The Festival of Consent that's just the opposite.

[JustTurtlesAllTheWayDown]

This was shared in a particularly woke group I'm in.

Attendees will be treated to a show about 'bad boundaries', another that will 'rub up against your boundaries and invite you to say yes', and one whose premise ends with 'Why the hell is she naked in this room full of strangers?'

It appears to be be run by someone who had a good old rant on Womens Day about mean feminists, complaining that feminist rhetoric "makes feminism about rescuing people with vaginas from a perceived threat posed by people with penises"

I'm just gobsmacked tbh. There's blatant and then there's this.

irregulararts.com/irregularities/reflections-on-international-womens-day-2019/

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/festival-of-consent-international-day-of-consent-idoconsent-tickets-75280966397

Leeds. Why am I not surprised.

Guess if they’d been truthful with the title, it might attract the attention of the wrong people. Though they appear to have accidentally been noticed by a Mumsnetter!

I've had a look and some of the other things they've run do appear to talk about consent, however this makes me wonder what they actually covered.
It seems that they've had £14k of Arts Council funding to run events on bad boundaries consent.

International Day of Saying No to Men

Useful practice for women.

The problem that I have with feminist rhetoric that excludes trans women and shames sex workers is that it makes feminism about rescuing people with vaginas from a perceived threat posed by people with penises. This reductive predator versus prey paradigm underpins so many problematic and insidious beliefs, and it must be challenged. I’m not suggesting for one second that we haven’t constructed a binary imbalance, a power structure that puts men in power and makes women victims – we have. But that structure damages and limits people of all genders – and it’s not the natural order. And even if it was the natural order, we’re more than capable of behaving in ways that aren’t ‘natural’ – we’re not exactly hunter-gatherers these days!

Weird how she thinks naming the problem of men raping women and girls is somehow creating the structure as if it's feminists who turn men into rapists. It's like the Victorian injunction that if we don't talk about it then these things haven't happened.

Weird how she thinks naming the problem of men raping women and girls is somehow creating the structure as if it's feminists who turn men into rapists. It's like the Victorian injunction that if we don't talk about it then these things haven't happened.

Looks a lot like Queer Theory once again.

What a load of wankpiffle it is.

even if it was the natural order, we’re more than capable of behaving in ways that aren’t ‘natural’

Maybe she should lecture blokes who, nevertheless, commit acts of violence?
Seems to have a bit of a problem with cause and effect, doesn't she?

We are indeed capable of behaving in ways that aren't 'natural'. Men are quite capable of controlling their sexual 'instincts' and leaving women alone when they say 'no'.

Which just goes to show that men who violate women's boundaries whether via rape or via less violent behaviours such as barging into women's spaces are doing so not because they can't help themselves but because they choose to behave in a manner that is dangerous to women. Knowingly. Deliberately.

It really is magical thinking isn't it? If we just reframe the problem it won't exist.

I don't know wtf "hand made sex positive queer goods" are

"Jenny" - author of the blog, creator of the event, appears to be a trans women or drag queen, I'm not sure which from her fb event photos. Her show in ther evening is delightful;

There will be songs, audience participation, and stories gathered from sex workers, dentists, queer communities, activists, parents, kinksters, schoolteachers, swingers and people who identify as all-of-the-above. What will you consent to?

The only thing I would stand up foe is the Smut slam - if it's like the one I went to it's well held storytelling of real life consensual sex. Not everybody's cup of tea but in no way problematic, and quite sweet and lovely humanising tales.

Of course it's in Leeds.

There will be songs, audience participation, and stories gathered from sex workers, dentists, queer communities, activists, parents, kinksters, schoolteachers, swingers and people who identify as all-of-the-above. What will you consent to?

Sounds like Butlins for kinksters. I'm cringing in sympathy from all the way over in...well, definitely not Leeds. Will the dentist be performing this, or would that display too much of a sense of humor?

Interesting variety on that list.

Why dentists in particular?

It reminds me of something Jess would be involved in.

Dentists

Open wide, this won't hurt.

Dentists of Leeds need to rise up against this slur on their behavior.

tragic what some people will do to feel relevent.

as the straw man says, if only they had a brain...

they could come up with something which actually IS relevent.

Real-life, first-person sex stories and a sing along?

"Jenny" - author of the blog, creator of the event, appears to be a trans women or drag queen

Jenny is a woman & I believe one of the founding members of Shipley Feminist Zealots which came about in order to challenge Philip Davies and his misogynistic views.

Jenny seems to be very well connected. Lots of access to the public purse:

irregulararts.com/consultancy/jenny-wilsonconsulting/

What is your definition of woman, Iamanaubergine?

Whatever Philip Davies's faults, he hasn't drunk the kool aid (unlike the Shipley Feminist Zealots) and has serious concerns about the trans ideology.

Sounds like a lot of navel gazing.

inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/polyamory-open-relationships-marriage-jealousy-partner-504124

loveoffscript.co.uk/about/

I have no issue with consent workshops or shows about sex, or having fun with a bit of smut if that's what it is openly and honestly about, but this is not it.
This is reframing consent about having 'bad boundaries' instead of respecting boundaries whatever they are.
And to call an event supposedly about consent 'sex positive' when this is a term sometimes used to shame women who say no, is utterly disgusting.
This isn't an event about respecting consent. It's one about overriding it in an acceptably woke fashion.
I cannot believe that anyone who is genuinely wanting to support people understand consent would advertise a show as 'rubbing up against your boundaries'.
This is hiding in plain sight rape culture bullshit and should not be getting public funding.