The letter I wrote to IASHS

Hello, IASHS:

I am an attendee of the 2013 SAR. I was one of I believe two people in the group who are not enrolled in the degree-seeking program at IASHS and was attending the SAR as a professional credential for my career as a sexologist. I had a number of issues with the SAR and IASHS and wanted to raise them in writing in the hopes that they will be dealt with sooner rather than later.

First, I was unimpressed to see that the questionnaire we were given to fill out about our sexual practices on the very first day had a “Gender” choice on it at all, given that that information is not actually relevant for the purposes of demographics, but was particularly disconcerted to see that there were only two options. Adding an open field for gender, or replacing “male” and “female” with an open text box is far more inclusive, as Sarah Mei explains here: http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2010/11/26/disalienation/

Second, there was an offensive and racist image hanging in the central hallway. This image was so offensive that I found it difficult to look at whenever I went down the hall, and when I described it to non-attendees, they were appalled. I have attached a photo of the image. I would suggest removing the image or placing it in a less prominent location along with an explanatory plaque, as well as an investigation into why a public organization would feel comfortable presenting this image in the first place.

This brings me to one of the largest issues I had with the SAR. All of the attendees identified themselves as working in the field of human sexuality, whether as counsellors, educators, or in some other format; these were all people with a modicum of experience in the field of sexology. The SAR is an opportunity to provide information to professionals in the field of sexuality, especially information they might not already have thought of or that might rattle their worldview.

That is theoretically the stated goal of the SAR. However, there was no discussion of race, feminism, socioeconomic status, or the number of other political factors that have a strong impact on the way human sexuality is presented and explored. There were few to no non-white faces in any of the videos we saw, and only one person of colour on a panel…Jody, on the last day of the SAR. There was no discussion of classism at all. These issues are not only completely relevant to the study of human sexuality, but actually dangerous to ignore. When I and several other members of the group tried to bring up discussion of these issues (as in when I mentioned Bradley Manning during our discussion of Pride), we were rapidly shut down and further discussion was forced away. When I mentioned how noticeable and hurtful I thought this omission was in our final discussion, it was stated that the SAR “didn’t have time” to cover all the material people might want to see. I pointed out that each of the speakers could have taken 5 less minutes and we could have had a brief discussion of privilege and disadvantage as it related to the daily topic we were discussing. Another student pointed out: “Well, when exactly WILL there be time for people of colour and lower socioeconomic status?”

This is exactly the problem. The IASHS SAR was heavily skewed in favour of white, able-bodied, middle class values, and other points of view were not discussed. It is precisely this problem that has led to the marginalizing of minority groups: treating them and their stories as less important, less visible, and less interesting than the dominant (white, able-bodied, cisnormative, heteronormative) paradigm. As an organization that is training future professionals in the field of sexology, it absolutely behooves IASHS to provide a well-rounded experience for its attendees. Ignoring intersectionality is not just a serious flaw, it is outright hostile to minority groups.

May I suggest the following links for reading material on intersectionality and the impact of ignoring it:

http://racismschool.tumblr.com/IntrotoRacism
http://www.derailingfordummies.com/
http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/10/10/my-feminism-will-be-intersectional-or-it-will-be-bullshit/

Another issue I have is with the incredibly outdated material being used in the SAR process. The films we watched were mostly over thirty years old and, while nice, there are many more recent, inclusive, and useful films that would provide a better-rounded understanding of whatever human sexual behaviour we are supposed to be dealing with. There are a lot of feminist porn activists, for example, who are creating sensual videos available online. The written material we received was also outdated, and a lot of the techniques used felt like they were better suited to Berkeley circa 1962 than a modern-day San Francisco classroom.

As IASHS is situated in a global hub for cutting-edge information, artwork, creative energy, and queer and alternative lifestyles, I was expecting a certain level of awareness and interest in keeping ideas and audiovisual material up to date. In comparison, the bookshelves at the Center for Sex and Culture feature a wide variety of academic and pop culture literature on a diverse range of topics having to do with human sexual practice, none of which were any older than 20 years (unless they were historical, like the Shere Hite report). In contrast, I struggled to find a book more recent than the 80s on the bookshelves at IASHS. It is both shocking and, again, dangerous, to provide such outdated material to professionals in the field, and does them a great disservice. If the video and materials were presented from a historical standpoint ONLY, and this was stressed, I would have less of a problem with them, although I would still be confused as to why we were using only historical information in such a forward-thinking location.

Finally, I had a series of problems with the Sensorium experience. It may be detailed best by the article I wrote about it on my personal blog, which goes over exactly how unsettling and potentially unsafe I found the entire experience to be and why: https://clairelitton.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/iashs-sar-sensorium/

To sum up: I found the Sensorium’s absolute lack of informed consent for participants to be completely inappropriate in every way. The SAR in general, actually, had almost no discussion of consent (or any of the recent movements surrounding it, like the “Consent is Sexy” campaign, slut-shaming and the Slutwalks, victim-blaming, etc) other than a generic statement for people to speak up if they didn’t like something. This is not consent. This attitude creates an environment where people do not feel safe speaking up, and situations such as several people encountered at the Sensorium were allowed to happen.

As you can see, all of these issues are interconnected. The lack of discussion of intersectionality created a situation where minorities were marginalized and silenced, while a focus on using outdated material contributed to this, which ultimately resulted in a non-consensual, disturbing event.

I also have several problems with the way communication was handled over the course of the SAR. I and several other attendees were frequently surprised to learn that an event or activity that we assumed was mandatory was not…after the fact. For example, we were only told after Pride that we had a choice not to march with the group: we thought it was a mandatory part of participation in the SAR to march with “Straights for Gay Rights” (which I also had some issues with, given that it silenced any queer voices that we might have in the SAR group). When we brought this up later, we were told, “Oh no, of course you could have done something else!” It seems like there needs to be better communication about which activities are mandatory and which activities are flexible.

I am happy to provide further information, examples, or reasoning behind any of these issues as needed. I chose to attend the IASHS SAR because of the good reputation the Institute has; I would very much like to help IASHS live up to that reputation.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Best,

Claire Litton