10:15 to 11:15AM — Jet Setting Jasmine & King Noire
Sex Positive Parenting
Sex Positive Parents, Jet Setting Jasmine and King Noire, shared their experience with talking about sex and maintaining intimacy in a household with children. Jasmine is a licensed psychotherapist, and Jasmine and King collaborate as parents and owners of Royal Fetish Films, and they are experts in the normalization of having family in the adult entertainment industry and communication within families about sex. This seminar covered how to facilitate age-appropriate conversations about sex and how to safeguard children from sexually inappropriate situations.
Jet Setting Jasmine and King Noire combine their love of the arts, film, and sex education to produce erotica that stimulates and engages the audience to explore their sexual boundaries. Together they are owners of Award-Winning, Royal Fetish Films, and have over 20+ years of experience as adult entertainers, educators, and Master Fetish Trainers.
Jet Setting Jasmine is a licensed clinical therapist with a strong emphasis on Intimacy Post Injury and Intimacy Post Illness. King Noire is an accomplished writer, artist, MC and global activist using the proceeds of his album ‘Music Is My Weapon’ to build a school, freshwater well, and medical clinic in Guinea Bissau, West Africa.
Their work on the Decolonization of Sex & Porn and Politics has been featured in VICE, Huffington Post, Rolling Stones, Playboy, Forbes, Cosmopolitan, BBC, Psychology Today, and more.
You can learn more about them and their work at:
RoyalFetishXXX.com
KingNoire.com
JetSettingJasmine.com
Twitter.com/jetsetjasmine
Twitter.com/KingNoire
Instagram/jetsetjasmine
Instagram/therealkingnoire
11:15AM to 12PM — Charlie Nicely
From Self to Nonself: Explorations of Gender and Identity Through the Lens of Buddhist Psychotherapy
Western European notions of identity are to see the person as a fixed material self that is used as a reference point for reality—the individual’s compass for navigating the world. Buddhist conceptualizations of the self differ greatly. The Buddha taught that there is no stable or individual self and that identity is fundamentally the product of ignorance and doesn’t exist, or at least not as something that can be grasped intellectually. This is referred to as anatta in the original Pali text, translated in English as non-self or substanceless. In this presentation, Charlie discussed the use of Buddhist Psychotherapy in exploring gender, and specifically the clinical application of Buddhist teachings on impermanence (anicca in Pali), compassion and anatta in working with gender expansive individuals. This presentation presented a theoretical framework for Buddhist psychotherapy, aligned with the Buddhist emphasis on personal exploration through providing an opportunity for direct experience.
Charlie Windy Nicely (they/them) is a New York City based psychotherapist working with sexual minorities with a specialization in working with gender expansive individuals. They trained in Buddhist psychotherapy at Nalanda Institute and have learned with Buddhist and non-Buddhist pioneers and scholars such as Sharon Salzberg, Robert Thurman, Rick Hanson, and Dan Siegel.
Charlie has been a decades long Buddhist practitioner and student of Advaita Vedanta and integrates their embodiment of these ancient wisdom teachings into their clinical work, setting the foundation for liberation through fierce compassion, insight and attuned awareness.
1:15 to 1:45PM — Emma Zonn
Rage as a Form of Love: Accessing Transformative Fury
The intangible concepts of Justice, Revenge, Victory, and Righteous Fury have been anthropomorphized in our myths and legends throughout history, frequently in female bodies. Yet the culture of white, cis, heteronormative, patriarchal, capitalist, puritanical christian supremacy that dominates the United States tells us that these are not “feminine” qualities. How do we reclaim our birthright to exist and thrive as multifaceted, vibrant, complex individuals from this culture of stereotypes, tropes, and restrictive norms? How can rage be used to heal and strengthen our relationships with ourselves and with others?
This lecture shared examples of the history of legendary feminine fury – from the ancient to the modern – discussed the power in “monstrosity” for marginalized genders and sexualities in horror and beyond, and provided a lens for dismantling patriarchal binaries and accessing your own feminine rage, no matter your gender identity, as a form of love for self, and others. Click here to download Zonn’s slides; click here to download Zonn’s transcript; and click here to download Zonn’s paper, “Monster Mash: Transgression of Boundaries and Gender in Gothic and Modern Horror.”
Emma Zonn (she/her) is a performer, activist, sex professional, and educator living and working on Nacotchtank/Piscataway /Manahoac land (Washington DC). A fat, tall, queer, non-binary, bisexual, white, neurodivergent, kinky, college-educated, millenial witch, Emma has worked in many fields, including burlesque, retail, education, sex work, university systems, reproductive justice, sex ed, modeling, public health, and the performing arts, but always with a mind towards storytelling, community building, social justice, representation, and liberation for all. Emma’s work in spiritual, physical, and creative spaces alike focuses on balance, negotiation, liminality, and the opposing and intersecting forces of binaries in all things.
1:45 to 2:15PM — Jillien Kahn
Sex and Death: Exploring The Relationship Between Grief and Desire
The death of a loved one may be the most deeply affecting shift we will encounter in our lifetime, touching nearly every aspect of our lives. While this certainly includes changes to a person’s need for sexual contact, little is known about the relationship between grief and desire. Increased desire after loss seems to carry an especially weighty taboo, despite pleasure’s ability to provide meaning, embodiment, and connection in what is often an unbearably lonely time. Living in a culture that denies both death and pleasure, this comes as no surprise, although theory suggests that we leave room to consider the complex relationship between the two. This talk will use theory, research, and personal accounts to explore this connection.
Jillien is a marriage and family therapist and certified sex therapist in private practice in Manhattan and is a co-founder of Manhattan Alternative Wellness Collective. Jillien specializes in working with LGBTQ+, CNM, and kinky clients, but developed an interest in human behavior around death and grief after the death of her father in 2017.
Currently a doctoral candidate at Widener University, Jillien hopes to pursue research in this area post-dissertation. She lives in Manhattan with her wonderful partner and three naughty animals.
2:15 to 2:45PM — Yoseñio V. Lewis and Melody Anne Barringer
Sick Fuck: Navigating Kink and Chronic Illness
Are you a sick fuck? 6 in 10 Americans live with at least one chronic illness, so the odds are pretty high that you or someone you care about are figuring out how to deal with this often-unsexy reality. Chronic pain and illness, whether physical or mental, can be challenging at the best of times. But what if we could use the skills we’ve learned through BDSM to better manage our illnesses? What are some ways that we can work around pain or medical issues during play, or even work through them? In this session, chronically ill kinksters Melody Anne and Yoseñio V. Lewis will explore these questions and more, touching upon topics such as chronic illness and sexuality, trauma, disability, mindfulness, and self-care. Click here to download the slides.
Yoseñio V. Lewis is a Latino (Panamanian) of African Descent Trans man who has been a social justice activist since he was 13 years old. A health educator, speaker, writer, performer, trainer, facilitator, out poly and kinky person and a spiritual hugger, Yoseñio is a Board Member of TASHRA—The Alternative Sexualities Health Research Alliance. Yoseñio is on the faculty for the Sex Justice Track of the National LGBTQ Task Force Creating Change Conference. He is also a Board Member of the Columbia University/Emory University/San Francisco State University Project AFFIRM Transgender Resilience Study.
Melody Anne is a sexuality educator and researcher from Vancouver, Canada. She earned her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Critical Studies in Sexuality from the University of British Columbia, where she continues to volunteer at the UBC Sexual Health Lab. Melody Anne has presented workshops to thousands of individuals at venues across North America.
3 to 4PM — Fareed Kaviani
Tools Of Torture: Body Mods x BDSM
Body modification has been used throughout history to both facilitate a ritualistic passage into a culture’s socio-religious system and express a defiance against dominant norms. While much of contemporary mainstream body modification has become anesthetized, the affective experiences of pain, ecstasies, altered states of consciousness, and intimacies, are celebrated within BDSM and extreme body modification practices. Piercing, hook and suspension, saline infusions, scarification, corseting, stapling, subcutaneous penile pearls, and blackwork tattooing, are some tools and techniques used within BDSM contexts. In this presentation, Dr Fareed Kaviani will reveal how destructive discourses, such as pathologisation and colonialism, have shaped perceptions of body modification and its eroticisation. By drawing on sociological theory, Fareed will explore the history of body modification and sexuality and present several contemporary examples from his interviews with BDSM practitioners and participants where body modification was employed to manifest pleasurable pain. Click here to download Dr. Kaviani’s slides.
Dr. Fareed Kaviani is a neurodiverse writer and academic based in Melbourne (on Wurundjeri land), Australia. His work on tattoo and body modification culture has been published in VICE, DAZED, Inked Australia, Archer, and others. He is primarily interested in the phenomenology of purposeful pain and the impact of digital technology on the body. He has completed a Bachelor of Arts with first-class Honours in sociology, a Master’s degree in literature, an interdisciplinary PhD, and has a Labrador x Staffy named Scribbles.
4:15 to 5:15PM — Mollena Williams-Haas and Georg Friedrich Haas
The Kink Doula and Der Spousemeister: Rebirth via BDSM
Mollena Williams-Haas and Georg Friedrich Haas delved deep into their relationship, radical self-determination, racism, and injustice, and the transformation that takes place when we tap into our own paradoxes.
Mollena Williams-Haas is a New York writer, actress, BDSM Educator, Storyteller, and an Award-Winning Executive Pervert. Her expert takes on kink, leather and BDSM have been centered and included in sources such as The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Newsweek, Essence, and Ebony. Mollena is a frequent guest expert on Dan Savage’s “Savage Lovecast,” and has been featured on Margaret Cho’s “Monsters of Talk” podcast. She is owned and collared by her Spousemeister, renowned contemporary Austrian composer, Georg Friedrich Haas.
Georg Friedrich Haas is regarded as one of the major contemporary European composers. He has received numerous national and international prizes, including the Kompositionspreis of the SWR Symphony Orchestra (2010) for limited approximations and the Grand Austrian State Prize for Music (2007). Currently, he is a professor of composition at Columbia University.
Together they are protagonists in the Beatrice Behn and René Gebhardt 2018 documentary The Artist & The Pervert.
5:15 to 5:45PM — Q&A Panel
The 7th Annual AltSex NYC Conference was produced by
Dulcinea Pitagora, PhD and Michael Aaron, PhD
in collaboration with Anastasia Sielski Elizalde, LMSW
