Building Sexual Consent From the Ground Up–Toronto workshop June 12, 2010

(oops I got the time wrong! please note the correct time for this workshop 4-6pm)

Co-conspirator Lusty Day and I will be co-facilitating a workshop called Building Sexual Consent From the Ground Up on Saturday June 12, 4-6 pm as part of the Trigger Festival in Toronto. You should come! It’s free, accessible and childcare is provided all day. Rad! More info on Trigger and the day-long workshops being offered.

Day and I are doing this workshop for a couple of reasons…first because both of us have been really affected by violence within the queer community. I am sure you have too, either as a survivor as the friend of one. From times we’ve listened to our friends work through the shame and self-hatred of a drunken encounter that wasn’t entirely consensual, to not feeling like we could say No to sex with a partner indefinitely, to having nowhere to turn to get protection from a violent partner because they’d risk deportation. Don’t we love each other enough to do something about this?

Second because we believe in developing non-state community responses to this violence. We believe in taking care of each other, reducing violence and holding people who’ve caused harm accountable–without inviting in the racist, homophobic, capitalist, sexist, ableist police or social services, for example. Our foundational vision is one where queers and trans people rely on each other–not state systems of control, containment and exploitation–to develop solutions to the problem of violence, understanding that violence as part of, and intimately connected to state and international violence.

Third, we are sex workers and know that our skills and strategies around establishing consent (individually, collectively, verbally, non-verbally) are diverse and fierce. We want to share them with our community!

Building Sexual Consent from the Ground Up
Learn from skilled sex workers how to better negotiate sexual consent and make great sex happen. This no-touch workshop will provide an opportunity for participants to gain practical skills in negotiating sex and help us uncover our individual and collective strengths and styles around sexual negotiation. We will talk about how to get the love, sex and intimacy we want, resist stigmas against sex and whores and how to end partner/date violence in our communities! All are welcome!

Saturday June 12, 2010 / 4-6 PM / The Raging Spoon, 761 Queen st West (near Bathurst) / Free!

Hookers and Fat Kids (On fatphobia and state violence against sex workers)

Walking back into the house with a new red satin teddy for tomorrow’s two-hour booking, I glanced down at the Sydney Morning Herald and spotted the two headlines: “Cancer deaths much higher for Aborigines” (no shit, we needed another study to tell us that colonialism is bad for Indigenous people’s health?) and directly below it, this headline: “Girl, 12, turns her life around after removal from mother”

Huh. Since when is forced removal a good thing for kids? I wondered.

Answer: when the mom is a hooker and the kid–no, the daughter– is fat.

Turns out this article is about a sex worker who’s had her “obese” “unhygenic” daughter removed from her. Nothing triggered this article. It was written just to demonstrate how “prostitutes” make fucked up, unfit mothers who let their kids get fat and obviously don’t know how to raise proper little middle class white girls who eat “healthy” and play sports.

There is mention that the woman exposed her daughter to “inappropriate sexual issues”. What the fuck does that mean? That the daughter knew she worked? That mom didn’t enforce middle-class white norms around sexuality?

There is reference to the mom possibly having mental health issues. Y’know what? I’m the daughter of a single mom and a fuck of alot of them have mental health issues because it’s BRUTALLY HARD TO BE A SINGLE MOM. Instead of punishing mothers for failing to be perfectly happy robo-women, how about providing support and self-determination so they don’t drown? And by support, I’m talking decent wages, culturally appropriate childcare, educational opportunities and respect. And as for sex working moms? DECRIMINALIZE AND DESTIGMATIZE.

But mostly the author delights in sharing how the girl had “turned her life around” with, among other things, a “less sedentary lifestyle” and substantial weight loss. Wow. I feel confident that this removal would not have happened if the child had been a boy because a girl child is much more likely to be seen as emotionally unwell due to fatness. This is specifically the policing and punishment of working class femininity–both the mom’s and the daughter’s.

This removal, this violation of a mother’s right to raise her own child, is the perfect example of how fatphobia can be used to legitimize state violence against poor and working class women sex workers– in some incredibly vicious ways, up to and including stealing their own children.

New workshop in Melbourne: Spanking!

My friend W. asked for it so here it is: I’m teaching a spanking workshop in Melbourne Australia! Details below. There are rumblings of requests for my most-popular-workshop “Giving Head” or an overall Blow His Mind workshop which I might consider. Get in touch if you’re interested in this or another workshop.

smacks and soothes,

Juliet

SPANKING: MORE THAN PALM TO ASS

Anyone can strike an ass. But how do you whip your bottom into butter till they come back begging for more, kneeling with gratitude? This fun, playful and HANDS-ON workshop facilitated by Juliet November will give you the chance to practice heaps of techniques, learn more about your own style/incorporating spanking into roleplay, the sweet spot, toys, communication and negotiating consent. Ask questions and get feedback from the actual bums in the air. Come alone or with a friend–demo bottoms will be provided!

Folks of all genders and orientations all are welcome to this workshop. Please note that it is a safer space for queers, women, Aboriginal people, people of colour and trans people. That means fairness and respect. If you have any questions about this policy or the workshop, please feel free to ask.

Juliet November is a queer femme top, professional whore, mistress, sex educator, writer and activist. Normally Toronto-based, she has worked in most aspects of the sex industry in the US, Canada and Australia and formerly penned a national sex column for middle class Canadian ladies. She has never met an upturned bottom she didn’t want to hit, slap, torment, tease, tickle or kick.

$12-25 sliding scale

If you’d like to bring a (labelled) snack to share that would be lovely. BDSM takes energy!

The workshop space is wheelchair accessible. Please contact us if you have any other accessibility requirements including ASL interpretation.