The Female Sexuality Workshop for the Community: Season 2 is happening this spring in San Francisco and Oakland!  FemSexComm provides a safe space for exploration, encourages honest dialogue, facilitates collective learning, and builds solidarity within a community.

Coming off of its successful launch in San Francisco last fall, the community-based FemSexComm workshop will continue to offer two sections this spring at 518 Valencia in the Mission District.  We’re also opening up a third section at Tech Liminal in downtown Oakland. The workshops run the weeks of February 6^th through May 15^th 2012 and meet once each week from 6-9pm on either Monday or Tuesday evening, depending on location.

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If you are interested in this transformative, 15-week workshop we’d love to tell you more:

INFO SESSIONS

Info sessions are the best way to learn about the workshop and apply.

San Francisco Info Sessions

Monday, Jan 23rd and Tuesday, Jan 24th, 6:30-8:30PM

518 Valencia: The Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics

Oakland Info Session

Monday, Jan 23, 6:00 – 8:00 PM

Tech Liminal

268 14th St Oakland, California 94612

You can RSVP on Facebook!

We want to be clear that absolutely no one will be turned away for lack of funds.*

 

Learn more at:

http://femsexcommsf.wordpress.com/

facebook

twitter

email us: femsexcomm@gmail.com

 

Past participants say…

“My whole life, I had been taught not to be sexual. The workshop made me start thinking about it–I had thought about it before but I never had any solutions. Presenting it in class made it stop being a secret. Now I can establish my needs with my partner and say, for instance, I don’t want to have intercourse right now. It forced me to look at things that might have been put off for another 10 years. And I feel so much better. It’s been hard work, but it’s good.”

“I was enrolled in FemSex at UC Berkeley several years ago. My involvement in the seminar profoundly changed my relationship with myself and my sexuality. I started the workshop understanding little about my own sexuality and even less about other frames of reference… and I finished the class with a deeper level of understanding and awareness than I ever imagined. The FemSex setting was one of my earliest introductions to mindfulness, consent communication, and other self-care and social justice values. And now, years later, the lessons I learned in FemSex continue to inform many of my personal and sociopolitical decisions. Aunque todavía no ofrecen la clase en español, el ambiente se sentía culturalmente incluyente y respetuosa, y los participantes fueron alentados a hablar de sus experiencias personales con el propósito de crear intimidad con los otros. I am forever grateful to my FemSex facilitators and colleagues and look forward to FemSex becoming more and more broadly available throughout the Bay Area.”

“One thing that was affected was my relationship with my disability. My invisible disability was always a part of my life that was really sheltered from my close friends and often my family. It wasn’t something I ever wanted to discuss or talk about. Early on in FemSexComm I decided that I wanted my time there to be as truthful and open as possible, so I made the decision to reveal information that I consider very confidential to a group of, at that point, strangers. This was a huge step for me and came out of the desire to have an authentic and honest experience with the people in the workshop. In the workshop, I had an accepting community that wasn’t constantly fixating on my invisible disability. They both respected it and allowed me the space to process and also made me feel really loved. It really moved me forward in my process of owning and being fully present with my disability.”

“I sometimes have the tendency to disintegrate different aspects of my life, like sex and love, work and play, romantic relationships and friendship, etc. I don’t think this is always a negative thing to do, but it sometimes makes me feel as if I am not allowing others to truly see me and I am not able to truly see others. It hinders the depth of some of my relationships. FemSexComm challenged me to talk openly about issues that I often shy away from.  Because of this, I learned to become more assertive about showing my true self in many different types of spaces (not just with friends). I have gained very valuable communication skills and a much greater knowledge or myself, my desires and my ability to express them. These changes have allowed me to become closer to people who I didn’t know well before, and have emboldened me to be brave and honest in my current romantic relationship. I feel much closer to my partner and others in my life because of this class.”

“I carry what I have learned from this workshop with me always. It has allowed me to become a better ally, an improved communicator and a more compassionate human being.”

“Being new to the Bay Area, FemSexComm connected me with the people who have now become some of my closest friends here. The community aspect of the workshop has been amazingly powerful for me as it is helping to create serious social change. FemSexComm has rooted abstract and systemic concepts into my personal, lived experience. On a systemic level, it has taught me about how dialogue can be used as a powerful tool in social justice work. On a more personal level, it has drastically transformed how I relate to and respect my body in concrete ways: I am now opting for non- hormonal birth control and using a menstrual cup because I believe these options are healthier for my body.”

 

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 FemSexComm seeks to bring the values of empowerment, diversity, and community to a space outside of the university setting.  The workshop explores what it means to take ownership of one’s own body, pleasure, language, and education — utilizing group activities, discussion of analytical readings, self-exploratory assignments, and guest speakers. Peer facilitators foster introspection and encourage participants to develop empowered, informed relationships with themselves and build ally relationships with others. FemSexComm promotes intentionality, agency, informed decision-making, and consent in all areas of life. Themes include pleasure, female sexual health, anatomy and physiology, gender, consent, boundaries, privilege, power, body image, communication, race, class, sexual identity and diversity, orgasms, masturbation, partnered sex, sex work, erotica, kink, and community building.