ART SYSTEM. 327 Spadina. 12:00am.

The beer, among other things, is going down smoothly. It’s midnight, and I’m sitting with a friend on a leather couch in an art gallery, watching a penis disappear into a mouth. The penis belongs to a longhaired shirtless man, who has just been liberated from a jean jacket with a large 7Up patch on the back. The mouth belongs to a nearly shirtless women in tight black leather pants. They are two of five people who are writhing around on the bed in front of me.

This is all part of the second annual sex party at Art System, a gallery in the Chinatown / Kensington Market area that receives partial funding from the student union of the Ontario College of Art and Design and the rest from art sales, bar sales, and cover charges to fundraisers like tonight. They’ve made the “bedroom” that I’m sitting in out of white curtains and they’ve pulled out all the romantic stops. There are roses attached to the curtains, soft lighting, a large bed, and a lovely wooden end-table with a vase of flowers, a box of Kleenex, lube and condoms. A camera, mounted to the ceiling in one corner, captures all the action, which is then broadcast on the wall in the main room of the gallery where the masses gawk, mingle, drink, and listen to the live band plunk out their burlesque style stripper-swing.

Being in the “sex room” is sort of embarrassing for me. There are no moans of ecstasy or cries of pleasure, not even a grunt from the boys. People exchange quips, as though they’d just bumped into an acquaintance on the bus, instead of having their bust bumped into by a pair of hairy balls. I find the casualness of the spectacle, and the quiet in the room, unsettling. There is also the fact that the camera can also see my friend and I, looking like a pair of pervs on sniffer's row, instead of a couple of …um…reporters on assignment. One of the curtain walls is pulled back, revealing a guy with a DV camera. This seems to put a damper on the festivities as most of the participants hastily re-dress and exit.

A large sweaty man in a black suit comes in, plumps down on the bed and begins smiling at the camera. He tells us that he is going to wait here for “all the ladies”. I suggest that “all the ladies” might find it more appealing if he took off his socks. He replies with something to the effect of “Those sluts can come in here and rip them off then”. We decide that it’s time to leave the room.

I see the guy later on, walking around in his suit jacket, not wearing any pants. I overhear one of the people working at the gallery talking about him.

“Thank God he finally left the room, maybe some more people will come in now. That guy is ruining the whole art show.”

-STEVE McKAY