We started off with bringing SlutWalk to Olympia... but some of the organizers were frustrated with the ways that the ideas around "slut"ness were applied against people of color, people with disabilities, people affected by poverty, people who are queer, and people whose genders do not conform to the binary.
So we thought we would do more work to reach out beyond simply "Slut." We talked it out and we believe that consent culture is one part of the solution that anyone can learn and participate in! So we began to develop a series of workshops from community members--workshops planned around the themes of sexual assault prevention, survivorship, consent culture, and sex positivism.
After all, only when one can say no can we truly say yes--and when we learn we can say yes enthusiastically, then communication and boundaries become clearer.
But we also realised that we couldn't just talk to ourselves about this issue--so it became important to us to provide a space where people who had made mistakes of sexual and relationship violence could gain skills intended to help them keep better boundaries. One organizer brought up the fact that people they knew that had made these mistakes were often survivors themselves--so it became very important to us to hold a supportive space for healing to take place.
But then we thought--this is a small town. What if survivors see their aggressors at this event? That would not be productive for either person, or for the event. And we reached out to PiPE to help us have a second space for the skill building workshops. And PiPE has asked us to let people know--this is NOT a space that provides therapy to sex offenders.
We also know that not everyone can pay a babysitter--so we reached out to the Olympia Childcare Collective to make sure parents who wanted to participate, could. We're excited they're participating, and hope you will, too!
