Inaugural Sex of the Nation Address talks pleasure and policy

Sex-positive, post-porn, consent-centric and peddling respect - lessons can be learnt. By Yeshiel Panchia

- Yeshiel Panchia

Getting ready to work on what I think was my third consecutive Sunday, it dawned on me as I left to attend South Africa's first Sex of the Nation Address (Sona) that sex work isn't all that unlike journalism: you often work on the clock of others, it's a highly competitive industry and none of us get paid enough.

The Democracy Bar, tucked away in the upmarket Johannesburg suburb of Illovo, contained about 60 people. There were tattoos and expressive aesthetics; care with pronouns and presentation; and notably but not unexpectedly, very few white, straight-seeming men (I counted three but didn't ask their preferences).

No one cared that I arrived on my motorbike, or in jeans, a black T-shirt and combat boots, just how I behaved — and that, I think, is the point.

Sona is the brainchild of Jessica van der Berg, a South African sex-positive marketer and organiser now living in Amsterdam. She noticed the paucity of sex-positive events in her adopted hometown and began the initiative there.

When she visited South Africa, she thought that similar value could be offered by hosting such an event here, particularly given where we are as a country, both historically and presently, in our transactional relationship to sex and sex work.

Thus was born this Sona, with Van der Berg collaborating with the likes of Yonela Sinqu, a journalist and representative of the sex worker rights organisation Sisonke, and Leah Jazz, radio presenter, sex educator and founder of Eden, which promotes sex-positive education.

It was also a fundraiser for the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (Sweat) and Sisonke in Johannesburg — organisations that have championed sex worker rights and safety for years.

An industry on the rise

As the team sorted out the audiovisual presentation (IT challenges are universal), I ran the numbers on the research I had carried out on the industry before the event.