I thought I had this all figured out actually but just to stay on brand I have been rethinking it. Initially when I spoke with Dan, the founder of Dad La Soul, we spoke about a continuation of the dad specific sex ed for parents for the session at the end of March. The session is online annoyingly but that does make it international which is good. I set to working on a sort of digital lesson format which I have used in the past for work ( teaching art online during the pandemic for example ) and adapting it to work as a visual for a virtual session centred around the topic of virginity. To also stay on brand I had a lot of trouble making something short and sweet enough for a 40 minute session with what, I have to presume based on previous experience, could be filled with dads that either say a lot or nothing at all.
As time went on I began to think about trying something much simpler and just having a few visual text based images with facts or stats or maybe questions about porn or virginity etc I started making a few. Since then I have thought more about leaving behind the broader subjects I have been traversing, such as sex ed and keep the focus on just trying to initiate conversations about porn, the consumption of it and it’s cultural legacy. One thing I haven’t confirmed with Dan, which is obviously important, whether he is ok with a gentle shift in this conversational topic but I will try and keep it very simple and if possible more balanced. A question I asked a lot of parents in the first series of workshop interventions was this concept I had about “Broccoli Porn” – the idea of choosing (what is termed for the sake of simplification) “organic” porn for our selves and our kids. We make choices, and often fiscal ones, in our lives to consume ethical healthy things in ethical healthy ways. We buy organic and choose vegan and feed the very best to kids (or ideally rather we do our best to) and when put to the parents in this context, a porn consumption one, they really did think about it from a new perspective. Is there a way to have healthy, ethical, dare I say feminist porn that teaches us unlimited consensual fun!? Obviously many ethical porn producers, performers and consumers would argue yes and there is much good debate about how to maintain this seemingly radical idea and keep it from being exploited also. I will talk a little, or rather ask questions in a hopefully visual and engaging way about what is good porn or bad porn? If either such a thing exists at all and hopefully something that can spark a debate about the ubiquitousness of the cultural after effect of a generation raised on porn. I’m just gonna try an have a gentle convo about porn and try not to scare them away is the objective!
The next thing that then needs consideration is how to try and record feedback for this intervention. In the past I have received considerably less feedback and in a slower rate from the male participants. Not that the feedback was all bad at all, it was mixed but overall positive, but I think it’s potentially a mix of gender stereotypes in action and also the fact that I am sometimes someone they know more socially as well. I want to talk to Dan about a way for the guys who participated to perhaps feed through him something more solid even if small and find a way to spoon-feed them a way to report back to me!
This also led me to putting post-its all over the wall with everything as I think it which is really helpful to refer back to and not lose ideas. I just haven’t had a wall to do it on so usually it goes in a book or your phone and you just have desperate notes everywhere.