June 5: Bianca Laureano on Challenging Mainstream Ideas of Sexuality

Jun 052015
 

bianca

This week on Sex Out Loud I am live with award-winning sex educator, writer, scholar, and activist, Bianca Laureano who is the co-founder of the Women of Color Sexual Health Network (WOCSHN); co-founder of The LatiNegr@s Project, and co-director of the film BLACK PERVERT. We talk about her journey to field of sexual education, coalition building among educators, the creation of WOCSHN, and her upcoming documentary project on race, kink, and community. We’ll also discuss negative and harmful stereotypes about community, culture, and sexuality and how she works to challenge them.

Tune in to Sex Out Loud this Friday, June 5th at 5 pm PT / 8 pm ET. This week’s show is LIVE so call in to Voice America with questions and comments at 1-866-472-5788, join the discussion on Facebook or Twitter, or e-mail me via tristan(at)puckerup.com and I’ll read them live on the air. Tune in to Sex Out Loud every Friday, you can listen along on your computer, tablet, or phone, find all the ways at SexOutLoudRadio.com!

Bianca I Laureano is a first generation Puerto Rican who was born and raised in the Washington, DC metro area. The oldest daughter of an artist and educator, Bianca was raised in an activist environment that valued art in all its various and dynamic forms. At the beginning of high school Bianca’s parents encouraged her to become active in a youth led program called Raising Hispanic Academic Achievement, Inc. (RHAA), where she tutored and mentored Latin@ youth in the Washington, DC metro area. Bianca has been mentoring a young woman, Candy, for 17 years. Through RHAA Bianca developed critical skills and training as positive youth development was central to the program. Beginning as a tutor with RHAA, Bianca quickly became a part of the youth leadership and began assisting with program planning. She not only tutored and mentored on Saturday mornings, she arranged guest speakers, field trips and eventually co-led the all-female Saturday School in Silver Spring, MD, where the focus was on providing Latinas a space of their own to excel and find affirmation.

Bianca attended the University of Maryland, College Park (UM) and graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Individual Studies: Women’s Health and Latino Communities. While at UM Bianca was active in peer education and mentoring programs through the University Health Center and became the Assistant Coordinator for Sexual Health Programs. The summer of 2000 she spent in Xhualtez, Espita in the Yucatan working with one of the first government funded health centers that provides western trained physicians and indigenous Mayan healers as a part of holistic health care. Upon her return she attended New York University and received her Master of Arts degree in Human Sexuality Education in 2002.

After spending one year with the Child Welfare League of America as the Program Manager of Adolescent Sexuality, Pregnancy Prevention and Parenting, Bianca began working on her second Master of Arts degree at the University of Maryland, College Park in the Department of Women’s Studies. Bianca’s research areas include Latina feminisms, Puerto Rican studies, sexuality, youth and media culture. Her training in feminist theory and intersectionality were developed at the Consortium on Race, Gender & Ethnicity where she was a CrISP Fellow. In 2006 Bianca received her second Master of Arts degree in Women’s Studies where her focus included race and racialization, bodies, gender, and sexualities.

While at the UM, Bianca continued to be involved in direct action and activism with a grassroots not-for-profit organization called Visions in Feminism (ViF). ViF is a collective of activists who work to create a low-cost, accessible national conference devoted to creating a space to discuss complex topics facing modern feminism. During her last year in the Washington, DC metro area, Bianca became involved with a group of young professional women who were all devoted to eliminating cervical cancer through HPV education. Bianca became the Director of Sexual Health for Tamika and Friends, Inc., (T&F) in 2005 and worked to create peer education handbooks and training’s for people interested in having HPV (House Parties of fiVe) parties. T&F is one of the first organizations to focus on educating men and youth regarding HPV and cervical cancer and that provides technical assistance and survivor support.

Bianca is co-founder of the Women of Color Sexual Health Network (WOCSHN) and manages the WOCSHN tumblr page and social media/communication efforts; co-founder of The LatiNegr@s Project, and co-director of the film BLACK PERVERT.

Currently residing in New York City, Bianca lives in the Bronx and provides consultation, capacity building and training, and facilitation to organizations dedicated to helping youth reach their full potential. She enjoys live music and concerts, the independent movie scene, museums, a good flea market, traveling, reading, dancing to dope beats, the beach, and is a fierce karaoke performer.

Bianca has published one book and several articles. She has presented both locally and internationally on various topics concerning activism, Latin@ sexual health, feminisms, youth and Hip-Hop culture, Latin@s and race, curriculum development, and teaching. An award-winning sexologist, Bianca was awarded the 2010 Mujeres Destacadas Award by El Diario/La Prensa for her work in sexuality and Latin@ communities. Bianca is an instructor at a private college, a freelance writer, abortion doula, and radical educator.

June 22: Jaclyn Friedman on Yes Means Yes Anti-Rape Culture, How to Achieve Sexual Subjectivity, and Feminist Sex Education

Jun 192012
 

This week on Sex Out Loud we will be LIVE for the very first time, talking with author and activist Jaclyn Friedman. We want you to join in the conversation, so we’ll be hearing from listeners while on the air.  Call in & talk to us at 866-472-5788.

Writer, editor, performer, and activist Jacyln Friedman has been instrumental in presenting new ways of thinking about preventing rape without shaming or blaming women. In our first live show, we’ll discuss with her the success of her book, Yes Means Yes, as well as her latest release, What You Really Really Want. Jaclyn will talk about discovering what safe and shame-free sex means to us both as individuals and as a society, including stories of her own journey through feminist sex education to become “this generation’s version of Dr. Ruth.”

Jaclyn Friedman is a feminist evangelist, and the editor of the hit book Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (one of Publishers’ Weekly’s Top 100 Books of 2009, and #11 on Ms. Magazine’s Top 100 Feminist Nonfiction of All Time list). Her new book, What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex & Safety, was recently named a finalist for ForeWord’s Book of the Year Award in Women’s Issues. Friedman is a popular speaker on campuses and at conferences across the U.S. and beyond. She has appeared on radio and TV including on the BBC’s World Have Your Say, Democracy Now, Q, and To The Contrary, and her commentary has appeared in outlets including CNN, The Washington Post, and The Nation. Friedman is the Executive Director of Women, Action & the Media, a national organization working for gender justice in media. She is also a charter member of CounterQuo, a coalition dedicated to challenging the ways we respond to sexual violence.

Generative Somatics: Somatic Transformation and Social Justice

Jan 262012
 

generative somatics has their new schedule of classes and intensives for 2012 up at the newly revamped site.  They offer a year-long training for politicized healers and practitioners, as well as stand alone 4 day intensives geared towards organizers, activists, and movement builders who want to get exposed to this transformative work. What exactly is Somatics? Here’s an excerpt from their FAQ:

Somatics is a path, a methodology, a change theory, by which we can embody transformation, individually and collectively. Embodied transformation is foundational change that shows in our actions, ways of being, relating, and perceiving. It is transformation that sustains over time. Somatics pragmatically supports our values and actions becoming aligned. It helps us to develop depth and the capacity to feel ourselves, each other and life around us. Somatics builds in us the ability to act from strategy and empathy, and teaches us to be able to assess conditions and “what is” clearly. Somatics is a practice-able theory of change that can move us toward individual, community and collective liberation. Somatics works through the body, engaging us in our thinking, emotions, commitments, vision and action.

You’ll find course descriptions, gs papers and theory, movement partners and more at their website, including applications and registration for their programs. Go check it out and spread the word to other people you know who would benefit.