[Noisebridge-discuss] Hosting a sexuality unconference at Noisebridge? KinkForAll San Francisco wants to make some Noise. :)

[maymay]

Hi all,

I thought I'd offer some additional context/information. I think that  
after this email is composed, I'll have given you most of the  
information I have at this stage and will avoid repeating myself  
unnecessarily. Unless something urgent is requested, I'll mostly be  
listening rather than replying to new email, but again, I did want to  
make sure people know where I'm coming from.

On Oct 26, 2009, at 4:47 AM, Sai Emrys wrote:

> FWIW, one benefit I think that hosting KFA @ NB would have that
> hosting it at a sex/kink-oriented space (e.g. Armory, Citadel) is that
> it'd feel *less* kinky.
>
> That is, while I'm sure such spaces would be happy to have KFA, they
> create a psychological barrier to entry.

Yes. Lowering the (often extremely high) psychological barrier to  
entry for a sexuality unconference intended "for all" is precisely the  
goal of attempting to find a non-sex-centric venue. See also the  
KinkForAll venue requirements page,[0] in particular the "how  
sexuality-community neutral is the venue?" requirement.

> If KFA is intending to cater to the public perhaps more than to
> self-espoused kinksters, making it feel less kinky would be likewise
> less scary and make it more comfortable for people who aren't already
> Into The Scene™.

We try not to "cater," but we also try to expressly promote diversity  
in an attempt to get different communities to mingle. :) Kind of like  
Noisebridge; I'm attracted to the diversity of approaches to and  
opinions of the various goings-on here. See also our Diversity page on  
the wiki.[1]

> On Oct 26, 2009, at 1:46 PM, Ani Niow wrote:
>
>> 2009/10/25 Josh Myer <josh at joshisanerd.com>
>> On Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 2:57 PM, Miah Johnson <miah at chia-pet.org>  
>> wrote:
>>> If you aren't interested nobody is making you come to the event.
>>
>> Unless he intended to use the space that day.
>>
>
> I imagine an event such as this would be announced far enough in  
> advance to where people who wanted to visit Noisebridge that day  
> would already know about it.
> […]

> I also imagine that an event such as this would not be happening for  
> at least several weeks if not months from now, alleviating the event  
> fatigue concern.


That's the idea, of course. :) Although an unconference can spring up  
in a matter of a couple of weeks, all previous KinkForAll uncons have  
had around a little over 2 months planning go into them before they  
happened. My ideal target date for KinkForAll San Francisco, assuming  
finding a venue isn't particularly difficult, would be late December  
or early January. This is mentioned on the KinkForAll San Francisco  
event page.[2]

>>  Make Your Own Prophylactics
>>  Recycled Condom Sculpture
>>  Diagnose Social Diseases in Yourself and Others
>>  Group Experiment: Is DVDA Possible?

>
> Those topics look awesome. I'm very much looking forward to seeing  
> you present them.

Yeah, they look INCREDIBLE! I'd love to see these! :D (I know I can't  
do them, but I'd love to see them, hence, unconference!)

> Maymay has been nothing but polite and communicative in his discussion

Thanks. If you'll pardon the turn of phrase, I kink real hard on  
transparency.[3] I'm not always perfectly communicative, but I do try.

> From reading the wiki, past KinkForAll events have specifically  
> allotted time for setup and cleanup by the participants. Hell, we  
> can't even get 5MoF to clean itself up right afterwards, an event  
> that makes it a point to do so wins some points in my book. :)


In an ideal world, this should go without saying, but perhaps it'd be  
helpful to make this explicit: myself and the KinkForAll community  
makes it a point to be respectful to the people we work with and/or  
organizations who host us.

Moreover, the environment KinkForAll creates instills a sense of  
personal responsibility and autonomy in people. As I mentioned before,  
the goal is to empower individuals to act and think for themselves  
with respect and appreciation for others. As a result, I have never  
seen rooms get cleaned so fast as after KinkForAll events. We usually  
allot 30 minutes for set up and clean up time on principle, but we  
have almost never needed more than 10 since when 100+ people are  
cleaning up nobody needs to do a lot of work. I remarked about this on  
an interview I did about KinkForAll,[4] which you can listen to for  
more details if you are interested.

> I would be more than happy to see if SPACE would be willing to host  
> an event such as this.

Awesome, thank you! I'll follow up on this with you off-list later, as  
I'd like to learn more about SPACE regardless of what happens with  
KFASF. :)

> Perhaps [maymay] only has enough time to focus on one venue for now  
> and will focus on others if the community here feels that it is not  
> the right place for it.


Yes.

My life is more than a little hectic. Part of the point in making my  
desires public knowledge was to make others aware of them so that they  
could participate early on in the planning stages if they so chose. As  
with cleaning up after the event itself, if 100+ people (un)organize a  
thing and are able to effectively coordinate themselves transparently  
with one another, we can get a lot more done with a lot less  
individual work. :)

Cheers,
-maymay
Blog: http://maybemaimed.com
Talk show: http://KinkOnTap.com
Community: http://KinkForAll.org
Volunteering: http://ConversioVirium.org/author/maymay

EXTERNAL REFERENCES:

[0] http://wiki.kinkforall.org/Venue
[1] http://wiki.kinkforall.org/Diversity
[2] http://wiki.kinkforall.org/KinkForAllSanFrancisco  (See the  
Location and directions section.)
[3] http://wiki.kinkforall.org/ThePrinciplesOfKinkForAll <-- See  
especially the footnote.
[4] http://maybemaimed.com/2009/05/01/an-extended-recording-of-kinkforall-on-the-masocast/