IASHS SAR: Sensorium

I figured the Sensorium experience gets its own post because of exactly how many problems it had. When I explained to a friend a general outline of what happened, his jaw dropped and he said, “Are you going to complain about this to the staff?” Cementing my reputation as the angry activist, I did indeed bring it up to the staff, but wanted to go over exactly why it was such a big problem.

Hey, IASHS: are you paying attention to this campaign?

So the Sensorium experience was scheduled for Thursday night; we were deliberately told nothing about it beforehand, except that we could dress up in costumes if we had them, and that it would be at the IASHS location. After a short time milling around trying on different parts of costumes, we were introduced to our “guides”, who would call us through the experience one by one. I was, interestingly, the first person through.

Immediately upon entry, I was blindfolded and taken through a series of experiences — there was minimal physical contact, just hands in my hands leading me to where I needed to go. I smelled some things, heard some things, and generally “engaged my senses”, which was, I presumed, the point of the exercise. At the end of my walkthrough, my blindfold was removed, and I was told to start participating myself, but given no guidelines for what to do, precisely.

As each participant passed through the experience and was un-blindfolded, they were told to join the participation as “educators”. There were some objects around that we could use to touch people with (“different sensations”), most of which had been shown to us on the “Bodies” day. My first issue was that many of the objects had been identified on the “Bodies” day as things to which some people might have allergies or objections (fur, wool, feathers), and that we should always check with our partners before using them: at no point during the Sensorium did anyone ask about whether a blindfolded recipient had an allergy.

This is when it started to get REALLY problematic. As the number of un-blindfolded people to blindfolded people grew, there started to be three or four “educators” to every participant. People had multiple hands on them at once, and many people started to touch blindfolded participants in some provocative ways. The atmosphere was charged with a sexual energy: lap dancing, genital rubbing, and moaning were everywhere.Eventually, I bowed out and went in the other room, and eventually left at 9:30 to return to the East Bay, feeling incredibly uncomfortable with what I had witnessed.

Why was I uncomfortable? The biggest reason was: if any person in that group had an undisclosed history of sexual assault, and was blindfolded and placed in a situation where people would be rubbing against them in a sexual fashion WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT AT ANY POINT, it would have been massively, intensely triggering. Even without a history of sexual assault, being blindfolded and brought into a situation where multiple people would be touching you in sexual ways WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT AT ANY POINT, could be seen or felt as sexual assault. Are you getting my drift? THERE WAS NO CONSENT AT ANY POINT.

It turn out that some people DID feel mildly assaulted, especially as some had told their “educators” to stop touching them…and that didn’t happen. So basically, someone said no…and the touching continued. WHOA. We had been told from the beginning to “trust the process”, and I have to say I find it incredibly difficult to trust a situation where workshop attendees are placed, without warning or consent, in a situation that felt incredibly unsafe to ME, and I have never been assaulted and was the first person through, so had no physical touch. The only thing I felt after that was that I could not believe they had told us this would be a safe space…and then created such an unsafe, hostile environment, and expected participants to just power through it, with no information or explanation of what was going to happen.

People had also been encouraged to bring and drink alcohol before participating, and I know many had brought bottles of wine: not that I was triggered at any point, but I personally find being in situations where I am surrounded by drunk people very difficult due to some past experience with an abusive alcoholic ex-boyfriend. The new educators could look around the room and use that as a guideline for their own behaviour, since they received no information about HOW to participate as an educator…which means that if they saw their previous (potentially drunk) classmates engaging in sexually-charged behaviour, they would do that themselves “in the spirit of fun”.

The whole thing was an intensely disturbing experience. When several of us brought up our reservations about the whole experience, we were told that every SAR is different, and that sometimes they did not have sexual touching occur…and that, as participants were adults, they should be expected to “know how to hold their alcohol.” When I brought up how uncomfortable the lack of consent and entire situation felt during the final large group session, one of the men in the group actually said, “Well, you could just trust the process instead of being grumpy about it.” ExCUSE me? Did you just minimize my extremely valid concerns with a super-rapey situation by telling me to stop being grumpy? Because women are supposed to be polite and nice all the time, I suppose.

How could this have been avoided? The simplest way, to my mind, would be to have people participate with INFORMED CONSENT. Before the start of the Sensorium participants should be told that the event will involve being blindfolded and touched, possibly by multiple people. No genital touching should be allowed unless expressly requested. This way, participants would have the choice to OPT OUT of the experience if they did not want to participate at all (again, it was presented as being mandatory to the completion of the SAR), and then the onus of touch is on the educators NOT TO TOUCH GENITALS unless asked…as opposed to on the blindfolded participant to have to say no and fight someone off when they are touched inappropriately. Relying on the victim to say no when something has already happened, to prevent it from happening again, is shutting the barn door after the horse has been stolen: we should be stopping uncomfortable feelings by addressing the touchERS not the touchEES. Victim-blaming, by telling participants “well, you could have said no if you didn’t like what was happening”, is NOT OKAY.

Basically, after this experience, I would never in a million years recommend to anyone to take this SAR, or any course by the IASHS. If an organization offering degree programs in the study of human sexuality can create and encourage a situation where CONSENT IS COMPLETELY IGNORED and NEVER DISCUSSED, I believe they have no authority as educators. Being told “his doesn’t happen at every SAR” is no excuse: I’m GLAD this doesn’t happen at every SAR, because that would mean people would feel assaulted every year. EVERY. YEAR. How on earth is this allowed to continue? And why, when I brought it up in large group, did other workshop attendees — many of whom were degree-seeking students at IASHS — act like they had never heard of the concepts I was mentioning as problematic? If they are doctoral-level students of human sexuality, should they not have discussed issues of consent and assault RIGHT AWAY in their studies?

I have no idea what IASHS is up to, but this evening was intensely uncomfortable, and threw their entire reputation as a safe space into question.