Workshop on Sexuality. Part I
Sexuality in a committed relationship works differently than casual hook-up sexuality. This distinction can help you address relationship problems and save yourself 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 can help you adapt your knowledge of sex to this new phase of life and spare yourself stress if you expect your body parts to get erect and lubricate just as easily as they did when you were a teenager.
At first glance, both of these distinctions seem self-evident. Of course—just as heterosexuality functions differently from queer sexuality. But the more I observe and reflect, the more I notice how rarely people actually speak of“sexualities”—in the plural. Most often, universal statements are made that lump together different sexualities—each with their very distinct characteristics—into a single category. What leads many to sex or couples therapy is that adults base their understanding of sex on the definitions from their youth, because those are the universally accepted criteria for “normal” sex—a seemingly inexhaustible supply of physical energy and arousing hormones, spontaneous flings with no strings attached, firm skin,... —and convince themselves that something is wrong with them when their bodies can no longer keep up with these standards. And for those who set the sexual behavior of fresh infatuation and adventurous impulsiveness as the gold standard, the arrival of calm and routine in long-term relationships seems like a shortcoming and a problem.
So it makes sense to take stock and understand what kind of sexuality you are currently experiencing, to view it as equal to other forms of sexuality, and to get to know its unique characteristics, challenges, and possibilities. Then you can shape and enjoy your love life in a way that is appropriate to your specific context.
The same is true of the kind of sexuality encountered in workshops, which is distinct from and different from other forms of sexuality. However, I haven’t seen this phrased this way anywhere else: that there is such a thing as “workshop sexuality.”
It's time to make up for that.
What characterizes workshop sexuality?
Taking the workshop format seriously means understanding that sex-positive workshops are not simply neutral containers in which sexual topics are discussed. Just as every form always influences the content, the “workshop” format shapes the content of “sex.” One could go even further and propose the following thesis: Sex in workshops becomes“workshopified” in and of itself.
Workshops are educational spaces where knowledge and techniques are tested through trial and error and experienced firsthand. It is not, therefore, about one-sided indoctrination, but rather about entering and inhabiting open-ended spaces for experimentation and experience. Participants reflect on what happens over the course of the workshop and take away different things from it. However, what they take away cannot be directly applied to sexual contexts outside the workshop. Perhaps they try things with their partner that they found exciting in the workshop, only to be surprised that it doesn’t work as well as it did in the workshop.
According to a definition on Wikipedia, a “workshop [...] is an event in which a small group works intensively on a topic—usually one with a practical focus—over a limited, compact period of time.” A workshop is structured. It follows a program and is divided into different program items or modules. But above all: a workshop comes to an end—often after just a few hours or days. This limited duration enables precisely what is one of the greatest strengths of workshops: Here, you can take risks! Here, you can do things completely differently! Here, for example, I can try out what it feels like when others address me as “they/them.” Here, I can slip into role-playing scenarios with strangers with whom I have nothing to lose, even if it gets awkward, because we’ll never see each other again afterward. It’s about pushing boundaries, stepping off familiar paths within a controlled framework. But when workshop content is carried over into long-term relationships or other settings, it automatically changes. Different things are at stake. The new pronoun might unsettle a partner, or the role-playing might bring unconscious relationship dynamics to the surface that need to be processed in a completely different way afterward. But there’s no longer a facilitator or a group there to keep up with and support that process.
That does not mean that attempts to apply workshop experiences to other areas of life should be avoided—quite the contrary. Workshop participants simply need to be better prepared for—or adjust to—the fact that the specific characteristics of each sphere must be taken into account. For example, workshop sexuality thrives on both collective endeavors and cooperative peer support among very specific groups of people, while also having a neoliberal, individualistic orientation.
The word itself reveals that “workshopping” is about work. It’s a workshop where people tinker and get things done. In workshops, sex thus becomes something that can be worked on, repaired, and refined. This, too, holds enormous potential, as it upends prevailing notions that sex should simply happen on its own—since it’s seen primarily as something “natural” that follows an inner drive. Workshops are thus part of an emancipatory project: we’re not merely at the mercy of circumstances; we can proactively shape them! This makes workshops a wonderful gem, but one that can just as easily turn out to be a stumbling block. For this empowerment-oriented approach could, for example, overlook all those equally valuable sexual experiences in which sex is something that happens to you rather than something you do. Experiences of surrender, of being swept away as if by a giant wave, who knows where. The approaches to skill, mastery, and improvement that dominate workshops don’t come close to capturing these aspects—they might even hinder them. This goes hand in hand with a methodological individualism that workshops pursue. Within them, well-adjusted participants engage with themselves and their experiences through various self-reflection techniques: sharing circles, processing, tuning in, exchanging ideas, reflecting, and making things transparent. By communicating desires, boundaries, and needs as clearly as possible. With this understanding of the subject, workshops turn sex into an optimistic project. An interesting school of queer theory, however, points out the shortcomings and dangers of such attempts at a “salvation-oriented reinvention of sex,” in which “a hidden consensus prevails that sexuality is, in its essence, less unsettling, less socially exhausting, less violent, and more respectful of ‘personality’ than it has been so far.” This quote comes from the theorist Leo Bersani, who coined the term “self-shattering” through sex, meaning that during sex—as with other intoxicating experiences—the self, in a sense, dissolves. Workshop sexuality, on the other hand, only works with an intact self and ends where depersonalizing intimacy begins. After all, there has to be someone there who can confidently apply what is learned in workshops. But if you forget and lose yourself (which—depending on the situation—can be a creepy, yet also wonderfully exquisite and soothing experience), then you can no longer say where you currently are on the Wheel of Consent; whether you’re serving, taking, allowing, or receiving is then completely irrelevant—you’re simply on cloud nine.
This leads to the next distinctive feature of workshops, which are characterized by the fact that they are facilitated or led in an educational manner—and are thus also limited. Since workshops are not only “well-behaved” but also “safe spaces,” they are primarily concerned with integrating sex with responsibility and consensual behavior. Workshop sexuality comes with its own norms, guidelines, and rules.
You'll soon be able to read about what this is all about and what it entails in Part II...
