Sexuality in a committed relationship works differently than casual hook-up sexuality. This distinction can help you address relationship problems and avoid frustration if you expect that, after a trip to IKEA with your spouse, things in bed should be just as passionate as they are with a mysterious guy you picked up at a jazz bar. Similarly, teenage sexuality works differently than adult sexuality. This distinction helps you adapt your knowledge of sex education to this new phase of life and avoid stress when you expect body parts to become erect and lubricated just as easily as they did when you were…

We’ll continue by trying to figure out how “workshop sexuality” differs from other forms of sexuality. In Part I, we concluded that workshops are structured around a didactic framework, follow a plan, and prescribe certain rules and etiquette. For this reason, the claim that workshops break social norms is only partially true. As is so often the case, breaking with the norm here does not simply mean a departure from norms, but rather the establishment of a new norm. In our society, for example, it is “normal” in the sense of “common” for sex to take place largely nonverbally. And this doesn’t mean the absence of dirty talk, but rather an honest and respectful exchange about what one likes and what one doesn’t. In sex-positive workshops, on the other hand…

In 2021, the Institute for Cultural Inquiry in Berlin hosted a conference titled “The Workshop—Investigations Into an Artistic-Political Format,” the content of which shed wonderful light on the internal logic of sex-positive workshops and their influence on a particular understanding of sexuality. Presentations explored all the wonderful promises of workshop culture: solution-oriented collaboration, the solidarity-based sharing of resources and knowledge, and mind-blowing opportunities for mind-expanding experiences through meditation exercises, psychological self-observation techniques, improvisation, or orgies… According to the conference description, workshops are considered “highly adaptable and almost universally applicable…”

The last blog post mentioned the cultural studies conference “The Workshop—Investigations Into an Artistic-Political Format” at ici Berlin, where workshops were also examined in terms of their distinctly artistic and performative aspects. Similarly, sex-positive workshops are a kind of performance or social sculpture that follow choreographed sequences. Many theatrical concepts apply here: a specific form of interaction is rehearsed, skills are practiced, and rituals are performed. This shapes workshop sexuality as an ars erotica. Here, it is not necessary to…