Even on a street as gaudy, inconsistent, and ugly as Yonge, the Brass Rail has always felt out of place. Bordered by Ginger on one side and Kitchen Stuff Plus on the other, the building's façade eschews subtlety: unflattering snapshots of women in bikinis––the focus squarely on breasts and torsos––cover the exterior of the building, while an LED marquee scrolls the latest club news past (there's always something about "Porn Star Nikki Benz"), and......

Toronto-based Naked News (NSFW, duh), which already broadcasts both an English and Japanese version, will soon also be available in Spanish, Italian and Korean. That's right. While other newsrooms are cutting back, laying off correspondents, and eliminating foreign bureaus, Naked News is (insert your pun of choice here). If you are not familiar with the Naked News phenomenon, the site offers subscribers 22 minutes of headlines, light news, and celebrity interviews, six days a......

There used to be a sign above a video arcade that proclaimed "Yonge Street is Fun Street." Back in the 1960s and 1970s, much of that fun was to be had at the many bars and clubs that lined the street south of Gerrard––Le Coq D'Or, Steele's Tavern, Friar's Tavern, Zanzibar Tavern and so on. Depending on the venue, you could listen to music, dance the night away or catch a striptease. Today's advertiser......

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Once a week, the editors of each site—from LAist to Londonist—compile some of their most interesting posts into a brief blurb. It's Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse, and it appears, across the network, every Sunday. Londonist got the big scoop of the week with what may be the first images of notorious street artist Banksy in action. They also got on a runaway train without......

Darryl’s Hard Liquor and Porn Film Festival (covered by Amanda Buckiewicz earlier this week) is at the Bloor Cinema this Saturday, October 13 at 8 p.m, but if you’re a person of milder tastes (soft liquor and corn?) this week’s festivals of interest include the Toronto Latin Film Festival, the Macedonian Film Festival, the DNA Film Festival (it’s a busy week for festivals!), and the ImagiNATIVE Film Festival, which continues to win us over......

Chances are, if you're like us, your first experience with pornography was a mix of titillation, curiousity, and shame. Maybe it's still that way, but at least for one weekend you can be free from shame if you join fellow pervs at the Hard Liquor And Porn Film Festival. Eight years ago, Darryl Gold threw a party and invited guests to bring booze and their favourite porn scene. When one party-goer decided to bring......

If there's anything Jesus loves more than flattery, it's porn stars. Well, technically, Jesus loves everyone—even those little teenage tramps and their HPV vaccines—but now, ol' JHC is adding some marketing pizzazz to that affection. Since deities also love acting all obscure and ambiguous, the Michigan-based XXX Church (savvy!) has taken it upon themselves to declare that Jesus wants you to stop looking at porn and instead find titillation in scripture. And they've set their......

Last night, the seats of Harbourfront Centre's studio theatre were packed with a mix of middle-aged art aficionados and well-coiffed hip, young homos all dying to see Francesco Vezzoli give a lecture and screen his notorious Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula. Vezzoli is an Italian artist known for his work in video and embroidery (yes, embroidery) who set the art world ablaze a couple of years ago with his re-imagining of the......

Sin And Sun recently interviewed Rebekah, a Torontonian who has gone from living on the streets to being an erotic Internet entrepreneur. Her client niche? People who are turned on by smoke and smoking. No sex, no nudity; just a woman with a Cuban cigar and a pack of Gitanes. Rebekah, who describes herself as "a punk rock gothic power smoker who adores cigars and unfiltered cigarettes," maintains a Flickr account with over a......

Tragedy was narrowly averted Saturday at the Brass Rail Tavern, where a fire was contained by Toronto Fire Services. How many times will we allow this sort of thing to happen? Remember ABBA's words of wisdom: "The love you gave me, nothing else can save me, SOS." Illustration by Kevin McBride.......

Usually saying the words "short" and "sex" in the same sentence means that somebody had a bad night. Unless, that is, you're talking about Darryl's Hard Liquor And Porn Film Festival, a showcase for short movies about everyone's favourite late night activity. Wannabe porn directors, now's your time to shine, as the final call for submissions has been pushed up to August 15th. The rules are fairly loose, pardon the pun, with the only criteria......

Once a year Toronto the Good becomes Toronto the very naughty. FFN (formerly known as Folsom Fair North) is Toronto's annual fetish fair. Now in its fifth year, the Fair features everything from play areas and parties to an art tent. Festivities kick off July 20 with the Welcome to Toronto party, being held at Alibi. The next night is Agitator, FFN’s big deal sports-themed fetish blowout at the Opera House. The FFN web......

Photo of Post Porn Modernists Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens by Julian Cash. It must be nice to write a column for The Globe: you can pass judgment on artists’ work without attending to pesky trivialities like seeing their shows, and project your own insecurities and feelings of lack onto people who are actually changing the world. Herein is a review of a recent show by Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens at Buddies in......

Sex-positive feminists are all atwitter! Annie Sprinkle Ph.D., prostitute/porn star turned sexologist/performance artist, is coming to our great city for a run of her her newest show, Exposed: Experiments in Love, Sex, Death and Art at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. While in town, Dr. Sprinkle will also be hosting two workshops at Come As You Are on ecstasy breathing and energy orgasms. Each workshop will also feature a screening of her upcoming documentary, Annie......

Unlike our hetero male friends, a lot of women just don't get aroused by mainstream porn. You know, the kind where silicone-padded girls are used as receptacles for bodily fluids? Thankfully, there is a growing market for porn for women by women, which has been dubbed "feminist porn." For porn to be considered feminist, three criteria must be fulfilled. First is that the women are shown experiencing real pleasure and real orgasms. Secondly, women should......

Only three days left in the 17th Annual Inside Out Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival! Last night, Eleven Men Out screened at the Bader; an Icelandic comedy with a reasonably original premise: a soccer player named Ottar being interviewed by a reporter in the locker room after a game while the rest of his team is changing decides, for the benefit of appearing on the magazine's cover, to come out of the......

The 17th Annual Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival had its official launch earlier this week at the Gladstone (following a recent fundraiser) where it announced its lineup to the public. The opening night gala will be the Canadian premiere of Duncan Roy's The Picture of Dorian Gray, a modern update of the classic Wilde novel starring teen dream David Gallagher as the amoral muse. Other gala screenings include 2005......

Clockwise from top left:the SpareParts vegan dildo harness, the PureWand stainless steel hypoallergenic dildo, a selection of Hathor organic oils and lubricants, and the Hitachi Magic Wand plug-in electric vibrator. Are you tired of going to the clinic for mysterious STDs that turn out to be allergic reactions to cheap lubricants? Worried about landfills clogged with non-biodegradable disposable dildos? Fed up with the noise and smell of that coal-powered vibrator you inherited from your......

It's a time-honoured tradition of television news: send some reporters out into the city to ask for the Man on the Street's opinion on a hot-button topic - the necessity of bilingualism in Canada, for instance. Little did one group of reporters know that it's also a time-honoured tradition for sassy, stoned ladies walking down Yonge Street [it's at the corner of Yonge & Charles; the Shoppers Drug Mart was a Coles and you......

Each weekday for the next two weeks, Torontoist is facing off local memes and blog drama in a tournament-style ladder and you, the reader, decide the outcome. View the full ladder here. Some highlights from yesterday's matches: Jane Jacobs makes Yonge-Dundas look square (107-95): The usually untouchable Jacobs was thrown off her game early on by anti-gun rallies, massive video billboards and a late-game PR stunt by a chewing gum company, but pulled ahead......

Often considered one of Toronto's best sex stores, Come As You Are (701 Queen St. W) is throwing a 10th Anniversary Party on Thursday night. The worker owned and operated store will celebrate ten glorious years with prizes, "thank you gifts," a toonie bin, prizes and erotic pastries (we're hoping for breast cookies and penis eclairs). The bash will be taking place from 6-9pm and is the first of many free events the store is......

No, not the Fujiko Nakaya installation of Nuit Blanche fame. A camera-toting CN Tower employee (can you imagine?) snapped some gorgeous shots of our downtown blanketed in a heavy, San Francisco-like cloud cover last week. More photos in ryandt33's Toronto - City of Clouds photoset.......

Let’s start with the film festivals for a change, huh? Most intriguing has to be the Toronto International Latin Film Festival, because it’s… on at the Royal Cinema? Que El? It’s interesting to see the old girl is in use again; until now we haven’t heard anything about it, and don’t even know if it’s been renovated yet. Maybe? The film festival starts tonight at 7pm with the Chilean film For Rent, and runs until......

As per the comments yesterday, here's another racey and more recent portrait of Toronto micro-celebrity Nina Arsenault. This time, the photo comes straight from the source - Ms. Arsenault emailed us after the last posting.......

The message is clear this September: Canadian albums will once again act on behalf of freedom and decency, liberating the world from evil. Starting with the New Porn record and moving through past Broken Social Scene, Canadian music will be a model which for every country in the world will be based on. Promise made, promise kept! - The message is not so clear tonight at Sneaksies Deesies tonight, when the Parkas and DJ Kat......

We're mostly grown-ups here, so though the Heffalump entices, we're going to go with a provactive new docative from the guys who made Party Monster, and attempted to lift up dear Macauley in the process. Inside Deep Throat promises to do for 1970s porncapades what Morgan Spurlock did for McDonalds - reveal the obvious, and make big waves. Still, when the big waves involve highbrow analyses of Ms. Linda Lovelace's particular powers (by the likes......

Today brings us yet another installment in the Dov Charney Media Feature Lovefest. This time from the Times, by way of Gawker. Even before the US outlets caught on to the charisma of American Apparel's Canadian Porn Star in Chief, Dov was hyped in an amazingly lengthy and nuanced piece by Mireille Silcoff. And now, every gal with a pen and a pulse knows she can go to LA (or NY) to meet with Dov......