Sexcessories 101: an intro to kink gear & sex toys
Tuesday, December 5th, 5-7pm
Free & Open to all Hampshire College & 5-College Students
Workshop Description: Our formal, school-based sex education is lacking. But what about our sexual pleasure education? It’s practically non-existent. How do we learn to make ourselves and our partners feel
Hitting the Spot // Bennington College // March 2016
sexual pleasure? Often by accident, often by guess-and-check, and way-too-often in ways that are terribly misinformed by Google, social mores, and sweeping generalizations about what “everyone likes”.
This workshop will explore how we learn about pleasure by touching on some of our most pleasurable spots – the G-Spot, C-Spot (clitoris) and P-Spot (prostate) – complete with hands-on demonstrations with sex toy floor models (vibrators, dildos, anal toys, lube, etc).
This demonstrative workshop will also cover the essential basics of exploring kinky sex (topping, bottoming, ropes, cuffs, paddles, floggers, sensation play, and how to deliver the perfect spank!).
Going against the problematic version of BDSM portrayed in the blockbuster 50 Shades, this workshop will focus on safer kink practices including technique, consent, scene negotiation, and aftercare. Participants will leave feeling more confident in their kink practices with the tools and resources to bring kinky sex into their own relationships and sex lives.
This workshop is open to all bodies, genders & identities. Language in this workshop honors the gender & sexuality spectrum rather than the binary and all participants are encouraged to practice self-care in their level of participation & attendance. There will be no live demos or nudity at this workshop, though there will be some illustrated anatomy diagrams for educational purposes.
About the Presenter
Yana Tallon-Hicks (she/her) is a therapist, sex columnist, and a consent, sex & sexuality writer and educator living in Northampton, MA. She is a graduate of Hampshire College where she studied LGBTQ+ community and sex education. Her 
work centers around the belief that pleasure-positive & consent-based sex education can positively impact our lives and the world.
Yana is a relationships therapist at the Couples Center of the Pioneer Valley, where she sees clients in all relationship structures, particularly surrounding issues of sex and sexuality.
Her sex educational writings have appeared in both national and local publications and can be found most regularly in her weekly sex column, The V-Spot, on the back page of the Valley Advocate.
Yana’s workshops work to create a welcoming & comfortable space for all to explore crucial aspects of our holistic, sexual selves such as pleasure, communication, consent & the body using humor, relateability, and experience as key teaching tools.
Read more about Yana & her work here, where you can also read her sex advice column & watch herTEDxTalk: Is the Porn Brain Our New Sex Educator?
Find her (and her cute dog) on Instagram @the_vspot.
