May 14, 2021

There it was, right in the description of the event itself: “Be creative.” We have taken the instructions very seriously. What does it mean to be creative and how does the idea of creativity apply to sexuality, sexual practices and sexual therapeutics. First, we need a definition of creativity that can be operationalized with respect to sexuality. Creativity has long been defined as an idea or practice that is both valuable and “unique, novel or even unexpected” (Sternberg, 1999, p.3). Both value and novelty are, however, slippery concepts, leaving us with criteria ranging from empirically impossible to dauntingly relativistic. Today, newer views of creativity have gained considerable traction. These approaches see creativity as socially and materially distributed, focusing on how people participate in change rather than just how they think of new ideas. This presentation will look at the views of “participatory creativity” (Hanchett Hanson & Clapp, 2020) and consider how it can be operationalized within the context of sexuality and once applied, help us think about emergent next steps.