The Red Temple - Brisbane
Contents
About
So, what is this mysterious Red Temple?
The Red Temple is a sacred, trauma‑informed space based in Brisbane (and touring across Australia) dedicated to facilitating conscious kink, somatic sensuality, and embodied erotic exploration in a safe, respectful environment. They put on curated events—such as "Kink Temple", "Bedroom Ropes", "The Embodied Dominant Workshop" and more — participants engage in guided workshops, kink stations, shibari demonstrations, tantric-plus-consent education, and playful social moments like cuddle puddles and shadow dance. It's led by experienced facilitators Daniela Grace (a certified counsellor and somatic psychotherapist) and Deborah Wolf (also a badass) - so that's a wonderful combination of experience. The Red Temple emphasizes radical consent, personal boundaries, inclusivity, and self‑empowerment. It welcomes all genders, sexualities, singles and couples—from newcomers to seasoned practitioners—offering a space where kink and sacred sexuality become paths to healing, intimacy, and integrative erotic therapy.
What:A tantra & play space varying ...(alternating). When:About once a month - check their humanitix events page. ... (and if you have questions, email them). Where:Brisbane, West End, Upper Kendron... plus Melbourne & Sydney sometimes ... ([ map]) Cost:~$60 - $100 per person, depending on event. What to wear:Depends on the event, but it's a kink space. Website:The Red Temple ... (and tickets page and instgram).
My First Experience
Okay, so the fun stuff. I'd heard about The Red Temple from a couple of friends of mine, and was always curious. Didn't realise I'd end up going, but it was just after I'd been to the amazing Pranafest and felt inspired to work on a consent project - my first time since the Consent to Kiss project in the United States - that a wonderful ex said she wanted me to come along with her for emotional support when she realized a bunch of our friends were going. It was a lovely space in a community hall, and it felt safe and loving largely because of the people there. Mistress Grace did a pretty great intro, emphasising the importance of taking care of yourself, and seeking an enthusiastic "hell yes". The recovered all the stuff on their website / ticket agreement, which is fantastic, because people tend to skim that.
She lead some really lovely exercises, talked about toys, scenes... all that good stuff, and for me it was a bit of a surprise that the method of grouping people was blindfolding everyone to just walk around in a huge cluster. If if wasn't a last minute that my friend bought tickets for us... I might have noticed that in the video on their website.
I'd seen various parties in San Francisco when I was writing my consent book - and they have a very high bar there - but I've never seen or heard of this blindfold everyone approach. I mean it certainly got people mingling. You certainly wouldn't want to bring a family member along to one of these events and do this exercise, but it's how people form initial groups, so you can bet your ass that all the experienced guys are not doubling up their blindfold becasue they want to make sure they're in the best possible pod. So now you know!
FYI: This was a clothes-on event - but they apparently have other events that are clothes off.... it's the full range. I really love the arm band idea to say you don't want photos of you. Other spaces they don't do cameras at all, but I guess they were collecting material for their website.
What was Amazing
- Daniela Grace gave a pretty lovely consent talk at the start... she said some really lovely things about autonomy, and admitting that people sometimes get it wrong - and they sometimes get it wrong, but that they would be available to chat to if needed.
- The quality of the people was pretty epic. Everyone seemed to understand consent well.... In San Francisco, there are far more men than women, and you see men being quite aggressive and sex forward. Here, it was a little better. It makes sense too - it's a smaller community in Brisbane for BDSM, tantra and play, so I'm sure people who don't play by the rules are banned a lot faster.
- Some really lovely touch exercises and soft music playing in the background at the start.
- I heard their workshop before the play party was amazing, so I'm sad I found out about it last minute, because that would have been the grounding a demi-sexual like me probably needed to form connections... and yet I had a couple of lovely conversation about consent and offered a couple of people massage during the event.
Room for Amazing Improvement
- Unclear intensity level from website - Halfway to the event, I was driving and of the four of us in the car, we realize none of us were certain if it was a clothes on event or not - it wasn't explained particularly well on the website - but since they were inviting of first-timers I guess we assumed it wouldn't be too full on. You'd think all these places would explicitly explain what you might see, but maybe for legal reasons, they can't.
- Rules not enforced - When we arrived, we were told it was underpants on... and no penetration. They said that twice. Very soon, though, a couple of men got completely naked. In a room of about 40 people, I definitely saw a few pensis, and penetration. My friends reminded me it all appeared very consensual, but for me I said. Well, it's about optics. For the first time, people to see that, it's a lot, and it's confusing to hear the rules and see half a dozen people breaking the rules who are very obviously regulars. So are they rules to be broken - or just rules for first timers?
- No printed materials - Well, this is my secret sauce I'm excited about. I want to print off a bunch of tapestries with consent messages ands rules on them ("hell yes", "three strikes", "reservable consent", etc) and - if it's not too expensive - just gift them to all these spaces. Even if the facilitator forgets to mention something, they can point at the wall, or people can see these beautifully consent and safe-sex conversation guides. I lead ecstatic dance workshops sometimes, and I want some material like that (not about sex stuff obviously, but the simple stuff) for myself soon because I know it will lift my game.
- Consent games - The exercises were great, but I can think of a couple of quick exercises they could have run to demonstrate (1) practice no (2) practice celebrating no with style (3) learn the sexy way to ask someone's boundaries and consent style.
Sincerely,
Andrew Noske
Dicliamer
I've only been once - so take my experience with a grain of salt. That said, friends who have been before have had similar experiences.... some very positive and some that felt there were a couple of obvious improvements. Overall very positive, and it's weird I'm positing thing how ahead of me getting the materials together to offer the amazing facilitators as a gift... but I want to write it down when it's fresh, and if fate is that someone discovers this article before then, maybe they'll help advice on how best to make suggestions. I have a pretty good idea, but it's always good to have an "in". You can never protect everyone from trauma in any event - let alone an event where play is on the table... but people who receive feedback well or give feedback well are the ones who might help change the standards across Australia and maybe across the world! That's the dream - hold me accountable for it!
See Also
- Conscious Events - Brisbane... more events in Brisbane (mostly dance - only some of them in the saucy space).
Acknowledgements: Daniela Grace and Deborah Wolf, who obviously have helped in the building of a safe community of awesome people. I'm bummed I didn't get to introduce myself to them and have a chat. A huge thank you to the friends that invited me and the ex that asked me to come along as her support. 💕 |