In my mind, my “sessions” were very much “presentations.” To be pedantic, I was preparing “a demonstration or display of a product or idea”, which is the definition of the word. I like the word presentation over session for events of this sort because while a session is technically accurate (defined by my dictionary as “a period devoted to a particular activity”), this doesn’t provide much in the way of direction for the particular activity to progress. I disliked the very few sessions I attended at Sex 2.0 that seemed to trail off into nothingness. I specifically tried to avoid that with my presentations because I had a pre-formulated idea—however vague—of exactly what I wanted to talk about. Thus, I deliberately turned my sessions into presentations, and I tend to encourage the use of that word to inspire the same sort of directed thinking and acting in others.

But really, fuck it, sessions and presentations are close enough in my view that they are mostly interchangeable. Sessions or presentations and classes or lectures, however, are not.

I definitely agree that there’s more to our identities and lives than sex, but I don’t think ignoring it is healthy either – because (for a lot of us anyway) kink IS about sex. And I would disagree with you that the GLBT community made more progress once it stopped talking about sex. The first issues that queers dealt with were ALL ABOUT SEX – “sodomy” was literally illegal, people were arrested for going to gay bars (hooking up) and for wearing clothes of the “wrong” sex, etc. There is an argument to be made that the current round of “GLBT issues” – adoption rights, marriage, etc. – is mainly what’s on the agenda of white, upper class gays, while the more marginalized parts of the queer community are still dealing with harassment, disenfranchisement and violence. And if you want to talk about public vs. private… well, I’d suggest you read “Public Sex” by Pat Califia. Suffice it to say, queers (especially gay men) have a long history of embracing public sex and it was and still is (see the recent arrests of older gay men in NYC bookstores for examples) a big deal.

So, I don’t really understand what the “kink for all” concept is going for, but as someone who founded my own high school GSA, I know that much is true.

It is about sexuality, and framing it in larger terms is not going to change that perception. No, it’s not about having a woman kneeling at your feet on the bus – but it’s about being able to not lie about where you’re spending your weekend, or being able to say “it’s from my mistress about the ring on your finger and not be harassed. You don’t have to be advertising, but you should not have to hide things.

I’m glad kinkforall is such a success, but I’ve been to a lot of conventions with gender based and queer based and political discussions, and they weren’t limited to 20 minutes. They also happened to be alongside and often taught by the same demo classes that you find so boring – but which perhaps you shouldn’t quite denigrate so much, as some people’s sexuality does require a hands-on skillset. The two can and do co-exist.

In short, while I agree with some of what you say, I think that pretending that it’s not about sex is not very useful. It’s got to be on a “do you really wanna know?” level of questioning, with honest answers, so that people can see that just because you’re into kissing your mistress’ boots you are still qualified to teach them how to dance.