Hello Friends of Effing,
Our favorite time of year is here. The air is getting crisp, it’s the season for getting cozy, and best of all – our group of Effing Foundation grantees is growing!
We’re excited to be funding these 20 projects for 2020:
1. 24-Hour Sex Advice-a-Thon, by Francisco Ramirez (he/they; NYC)
Interactive sex advice marathons, hosted by a number of diverse sexuality educators. Think: a one-of-a-kind, up-all-night slumber party with your best new friends!
2. Ask A Sex Worker
An interactive art installation at Nude Night in Orlando and Tampa, produced by SWOP Behind Bars. Sex workers from different segments of the industry will sit at red neon outlined windows, where attendees can ask direct questions about their experiences.
3. The Black Trans Prayer Book, co-edited by J Mase III (he/him; Seattle, WA) and Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi (she/her; Washington, DC)
The #BlackTransPrayerBook is an interfaith, multi-dimensional, artistic and theological work that collects the stories, poems, prayers, meditations, and incantations of Black trans and gender non-conforming contributors.
4. Project Blackbird’s #ConsentConscious, by Candace Liger (she/they; Greensboro, NC)
#ConsentConscious hosts healing practice spaces that explore consent, to develop and explore pleasure access points using BDSM/Kink philosophies such as Risk Aware Informed Kink (RACK), and Personal Responsibility Informed Consensual Kink (PRICK).
5. The Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause (Durham, NC)
A multi-media dialogue project seeking to curate and share the experiences, stories, and realities of Black women and femmes over 50. Part of Decolonizing the Crone, this project is a space for exploration, mentorship, intimacy and vulnerability around life, identity and change.
6. Domina Jia, by JinHee Kwak (they/them; Brooklyn, NY)
A series of embroidery and needle-felted works that display iconography for sex workers rights, such as quotes from the The International Whores Day Protest Signs. The art exhibition will include workshops centered around consent and kink practices, led by sex workers of color.
7. Dreaming Out Loud, by Ramses Rodriguez (he/they; San Francisco)
A short film capturing the world of a young Latina catholic girl rockera as she comes to terms with her gender, sexuality, mental health, and spirituality while growing up in Long Beach in the ’90s. A fictionalized memoir, it centers the perspective of a trans person of color.
8. For Hire Enterprises, founded by Kevin A. Patterson (he/him) and Alana Phelan (she/her; Philadelphia)
Two books about polyamorous relationships. The first offers education about common mistakes like unicorn hunting and how to address them through research, communication, and emotional literacy. The second is an anthology of feel-good relationship stories that could only exist in a polyam context.
9. Free Figure Revolution (Atlanta, GA)
The "Queer Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Survey" addresses the lack of representation, nuance, and information on the depths of domestic violence and sexual assault within the gender, sexuality, and race spectrum.
10. Honey and Hot Wax: An Anthology of Erotic Art Games, co-edited by Sharang Biswas (he/him) and Lucian Kahn (he/him; NYC)
An anthology of sex-themed roleplaying and performance-based games, featuring work by RPG designers, LARP writers, and artists. To be published by Pelgrane Press in 2020.
11. Hot Takes Erotic Media Cooperative (Seattle, WA; Hawaii)
Erotic art, news and educational material, created and led by LGBTQIA sex workers. Hot Takes' work includes documenting the intersection of human sexuality and politics, creating custom erotic art, and developing sex-positive content for public access television and YouTube.
12. More Than No, founded by Bitsy LaBurbon (she/her; LA)
Outreach group that offers educational workshops, retreats, peer support groups for survivors and allies. More Than No also produces "Cabaret Con-Sensual" to provide survivors a space to express themselves through the performing arts.
13. My Black (GR)ACE, by Grace B. Freedom (she/they; San Jose)
Bringing visibility to the Black gray/demisexual (ace) experience through the creation of written works that describe personal experiences in centering Black joy, Black pleasure and Black rest.
14. Native Youth Sexual Health Network (US and Canada)
NYSHN is a grassroots, Indigenous-led community organization to support the sexual health of Indigenous people, including Two Spirit and LGBTQIA individuals.
15. Radical Visibility Zine, by Sky Cubacub (they/them; Chicago)
A celebratory resistance, highlighting the parts of us that society typically shuns, The Radical Visibility Zine challenges mainstream beauty standards through centering queer and disabled people of all sizes, ethnicities and ages.
16. Scumtrust Productions (Seattle, WA)
Scumtrust Productions is a collective working to shift the gaze of porn away from hetero-patriarchal norms. They build equitable practices in all stages of film production, and center trans, queer, disabled, Indigenous, Black and POC (people of color) creators.
17. Sean Saifa Wall (he/him; Atlanta, GA) & Riva Lehrer (she/her; Chicago)
A nude painting of Sean Saifa Wall that will return the gaze to a Black intersex body in an empowering way, as the only representation of a Black intersex person to date was by Dr. Jonathan Neill at the University of Pennsylvania in 1831.
18. Sylvia Rivera Center for Social Justice (Reno, NV)
The Sylvia Rivera Center for Social Justice is committed to providing advocacy, outreach, education, mental health, and other services rooted in social justice, to underserved and marginalized communities, with a specialization in LGBTQ+ communities of color.
19. torrin a. greathouse (she/they; Minneapolis, MN)
A forthcoming full-length poetry collection focused on the sex-positive exploration of the politics of desire and desirability, through the lens of a genderqueer trans womxn and cripple-punk.
20. Very INTEResting with Hans Lindahl (she/they; San Francisco)
Video series focused on intersex joy. Very INTEResting shows intersex people talking to each other about dating, sex, friendship, and reclaiming sexuality after medical control.
As you can see, these Effing grantees are creating incredible sex-positive art and education!
Together they highlight marginalized perspectives, shift sexuality from white cisheteronormative narratives, and develop resources for people to explore pleasure in affirming ways.
You can help us fund a sex-positive future:
Contribute today through PayPal, or sign up to give once a month.
Donations go directly to the 2020 grantees and their endlessly impactful work. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to learn from these artists and educators. We’ll be sharing their thoughts on sex-positivity all throughout December.
Happy Holidays,
Dom & Kit
Dom Chatterjee, Communications Manager ([email protected])
and Kit Stubbs, Ph.D., Founder & Executive Director ([email protected])
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