Last week on Twitter I talked about the same thing so much I finally felt like I had to address it:
My tweets have been all about @PDXAcademyofSex lately, this week will bring a post about why.
— JoEllen Notte (@JoEllenNotte) June 21, 2014
I swear there are other pictures of this class… this is just the only one I have right now.
Why the fixation? Well, last week, a project that was born during a super-fun autumn lunch with Ducky Doolittle finally came to life- the Portland Academy of Sex Education had its first class! And what a class it was! So many amazing things happened all at once. The instructors Kate Kenfield and Louise Bouchier were incredible, the folks who helped me bring PASE to life- Catherine Victoria aka Queeraschino Cherry and Vicki Kriner, owner of Portland’s own Scarlet Girl —did a terrific job and made it all so much fun and, as if that wasn’t all enough, our first class was completely sold-out! Attendees included awesome sex educators like Queerie Bradshaw and Stella Harris and we learned that we have been blessed with a community that is super-excited to learn with us and support us. Seriously, one of the questions asked at the end of the class was “how can we support you?” (if you have been reading me you know about my crying thing and thus probably guessed that I got choked up just typing that) It was beyond my wildest expectations.
If you’ve been paying attention, you know that June is Adult Sex Ed Month and it was so exciting to see so many people who were as excited to learn about sex as we are to teach about it, it really reinforced my belief that adult sex education is not only valuable but also wanted. I have long struggled with calling myself an “educator” but bringing the Portland Academy to life and, now moving forward, planning the upcoming curriculum and getting excited to bring even more awesome sex ed to Portland, I feel like I’ve found my “educator” voice.
Big huge thank you to Lucky Bloke, Scarlet Girl and Njoy for sponsoring the Portland Academy of Sex’s first class, they enabled us to give each attendee a sexy gift and to send two lucky winners home with prizes!
Looks like a really fun class!