Support Sexologists of Color on this International Women's Day!

Since 5 of us from the Women of Color Sexual Health Network have begun fundraising to attend, present, and participate at the AASECT conference this year, I've heard from 5 other women of Color who have shared they cannot attend AASECT because of their lack of funds. Most of the women who have shared this have done so privately, and not online or in public forums.

I'm devastated by each story I hear from women of Color who are working class and working poor and in the field because I know for each one of them there are 2 more. And there will be more. So many of us do work that is unpaid and ignored as part of the field. One of my personal goals is to expand the idea of "sexology" and who can identify as a sexologist. Right now the definition and understanding is rooted in white supremacy and power.

Is AASECT as an organization (and not just the handful of individuals who say they want to stand in solidarity with people of Color in the field)) outraged by this reason why their conferences lack so many people of Color? What are they doing as an organization to change this, it at all?

It's so clear we are not wanted there based on the way the organization is structured. No matter how many individuals tell us they support us, the way the organization was established tells us we were not ever in mind or considered when creating the organization. This is structural bias. This is years of bias that impact our lives. That makes it even more difficult for women and people of Color to attend.

And not just attend, but also share our original research at a national conference. Do you know what it means to share original research? It means we are claiming our own voices, our own narratives, an working with our own communities. Can you imagine the number of stereotypes and misinformation that we can begin to debunk and challenge simply by being present and then sharing our work?

For this reason I urge you to consider donating whatever you may be able to in support of us attending the AASECT conference and present our original work. We matter and we deserve to be there.

Part 3: The Future of Sexuality and Communities of Color

Before reading this final piece of my triptych on my experience at the Sex Conference read part one here and part two here.

I left off at the ending of a presentation on race, class and sexuality and at the beginning of a new session on how African-American women use ehealth to find health information on the internet. It was at this space that I saw the most women and men of Color. There were a sprinkle of White practitioners, some allies, some not.

This was one of the first times that I have heard about that AASECT had a planning meeting with activists and some members (no members in leadership positions on AASECT) focusing on how to diversify the field and the organization. I was not able to attend since this was on one of the last days of the conference and I could only afford to pay for one day, but I shared as much as I could with the people I knew would be in attendance.

From that one conversation action plans were made and here is what happened:

• The Woman of Color Sexual Health Network listserv has been created. If you are reading this and are interested in joining this listserv please comment and I will send a request to add you. Currently, there are 12 people on this listserv.

• In addition to the Women of Color Sexual Health Network facebook page has been created. Please add yourself and share the work you are doing! Currently there are 88 people signed up!

• I have made contact with women of Color in the field and I know these will be long term relationships and collaborations.

• We are planning on submitting presentations for next year’s conference in Pittsburgh, PA.

• We are planning on doing a carpool from NYC to PA.

• We are planning on getting more people of Color into leadership positions at AASECT.

• I am very close to gaining my certification and membership into AASECT.

I’ve realized that with my membership and certification comes another way for more people of Color to gain access into AASECT. One of the requirements is mentorship and a letter of recommendation for sexuality educators. If I am a member, I can offer mentorship and letters of recommendation as well. This is powerful. This is power. This is how my activism has shifted as I age and I am becoming more comfortable working in this way bit by bit. It still feels foreign for me to be in such spaces having this much power (yes, some of you may laugh, yet to me, this is a TON of power and it's frightening) in such a hierarchical space, especially when I was hardly mentored myself to be in such a space. I’m learning as I go. There are good people helping me and in return helping us.

I can’t help but remember the last time I went to Arizona, when Elena had us perform a renewal ritual. We wrote the things we wanted to get out of our life and write the things we wanted for this year. Here is what I wrote:





I feel accomplishment towards these goals.

Part 2: One Persons “diversity” is Another’s Klan Rally

Go read part one of my adventures in Arizona at the Sex Conference.

Friday had arrived and I was ready to attend the conference. I wore one of my favorite dresses for the warm weather. It is low with a v-neck but conceals my tattoos enough that I’m not stared at even more than I already am. It also allows me the opportunity to wear my favorite liquid silver necklace I got on my first trip to AZ in February.

In the package that I waited a long time for was information on the conference, my nametag and pronoun stickers.




There was a continental breakfast so that saved me money, which I appreciated. The first session I went to began at 8:30 am and focused on female survivors of cancer. The presenter focused on ways that clinicians and physicians can assist survivors in their body image challenges. I learned a lot in this one-hour presentation. The presenter had a UKish accent and was very interactive in her presentation. My only note of how it could have been improved according to the evaluation form was for the presenter to discuss keloids for women, especially women of Color at the site of their incision and surgery.

I chose to wait in line to speak with the presenter but decided against it when I realized there were several of us who wanted to speak with her. I moved onward to my next session in the sea of White bodies. I told myself: “I knew what to expect, I knew there would be limited faces like mine, and I knew to take deep breaths to cope with the space.”

This session was on sexological worldview and how sexologists come to create and utilize a world view. It was at this session that I saw the first men of Color at the conference. This session was very engaging. The presenter was a peer, about my age who had just earned his doctoral degree (EdD) and was sharing part of his finding from his qualitative analysis for his dissertation. The presenter Justin Sitron, is now full time faculty at Widener University, which is one of the only schools on the east coast that provides such higher education training in sexology. I have more to say on this as the facilitator of the session was his mentor and an important figure in the field of psychology and sexuality. Why do women of Color I know not have this same type of support by our women of Color faculty mentors?

He interviewed about 30 sexologists by asking those on the AASECT listserv to meet with him. It was a very colorfree sample with only 5 participants identified as “non-white” (which we know could mean anything). He provided the worldview as a process similar to the process I’ve heard when speaking about cultural competence. He was very receptive to feedback and inquires about his work. I asked him about his sample, reflexivity, how his gender identity and expression may have impacted his sample. I shared how race and class was not ever mentioned in the sample and information presented and how that may speak to where the sexological field in the US is currently. It was this session that I heard a White woman say that this was the “most diverse AASECT conference she has been to in 9 years.” This shocked me. After the session a woman from the SAR came up to me as we exited sharing that I had very good questions.

My next session was on disability. There were several images used that I found encouraging of people with disabilities loving and living. In addition, a conversation about feminist theory, disability theory, and transhuman and embodied theories which I had not been familiar with until I came to this session. I also learned: when people with disabilities adopt children with disabilities they proactively embrace discussions of sexuality, disability, and their children being sexual beings. I don't know many able-bodied parents who do this! In addition, I learned a few new things about Helen Keller: She was an anarchist and had many lovers. Why do they exclude that part of her history in stories about her?

Although lunch was catered I chose to have a quiet lunch in the hotel restaurant. They used real fresh sea salt on their french fries. I sat by myself and admired the older woman across from me who was doing the same thing. The men who were working at the restaurant were pleasant and helpful. It is the south after all, even if it is the southwest. After lunch I decided on my last two sessions, both the only sessions about race that day. The first was on teaching race, class and gender within the context of sexuality and history, the second was about how African American women use e-health to obtain information on sexual health.

I saw some women from the SAR waiting around to attend their next session, which was not the session I was going to. The session on teaching using intersectional frameworks and theories (terminology the presenter never mentioned) was a very 101 level for me. After all, I have taught these subjects for my entire teaching career (over 10 years) simultaneously versus in silos. This is the way I teach. The presenter was an older man who has been in the field for decades and just recently received AASECT certification. This I appreciated hearing him say as it is my situation. He was open to questions during his presentation and I took advantage of that.

Unfortunately, I was worried that his take on history started with exploration, conquest and colonization. When I asked him about this he said he only had 12 days to prepare for his class. The he went to a large corporate bookseller and purchased the first book he saw on sexuality and history (I can only imagine how colorfree the text is). I did not come back and share that I only had two days to put together a similar syllabus and was equally if not more successful in incorporating the themes in various forms. I asked him how/if students responded to him as a White man teaching about race, gender, class and sexuality as my students often say in course evaluations that “this is a class on sexuality not on race” or that in my class there was “too much focus on race.” I take these evaluations to be a compliment on the colorfree education they received and how my teaching challenges that comfort and expectation.

One thing I did appreciate about this session was that I met so many people. There were educators in the room that I met and know I will have in my circle of colleagues for a very long time. One person came to speak with me as her question was about Margaret Sanger and how her students are shocked to learn her role in the Eugenics Movement as this is rarely discussed. I shared with her that my students have the same reaction and we spend a week on the topic and read parts of Jennifer Nelson’s work on nationalist communities in the US working towards reproductive rights in the 1960s and 1970s. She uses the same text and we have the same student reaction. Interesting how one article can trigger such a response in students.

I also met women of Color who were instructors and had the same challenges I did with students claiming they spoke too much about race. We exchanged cards, sat next to one another and prepared for the second session on race, which was in the exact same room. Prior to that session starting I went to sign in and met Judith Steinhart. She came up to me and told me she had heard me at the Guttmacher Exchange and did not have a chance to talk with me after my questions. We swapped information and went to our seats. Judith was sitting in the same session as I was as well.

The final session about African American women was amazing! I thought it could have been two hours versus the one it was given. A presentation filled with examples of media images, how communities access information, how women of Color have multiple messages sent to them, and how we read into them. This was a session I could have been a part of for the entire day. This is where the most women of Color and people of Color were at during the conference and I was there too! I can’t begin to share how rejuvenated I felt. I originally felt hurt, ignored, invisible, exhausted, isolated, and in the wrong space. I left feeling the complete opposite after just 2 hours. If you don’t know of the website Our Health Our Lives you do now.

Having community makes a difference.

Part 3 of the Sex Conference will discuss what has changed, what work is being done and the activism that’s taking place as we speak for diversifying the field of sexology in the US.

What Happens At The Sex Conference Doesn't STAY At The Sex Conference

It’s been a few weeks since I came back from the “Sex Conference” I went to and wanted to share some of my experiences. I’ve broken it into pieces so this is easier to read. I’ll start with the flight, hotel, and SAR in this piece. The next pieces will be the conference experience and third introspective analysis.

The Flight

I have a crush on Lenny the flight attendant. He’s probably 50 or older, he’s about 6’2, has a goatee, salt and pepper hair, nice frame, silver wire glasses, light brown skin, a NYC accent, and a wedding band. I want to be his luva. I’ll rub a few out for masturbation month to him. If only he knew! I need to make a series of cards called “cat daddy” cards that I’ll hand out to attractive older men. Kind of like a membership badge or something. Maybe Erika Lopez will be into this idea and help out! Lenny is what Erika would call a “meat dog” which she defines as “guys who reek of sex and just broadcast their "meat dogness.” It’s a compliment. They never apologize for their testosterone.” I also had a crush on the security broad who took my luggage to check. She opened it and was greeted by my bra, panties and silky draws. She then told me my tattoo was “interesting” we were scoping one another out. The airport is always a hard sell for me when flirting cause, I mean it’s hit or miss.


I didn’t have anybody sitting next to me on the plane, but then some buster got on the plane at the last minute and took the seat next to me. It was this famous broad Rev. Debra Haffner. She runs the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Healing, and Justice. She doesn’t know who I am but I know who she is as I first saw/met her in Cuba at the World Association of Sexual Health (formerly World Association of Sexology) conference (where I presented in Spanish I might add). Her hair was curly and I instantly liked her more as when I’ve seen her she straightens her hair. She was on the Cuba flight too and I remember her telling my homeboy Brad and I to “go to the AASECT conference because it’s 10x better than WAS.” I’ll share my comparison to that when I’m done sharing my experience. She left when Lenny suggested she move to another seat so that, as Lenny said “we all have more elbow room” which I think is code for the fact that I’m fat. Yet it was true because my elbow would have stabbed her in her left ear over and over for 5 hours straight. That would not have made me comfortable, not cause she’s a reverend, fellow sexologist, or older than me; but because not everybody’s curls are the same and I honor the “don’t touch my hair” stance.


Hot & Arid-Zona

My homegirl Elena picked me up from the airport and we went to Target and ate at a spot whose name I can’t remember but I know it’s not on the East Coast. I had to purchase some toiletries since the security in NYC made me toss stuff, plus I got some grub so I wouldn’t have to spend too much money during the conference. We headed to the hotel and Elena dropped me off. It was Tuesday and I wouldn’t see her again until after work on Friday. After I checked in the first thing I did was take my clothes off. It was HOT in AZ, I’m talking 100 degrees hot even with air conditioning. I called a high school friend to see when we could meet up, as I haven’t seen her since 1996! I then cooled off and went straight to the pool. It was all good for 2 hours until some frat boys came to do cannon balls in the shallow part of the pool. I slept well that night and the wine I drank with my high school homegirl sure helped!

Day 1 & 2: SAR

To get certification you are expected to attend a SAR, which stands for Sexual Attitudes Reassessment. It’s usually a 10-hour session with a group of people where you explore and discuss various topics on sexuality and sexual health. I couldn’t find anyone who was offering this in NYC and decided to do it in AZ. They are not cheap at $450, so I had to decide to use some emergency funds/health care money/birthday money to pay to attend this event. When I went to the registration desk, I was the first person to register and folks were excited I got the ball rolling. In order to get my packet they had to find my name on a list of folks who paid and they did, but they did not find a packet had been made for me. This frustrated me because I paid $650 total just for the SAR and conference not including hotel, travel and food. It’s a lot of money, shoot that’s rent! I had to come back to get a packet. Unfortunately, when I came back they still didn’t have one ready for me. They told me that I would have it before the SAR began that evening.

I can’t express how imperative it is that folks who spend so much money are treated with dignity and respect. The two White women who were attempting to help me could not have been more opposite. One was extremely helpful the other extremely dismissive.

I have to admit; this registration experience left me feeling invisible.

The first evening of the SAR there were about 50 people in the room not including the facilitator, Dr. Eli Coleman. I got there a bit late since the registration desk staff did not give me adequate directions to find the room. I took a seat in the back. There was a film playing of people dancing. I read the bodies of those dancing as racially White. I looked around the room and counted 5 other women of Color. This made me feel relief. There were no men of Color, and less than 10 men in total in the group. It was difficult to assess the age of members in the group, but I came to the understanding that I was part of the “younger” crowd of 30-somethings.

I don’t want to tease out the entire SAR, but I do want to mention a few things that stood out for me. First, this space allowed for a lot of group work and one-on-one work as well. You get to know almost everyone in the group over the 10 hours fairly quickly. Here’s what I experienced:

1. When I shared my age with two women over 50 in an activity, I was told: “you have a baby face” when I said part of the reason I eroticize getting older is because I believe I can find acceptance as a sexologist among my older peers.

2. When I shared that I received more messages about my body not because I was fat, but because I was brown, two of the three White women in my group said: “that’s fascinating.” Really? It’s called racism. It’s not that fascinating.

3. When talking about kink in a group of five people, all White, with one man who is active in the community, I mentioned how race play is rarely ever discussed within the community and that challenges the ideas that kink communities are so inclusive, they have their isms too. The man in the group started to look around the room and exhale loudly as I began to speak (not after, WHILE I was speaking).

4. When my group of 5 all White members agreed that I would be the “lead” on a condom demonstration, one of the White women completely ignored what I was saying by leaving the group, checking her telephone, and when she returned she was loudly saying what was wrong with her condoms over others who were speaking. When I mentioned the expired condoms she had in her box (over 1 year old) may not be nice to the touch if opened, she said: “Really, is that right?” and proceeded to open the package. Ten minutes later she had to go wash her hands cause they were so skuzzy.

5. I ate lunch alone.

It was a less than exceptional yet expensive experience. There was an attempt to include communities of Color in the images and media presented, but they were so few and far between (and very Black/White). There was absolutely no Asian, Southeast Asians, Native American Indians. There were a handful of people (read no more than 2) with disabilities, who were fat and who were Latinos. There was an abundance of parents, White people, White children, and specific videos/images of transgender people, LGBTQI people, older White adults, and men in wheelchairs. I wrote this as something to improve the SAR. I also suggesting updating the data provided, as there were citations from almost 20 years ago! I wonder if once you become someone who is so “popular” and well known in the movement if things like quoting old data is a pass you get. Perhaps it’s age, as I’ve heard many older White sexologists say their age allows them a pass to act like a fooligan and they use that pass all.the.time.

As someone who is working-class, an activist, a person of Color, a woman, a person with a disability, a fat person, someone committed to media and social justice, this experience was very “tip of the iceberg.” Think of cultural competence training but with a focus on sexuality. All of the discussions on “culture” were focused outside the US as if we don’t have enough culture to discuss here. Images of people in Thailand, Mexico, and from the Pacific Islands were presented. It was very “othering” of communities of Color by older White men or more specifically from a White gaze. Perhaps if I experienced this 10 years ago when I was just starting out in the field would this have had more of an impact, then again I had a tons of consciousness-raising experiences growing up and at home.

What I did appreciate about this space was that I had folks to say “hi” to during the conference the next day. They also fed us breakfast, lunch and snacks, which cut down on my expenses. I also realized that a SAR especially for people of Color and sexologists of Color is imperative. I also realized SARs do not have to be so expensive. There can be ways to make the SAR a collective and affordable experience. However, making connections with folks was difficult as many people already knew others there or had come with a group. I was among my peers but I was still alone. I ate dinner alone and went to my room and began to write.

My next post will focus on my experience at the actual conference. Boy did things take a 360 turn for the better!

Sex Conference

I'm in the southwest, Arizona to be exact, for the AASECT Conference. This is the annual conference for sexuality educators, counselors and therapists. I'm seeing a homegirl from high school I have not seen since graduation, that's over a decade!

Then I'm at the pool everyday that I'm at the hotel, get a manicure, pedicure and facial. I've earned it after these several months of working! Plus my dogs are barking!

Then I'm going to this event at the Heard Museum



I'll write more as things progress. I'm crossing my fingers this conference will be surprising and filled with experiences that I appreciate and can learn and grow from professionally. That was part of what I had wanted for this year when I did my ritual with my homegirls the last time I came to AZ in February. If you want up to the minute information on what I'm doing, go follow me on twitter!