Austinites who crave every juicy detail of a friend's sultry night out have all that coming and more, when a cult-favorite live series and podcast makes its first-ever stop in their city. Bawdy Storytelling, which presents locals' stories about sex, kink, body image, and gender, is coming to Austin's Scottish Rite Temple on December 5.
The 18-year-old concept is similar to Austin's own, equally popular BedPost Confessions, which started in 2010 and ended in February of 2024. Whereas BedPost Confessions solicited stories from regular people and handed them to professional performers, Bawdy Storytelling trains people to tell their own stories, even if they have no experience at all.
Tickets ($26-65) are available via Eventbrite. A holiday sale from now until Saturday, November 30, at 11:59 pm offers two tickets for the price of one.
Bawdy's Austin debut
"It's going to be my first trip to Austin," says Dixie De La Tour, the charismatic storytelling coach that runs Bawdy Storytelling. "I was friends with the people who ran BedPost Confessions, so I would watch from afar what they were doing, and it always seemed like they had a really enthusiastic audience in Austin. So I was always like, okay, Austin sounds like my kind of people."
The similarities don't stop there; Bawdy is bringing that energy back to the same venue, along with at least one special guest who is now a friend of both shows.
Nonbinary drag queen and local celebrity Brigitte Bandit is the musical guest for the night. Bandit is known for civically conscious drag. She is a member of Austin's LGBTQ Quality of Life Commission and has made national news appearing at public hearings in drag and consulting with policymakers on gender- and sexuality-related lawmaking.
Although the heart of the concept — and the thing that keeps De La Tour invested after nearly 300 podcast episodes — is the rawness of an average person's story, there are some bigger name draws getting people to shows.
Being onstage for the first time can be scary, but De La Tour is up there with storytellers the whole time.Photo courtesy of Bawdy Storytelling
In other cities, well-known guests have included Come As You Are author Emily Nagoski, comedian Margaret Cho, Savage Love advice columnist Dan Savage, sex therapist Reid Mihalko (ReidAboutSex), Gender Magic author Rae McDaniel, and voice actor Bill Ratner (G.I. Joe, Mass Effect). Bawdy Storytelling has also collected accolades from publications like O, the Oprah Magazine, Forbes Magazine, Esquire,GQ, and Marie Claire, to name a few. LA Weekly aptly coined it "The Moth for Pervs."
According to De La Tour, some of Austin's stories — which will only be performed once — include someone's newly unfolding nonbinary identity and a gay comedian's recovery from Stage 4 cancer. Expanding on the latter, De La Tour points out that even Bawdy stories about difficult topics lead back to joy.
"Our goal is talking about these things we're told we're not supposed to talk about, in a way that is focused on celebration and joy," says De La Tour. "So we want everybody to walk out going, 'Holy sh*t, I've got so much more than I thought."
Get to the point
De La Tour does deal with some misconceptions that the long-running project is about scandal or shock value. And to be very clear, anyone attending the show should be ready to hear very explicit descriptions of body parts, florid thoughts, and sexual schemes. But it's all in service of deeper, more empowering ideas.
"I tell them, we gotta be in that room. So you got to tell us something that we could only know if we were there when this happened to you," says De La Tour. "And then those are stories are designed as a roadmap for people to go, 'Maybe I'm queer, and I never knew it.' 'Maybe I'm polyamorous ... I didn't know anybody I could ask. And you have the storytellers right there. That means you have somebody that you can walk up to and go, 'Can I ask you a question about that?'"
Bango
To ensure the storytellers aren't the only people getting approached, De La Tour has also invented a game called Bango. Attendees all get cards with scavenger hunt-like tasks: "Find someone who...likes kinky podcasts." Then the found person signs their name, and the two strangers have made a connection.
For people who are terrified to approach someone and ask them what they do in bed, De La Tour has varying levels of difficulty. Prizes will reward some brave souls who fill their cards, and others may get lucky in more ways than one — one recurring task is to find someone who wants to hook up that night. Guests should arrive when doors open if they want time to find their nine Bango allies.
"When I've been on tour, I go into a room, nobody's speaking to each other," says De La Tour. "It is, like, pin-drop quiet. Then you start passing out Bango cards ... and the room is roaring with people having conversations with each other. I'm very passionate about the loneliness epidemic, and how hard it is to make friends as an adult, and how hard it is to make yourself go out. A lot of people tell me they're terrified to go to my show because they didn't have anybody to go with. And I'm like, we've designed it so you can go by yourself."
The storytellers are there less to entertain and more to make connections.Bawdy Storytelling
Vulnerability is rewarded at Bawdy Storytelling, whether its from the storytellers — who aren't allowed to read from note cards — or audience members and Bango players. And that's why the topics are taboo; they're meant to catapult everyone out of their daily norms and comfort zones. De La Tour isn't looking for shock, but for the lean in that shows the audience is receptive to the story.
"Neuroscience tells us that mirror neurons mean, when I look into your eyes, when you're telling me a story, I feel the story," she says. "[Leaning in,] they really empathize with the storyteller. That's why this is my life's work. I love watching people do something brave."
