Express Yourself: Play Parties By And For People Of Color

*** No tickets sold at door. Only those with valid vaccine verification will receive ticketing link. Register now by submitting your vaccine verification at https://bit.ly/expressyourselfbooster. Anyone who is eligible for a booster must have received one by the party start date. Please don't attend the party if you have any upper respiratory symptoms (cough, "throat tickle" or sore throat, nasal congestion, etc) or a known covid exposure within 5 days of the party - we'll happily refund your ticket. ***

*** TESTING REQUIREMENTS ***

We require everyone to either take a covid antigen test at the door of the party or take a PCR test *administered* within 48 hours of the party. No PCR tests administered before 8pm Thursday will be accepted. You can either bring your own covid antigen test or you can purchase one from us on the ticketing site.

Your choices:

1. Take a covid PCR test no earlier than 8pm Wednesday and bring the results of your test to the door.

2. Bring your own antigen test to the event and take it in front of the people administering our rapid covid tests.

3. Purchase an antigen test from us via the ticketing link prior to the party. Your test will be at the door of the party.

If you don't do any of the above you will...

4. Purchase one of our antigen tests at the door, which is the most expensive option.

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We're back for another one! Thanks to widespread vaccine adoption, we can now begin to come back together in ways resembling the ways we did in 2019 in relative safety.

So we think it's time for a little self-expression, sexy play, and deep community building inside a fully vaccinated container. We hope you'll join us for Express Yourself, a celebration of our self-expression, erotic vitality, interdependence, and freedom.

This space is by and for people of color, and it's only open to folks of color. That's because we’re invested in cultivating a space that centers the experiences, relationships, connection, and pleasure of people of color -- a space free of the microaggressions, self-doubt, or fetishization that can occur in majority-white spaces. We want to explore the possibilities of our pleasurable connection outside of these factors that can sometimes weigh on us in ways that we may not be aware of and impede our full sexual expression. For our purposes, we define "person of color" as people who have lived experiences as a racial minority in the United States. At least one birth parent was perceived and treated as a person of color, or would have been were they in the United States.

This party is for people with all levels of experience, from the merely curious or questioning to the most experienced swingers; from the decidedly monogamous to the most committed polyamorists. We welcome people representing every sexual preference, gender expression, and body type. None of us are getting free until we all get free.

If you're new to play parties, we encourage you to attend a special pre-party playshop at 7pm, Sex Party Survival Guide, to help orient you to the experience.

The evening will include sexy playshops, burlesque dance performances, edgy BDSM demos, light snacks, and excellent people in a Bring Your Own Bottle space. There will be an opening circle at 9:00pm to ground our journey for the evening in common values and language -- please arrive no later than then, though we invite you to join us earlier for more time to drop in, connect, and build with folks there.

To support this event, we ask that you purchase tickets at the level that best reflects what you can afford. If you can afford to purchase at a higher tier, please do so. If you can't, then don't. No questions asked.

No one can attend the party alone -- every guest will have to be accompanied by at least one PAL (Pervy Activity Liason). A PAL is not necessarily a date, but it is someone who will have your back for the night and you will have theirs. It's also the PAL's responsibility to hold one another accountable to the norms the space we're creating together. You must arrive at the party together and leave the party together. So for instance, if one person is asked to leave for any reason, their PAL(s) must leave with them.

What to wear:Express yourself! Dress in whatever makes you feel sexy, creative, and comfortable.

Access information:

-All play spaces are wheelchair accessible.

-This is a low scent space. Please come to the event as scent free as possible to help protect those of us with scent allergies and scent sensitivities.

-There are no interpreters for this event.

-There are 3 ADA-compliant restrooms, a wheelchair-accessible shower, and an elevator to access the second floor.

- Seating is available.

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The evening will be guided by a set of cultural norms used in Bonobo Network, another Bay Area play party community:

High Possibility, Low Expectation: Our communities are best when they're treated as high possibility, low expectation spaces. That means two things: first, that all kinds of awesome sexy interactions are possible, but that no one should be expected to interact with you in any particular way. No one owes you anything. Second, we often attend these events with an expectation of the type or quality of experience we should have. While anything is possible, you'll probably have a much better experience if you lose those expectations of yourself and open yourself up to the abundance of connection of all kinds available to you at the party. Low expectation DOES NOT mean "low desire" – we believe it's helpful to have a well-explored and articulated sense of what you want and to hold those desires lightly.

Trust and Integrity: Parties like ours are built on trust – that's what allows us to be as open and welcoming and vulnerable as we can be inside those spaces. But this requires that we all show up in full integrity, pledging to be our most trustworthy. Three important implications of this : keep the identities of folks at our events confidential, proactively disclose relevant safer sex risks, and take exquisite care of the venues, spaces, and neighborhood ecosystems that host us.

Consent: We agree that we will only physically engage with one another, including nonsexual touch, where there is CLEAR CONSENT. We define consent as an ongoing collaboration between two or more people in constant verbal, physical, and emotional dialogue about what each other needs to safely, willingly, and pleasurably interact with one another. Gold standard consent in Bonobo Network is affirmative, informed, unpressured, specific, competently given, and ongoing. Respecting and valuing consent isn't just about preventing violations that shred trust -- it's also about making sure that everyone has as much space as they need to fully occupy their yes. Please read our Consent and Accountability Policy (https://bit.ly/bonoboconsentpolicy) for more details on how we approach consent and accountability.

High Challenge, High Support: Play parties can be challenging and emotionally complex, even for seasoned veterans. We’re committed to making the play parties we throw high challenge, high support environments. We come together to celebrate and play at our edges. To fully support that endeavor, we provide a dedicated nonsexual space at each party for folks who need to get away from the intensity of the gathering. It means recruiting a team of angels who are available to provide counseling and social support throughout the party. And it means encouraging everyone who attends to commit to being an angel for everyone around them.

Everyone Contributes: Parties like this are never the work of a single organizer -- it takes the participation and contribution of a host of people. Everyone who attends is expected to co-create the party: money, time, energy, enthusiasm, work, intention, example, concern and/or awareness.

Inclusion: We are dedicated to fostering inclusion in our community. No matter your race, ethnicity, gender identity, or class background, we want everyone who participates in this community to understand that they belong here, and that they have as much of a stake in what happens here as anyone else does. While we recognize that everyone is on a learning curve when it comes to learning how to foster such an atmosphere, we also commit to a stance of learning -- and supporting one another's learning -- of how to be excellent to one another.

Details:

»»» Date + Location

Friday, May 20, 20228:00pm - 3:00am

• Doors open at 8pm

• Pre-party playshop at 7:00pm: Sex Party Survival Guide, by William Winters

• Opening circle at 9:00pm

• Please no entry after opening circle without prior permission from hosts.

• Closing circle at 2:00am

»»» Tickets

• Sliding scale $50 - $90. Discounted tickets are available to volunteers.

• You'll get payment instructions once your registration is confirmed.

»»» Entertainment

Music by:

• FawksTales

https://soundcloud.com/fawkstales

HoneyBear

https://soundcloud.com/dmart82

Steamy burlesque dance performance by:

• To be announced!

»»» Volunteering

Discounted entry is being offered to volunteers! Request a volunteer shift when you complete the registration form.

Setup (Friday 5pm - 7pm) - $30 ticket

Strike (Saturday 11am - 1pm) - $20 ticket

Greeting - (90 minute shifts beginning at 7:30pm) - $30 ticket

Angels - (1 hour shifts beginning at 9pm) - $30 ticket

Bottle service - (1 hour shifts beginning at 8pm) - $30 ticket

»»» What to bring

Bring your own adult beverages and mixers - we won't provide them.

Towel for shower or sauna

Bring your own covid antigen test if possible