I first met Megan Andelloux this past April when she attended the first ever Speak Up! Media Training here in New York City presented by Sex Work Awareness. It was the 2009 NYC Sex Bloggers Calendar proceeds that paid for this.
Later that day the Speak Up! participants along with the presenters and several others all got together to celebrate that amazing day and the success of it! Meeting each participant, asking them how the day had been for them and seeing the amazing buzz of everyone there I knew that all we had done to help make that possible was worth it. The next morning as Tess and I sat having coffee we talked about how wonderful that was to see and decided we would do a 2010 NYC Sex Bloggers Calendar to make it possible for more even people to attend Speak Up!
I followed along earlier this year when Megan spoke out against changing the indoor prostitution laws in Rhode Island. Over these past months Megan has worked hard to open The Center for Pleasure and Health and this Saturday I will be there with her along with many others to help celebrate.
However, the celebration will not be held in the location of the center because late last week Megan ran into some trouble with the town council and zoning. Below I have cross-posted the details about it. What amazed me was the narrow minded opinions and statements about sex from some of these people.
As I follow along this week and see the media about this I know that Megan was trained by some of the best for this with Audacia Ray being one of them. My hope is that as she fights this battle to open her center Megan will be use those skills she learned back on that day in April to help overcome the stigma and be able to open her center.
cross-posted from Sex In The Public Square
Later that day the Speak Up! participants along with the presenters and several others all got together to celebrate that amazing day and the success of it! Meeting each participant, asking them how the day had been for them and seeing the amazing buzz of everyone there I knew that all we had done to help make that possible was worth it. The next morning as Tess and I sat having coffee we talked about how wonderful that was to see and decided we would do a 2010 NYC Sex Bloggers Calendar to make it possible for more even people to attend Speak Up!
I followed along earlier this year when Megan spoke out against changing the indoor prostitution laws in Rhode Island. Over these past months Megan has worked hard to open The Center for Pleasure and Health and this Saturday I will be there with her along with many others to help celebrate.
However, the celebration will not be held in the location of the center because late last week Megan ran into some trouble with the town council and zoning. Below I have cross-posted the details about it. What amazed me was the narrow minded opinions and statements about sex from some of these people.
As I follow along this week and see the media about this I know that Megan was trained by some of the best for this with Audacia Ray being one of them. My hope is that as she fights this battle to open her center Megan will be use those skills she learned back on that day in April to help overcome the stigma and be able to open her center.
cross-posted from Sex In The Public Square
The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health, new non-profit educational organization focusing pleasure and sexual advocacy issues, was scheduled to hold its Grand Opening in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on Saturday, September 26.
The Center’s Director is Megan Andelloux, a graduate of the University of Rhode Island (1997) and a Certified Sexuality Educator of the American Association of Sexuality Education, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT) and a Board Certified Sexologist by the American College of Sexologists.
Last week Andelloux, learned that the Pawtucket City Council had received an anonymous email “warning” about the Center’s opening and premier event. “I was then informed that without proper zoning and event licenses, I would be arrested if I held the event in Pawtucket,” she says. “Although I had landlord approval and the building is zoned for retail, business, entertainment, and office use, I was told that I had to get a special zoning application for ‘education’ and approval,” which typically takes up to two months. She had to scramble to find alternative space in which to hold the Grand Opening event and retained a lawyer.
The Grand Opening will be a three-hour extravaganza of sex-positive, health-promoting information featuring nationally recognized experts including Bill Taverner, former Director of Education for Planned Parenthood of Greater Northern New Jersey, Gina Ogden Ph.D., psychologist and author of The Return of Desire, Barbara Carrellas, author of Urban Tantra, Elizabeth Wood, founder of Sex in the Public Square, an online community forum devoted to sexuality issues, myself, and Carol Queen, Director of the Center for Sex and Culture, a similar educational forum in San Francisco sex-positive sexuality education and support to diverse populations. It may be no coincidence that Queen and her partner Robert Lawrence, had a similar call about their Center recently.
Andelloux notes that the program also includes “thousands of dollars worth of prizes to give away, and lots of local sexual health, education, and advocacy groups present to inform, delight, and enlighten.” The full program can be viewed at http://www.TheCSPH.org.
Andelloux believes that the caller told City Council members that the event was going feature a burlesque number and that the Council freaked out thinking it was going to be some sort of bacchanalian orgy. “Rest assured that the City of Pawtucket has now gone so far as to officially assure me that their concerns had absolutely nothing to do with sex,” she says. “Of course when your local City Councilman calls and screams the word ‘dildo’ over and over at you, you start to wonder.” After a week of meetings with City Council members, city clerks, and Zoning Board officials, she is convinced that someone “up high” is opposed to the existence of her center.
Last week Andelloux, learned that the Pawtucket City Council had received an anonymous email “warning” about the Center’s opening and premier event. “I was then informed that without proper zoning and event licenses, I would be arrested if I held the event in Pawtucket,” she says. “Although I had landlord approval and the building is zoned for retail, business, entertainment, and office use, I was told that I had to get a special zoning application for ‘education’ and approval,” which typically takes up to two months. She had to scramble to find alternative space in which to hold the Grand Opening event and retained a lawyer.
The Grand Opening will be a three-hour extravaganza of sex-positive, health-promoting information featuring nationally recognized experts including Bill Taverner, former Director of Education for Planned Parenthood of Greater Northern New Jersey, Gina Ogden Ph.D., psychologist and author of The Return of Desire, Barbara Carrellas, author of Urban Tantra, Elizabeth Wood, founder of Sex in the Public Square, an online community forum devoted to sexuality issues, myself, and Carol Queen, Director of the Center for Sex and Culture, a similar educational forum in San Francisco sex-positive sexuality education and support to diverse populations. It may be no coincidence that Queen and her partner Robert Lawrence, had a similar call about their Center recently.
Andelloux notes that the program also includes “thousands of dollars worth of prizes to give away, and lots of local sexual health, education, and advocacy groups present to inform, delight, and enlighten.” The full program can be viewed at http://www.TheCSPH.org.
Andelloux believes that the caller told City Council members that the event was going feature a burlesque number and that the Council freaked out thinking it was going to be some sort of bacchanalian orgy. “Rest assured that the City of Pawtucket has now gone so far as to officially assure me that their concerns had absolutely nothing to do with sex,” she says. “Of course when your local City Councilman calls and screams the word ‘dildo’ over and over at you, you start to wonder.” After a week of meetings with City Council members, city clerks, and Zoning Board officials, she is convinced that someone “up high” is opposed to the existence of her center.
According to the PawtucketTimes, Mayor James E Doyle has “serious concerns about the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health locating on Main Street.” Director of Administration Harvey E. Goulet told the Times that “We are not interested in this type of business. It's not really something we feel is appropriate for our city.” Goulet further noted that it would be their intention not to allow the business to open, but added, “we have to follow through with the laws.”
“We don't have a certificate of zoning because in the official opinion of the Zoning Board the Center is an educational business, but the building where we lease space is not zoned for ‘educational’ purposes. Get that? The city of Pawtucket won't let us start our business because they are taking a strong stance against education! It’s not going to help the city’s case that they allowed a chess club and an arts studio (both of which state that they teach classes) to rent space in the same building,” Andelloux opines.
On advice from her lawyer, Andelloux declined to identify the suspected identity of the anonymous caller. In any event, this bald act of censorship has succeeded in forcing the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health to find a new location for its Grand Opening at The Spot at 286 Thayer St., Providence, from 3 to 6 p.m., but has had the typical unintended consequence of censorship—free publicity—especially when the censored refuse to take it lying down. Mazel tov!
Find out more info on upcoming workshops & sexuality questions @ www.OhMegan.com. Those wishing to promote the CSPH’s campaign to get a Zoning Variance for its chosen location can contact the Pawtucket City Council at http://www.pawtucketri.com/contact/, 137 Roosevelt Avenue, Pawtucket, RI 02860, Phone: (401) 728-0500. Andelloux is also accepting donations for her legal fund.
“We don't have a certificate of zoning because in the official opinion of the Zoning Board the Center is an educational business, but the building where we lease space is not zoned for ‘educational’ purposes. Get that? The city of Pawtucket won't let us start our business because they are taking a strong stance against education! It’s not going to help the city’s case that they allowed a chess club and an arts studio (both of which state that they teach classes) to rent space in the same building,” Andelloux opines.
On advice from her lawyer, Andelloux declined to identify the suspected identity of the anonymous caller. In any event, this bald act of censorship has succeeded in forcing the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health to find a new location for its Grand Opening at The Spot at 286 Thayer St., Providence, from 3 to 6 p.m., but has had the typical unintended consequence of censorship—free publicity—especially when the censored refuse to take it lying down. Mazel tov!
Find out more info on upcoming workshops & sexuality questions @ www.OhMegan.com. Those wishing to promote the CSPH’s campaign to get a Zoning Variance for its chosen location can contact the Pawtucket City Council at http://www.pawtucketri.com/contact/, 137 Roosevelt Avenue, Pawtucket, RI 02860, Phone: (401) 728-0500. Andelloux is also accepting donations for her legal fund.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment