Sex Camp – Part 3

Day 2, Sunday, the final frontier. To be honest, I woke up on Sunday missing the shit out of my partner and I really just wanted to go home. I rugged up in a blanket, grabbed my towel and toiletries and headed for the showers. It was exactly what I needed, a long, hot shower and just some time inside my head and away from other people.

(I should add to this write up, that both Saturday and Sunday of Sex Camp were 8am starts, so I was out of bed before 7:30am both days. I usually get up some time after 8am to go to work, I mean, it was okay, but I have been feeling pretty damn tired all week post-camp.)

Brekkie was once again stunning, I grabbed a serve and headed over to my friends in the meals tent, then I found out there was BACON. The decent sized serving of pork shaped goodness along with my veggie fare perked me right up and brought a smile to my face.

My first workshop for the day was directly after breakfast, it was called ‘Healing Sexuality’ and I wasn’t too sure exactly what it would entail. I attended to try to gain some insight and move past my aversion to touch. When I say that, I mean I do not wish to be touched by strangers, in any way and I am extremely guarded with my personal space in general of late. I have an extremely visceral reaction if a breach of that space is made. I never used to be this way. I am certainly not this way with people I am close to, although at times I will go to some lengths to avoid being touched in general. I’m not sure when it started, but it seems to come and go… I used to want to literally hug the world and was open to all kinds of encounters, but something has fundamentally changed and it often makes me feel quite unhappy to be so ‘closed’.

The workshop was brilliant, it was run by the woman who was manning the Women’s Tent the previous day when I was feeling anxious and had been really fantastic and grounded towards me. Super calm too. The best thing for anxiety is a calm quiet person who doesn’t expect anything of you.

We all sat in a huge circle and so many people voiced their own painful experiences, from psychological elements of damaged sexuality, through to many people present standing up and voicing that they had genital herpes. I saw so much courage in the people around me, so many different stories and it was really eye opening to the stigma of STIs and STDs.

I then went and grabbed some lunch, caught up with the folks I knew and decided to skip the next workshop and pack up my belongings so I could leave directly after the final workshop of the day. Thankfully the initial ‘you cannot leave sex camp until the closing ceremony’ BS had been adjusted, you could leave anytime after lunch. I was fairly annoyed at how the leaving Sex Camp was handled, basically up until Sunday apparently if you wanted to leave you *had* to find one of two people and only then would permission to head off would be granted. We were told that organisers didn’t want it to be easy to leave. I was not and am still not cool with this, on any level, it made me feel extremely uncomfortable and once again a major issue very poorly and insensitively handled by organisers.

As far as I was concerned, anyone with a walkie talkie could radio and I would be leaving, if I needed to, thank you very fucking much. Yet again, another scenario that set me on guard.

I packed up my shit into my car, wrote some more and then read my book on space for a whiles. The final workshop I attended was run by a lovely and rather amazing lady I sort of know, but have definitely felt much admiration for. It was called ‘Genital Show and Tell’ and was a women only space. The first half of the workshop was watching Betty Dodson’s film ‘Body Sex’ which has kind of changed my life, but that is a story for another day. The film being shown was impromptu, but actually created the perfect setting as it gave an idea of what the workshop was trying to achieve.

For the demonstrative part of the workshop it was a small circle of women, varying ages and experiences. Basically, starting with the workshop presenter, we each showed our genitals in turn and pointed out various parts of ourselves with use of a hand mirror. It was possibly the most confronting, bonding, amazing, beautiful and full on thing I have ever done in my life. One woman had given birth to 5 children before realising she was gay! On her last child she tore a little and chose not to have stitches, you could see where the tears had healed. So many incredible stories and experiences of owning a vulva, yoni, pussy and all the different, winding journeys toward orgasm, love and self acceptance.

I left this workshop absolutely exhilarated. A perfect note to end Sex Camp on.

I said goodbye to my friends, jumped in my car and headed home to my much missed partner.

Right now I am still reflecting on my experiences from Sex Camp… There were so many positives and negatives, it has been difficult to weigh up my opinion overall. I have read so many glowing blog entries from other attendees and wonder if I just too critical, although I think for a $350 ticket to ride, I definitely expected much more and certainly far, far better organisational efforts. As someone that puts of their own events I know almost exactly what goes into such a weekend and how much easier having a budget makes that process.

There is a part of me that wants to speak and run a workshop at the next Camp. There is a part of me that wants to put on my own multi-day, sex-postive space for learning and development. And there is a part of me that thinks I would be better to explore areas of sexuality that interest me much more intensively, than a weekend of bits of this and that…

It has really taken me this entire week to recover, so to speak. Although it feels good to have my experience and thoughts, thus far, written down. For now.

I am sure I will have more to say about Camp in the future, for now I think I need to continue to digest everything.

Sex Camp – Part 2

All the meals were incredible! A vegetarian catering crew had been hired and they just totally rocked. Such. Good. Food. Brekkie in the morning was great, good fuel for the day ahead. I skipped the first workshop of the day on Saturday and went to chill, also ended up writing for a couple of hours, I was still processing everything from the previous evening and didn’t feel strongly about either of the workshops.

My first workshop was ‘Sex after Childbirth’ which was a very small, intimate group and a very informative space. I want to be a sex postive mum and also try to maintain the best possible sexual connection that I can have with my partner throughout my pregnancy, when I do actually enter that phase in my life. Such great advice, the crux of which was essentially that child birth is a rebirth – I will change when I become a mum and thus the sex I will want to have will change, as will my body and that’s okay. Very affirming and lovely and gentle.

It was then time for lunch and I was able to hang out with my peeps and decompress. Once again, very tasty noms were had.

The next workshop I went to was ‘Spanking, Breath and Ecstatic Trance’ with the most amazing dom. The theory and demonstration was brilliant, she had a model and also demonstrated negotiating the play as well. During visualisation of being spanked and also spanking I immediately pictured my partner and had an immediate genital response. Intense! I also didn’t want to play with anyone but him when it came to possibly putting theory into practise towards the end. Everyone started partnering off, I didn’t want someone trying to partner up with me and panicked slightly. I made a hasty exit and headed to the womens tent.

Womens tent totally saved my ass. I was pretty anxious and feeling a little overwhelmed, but it was so tranquil and lovely I very quickly calmed down and allowed myself to warm by the fire. I spoke to the lovely woman there, soon after one of my lady friends came to the tent too, she had began to feel overwhelmed also. We had an interesting conversation about anxiety and feeling uptight in general, I began to realise more and more this weekend how much the idea of being touched by anyone but my closest is not okay. I am not really 100% sure of where this aversion came from but it is a very strong visceral reaction…

There was a break and then we went into the ‘Female Ejaculation’ workshop run by the awesome C and G. ZOMG. Stand out workshop of the weekend. Straight forward, frank and so much information and science. Love it. G gave so much anecdotal information from her own experiences and C followed it up with the science and anatomy. I saw the most detailed slides of the female genitals and reproductive system that I have EVER seen. This theory, information and diagrams was followed by C demonstrating helping G to ejaculate. I know G and she asked us, her friends, to form a bit of a protective ring around the massage table.

Goddamn, it was SO intense. I was clenching, squirming and massaging the back of my own neck. G was able to ejaculate twice and it was incredibly beautiful and humbling to have her share herself in such an intimate way. That lady has mega balls, I tells ya. Afterwards I was in a daze, I was sharing her afterglow and it felt like I’d just had an orgasm myself.

We trundled off to dinner, ate our food and dissected our day and experiences to one another. Some of my friends got themselves jazzed up in outfits and we went to check out the performances. The first performance I caught was brilliant, the second was a spoken piece that had *zero* trigger warning and the presenter merely said ‘okay folks, it’s going to get a little bit darker in here’. Basically it was the presenter from one of the days earlier workshops ‘Speaking Sex’ and she was detailing, rather artfully, a date rape experience. I don’t often think about the sexual assault I experienced but the words leaving this womans mouth nearly exactly mirrored what happened to me.

I froze. I couldn’t breathe.

Thankfully the amazing friend next to me immediately noticed and asked if I was okay. I said no and got up and stumbled out of the tent, got my shoes on as fast as I could, she followed and we went up to my dorm and sat in front of the fire while I decompressed. I was pretty pissed off at this point, it’s not hard to let people know a performance maybe triggering for them. Also I think some people may have been at Sex Camp to help themselves heal from sexual trauma and such a performance, without warning, was extremely insensitive.

Eventually our other friends found us, they were worried but immediately understood when I explained. I had righted myself by then, so we also donned fabulous attire and headed to the silent disco. I wore my white elvis jumpsuit and danced my arse off. One of my friends A, borrowed my sailor outfit, W was totally suited up and J looked so super cute and fabulous.

We had a massive, trashy boogie. It was SO much fun and an amazing release. Except for the bit where the guy in his lame elvis suit tried to get way too friendly. I said pretty much told him to step off in front of a bunch of people and he went away. My favourite bits about the disco were the teeny little laser in the corner of the room, taking my headphones off and listening to people sing along to different songs with abandon and us going outside to dance in the cold air, the disco was like a sauna and we chattered, laughed and just carried on, it was ace.

Once fully worn out we went back up to my dorm, G, C and many other lovely peeps were hanging out there, we chatted some more, ate snacks and got dozy by the fire. I said goodnight to folks, they headed to their tents and I to my room. There were muffled moans and groans until I fell asleep, some folks were putting their days learnings into practise.

I on the other hand read my book on space by torchlight, I was sleepy but needed to wind down. As I snuggled down into the blankets I wondered what the following day would bring… Everything I had experienced thus far had been huge.

Sex Camp – Part 1

Everything started off rather shakey to be honest. I finished work at 4pm-ish. I raced home as quickly as I could, the front gates to sex camp lock at 7pm and I had an hour drive, possibly more in peak hour, ahead of me. Once home I put everything I had packed the previous evening into the backseat of my car, plus grabbed a few additional items I realised I had forgotten during the day. I flung my clothes off, jumped in the shower, gave myself the quickest scrub in the world, dried myself off and leapt into new clothes.

I had to stop at the chemist and supermarket on my way and in the end I got myself to Yarra Junction no problems, but then managed to get lost on the last road. I frantically called Ash and he directed me to the very last turn off that I had missed.

(Right now I am sitting in a general area in the dorms and there is 1 guy here with me and his music SO loud I can hear outside his headphones. To add to the enjoyment of hearing someone elses muffled tunes, every now and then he sings along in this really low, deep whisper. It isn’t off putting at all, I swear)

So I get through the gates at like 4 minutes to 7pm, pretty stressed and honestly it was a total shambles. Organisationally things were pretty rubbish. The current volunteers were pretty concerned as they thought they currently had more people than dorm rooms. It’s 7pm, in Yarra Junction, it’s dark and it’s cold and muddy, plus I was immediately confronted with a ‘contract’ that you had to sign to enter sex camp. It came off very ‘you’re on your own now and have no legal recourse bitches’.

That piece of paper put me on gaurd from the get-go. I was 50/50 on whether I wanted to engage in any activity, scheduled or otherwise, that involved being touched. I’m kind of iffy about strangers putting their hands on me, in any context, at the best of times really. Although I did want to remain open to the possibility, but that contract told me NO, don’t do that, it isn’t safe.

It’s sort of a shame really, I do think the legality of Sex Camp could have been handled far, far better. I did not see nor know of the aforementioned contract until I arrived. I do not see how it’s fair to have your punters pay $200, $250 and right up to $350 and then present them with a contract, upon arrival, that you HAVE to sign or you cannot enter.

I was directed with my vehicle into the bottom carpark and told to go eat some dinner, then handle my room afterwards. If I had one, that is. Aforementioned carpark was practically a mudpit. I have taken issue at several doofs when organisers put punters into a position where they will need assistance to remove their cars back out, should it rain anymore. Honestly it may not even need to rain further for help to be needed… Thankfully after dinner and the open ceremony I had an opprotunity to GTFO of there and park elsewhere. Thank Babs.

(Seriously, this guy is now sort of moan-breathing now. I am tempted to ask if he is asthmatic and if he needs medicine)

Dinner was lush, the wait in the queue wasn’t long at all, kitchen crew were lovely and smiley. At this point I had not seen anyone I knew, at all. I knew folks were camped *somewhere* but I wasn’t sure where really. I had struck up a convo with an older couple at the front gate and was chatting to them in the dinner line, so it demonstrated that folks would hopefully be friendly enough. Soon after I spotted a lady I knew through doofing, so had a chat to her and sat down together to eat.

After a bit of a run around to go get the promo and give away material I had from my work, as we were sponsoring Sex Camp, I finally finished off my dinner and then one of the lovely ladies I know found me and I was amongst those I feel comfortable with. It was nice.

Dinner ran directly into the ‘opening ceremony’. It wasn’t terrifically ceremonial in my opinion, although I cannot claim to be an expert on such things. Most of what was being said was VERY spirituality based. I am down with crystals, meditation and a bit of healing and reiki etc. However I am not a super spiritual person and I was under the impression Sex Camp was not wholly spirituality focused. There were also some terrifically offensive gender based statements made regarding the womens and mens tents and so on. There was a big jumbled list of what to do and what not to do, mostly concerning toilets and facilities and so on.

(and someone just walked in and helped themself to my chocolate. Apparently sex camp is code for awesome manners)

There actually was a really lovely small ceremony bit, where we all lit candles one by one, via another persons flame and we set our intentions together. The glow of candles on 180 odd faces was incredibly beautiful and moving. We then had an opportunity to stretch our legs and chat to someone we didn’t get know. I was able to speak to the amazing Cyndi from Pleasure Salon, a quick but pretty excellent chat was had. I love Pleasure Salon and it was awesome to speak to the woman behind all it’s information and fabulousness.

Most of the rest of my evening was spent with a volunteer in pursuit of a room and bed. The space they thought was free wasn’t, but upon visiting another dorm I ended up with a bunkbed to myself. I reparked my car and then brought all my gear in by myself. By the time I had all my shit inside, my bed setup and things in some sembelence of order I was totally wrecked. So I crawled into my thermals and settled into my bed nest. 2 blankets, a sleeping bag and nice bedsheets for the win!!