I've spent a lot of my twenties (paradoxically) thinking about desire and physicality, without a real understanding of what it meant to embody either. I felt disconnected from physical intimacy long before the pandemic, and it only sharpened during the long periods of isolation. Last summer, I took some steps back into physical intimacy for the first time in a while, and suddenly felt like some of what I'd been thinking about desire had integrated—but the feeling can be fleeting.

I'd like to make my experience of desire and physicality a little less fleeting, even if the fling is. I had a friend reinterpret desire as "intuition," in her complaint that American society is so highly intellectualized, it has cut itself off from intuition. She found she was able to reconnect with her intuition by immersing herself with nature. I'd also like to find ways to connect with my intuition—and based on some of my small intimacies, I feel that a closer relationship to physical intimacy would allow me to move through the world in more intuitive ways.

I’m very excited about the platonic aspect of SFPC’s Sex Ed program. Personally, I’ve felt ashamed of my emotional and physical embodiment of my gender and sexuality, and it’s only in recent years that I have learned to be more comfortable with myself and my body/mind (mind/body). I’m continuing to learn and grow in terms of my own sexual education, and I think it’s important to have platonic spaces dedicated to talking about sex and the body/mind (mind/body) in an honest way—awkward, confusing, and joyous, rather than simply constricting and limiting.

For the past 2 years I have been interested in the erotic + pleasure, what that means, and how that looks in all aspects of our lives. As someone who doesn't take much pleasure from porn I am also curious about ways of finding pleasure that feel good and real to me as well as dismantling our ideas around sex + pleasure in general. This body allows me to feel and experience and I want to understand it!

I moved to NYC in 2019 with two goals, one to develop my personal art practice and two to explore, celebrate, and integrate with my sexuality and sensuality. Part of that was coming out as pan/bisexual to myself and to my community (feels great) but the part that was left undone in the middle of a pandemic and because I am a slow burn–was undertaking a celebration and investigation into my own identity as a sexual being. That's the work I want to do and as with many things in my life, I'd prefer to be in community to learn and to share with others.

I graduated from law school a year ago and I’ve just been working nonstop like billion hour weeks for the public defenders office since then. I want to focus on myself as an artist, creator, and human not just a machine. I want to return to beauty in life. I love sex and talking about it and having it and I want to do a project about it. It’s a central part of my life and I’ve had a lot of good and bad sex and struggled to understand why recently, especially since my body has changed so much in the last five years.

I've realized how little I know about knowing what I really want, let alone being able to seek it out and ask for it. The other side of that is knowing what I don't want, and being able to say no. I'm embarrassed to say how little I know about either of these things.

Lately I've been studying sex on my own, and talking about it a lot with my therapist. I'm finally finding language for who I am as a sexual being and it is so incredibly helpful. The more I know, the gentler I am with myself. And, hopefully, the kinder I am with others.

I have always been interested in exploring sex and the body through my work. As a non-binary immigrant artist and writer, I have finally arrived at a point in my journey where I feel safe enough to actively carve out a space to negotiate my queerness and depths of my sexual desire, and incorporate that into my art practice. This would be a wonderful opportunity to come together with a community of likeminded yet diverse people interested in exploring the intersection of pleasure, critical thinking, and art. Together, I hope to participate in workshops and conversations that reprogram/decondition desire as it is shaped by heteronormative, racist, and colonial frameworks, especially as I believe that openness and sharing need to be nurtured and cultivated. It is powerful to tap into the knowledge base of a collective. Being a part of this class would help me come out of my shell of individualism and isolation—and arrive at an understanding that sexual trauma is not mine alone to bear, and that sexual energy and the impulse to create are interconnected.

I want to study Sex Ed with SFPC because despite studying and advocating for sex education, I am by no means an expert and I don't think my sex education is complete. While I have been fighting to create inclusive, supportive, and friendly spaces to discuss and learn about sex education, I have never had the chance to be a student in the kind of sex ed classroom I want to see. I have a deep desire to keep learning and exploring my own sexuality, my body, and my kinks in a non-sexual but sex-positive and kind space. I think this class would be an opportunity for me to receive the kind of sex education I wish my younger self could have had access too, and the kind of sex education I want to contribute to supporting and spreading in my life time.

I think it's important to do the work to unlearn internalized systems of oppression in order to dismantle these systems and build a better world. For me, a lot of that work has been I have been reflecting on my queerness, processing traumatic experiences around sex, and working hard to center pleasure and care and unlearn oppressive cisheteropatriarchic ideas about sex. I haven't had sex since 2020 and have recently started dating and that has made me more interested in spaces to learn about sexuality and pleasure outside of interpersonal relationships–the majority of where my sex-ed comes from. My roommate got me a session with a reiki healer for my birthday, and she said that my heart is not open to love or pleasure (capricorn venus vibes), so that's something I'm working on as well! I just left my job and am currently job searching, hoping to start one at the end of August when my health insurance coverage from my prior job ends and have budgeted enough savings for that time. I am trying to take this time to focus on my mental health and learning. I will have a lot of time and mental space to process and participate in SFPC Sex Ed and am excited by the opportunity for shared study when I am already thinking about sex education in liberatory ways.

I think it's important to do the work to unlearn internalized systems of oppression in order to dismantle these systems and build a better world. For me, a lot of that work has been I have been reflecting on my queerness, processing traumatic experiences around sex, and working hard to center pleasure and care and unlearn oppressive cisheteropatriarchic ideas about sex. I haven't had sex since 2020 and have recently started dating and that has made me more interested in spaces to learn about sexuality and pleasure outside of interpersonal relationships -- the majority of where my sex-ed comes from. My roommate got me a session with a reiki healer for my birthday, and she said that my heart is not open to love or pleasure (capricorn venus vibes), so that's something I'm working on as well! I just left my job and am currently job searching, hoping to start one at the end of August when my health insurance coverage from my prior job ends and have budgeted enough savings for that time. I am trying to take this time to focus on my mental health and learning. I will have a lot of time and mental space to process and participate in SFPC Sex Ed and am excited by the opportunity for shared study when I am already thinking about sex education in liberatory ways.

I have started taking testosterone, aka second puberty, and would love to re-learn sex ed more intimately educated with people who are like me. I also just graduated, and so I would love the opportunity to meet new people. Politically, I am far left, and I am aware of the American medical system and sex education being unfair especially to brown/Black birthing people. I'd like to learn more about how to share through mutual aid instead of through capitalism!!!

I'm interested in studying with the SFPC because I am desperately seeking the tools to be properly equipped to be apart of the change I want to see in the world of sexual wellness/education/and health. The SFPC's mission specifically in terms of this programming immediately resonated with me as I was introduced to it. There is an anger inside me and a heart that are in need of healing, and I believe through an inclusive and expansive course like this the journey to that healing can continue on. The realm of education can be so exclusive when seeking a formal path and education that is for the people and for community building I believe should never be that. It is in spaces like these that education can become accessible. I have studied within a formal institution and do not feel as impacted by it in a positive way as I had hoped I would be. It is during my 22nd year of life that I feel prepared and ready to dive into this passion and make it my life's work! With oppresive legislation being placed upon us in this country increasing by the day, it is now more than ever that knowledge surrounding our bodies and our joy and our pleasure as human beings needs to be shared and made accessible. It is my hope to be in the forefront of this work and find the information necessary to do so that does not involve being shut out by institutions that ultimately have no desire to allow this information to be widespread and easily received.