My Weekend At A Sex Festival

When Jo Thornely went to a Melbourne “kink-and-think” event, she found her boundaries were bendier than expected

It began, as so many transformations do, on the floor of a Melbourne yoga studio. Except instead of deep inhalations, I’m watching eight couples perform oral sex while I casually eat my blow-jobpractice carrot. It’s a workshop called The Art Of Fellatio at the inaugural Melbourne Festival of Really Good Sex, and the 40 people in the room have spent the past hour going to sexy-town on spit-soaked root vegetables. The workshop facilitator, probably-not-her-real-name Isla View, has led us through 23 carefully typed blow-job tips (most involving more than just the tip) and now it’s time for those so inclined to practise on the real, fleshy thing.

“Make it a performance!” shouts Isla, showing us how to turkey-slap ourselves with a carrot.

I’m more comfortable than I expected to be, but my heart is beating a little faster. I’m on a learning-my-boundaries crash course.

The Festival of Really Good Sex (FORGS), which launched in Australia in 2011, isn’t a gaudy, product-driven, pole-dancing Sexpo, as you might expect, but rather a mix of seminars and workshops described as “radically inclusive, experientially based, supportive, ethical, experimental, passionate – and intelligent”. Whether the event is intellectualising sexuality or sexing up intellectualism, the focus is on discussion, boundary testing and consent. It’s kinky, but thinky.

There are quite a few clothing optional/thinking essential festivals like this around the world – the Kutemajrvi Sex Festival in Finland for example, which intersperses sextoy exhibits and musical acts with lectures by prominent theorists. Others, such as the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, mix erotica with thought-provoking interactive exhibitions. At the super-nerdy end of the spectrum, you could consider registering for the Third International Congress On Love and Sex With Robots this December.