All members of the Melbourne BDSM community are welcome to attend, as many of the issues up for discussion are relevant across the board. Many people in our community have been directly and indirectly been affected by recent events. This meeting and workshop is hoped to be a way forward for some healing.

Facilitating this meeting and workshop will be Sarah Ashton. Sarah has been practising as a kink-friendly psychologist for over 8 years. She provides psychological treatment for all things sex related and has worked with people who have committed sexual offences, people who have experienced and survived sexual assault, and people seeking satisfying sexual experiences. Sarah is researching women’s experience pornography and is passionate about promoting public discussion around consent and pleasure in the digital age.

Here is a proposed outline for the meeting and workshop:

First hour: Presentation
• Statistics on the sexual assault
• Impact on victim/survivor – trauma response (and how this looks different for everyone)
• Barriers to survivor/victim reporting (psychological, social and legal)
• How and why does sexual assault occur? (Including social camouflaging and ways in assault takes place)
• Negotiating consent in a kink context – more than just safe words; consensual ‘non-consent’
• How can a community support consenting, fun, safe, sexy, experiences?

Second hour: Facilitated group discussion
• Members of the community have the opportunity to discuss points made in the presentation and challenge each other in a supportive environment
• Group discussions to illustrate complexities of consent

Third hour: Facilitated community plan
• Members of the community have the opportunity to raise issues, opinions and have their voice heard
• Members of the community brainstorm a plan to promote consent practices within the community to: prevent sexual assault/ consent violations; plan how to respond to sexual assault to minimise harm; and any other topics they deem important.

Finally here is a link to the GoFund Me page for those wishing to contribute to the costs of Sarah Ashton’s fees and venue hire.

For transparency I can state that Sarah Ashton’s quote is:
5 hours preparation x $165 per hour = $825
3 hours workshop weekend rate x $330 per hour = $990
Total cost = $1815

The venue hire fee will be approximately $200.

Location: Inner city – TBA

Time: Three hours in the afternoon – confirmation coming soon.

Cost: Free

Dresscode: General Day Wear