This past weekend, the Sexual Health Alliance hosted yet another Sexceptional Weekend featuring experts in the field of sex and sexuality. For this weekend’s lectures, SHA brought back one of our favorite presenters, Jet-Setting Jasmine, along with her husband, King Noire, and other special guests to talk about race, pornography, and sex-positive parenting. Though SHA has featured Jet-Setting Jasmine and King Noire, along with their discussions on sex-positive parenting and the porn industry, this weekend’s talk brought new faces to the discussion.
DAY ONE: Saturday, March 4th
The first day of this conference began with the titular conversation: Sex-Positive Parenting with Jasmine, King, and Jessia Nater, Children and Family Specialist and founder of PlaySmart Learning Center. During their discussion, we covered what it’s like being a parent and a sex worker or someone in the industry.
After a quick stretch break, we were right back at it with a talk solely hosted by Jessica Nater, all about what happens when a child walks in on their parent(s) engaging in sexual behavior. Nater began with personal experiences of walking in on her mother and how the situation was handled when she was a child (it wasn’t) and compared that to the available options for discussion today. Ultimately, walking in on your parents…getting to it, is exceptionally normal and a fantastic time to have a concrete, encouraging, and celebratory conversation with your child about sex.
Before lunch on the first day, Jasmine rejoined Jessica for an in-depth look at the messages they received when they were younger about racism, homophobia, transphobia, and sexual pleasure. In the honest and fluid talk, appropriately titled What Stuck that Keeps Us Stuck, Jasmine and Jessica took turns answering questions about the origin of these messages (like “Where did you hear these messages”) and what they’ve done to unpack, unlearn, and move forward. This conversation touched on womanhood as a BIPOC woman and the inherent, societal messages they still face today.
After lunch, we jumped right back into the conversation with Jasmine and Dr. Nicole Crawford, this time to model what sex-positive dating could look like. It is, certainly, much fun, but in this talk, we have a deep conversation about including your children in your dating (and sexual) decisions. Speaking of children, to end the day, we heard from Jessica Nater who interviewed the founders of Daughters of Porn Entertainers (D.O.P.E.), Mani and Star Bleechington. If you’ve ever wondered what it is like being the daughter of famous pornstars and adult entertainers, this talk was for you.
DAY TWO: Sunday, March 5th
To kick off our second and final day, Jet-Setting Jasmine and King Noire were joined by Tiana GlittersaurusRex for the longest talk of our weekend. Spanning over two hours, the couple with their friend discussed pornography and it’s unrealistic movie magic. It’s obvious the porn industry has a type: white, tiny, blonde, which certainly does not represent the majority of us. Not only this, but usually doesn’t represent what real, authentic sex looks like. This conversation allowed attendees to talk to true professionals (read: therapists) who also moonlight in the sex work industry, and those in attendance jumped on the opportunity. Truly the most inspiring part of the weekend for all those who joined–you just had to be there.
From there, we heard from Robin Johnson, who discussed how to support the sexual fulfillment of folx with disabilities. Through interactive models and case studies, Robin supplied the pivotal conversation often left out of these lectures. During her talk, she conquered common myths, explored best practices, and told personal success stories to share perspectives on this topic.
June Cabales began our conversation post-lunch with a discussion of LGBTQIA+ and Family Therapy. As someone who identifies as a narrative-inspired therapist, June’s talk aimed to name some of the dominant ideas, stories, and discourses on sex, gender, attraction, and relationships, not just to lecture us on those themes, but instead to co-create more preferred stories that align with our intentions today and how to connect with people.
All good things must come to an end, and to wrap up our final day, Jet-Setting Jasmine and Dr. Nicole Crawford joined us on the Zoom floor once more, this time to talk about sexuality and aging. This conversation included an open discussion on participating and engaging in kink as an aging person, plus the importance of caregiving at later stages of life.
As with all sexceptional weekends with SHA, this previous weekend is no exception in being provocative and celebratory. We want to thank all of our presenters for taking the time to speak with us and we want to thank all of those in attendance for being engaged, asking questions, and making our weekends together even more special. If you’re interested in joining our next sexceptional weekend, take a look at SHA’s upcoming events.
By Shelby Lueders, SHA Content Director.