Workshops

Radical & Responsible Gender: Feminism, Masculinity, Misogyny, & Femininity

Presented at Smith College (Northampton, MA), New York University. Ideal for a classroom, 25-35 people. Intermediate to advanced.(2 hours)

Academics breaks down and deconstructs gender. How do we build it back up radically and responsibly? How does one adapt masculinity or femininity “positively”? How do we become responsible about gender? How do we continue to break down the gender role restrictions that are hurtful and traumatizing? In this interactive, engaging workshop, we will cover some basics about what gender is, what gender roles and stereotypes are, and how they work, then cover basic gender theory, breaking things down into small parts, in order to build them back up again “responsibly,” by which I mean thoughtfully and intentionally, with feminist principles and anti-sexist perspectives strongly in place. Participants will go away from the workshop with a better sense of how to use labels as liberation instead of limiting, as celebrations rather than restrictions, and be able to more fully embody whichever gender roles they choose.

Queer Sex 101: Enhancing Our Sex Lives with Toys, Sensation, Power, and Intensity

Ideal for a college student group or community center, beginner level, 20-35 people. (2 hours)

Are you interested in enhancing your sex life with kinky play, but don’t know where to start? Do you want to find partners to engage in that delicious dirty little fantasy that keeps playing over and over? This workshop will explore the basics of kink, some of the most common concepts and play, including topping/bottoming and domination/submission, role play, ways to explore percussion (hitting), sensation (stings, temperature, and more), and basic bondage. We’ll learn what parts of the body are safe for hitting and which to avoid, which toys are the best to invest in, how to make your bedroom more kink-friendly, how to negotiate, and where to go to look for what you want.

Feminist & Kink Are Oxymorons, Aren’t They?

Beginner to intermediate; ideal for 20-30 people. (2 hours)

Many of the varied theories behind feminism have torrid positions on sexual expressions through kink, BDSM, bondage, sadomasochism, and other non-vanilla sex acts, often coming down on the side that they are inherently harmful to women. But are they? Come to this interactive workshop where we’ll explore some of the origins of these sexual theories, and discuss the sex-positive movements that have been burgeoning in the last twenty years. We’ll discuss the foundational basics of kinky sex, including top/bottom play, power dynamics, domination/submission, and what it looks like to reconcile our deeply held feminist beliefs with our urges for consensual, intense play.

How to Change the World Through Sex: Careers in Pleasure

Beginner to advanced; primarily lecture-based for any number of people

New for 2012-2013

Do you want to be a sexuality educator? A sex blogger? A porn star? A BDSM instructor who travels the country leading hands-on skills at kinky conferences? Do you wish that “sexuality education” existed as a major? You can! Come learn what you should study in college in order to launch yourself into a sexuality career when you graduate. As the sexuality industry is exploding, all sorts of new careers are being forged. Come hear how Sinclair Sexsmith has forged a freelance writing, teaching, and sexuality career out of many different paths, weaving together skills from many aspects of life.

Relationship Skills for Queers

Beginner to intermediate; ideal for 20-30 people.

We’ve all heard that “relationships take work,” but what kind of work exactly do they take? How do we know if we’re in a good one? And how can we make a good one last? This workshop will explore all sorts of skills that we should have been learning all along, but that are significantly lacking in this culture. We’ll do exercises on identifying cultural norms & personal values, accountability, naming & setting boundaries, strengthening support networks, and more. Bring a paper and writing utensil, we will be doing writing exercises.

Butch & Femme for the 21st Century

Lecture
New for 2012-2013

Are the labels of “butch” and “femme” simply outdated identities based on heteronormative roles? Do we still need terms like that, or are they more limiting rather than liberating? With the BUTCH Voices and Femme Conferences, and with the rise of the internet, these identities have seen a huge resurgence—but are they still relevant? Come hear Sinclair Sexsmith chronicle the trajectory of these identities through the 20th century, and discuss the activism around butch and femme that has been booming since the “feminist sex wars” of the 1980s. Mr. Sexsmith will discuss femme invisibility, butch flight, butch misogyny, body image issues of dysphoria and the beauty myth, competition, mentorship, sex positivity, and the complicated aspects of being in butch/femme community.

From Sexual Shame to Sexual Mathlete

New for 2012-2013

Sex is good for you. It is okay to want sex. There is nothing wrong with your sexual hungers, kinks, or desires. Repeat those sentences over and over until you believe them—or attend this workshop. Regardless of how good our sexual education or family’s openness has been in our lives, there is a huge degree of sexual shame that we have absorbed simply by being in western 21st century culture. How do we excavate it? How do we drop down into the depths of ourselves to uncover the myths that we believe so deeply to be truths in order to dig them up and plant new ideas of sex being inherently good, pleasurable, and worth pursing? What kind of sex do you want in your life? How can you get more people to hit on you, become a better flirt, and negotiate with more ease? What do you need to become a sexual mathlete? We’ll explore all of that in this interactive workshop, where you’ll take away new paths of sexuality and pleasure to explore.

Writing Dirty: Skills to Write About Sex

Ideal for beginner to intermediate writers in a 10-20 person group.

To write about sex well you need the boldness to command and describe the dirty and oh so delicious acts we humans explore, and the basic writing skills of plot, setting, and character. In this pen-to-paper writing workshop we’ll look at some examples of extremely successful and unsuccessful erotica, steamy love letters for your sweetheart, how to step up your blog to the next level, where to submit your work for publication in the erotica world, and some quick basics for editing your work. Bring a paper and writing utensil, we will be doing writing exercises.

Writing Ourselves into Existence: Queer Stories

(2 or 3 hours) Presented at Butch Voices Portland (OR). Beginner to intermediate; ideal for 20-30 people.

Traditional publishing through books, magazines, and literary journals have typically excluded gay stories, characters, revelations, and identity development. Navigating the world of literature can be extremely othering as a queer person attempting to write about queer lives, constantly being questioned for our cultural representations in writing. But Judy Shepard continues to say that coming out is the most important thing we can do, that indeed it is a political act, which encourages and advocates for visibility. Telling our stories is one way to make ourselves visible. Come to this interactive writing workshop and learn about the history of queer stories, what the queer story looks like, alternate forms of publishing such as chapbooks and blogs, and begin to form your own queer story. Bring paper and a writing utensil, please!

Write Yourself A Better Sex Life

New for 2012-2013

When Sinclair Sexsmith began their current writing project, Sugarbutch Chronicles, they were stuck in a “bed death” relationship and they didn’t know how to get out. Now, six years later, Sinclair has become a prominent speaker and workshop leader on BDSM, power play, sexuality, and gender, and travels around to colleges, sex toy stores, and kinky conferences to talk to people about their experiences. Writing can be a powerful tool to actualize desires, both as a way of discovering what we don’t know that we already know, and as reflction throughout the process. This workshop explores the self-reflection of a personal chronicle project and learning erotic actualization through sex blogging, writing, and exploring. Bring a pen and paper, we’ll do some writing together.

IN ADDITION …

Custom workshops and spoken word performances are available upon request.

Spoken word performances include:

“The Butch Poem,” aka Unsolicited Advice to a New Butch
Love Letter to Femmes
Me In a Nutshell (an “I Believe” poem)
Gender Architecture
How To Survive Your First Year in New York City

Sexuality & BDSM

BEGINNER

Writing Dirty: Skills for Writing About Sex

(2 hours) Ideal for beginner to intermediate writers in a 10-20 person group.

To write about sex well you need the boldness to command and describe the dirty and oh so delicious acts we humans explore, and the basic writing skills of plot, setting, and character. In this pen-to-paper writing workshop we’ll look at some examples of extremely successful and unsuccessful erotica, steamy love letters for your sweetheart, how to step up your blog to the next level, where to submit your work for publication in the erotica world, and some quick basics for editing your work. Bring a paper and writing utensil, we will be doing writing exercises.

Talking Dirty: How to Let Your Tongue Go

(1 or 2 hours) Beginner to intermediate; ideal for 20-30 people.

Talking dirty in the bedroom can be terrifying at first, but once you unlock your tongue, you’ll find yourself saying all sorts of delicious things! Come to this workshop and we’ll figure out what’s tying our tongues in the first place, what’s holding us back from being more free with our language in the bedroom, and what the heck we should say to enhance our sex and intensity our sensation. The brain is the biggest sex organ, after all, and the more we can turn on our minds, the better our experiences will be.

Fucking Forever: Sex in Long Term Relationships

(2 hours) Beginner to intermediate; ideal for 20-30 people.

New relationship energy can propel a couple into a phenomenal experiential phase of sexual energy—bursts of passion, exploration, and intensity. Long term relationships, however, face the day-to-day life navigation of bills, scheduling, job and career difficulties or changes, disappointments, changes, and grief. How do we build a long term relationship that keeps the passion alive? How do we ensure we have enough time for our partner(s), and for ourselves? How do we both separate from our partner to have our own rich inner life and come back together to build a loving bond? And what kind of kinky play can be used to keep the fire going? We’ll explore all of these concepts and more at this interactive workshop.

Flirting, Foreplay, & Fucking

(2 hours) Presented at Dark Odyssey: Fusion and Summer Camp. Ideal for 20-30 people

We all want to get laid. But making it happen in real life can be a lot harder than we want it to be. Do you wish more people would hit on you? How do you make yourself more available? We can all use some practice asking for what we want, but how do you escalate from flirting to foreplay and foreplay to fucking? Learn to perfect the art of the tease, draw out your potential lover’s interest, and make sex even hotter in the process.

INTERMEDIATE

Queering Power Dynamics: D/s, Age Play, and Beyond

(2 hours) Ideal for 20-30 people.

Top, bottom, switch, and everything in between: many of us like to explore what it’s like to give up or take power in our sex play. Some of us even like to play with psychological domination and submission. Let’s explore 24/7 role play or domination and submission. What happens when we incorporate identities like “Daddy” from the leather community? What could other age play roles of bigs and littles, Daddies and Mommies, boys and bois and girls and grrrls, have to offer us as we seek deeper and more fulfilling sex explorations? We’ll discuss bringing a power exchange relationship of any sort from the bedroom into a 24/7 lifestyle, what the benefits are for both, and how to go about navigating long term fulfillment for all parties within the relationship.

Advanced Cock Confidence: Graduate Level Strapping On

(2 hours) Intermediate to advanced; best for 15-30 people

So you know how to strap on—Great! Are you looking to increase sensation for yourself and your partner? How can  you enhance your cock mindfulness? Are there contradictions to receiving penetration as a guy, a butch, or a stud? How does strap on play change as our bodies get older? What size is your cock, and what size should it be? Come learn more about constructing an advanced cock-centric sexuality, and preview some of the more unusual cocks on the market made for packing, pissing, and shooting.

Owning Your Birthday Suit: Practices for Embodiment

(2 hours) With co-presenter Amy Butcher. Partcipation-based workshop

Kinky, poly, leather, queer, genderqueer, trans, sex-positive, and other outlaw folks often find it easy to explore sex, but it might still be hard to be present in our bodies, to feel the powerful connection between genitals, heart, and mind. Explore a variety of playful experiential exercises to increase embodiment while respecting stone sexualities and everyone’s boundaries. Learn some simple tools to feel erotic energy, build connection to your desires, and feel more alive and at home in your body. Experience the taboo power of sharing this exploration within community. These exercises are clothes-on and touch optional. Amy Butcher and Sinclair Sexsmith met at a tantra retreat in 2009 and have worked together for deeper embodiment and gender liberation ever since. They both study erotic energy and write smut.

The Sexual Politics of Topping

New for 2012-2013.

In some ways, it’s easier as a feminist to justify bottoming or submitting than it is to reconcile topping or domination. Consent and agency are key issues in feminism, and they translate well to justifying the exploration of receiving pleasure through bold sensation or temporarily giving over power and authority over one’s body. But the craving to dominate someone else, to find pleasure in someone else’s pain, to grin like a fool and get off on making someone cry—the politics of topping are difficult and multi-faceted. In this workshop we’ll explore power theory, consent, and agency, as key issues to comprehend in topping; we’ll discuss different kinds of topping and stages to enhance your skills as a top.

ADVANCED

Bad Boys: Masculinity & Dominance

(2 hours) Presented at Dark Odyssey: Fusion. Ideal for 20-30 people

Everyone loves a bad boy: they know what they want, and they take it…and probably ride away on a motorcycle afterwards. But how can you be a bad boy without being an asshole? How do you practice that potent combination of masculinity and dominance without misogyny or internalized homophobia and with respect for women? How can you enhance your dominance in consensual, loving ways? On the flip side, how can you bring that dominant side out of someone who may be nervous to let it emerge? How do you become – or find – the bad boy of your dreams? Learn from a pro: Sinclair Sexsmith, kinky queer butch top who’s been writing about dominance since 2006, will teach you how to get what you want.

So You Want To Be A Daddy?

New for 2012-2013.

Do you have a reaction when you think about being a Daddy? Maybe it scares you, or maybe you know you want to do it but you don’t know how. Come join in this intimate workshop where Sinclair Sexsmith reveals their path to becoming a Daddy, what it means in the context of leather culture or dyke culture. We’ll discuss the erotics of family and the connection to age play, the codependence and differentiation of deep psychological play, and how to enhance your Daddy skills, whether someone is calling you Daddy or not.

D/s Protocol

New for 2012-2013

When taking D/s from the bedroom into a 24/7 relationship, one of the most fun practices is having protocol to follow. But where do you start? Join Sinclair Sexsmith in this advanced class about asymmetric power balances and do some self-reflection to figure out just what types of protocol you might like to explore. Whether you’re a top or a bottom, a dom or a sub, you can explore ways to negotiate more power play rules and restrictions that enhance your connection with your partner and keep your erotics going strong.

Leaving Bruises: Biting, Punching, and More

New for 2012-2013

Leaving marks is one of Sinclair Sexsmith’s favorite things. Marking a submissive or bottom can be a strong bonding practice that enhances your power dynamics and deepens your connection. A mark on someone’s body—
Photo by Bill Wadman
Sinclair Sexsmith | mrsexsmith@gmail.com
be it temporary or permanent—can lead to a feeling of posession and power, of vulnerability and ownership. Come to this exploratory, interactive demonstration and see some examples of leaving marks on your partner. We’ll explore leaving bruises through biting, punching, and other percussion implements; permanent marks like piercings, tattoos, cuttings, and brands; and temporary options like permanent markers and body hair.