*What We’re Up To

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Calling all pleasure propagandists.  The Pleasure Project has been asked to help out at a very fancy Delhi Art Summit Event.

CAN YOU SEE ME?

Is a new art show about gender, sexuality, culture and religion in the global south in the new Engendered Gallery in Delhi.

Our dear friend,  is coming over from her day job (Tea Lady to minor Royalty  in England) to help out. She does not know much about art but she knows what she likes. She won’t understand a word (bless her) about all the isms ; but she serves a blinding cup of tea.

She will be happy to swap you a cup of char (or chai) for your fantasy. Inspired (possibly) by the art.

She is a good listener, so feel free to confess ALL. As we all know the tea lady often knows more than it might appear; because she always offers tea ‘n’ sympathy.

See you there. Share Your Pleasure and expand the fantasy bank some more (see here for previous Delhi events and inspirations).

Remember think GREEN – it also saves the planet to recycle fantasies.

At SPACE ENGENDERED , 125 A Shahpurjat, IInd Flr, New Delhi, India

On Sunday 29th January from 2pm till 6pm (High Tea at 4pm)

Due to the sensitive nature of the work (ohhh)
RSVP is  REQUIRED at engenderednyc@gmail.com

if you can do this you get a free cup of tea

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Dear Pleasure Seekers, here is our round up of good.safe.sex in 2011. Let us know if we missed anything…Happy New Year, The Pleasure Project xx

January – Sexy Texts

So we started off bright and breezy in the new and interviewed many authors at Jaipur Literature festival on why there is just not enough good safe sex in the texts and how to write “that condom” moment.  We loved what Candice Bushnall, Jerry Pinto and Abha Dawesar had to say.

And how we also thought about how we need to get more good safe sex into Indian Pulp Fiction.

February – Crown Jewel Condoms

We were most pleased that sexuality and pleasure got a mention at an important UK Department for International Development event when Professor Lawrence Haddad, from IDS, spoke about our work and the need to include and address romance to deliver better sexual health programmes.

We finished off the month getting outraged because we loved the launch of “Crown Jewel Condoms” with the strap line “Truly a King amongst Condoms” in time for the UK Royal Wedding. But excitement turned to outrage when we realised that they did not actually work. I suppose we are meant to just put them on our mantelpiece and admire them?

March – Can Public Health learn from Porn?

The fabulous Tehelka magazine quoted us in March, right chuffed we were, because we told them that the Pill needs to ne sexed up and the health world needs to learn more from the Porn world.

Alongside having that rant we also had a go on the UK Guardian website about how pleasure and development should not be strangers.We said that development professionals needed to look beyond all the negative consequences of poverty or poor people as always victims; to see a possible positive vision of good sex, as empowering, raising of self esteem and joyful.

April – A festival on the art of lust

April was our art ‘n’ crafts month. We went to an exhibition that showed us what orgasms looked like and we featured in an Indian Express article about using the arts to promote good safe sex.

And we got lucky. Really lucky. Traveled to Sydney to learn all at the festival for the art of lust t. It was certainly mind-blowing and the bits that we could comfortable blog about, we did; ethical sluthood, naked yoga, play fighting and a novice orgy workshop.  We were exploring lusty safe sex on the frontline of lust; and it wasn’t like the usual sexual health conferences we attend. Oh no sir ree.

May – We came, we read we shared our pleasure

We were full of the joys of spring celebrating national wanking month and whilst we were at it (conveniently) also learnt LOTS more about what Delhiites fantasise about.

We organised a “Share your Pleasure” fantasy evening in the wonderful many many cold fantasies including;   cool garden sprinklers, cold showers, BDSM in a chillyJacuzzi but there were also a few tasty surprises (Cheeki Dilli, Cheeki Dilli).

Delhiites also fantasised about “men in top hats, making names in jam on bellies and clits, the falling petals of the jacaranda tree“  and last and not least (surprise surprise) some mutual self arousal in a dark small bookstore in Haus Kaus village !

Hurrah for sharing our fantasies and expanding the global fantasy bank for us all to enjoy. Let more hot Delhi fantasies rain on us cooly this summer.

June – diging deeper into delhi’s fantasies

We got a little deeper into the fantasies of Haus Kaus Village in steamy June. We collected 150 fantasies during the Haus Kaus Village event, and man, were they hot.  We thought the Delhi heat might knock back the collective libido a little; but we were wrong.

Oh Delhi, you are a sexy, kinki, imaginative bunch. We ranked your fantasies according to popularity and there are a few surprises I can tell you. Read them here. Our personal favorite (today) is the “salt touched breast” of the mermaid lover and whose tail you would “love every fishy scale”.

We were also quite chuffed to get our sexy article published in a quite serious posh journal. Read about how we think there should be more pillow talk between academics and porn film makers here.

July- orgasm prizes, play doh porn and ethical condoms

In July our wonderful pleasure propagandist Arushi braved the weather of Glasgow to report back from the frontline of the World Sexual Health Congress and did she find out stuff.

Wowzer.  Did we learn. We learnt that orgasms should be part of the journey not the station we get off at (well we kind of knew that already) , we heard about soggy saos, play doh porn and if we are the high desire or low desire partners in our bedrooms.

We also loved the new ethical condoms and decided to wrap with care and save the polar bear…

August – desperately seeking pleasure in Korea

Another brave pleasure propagandist ventured forth to report back from the AIDS conference in Busan, Korea. Revati found little pleasure we are sad to report. Although she reported later on a couple of brave souls who mentioned the need to recognise pleasure in sex in HIV prevention.

But we consoled ourselves by discovering that men who wank more also use condoms more. Another plus point for the boy wankers then.

September – Condom use still a distant dream in porn

On we got on our old hobby horse again this month, safer sex in porn….but then got onto that tricky ride bareback sex.

How to replace the intimacy of it with something that feels equally as exciting and as intimate. And we loved the creative ideas you pleasure propagandists had. Keep them coming.

October – demos in London (sexy female condom ones)

On a quick trip to London we loved talking at the offices, in the very funky Shoreditch, of Plan International and Interact Worldwide, two international NGOs. We loved them and they kind of liked the pleasure approach and want to include it in their work internationally.  Sadly, but coincidently, that week a big news story in the UK was how dissatisfied young people were with the sex education they get.

November – Coffee flavoured condoms

On my goodness in November we got really busy, we rocked for the Right to Romance whomsoever we wanted whilst also reminding those who attended this brilliant concert that followed Queer Pride that playing with themselves was their right.

But we also popped over to Ethiopia and savoured the delights of condom flavoured condoms.

December – ranting again about group lust fests

We finished the year by having a good old rant in Man’s World Magazine about group lust fests, porn and pleasure.  The usual stuff.

We finished the year with a tirade about women loving sex.

So there.

Happy New Year to all your pleasure seekers out there.

Keep safe and see you in 2012.

 

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We got some great coverage in Man’s World Magazine  in India. Read is here and see if you can spot a mention of your fantasy (or pick up a new one).

The link to The Pleasure Project in a Mansworld

And then read the unedited version here at Manavi’s blog where she talks about attending our Delhi fantasy evening and me rambling on about  women, guilt and pleasure, group lust fests without the sex and access to porn in India.

Never a dull moment at The Pleasure Project.

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Delhi is gearing up to a fantastic concert tomorrow and we are just a little bit over excited here at The Pleasure Project.

Rock for Rights will follow the city’s growing queer pride march – letting us all continue the party. It’s only two years since same sex relationships were de-criminalised in India, but since then the flourishing of queer arts and culture is obvious. Rock for Rights celebrates this with some amazing artists the Bollywood singer Rekha Bharwaj, the multi-talented Ma Faiza, The East India Company, Alisha Batth and Indian rock group Papon.

As all us pleasure seekers know learning about good safe sex is challenging the world over when sex education tends to tell you what you should NOT do and how many diseases you will get when you do IT. But trying to get good information about how to have sex you want and be safe at the same time is near impossible when the type of sex you like is illegal. Decriminalizing same sex relationships allows us to talk about sexual health in an open way.

I had a lovely chat with the marvelous Ma Faiza who will be playing her brilliant brand of sexy, uplifting electronic music tomorrow at Rock for Rights about just this. I asked her what events like Rock for Rights could do to help deliver good safe sex messages.

“Entertainment is a great platform for a social message -it reaches a more diverse audience and makes the message and the process fun”

We could agree more – after all we are all over the fun sexy safe sex message here at Pleasure Project. Traditional sex education tends to bore people and then moralise to them. But Ma says

“Access to sex education is limited in India – and especially women’s right to pleasure. Many women here don’t feel that they have the right to enjoyment – that their life and their sex life should be a journey of sufferance. That has to change.”

So roll on Ma Faiza’s set tomorrow – we love her positive attitude and think we have found a true pleasure propagandist to add to the growing ranks..

See details on how to get to Rocks for Rights and get tickets here

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To all those lucky pleasure propagandists who happen to be based in India.

Sunday will be a special evening of music for a good cause – to advance human rights and have fun.

The Pleasure Project is very pleased to be a promotional partner – and keep your eyes peeled you might get to see some images of good safe sex and get some postcards all for yourself.  Come say hi and share a sexy tip…..or two…..

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The Pleasure Project gave a presentation this week at the offices of Plan International and Interact Worldwide in London, in achingly hip east London’s Shoreditch. We we very excited because these are charities that do amazing work to improve the health and quality of people’s lives globally. Also Interact Worldwide is very clear about it’s commitment through its programmes to The right to a safe and pleasurable sex life. Woo Hoo.

kissing Many other cool things happen in this neighbourhood. Madonna holds birthday parties. Kate Moss has casual drinks. Keira Knightly kisses a man in the high street. The Pleasure Project does a sexy female condom demo just off the high street.

We have to admit that we have been to Shoreditch in a pleasure propaganda capacity before – to talk to the African HIV Network about good.safe.sex.

But we had never  talked quite so dirty about female condoms there. It’s gonna to catch on and be all the rage in about 5 minutes. Watch this space.

The people gathered by Interact Worldwide were great;  interested to know more about what is a pleasure approach to sex education and wanting to know how to make it happen. They had some really interesting questions;

  • how to we sex up safer sex without tapping into stereotypes of women
  • how to work with faith based groups to get good safe  sex into African  church hospitals
  • how to incorporate pleasure into  campaigns about the danger of multiple sexual relationships
  • how to increase sexual skills for good sex as well as safe sex

They were all very sweet about the presentation and discussion and had this to say.

In our work on sexual and reproductive health in Africa and Asia we tend to focus so much on the prevention of disease and negative  ideas of sex and sexuality.We tend to talk about people’s right to pursue pleasurable sex but often struggle with taking this approach when we implement our programmes. Now we feel more confident being able to say not only is it people’s right, it also supports people being able to more successfully negotiate safer sex for themselves. Rutti Goldberger, Programme Advisor

A woman who can negotiate pleasurable sex can negotiate safer sex, and indeed can negotiate almost anything! So very true, and yet so very challenging to achieve in many of the contexts in which we work, but let’s keep trying! My mind is now positively whirring with ideas for collaborating and incorporating the pleasure project’s no-nonsense principles into our work on reproductive health and sex education for adolescents with our partner organisations in Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda.                     Ceri Angood, Africa Programme Manager

I was struck by the fact that the HIV world has done a far better job of including pleasure in their approach to safer sex, but this still doesn’t seem to be the case with contraception and family planning. This is definitely something that Interact wants to take forward with our partners in future. Alan Smith, COO of Interact

Others said that they liked to hear about actual examples of work where people are sexing up safer sex and want to do more to make their work with young people relevant, engaging and more mainstream.

By chance there was a big news story that day on the BBC about the views of teenagers of their sex education, which provided a good context that young people’s sex education in the UK is failing to be relevant.

A survey conducted by Brook UK, a leading UK sexual health organisation found that only a third of young people surveyed in the UK felt that their school sex education was good and 72% of those surveyed wanted more say in what is included in their sex education. British young people were also asked “where they learnt about sex ?”  and not surprisingly over a third said they learn about sex from a friend and 5% from online pornography.

It provided an apt and timely reminder that sex education tends to fail young people not only in the UK but also globally. It’s a good time to remember that pleasure is one if not the key motivation for sex for us all.

“Rail against it, repress it, and moralize it ad infinitum; nevertheless, sex will find a way.” Abramson and Pinkerton .

 

 

UK Government Safer Sex poster 2006

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