The scientific literature on kink sexuality has grown exponentially in the past ten years or so, but its beginnings go back to the late 1880s.  In this presentation we review the general history of the study of kink, with some special attention paid to psychiatry and the formulation of sadism, masochism, and fetishism as mental disorders in the American psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  The current state of the field will be discussed and some sketches of future directions of growth for the field will be explored.

Lucie Fielding is the author of TransHealth (2021) and is an important voice in the role of sexual embodiment. In this activity-rich workshop, we will explore some of the “wordless stories” (Menakem, 2017) we embody about eroticism, sex, gender, and pleasure. Leave the workshop with tools to help clients tap into these wordless stories, engage with intergenerational wisdom, and seek out embodied ecstasy that shatters—and moves beyond—binaries.

As therapy with kink individuals emerges as a distinct practice, in what ways is this different from the emergence of LGBT therapy in the 1970’s and 80’s. What’s changed and what has not? In your experience, what strategy or action have you found to be most effective in signalling to a client that you are kink-affirming?

How much knowledge about kink does a therapist need to have, to do good work with kinky clients?

We ask three distinguished clinicians about their work and their viewpoints on a rapidly changing and growing field of clinical practice

Hear Dr. van Anders apply her trailblazing work to how people with diverse sexual identities, experiences, and existences can locate themselves within sexual configurations theory (SCT) and the concept of “partner number sexualities.” Whether asexual, demisexual, polyamorous, monoamorous, and/or interested in various partner configurations for relationships and/or sexual/relational encounters, these theories make room for those with emerging identities, those who are post-identity or do not find identities that resonate.

Dr. Phillips will be sharing the gaps in the research literature as there is a need for research about the sexual expression within marginalized communities, partner communication among marginalized adults with physical disabilities, and using kink and BDSM to cope with chronic pain. His book, Chronic Illness and Sexuality: A Guide for Clinicians, which aims at helping clients overcome shame and the sexual limitations caused by illness and
gives strategies to create and reclaim a sex life that works will be published soon.  

Larger than life, phat as hell, whipsmart AND smart about whips, Mollena [aka “The Perverted Negress.” aaka “Mo” aaaka “Pony Oracle,” but that is a longer tail] is a performer, storyteller, BDSM/Kink/Leather/AlternativeLifestyle Educatrix, Executive Pervert, librettist and Muse. She is beloved by and in service to her “Spousemeister,” legendary contemporary music composer Georg Friedrich Haas.

Mollena is an outspoken footsoldier in the fight against bigotry and ignorance and a thought-leader in the world of Power Exchange dynamics. ANd hey, she’s been sober since 2007 and has a hard-on for living life fully and unabashedly.