I recently had the honor of being asked to moderate a Commonwealth Club panel, The State of Sex and Dating in San Francisco. On March 31, I arrived to a standing-room-only event (with people waiting outside for possible openings), and moderated a panel that consisted of Ethan Watters (Urban Tribes, Grotto); Nicole Daedone (OneTaste; Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm), Sasha Cagen (Quirkyalone) and N.W. Smith (The Bold Italic). I did not pick the panel. I did ruffle some feathers.
So if you couldn’t make it, the Sex and Dating in SF video is finally out! I had *such* a great time moderating this panel – the audience was incredible, and I really enjoyed going to the afterparty and meeting so many of the people who attended. If you have the patience to watch the entire hour of discussion, I think you’ll enjoy it – and you’ll see the struggle I had not only getting these people to talk about sex, but also in reminding them they are in a strongly LGBT-identified city. I think it’s a key reason why sex and dating in SF has unique challenges for all genders and sexual orientations.
I didn’t always agree with Watters (whose new book is Crazy Like Us), but I really liked his points about how we exist in “tribes,” and enjoyed asking him about the difficulties and challenges of dating “outside your tribe.” I tried my hardest to get concrete dating in SF tips out of the panelists based on their areas of expertise – as well as trying to get them to flesh out what is so unique about sex and dating in SF, with its particular challenges. I’d like to do another panel on this sometime, or even an article series, or a presentation.
Mentioned: my new book, Total Flirt.
I had a feeling that I should have bought tickets ahead and as I was futzing with an outdoor internet connection, the friend I was with said it would be fine since it was a weeknight and so I was disappointed when I arrived downtown to a sold out event. So I am glad I got a chance to view it.
I thought you did a great job Violet-of keeping the panelists in discourse, organized and the topic engaging.
My question would have been this: When the sex positive-porn positive-pansexual-kinky playground people are your tribe, how do you make deeper and mostly monogamous relationships without giving up that lifestyle?
I finally got around to watching this and I’d have to agree with Kit in regards to you having to pull answers out of the panel like teeth. A nice watch overall though. Kudos.
Great job at keeping the questions interesting and diverse!
Is it just me or did it feel like you had to wrangle almost every question out of the panel :-)
Great event! Also related to SIS… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propinquity
Those were some great questions at the very end, and some interesting answers to them. In fact, I’m really glad that the dating coach who asked the final question got a chance to speak out. Living in a major metro area and looking back on my days of being on the market, it’s all true. It’s challenging to find the places you refer to as high SIS situations though, when you don’t know anyone in a city which makes the whole thing a big catch-22. Even if all you’re looking for is just a batch of new friends, it’s a really hard nut to crack.
Nice Job, you are getting much better at public appearance.