It’s May, and for this month’s newsletter, the Effing Foundation and our collaborators are centered on innovating important conversations about sex-positivity. 

When speaking about sex-positivity, how we communicate is imperative to what we do. Communication is how we express our needs and desires. It’s also how we create an affirmative culture of consent for sex-positive communities, spaces and relationships. 

Playing with Eros 

Effing grantees Sharang Biswas and Lucian Kahn included a chapter on calibration, consent and safety in their anthology Honey and Hot Wax: An Anthology of Erotic Art Games. The chapter, which was written by Maury Brown outlines the rules for creating the correct space for erotic roleplaying which is centered in safety, well established boundaries and the agency of each player. This chapter makes the case that consent, communication, calibration and checking in are necessary when creating an erotic roleplay space. Read more about these important principles here.

It’s spring, a time of growth, renewal, and looking forward to what the future holds. At the Effing Foundation, we’re looking forward to the return of our grant cycle and a renewed commitment to funding sex-positive arts and education projects.

This month, our newsletter is centered on sharing our plans for the coming grant cycle and all the ways the Effing community will help everyone to prepare throughout the summer. Read on to find out more about our largest grant cycle ever!

This March, at the Effing Foundation, we’re looking back over the last year, while planning for the exciting things the future holds. 

In March 2020, the world as we knew it changed, as COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, and the world shut down in response. As a result, the Effing Board of Directors decided to pause the 2020-2021 grant cycle and instead to focus on supporting past grant recipients. This was the right decision, although it was difficult. By not having a grant cycle last year, we at Effing felt that was the best way to hold space for the communities we serve. During the downtime, Effing's Board, Advisory Council members, staff and founder have worked behind the scenes to make the organization stronger than ever during this challenging time. 

The year 2020 was a historic one for Black people. The threat of the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in February, tragically affecting the Black community in disproportionate numbers. In May, the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police ignited a social movement that hasn’t been seen in the U.S. since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s. Passionately, definitely, proudly, millions of Black people (and their allies) declared that Black Lives Matter. 

The movement of 2020 has carried into this Black History Month in 2021. Black Lives Still Matter. Black bodies, minds and hearts matter. Black sexuality and pleasure matter. The Effing Foundation has worked since its inception to center Black sexuality by supporting the amazing art and education projects that are created by BIPOC. In honor of Black History Month, the Effing Foundation centers and celebrates Black excellence by focusing on some of the artists and educators we’ve had the honor of working with. 

Hello, everyone, and welcome to 2021!

This month we're excited to share with you the My Black (Gr)Ace series, published on The Body Is Not An Apology, written by Grace B. Freedom with support from the Effing Foundation!

To our fabulous Effing supporters,

Thank you for sticking with us in what has been a monumentally challenging year! For this last newsletter of 2020, we'd like to ask you to make a donation to support the Foundation as we prepare for the 2021 grant cycle.

Happy October, everyone!

From left: J Mase III (he) and Wendy Phillips (she) join the Effing Advisory Council!

TLDR for this month:

• Welcoming J Mase III & Wendy Phillips to our Advisory Council
• We'll be at PolyDallas Millennium Nov 6-8
• The HEAL Project: getting real + a $5k fundraiser
• Level Ground's SKEW Magazine curated by a team which includes our grantee Lola Rose Eros & Effing Board member Leslie Foster
• Strange Lusts / Strange Loves erotic interactive fiction anthology the spiritual successor to Effing-funded Honey & Hot Wax
• It's almost time for end-of-year giving!?

This month, we've got a grantee book publication to share, and we want to officially introduce you to The HEAL Project, an amazing org the Foundation started working with this past fall.

Image: Marsha P. Johnson handing out flyers at NYU

Pride is a Black-Led Protest

This June, we’re looking back on the legacy of Pride. It began in the late 1960s, when LGBTQ2SIA+ community started pushing back against police-led oppression.

The uprising at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco kicked off when a trans woman resisted arrest by throwing coffee on a cop, as recounted in the documentary Screaming Queens. Three years later, The Stonewall Riots continued the fight thanks to leaders like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera.

Ever since, the Pride movement has continued as protests, demonstrations, and community-led events that center the human rights of all trans, queer, bisexual, gay, lesbian, intersex, two-spirit, asexual, and gender-variant people worldwide.

All Black Lives Matter: This includes queer Black people, trans Black people, disabled Black people, Black sex workers, and particularly Black people who live at the intersection of these and other marginalized identities.

The Effing Foundation for Sex-Positivity supports efforts to demilitarize, defund, and dismantle the US police system. We offer full solidarity with the Black community and recognize that dismantling systemic and institutional racism is necessary to affirm the fundamental human rights of Black people.

Hello Friends of Effing,

Sending wishes for health, wellness, and solidarity to all of you as we continue to collectively struggle with the impact of COVID-19. 

Given the toll this has taken on our broader sex-positive community, our Board has agreed that the best thing The Effing Foundation can do is shift our funding opportunities to 2021, rather than open applications in the fall.

The Foundation will continue to provide financial support for our 2020 grantees and deliver resources to you on social media, including regular features from our whole community of 37 sex-positive educators and artists. Much of this work is done by Dom (our Communications Manager) and Li (our Administrator), and we're working to continue to provide them with much-needed income as well.