Sad to see it end

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Gillian

11334124_10153458099148706_6393479420544339231_oThe Green Sex Festival was a success!! We had approximately 100 attendees throughout the course of both day and night activities, contributing to a wonderful atmosphere that fostered a place of shared learning, inspiration and dialogue on all things green sex! Following a day of workshops and lectures, complimented with book tables and fika in between, we finished with an informative panel discussion covering topics such as non-hormonal contraception methods and the lack of standards in the sex toy industry.

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During the festival we ran a hashtag competition, boosting social media exposure as well as encouraging participation among attendees:

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The Sexperts are extremely happy with how things turned out and we're very proud of what we have achieved this semester.

For those Swedish speakers among us, check out the interview conducted just prior to the festival with Kondoma Mera!'s Anneli, and our very own Green Sexpert Fanny!

http://www.svt.se/nyheter/regionalt/uppsala/gron-erotikmassa-lar-ut-miljovanligt-sex

Due to the interested generated on the day, there are plans for the Green Sex Festival to continue in 2016, to be hosted by Kondoma Mera! We hope that future students get involved and make the festival an annual Uppsala tradition!

The week following the festival, we also took part in the fair at the CEMUS Sustainability Festival held in Blåsenhus. This gave us a further opportunity to promote our work and further entrench interest for a 2.0 festival next year.

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Bye for now,

The Green Sexperts!

 

Green Sex Festival

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Gillian

The topic of sexuality and sustainable sex is not part of the common discourse in issues of sustainable development. We, the Green Sexperts, therefore identified this topic as an opportunity to reframe the discussion on sustainability that engages people in a novel way, and offers a new approach to sustainable consumerism and behaviour. In order to engage people in this new dialogue, we decided to hold a "Green Sex Festival"!

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The festival aims to target people when they are most human, vulnerable and happy. It aims to engage people in conversations surrounding unsustainable actions, attitudes and consumerism concerning sex, and to provide more sustainable options through discussion and education.

Our objectives at the beginning of our planning phase included to:

  1. Host education workshops/lectures at the festival, centring on health, safety and consent in order to address issues of safe sex and sustainable actions and behaviour.
  2. Host a product fair focusing on sustainably manufactured products (lubricants, condoms, toys) in order to address issues of sustainable conscious consumerism. This represents a crucial objective in order to carry out the Green Sex Festival and will require the engagement of at least one manufacturer to be involved, or ideally sponsor, the festival.
  3. Host relevant performers and artists at the festival to explore the issues of sex and sustainability.
  4. Promote the event via social media in order to encourage attendees to the events and increase event awareness so as to achieve the minimum attendance number.

We began our implementation process by contacting multiple relevant stakeholders including educators, manufacturers, local business owners, professionals and lecturers. Through this process we found a collaborative partner in 456849_379355748755149_2009693572_o.

Our initial inspiration to focus on sustainable products stemmed from a promotion video by German company Einhorn Condoms:

However, our close collaboration with Kondoma Mera! has allowed us to expand on our focus on a product fair, resulting in a shift in prioritisation towards lectures, workshops and a panel discussion! While we still have representatives from manufacturers including RFSU and Tickler Vibes (hosting lectures and product stalls, and participating in our panel discussion), we have also engaged individuals from several other relevant disciplines including a green-minded midwife, a green politician and an environmental engineer among others.

We are now 6 days out from the festival....

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