Via AlwaysArousedGirl there’s a new conference on the way, MOMENTUM: Making Waves in Sexuality, Feminism and Relationships Through New Media. The principle organizers are Tess of Urban Gypsy and Diva of Debauched Domestic Diva.
Here’s Tess
It was a beautiful evening in June when we walked NYC’s High Line with Figleaf of Real Adult Sex [Blush —fl] discussing our ideas for a new sexuality conference. Diva and I had been mulling it over ourselves for a while, motivated and inspired by Amber Rhea’s Sex 2.0 and the Sex in America panel at NYC’s Open Center. We knew we were close but had not quite nailed down what our concept would be and how to combine these two amazing events. When Figleaf suggested what was missing was relationships, all the pieces came together. After all sexuality and feminism don’t exist in a vacuum but amid a myriad of relationships. And so, Tied Up Events is now happy to announce MOMENTUM: Making Waves in Sexuality, Feminism and Relationships Through New Media, a conference taking place on April 1st to April 3rd, 2011 in Washington, DC.
MOMENTUM explores how the phenomenal growth of online communication has given rise to an amazing amount of sharing, learning and experimenting with different expressions of sexuality, relationships and feminism. MOMENTUM provides a safe place to listen, discuss and learn about the ways the web has impacted our sexuality without the fear of reprisal or shaming. It is a space for acceptance and appreciation of diversity, including for those in the LGBTQ, sex-work, BDSM and non-monogamous communities.
During MOMENTUM we will discuss ways to bridge the baffling dichotomies our culture creates around sexuality. While on one hand we have unprecedented sexual freedom, on the other we continue to police sexuality with a frightening vigor. Abortion laws, restrictions on gay marriage, abstinence programs, medicalization of sex, fear of pornography and prosecutions for teenage sexting are examples of one side of the spectrum. The discomfort that strives to make us keep our sexuality hidden conflicts with the use of sex — especially the female body — to sell everything from food to cars to “performance enhancing” products.
Each participant will leave the conference with new perspectives, new connections, and a plan to carry the MOMENTUM forward into 2011 and beyond.
We’re now calling for presenters to submit their ideas for sessions at MOMENTUM. Please explore the official site, MomentumCon.com, where you’ll find all you need to know, including how to submit a proposal for a session, how to register to attend, and how to take advantage of early bird pricing.
Fascinations has generously agreed to be the primary corporate sponsor of MOMENTUM and we want to thank them very much for their support of this event.
If you think the site absolutely rocks as much as we do, that’s only because of the help, guidance and technical know-how of Dangerous Lilly and the website design skills of AAG. We’re indebted to you both.*
Personally I can’t say how happy I am to see a conference that includes relationships. If you’ve read my blog long enough you’ve probably noticed I tend to use very expansive definitions of common words. Sex, for instance. Feminism too. So it shouldn’t surprise you that I have a very expansive definition of relationships as well.
Despite whole aisles of bookstore shelves devoted to relationships assumptions about conventional long-term relationships, such as the (incorrect) notion that single people have sex less often than coupled people do or that passion inevitably fades with infatuation. But consider, for instance, the complex but utterly overlooked obligations implied in allegedly casual “no-strings attached” relationships. And why do we tend to assume a relationship that’s not lifelong is time wasted on a failed relationship? And then there’s the peculiarity that some extremely short-term encounters in BDSM circles may involve more express negotiation and checking in than all too many “old fashioned” traditional married couples may have in an entire lifetime together. None of this is to slight or belittle long-term relationships at all! I’m not even suggesting that our familiarity with the triumphs, traumas, and tropes of long-term relationships has bred contempt. Again not at all.
I also can’t say how happy I am to hear that includes relationships in the context of sexuality and feminism/gender-studies. One of the tenets of classic radical feminism (as opposed to contemporary separatist “radfem” feminism) is that the ultimate oppression, the template for all social oppression, ultimately derives from the (non-kink) economic, familial, and physical domination of one relationship partner over the other in the privacy of their own home. 40 years after that early construction we’ve learn, of course, that such domination is not and has never been confined to heterosexuals. But the point remains that what happens in the bedroom does not always stay in the bedroom. And of course a huge component of feminist and gender studies is the part where what does not happen in the bedroom highly influences what does. And as for romance in the feminist era, if she wanted to present I’d love to hear Sadie Doyle talk about her take on Cristina Nehring’s A Vindication of Love:
The list of misunderstandings about sex workers and relationships could fill a book. Beginning with the misconception that commercial relationships exclude any other form of relationship. Another book might be filled with insights sex workers could bring about their customer’s relationships.
I’d love to spend a little time talking about how much we all “know” about sex and relationships comes from what we remember as developing teenagers… and then fail to reconsider when we become real adults.
Sigh! I could go on for days about why I’m looking forward to this particular dimension of the conference. And while relationships happen to be the big reason I’m interested it’s still just one of the dimensions.
MOMENTUM: Making Waves in Sexuality, Feminism and Relationships Through New Media, a conference taking place on April 1st to April 3rd, 2011 in Washington, DC.
