders were wedged between them, and often swept into the action. Our young lady cello player, who had planned to leave with her financé at midnight, was still enjoying herself at 5am. This was a couples-only area, and there was much excitement when a stray male we speedily ejected by our naked karate blackbelt hostess.

The Roissy Dungeon looked particularly pretty this year, with stunningly beautiful dommes in luscious outfits seeing to smiling subs on elegant equipment bathed in soft lights, spied from outsiders through fancy netting.

We were treated to unexpected erotic scenarios, both by volunteers and guests. A Japanese bondage display left viewers spellbound on the terrace, while amazing fisting demonstrations were being given on the Playroom Stage along with all manner of unexpected insertions, and the Medical Area provided a continuous show of guests enjoying all kinds of examinations and procedures.

Perhaps because of the limited space of the Sensuality Chamber, fuckers spilled out into the Café Shebeen, while the more bashful entered the Dark Room and the Fuck For Forest Grotto.

For the first year ever, we had a successful Women's Only space. The Red Tent was organised by Tegwen who has been stewarding at the Ball for many years. Having trained with Shakti Tantra she brought along some playmates. Together they created a sumptuous space filled with velvets and silk. Women were treated to succulent fruits and chocolate, massaged with feathers and finger tips and encouraged to explore themselves and others in this Tantric sacred cavern.

The Boys Back Room also was busy all night, with French porn in one corner, kissing, cuddling and more in the centre, bi-curious men standing around, agog, and a-hard!

To celebrate our 20 years, Tuppy decided to bring back some of the best acts from the Erotic Awards for a Late Cabaret. It proved tricky tracking down long-gone performers and so she invited the close family of performers who are our friends. This brought together the all-time favourites and much-loved, such as Lara Clifton, who went on from stripping to run the Whoopee Club, but was happy to do her old pub routine to the huge loyal audience gathered around the stage. We also had the beautiful Solitaire, horny Rumpshaker, twirling Sunny, and amazing Mouse. Mouse was her most full-on, with a high energy show of madness: cow's milk straight from the udder, Catherine-Wheel squirting, sliding off the stage and self-fisting-up-the-jacksy. Guests who had travelled the world and seen all the top shows told us this was the most amazing act they had ever seen. Tuppy sat at the front screaming with delight.

After Mouse's endless mess had been cleaned up, the Café Shebeen transformed itself once more into place of magical erotic energy that was felt by everyone.

The finalists in the Erotic Awards included some very brave and talented winners:

ARTISTS OF THE YEAR Jan Willemsen , a gay Dutch artist who creates Bosch-like miniatures of playful cocks, shared the prize with London based fashion/fine art photographer Alice Hawkins .

CAMPAIGNER OF THE YEAR was won by Backlash who are campaigning against the new government proposals to ban extreme pornography. The award was collected by Demolition Red .

CLUB OF THE YEAR was a toss up between Olympia Moments , the stripper-run stag club, Starkers London's naked disco which has been having to fight the authorities to survive, and Candy Bar , London's only licensed striptease club for lesbians. The winner was Olympia Moments.

FASHION DESIGNER OF THE YEAR was won by designers of striptease outfits, Ooh La La !

FILM OF THE YEAR was won by the French gay porn producer Jean Claude Cadinot for his erotically immaculate Nomades series, although judges also loved the other films: the wild and fabulous French feature film Choses Secretes and the latest alternative American porno from Libido Films, Trial Run .

INNOVATION OF THE YEAR was Crochet My Crotch – a website offering cheeky and charming crocheted vaginas.

THE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD was given to three heroes: 74-year-old Irena Ionesco , the charismatic and influential French erotic photographer; Sunset Strip , the ancient Soho striptease theatre of great repute; and writer, publisher and thinker William Levy .

PERFORMANCE ARTIST OF THE YEAR was Lily Dumont , for her stylishly experimental dances.
The successful gallery owner Jamie Robertson became PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2006 with intimate photos of his wife taken on visits while she lived far away from him in Japan.

Agent Provocateur 's new swanky short story volumes Secrets and Confessions won PUBLICATION OF THE YEAR with their beautiful tales, bindings, ribbons and end papers.

FEMALE STRIPPER OF THE YEAR was presented to Chiqui for the fabulous acts she has performed for us and her flamboyant speech at the Sexual Freedom Conference.

Pru was crowned FEMALE SEX WORKER OF THE YEAR because of her humility, tenacity and devotion to her work.

Chris-Student was crowned MALE SEX WORKER OF THE YEAR for all his kindness, campaigning, public speaking and good looks.

WEBSITE OF THE YEAR was given to Bent Voices , a lively site for disabled gay men.

The black writer Angela Campion won WRITER OF THE YEAR for her book Scandalous published by Brown Skin Books.

Outsiders elected to crown the disabled artist Alison Lapper with the Outsiders Award .

We were flattered to have the help of Adam and Mel of Melanies UK Swingers website, in the Sensuality Chamber, and even more grateful when they pledged to sponsor the Ball financially from now on. We plan to use the cash to pay for a floor manager and to make our venues totally wheelchair accessible and disability friendly. We are now in search of the perfect venue.

We would like to thank all our guests for coming along, and apologise for the venue's slow cloakroom, and the lack of space for people using wheelchairs. Thanks go to the guests who allowed us to take photos for this website. And finally, we must thank our teams of volunteers for their very hard work and integrity, for which they must feel proud, particularly those troopers who were still packing up on the Sunday afternoon: Paul, Eddie, Steve, Mick, Stevie and Tuppy.

See you next year.