THE PILLOW BLOG

 

Clauses. A Self-Reflection
Beate Absalon Beate Absalon

Clauses. A Self-Reflection

The list of things we want to include as guidelines in our workshop descriptions keeps growing longer and longer with each workshop we hold. For example, at one point it felt sufficient to simply state that “people of all genders and sexual orientations are welcome.” It’s now clear: simply mentioning that isn’t enough, of course. Because a mixed group brings its own explosive potential, and while everyone is welcome, how do we address the specific challenges that arise? Can workshop facilitators talk about vulvas in a way that allows people without anatomical vulvas—but with energetic ones—to receive their vulva massage? Who can do that? How? And how do group leaders navigate this, ensuring a group handles it coolly when, for example, structurally marginalized people (e.g., people with bodies that, across the spectrum of race, gender, age, and disability, present conditions different from what a socially conventional norm dictates) are present—without triggering…

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An Eclectic Essay on (In)security (work in progress)
Beate Absalon Beate Absalon

An Eclectic Essay on (In)security (work in progress)

risk, safety, conflict, consent—what drives sex-positive communities usually has something to do with these key concepts. It’s complicated. Uncertainty isn’t bad per se, and safety isn’t good per se—and vice versa. From my personal experience, I’ve found spaces that strongly emphasize consent to be both empowering and enriching, as well as restrictive, school-like, or tamed—and thus simply boring—or failing to do justice to situations that are fundamentally ambivalent gray areas. Sometimes these spaces led to frustration when the very people to whom I could fully open up because of their trusting nature would always backtrack on safety just when things got interesting, so as not to cross “my” boundaries…

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