Last Saturday, February 25^th, dozens upon dozens of people converged on the Tivoli Student Union for KinkForAll Denver (KFADEN). To many, the event was a thrilling and eye-opening experience. To some, it was that, and also deeply painful and uncomfortable. That discomfort was expressed most publicly today in an article by Jenn Wohletz published in the Denver Westword:

[S]everal prominent local kinksters were noticeably missing, including Denver’s premiere dominatrix and kink community leader Mistress Saskia[…].

[…]

Mistress Saskia says she believes [maymay] is on a “personal crusade to attack the kink community[…].”

This makes me giggle because if one knows anything about me in relation to KinkForAll, one probably knows of personal attacks two professors named Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks made against me for being a BDSM-friendly sex-positive activist. Way back in 2010, I was too BDSM-friendly for the religious right. Now, in 2012, I’m apparently too anti-BDSM for “the kink community”? Go figure.

Understanding KinkForAll

Before I go any further, it’s important to understand what KinkForAll is, as well as what it is not:

• KinkForAll is a coordinated autonomous action, akin to a flashmob-style conference, at which every person regardless of age, affiliation, ethnicity, orientation, identity (gender or otherwise), race, or any other characteristic may participate.
• KinkForAll is not “a BDSM conference,” nor is it a conference “to learn about BDSM.” Nevertheless, to date, learning about BDSM has happened at every single KinkForAll unconference ever produced.
• KinkForAll is a non-hierarchically organized collective of people who work in concert towards one and only one shared goal: making KinkForAll unconferences happen.

Here’s the tricky one, the one most people fail to understand the hard radical implications of:

• KinkForAll is not a legal, political, personal, financial, corporate, or government entity of any kind. In other words, KinkForAll is a social technology, a methodology, and a pattern of behavior. KinkForAll is not an individual event. It is not the sum of multiple events. It is a blueprint, a framework, and an idea with an arguably confusing name. Specific KinkForAll unconferences are not KinkForAll and KinkForAll is not a specific unconference. Each informs the other, but only in the same way that the Atlantic Ocean informs Lake Eerie and vice versa.

Since that confuses many people, let me break it down in practical terms:

• No individual or group who donates money, time, or energy towards making KinkForAll unconferences happen is in any way more or less entitled to determine the content of a specific KinkForAll unconference than any other individual or group. Saying “there are no taboo conversations,” means just that: you get to come and say whatever you want.
• At the same time, no individual or group who donates money, time, or energy towards making a specific KinkForAll unconference happen is in any way more or less entitled to alter the structure of KinkForAll unconferences. Saying “there are no pre-scheduled presentations,” and “sexual activity is not welcome during the KinkForAll unconference” means just that: if you want to do a presentation at a KinkForAll unconference, you must physically show up, find an open slot on the schedule grid, and execute your presentation within the space and time constraints of that slot. You must also refrain from “having sex,” including and especially behaving erotically and exhibitionistically—whatever and no matter what that means for you—at KinkForAll unconferences.

One point in the above exposition is so important it deserves being repeated: learning about BDSM has happened at every single KinkForAll unconference ever produced. This same fact cannot be said for an inordinately huge number of other topics, such as disability rights and its intersection with sexuality (to name just one of many possible examples). Every KinkForAll unconference has historically lacked discussions on these other intersectional topics.

The reason for this is simple: KinkForAll is a privileged space for BDSM’ers. BDSM’ers are now, and have always been, the dominant social group at every KinkForAll unconference. Don’t take my word for it, take Jeff Jizz’s, Mistress Saskia’s husband, a KinkForAll Denver participant, and a person referenced in Jennifer Wohletz’s article about the event. By Jeff’s own count of the participants at KinkForAll Denver:

I would say at least 50% of the attendees I saw were BDSM’ers and that number would have been much higher if shit did not hit the fan.

BDSM topics have historically overwhelmed the session grids at KinkForAll unconferences. As I said on Facebook:

• Out of 46 sessions, KFANYC1 had 25 BDSM-centric sessions, and many of these were explicitly play related. (See, for instance “Suturing 101,” “Basic Rope,” “Seven Piercing Disasters,” and so on.) That’s 54.34%.
• Out of 42 sessions, KFANYC2 had 17 BDSM-centric sessions. That’s 40.47%.
• Out of 28 sessions, KFABOS had 14 BDSM-centric sessions. That’s 50%.
• Out of 14 sessions, KFASF had 5 BDSM-centric sessions. That’s 35.71%.

KinkForAll’s less-represented participants, such as people of color, people with disabilities, even self-identified “vanilla” people, have consistently hesitated to lead sessions on topics they, themselves, deemed too far askew from BDSM. I’m certain these people have valuable things to say, yet the degree to which many have internalized “not being kinky enough for KinkForAll”—which means not having enough BDSM Scene cool points—has kept many hesitant and fearful of participating.

This is not a surprise. The predominance of BDSM-centrism at KinkForAll unconferences meant that it has been at the mercy of all the systemic racism, classism, and inaccessibility of the BDSM Scene proper.

This, despite the fact that the “Kink” in KinkForAll is not synonymous with BDSM. This, despite the fact that I have been making that point ever since the moment KinkForAll was conceived, years ago. This, despite the fact that so many structural aspects of KinkForAll—its 20-minute session limit, its reliance on crowd sourcing rather than on making purchases with money—were intentionally designed to counteract the systemic influences that make so many BDSM-centric events largely accessible only to people who are white, heterosexual, class-privileged, cisgendered, able-bodied, and so on.

BDSM has moved up; it has taken up a lot of room at KinkForAll unconferences. It is time for BDSM to move back, to talk a little less, and to listen to others a little more. Since “BDSM” is not a person, and since KinkForAll is structurally designed to ensure discussions on any topic cannot be unilaterally excluded, it is up to us, collectively, to check BDSM’s privilege at specific KinkForAll unconferences when we participate in them.

BDSM Scene-State figureheads are not good role models

I have personally spent an enormous amount of energy encouraging people who, for instance, want to wear their “vanilla boots” to a KinkForAll unconference to do so. In the past, other unorganizers and passionate community builders—people like Emma, Aida Manduley, Rebecca Crane, and Ben K.—have done the same. Sadly, such people’s valuable contributions have yet again gone largely unacknowledged in favor of hurling ad-hominen insults against me and people I care about. For instance, in reference to Alisa, Jeff wrote:

UPDATE: It looks like the comments from which I quote, below, written on a post by a KFADEN participant (named Isaac, the person pictured in Jenn Wohletz’s article) were made inaccessible to many people. Since I couldn’t possibly imagine that Isaac wants to limit the reach of anyone’s voice who weighed in with an opinion on his post (he is staunchly anti-censorship, after all!) you can download a copy of the thread here. If you use the Safari browser on Mac OS X, you can download a .webarchive of it here. And here’s a screenshot.

Lol oh look another star fucker. Just read her blog and you can see whose blog whoring dick is up her ass.

That is stupid and a waste of time. But more to the point, devaluing a woman’s work based on who she fucks is the very definition of sexism and sex-negativity.

Yes, these verbal jabs may be stupid and a waste of time, but they hurt. They hurt a lot. But you know what hurts a whole lot more? Feeling abandoned and thrown to the beasts of -isms by a self-identified anti-oppression “community.”

And that’s why I said this on the KinkForAll mailing list:

[S]ince no one else seems to be able or willing to do so, I just want to point out the fucked-up-ness of a lauded BDSM Scene member who owns a for-profit BDSM venue with his married partner calling me and Alisa “blog whore”s and “pimps,” (and, as an aside, WHAT is WITH all the sex work slurs, Jeff?! For fuck’s sake, YOU AND YOUR WIFE OPERATE A PRO-DOMME HOUSE AND MAKE AND SELL PORN!) who calls Alisa’s “voice…just an extension of Maymay’s,” erasing her agency by using misogynistic ad-hominem insults.

I’m not surprised at Jeff’s behavior. I’m *disappointed* in everyone else who’s apparently too invested in this BDSM Scene-State Work-Play economy that they’re not saying one peep about, or at least not *noticing* behavior like Jeff’s. Don’t you fancy yourselves well-versed and sensitive to anti-oppression work? Is Jeff’s social capital that strong? Is that not also a form of power worth criticizing?

And in making these points I’m not even talking directly about the way behavior like Jeff’s effects *me,* or Alisa (despite the fact that it does). Rather, I’m talking about the structural ways behavior like Jeff’s contributes to a system called the BDSM Scene that keeps submissive-identified people of any gender from claiming personal autonomy, that makes it easy for abusers and rapists to prey in BDSM venues, and worse. Jesus fucking christ, people! This dynamic mirrors an abused person defending their abusers. What are we so afraid of or hurt by that makes it difficult to see this clearly?!

On a personal note, Jeff’s comments about Alisa make me angry because they read to me as simultaneously saying Alisa can’t be her own woman AND that I can’t be anything other than a typical, dominant male. This is similar to how angry I was at my ex-partner’s dad when I learned that he faulted me for corrupting her into being sexually dominant. It’s why I rage against statements from academics like Robin Morgan’s that insist male submission is an expression of “envy.” It’s part of why Donna Hughes attacked ME and not my then-partner. That shit makes me want to punch walls. If you can’t see Alisa as the independent, powerful person she is, Jeff, then you can’t see me as being a human with vulnerabilities and authentic submissive desires, either. And for that, fuck you very much.

And also, shame on everyone else who might’ve called Jeff out on that sexist bullshit but chose not to because he’s a friend (and no one wants to hurt their friends) or because he could ban you from the RACK Room and that would suck for you.

Your behavior, Jeff, is why the BDSM Scene is a sexist and sexually-classist environment. That others are more invested in their affiliations with The Scene than in seeing that Scene structure for the oppressive system it is makes them complicit in that sexism and classism, too. And that’s the reason why *I* am going to continue to make sure privileged BDSM bullshit is made uncomfortable by me, as an individual, *and* why I want KinkForAll unconferences to remain events at which *discussions* (not demos) about BDSM are no more or less encouraged by the *structural building blocks of the event* as any other topic.

If that last sentence seems like a paradox to you, Jeff (or anyone else reading, for that matter), then I invite you one more time to schedule a coffee date with me while I’m in town (I leave Colorado on March 6th) so we can ACTUALLY TALK about this.

Otherwise, go jump off a cliff, like I did. Maybe your Open Source Sexuality group (which you started on the same day as KFADEN, awesome!) can be that cliff for you. I genuinely wish you all the luck in the world making that a success. I would love to see it thrive here in Denver. It wouldn’t be the first time people who had a bad taste in their mouths about KinkForAll decided to do their own thing, and I am actually REALLY HAPPY (really) to see other people *doing* interesting stuff, even if it’s got nothing to do with KinkForAll.

Checking your privilege does not feel good. If some BDSM Scene’sters in Denver are feeling a little wounded, if the “premier dominatrix” of the Denver BDSM Scene is feeling pissed off that the red carpet wasn’t just rolled out for her on-demand, if the BDSM Scene’s aristocracy did not feel that their star-bellied sneech-stars were admired enough at this one event, that’s because KinkForAll Denver is not about them; fuck them, because this isn’t for them, anyway.

It’s also not about me. But in trying to shift the focus away from what KinkForAll Denver is actually about and towards me instead, the puny kings of puny hills are able to gleefully maintain the privileges they’ve become indebted to and simultaneously infuriatingly ignorant of.

Substantive reporting about KinkForAll Denver could have talked about the ideas that were discussed—yes, including the one I’m writing about right now—or the serendipitous interactions that participants had, interactions which may not have happened otherwise. It could have talked about what it means to expose a group of active, engaged people to a methodology for producing low-cost, extremely social events that challenge everything about familiar status quos. It could have critiqued the way KinkForAll succeeds or fails to engender self-empowerment from each participant. It could have asked questions about the nature of educational systems, what collaborative relationships look like and how to build them, the accessibility or inaccessibility of sexual information, ways to identify entrenched bigotries and how best to excise them, and much, much more.

Participating in a KinkForAll unconference is about the intense challenge of putting oneself in an uncomfortable but not dangerous situation, of learning how to “move up” and claim your personal autonomy, your agency, and your power when you need to, and learning how to “move back” to respect others who share this home we call Earth. KinkForAll unconferences are self-empowerment training areas. Unless you turn them into something else. Ironically, KinkForAll is designed to let you turn it into whatever you want it to be. Why squander that?

KinkForAll is an intense event. It is not designed to be a “safe space” event. Rather, it is designed to encourage people, in public space, to step outside their comfort zones in a way that lowers their costs of failure for doing so. And that’s what KinkForAll Denver did.

To Jennifer Wohltez, I ask: Is it really worth neglecting to cover hours upon hours of KinkForAll Denver sessions about everything from “Bikesexuality” to “Human Centered Design for Better Community Experience” to “The Physics of Sex Machines and Vibrators” because the egos of some BDSM Scene-State elites got bruised? I think that’s sensationalist reporting and it’s something, like I told you over email (published, at the end of this post), I’d hoped was beneath you.

For fuck’s sake, Jenn, you categorized your article “Fight!”? Are you really that immature? Are you really more interested in a Saskia vs. Maymay, get-ready-to-rumble-style cage match? I promise you, I’m not as interesting as the challenge of addressing embedded racism, sexism, classism, ableism, adultism, and many other kyriarchical issues inside “anti-oppression communities.”

Worse, the article you wrote wasn’t even accurate. Lazy reporting disappoints me even more than tabloid sensationalism. But, since transparency matters to me, I’m going to disentangle this ridiculousness one last time. Here goes.

Decontextualization is unethical, and petty

We’ve encountered decontextualization before. Funnily enough, it’s also a classic pattern used by sex-negative media. We know how it works—and, wow, does decontextualization ever work! We also know how to combat it: make primary sources available and accessible.

Let’s take it from the top. In the article, Jennifer writes:

[T]wo KinkForAllDenver organizers censored presentations to discourage too much BDSM content and actively sought to exclude local kinksters.

First of all, note the repeated conflation of “kinksters” and BDSM’ers—this reveals the limitations of Jennifer Wohletz’s understanding of KinkForAll, as well as “kink” more generally. Secondly, “censored” is a loaded word; it was used in precisely the same way Donna M. Hughes used “sex trafficking” in her review of the Happy Endings? documentary.

Writing that “organizers censored presentations” is also just plain false. I repeatedly asked Jeff and Isaac, the people who “staged a protest” to upload their session slides so that they could be more widely disseminated, not less. I did this not just at KFADEN itself, but then multiple times on Facebook, as well:

By the way, I *also* asked for a copy of the slideshow, from you, personally, after your session.

[…]

I asked you point blank after your session, “Can I see your slides or something?” And you said, something to the effect of “They’re around,” with no other overture to offer me any kind of access to your material.

After the slides were finally published, it was I who linked to them from the KinkForAll Denver schedule grid.

Moreover, Rebecca Crane had this to say, which was unsurprisingly not published in nor linked to from Jennifer Wohletz’s piece:

I had an extended e-mail exchange with Saskia off-list [now public] in which we discussed possible presentation topics, and I expressed *repeatedly* that I was interested in and excited about the Biofeedback workshop she’d suggested, and that I was personally looking forward to attending.

[…]

I think all this silliness about how Saskia’s presentations were “shot down” or she was “encouraged not to come” is just that: silliness. I personally invited and encouraged Saskia’s involvement repeatedly, in several different formats, including through mutual friends, directly myself via e-mail, and even trying to “raise a white flag” after all the drama between her and maymay by personally taking KFADEN fliers to a party at the RACK Room – where, incidentally, she essentially refused to so much as make eye-contact with me much less have a conversation.

So where did all this “silliness” come from? In her article, Jennifer Wohletz writes:

Mistress Saskia […] was originally planning to present on biofeedback breathing and scene identities and roles.

Here we see what I call the “confuse” tactic:

This tactic relies on an audience not to fact-check, as it includes outright lying, omitting important facts (“de-contextualizing”), and even creating false contexts. In this way, the tactic is identical to Andrew Breitbart’s famous example: take the facts, strip them of context, and present them in as emotionally charged a way as possible.

Herein lies the danger of being too complacent, of not being skeptical enough. The people presenting information will take advantage of others’ inaction, exploiting that for all it’s worth using severely biased or baseless claims.

There’s lots of chatter about a possible “biofeedback breathing” or a “scene identities and roles” session, and not a word about the one topic idea from Saskia that I (not KinkForAll Denver, but I, maymay) actually objected to due, in part, to the demonstrative rather than discursive nature of it: “Temporary body mod/art (would need volunteer bodies willing to be stapled/sutured/pierced).”

And even despite my vociferous objections, Saskia very well could have done a piercing workshop if she actually showed up, signed up for a session slot on the KinkForAll Denver schedule grid, started and finished within 20 minutes, and did not violate the venue’s rules. But Saskia needed to show up to make it happen, and I, for one, am glad that to the best of my knowledge, no one was stapled, sutured, or pierced at KFADEN. Saying that anyone “censored” anything is a petty lie.

And then there’s this:

in an attempt to “extend an olive branch” and facilitate advertisement of the KFADEN event, [maymay] and Crane and were then invited to attend a private gathering in Mistress Saskia’s dungeon under the auspices of promoting the event.

“Rebecca and Maymay came to a RACK Room event with the express intent of promoting the event by discussing it with other guests and by flyer-ing,” says Saskia.
But [maymay] showed up with a notebook and asked people questions, she continues, which he recorded and then posted on one of his personal blogs — a violation of safe space and guest privacy. “Nobody gave consent to be interviewed for a blog post,” Saskia insists.

Since linking to primary sources is a bad idea when what you are doing is decontextualizing something, it’s no surprise that the Westword article has no links at all except to other Westword articles. Fact of the matter is I’ve already addressed this elsewhere when I responded directly to Jeff on the KinkForAll mailing list:

First of all, I didn’t have a notepad, I used my own business cards and a pen to write notes to myself, mostly notes about the imagery the RACK Room featured on the walls, and also contact information for the people I spoke to when they offered me links to their websites and FetLife profiles.

I tried several times to have a conversation with you at the RACK Room and you hardly even looked up from your computer all night at Matriarchy. Part of the reason I accepted your gracious invitation to come flyer for KFADEN *was to meet with you and Saskia.* For her part, when I tried to introduce myself [to] Saskia, she barely took my hand, never made eye contact, and just kept walking by me. For your part, when I finally moved to head back to my hosts’, I approached you one last time while fetching my things in a last ditch effort to actually *have* a conversation with you.

Again, you barely acknowledged my presence, citing that it was “totally a work night” or something like that. I sympathized, stating again that I was familiar with the IT/sysadmin grind, and stating, “Well, I’ll be at KFADEN. Maybe I’ll see you there?” As I recall, it was at that point you pushed yourself away from the table, finally looked up at me, and said, “Oh, I’ll definitely be there.” I remember because it seemed odd that you would suddenly be so emphatic.

[…]

Obviously, I pissed you off on the mailing list (and I’m in no way sorry about that) but, of the two of us, I was not the one who chose to disengage first.

All of this is about me and Saskia or Jeff. This is stupid and wastes energy. Back on Facebook, Rebecca Crane made the following observation:

I’m actually quite happy with how the article came out. :) First and foremost because I think it illustrates a VERY interesting point re: my comment about “power, privilege, and influence within our local communities.”

Note that KinkForAll – Denver, which a huge diversity of communities worked on together for months, got a 22 paragraph write-up in the Westword – and yet, somehow, that write-up is largely dominated by the voice and opinion of a single person. A person who wasn’t even at the event. A person who, incidentally […] is a personal friend of the journalist who wrote this post.

This article — the only major news coverage that KFADEN received after months of work by many, many people — isn’t ABOUT KinkForAll Denver. This article is about Saskia Davies and why she didn’t go to KinkForAll Denver. I just think that’s interesting.

This behavior is typical of the BDSM Scene’s bullshit. Good people like Rebecca Crane pour their hearts and souls into making something awesome happen, and then the much larger traditional BDSM’ers peanut gallery throw verbal jabs. I have seen this time and again in every social institution I have been privy to. It happens on the extreme political right to disenfranchise us, sexually vocal people! The BDSM Scene should hold itself to a higher standard. That it doesn’t thoroughly disgusts me.

KinkForAll’s transparency is expressly intended to mitigate this inanity. That’s why I’m glad there are so many documented interactions. You don’t have to believe me. Just empower yourself to fact check.

And if you ever need a BDSM Scene-State-sponsored writer, don’t hesitate to contact Jennifer Wohletz at the Denver Westword. According to Jeff Jizz, she’s “the perfect reporter to cover this,” so she’s unquestionably an invaluable person for BDSM Scene-State yes-men to know about.

Email Conversation with Jennifer Wohletz from the Denver Westword about KinkForAll Denver

From: 	[Jennifer Wohletz] <ladyjparker79@gmail.com>
Subject: 	It's Jenn from Westword--questions for the KFADEN story
Date: 	February 25, 2012 11:27:42 PM MST
To: 	[maymay] <bitetheappleback@gmail.com>

Hello again! Thanks for speaking with me today, and I have a few follow-up questions before I post the story on Monday a.m. I’m also sending Rebecca similar questions.

The group who did the protest demonstration today and some local kinksters here in the Denver community have made allegations of censorship, exclusion and possible misappropriation of funds donated for the event, and I want to give you the opportunity to respond to those.

Thanks, and I’d appreciate it it if you could get these back to me tomorrow so I can post your side of the story in the piece.

Questions:

Here are some quotes from the Silence is Golden: A Quiet Approach to Free Speech About Sexuality presentation. Would you please verify if these quotes came from you?

1. “Traditional BDSM’ers are welcome to come and be made uncomfortable by me.”
2. “It is my expressly stated intention to make “traditionalists” uncomfortable. I enjoy it, I’m good at it, and I’m not going to pull any punches in Denver or anywhere else. My aim is to destroy every “safe place” for privledged BDSM bullshit anywhere within my reach. And yes, that includes KinkForAll.”
3. “I don’t think the scene is doing good work. I think it’s awful and I’m so fed up with it I’m almost ready to burn it down.”

• Were local BDSMers invited to attend and/or present at KFADEN?
• Do you have a personal issue(s) with the BDSM community?
• It’s being alleged that you create drama in BDSM scenes in different cities, including Denver, then posy blogs about it in order to drive traffic to your websites. How do you respond to this allegation?
• Do your personal feelings and opinions about BDSMers and the BDSM community via your personal/professional blogs make it a conflict of interest for you to be an organizer of KFA events?
• It’s also been alleged that KFA event organizers being labeled as “un-organizers” gives you and other organizers a lack of accountability. How do you respond to that?
• It has also been alleged that you asked for, and accepted donations to secure the KFADEN space, and after the event was subsidized by a sponsor group, the money collected was spent on t-shirts at a markup, and the extra money was pocketed by you. What is your response to this?
• Who owns the KinkForAll store?

Thank you—I will send you a link to the story when it posts if you like.

Jennifer Wohletz
Freelance Writer
*Now with Denver Westword flavor crystals!

Subject: 	Re: It's Jenn from Westword--questions for the KFADEN story
From: 	maymay <bitetheappleback@gmail.com>
Date: 	February 26, 2012 9:50:29 PM MST
To: 	[Jennifer Wohletz] <ladyjparker79@gmail.com>
Cc: 	Rebecca Crane <rebeccacrane@gmail.com>

Hi Jenn,

Thanks for making it out to KinkForAll Denver yesterday! I’m really glad to have gotten the opportunity to meet you. I didn’t notice if you left shortly after we spoke or not (I don’t remember seeing you later), but I hope you had a good time and got the opportunity to meet interesting people, have interesting conversations, or had an interaction that you may not have expected to have the opportunity to enjoy otherwise. :)

Please accept my apologies on the (relative) brevity of this email. I’m trying to wrap up a lot of loose ends for myself here in Denver and Boulder and, at the same time, preparing to travel to Atlanta, Georgia where I’m slated to present the opening keynote to the Atlanta Poly Weekend conference. I’m very excited about it![0]

The group who did the protest demonstration today and some local kinksters here in the Denver community have made allegations of censorship, exclusion and possible misappropriation of funds donated for the event, and I want to give you the opportunity to respond to those.

Questions:

Here are some quotes from the Silence is Golden: A Quiet Approach to Free Speech About Sexuality presentation. Would you please verify if these quotes came from you?

[…redundant quotation clipped for brevity…]

All of my correspondence with the people who I understand participated in that KinkForAll session are archived and publicly available on the KinkForAll mailing list. I can’t verify these were quotes from the session because, as you know, I was not present at that session. (I was, instead, participating in the Sex Worker Q&A session that was happening in Room A at the time.)[1][2][3] Instead, I’ll encourage you to verify that these were, in fact, quotes taken from our correspondence by running searches against our publicly accessible archives:

https://groups.google.com/group/kinkforall

It might be useful to you to read through the archives so that you can gain more information about what was said, by whom, and in what context, as I’m sure that will make for a more interesting article.

Also, I have a question for you: is it your understanding that the KinkForAll session you’re asking me about was a “protest demonstration”? My understanding is that it was a KinkForAll session. Can you tell me who, if not you, is characterizing it differently and, if so, can you tell me a bit more about why? Even better, I’d love to hear about that in their own words, perhaps even via an email on the KinkForAll mailing list! :)

Please consider yourself and everyone else, invited to air their concerns on the KinkForAll mailing list or to discuss whatever they’d like related to allegations made against KinkForAll (or me in relation to KinkForAll) there. The list is open access; anyone can join by sending an email to “kinkforall+subscribe@googlegroups.com.”[4] This is an invitation I’ve extended to other individuals who have been angered or upset in relation to previous KinkForAll events. You may be interested in those, too. If so, feel free to follow up on that history, as well; all of that is, as you might have guessed by now, publicly available.[5]

It’s also been alleged that KFA event organizers being labeled as “un-organizers” gives you and other organizers a lack of accountability. How do you respond to that?

I’ve addressed this concern numerous times in the past. You might be interested in taking a read through my public response to concerns raised regarding “unstructured” events and how the transparent nature of KinkForAll’s “unorganizing” model increases individuals’ accountability during the process, rather than decreasing it:

http://maybemaimed.com/2010/03/27/addressing-donna-m-hughes-and-margaret-brooks-concerns-over-kinkforall-unconferences/

I hope this helps!

It has also been alleged that you asked for, and accepted donations to secure the KFADEN space, and after the event was subsidized by a sponsor group, the money collected was spent on t-shirts at a markup, and the extra money was pocketed by you. What is your response to this?

Again, why not just reference the source?

https://groups.google.com/group/kinkforall/browse_thread/thread/ebed1fb6ddd368a2#msg_ad934dcf407769d4
https://groups.google.com/group/kinkforall/browse_thread/thread/3384fc7f07c26d34

I’m particularly disappointed to hear that there is a rumor of KinkForAll shirts ever having “a markup.” That’s just not true. Moreover, Rebecca and I were very, very careful to make sure that the zero-profit/no-markup pricing was clear.[6]

Who owns the KinkForAll store?

Some company called Printfection, Inc. does. :) Again, why not take a look at the KinkForAll store to get this information:

1) Load http://store.kinkforall.org
2) Read the bottom: “This service is powered by Printfection.com.”
3) Compare the prices listed on all KinkForAll merchandise to the base prices listed at Printfection’s public pricing guide:
http://www.printfection.com/customer/custom.php?tab=3
4) See that no markup exists. ;)

• Were local BDSMers invited to attend and/or present at KFADEN?
• Do you have a personal issue(s) with the BDSM community?
• It’s being alleged that you create drama in BDSM scenes in different cities, including Denver, then posy blogs about it in order to drive traffic to your websites. How do you respond to this allegation?
• Do your personal feelings and opinions about BDSMers and the BDSM community via your personal/professional blogs make it a conflict of interest for you to be an organizer of KFA events?

Again, I apologize for not being able to link you to *all* the threads on the mailing list where this has already been discussed, but I encourage you to follow your information to its source. :) My personal opinions are no more a secret to any interested reader than the KinkForAll mailing list archives are. You’re more than welcome to peruse any of my published critiques of the BDSM Scene as you wish.[7][8][9][10]

That said, I honestly don’t understand why you’re asking so many questions about me and not, y’know, the awesome sessions that happened at KinkForAll. Did you get to see, for instance, “Bikesexuality: Bike Smut & Self-Sufficient Transportation Meets Sexual and Physical Health”? How about “Physics of Sex Machines and Vibrators”? If you just didn’t get a chance, today I’ve been working to make them available online for free[11][12] so consider watching them through! :) When the remainder are posted online by whoever recorded those sessions, you’ll be able to access them from the KinkForAll Denver Schedule archive page:

http://wiki.KinkForAll.org/KinkForAllDenverSchedule

I’d feel very sad if these and other innovative presentations at KinkForAll Denver were downplayed in your article in favor of headlining a personal disagreement between KFADEN participants. If you’d like to contact other participants, including the ones who lead sessions, many of them have left their contact information on the KinkForAll Denver sign-up page.[13] You are, of course, empowered to ask them of their experience as well, and I hope you do. :)

Cheers,
-maymay
Blog: http://maybemaimed.com
Talk show: http://KinkOnTap.com
Community: http://KinkForAll.org

EXTERNAL REFERENCES:

[0] http://atlantapolyweekend.com/2012-atlanta-poly-weekend-presenters
[1] https://twitter.com/maymaym/status/173476240097951746
[2] https://twitter.com/maymaym/status/173475247381688321
[3] https://twitter.com/maymaym/status/173474921777872897
[4] http://wiki.KinkForAll.org/UsingTheKinkForAllMailingList
[5] https://groups.google.com/group/kinkforall/browse_thread/thread/4020d397e88241ed
[6] https://groups.google.com/group/kinkforall/browse_thread/thread/3384fc7f07c26d34#msg_a2c70a9569a18a3e
[7] http://malesubmissionart.com/post/5498352136/an-opulently-dressed-man-in-greek-inspired
[8] http://days.maybemaimed.com/post/16036372049/the-bdsm-scenes-whiteness-is-classism-at-work
[9] http://maybemaimed.com/2011/12/04/on-being-bondage-furniture/
[10] http://maybemaimed.com/2011/07/16/on-letting-the-world-burn/
[11] https://twitter.com/maymaym/status/173927327326154752
[12] https://twitter.com/maymaym/status/173855907753631744
[13] http://wiki.KinkForAll.org/KinkForAllDenver

As it turns out, Saskia was spreading rumors about my “misappropriation of funds.” On FetLife, she wrote:

Maymay decided to get the tshirts through a company that let’s the purchaser set the price over the printing costs, then pocket the discrepancy. So maymay profited personally.

Which, of course, is just an outright lie.

From: 	[Jennifer Wohletz] <ladyjparker79@gmail.com>
Subject: 	Re: It's Jenn from Westword--questions for the KFADEN story
Date: 	March 1, 2012 10:56:13 AM MST
To: 	maymay <bitetheappleback@gmail.com>

Thank you for speaking with me for the story, and here’s a link to it on the Westword site: http://blogs.westword.com/showandtell/2012/03/sex_lies_and_a_slideshow_drama_at_the_kinkforalldenver_conference.php

From: 	maymay <bitetheappleback@gmail.com>
Subject: 	Re: It's Jenn from Westword--questions for the KFADEN story
Date: 	March 1, 2012 1:22:19 PM MST
To: 	[Jennifer Wohletz] <ladyjparker79@gmail.com>

On Mar 1, 2012, at 10:56 AM, [Jennifer Wohletz] wrote:

Thank you for speaking with me for the story, and here’s a link to it on the Westword site: http://blogs.westword.com/showandtell/2012/03/sex_lies_and_a_slideshow_drama_at_the_kinkforalldenver_conference.php

Hi Jenn,

Thanks for sending me the link to your piece!

I’d like to ask you to please revise your use of my legal name to simply “maymay.” If I’m not mistaken, I have never introduced myself to you as [my legal name] nor have I sent you any written material in which my legal name was present. I am maymay. [My legal name] is what the legal system wants to call me. Maymay is what I want you to call me.

I trust you understand the difference between such things as, for example, “Jenn” and “Jane.”

Thank you for participating in KinkForAll Denver. :)

Cheers,
-maymay
Blog: http://maybemaimed.com
Talk show: http://KinkOnTap.com
Community: http://KinkForAll.org

UPDATE: Some more emails:

From: 	[Jennifer Wohletz] <ladyjparker79@gmail.com>
Subject: 	Re: It's Jenn from Westword--questions for the KFADEN story
Date: 	March 2, 2012 2:55:00 PM MST
To: 	maymay <bitetheappleback@gmail.com>

Hi again!

I forwarded your last message to my editor, we discussed it, and he is making the changes you’ve requested. It seems fair and reasonable to me that you should be able to identify yourself as you choose, as the other subjects did.

I would like to request that you remove the link on your website to my FetLife profile–feel free to link anything else of mine or about me you like; I don’t mind, but my FL profile has others’ information on it who aren’t “out” and I’d like their privacy protected.

Thanks, Jenn

From: 	maymay <bitetheappleback@gmail.com>
Subject: 	Re: It's Jenn from Westword--questions for the KFADEN story
Date: 	March 2, 2012 5:30:11 PM MST
To: 	[Jennifer Wohletz] <ladyjparker79@gmail.com>

No problem, Jenn. First, publish the comment I left on your article at the Westword via Disqus that has yet to be approved.[0] Don’t forget to check the spam filter! ;) *Then* I’ll edit my post.

Cheers,
-maymay
Blog: http://maybemaimed.com
Talk show: http://KinkOnTap.com
Community: http://KinkForAll.org

[0] http://maybemaimed.com/2012/03/02/help-me-check-bdsms-privilege-at-the-next-kinkforall-unconference/#comment-303561

UPDATE: Even more emails. These are important:

From: 	[Jennifer Wohletz] <ladyjparker79@gmail.com>
Subject: 	Re: It's Jenn from Westword--questions for the KFADEN story
Date: 	March 4, 2012 1:14:31 AM MST
To: 	maymay <bitetheappleback@gmail.com>

Hi!

The changes were made to the story, but with regard to the Disqus comments–try posting your comment again in case something didn’t work the first time, and if you still aren’t seeing your comment posted let me know and I’ll give you our web editor’s contact info.

Unfortunately I don’t have admin access to, or admin authority over the web comments–that’s a different department than the one I work for–but I’ll be happy to put you in touch with them.

Jenn

From: 	maymay <bitetheappleback@gmail.com>
Subject: 	Re: It's Jenn from Westword--questions for the KFADEN story
Date: 	March 4, 2012 3:17:48 PM MST
To: 	[Jennifer Wohletz] <ladyjparker79@gmail.com>

Hi Jenn,

You can be a smart, powerful, resilient, resourceful human being. I trust you can figure out how to communicate with whatever departments and other people you need to ensure comments on your stories are published. And once you figure that out, you will have gained ability you seem to currently lack.

I therefore encourage you to empower yourself to take whatever authority you need to, regardless of your job description or assigned role within the Westword, to effect the outcome you want to see.

Thank you again for your participation in KinkForAll Denver. When I see the comment I left on your article published, I’ll edit my post as you requested. :) You may want to contact me again to let me know when the comment is published, as I won’t be checking back on the article’s webpage myself.

Cheers,
-maymay
Blog: http://maybemaimed.com
Talk show: http://KinkOnTap.com
Community: http://KinkForAll.org

KinkForAll Denver is a free and open to the public "unconference" about sex, gender, relationships, and the ways these things affect our lives.

Update: KinkForAll Denver was great, and having fallen ill, I am far too exhausted to say anymore more than that. Keep an eye on the blogosphere’s KFADEN tagspace for others’ opinions. :)

Update: Although there was some media coverage about KinkForAll Denver, most coverage was unfortunately petty. Nevertheless, I’m proud to have taken part in helping to create another “self-empowerment training area.”

This Saturday, February 25^th, I’ll have the privilege of participating in KinkForAll Denver, an open-to-the-public “unconference” whose theme is sex and relationships education—with a twist.

Rather than invite “experts” to give lectures to a passive audience, KinkForAll Denver follows in the footsteps of previous KinkForAll events by treating everyone as an expert, encouraging them to share what they know in a highly social, peer-to-peer learning environment. “What excites me most about KinkForAll is the idea that everyone has valuable skills and ideas to share. We’re all experts on our own experiences,” said Rebecca Crane, one of a dedicated group of sex and relationships advocates helping to “unorganize” the KinkForAll Denver event.

Much of the world we live in is uncomfortable with and hostile toward education about intimacy, making many people fearful of openly discussing “taboos.” Sexual stigmas sustain an aristocratic stranglehold on information, privileging credentialed gatekeepers over the only true expert on your own desires: you! One reason speaking freely about sex, gender, and relationships is useful is the way doing so can make us aware of the limitations of our knowledge. KinkForAll’s participatory format challenges the notion that only the gatekeepers can talk about taboo topics; feeling nervous, uninformed, or inexperienced doesn’t mean you have nothing valuable to share.

Maintaining a stranglehold on sexual information also makes it easy to pervert sexual relationships into a tool for controlling people. You can see examples of this in practically every TV commercial, billboard, and sphere of advertising. The commercialization of sex—along with its counterpoint, the over-sexualization of commerce—betrays an uncomfortable paradox: even though sex and relationships are vitally important to us, we don’t know enough about them to understand how these things affect our lives. Is it any wonder, then, that many people are often scared of discussing sexual things publicly, honestly, and freely?

Of course, one of the main causes for this fear is lack of knowledge. The fact is, we don’t know a lot about intimacy, its diverse formulations, or the interplay and distinctions between the many kinds that exist. Oh sure, we say we do, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize when people overwhelmingly agree they’re getting sent “mixed messages” regarding sex, gender, and relationships, something’s unclear.

This isn’t just a theoretical frustration, either. When we don’t know that we don’t know something, we can’t discover useful, safe, and ethical ways to engage with or to learn more about it! This behavioral catalyst is called “illegibility,” and while the term is usually applied to domains of industry and public policy, it also applies to queer theory and identity politics. In his review of Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott, Venkatesh Rao writes, “States and large organizations exhibit this pattern of behavior most dramatically, but individuals frequently exhibit it in their private lives as well.”

Ironically, part of the difficulty in understanding illegibility is that it bears a striking resemblance to, yet a subtle difference from, a more familiar behavioral catalyst: invisibility. Both are ways one might respond to something one doesn’t understand. When something is invisible, one simply doesn’t register its presence. On the other hand, when something is illegible, one misinterprets it as something it is not.

Consider the difficulties in talking about sex. Before you talk about sex, you have to define your terms. Is sex “penetrative sexual intercourse”? If that’s true, is phone sex not sex? Is sex “two or more people, one or more orgasms”? If that’s true, what should we call penetrative sexual intercourse where an orgasm isn’t experienced by anyone? Surely no one would say such an act “doesn’t count” as sex, right? So, if it’s this hard to clarify “sex,” is it any wonder trying to communicate nuances of a deeply-held, personal fantasy is so much harder?

That difficulty is due to illegibility; you might be able to say “I fantasize about being spanked” and, since the idea that one might enjoy being spanked is common knowledge, you can make your fantasy visible to your partner. But, for many people, “being spanked” is simply a communicative label that doesn’t actually convey (i.e., doesn’t make legible) the emotional tenor or erotic context of the fantasy. While I suspect everyone experiences feeling illegible at one point or another, few people can recognize things that are illegible to themselves. That’s what not knowing what you don’t know means.

In many ways, KinkForAll (“KFA”) faces illegibility problems:

Maymay and Sara Eileen organized the first KFA in New York in 2009, I believe, and it has happened in several other cities around the US since. It’s an awesome event with an interesting branding problem: it is very hard, it turns out, to be an event with the word “kink” in your title, and not be about BDSM. I say this because I have been confused by this since 2009 despite maymay’s frequent and patient explanations, and from the chatter on the email list and the questions I get when I talk about KFA, I know I’m not alone.

The structural design of KinkForAll unconferences were an intentional, radical departure from earlier, legible sex education initiatives. In James C. Scott’s words, “[T]he most illegible educational system would be completely informal, nonstandardized instruction determined entirely by local mutuality.” Although illegibility produces predictable (and frustrating) misunderstandings, that’s how KinkForAll was designed to work. As KinkForAll Denver unorganizer Rebecca Crane said, “the way to make something more legible is [to] talk about it in great detail a lot[, w]hich is different from the way you make invisible things visible: By talking about them loudly.”

One way to spot illegibility is to look for questions that make little sense. By way of example, a reporter recently asked the KinkForAll Denver unorganizers, “Do you feel that Denver is a kink-friendly city?” and “How do you respond to conservatives who feel that the kink lifestyle is morally wrong and on par with insanity?” These questions revealed the limits of what the reporter knows about “kink.” (And now that the reporter’s article is published, take a look at the images chosen to supplement the piece.)

I have long hoped KinkForAll would show people that the word “kink” is too often too narrowly defined. Neither kink nor sex is merely about who did what to whom, as though we were playing a game of Clue. Rather, these terms describe complex experiences, regardless of whether you identify as “kinky” or “vanilla.”

To some people, “kink” means “sex with a twist.” To others, it means a specific subset of sexuality subcultures, such as leather or swinging. And therein lies the problem: kink, like sex, is a term with no consensus. Everyone uses it, but without being on the same page about what it means. This causes confusion, misunderstanding, and—in worse cases—outright discrimination.

A “slut” is just someone who has more sexual partners than you. Likewise, someone who’s “kinky” is simply someone whose intimate desires seem weirder than yours. So unless the reporter thinks of Denver as a city where everyone wants the same exact thing in their relationships—and I know for a fact that’s false—then Denver has to be a kink-friendly city, by definition!

I want KinkForAll Denver to be a place, like a friendly coffee shop, where people who don’t know one another can meet and discover they’re both passionate about the same things. This makes people visible to one another. And I want KinkForAll Denver to be a place where someone who’s been afraid of public speaking moves to the front of the room and gives a presentation because it’s only going to be for 20 minutes and the person before them seemed a little nervous anyway, so why not try? This teaches people how to make themselves visible to one another. And I also want KinkForAll Denver to be a place where someone, like that reporter, who thinks of “kink” as a “lifestyle” realized that, actually, it’s just an idea—making certain values of “kink” that were illegible, legible.

This gets personal. Being invisible hurts like hell. Meanwhile, being illegible precludes the possibility of being invisible. I think it’s important to grieve for hurts caused by illegibility, as well as ones caused by invisibility. It’s important because knowing how to do that is a prerequisite to treating others compassionately.

Most of all, I want KinkForAll Denver to be a place where participants learn that they don’t need permission to talk about whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want—whether that be at the next KinkForAll unconference, at their office, at their church, or anywhere. Because my real goal for KinkForAll isn’t even about sex. It’s about giving each of us the power we need to make our lives worth living.

And that starts with teaching people how to see what’s invisible, and how to read what’s illegible.

Be part of KinkForAll Denver at the Tivoli Student Union on Auraria Campus in Denver, CO. You can sign up to participate on the KinkForAll Denver homepage, Facebook, FetLife, TwtVite, Upcoming, or Plancast pages. Learn more about KinkForAll at http://KinkForAll.org, our Frequently Asked Questions page, or our public mailing list. Our wiki also has more information regarding what to expect and how to participate.

Sexploration’s Sex Geek Potluck

Last night, I had the privilege and the honor to be invited by Monika, host of Sexploration with Monika, to participate in a “sex geek potluck” down at the FCC Free Radio outpost. Moreover, I was even given airtime to talk about some of the events I’m participating in throughout March. I had a great time, and I can’t thank Monika and her party co-organizer cohort, Reid Mihalko, enough for the opportunity. :)

I’ve excerpted the segment of my time on the radio below, but you can listen to the whole show for free all this week.

• Audio clip and text transcript (15:39) of Maymay and Monika talking about “Remaking Male Submission,” masculinity, and “femdom” porn. Later in the audio, Maggie joins in and the two of us discuss censorship of sexuality on the Internet.

March Events

In March alone, I’ll be making an appearance at the following events.

March 5^th — BDSM: Kink Isn’t So Scary

The Western Regionals LGBTQIA Conference this year is being hosted by UC Berkeley, and I’m going to be a panelist on the only one of only 2 BDSM-themed sessions at the conference.¹ The panel is called “BDSM: Kink Isn’t So Scary.” (A full conference schedule and workshop listing is also available.) One reason I’m particularly excited is because one of my fellow panelists will be none other than Miss Maggie Mayhem, whom I’ve developed an incredible admiration for over the past few months.

After speaking to the panel facilitators, a UC Berkeley student and an alumn, I’m hopeful that this will be a great chance to humanize BDSM’ers and counter folks who would demonize us. Aside from my niggling objection at the synonymous use of “BDSM” and “Kink” (an objection I’ll surely raise at some point in the panel itself), our panel has been given center-stage in a room with a several-hundred person capacity, stadium seating, and a gigantic projector.

March 6^th — Kink On Tap special with Dr. Staci Newmahr

That weekend, I’ll be interviewing the author of the pathbreaking new book, Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk, and Intimacy. Dr. Staci Newmahr is a sexuality researcher who holds a Ph.D. in sociology. The book chronicles her experiences in a public BDSM community and is literally the single best exposition on the topic of SM and its relationship to gender, violence, and interpersonal relationships I have ever read. Like all Kink On Tap shows, we’ll broadcast live at 8 PM Eastern, 5 PM Pacific on Sunday evening, and you can tune in live to be given a chance to ask Dr. Newmahr questions.

There’s also a FetLife and Facebook event listing for this show because it’s a “special,” and we’ll be putting the news stories aside for now and engaging entirely with Dr. Newmahr’s amazing work. If you’ve ever wanted a chance to ask a BDSM researcher a question about the community, this is your chance. Don’t miss it!

March 19^th — KinkForAll Providence 2

As a fitting climax for Brown University’s Sex Week 2011, the hardworking student organizers at the Brown University Sexual Health Education and Empowerment Council (SHEEC) have once again sponsored a KinkForAll event: KinkForAll Providence 2. Like last year’s KinkForAll Providence, this one promises to be spectacular, only even bigger.

SHEEC has reserved two whole floors of Smith-Buonanno Hall at 95 Cushing Street. Yours truly will be bringing in equipment for a live stream, so even if you can’t make it to Providence in March, you’ll be able to watch KFAPVD2 live online, or follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #KFAPVD2. There are FetLife and Facebook KFAPVD2 event listings and you’re encouraged to RSVP there, but please, please, please also remember to sign up on the KFAPVD2 wiki registration table to help out the organizers in a coordinated fashion. (Furthermore, free Wi-Fi at KFAPVD2 is guaranteed only to those who register on the wiki and email the SHEEC folks ahead of time.)

Also, did you notice our nifty KFAPVD2 graphic icons? I love ‘em. ;)

March 21^st — On Dichotomies: Breaking Binaries and Why That’s Empowering

After KFAPVD2 on Saturday at Brown University, I was honored to be invited to lead a seminar called “On Dichotomies: Breaking Binaries and Why That’s Empowering” at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Queer Student Association. Readers following KinkForAll closely will recognize the kernel of the seminar from last year’s event in Providence. The RISD seminar will be a long-form discussion of the same material, featuring a facilitated Q&A after the slideshow.

The QSA set up a Facebook event page for the seminar (and I made a FetLife event listing, too). I’d be thrilled to see some familiar faces from KinkForAll Providence 1 in the audience, but I’m equally excited for the opportunity to hear from people I’ve never spoken with before. Even if you can’t make it to the RISD campus for this event, please share it amongst your friends. :)

March 22^nd — Remaking Male Submission: Confronting Sexism in BDSM

While I’m in Providence, I’ve also been invited by Megan Andelloux to lead a workshop at The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health. I proposed a workshop called “Remaking Male Submission: Confronting Sexism in BDSM,” which is both personally and professionally challenging for me but which I’m very passionate about. Here’s the description as cross-posted on Male Submission Art:

Oscar Wilde once said, “Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.” In this interactive seminar and slideshow, we’ll examine the nature of sex and power by exploring common cultural depictions of sexually dominant women, and especially submissive men. Join maymay, a sexually submissive man himself and curator of the crowd-sourced erotic photography blog MaleSubmissionArt.com, to tackle deeply-held beliefs about gender and challenge assumptions about “kinky” sex. Just how prevalent, or lacking, is imagery of submissive men? Further, does the existing imagery really offer an alternative to mainstream sexual stereotyping, or does it actually serve to reify the—pun intended—dominant paradigm of male power? Is the public BDSM subculture a haven of free expression, or simply another cage of rigid gender roles dressed up (often literally) in different clothes?

Naturally, I’ve made Facebook and FetLife event listings for this event, too, and would appreciate your help in spreading the word about this workshop in particular. Since the topic matter here is so close to my heart, I’ve found myself hitting wall after wall of self-doubt, questioning and second-guessing myself time and again. I’m exceptionally nervous about this workshop because I believe that if I get it wrong, I’ll be excommunicated from the BDSM community and no one will care. If I get it right, I may still be excommunicated, but at least I’ll get people thinking. And, surprisingly, I still care about the community, despite my anger at it—a fine line to walk.

March 26^th — Anti-censorship best practices for the sex-positive publisher

I’ll be leaving Providence the same week I arrive in order to fly to Atlanta, Georgia for the inaugural Atlanta Poly Weekend conference. There, I’ll be leading another all-new workshop called “Anti-censorship best practices for the sex-positive publisher,” which will focus on practical things laymen (not technical specialists like me) can do to protect their online presence against incidental as well as intentional censorship. The workshop will offer minimal foundational theory using real-life examples to help sex-positive publishers connect the dots between technical issues and their own work. In other words, this is the counterpoint to my warnings to technologists that sexually vocal Internet users are the first—but never the last—casualty of Internet censorship.

(As an aside, I am still looking to share my hotel room with someone the night of Sunday, March 27^th. If you’re going to be participating in the Atlanta Poly Weekend conference, or know someone who is, and you’re in need of a hotel room for the evening, please email me or cross-post my request for a roommate to your favorite Atlanta-area local polyamory mailing list on my behalf. I can hardly afford this travel right now so splitting the costs of a hotel stay is welcome. I don’t snore or anything. Promise.)

Future public speaking and activism opportunities

One of the reasons this is possible is because I’ve started to get approached by university professors, campus student groups, community organization programming committees, and others who are seeking public speakers, guest lecturers, or workshop facilitators to fill their calendar. I’m immensely flattered by all the recent offers and I regret that I haven’t the funds to fly everywhere I’ve been invited. However, the invitations are encouraging and given the opportunity to continue jet-setting around the country to nurture sex-positivity and sexual freedom, I’m going to do it.

On that note, if you or your organization has an interest in booking me for an engagement, please get in touch! If you think someone you know might be interested, please send them to my “Things I’ve done” page so they can become familiar with me and my work quickly and easily.

My life is only as good as my connections to the good people in it. Please help me fill my life with goodness, and help me help fill others’ lives with the same. :)

1. Thanks for pointing out the other, Nikola.

When it comes to anti-porn activism, sex sells. At the briefing, Wheelock College professor Gail Dines becomes perhaps the first person to utter the words “cum dumpster” at a Capitol Hill press event. Over the past 20 years, Dines has made a living observing such degradations. As the crowd picks at fruit plates, she rattles off a selection of titles she’s researched, such as Anally Ripped Whores and Gag on My Cock.

Where Maymay displays spreadsheets, the porn critics on Capitol Hill show pictures.

I encourage you to read the whole thing. It’s very succinct, and all told I think quite fair.

Last week, Amanda contacted me and asked me some questions for her story in an email. I want to share that email here because I think comparing and contrasting the published article with the email interview is illustrative for anyone who finds themselves in a spotlight.

OK, here are my questions for you:

1. First off, are you comfortable with me printing your full name?

Yes, but I’d strongly prefer you to use my more well-known pseudonym, ‘maymay.’ I’m not asking this because my real name is hidden or because I’m not “out” in any way, but you and I both know how much work online reputation management is, and I’d appreciate your assistance in helping me keep the quality of life online I currently have.

2. How about your age?

Go for it. I’m 25.

3. Donna M. Hughes’ and Margaret Brooks’ bulletin suggested that some people had warned you that your ideas on Kink-for-All being open to the public could get you labeled as a “pedophile.” Had you ever been labeled a “pedophile” before that bulletin was sent out?

No. The first instance of those accusations was a direct result of Donna M. Hughes’ and Margaret Brooks’ bulletin.

4. Some background on the first KFADC: What inspired the relocation from Bethesda Chevy-Chase high school to the Montgomery County Executive Office Building?

First off, let me say I’m no more privy to those conversations than anyone else is. The relocation is well-documented in the KinkForAll mailing list archives, where it was announced—that’s how I learned about the relocation. The KinkForAll mailing list and its archives are intentionally public in an effort to keep KinkForAll as a community as transparent, accessible, and accountable as possible.

Anyway, for the nitty-gritty about the relocation, see this thread: http://groups.google.com/group/kinkforall/browse_thread/thread/22853a9dc1f73131/d4ba9972d600038e

Quoting from Nikolas, Basically, the school board is prepared to make a big deal [legally and politically] about KinkForAll being at the school. […] One part of their argument is that there’s an increased chance of sex offenders being present on school grounds […] They are also invoking the school’s responsibility to shield children from material they deem inappropriate.

Obviously, I feel that the school board’s concerns are misguided, and I find it interesting that the concerns they cited are exactly the same concerns Donna M. Hughes, Margaret Brooks and other critics of KinkForAll cite in an unsuccessful attempt to paint the event as “obscene” and “a danger to the community” in which it is held. The similarity of the concerns showcase the necessity for a more judicious attitude not merely about KinkForAll, but sexuality as a whole. I spoke about the first KinkForAll Washington DC’s relocation and its wider implications on the perception of youth sexuality at that event. The video of my presentation is available online, and has received more than 3,000 views in a matter of months:

http://vimeo.com/7783159

I think it’s unfortunate that some people jump to horrific conclusions about our community-based sexuality education initiative without doing basic research such as attending one of the events themselves. I mean, the unconferences are designed to be very accessible; they’re totally free.

5. In Boston, what inspired the move from the University of Massachusetts-Boston to Boston University?

Once again, I don’t have any special knowledge here. All of the information I have is publicly available on the mailing list. In this case, the thread you should read is here: http://groups.google.com/group/kinkforall/browse_thread/thread/d90859b29f491e1d/0409ff624bc21cca

I asked for this information in the thread: It would also be beneficial if Trish or whoever else has details about what *exactly* happened and also *why* UMass Boston is pulling out could share that information in writing[…].

The person who secured the original venue in the first place, Trish, said this in another email in the same thread: “There was a regime change in administration/coordination over the summer, and the commitments to give space to the old regime were not honored by the new regime.”

That’s all the information I have because that’s all the information on the mailing list. I again stress that I rely on the same sources that the public does for information about KinkForAll because those sources are one and the same. This is why KinkForAll is so transparent and so honest—the processes we use for producing unconferences are the exact same ones we use to document our activities and share them with the world. For more details on this venue change, you’ll have to ask UMass directly, or at least ask Trish.

Despite the fact that KinkForAll Boston lost its confirmed venue 8 days before the unconference was to be held, the unconference received no less than 3 alternative offers within a matter of days. Boston University was the venue ultimately chosen and the event was a wonderful success.

I think that this instance was a remarkable example of how KinkForAll really shines: the agility of the unconference model coupled with the passion of the unorganizers empowered the community to handle this major unforeseen hurdle with grace and speed. The host of KinkForAll Boston was the Women’s Resource Center at Boston University, the leader of which personally commented to me about how inspired she was and asked if future KinkForAll unconferences would be held at Boston University. I told her what I tell everyone who asks me that: KinkForAll happens whenever you want it to happen. If you want to have one, join the KinkForAll mailing list and ask for help unorganizing one yourself. :)

6. You’ve blogged about attempting to contact Hughes and Brooks about the bulletin. Did they ever respond to your requests?

A few days after Donna M. Hughes’ and Margaret Brooks’ bulletin was distributed by the Salvation Army’s Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking listserve, I wrote a blog post directly addressing their concerns about KinkForAll unconferences, but I have yet to hear any response from them despite numerous personal invitations to dialogue. Go figure. That blog post is here:

http://maybemaimed.com/2010/03/27/addressing-donna-m-hughes-and-margaret-brooks-concerns-over-kinkforall-unconferences/

I even personally invited both Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks to join the KinkForAll mailing list so that they could air their concerns to the community directly. I promised to help them liaise with the KinkForAll community at large and also reminded them that approaching our community as though it and I were one and the same devalued the contributions of the many committed unorganizers who actually produced most of the events. To date, I never saw a response either to my inbox or to the KinkForAll mailing list.

My correspondence to (and frustratingly not with) them are public, on my blog and on the KinkForAll mailing list, linked above and here: http://groups.google.com/group/kinkforall/browse_thread/thread/4020d397e88241ed/d129d5809c3a34d5#msg_0a2e3a25e924124a

Moreover, I think it’s worth pointing out that several other KinkForAll participants, notably KinkForAll Providence unorganizer Aida Manduley, also emailed Margaret Brooks, Donna M. Hughes, and their collaborator Melanie Shapiro personally. In addition to KinkForAll Providence, Aida organized a panel discussion at Brown University and invited all three academics to attend, but none of them did. Aida gave me permission to reprint her email to them, which I blogged about (along with information about the panel event, at which I spoke), here:

http://maybemaimed.com/2010/04/23/panel-at-brown-university-when-educators-are-censors/

Naturally, I recorded the panel session in case Donna M. Hughes, Margaret Brooks, or Melanie Shapiro might want to refer to the event after-the-fact, as they’d done to other events I’ve participated in previously. You can watch that video here:

http://maybemaimed.com/2010/05/08/certain-unalienable-rights/

As far as I’m aware, not one KinkForAll participant who has attempted to engage with these academics has received so much as an email reply. However, Donna M. Hughes and her colleagues have continued to publish misleading information about me, personally and by name, in more of their bulletins.

7. How do you feel about the anti-porn conferences recently held in Boston and D.C.? Can KFA attendees and anti-porn attendees find common ground somewhere?

If what anti-porn activists say can be believed, then I think KinkForAll participants and anti-porn conference attendees have the same goals. Dr. Gail Dines, who addressed Congress this past Tuesday, plainly said that porn has become the main source of sex education for boys and girls (and, presumably, differently-gendered young people who, y’know, also need sex education). This is one of the many problems that KinkForAll was carefully designed to address. Both KinkForAll participants and anti-porn activists want to see a world in which erotica intended to titillate rather than educate is NOT the primary source of sex education for anyone, young or old, because both groups fiercely believe that such material is not well-suited for the task of education.

Interestingly, KinkForAll Washington DC 2 was held the same day as Gail Dines’ Stop Porn Culture (SPC) conference, on June 12^th, 2010. Several KinkForAll participants, including KinkForAll Providence unorganizer Aida Manduley and presenter Megan Andelloux, attended the SPC event where Donna M. Hughes was a prominent speaker. This resulted in some remarkable conversation on Twitter as the events’ hashtags intermingled, and I was heartened by Megan’s and Aida’s outreach. Their relentlessly respectful behavior in the face of what I can only describe as sheer contempt for their beliefs (Aida tweeted that Donna M. Hughes refused even to shake her hand) served to highlight the differences in KinkForAll participants’ mindsets versus those of anti-porn activists, and I hope I’ll continue to see positive change come from Aida and Megan’s efforts on that day.

8. Why do you think KFA scares some people?

KinkForAll acknowledges personal agency and engenders personal empowerment, two things that frighten every group that forces victimhood onto people, as anti-trafficking activists (such as Donna M. Hughes) often do to sex workers, and that anti-porn activists (such as Gail Dines) often do to men and women at large.

Moreover, KinkForAll’s principles, which presume everyone who participates regardless of race, creed, religion, age, (dis)ability, economic standing, sexual orientation, or gender has something of value to contribute, and its prioritizing of accessibility and serendipity by doing away with things like registration tickets and scheduling approval is a radical departure from more traditional conference and learning styles that many people, especially academics, are comfortable with. And we’ve all seen people fear what they find uncomfortable. So, I think KinkForAll scares the people mired in their fears rather than reaching for their dreams, and I think it appeals to optimistic people more likely to see possibility and diversity in uncertainty, rather than seeing persecution and disempowerment wherever they look.

I hope that one day, the people scared of KinkForAll—and possibly even me by association—will feel intrigued and safe enough to attend one of the unconferences, where they’ll be greeted with a smile and a handshake.

9. Why is it important to broadcast as much info about the KFA proceedings online as possible?

First and foremost, KinkForAll offers an unprecedented opportunity to improve sexuality resources of all kinds, especially educational ones. Recording media such as videos and audio and publishing them online free for the world creates a distributed yet well-organized library of discussions, presentations, lectures, online workshops, and more about all kinds of sexuality-related issues ranging from technology to health and beyond.

When people like Wisconsin DA Scott Southworth can threaten schoolteachers with imprisonment merely for following laws about sex education, I think broadcasting the crowd-sourced and novel discussions that happen at KinkForAll unconferences is more important than ever! Self-righteous morality crusaders actively undermine the efforts of accredited sex educators like Megan Andelloux (similarly targeted by Donna M. Hughes as I was) who are trying to help people overcome horrific social stigmas and devastating legal, medical, or other battles just to live free of oppression. I think supporting a grass-roots, public-domain infrastructure for inspiring conversations about the intersection of sexuality and the rest of life, as KinkForAll does, is vital to keep fear and intolerance about our sexual selves at bay.

Also, quite plainly, recording and broadcasting or documenting not just the unconference proceedings but everything else involved with it is useful when someone like you asks me about what happened, when, and why. This transparency has been an incredibly powerful shield of protection because being able to call up relevant information from a publicly archived space, and knowing that it’s accurate as it can be corroborated by anyone at any time, makes it ridiculously easy to fight claims of wrongdoing. Such accusations simply can not stand up to the facts, which everyone has equal and easy insight into. :)

Of course, not everyone feels safe being video recorded because, in society’s fevered fear of sexuality, they might lose a job or custody of their children just for being seen at a KinkForAll unconference. That’s why KinkForAll participants pay careful attention to issues of personal privacy and, among other things, supply a simple red (or sometimes bright orange) sticker that can be worn to signal one’s preference not to be photographed or video recorded. I’m saddened that the cultural fear of sex that activists and academics like Donna M. Hughes, Margaret Brooks, Gail Dines and numerous others closely associated with the anti-porn movement perpetuate still causes so much suffering. Many people worry about their safety and wellbeing, just because they’re kinky, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or intersex, or because they have any fetish at all, or because they sometimes watch porn, or because someone thinks they’re “addicted” to sex or masturbation, or, in the case of young people especially, because they’re merely trying to learn about their body.

Nevertheless, I’m hopeful that once enough media is out there, its ripple effect will make being and celebrating who we are safer than hiding who we are. Because in reality, as I learned first hand, the closet is not a safe place to be, no matter how much more uncomfortable coming out might feel at first.

And anything else you’d like to say about either KFA or the anti-porn initiatives: I’m all ears.

Amanda

I think anti-porn initiatives are a smoke-screen for real issues that affect society, real issues such as the stigmas of STIs like herpes, paranoia over youth sexuality, and legal, personal and political implications of sex blogging—real issues that KinkForAll participants are addressing in increasingly creative and empowering ways both at the unconferences themselves and in their daily lives. None of these problems will disappear with the disappearance of pornography, even if pornography were their root cause, an anti-porn activists’ claim for which there is absolutely no evidence despite decades upon decades of religiously-backed drum-banging.

I think we all need to be careful not to get distracted from the important work of making the world a more sexually healthy place by red-herring rhetoric and faulty research such as that of Stop Porn Culture. Gail Dines, her organization, and her colleagues blatantly misdirect conversation and use language and visuals calculated to trigger an emotional response of fear and anger in her audience, just as Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks did in their bulletins about me. These people consistently (and I dare say deliberately) ignore the diversity of both erotic imagery and real encounters—Gail Dines made no mention of pornography that does not include women, of which there is plenty in the form of gay male erotica for instance, in her speech on Tuesday—and disingenuously claim to speak for the women who they work so hard to silence, such as the countless sex workers whose lives are devastated by unwanted “rescues”.

So I think that people and feminists in particular need to be ever-vigilant not to let the language of feminism and gender equality be co-opted in order to support anti-women policies, to justify discrimination or censorship, or to enable the imposition of self-righteous moral or religious doctrine on anyone, ever.

Moreover, I think that the information age has made it more critical than ever that people develop information literacy and critical thinking skills. We’re all just people with websites. Go make up your own mind.

Cheers,
-maymay

Two things struck me as I was preparing my reply to Amanda.

First, her questions were incredibly pointed, and it was difficult for me to come up with short answers. I grew increasingly impressed with Amanda’s obvious intellect the more I analyzed the questions. Although she offered to speak with me on the phone in addition to sending me an email with her questions, I chose the email because I knew I’d be busy at my day job.

Looking back on our exchange, I’m glad I asked for an email instead of a phone call because I’m far more eloquent in writing than I am in speech, as regular listeners to Kink On Tap surely know. I had the opportunity to ask for some input from people close to me, including Aida and Emma, who were a great help in getting my thoughts organized enough to make my points clearly.

Second, I noticed that the column Amanda wrote included no content directly from our email exchange. This reifies what I already knew: you do not get to tell the story you want to tell when you speak to news outlets of any sort, whether large and well-known or small and self-published. Instead, you only get to influence it. If you want to tell your story, you damn well better tell it yourself.

It should be noted that Amanda was surely working under both time and length constraints, among others. I thank her for writing her piece, and for being the only journalist I know of to do so after attending a KinkForAll unconference and experiencing it in person, albeit for only a portion of the day. If only KinkForAll’s detractors would show us that courtesy…. (You know who you are.)

Leading the crusade against open discussions about sexuality is Professor of Women’s Studies at University of Rhode Island Donna M. Hughes and her collaborator Margaret Brooks (a Brown alumna), who were both personally invited to attend the panel discussion event. Neither of them have responded to the (months-long and repeated) invitations for constructive dialogue nor did either attend the panel. While I’m disappointed I didn’t get to speak with these women personally, I’m extremely grateful to SHEEC, Brown University, and their staff for giving me the chance to speak with the really intelligent participants who did show up to ask questions. The event ran for about 2 hours, and the entire panel has been recorded and is freely viewable online.

Below is an 8 minute video highlighting my presentation, titled Certain Unalienable Rights, which I sincerely hope Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks see one day, if they haven’t already.

Certain Unalienable Rights: Freedom of Expression and Sexuality in the Name of Liberty by maymay on Ustream.

Download:

• Certain Unalienable Rights keynote presentation as a ZIP archive.
• Certain Unalienable Rights keynote presentation as a PDF document.
• Certain Unalienable Rights keynote presentation as a text transcript.

Again, I am deeply grateful to SHEEC Chairperson Aida Manduley, my fellow panelists, especially Ricky Gresh, Senior Director for Student Engagement at Brown University, panel moderator Professor Jim Greene, and the rest of the faculty and all the students who supported SHEEC events in the past and will continue to do so in the future. I think you are doing important and necessary work in standing against the harmful stigma perpetuating a dangerous belief that speaking openly about sexuality is something to fear. It is not.

With that in mind, below is the full transcript of my presentation. You can also find highlights of Megan’s speech, Comprehensive Sex Education: Talking about the Taboo, Reid’s introduction, Aida’s talk about the college Sex Week phenomenon, Ricky Gresh’s introduction, and the rest of the panel video recorded on my Ustream channel.

This picture of women arranged in rows, like sculptures wearing Burkas, makes me feel pretty angry.

This picture of women’s bodies on display at newsstands across America also makes me feel pretty angry.

Both pictures cut straight to the core of an issue so central to humanity’s existence that religions, governments, and ideologies have made efforts to control what you and I say, want, and think in regards to it. I’m talking, of course, about sex.

In 2001, only a few hours from here at Wesleyan University, David Jay, founder of the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) said:

Sexuality is like any other activity. There are some people for whom skydiving, chocolate cake, and soccer are their world. But some people don’t like skydiving, chocolate cake, or soccer. There’s no reason to focus your energy and attention on something you feel no reason to do anything about.

As a sexual freedom activist, I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about sex. That’s why David and other vocal asexuals absolutely fascinate me. Here is a group of people whose self-identity revolves around the lack of sexual attraction. After reading the work of people so different from myself, how could I not ask, “What is it that motivates us to do whatever it is that we do?”

In contemplating this, I kept getting drawn to this quote’s last sentence: “There’s no reason to focus your energy and attention on something you feel no reason to do anything about.” So why is it that some asexuals feel a reason to talk about sexuality as much as I, a “sexual person” does? Although it might sound corny, I think the answer is actually pretty clear: feelings.

In 2009, Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologues and founder of V-Day, the international movement to end violence against women and girls, said:

Emotions have inherent logic which lead to radical, appropriate, saving action.

Now, in mathematics and linguistics, the word radical means “root,” as in “square root,” or “root of the word.” African American feminist and political activist Angela Davis famously said that, “Radical simply means ‘grasping things at the root.’”

So in other words, the root of radical action is emotion.

Now, this is important because the panel we’re about to have is in many ways about sex, and for many people, myself included, it’s difficult if not impossible to discuss sexuality separate from emotion. In fact, merely discussing sexuality openly is itself viewed by many people as a radical act and in some cases, empowering others to talk openly about sexuality is considered criminal. Myself and my friends on this panel have been called sexual predators, pedophiles, and human traffickers because of the things we’ve said, the discussion tools we’ve built, and the livelihoods we’ve created.

As before, I’m left asking, “What is it that motivates us to do whatever it is that we do?” And as I’ve been contemplating this over the past couple months, I’ve come to the realization that, despite how false and hurtful it is to hear these things said about you, it’s very important that these people have the right to voice their opinions.

This is a lesson that I know Brown University learned some time ago. On October 18, 1990, Brown undergraduate student Doug Hahn shouted racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic remarks on campus while drunk and celebrating his 21st birthday. That year, the Brown University Disciplinary Council (UDC) expelled Hahn for “hate speech,” which prompted the ACLU to object, citing First Amendment concerns.

It may jar you to learn that the ACLU would defend so-called “hate speech” under the First Amendment and, since words are exceptionally powerful things, I want to define “hate” before I get too far.

According to the dictionary, “hate” is the emotion of intense dislike; a feeling of dislike so strong that it demands action. To me, this says 2 things. First, it reminds me that, just like love, hate can be so powerful that it forces us to act in ways we wouldn’t have otherwise considered. Second, that both liking and disliking something are equally valid emotions to have regardless of the subject at hand.

For instance, I can’t stand using Windows-based computers, I do whatever I can to avoid the slush in New York City after it snows, and I hate going to pretentious art galleries! Now, I may hate these things, but you don’t have to hate them, too. That freedom—to choose what one likes or dislikes—is inborn to humanity. No matter what, no one can choose your desires for you.

Unquestionably, hate has been one of the driving forces behind human action throughout history, and I think, just as we do for love, we ought to credit it for that, not blame it. Action is what got us humans out of caves and into this spectacular structure called Brown University. (Maybe cavemen really hated caves?) Action is part of how society evolves; action is, after all, the root of activism.

Now, this right to choose how we feel, and what we hate, is what the Declaration of Independence calls “unalienable human rights.” In order to institutionalize the protection of these rights for themselves and future generations (that’s us!), people wrote a code of conduct we know as the Constitution of the United States. This institution is known as government, and its creation forged a distinction between “unalienable human rights” and other rights, such as political and legal rights.

As political theorist Hannah Arendt said, “Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the unalienable human rights to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence[...].”

In other words, government’s role is expressly intended to protect the liberty of its citizens, which, if we are to have liberty, must include the right to choose and express our likes and our dislikes no matter how vehemently we or others may feel about them.

In objecting to the expulsion of Douglas Hahn in 1991, a book critic for the Washington Post, Jonathan Yardley, wrote this:

Of course it’s offensive—repugnant, contemptible, loathsome, whatever you want to call it—for a college student or anyone else to go into a public place and shout words such as those used by Douglas Hann in his little scene last fall. But displays such as that are among the prices we pay for being not merely a free country but one of unexampled heterogeneity.

Did Hahn deserve to face consequences for his behavior? Absolutely; he surely faced social repercussions as a consequence of his hateful speech, and I hope others’s obvious dislike of him had a positive impact. But his case shows that the freedom that you and I have to say what we want and think what we like is an incredibly precious gift that must be protected. That’s the foundation of freedom of speech.

Don’t get me wrong: I hate hate speech. I hate hating. And yet, there I am, hating it, hating how much I’m hating it and hating it for making me hate it! So if I continue to simplistically believe that hate has no value, how could I feel like a worthy person now? How could I forgive myself for feeling such hate? How could I learn to be joyous, and to love?

Maybe these people who hate have trouble seeing what a good and worthwhile person they are. While I was thinking about what I wanted to say to you today, someone I don’t even know responded to the blog posts I wrote about being called a sexual predator with this:

most of [your accusers] are probably really good people, just warped and made angry by fear and oppression themselves, but that doesn’t excuse perpetuating those fears and passing them on to others—it’s like the cycle of abuse—the buck has to stop somewhere.

Will it stop with you? I think all violence is an opportunity for growth; all hatred, opportunities for action. This is no different.

The last time I spoke at Brown University was at a sexuality conference called KinkForAll Providence. People with destructive goals, I said, are usually people who feel personally disempowered. So to be creative, you need to empower everyone to speak up, to have a presence—even people you don’t totally agree with.

In other words, the solution to “bad” speech is more speech, not less. In his 1999 talk, Censorship and the Fear of Sexuality, Dr. Marty Klein said:

Most Americans do not want to discuss sexual issues rationally. Their sexuality poisoned by the culture, they just want their emotional pain taken away. To people afraid of sexuality, censorship looks attractive. It appears to be a solution to the pain. This pain, this fear of sexuality, leads people to support censorship.

Sometimes when I talk about sex, people get uncomfortable. Their reaction can even become hate; hatred at feeling uncomfortable, hatred at being reminded of their fears, or perhaps hatred at a culture that so thoroughly disempowers so many people, that they don’t even have a clear idea of where to constructively direct their hatred.

People will often argue that certain things they disagree with are simply “wrong.” But if America has taught me one thing, it is that harmony and unity cannot be achieved through homogeneity and sameness but through diversity and difference. Your freedom to like vanilla, and my freedom to like—we’ll say chocolate—is the reason not only why Häagen-Dazs is in business but why Ben & Jerry’s can peacefully coexist next door.

And that’s why I have to come back to this question: Is this [contemporary Western] endemic sexualization of women, which supports a double-standard equally costly for men, any better than this [Iranian] coercive modesty?

And if not, is the solution more sexual censorship? Is the solution really more of someone else telling you what you should think, or say, or see, or do? Or will we overcome oppression through education, self-empowerment, and ultimately freedom of expression?

That’s what this panel is about, for me. Thank you for participating.

Watch the full video of the remainder of the panel.

Since so much of the fearfulness bandied about has to do with minors, let me clarify my own opinions on the matter. Although I speak only for myself, I acknowledge that many people look to me for guidance, leadership, or simply information, perhaps because I helped originate the KinkForAll concept or perhaps merely because I am already vocal. I write this now as both an adult who was once a child and as a supporter of the principles of freedom and education for which KinkForAll unconferences stand and seek to promote.

Just as I hope every responsible citizen of humanity feels towards their fellows, I feel an obligation to promote the safety and well-being of the autonomous individuals, both young and old, who associate themselves with KinkForAll unconferences to the best of my ability. However, that feeling of responsibility does not give me the right to decree which people may or may not participate in any given community’s publicly accessible events. Especially in America, a country that defends its citizens’ right to free speech and to organize peacefully, I don’t believe anyone can claim such a right in good conscience.

So I decided to seek advice from many people—both those I was likely to agree with as well as others with whom I wasn’t, and I’ve even reached out to Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks, who incited all this moral panic to begin with—regarding how I can best do this. I thank everyone who has shared their thoughts and opinions with me, publicly and privately, and I hope that those who have yet to join the conversation, particularly Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks, will do so soon.

In light of these conversations, I’d like to make clear that I am of the opinion anyone under the age of consent should be requested to seek the permission of their parents or legal guardian before participating in a KinkForAll unconference. I remain convinced that it would be inappropriate and unnecessary for a specific age restriction to be imposed as a blanket rule for all KinkForAll unconferences. In part, this is because KinkForAll unconferences have already been held in multiple States where local laws vary and, moreover, everyone who has been to a KinkForAll unconference, including minors, has reported feeling safer there than in other spaces.

Further, recall that KinkForAll unconferences expressly disallow eroticized behavior, such as sex acts, because their aim is to inspire conversation about the intersection of sexuality with the rest of life. What they do feature are lectures or conversations that are about topics related to sexuality.

It is a fact that a 17-year-old teenager in the State of New York or Colorado, or a 16-year-old teenager in the States of Michigan, Alabama, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, Mississippi, or the District of Columbia may legally consent to sex, but is nevertheless currently barred from many sexuality-related discussion groups until they turn 18 years old in some cases, 19 in others, and 21 in others still, depending on the group in question. It is deeply troubling to think that you would be allowed to do something, but not talk about it.

Young people who cannot legally consent should also have the right to converse in a public setting freely, provided they have their parents’ or legal guardians’ permission to be present. Personally, I do not think that participating in KinkForAll unconferences is appropriate for most younger adolescents, not because they would somehow be in more danger than they’d be hanging out at the mall, but rather because the verbal format as well as the often academic subject matter are unlikely to be meaningful or comprehensible to them. On the other hand, a young person who has the kind of relationship with their parents that’s necessary to ask for permission to participate in a public conference about the intersection of sexuality with the rest of life is arguably much more likely than their peers to be “ready” for and able to meaningfully participate in such an event in the first place.

Given this reality, it is deeply troubling to think that other people’s moral judgements would replace the rights of parents to be decision-makers in their own children’s lives. Obviously, fully-grown adults learn and present information differently than youth do, but this is not universally true. Who should know what is “best” for any individual young person other than that person’s parents, and so who better to be given the opportunity to restrict or permit their participation in public events? That decision should certainly not be mine, nor yours, but rather theirs.

Should I plan future KinkForAll unconferences myself, the above stance reflects the actions I will take. In order to create the safest environment for all involved, I encourage everyone else who wants to plan a KinkForAll unconference to consider adopting this stance, too. KinkForAll—and indeed, your life—is a “do-ocracy”: if you have an idea that promotes compassion, consideration, and our common humanity, then you can do it.

Some have already suggested that a new kind of unconference should be planned, one that is specifically age-appropriate for youth. I have always and will continue to always support efforts to provide venues for sexuality education, discussion, and learning. However, I’m an activist, not a “youth educator,” so I have no intention to organize a youth-focused unconference regarding the convergence of sexuality and other aspects of life. But I do think it’s a great idea, so as I said when this idea was first suggested, I would be thrilled to see someone make that happen.

The idea of BarCamp-like sexuality unconferences has already spread far beyond my co-founder and I. Of the 6 KinkForAll unconferences since March, 2009, I only lead the organization of 2. I’m immensely proud to have helped guide KinkForAll’s development in its first year, and I’m encouraged by the incredible speed with which others have taken it upon themselves to plan more events like the first. As with any good idea, KinkForAll does not belong to anyone because the idea no longer lives in my head, but rather in the world.

What you choose to do with this idea is up to you. If you like it, you can come to a KinkForAll unconference. If you don’t like it, you can choose not to participate. You can make something new of your own, copying what you like about KinkForAll and changing what you don’t. But as long as organizers produce conferences lawfully, respectfully, and in full compliance with whatever contractual obligations they have made, no one has the right to stop them from doing so, no one has the right to tell parents not to bring their families to public community events, and no one has the right to tell teenagers that they cannot speak freely, especially about the things they are legally permitted to do.

Those who wish to stop the spread of information they disagree with often choose to spread fear in its place. I think that’s an irresponsible and dangerous thing to do. It’s precisely because I am deeply invested in the safety, well-being, and education of everyone with whom I share this planet that I ardently support every individual’s fundamental human right to organize peacefully, to speak freely, and to access education that promotes peace and understanding among all people.

Even if you don’t agree with my opinion, I hope that at least now you understand it.

Update: Shortly after publishing this entry, a commenter on Twitter directed me to this short TEDTalk video, which is highly relevant and deserves your attention. Please lend an ear to this speaker.

Even though I feel defamed by Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks, I want to address the crux of their concerns about KinkForAll unconferences and ask for their advice. Discreetly tucked away at the end of a 6 page personal assault, they wrote:

The open and unstructured format of a KinkforAll event is dangerous because it encourages outsiders to attend, mingle, and speak anonymously with young people about unhealthy sex and violent sexual practices. These conditions offer an open invitation for sex offenders to attend, potentially placing both participants and the entire local community, especially children, at risk.

First, let’s remove the insinuations that participants at KinkForAll are specifically talking about unhealthy and violent sexual practices. Those judgements have no place in a rational discussion, so let’s read the sentence thusly:

The open and unstructured format of a KinkforAll event is dangerous because it encourages outsiders to attend, mingle, and speak anonymously with young people about sex and sexual practices.

Next, let’s remove the assertions like the one that “a KinkForAll event is dangerous” and approach the issue from a more open-minded perspective. Once again, such assertions preclude discussion because the conclusions are already determined and, following the KinkForAll motto itself, I prefer to inspire conversation, not shut it down. Therefore, I’m going to read Donna M. Hughes’ and Margaret Brooks’ writing like this:

The open and unstructured format of a KinkforAll event could be dangerous because it encourages outsiders to attend, mingle, and speak with other participants about sex and sexual practices. These conditions might offer an open invitation for sex offenders to attend, potentially placing both participants and the entire local community, especially children, at risk.

Well! Okay then. There’s a valid concern. So now that we’ve uncovered an actual concern underneath the corrosive insinuations, let’s talk about it.

I pose this question to Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks, and I invite their responses in the comments: How can you help make a KinkForAll unconference a safer place for the local community and for all participants, including young people?

Here’s some of the things that other unorganizers and I have done at previous events. Tell me if you think any of this was inappropriate.

At KinkForAll Washington DC, in accordance with the venue contract, participants paid for the presence of a security guard who, as I understand it (I wasn’t actually the organizer of this event, as both Margaret Brooks and Donna M. Hughes seem to believe), was instructed to refuse entry to the event to any person who did not abide by our venue contract. This venue contract included explicit clauses that anyone who had ever been convicted of “a misdemeanor involving sexual misconduct or a felony” would not be permitted to participate. This was also clearly stated on the sign-up table.

Here’s the full formal language, posted on the KFADC sign up table, among other places:

Note: As part of our agreement to use the facilities, we can not allow people to attend who have been convicted of or pleaded (1) guilty, (2) “no contest” or (3) nolo contendere to a misdemeanor involving sexual misconduct or a felony (whether or not resulting in a conviction).

Actually, that’s still on the sign up table. Donna, Margaret, did you just, I don’t know, overlook this? There’s also a video recording of Nikolas, the leading unorganizer of KinkForAll Washington DC, reciting this during KFADC’s opening. It’s pretty short. Skip to 1 minute and 14 seconds into the video to hear the specific quotations.

Obeying venue contracts is a very big deal to KinkForAll unorganizers, myself included. At each KinkForAll unconference that I’ve attended, one of the unorganizers stands up during Opening Essential Communications (the first timeslot of every day) and enumerates any venue rules on top of the global KinkForAll rules. One of these rules that every KinkForAll event must enact is that no sex shall occur during the event because the unconference is about talking with one another, not playing with one another.

At KinkForAll Providence, as I understand it (because, again, I didn’t actually organize that event either) the venue policies required that minors be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian, according to Aida Manduley, the Chair of the Sexual Health Education and Empowerment Council, who was principally responsible for liaising with the Brown University venue and made these arrangements. As an aside, it is frustrating that Aida seems consistently under-credited for her work by Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks. Nevertheless, why they fail to give her credit where credit is due is a matter for another time.

Beyond adhering to specific venue rules, local laws, and global KinkForAll rules (each designed to create de-sexualized and educationally-focused environments), individual participants are encouraged to bring their friends when they attend rather than show up alone. This effectively arms newcomers with the protection of their social circle at the events themselves. As most women will no doubt understand, it is safer to go to places where you have never been when you go with your friends.

In this way, the highly social atmosphere of a KinkForAll unconference also acts as a self-policing safeguard against abuse. This is very similar to the way that many other organizations protect their membership. The difference is that by creating highly participatory and engaging learning environments, KinkForAll participants don’t need “membership” or some other prior bond in order to act with respect towards one another. Just like any other social group, those who fail to be friendly towards others in the group are ostracized by the group.

This design was rather intentional, but it was not my invention. It is, in fact, a model of social educational gatherings well-known in the technology world and popularized by a phenomenon known as BarCamp. The concepts of “open space” that KinkForAll uses are directly, wholly mimicking the incredible BarCamp model of event organizing. And it works.

However, when I started KinkForAll with my then-partner, neither of us thought this was enough. We wanted more protections, particularly to protect people’s personal privacy. So we instituted some minor changes to the BarCamp “open space” model.

Specifically, we added the concept of a (perhaps crudely termed) no-photography signal, a bright red circle or stripe on one’s name tag that indicated to others a desire not to be photographed or video recorded. Combined with the freedom to use a pseudonym on one’s name tag and reminding participants to use others’ chosen names when referring to one another at events, we felt we’d provided enough of a framework for people to easily and simply protect their personal details, such as contact information or google-findability, if they wanted to.

Now, Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks would have us worry that this fact means malicious people could attend and we wouldn’t know about it. That’s certainly a possibility. It also means that young people, not to mention anyone else who has some reason to value their privacy, such as school teachers or librarians, doctors or lawyers, or anyone in a conservative industry such as banking, could also attend and we wouldn’t know about it. That’s the tricky thing about self-empowerment; when you provide tools to empower people, they can do “good things” or “bad things.”

The point, in case you missed it, is that providing tools, or making a conference framework unstructured, is not itself inherently “good” or “bad,” “dangerous” or “safe.” I think Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks have a valid concern, but, ladies, I think you’ve let your fears get the better of you, at least in this instance.

Since you’re clearly very passionate about protecting young people, as I am, I therefore invite you to brainstorm with me. Beyond all the things that I’ve described above, what else can we do to protect all the participants at KinkForAll events from potentially malicious people? Tell me what you think.

Better yet, join the mailing list and share your ideas with the people who are organizing these unconferences directly. Remember, just getting your ideas to me isn’t going to necessarily get them to the people who actually implement these events in all cases. (I’ll do my best to help you liaise with everyone if you offer some constructive feedback, though. Promise. :)

So, Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks, what do you think we can do to better protect all the participants at KinkForAll unconferences and the local communities where they happen? If you’ve got suggestions, we’re waiting to hear them. And you know what, I don’t care that you insinuated evil things about me. If I think your suggestions are good and aligned with the KinkForAll principles of freedom and education, I’ll support them.

And just in case it isn’t clear, you don’t have to insinuate that I’m an evil person to get my support for good ideas. You just need to have rationally thought-out, non-judgemental ideas. So if you do, even if you’re not Donna M. Hughes or Margaret Brooks, you’re invited to participate in this discussion as well.

Update: In order to inform Margaret Brooks and Donna M. Hughes of my interest in their advice for how KinkForAll unconferences can be improved, I’ve sent them the following email, republished below:

Subject: 	I invite you to help me address your concerns over KinkForAll  unconferences
From: 	maymay <bitetheappleback@gmail.com>
Date: 	March 27, 2010 4:20:52 PM PDT
To: 	dhughes71@cox.net, mbrooks@bridgew.edu
Cc: 	dhughes@uri.edu
[…some email headers clipped…]

Dear Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks,

I recently learned that you published a bulletin on a website[0] that raises concerns about the KinkForAll unconferences of which I advocate in support. Many of the statements you present as fact are simply not true.

Since I understand that you have concerns about KinkForAll unconferences, I invite you to help me and the rest of the KinkForAll participant community address them. I’ve composed an initial description of some of the things KinkForAll unconference planners (“unorganizers”) have done to protect the participants at local events, as well as the communities where events are held. If you feel you can do so, it would be my privilege to work with you to further the safety of individuals, both young and old, at KinkForAll unconferences, while simultaneously improving the available educational resources about sexuality as well as all of the things that sexuality affects in people’s lives.

To work with me on this, I invite you to speak up on the KinkForAll mailing list,[1] which I know you follow quite closely, or to reply to my recent blog post discussing your concerns,[2] which I also know you follow quite closely. :)

In point of fact, I am deeply hurt by your statements, but I also recognize that you seem to share my passion for keeping people safe and self-empowered to lead happy lives. Therefore, if you have a good suggestion for how I and other KinkForAll participants can keep ourselves safe and improve the quality of our lives and the lives of our friends, neighbors, fellow citizens, and peers, I don’t really care that you insinuated evil things about me in the past. If I think your suggestions are sound, I’ll support them.

I am looking forward to hearing your suggestions for improving KinkForAll unconferences.

Sincerely,
-Meitar “maymay” Moscovitz

[…redundant external references removed; read my previous entry for more information…]

Community Organizing for Great Justice! – Five Minutes of Fame, March 2010

It’s incredibly difficult to condense a lot of information into a five minute talk! Although this recording clocked in at 5 minutes and 42 seconds, somehow I managed to clock my talk at Noisebridge in several seconds under the 5 minute time limit.

In addition to the video, below is a transcript of my presenter notes so you can follow along.

Hi! My name is ‘maymay’ and this is my second time at 5 Minutes of Fame, so thanks for having me back. :) By day, I’m a web developer. By night, I’m a sexual freedom community organizer. All told, I’m kind of a “social justice technologist,” and my talk is called “Community Organizing for Great Justice!”

My story begins in 430 BC when my buddy Thucydides, the ancient Greek historian, observed:

Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

I think it’s really unfair for the world to work that way. I didn’t know what to do about that until 2009, when Mark Zuckerburg, the creator of Facebook, announced that if Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world.

Whereas even Greek gods had to ask Hermes to deliver messages for them, you and I can reach a global audience with the push of a button. Thus, “doing right” (as the world goes) should be possible pretty quickly.

I figured I’d try this social media for social justice thing out myself by starting to organize free, all-ages conferences called “KinkForAll unconferences.” Each was designed to inspire a local community to have documented conversations about the intersection of sexuality with the rest of life. Within a year, event participants had put on 5 full-day unconferences in 4 cities across New England, attracting hundreds of in-person participants and thousands more online. 4 more are planned for the Spring and Summer across America, including the next one this Sunday at the Women’s Building here in San Francisco. (You should come.)

So it turns out that spreading ideas on the Internet actually can effect real-world events. Moreover, organizing a community around a passion or an idea that you have isn’t actually all that hard. I want to show you how to do that.

Start with having a vision of a better world. This is really a fake step because every one of you already has this. Whenever you get annoyed by how boring, wasteful, or unfair something is, you’re envisioning a better world.

Take that vision and make it a really specific goal. Mine is empowering every person on Earth to claim their sexual rights and freedoms.

Consider giving your vision a name. Make it unique enough to show up in Google searches while still symbolizing your goal. I find sticking multiple words together works well. Names can say a lot about goals, leadership styles, and the community you’ll build. Choose one thoughtfully because it’s going to represent you for better or worse.

Next, start working towards your vision in public. When you do your work in public, you immunize yourself against distrust. It also becomes easier for people to work with you because they can see every step you take; you make it easy for people to mimic you and you end up leading by example by fiat. This is particularly important for novel ideas or innovations in a particular field.

This kind of transparency was central to KinkForAll’s success. All organization happens on a public mailing list, allowing anyone to read how an event got put together, even if they’re not part of the group. At the same time, the mailing list provides a sort of pseudo-documentation so we have a way to transfer knowledge to other people without a human gatekeeper.

The mailing list works well for what it does because email is a fairly ubiquitous technology. You can’t bring people on board unless they can collaborate with you, so don’t require the use of tools they can’t access or don’t understand.

In a social movement, people are like the pages on the Web; your job is to build links that connect individuals in a meaningful way. If you act as the glue between knowledgeable experts, all you’ll have to know is how to find out the answers to questions. You don’t need to have all the answers yourself.

Also like the Web itself, build community using “small pieces loosely joined.” Don’t get hung up on infrastructure requirements. Instead, use the tools already available to you.

To distribute KinkForAll talks, participants uploaded media to their own blogs as well as any number of hosted service providers. Each upload is marked with a global “KinkForAll” tag as well as an event-specific tag, creating a distributed yet well-organized library. Using multiple cyber-venues not only reaches more people, it also makes controversial messages harder to censor.

Reaching people through online social networks is especially helpful because using them can help you overcome discrimination. The pseudonymous Internet gives us the fantastic ability to collaborate with others based solely on the merit of their contributions, literally blinding us to skin color, age, gender, or other characteristics.

Use social networks like Twitter and Facebook to approach people you think might help you—especially ones you don’t already know. Don’t “market” to these people. Instead, engage them as leaders of their own social circle so they become your ambassadors to their own communities. Then invite them to convene with fellow participants in a shared space, like a mailing list.

But don’t rely on the Internet alone. Have at least an occasional real-world presence so people have an opportunity to connect face-to-face.

Having both real-world and cyber venues is also one way to invite different levels of participation. Rather than controlling what people do with rigid roles, let people gravitate towards the tasks that interest them. Your job as leader isn’t to tell people what to do, but rather to make the things that need doing obvious.

When someone signs up to participate in a KinkForAll event, for instance, they automatically gain visibility to the event’s list of logistical needs. When someone makes a change to the needs list, everyone who signed up gets an email notification alerting them to the newly needed item, thus giving them an opportunity to bring it to the event and building participation directly into the process.

Regardless of your vision, it’s likely the first thing you’ll encounter is other people telling you “no,” and reasoning about why you can’t or shouldn’t be allowed to do what you’re doing. Dave Winer calls this “stop energy,” and it’s deadly to ideas.

As a general rule of thumb, the more stop energy you encounter from people who represent the status quo, the more you know you’re on the right track! Don’t let it distract you. Once you can see your vision, never stray from it, even if it takes a while for other people to see it, too.

Don’t change your vision; let your audience find you. As my buddy Thucydides said,

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, both glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, they go out and they meet it.

So have a vision, share it with others, and then go out and see it through. And of course, to learn more, come to KinkForAll San Francisco this Sunday morning at the Women’s Building, or visit KinkForAll.org!

Thank you very much!

Interview on FCCFreeRadio segments

The conversation I had with Lilycat and my fellow guest, an artist by the name of Chris Fabbri, didn’t just stay on KinkForAll topics. We talked about a lot of things, and with Lilycat’s permission I’ve chunked up the interview into 5 separate edited segments:

1. Segment 1 (MP3) – 13 minutes – Finding one’s place or making a space for yourself, self-respect and respect for others and the arts, what’s “conventional” and how that interrelates with body image, and KFASF of course!
2. Segment 2 (MP3) – 10 minutes – Submissive masculinity, power in submission, art and culture, having fun being who you want to be, MaleSubmissionArt.com.
3. Segment 3 (MP3) – 12 minutes – Gender bias and transphobia in mainstream media, acknowledging youth sexuality and young people’s agency, empowerment versus protection.
4. Segment 4 (MP3) – 26 minutes – Art and censorship, connecting the dots between various “isms,” how education and self-expression empowers young people, anecdotes about abstinence-only preaching, SexEdEverywhere.com.
5. Segment 5 (MP3) – 10 minutes – Living in San Francisco, addressing inclusivity in community organizing.

Thanks so much to Lilycat for inviting me on and for letting me share the audio recording on my blog! Lilycat’s show, Lilycat on Stuff airs every Sunday at 2 PM Pacific time on FCCFreeRadio (107.3 FM).

Also, don’t forget that even if you’re not in the bay area, block off March 21 to watch KinkForAll San Francisco’s live Internet stream and participate online! Of course, if you are local to the Bay Area, please sign up for KFASF and stop by! I’d love to meet you there. :) Here’s all the 411 on KinkForAll San Francisco, in case you need it.

Best of all, these conversations didn’t just stay within the four walls of our venue among the participants who attended physically, but it also reached out across the Internet thanks to the KinkForAll Providence live video stream, Twitter conversations, and KFAPVD liveblogs. I think the event’s use of the Internet was truly remarkable this time, because we were able to literally invite anyone in the world to literally watch and see and participate in the discussions that we were having, even if they were unable to be physically present, and even if not everyone agreed with what was being said all the time. Most importantly, as I said in my presentation, since we were able to inspire conversation, everyone stayed within the realm of constructive discourse, and that means we were able to create knowledge, even while individuals may have disagreed on some points.

Below is a video of my presentation. As usual, my presentation is “open source” and Creative Commons licensed. Feel free to download it, use it yourself, or share it with anyone you think might find it valuable. If you do, I would greatly appreciate a link back to this page.

On Dichotomies that (No Longer) Jail Me – KinkForAll Providence from maymay on Vimeo.

Download:

• On Dichotomies that (No Longer) Jail Me keynote presentation as a ZIP archive.
• On Dichotomies that (No Longer) Jail Me keynote presentation as a PDF document.
• On Dichotomies that (No Longer) Jail Me keynote presentation as a text transcript.

I am deeply grateful to Emma for helping me with this presentation and also for taking a leading role in unorganizing KinkForAll Providence (so I didn’t actually do so much this time—and I think that’s great!). Similarly, I’m also grateful to Aida Manduley for getting this event sponsored by SHEEC and for being the primary unorganizer for venue-related issues. There were some, but she handled them beautifully and deserves more praise for more reasons than many of you know. Their persistence, professionalism, thoroughness, and ardent support of sexual freedom, freedom of speech, and students’ rights were what made this event possible, even in the face of some very harsh and alarmist criticism.

With that thanks in mind, here’s the entirety of the presentation I gave at KinkForAll Providence as a text transcript:

First of all, let me just say that this is amazing. Look at all of us here at the fifth KinkForAll unconference in the first year of KinkForAll unconferences! KinkForAll Providence is now the 5th KinkForAll event being held in the 1-year history of the event’s conception. That’s one KinkForAll, in 4 different cities so far, about every 2 months or so for a whole year! Wow!

This event is thanks in large part to the amazing work of two women: Emma Gross, and Aida Manduley, who’s Chair of the Sexual Health Education and Empowerment Council here at Brown University. They’re responsible for getting us this space and so much more. Let’s give them a huge hand! (APPLAUSE) I like that name: Sexual Health Education and Empowerment Council. Health, education, and empowerment.

I like that name because I think we are actually taught, from a very young age, to see the world in dichotomies, a set of things that are exclusive from an opposing set of things. Dichotomies are necessarily polarizing and, if you’re not careful, they can be paralyzing. Indeed, dichotomies can be DISempowering.

Self-empowerment relies upon our ability to recognize existing dichotomies so that we can utilize them and, if necessary, so that we can break out of them. As Stephen R. Covey, author of the best-selling “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” reminds us:

Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.

Dichotomies are genuinely useful, even necessary. We use them all the time to make sense of the world around us. In fact, dichotomies themselves conveniently come in two mutually exclusive varieties! These are: true dichotomies, and false dichotomies.

Unfortunately, many of the dichotomies that contemporary culture teaches us are one kind are actually the other! Specifically, many dichotomies that you might’ve thought were true are actually false! According to Wiktionary, the Wikipedia-like dictionary, a false dichotomy, just so that we’re all on the same page, is:

A situation in which two alternative points of views are presented as the only options, whereas others are available.

How many of the dichotomies that hegemonic culture says are “true” do you think are actually false? I think the answer might surprise you, and that’s what I’m hoping to do in this presentation: I want to help you recognize these dichotomies. In fact, that’s what the entire founding concept behind KinkForAll is about!

KinkForAll’s tag line is:

A serendipitous, ad-hoc unconference about the intersection of sexuality with the rest of life.

This idea, that sexuality can intersect with all the other things in our lives, seems to be something that a lot of people are really uncomfortable with. Their discomfort highlights several dichotomies, one of which is this one:

• Obscene vs Decent

As it happens, this is one of the many false dichotomies that are societally constructed. How do we know that? Easy! Not everyone is uncomfortable with sexuality intersecting certain aspects of their lives, and some people are only uncomfortable with it intersecting with some parts of their lives, but not with others. This variability is the signature of all false dichotomies. Remember that!

Just to drive the point home, let me tell you a short story. Once upon a time (okay, actually in 1966), in a land far, far away (okay, actually in Kristiansand, Norway), lived a man by the name of Jens Bjørnboe. Jens was a painter and a school teacher, but more than anything else, he was a writer. Jens loved to write, and had already published a book of deeply religious poetry, Poems (Dikt, 1951), and a book that dealt with shortcomings of the school system, Jonas (1955).

Then, Jens wrote a fictional novel about an 18 year old girl named “Lillian” who had to masturbate to have orgasms, called Without a Stitch. According to one review:

Without a Stitch begins with a bit of girl-on-girl frolicking with Lillian and Brita [Lillian's classmate], as well as Lillian’s attempts at having fun with the inexperienced Henry. She can’t get the desired satisfaction when Henry fumbles around, and in reaction becomes a real cock-tease — and eventually she realises she needs some professional help. Thank god Brita refers her to Dr. Peterson.

Now, Dr. Peterson is, “a specialist in the orgasm” and Lillian entrusts herself into his care, with all the desired results. Nice. :) The review continues,

Lillian’s problem seems to be that she worries about what her mother and grandmother might think, causing these inhibitions that hold her back. But Dr. Peterson helps her overcome these, and instructs her in his own moral code — which amounts to that all sex is good (and more is apparently better …), as long as no one is hurt or taken advantage of. It takes a lot of daily sessions — during which she’s not allowed to be with any other man — to get the message across, but finally she’s cured.

All right, so: a woman of legal adulthood who was so concerned about what others might think of her that she can’t have orgasms overcomes that fear under the care of a physician who tells her that all sex is good as long as no one is hurt or taken advantage of. Okay, so there’s some lesbian scenes, but also some really strict monogamy. Doesn’t sound so out-there radical to me, really.

Unfortunately for Jens, it did sound radical to the government of Norway, and Bjørnboe suffered an obscenity conviction for publishing the book as pornography. Interestingly, his fictional porn would arguably pale in comparison to the non-fiction writing I’ve published on my own blog—and that I’ve read from countless other bloggers! Obviously then, we are obscene by some standards but not by others. Indeed, obscenity standards vary with time, place, and a host of other things.

More interestingly, perhaps, is the fact that Jens Bjørnboe went on to publish his most well-known work, The History of Bestiality, and as far as I can tell the Norwegian government didn’t care to prosecute him for publishing pornography in that case. Huh.

Jens was a pretty uncompromising man. He once said,

People speak of ‘sexual morality,’ but that is a misleading expression. There is no special morality for sex. No matter what you do with yourself, whether you go to bed with girls or with boys, and no matter what it occurs to you to do with them or with yourself, no moral rule applies to that sphere of activity other than the principles that govern every aspect of life: honesty, courage, common humanity, consideration.

What Jens understood that I think is so valuable is that people who dichotomize consensual sexual activity into obscene and decent acts also tend to approach morality as a dichotomy; they couple obscene with immoral and decent with moral. Indeed, Jens sees that the failure to recognize one false dichotomy actually blurs one’s view of which other dichotomies are true and which are not. On the other hand, when you begin to see the gradations between things you once simplistically believed were absolutes, you empower yourself to break out of all false dichotomies.

Now, before I go any further, it’s important to mention that false dichotomies are not inherently bad things; they can be useful, as I mentioned, and they can be a lot of fun. Case in point, I think dichotomies of power are really fucking sexy! Specifically, I have always loved (and still love) playing—but not being—powerless. That is, I enjoy being sexually submissive.

Trouble is, I’m a man. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: DUH! Thing is, the fact that I’m a man wasn’t always clear to me. In fact, thanks to this really strong tendency that false dichotomies, when we incorrectly believe they are true, have of reinforcing one another, for the longest time I thought I was actually a woman! Yeah! Let me tell you why.

In mainstream Western society, and indeed in most modern cultures, this dichotomy of power–dominance on one hand and submission on the other–reinforces this other, totally unrelated anywhere but in some people’s minds, false dichotomy: the one of gender, with men on one side, and women on the other. And then, as if that weren’t enough, both of those false dichotomies are also strung together like this, so that dominance and manliness is also coupled with activity, while submission and femininity is also coupled with passivity. The trouble with that, for me, was that I like being active and I like being passive in bed!

And then, as if that weren’t enough, I turned 13, and I put a toothbrush in my butt–and I liked it! So now I discovered this other, additional incorrect coupling: penetration is coupled with being active, which, as we’ve already seen is coupled with manliness, which ostensibly makes it dominant. On the other side, being penetrated is coupled with being passive or “receptive,” which, remember, is coupled with womanliness, which makes it ostensibly submissive. So now my 13 year old self is totally fucking confused and has no idea what the fuck I am–man, woman, top, bottom, active partner, passive partner–except that I knew I really liked getting tied up and I really like my toothbrush in my butt.

But wait, there’s more! One year later, my younger brother made friends with this really cute guy in his class and he started coming over to our place and I got a really big crush on him. And that’s when I learned that contemporary culture said, if I was, in fact, a boy, that I was also gay! Yeah, even though I also also masturbated to thoughts of girls! Because apparently, to fit in with contemporary culture, you can’t be bisexual if you’re a man. You’ve gotta be either straight or gay. And even though I was “only” 14, I knew that if you like your toothbrush in your butt, you’re gay!

So, like, oh my god! Could I be a gay boy who liked girls? Was that possible? Was I just…wrong about everything? Fuck, was there something wrong with me? Maybe there was something wrong with these distinctions. Maybe not all of them were true dichotomies. Hmm….

Thankfully, I had (drum roll please) THE INTERNET! Yes, the Internet. I did some searches. I surfed a bunch of sites. I read a lot of porn. I had some more pretty confused orgasms. And then, I found this: The Kinsey Scale.

What was so interesting about the Kinsey scale was that it introduced me to this idea that there were gradations in sexual orientation. That’s when it clicked: I’m probably some kind of bisexual. So, ignoring for a moment the limitations of this concept, I figured that if there were gradations in sexual orientation, maybe there were gradations in a bunch of those other dichotomies.

Of course, it turns out, yes, there are. There’s a big wide world of queer between the poles of heteronormativity, switches enjoy varying consensual sexual power differentials, and even when it comes to anatomical characteristics there are varying degrees of intersexuality that mix male and female. So, long story short, even though I really liked that toothbrush, I eventually upgraded to a strap-on because I knew that one’s gender identity, such as man or woman, and the enjoyment one gets from a particular sexual activity, such as penis-in-vagina sexual intercourse or receptive buttsex, are in no way directly correlated.

Sure, sometimes I want penetration to be about power, but it never had to be anymore, because now I had the freedom, and the power to decide how anything outside of me would affect me. I found that the better I got at decoupling an activity from a preconceived notion of what it means, the more fun sex became. And even when I do choose to get penetrated submissively, it always has to be about good sex first and foremost, not about some misguided morality or sexist system of beliefs.

Okay, I know this is a talk at a conference about sexuality, but let’s return for a moment to KinkForAll’s tagline:

A serendipitous, ad-hoc unconference about the intersection of sexuality with the rest of life.

What about the rest of life? Are dichotomies there, too? You betcha! Here’s an obvious one:

• Black vs. White (or, more generally, race)

And here’s how we know that’s a false dichotomy:

• Barack Obama
• halle berry, jordan sparks, tony parker, derek jeter, tyson beckford (he’s jamaican and chinese), slash (the drummer from guns n roses), lisa wu hartwell

Here’s a not-so-obvious dichotomy, but one I bet most people who came to see me speak had to think about at least a little bit before they came here:

• Public / private –> Out / closeted

For those that don’t know, when Sara Eileen and I co-founded KinkForAll, we took some very heavy criticism from people who believed that the essentially open and public nature of KinkForAll events were “recklessly endangering” participants, that we would be “outing” people. I believe this criticism was spawned from a belief in that false dichotomy: that to be public is to be out, that in order to have adequate privacy, people of sexuality minorities must be closeted.

That falsehood needlessly segregates sexuality apart from the rest of our lives. In reality, no one is ever completely in the closet or out of it. You might be out about some things to some people, but not out to others. By coming to KinkForAll events, people are forced to grapple with the reality that the closet is not a binary.

Here’s another one that KinkForAll events make some people grapple with:

• Academic / non-academic (education)

also known as

• educated / uneducated
• graduate / drop-out

I like this one because I’m a middle-school drop-out. But anyway, after she gave a presentation at the very first KinkForAll in New York City, Emily Rutherford wrote this in her blog about the experience:

I think that a lot of what was exciting about [KinkForAll] is the way that the format combines academic and non-academic modes of talking about sex and sexuality. The “conference” is an academic model in a way that many existing modes of social interaction for sexuality groups aren’t, but this conference didn’t presume any academic background or qualifications. I think that [KinkForAll] bridged gaps between different registers of discussion, taking academese down a peg while applying a theoretical and philosophical level to more casual conversations.

KinkForAll is not really an “organization,” just individuals acting in concert toward a share goal; a collective, maybe. I was urged, numerous times, to trademark KinkForAll and a few people thought it needed to be a registered 501(c)3 organization to really make a difference at all. But that’s just another false dichotomy, because we don’t need to be a 501(c)3 to make a difference.

Indeed, the millennial generation–our generation–is recognizing more and more false dichotomies, and younger people are consistently speaking up to make a difference. That’s what David Jay did in 2001, when he was a 19 year old undergraduate student at Wesleyan University just a few hours from here. David said:

Sexuality is like any other activity. There are people for whom skydiving, chocolate cake and soccer are their world. But some people don’t like skydiving, chocolate cake or soccer. There’s no reason to focus your energy and attention on something you feel no reason to do anything about.

That year, David founded The Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), which became the online headquarters for the asexuality movement. David recognized that even sex drive itself is correctly seen by many as coupled to dichotomies; that mens’ drives is necessarily stronger than womens’, for instance. Contrary to popular belief, sex is not a compulsion, and the desire for sex is not a universally shared instinct.

I believe AVEN’s work is enormously important because rape culture will dissipate and victim-blaming will stop only when everyone understands that our sex drives–our feelings of lust–are an independent facet of our sociosexual makeup. Men are no more or less interested in sex because they are men than women are. Perhaps counter-intuitively, asexuality is the keystone that supports a healthily sexual society.

All right, so, let’s review. Dichotomies come in two flavors: true and false. Both kinds are useful, and potentially sexy, but not good to confuse. So don’t let “man” or “woman” jail you. Don’t even let “animal” or “person” jail you! Hell, The Supreme Court isn’t letting the insignificant detail of corporeal existence prevent corporations from being people!

The bottom line is this: don’t wait for permission to do or be something that doesn’t fit into whatever or wherever other people happen to think you are. You don’t need someone’s permission to break out of a false dichotomy, or to become empowered.

You just do it. You can do it. We broke out of restrictive dichotomies just being at KinkForAll Providence! You’re doing it now if you’re watching this video, ‘cuz you’re thinking. So you don’t need to wait for your schools, or parents, or your teachers to fill you with knowledge, or to give you permission to grow in whatever direction you want. You’re doing it already.

You become empowered whenever you do what you can to make our communities places we can be proud of, no matter how small an act it is. Cuz, y’see, your impact, even through small things, like sharing a link to some educational resource like the one I followed to find the Kinsey scale when I was a teenager, are kind of a big deal.

People with destructive goals are usually people who feel personally disempowered. So to be creative, you need to empower everyone to speak up, to have a presence—even people you don’t totally agree with.

And thinking about that, and seeing as how I broached this subject of dichotomies with quotes from a writer, I thought it fitting to end with another quote from another, recently passed writer, Howard Zinn. Howard Zinn said:

Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.

KinkForAll is one of my small acts. Now it’s your turn. :)