Presenter Spotlight: Ella

We’re delighted to welcome Ella to Daruma. Beginning in late April, Ella will be presenting a twice-monthly workshop, Nuance of Consent, as well as one-off workshops (Communicare) and Daruma’s first-ever (!) play party, Playful Pleasures. We caught up with Ella to ask them more about their path and these events coming up. This interview has been edited and condensed.

How do you describe your path? What from your studies or lived experiences have brought you to the work you’re doing now?

“I believe true, embodied, trauma and power-aware consent is the foundational ideology that can rebuild society based on collaboration, rest, equity… all of those good anti-capitalist values. ”

During the pandemic, I was doing a master’s degree called Social Anthropology: Sustainable Citizenship. And what it was, in effect, was a deep dive into the neoliberal capitalist hellhole we’re living in, how we’re f*king over the planet and almost all people in pursuit of infinite growth, and how these systems—from racism to cisheteropatriarchy to our own personal morals and values—are an interconnected web of structures. I saw it everywhere and in everything. It completely broke me.

…And at the same time, I was attending sex-positive workshops and events by Wilrieke Sophia. I saw these strangers from all walks of life come in looking so nervous and uncomfortable. By the end of the workshop, everyone was in a giant cuddle puddle, beaming and utterly relaxed. I saw how, in these spaces, people truly connect as they are.

I ended up joining Wilrieke’s team, and going as an assistant to The Intimate Revolution, a festival dedicated to consent and community. It was the final key that brought all the pieces together.

And the more I worked with consent, the more I found there was to uncover. It became the basis of my politics. If we all learn to truly live by consensual values in our everyday life, I think we have a solid foundation from which to build new ways of relating and new structures of being.

You’re about to kick off Nuance of Consent, a recurring every-other-weekly session that dives deep into consent as an everyday way of life. What inspired you to launch this at Daruma?

I was looking for a venue to rent, and Gestalta wanted to incorporate structures of consent more intentionally into Daruma—so we decided I’d start this series as a way to bring a recurring consent-aware mindset into the space. It’s designed as a series so that we can take our time exploring all of the nooks and crannies of each element of consent, with time to reflect and integrate the ideas between sessions, instead of riding a workshop or festival high and then crashing once the work week starts again.

How does the Nuance of Consent series work? Is it meant to drop into once, or for return visits?

The themes build on the previous topics. I also encourage thinking about consent to be a recurring practice in your life, which you can embody through this series ;) 

That being said, feel free to just stop by for one workshop! They can all be experienced as a standalone event. Maybe you’re already well-versed in consent but there’s one particular aspect you haven’t explored yet. Maybe you don’t know me yet and want to experience one for yourself before deciding you never want to come back. That’s great! I encourage exploration.

For many experienced kinksters, consent is a regular topic that’s actively in mind. What does this space have to offer to folks who may have been thinking about and consciously practicing consent for a while already?

I think that there is SO MUCH to unpack once you start to disentangle consent from purely sexual interactions. How consensual is your relationship with your family? With your kids? With your boss? Are you building consent-aware relationships in all areas of your life? 

Also, with so much pressure within the community to have consensual experiences, how do you handle crossing someone’s boundaries? Can you hold space for that—for yourself, but also for the other person? How do you engage in relationship repair? All these things I see as part of the broader field of 'consent as ideology'.

In addition to Nuance of Consent, you’ve got Playful Pleasures, a different kind of play party concept coming up in the first weekend of May! What are you most looking forward to?

Play parties can be hard to get into, especially for those who aren’t used to the scene. You arrive off the street with a bunch of strangers and you’re supposed to just… start doing stuff?? Scary!

Starting with a workshop gives everyone a chance to drop into the space, arrive, get to know each other. The exercises give you the tools needed to enjoy the play party later but they also give everyone that shared vocabulary. After the workshop, eating together and sharing what you brought to the potluck is just a way to get to know people as the diverse lovely humans we are. Then comes the best part—getting ready together! People bring clothes to share, do each other’s make up, hype each other up! It’s that cherished childhood memory of getting ready for a middle school dance together, giggling about your nerves and maybe even discussing who you wanna dance with!

For the play party itself, I like to emphasize that it’s a space with access to certain tools or resources that you won’t necessarily have at home with a partner. It’s a place where we have full permission to play with each other. Role play, sensory play, big group scenes, having people carry you around like a Greek goddex and feed you fruit… it takes a lot of planning to do that on your own! Come here and see what silly things can emerge :)

We very often see bad examples of consent and communication in pop culture—very often this is essential to the plot of rom coms, for example. Is there an example of a scene or song or other media that actually does it well?

This is an insane answer but everyone needs to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender with a decolonial mindset. The way that they bring in aspects of community-building, honoring indigenous knowledge, standing up to authoritative governments, the medical versus social model of disability… and all while prioritizing the need to have fun and enjoy yourself while fighting fascism! Enjoying life as an act of rebellion. It’s not exactly consent-specific but it falls in line with my broader mindset of consent as the ideological basis in themes of accountability, building community and non-violent transformative justice. Every time I watch this show I learn so much.

As a holder of space, what’s one thing that you see as a must for setting the mood?

A playful attitude! I truly welcome all emotions and love holding space for deep processes, but I also find that people really resonate with bringing in lightness and playful energy to the learning process :)