SAN FRANCISCO—For one day, Good Vibrations brought them all together: sex educators, sex activists, sex workers, mainstream sex writers and more. And they all talked about sex, baby.
The Good Vibrations Sex Summit, which took place Saturday at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis Hotel, brought together a wide range of voices to talk about a number of seemingly unrelated topics (censorship, the pill industry, the sex lives of celebrities), but the topics and speakers and timing of the Sex Summit came together for a perfect storm of sorts to touch on big issues facing the state of sexuality in the U.S. at a most crucial time.
"Who would have ever predicted that this year would be such a [political firestorm over sex]," Good Vibes' Dr. Carol Queen said in her opening remarks. "These issues today are the ground on which all of us walk, and in some cases the bed in which all of us fuck."
Recent political and social news also found its way into many of the panel discussions and the three keynote addresses. From Todd Akin talking about "legitimate rape" to a young New York girl jumping in front of a train because she couldn't take being slut shamed anymore to Richard Mourdock's comments that women who get pregnant through rape should consider it God's will, it was all touched on.
While a major theme of the speakers was to speak out, loudly and often, about sex work, sex workers and sex in general, the flip side of that coin was also touched on in the panel Regulating Pleasure: Sex, Politics & Censorship, where panelists Dr. Marty Klein, Maggie Mayhem, Judith Levine and Carmen Vazquez talked of personal censorship in the form of funding. When unpopular ideas are talked about--such as Levine's book Harmful To Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex, where she dares to write that not every sexual encounter between a minor and an adult is harmful--programs and educational facilities run the risk of losing monetary backers and the speakers run the risk of losing their credibility, at best. Mayhem touched on how financial institutions can be as much a censor as politics when companies including Visa can shut down websites for the pictures and words posted.
Other hot topics included the prevalence of pharmaceuticals and particularly pills in the world of sex--panelists included Dr. Debby Herbenick, research scientists and associate director at The Center for Sexual Health Promotion and a sexual health educator at The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, who touched on the way libido enhancers are developed and promoted, and Liz Canner, who created the movie Orgasm Inc., which is a look at big pharmacies' attempts to find the Viagra for women.
The inaugural Good Vibes Sex Summit was meant to bring together various voices and perspectives to contextualize the role of sexuality in contemporary culture and politics, and was also meant to help mark Good Vibrations' 35th year of providing accurate information on sexuality to grown-ups.
For more information, visit GoodVibesSexSummit.com.
