Losing My Sex Geek Community

Posted by on February 5, 2014 in Blog, Sex Geekdom | 2 comments

I’ve been having Sex Geekdom withdrawals lately. Sometimes I wish there was a Sex Geek App. Kinda like a Grindr except instead of dick pics, we’d exchange reproductive rights memes.

ryan gosling

Swoon.

Last Friday, I forced unenthusiastic guests at after work drinks to talk about contraception. Which consisted of me espousing a love for Depo-Provera I never knew I had. “I’ve said it a million times: I’d ride the depo-train to menopause” and barking, “If I had a uterus, it would be Fort Knox. I’m talking IUD, diaphragms, chastity belts, the works” over and over. It wasn’t pretty.

On Sunday, I mentioned my newly imported terabyte of porn to a poor unsuspecting person. “Some people have drug mules, some ask love ones to smuggle in expensive cheese. I had one request: Porn and lots of it,” I announced before we had even been introduced.

I held up the line at the Shaggy concert cause I was too busy interrogating a medical student as to wether of not she felt her education prepared her to deal with the sexual health of her future clients. The answer was no, by the way, but that didn’t stop me launching into a fifteen minute tirade.

My point is without my fellow Sex Geeks, I’m going a little nutty. When you choose to ignore Mr. Lover Lover gyrating on stage, so that you can cross-examine a med student, something is not quite right. You’re forced to ask yourself, have I been marooned on a island devoid of sex geeks? That and how many gin and tonics is too many?

Wilson was a total sex geek.

Wilson was a total sex geek.

Before I arrived here in Honiara, I was given strict instructions not to talk about sex. I was told that abortion is probably referred to only as the “A word,” homosexuality didn’t exist and sex work outreach would be more about “saving lost souls” than preventing HIV, but I decided to pack my 7 inch red dildo anyway. The Solomon Islands deserved an entertaining condom demonstration. And yes, I rounded up – it’s more like six and a half.

Big Red making friends

Big Red making friends

I’ve since met dozens of Solomon Islander women who are deeply pragmatic about their family planning needs and happy to discuss the topic. Here, sexual innuendo and jokes are almost a national pastime. Also, the fact that I work in sexual and reproductive health was enough. At a family planning clinic, talking shop means talking sex. But now I’m in my third month and I’m starting to feel that something is missing: community.

You’ll find a couple of articles here on finding communityhow to start a sex geekdom meetup and even how Kate found her first sex geek community, but none on what it is like to lose one. As someone who came from Melbourne, the birthplace of Sex Geekdom, the promised land of football and ball jokes – it’s a big adjustment.

I miss having someone to bounce ideas off, or get excited about a new piece of information – “Did ya see Anti-HIV vaginal gels are in the news again?” It is unfair to say that the Solomon Islands doesn’t have its fair share of sex geeks – I just haven’t found them yet. Don’t worry, I’m going to put myself out there ’til I do. But in the meantime, you’ll probably be seeing more of me online and here at Sex Geekdom, cause when you can’t get it IRL why not get some online? #terabyte

Anyone else out there still waiting to find their community or just lost one?