Education from sexual pleasure workshops with self-defining women: a commentary

ABSTRACT

In this commentary, we reflect critically on the experience of delivering community-based sexual pleasure workshops for self-defining women in order to share lessons from our practice with others working in sex and sexualities education in higher education or in practice settings. Our discussion about facilitating these workshops in informal learning spaces contributes to the literature on pleasure inclusive sex and sexualities education. Specifically, it highlights the demand for spaces which women can think critically about sexuality and pleasure, and shares women’s perspectives on these workshops. We begin by addressing the context in which we delivered the sexual pleasure workshops and describe what we did and why. Next, we share reflections on what we have learned from delivering these workshops, before concluding with suggestions about what this may mean for pleasure inclusive sex and sexualities education more broadly.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual pleasure
• informal education
• risk
• workshops
• women

Acknowledgments

We thank all the participants who have taken part in one of the workshops for their generosity of time and humour, and for sharing their thoughts, feelings and experiences. We also thank the attendees at a seminar series presentation in the School of Sociology at The Australian National University, Canberra in 2018 for their valuable insights into this topic. Finally, we thank the individuals and organisations who have approached and supported us to host these workshops over the last few years.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Our preferred term is ‘sex and sexualities education,’ by which we refer to informal education addressing different types of sex, for people of diverse sexual orientations and genders

2. When we refer to Relationship and Sex Education (RSE), we mean a formal, schools-based approach delivered within the UK education system.

3. We use an inclusive definition of ‘woman’ and ‘female’ and welcome trans women, cis women, genderqueer women, and non-binary people who are significantly female/woman-identified.

4. Some examples include: https://lgbt.foundation/womenswstakeover http://prev.wellcomecollection.org/sexologyseason and https://hopemilltheatre.co.uk/events/men-chase-women-choose/

5. Determined through the feedback evaluations completed at the end of each workshop session.

6. For example pony play, electro-sex, consensual non-monogamy.