Rather than discuss my personal fetishes, I wanted to talk about the two projects I’ve recently put huge amounts of my time and effort into, KinkForAll and MaleSubmissionArt.com. Axe and I talked for nearly two hours, recording the whole time. Afterwards, he sliced up our recording so that he can publish two discrete pieces.

The first piece Axe published of our recording is about KinkForAll, now online as episode number 6 of the MasoCast. However, in order to fit into the MasoCast’s short-form segments, a lot of our conversation had to be cut out. Some of the pieces that were cut from the recording for the MasoCast segment are outlined in the following list.

Thankfully, I have an earlier version of the KinkForAll segment for the Masocast that I want to publish myself for those interested in listening to an extra ten minutes of our conversation. This earlier version of the edit is 27 minutes long. Most of the additional material not included in Episode 6 of the MasoCast is towards the end.

Included in this recording are:

• I discuss how KinkForAll is a coordinated effort among a group, but is focused on autonomy and individuals.

• I remark that the KinkForAll model is shamelessly stolen and adapted from the BarCamp model, because that model is a good idea.
• One of the central focuses of KinkForAll is to bring the value from connecting different communities together in a sexuality-neutral space.
• There’s nothing about KinkForAll that isn’t public and transparent, which means that anyone—including you—can participate in one. Case in point, the public mailing list as well publicly budgeting the finances transparently.
• KinkForAll has an agenda: it’s not just an event, it’s also about finding and supporting people who want to promote the freedom of sexuality information and other ideals that KinkForAll has.
• KinkForAll is an engine that people can use to make other things happen. Case in point, now that we have A/V recordings of presentations, there is interest from some people in creating a free repository of audio and video sexuality presentations that are published online for free. That’s great, but let’s not turn KinkForAll into that, because it doesn’t need to be. Why not have a great sexuality unconference and a video library, and a blog network? There’s no need to play zero-sum games anymore because we have proven that individual, coordinated efforts are more successful than massive, centralized efforts.
• Some future aspirations for KinkForAll events are more video recordings, a live feed during the event itself streamed over the Internet for anyone to watch and/or listen to remotely to more effectively include people who can’t be physically present.
• We tried to involve the world in as open a way as possible, and I want everyone—not just the people who are physically present the day of the event—to partake in and contribute to the value that we created as part of the event.

I want to thank Axe once again for helping me to spread the word about KinkForAll through his podcast. Axe also deserves immense thanks for being one of several audio specialists who participated in KinkForAll New York City and helped us audio record nearly half of the presentations that were given during the event! All of those presentations are available online for free.

When I think about the world around us and the role of marginalized sexualities such as BDSM, polyamory, transsexuality, gender queerness, and others, I’m reminded of Professor Charles Xavier’s opening lines to the original X-Men movie:

Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward.

So, evolve or die. But evolve into what? Unconferences like KinkForAll are the next evolutionary leap forward with regards to how people will learn and talk about what-it-is-that-we-do.

Admittedly, that’s a bold statement. “Evolutionary leap forward” sounds like something ripe either for stereotypical hollywood films or esoteric scientific white papers. Thing is, our lives and our sex is filled to the brim with influences from many disparate sources, such as blockbuster motion pictures and scientific white papers. However, despite having a venerable Horn of Plenty for our sexuality palettes, traditional sexuality conferences and community organizations have remained stalwartly segregated from these influences and—worse—even from each other.

There are problems—deep-seated, gigantic, and incredibly frustrating problems—with the way we as a community and a culture present sex and sexuality to one another and to the next generation. These things need to change, because the world around us is changing. Somehow, despite all this upheaval, our sexuality communities are trapped inside aristocratic institutions that more often act with an interest in risk-avoidance instead of value-creation. Perhaps these organizations’ timid, closeted behavior used to exist for a good reason; membership meant association and building social walls kept the predators on the other side, but that system is feudalism and those days are over.

KinkForAll offers a new, much-needed outlet that can not only radically transform sex education for both mainstream and niche communities, but also revitalize many grass-roots community organizations themselves. By making it possible to bring together influences from all corners of life into a melting pot of sexuality discussion, we unlock the as-yet-untapped value that the sex communities have failed to harness.

The current structure of sexuality organizations is institutionalized to the point of ego-centric gridlock. This can be illustrated by examining the principles on which KinkForAll is founded, since they highlight some weaknesses in these other structures:

• At a KinkForAll, there are no spectators, only participants. Attendees must give a talk or presentation, or help with one. This is called sharing and we like it.

  For far too long, information about sex has been under one kind of stranglehold or another. Even within sexuality subcultures, who can present, where, and why, has focused very strongly on the currency of the day. Most recently, that currency was reputation, and it created an elitist aristocracy who unwittingly monopolized the very thing they claimed to want to make free: having sex, and how we do that. When reputation becomes more valuable than results, egos prevent progress.

• At a KinkForAll, anyone can present, on any topic related to sexuality. You do not necessarily have to teach a new skill or idea. You might share an experience, review a product, or read a poem. The goal is to start a discussion, make connections, and exchange knowledge.

  All such activities are valuable, yet too long sidelined or actively discouraged in sexuality circles. Our reasons to wall our sex away from the rest of our life are disappearing one after the other, and we should do what we can to live un-closeted lives in every way we can. Moreover, the amazing potential within inter-community spaces is astonishingly under-appreciated. In fact, I argue such potential is way more valuable than any single organization can ever become.

• KinkForAll is free (as in beer) and free (as in libre). One of the things I’ve been frustrated with for a long time is the utter lack of accessibility to young people when it comes to topics of sexuality. If a young person (or any person of any age) wishes to engage the wider sex-positive community in the places where it has its discussions, this comes with a terribly high price tag.

  Sexuality conferences run by the sex communities are typically large, expensive, and very intimidating. Many people, not just young people, simply don’t have several hundred dollars and a week’s time to dish out going to sexuality events. This extremely high monetary cost creates insurmountable socioeconomic barriers to many people’s pursuit of sexual freedom because it bars them from obtaining the technical information and the social connections they need. Freedom isn’t just about principles, it’s about actions; enabling people to involve themselves (what we know of as “volunteering,” though I strongly prefer participating) isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s the entire point.

None of this negates the fact that older, larger, and more rigid organizations and events have their place. When done well, they can provide spaces for in-depth exploration. That said, there are many places where they will continue to fail to do what newer ideas like KinkForAll will succeed in doing. Audacia Ray summarized this as well, saying:

[KinkForAll] is the perfect event to go to if you’ve always wanted to check out a sex/kink related conference but are afraid that you’ll be swarmed by naked people who are not aesthetically to your liking. It’s the perfect event to go to if you’ve always wanted to check out a sex/kink event but think you don’t know anything or won’t be part of the in crowd. It’s the perfect event to go to if you are in [the area] but have no money and are curious about this kind of event. There are lots of reasons I’m going, but the clothes-on, free, open reasons are my main ones.

The evolution of our sexuality communities from walled gardens to freely and safely traversable pathways like this is hard because it threatens the status-quo, perhaps especially if they are struggling just to survive. Sadly, if their heads are indeed placed firmly in the sand and their heels dug into their risk-avoidance behavior, they will continue to struggle. Of course, they’re struggling for a reason: as Boymeat points out, I love that [KinkForAll] is doing something new and unique in NYC, because I have to say, most of the stuff [the scene's] been doing isn’t working. (Sic.)

KinkForAll is new, and very young, but—and there’s no doubt about this—it’s here to stay. The response to the first-ever KinkForAll unconference, KinkForAll New York City wildly surpassed the expectations that my other unorganizers and I had. As Sara Eileen said,

I have to say how gleeful I am over the entire thing, conceived and brought to being as it was, in less than 3 months and with us on the other side of the world.

[…]

[Maymay] and I expected perhaps 40 attendees. There were over 100.

I had worried that we wouldn’t fill the schedule grid. There were 45 different presentations.

We started with no money and figured we would pay for what we needed ourselves. Over $1000 dollars were donated.

I wasn’t sure we’d have everything we needed. In the end, we were overly resourced; extra projectors, kosher and vegetarian and gluten-free food, gallons of drinking water that appeared seemingly from nowhere.

As I said at the end of the day when I stood on the stage, “our cup overflows.”

My analysis of this is simple:

There’s no question that this kind of event is something the sexuality communities at large really need. It’s not just BDSM people, but poly people, transfolk, queers, butches and femmes, and everyone else who takes part in public, social sexuality-related spaces obviously want to see happen. I’ve personally already heard from folks in Washington DC and Toronto who are interested in replicating similar events, and through several other channels multiple people in San Francisco have also expressed interest.

To borrow from Sascha’s analysis, unconferences like KinkForAll create a new, less intimidating platform for new generations:

I think that the unconference trend signifies something greater—an evolution in the sex and kink positive communities in how we come together and how we exchange information. Don’t get me wrong, I think that more structured events such as TESFest and Dark Odyssey still have their place. But these spaces provide a new, less intimidating platform for new generations of sex geeks, kinksters, activists, educators, and aspiring educators.

More specifically and perhaps even more powerfully, the platform itself is what is being created. It’s a platform for education, for friendship, and for activism the likes of which has never been available to sexuality outlets before. Emily Rutherford describes it similarly, emphasizing KinkForAll’s ability to bring disperse communities together:

Basically, KFANYC was a conference—a vehicle for members of the various sexuality communities in New York to come together, talk, and learn from each other.

Emily also highlights the fact that KinkForAll is engaging the participation of communities and academics of all stripes, even from outside the walled gardens of sociosexual circles:

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 and didn’t have the same standards of format and presentation that academic conferences do. I, as a first-year college student, was able to participate, but so were people who didn’t finish high school and people with graduate degrees. KFANYC very nearly, I think it’s safe to say, made academia accessible to everyone, which is an important thing that those of us entrenched in the ivory tower should be doing. Academic modes are a sort of subculture of analyzing and presenting information, but that doesn’t mean they have to be elitist—just different from, say, journalism, or casual conversation. I think that as much as KFANYC bridged gaps between disparate sexuality communities, it bridged gaps between different registers of discussion, taking academese down a peg while applying a theoretical and philosophical level to more casual conversations.

(Emphasis mine.)

Time and again the same themes crop up. As Axe wrote a while ago,
there will be presentations on topics that you may not find at other events. New platforms bring new ideas in new ways, which in turn bring new people, who are needed to keep moving us to where we want to go. StacyCat commented on her experience, saying It got me really excited about the scene and education and life again.

So, an old idea was reborn: make free events for the sexuality communities, and use them to effect a paradigm shift in the way we present marginalized sexuality issues like BDSM, transsexuality, gender queerness, asexuality, and others to the world at large. The rebirth freed us from the constraints of current systems and organizations. With the knowledge that such rebirth is healthy and risk-avoidance is itself inherently risky, to use Boymeat’s words again, the structure has been built entirely to prevent any power plays, and is focused on autonomy and transparency.

We gave the idea a name, KinkForAll, and then we gave it massive amounts of our time and effort. I made a web site for KinkForAll, Sara Eileen started talking about the idea with our friends, who (with our encouragement) started talking about it with their friends, and on and on the cycle went until we had people we didn’t know wanting—and instantly able—to participate.

So where do we go now? We’re continuing to put recordings of the presentations given at the event online so that anyone with an Internet connection can freely get some of that value. Our goal has always been to make an easily-digestible packet that we can give to others to help them recreate the positive energy and value that came from KinkForAll New York City. To that end, I’ve been working on writing a KinkForAll unorganizer’s guide.

Of course, nothing is as supportive as actual participation, and so I’m talking with people who have shown interest and initiative to run KinkForAll events in Washington DC as I hope to also do for Toronto and San Francisco soon after that. Suddenly, there’s grass-roots momentum around making such content available on a global scale, for free, because the infrastructure already exists in the form of the Internet.

But, as Sara said, It’s out in the world now. Anyone can take it on, and up. Many participants at KinkForAll New York City travel frequently to DC and elsewhere, and I encourage those uniquely experienced people to spread the idea with their actions. And that’s the ultimate take-away point: Sexual freedom is for everyone. But you have to take it and run with it yourself.

Interested? Learn more about KinkForAll at http://KinkForAll.org, our Frequently Asked Questions page, or our public mailing list.

Organizing KinkForAll was a really new experience for me. I’ve never before seen a vision of mine that involved so many people so wonderfully executed. As I said during the discussion in the presentation Evan gave on Youth and Leadership, There’s a fine line between leadership and control.

Now that the first event has been a success, I can feel much more confident that the idea I’ve had for it is one that’s proven. Many people didn’t believe it could work, and I know there are still many others who are dubious—even close friends, like one I spoke to tonight. The biggest sticking points are obvious: 20 minute presentations are “too short,” playspaces “should be part of the event,” and of course, “encouraging cameras is a bad idea.”

To each of these I say that the NYC event, which was even more strict with regard to the timeframe than I thought it would be, had absolutely no playspaces and lacked even an after-party (which is unfortunate, because I think a simple after-party would be loads of fun after something like this), and only 1 day later already has 53 Flickr photos from the event posted online, proves the format and the methods we used are sound. Not only that, but I recall multiple people stopping me in the hallways and saying things like, “You know, I thought I’d show up and hang out for a half an hour, but now it’s 3 hours later and I really wish I didn’t have to go!” Further, and even more encouraging, several people also told me, “I really thought that 20 minutes would be too little time to do what I wanted, but I really love this 20-minute thing!”

There’s no question that this kind of event is something the sexuality communities at large really need. It’s not just BDSM people, but poly people, transfolk, queers, butches and femmes, and everyone else who takes part in public, social sexuality-related spaces obviously want to see happen. I’ve personally already heard from folks in Washington DC and Toronto who are interested in replicating similar events, and through several other channels multiple people in San Francisco have also expressed interest.

So yeah, talk about a smashing, unexpected success…. If you missed KinkForAll New York City, or if you were there but missed my presentation, Audacia Ray—one of the event’s two sponsors—offered to video record it and has put the video up on Vimeo for the world, and you, to see (below).

Maymay on Gender, Technology, and the Idea Behind Kink for All from Audacia Ray on Vimeo. (Watch other KFANYC videos.)

You can also download an audio-only version of the above video, which also includes an extra 10 minutes of Q&A that filled the rest of my presentation.

Of course, with such success I’ve got a whole new set of challenges. I don’t want this idea to be something intricately tied to my person—that’s entirely hypocritical and totally defeating of the point. At the same time, I want Toronto and DC and San Fran to experience the same kind of thing as we did in New York City. There are still some people in those areas that believe presentations need to be allowed to go longer than 20 minutes, that a playspace should be a requirement, and that other issues make holding the event itself too risky.

While a KinkForAll event in these other places cannot be identical to the one in NYC, at what point does such fundamental variation become something that’s not KinkForAll? Not something that’s necessarily bad, just something too different to bear resemblance. As I said earlier, how can I lead, without exerting undue and unnecessary control? It’s a balance I’m going to be challenged to strike accurately; I’ve never done that before.

Interestingly, some of the people who contacted me about wanting to run their own local events have expressed a specific distaste for the same sorts of things in the sexuality communities that I’ve also expressed many, many times before. This is no surprise, of course, but rather it’s an immense point of validation. In Evan’s presentation that I mentioned earlier, for instance, he mentioned trying and failing to bring some of the ideas present in KinkForAll to Black Rose. Later, others expressed similar frustrations at KinkForAll New York City, and still later more from DC expressed the same frustrations.

I’m sadly not surprised that efforts to catalyze established BDSM organizations have failed. In my experience, scene organizations are especially resistant to change and very, very ego-centric. They tend to enjoy power struggles for power struggle’s sake, and they fail to seize obvious opportunities for technical improvement when they do this. Naturally, I despise egotism when it gets in the way of good ideas because it actively creates very negative spaces, hence the free and open and autonomous nature of KinkForAll.

To do what I can for the incredible potential that’s here, I’ve thrown my hat onto helping KinkForAll Washington DC by signing up on the wiki page with “advocate+assist organization” for my participation, but it really isn’t my show, just as KinkForAll New York City wasn’t really my show. KinkForAll is all about doing, not saying, it’s about individual collaborations, not organizations, it’s about newness and innovation, not regurgitation, and —I want to make sure it remains an environment where actions and results speak louder than words.

To that end, I think the role of unorganizers like myself is really to make sure we exemplify that behavior. If we can continue to do that well, then everyone we recruit to help out will not only be much more helpful, but will also protect the goals and the methods of KinkForAll: flat organization, personal responsibility and autonomy, and results-focused behavior with a desire for creativity and positive social change in sexuality communities. I am unspeakably excited to see a KinkForAll Washington DC off the ground, so as my life begins to calm down, you can expect to see my activity in helping make the DC event a reality begin to ramp up very quickly.

I’m looking forward to it!

Update: KinkForAll New York City was a stunning success.

As if I didn’t have enough projects going right now, while here in Sydney, Eileen and I had an idea for a social and educational event that will promote positive ideals of sexuality from and to many communities and organizations. The idea is called KinkForAll, and I need your help to make the first KinkForAll event a reality this March. Below is the 411 on KinkForAll as well as links for where to learn more.

Most of all, I need your help to spread the word that KinkForAll event exists. To that end, please copy the flyer text below and post it on your blog(s), send it to any mailing lists you belong to, talk about it to your friends, and generally help get the word out. For this hugely beneficial movement to succeed, it needs enthusiastic participants on the ground—and that’s you!

I should probably also mention that I would greatly appreciate help in spreading the word even if you are not local to New York City. Simply spreading awareness about the New York City-based efforts and getting more people interested in this idea in general will be beneficial for people regardless of where you or they happen to live right now.

Here’s the flyer text to copy:

PLEASE COPY AND CROSSPOST THIS MESSAGE FREELY.

If you have already heard about KinkForAll through the grapevine, then please consider this email a reminder. If you haven’t, then please take a minute to scan this message. You’re receiving this message because someone trusts you to read it with an open mind. Smile! :)

Vitals
======

What: A no-limits sex-positive gender and sexuality unconference.
Why: To inspire a creative, interactive and open environment where everyone feels comfortable talking, learning, and being inspired by all kinds of sexuality.
When: March, 2009 (exact date yet to be determined)
Where: NYC (We’re still looking for a venue! Can you help? See ‘Get Involved,’ below!)
Who: Everyone
How much: Free (as in beer as well as freedom)

Details
=======

KinkForAll is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people of the kink, queer, sex-positive and related communities to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, presentations, and interaction from all participants.  (It is inspired by the BarCamp community.)

ANYONE WITH SOMETHING TO CONTRIBUTE OR WITH THE DESIRE TO LEARN IS WELCOME AND INVITED TO JOIN. When you attend, be prepared to share with others. When you leave, be prepared to share it with the world.

A KinkForAll is a special kind of gathering because there are no spectators, only participants. Attendees must give a talk or a presentation, help with one, or otherwise volunteer/contribute in some way to support the event. This is called sharing and we like it. All presentations are scheduled the day they happen—there are no pre-scheduled presentations or keynote addresses. The people present at the event will select the presentations they want to see.

Anyone can present, on any topic related to sexuality. You do not necessarily have to teach a new skill or idea. You might share an experience, review a product, or read a poem. The goal is to start a discussion, make connections, and exchange knowledge. Presentations promoting specific commercial products or companies are discouraged.

Learn more about what to expect at
http://kinkforall.pbwiki.com/WhatToExpect

Learn more about the event guidelines at
http://kinkforall.pbwiki.com/TheRulesOfKinkForAll

Get Involved
============

We need your help in spreading the word. Please help by participating. Here’s how:

1. Get excited by reading the ideas on http://kinkforall.pbwiki.com/KinkForAllNewYorkCity
2. Add your name or handle to the list of participants
3. Join the mailing list and introduce yourself by emailing kinkforall@googlegroups.com

If you have access to a venue, or know someone who has access to a venue, please email the kinkforall@googlegroups.com mailing list with that information.

Still have questions? Read the Frequently Asked Questions at
http://kinkforall.pbwiki.com/FrequentlyAskedQuestions

or email kinkforall@googlegroups.com for more details.

KinkForAll Online
=================

Participate online before the event at your favorite social networking web site.

Homepage: http://KinkForAll.org
Google: http://groups.google.com/group/kinkforall
Twitter: http://twitter.com/KinkForAll
Identica: http://identi.ca/kinkforall
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/KinkForAll/40066342762

All primary organizational efforts are being coordinated via the mailing list. Join for free and help turn ideas into realities!
http://groups.google.com/group/kinkforall

The flyer text to copy is above this line.

I’ve already been thrilled at some of the inertia that is beginning to build behind this idea. The implications of such a thing happening are remarkable!

One of the things I’ve been frustrated with for a long time is the utter lack of accessibility to young people when it comes to these topics. Sure, we have gender studies courses (if you’re in school—which I am thankfully not), but these are academic circles that have little to no interaction with the wider community. That is terribly sad.

Further, if a young person (or frankly, ANY person of any age) wishes to engage the wider sex-positive community in the places where it has its discussions, this comes with a terribly high price tag. Sexuality conferences run by the sex communities are typically large, expensive, and very intimidating. Many people, not just young people, just don’t have several hundred dollars and a week’s time to dish out going to sexuality events where the primary attraction is…well, having some kind of sex. (We can fuck for free, thank you.)

In response to this, I’d like to bring the ideals and philosophies of transparency with privacy that exist today in the open source/technology communities to the sex-positive communities. I feel this is a natural fit because the power of the people is never so strongly heard as when it is showcasing the power of human sexuality and love. It is a real tragedy that sexuality communities do such a horrendously poor job of taking advantage of available social technology to further their cause. In addition to everything else, starting KinkForAll is also an attempt to help rectify that situation.

This kind of an unconference is not a new idea. If you examine the BarCamp.org pages, you’ll see a massive similarity between them and the pages at KinkForAll.org. This is intentional. I’ve been at BarCamps of various kinds before and the results are always outstanding. I am convinced that replicating the same positive energy is possible for sexuality communities, albeit slightly more difficult because of the novelty of the idea for this group of people.

Such unconference-style gatherings are purposely loosely structured in order to let regional and communal influences permeate the event. That is a good thing. It means that KinkForAll as a concept will evolve in parallel to the notions created by BarCamp. At the same time, it’s important that people who care about the idea and the potential for positive social change that it has are able to guide the concept as an idea in that positive direction. This is why the “rules” of KinkForAll are written so meticulously, and are so carefully generalized. You’ll find several references to the fact that this is not a play event, for example, and that this differs from other events run by the BDSM and related communities in particular, well-defined ways. Again, this is intentional.

If any of this strikes a chord with you, you can read more at the introduction on the mailing list. I also strongly encourage you to participate—the only cost is your time and effort, and you get to decide how much of that you want to spend. The benefits, however, can be immeasurable.