Vagina Dialogues Foreplay at Burning Man
Patricia Sauthoff from the SF Reporter conducted an interview with Mim Chapman of the well known Vagina Dialogues called “Let’s Talk About Sex“.
I’ve heard much about this performance but have never caught it. Interestingly, it stems from Chapman’s time as a teacher with young kids and the still prevalent hypocrisies and misinformation that is rampant in the public sphere around sex, educational or otherwise.
But I was pleasantly surprised to discover some costume-clad research was conducted at Burning Man!
Did you get your research for the Dialogues from the kids you taught?
You can’t ask kids because of the confidentiality rules, so I thought if I asked adults what they’d like to know about sex I could find out what they didn’t learn as kids. I started out at Burning Man because I wanted to go to a really liberal enlightened group of people. I went in the 6-foot vulva costume and gave away invitations to our camp, where we were giving away free oral sex—as in talking about it. Every afternoon people gathered and filled out my survey, ‘What did you ever want to ask a vagina or a penis?’ basic demographic info and where people learned most of what they knew. I was absolutely shocked at what people didn’t know.
