The raunchy spectacle of CEEPS SEX TOY BINGO

By Lauren Medeiros

Thereis truly no other place in London where you can show up with your friends on a weeknight, have a drink and leave with a free pair of fuzzy handcuffs or a vibrating cock ring.

Every Tuesday at 9 p.m., The Ceeps is buzzing with energy, as students fill up tables on the dance floor, gearing up for what’s considered a rite of passage for Western University students: Sex Toy Bingo.

The rules are simple. Each attend- ee receives a sheet of paper with four mini bingo grids and uses raw macaroni to mark their squares. The letters and numbers are called out by the bingo hosts, Colin and Matty, who have been cracking raunchy jokes and handing out vibrators — which they call “battery-operated boyfriends” — since 2007.

Once you successfully get a line on your bingo sheet, you have five seconds to make your way to the centre stage for the hosts to see. If more than one person gets bingo, they must rock-paper-scissors their way to winning the prize. The prize is announced before each round, so bingo-goers know exactly what they’ll be going home with — be it anal beads fit with an easy retrieval ring or a pocket asshole.

“We’re not comedians, this is just what we do for a fun Tuesday night,” says Colin. “The way we look at it is, it doesn’t matter what your gender identy is — if you’ve got an asshole, we’ll make fun of it.”

When Colin and Matty took over Ceeps’ infamous Tuesday bingo in 2007, it was for a much smaller crowd, and sex toys were not the main focus.

Its original format, called “Sledgehammer Bingo,” was designed like a gameshow. People would come up to the stage when they got bingo and choose a picture from a wall-full of different celebrities and pop-culture references. Behind each picture would be a prize — a can of food, a box of Kraft Dinner or a sex toy. The bingo-winner would then have to smash a rotting piece of fruit with a hammer, making it spray over the crowd, who would try to take cover under dollar store umbrellas.

It was an eclectic demonstration, which appealed to anyone who wasn’t interested in the busier dance parties. Eight people showed up for the first one, 15 at the next and around 50 by the end of the year. Sex toys were the most sought-after prizes — so much so that the local Stag Shop began sponsoring the show.

And Sex Toy Bingo was born.

But in its long-running history, the event has had to shift with the times, Colin notes. “There were certainly jokes we would say 15 years ago that wouldn’t fly now. We would make fun of things that just aren’t fine to make fun of.”

Back in 2014, an incident took place where a Western student, Aashna Sandhu, claimed a manager of Ceeps at the time made sexist and misogynistic comments to the crowd on the evening of Nov. 18 while hosting bingo. Sandhu said he made jokes about women not being capable of winning at sports and about sex trafficking in India.

When asked about this past back- lash, Colin recalled that several years ago, one of the hosts — who he would not name — made a joke “meant to get a rise in people.”

“The joke was something like, ‘Take a look around folks, you see all the women here? Do you want to know why there’s so many women here? Because this is the only sport women are good at,’” says Colin.

According to Colin, the crowd booed and threw their macaroni pieces at the host. He remembers a young woman speaking up and saying the underlying idea of the joke wasn’t funny. The host was let go soon after.

Frank Inglis, who has been serving they try to steer away from anything overly controversial.

“Would your grandma be as into it? No, not necessarily. But we’re not going out of our way to offend anyone by any means,” says Inglis.

Ceeps hosts are working to evolve the bingo night, aware of past false assumptions. Colin recalls one Tuesday last year when they were giving away a pocket pussy and a male student came up to the stage to claim the prize.

“I was like ‘you got to be a happy man, you’re getting a pocket pussy’ and he was like ‘no, I’m gay.’ I felt bad for this kid so I went to the Stag Shop and found out they also had pocket assholes … we have to be more aware,” says Colin.

It’s not rare for someone to be picked on throughout any given Tuesday bingo. If a young woman wins anal beads in an earlier round, the hosts will likely refer back to her winning throughout the night. Colin considers these jokes more “having fun with,” rather than “making fun of.” and bartending at Ceeps since 2013, when he was a third-year King’s University College student, says that in his entire time working at the bar, he only remembers one instance where someone has gotten visibly offended on bingo night.

“That host didn’t last very long,” Inglis says. “We didn’t let the situation go. We comped the person’s drinks — it’s all in good fun and we apologized.”

Inglis compares that evening to a comedy show, saying how most things the hosts say are raunchy, but

But the Ceeps Sex Toy Bingo wouldn’t be the infamous event it is today without the shoutout they got in a 2011 edition of Playboy. Western ranked fourth in the magazine’s Top 10 party schools — the only Canadian school to make the list — and bingo was mentioned in the university’s description.

“More than 20,000 undergrads enjoy a drinking age of 19 at this London, Ontario school,” the magazine wrote, according to the CBC. “The bar scene is kicking. On Tuesdays students cram into Ceeps to play Sledgehammer Bingo, which is basically an excuse to strip and drink (as if one were needed).”

Colin says the bar’s bingo night became busier than ever after the article was released with every Tuesday after feeling like a Saturday night. But all of the new attention came with the Ceeps deciding to end an age-old bingo tradition.

While these days, a false bingo-caller takes an empty-handed walk of shame back to their table, that wasn’t always the case. Ceeps used to have false callers do a strip-tease on stage as a penalty. Colin says the guys had to take everything off, including their underwear, and girls had to go topless. The only privacy they got was what they used to call a “bingo bear” — a stuffed teddy bear which people could use to block parts of their bodies from the crowd.

“We would never force anyone to [strip] but the alternative deal was you had to buy the hosts a shot,” says Colin. “It also became one of those things where a bunch of fraternities would come in and purposefully call a false bingo. That would take 15 minutes and then someone else would call it because that was their initiation … it was getting a bit ridiculous.”

Between the initiations and rise of people videotaping the performances, management decided to shut it down.

Colin says Ceeps has never been contacted by the university, even after the Playboy piece, about their popular, though sometimes controversial, evening.

“I think the university tries their best to separate themselves from the bar and party scene, which makes a ton of sense on their end,” he says. “They want people to be at Western for school and the opportunities that brings.”

Inglis, who began as a bingo-regular at the start of his undergraduate and has worked the vast majority of Tuesday nights for the past decade, says bingo night is regularly high-energy and oftentimes his favourite shift to work. He even acts as a bingo host stand-in, when the regulars are on vacation or are sick.

“It’s a casual night,” Inglis says. “You play something with your friends, you can win anything from a butt plug to poutine or a gift card. It’s a really good time — you’re actually sitting and talking to people.”

Both Inglis and Colin feel the show is purely meant for entertainment and satire, not to cross any boundaries that may be triggering for some people.

“If you’re offended by sex toys, you might be pretty offended by the language that’s being used,” Colin says. “If it does offend you, join us on a different night.”