events

(Image courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society)

I'm behind on everything, and every time I manage to take a day where I swear I'll catch up, I get sidetracked by some other huge thing. But this Thursday I'll be presenting at a conference hosted by Chicago's very own LGBT community center, Center on Halsted: "The 2009 Alternative Sexualities Conference: Cultural Competence and Clinical Issues". I, and some other people in the community, will be speaking about the role of communities in the BDSM experience. I can't possibly get sidetracked from that, and I'm pretty excited about it!

Now I've said before, and I say as often as I can, that BDSM communities are filled with many different voices -- plus, there are many BDSM communities out there, not just one. I hope no one ever takes me as "speaking for BDSM" or accurately describing every possible BDSM community out there. But there are some elements common in the BDSM subculture, and some very general splits that I often find myself noticing within it. (I do welcome other voices, ideas, additions, or disagreements with what I'm about to say! Feel free to leave comments! Especially disagreements -- I relish getting different perspectives on the BDSM scene and questioning my own assumptions. Absolutely relish it. Delicious.)

I half-suspected this would happen: after our sixth screening (the bisexuality documentary) was overwhelmed with people, the seventh movie in my sex-positive film series was far quieter. It was nice to have breathing room! The really cool thing about this is that I can now promote the film series to new groups ... I've been afraid to do any new promotion because we've had so many people at some screenings, I'm nervous that we'll be overwhelmed. So now that I can do some more reaching out, I'd love new ideas about new people I can tell about the film series!

In the meantime ....

I've taken a while to post about it because I went to San Francisco on the interim, but the last Sex+++ film was "It's Still Elementary" -- courtesy of GroundSpark: Igniting Change Through Film.

"It's Still Elementary" is a bit of a meta-documentary: a documentary about a documentary! In 1996, a film called "It's Elementary" confronted the question of how to educate grade-school kids about gay and lesbian issues. It showed a number of grade-school educators taking on the issue -- in the 1996 political climate, they risked their jobs to do so! -- and it also showed the kids in their classes creating their own respectful, honest conversations on the subject. Of course there was a firestorm of controversy around "It's Elementary", especially when it was broadcast on TV in 1999. Conservative religious groups did things like call it a "powerful pro-homosexual propaganda film" and mount fundraising campaigns against airing it, writing to their followers that "If we fail to take a stand to put a stop to this outrage, the sin of sexual perversion could be promoted to a potential audience of tens of millions of children" (source).