My Sex Geek Tour of the US

Posted by on October 2, 2012 in Community, LA, Sex Geekdom, Updates | 0 comments

When living far away from friends and family (as I do), you often feel the need to pack as much as possible into a trip back home. I recently got back to Australia from a six-week trip to the US, and as I’ve been unpacking and going through my digital photos, I’ve been reflecting on the experiences I had during my recent travels.

My trip can be summed up as follows: twelve airplanes, six states, two weddings, and a great abundance of sex geekery.

LA Sex Geeks

At the beginning of my trip, I got to meet with the articulate and stimulating sex geeks at the inaugural Sex Geekdom LA. We shared sex ed stories, laughed at sex puns, and made plans for future meetups. They’ve had another meet since then and are planning another on November 2nd. It totally rocks my world that there are Sex Geekdoms on two continents now!

After my visit to California, I went to visit a friend in Chicago who I’d originally met through University of Melbourne’s School of Population Health. She and her family had gone on a sabbatical of sorts to Australia for six months (where I met her), then returned to the US. She’s on the board of an organization called Peer Health Exchange, who provide peer education-based health education (including sex ed) to secondary schools in a number of US cities. I always love a good geek-out about the awesomeness of peer ed and it was great fun to see my friend on another continent.

Kate and Debby in Bloomington

I also had the pleasure of visiting my boss at mysexprofessor.com, Debby Herbenick, in Bloomington, Indiana. I’ve been working for Debby for over two years and we’d never met in person until now! I also got to meet fellow MSP blogger Jeana Jorgensen (@foxyfolklorist) and a number of other inspiring sexuality researchers. Despite it’s small size, Bloomington is like sex geek mecca. It’s the home of the Kinsey Institute and the Center for Sexual Health Promotion and it seemed like everywhere I went, people were having interesting sex-related conversations. Even in the ground floor of my hotel, a group of students were pasting condoms onto a poster for a student event. Such a fun place to visit!

All in all, it was a very satisfying trip. Seeing firsthand the wonderful work people are doing in sexuality and sexual health is not only motivating, but also makes my world feel like a cozier place.