7 Nights of Sex (Education)
A recap of the last 7 days of my life as a traveling sexologist:
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Place: West Chester University, West Chester, PA
Sponsoring Organization: Sorority
Topic: Safer and Sexy
Turnout: 58 people.
Highlights:
· It was my biggest turnout for a workshop ever.
· I always enjoy working with sororities- lots of fun.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Place: Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Sponsoring Organization: Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance
Topic: History of the Vibrator/Sex Toy Party
Turnout: 112 people
Highlights:
- It topped my turnout record set the night before.
- I LOVE Temple’s FMLA club- such a passionate group of women.
- The audience was super fun and energetic and had lots of men (usually women show up to my events and it’s nice for a chance to educate the boys too)
- It went so well I was booked for another workshop on November 7 to discuss my forthcoming book (which comes out the day before and is called “Fighting the Crusade Against Sex: Being Sex-Positive in a Sex-Negative World”) and facilitating a discussion about how sex-negativity hurts women.
- I sold lots of merchandise after the workshop :)
- I had a male audience member talk to me afterwards about how he wished that while I was educating about how awesome the clit is, I spoke more about how circumcising boys is like cutting off the clitoral hood and makes men lose sensitivity. I wholeheartedly agree and it gave me the idea to design some kind of penis college workshop as a compliment of my vagina/female orgasm college workshop.
- The Temple student newspaper came to the event and took photos. I love being in the news!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Place: Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA
Sponsoring Organization: The Psychology Club
Topic: The History of the Vibrator
Turnout: 48 people
Highlights:
- Before the workshop, the Psychology Club treated me to a privately catered, delicious, cloth linen dinner while having absolutely delightful conversation with the students. It was one of those fabulous “this is my life” moments.
- After the workshop, I had the privilege of answering a private question from a student near tears and helping her realize that the “sex problem” she was describing was not in fact a problem at all and is actually very normal. I LOVE seeing the bricks lifted off people’s shoulders when I normalize their sexual thoughts/feelings/behaviors. Love love love my job!
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Place: Widener University, Chester, PA
Sponsoring Organization: The Nursing Club and Women’s Empowerment Club
Topic: The Female Orgasm
Turnout: 243 people
Highlights:
- 243 people!!!!!! This was a record breaking week! The clubs booked a room that seats 40 people. It was over capacity and they asked if they should turn people away. I said “absolutely NOT!” I can’t stomach the idea of turning anyone away from sexuality information. We will make this happen. After some finagling with campus safety for how to legally/safely house this many people in one place, we ended up taking over the atrium of the university student center.
- Before knowing this many people would show up, I hired my videographer to shoot this workshop for my website. This turned out to be both good and bad. Good because it’ll be nice to have a video showing I can pack a house as an advertisement for future college bookings. The down side is because I was unprepared for the turnout, I had no microphone, and I ended up having to cut the best part of the workshop (the vagina confessions) because I couldn’t on the spot adapt it to a group that size… so I’m excited/nervous to see how the video will turn out.
- I learned a valuable lesson: Beforehand, ask for student volunteers to manage my merch table. Again because I wasn’t prepared to handle the crowd, a bunch of stuff was stolen. Lesson learned.
- Four different students from four different clubs approached me afterwards to do a workshop for their club. It’s always a nice to be invited back!
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Place: West Chester, PA
Sponsoring Organization: Private Party
Topic: Sex Toys 101
Turnout: 0
Highlights:
- This party cancelled. I welcomed the night “off”, but I always feel bad charging people the cancellation fee, even thought I shouldn’t feel bad, especially when they don’t even call me to cancel, I call them to confirm and then they tell me they’re cancelling.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Place: Widener University, Chester, PA
Sponsoring Organization: Human Sexuality Department
Topic: Careers in Sexuality Conference: Charting an Entrepreneurial Career in Sexuality
Turnout: ?
Highlights:
- For once, I was a participant and not a speaker. I spoke at this conference last year, and could have this year (between my store, book, blog, in-home parties, college speaking career, etc, I’m pretty much doing a damn good job charting an entrepreneurial career in sexuality), nevertheless, there is always more to learn, so I attended and took about 4 pages of notes.
- I have about 12 million new ideas. I feel sexoholic mode coming on…
- I finally got a chance to meet in person and be educated by all the sexologists I’ve heard about and am friends with on facebook but never actually met. Very cool opportunity!
- FINALLY talked exact dollars with other sexologist and learned that I am SOOOOOO undercharging for my services. With my now hundreds of gigs of experience and education level, I was told repeatedly my rates are too low. Good to know…
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Place: West Chester, PA
Sponsoring Organization: Private Party
Topic: Kama Sutra Positions 101
Turnout: 12 people
Highlights:
- Unbelievably fun and hilarious group. They were the perfect combination that’s hard to find in an audience of fun and laughter, but otherwise being attentive. I sometimes feel that people are either having too much fun and or so rowdy I can’t even speak or educate, or they just stare at me awkwardly. This was an A+ audience!
To contact sexologist Jill McDevitt (and book your own private party or college workshop):
