Monthly Archives: April 2013

Getting Paid as a Sex Educator by Charlie Glickman

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Charlie Glickman is possibly the smartest, most relateable person I know in the sex education field. His blog is completely worth bookmarking & you can follow him @CharlieGlickman on twitter

There are a lot of people calling themselves sex educators these days. It’s a really exciting field and getting to talk about sex and pleasure is a lot of fun. But the abundance of people teaching workshops makes it hard to make a living at it.

In my experience, that’s even more true in the kink world. The BDSM scene has always placed a big emphasis on education, mostly because many kinky skills require more know-how and come with more risk than vanilla sex. And since there are lots of BDSM events, conventions, gatherings, and community spaces, there are plenty of opportunities for people to show off what they know. Plus, there’s a lot of social cachet in being a presenter in those circles. (I’m deliberately leaving out the folks who offer themselves as presenters in order to cruise, but that’s another motivation for some.)

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On Paying Presenters by Bendyogagirl

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This is the text to my latest blog post, which can be found here. The blog has more links in it than this text…

Thanks to the amazing Mollena Williams, and the incredible Andrea Zanin, I’ve had some very good reading this week around presenting, being paid to present, and some event revenue models. If you haven’t read their posts, and you are a producer and/or presenter in sex positive contexts, (or considering becoming one) please do so. There’s also some interesting dialogue here, if you’re on Fetlife. Topologists’ words are actually what has catalyzed me writing about this, because his observation that the cost of kink events would have to be exponentially higher in order to pay presenters is, in my opinion, spot on.

This post is probably going to be a little long – I’ll be writing about presenting and producing…

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Seth Godin – Conservation of energy in conversation [Communication]

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Conservation of energy in conversation

If you escalate (cut off in traffic, angry at the gate agent, frustrated at your boss), you’ve just added (negative) energy to a conversation.

If you escalate (high-pitched enthusiasm, a hug, encouraging words), you’ve just added (positive) energy to a conversation.

Once the energy is added, it has to go somewhere. Often, the person you’re engaging with throws it right back, or even increases it. A talented, mature person might take your negative energy and de-escalate it, or even swallow it and permit the conversation to calm down or end. But don’t count on it.

Sure, you can ‘win’ a conversation by overwhelming your opponent with energy they can’t handle. But of course, they’re not your opponent and you don’t really win. Being aware of the energy you add or take from interactions is a sophisticated technique that radically changes the outcomes of the conversations that fill your day. Add the good stuff, absorb the bad stuff and focus on the outcomes, not the bravado.

Fair Energetic Exchange – A Keynote Address by Lee Harrington

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Hey, folks,
 
I just read a post over on Lee Harrington’s blog, talking about compensation for leaders in the Kink world, and I wanted to direct people to it. He raises some really good points about how compensation isn’t always financial, and his address (for the Kink LYNCS Conference), particularly the first half of it, hit a lot of buttons for me in terms of where my own burn-out has come from.
 
Fair Energetic Exchange: Destigmatizing the Needs of Community Leaders, Presenters and Volunteers
 
Kali has mentioned, in at least one of the video lessons, that “money” (or at least “payment”) is often treated like a “dirty word” within various alt communities. Maybe that’s why I’ve felt so much guilt over being “greedy” and wanting to “get something out of” the events I organize and the work I do. This article gave me some language to talk about what that actually means, and why it’s not a bad thing.
 
I hope you’ll give it a read.