Sex positivity finds a social 'center'

After selling her restaurant in the 1990s, Allena Gabosch said even she thought her next business move was a little out of the ordinary—she opened a sex positive community center for playtime and community education.


The Center for Sex Positive Culture is a nonprofit business based in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood that hosts more than 100 education and party events monthly. The group was originally conceived as a safe space for the adult BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism) community, but according to Gabosch, the center's executive director, it quickly expanded to include events for all ages and sexualities.


Two years after the organization's creation in 1999, a group called "Ascension" was added for the 18 to 35 age group. The center wanted to give younger members of the community a forum for socializing.


"Our young adult community has really become quite large," Gabosch said. "Eighteen-year-olds are adults and should be treated as such."


The majority of the center's 150 monthly volunteers are under 40. Gabosch says the youth members involved in their community work best in groups and are responsible for planning their own events.


Aside from the center-centric parties and workshops, the organization annually hosts the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, does outreach on college campuses statewide and sets up booths at community events like the Capitol Hill Block Party.


But the center isn't purely fun and games. It also offers support groups focused on life after contracting an STD and health and wellness events like morning yoga. The center's education events discuss a wide array of topics from how to have a healthy relationship to how to tie up one's partner safely. Gabosch noted the organization offers a little bit of everything, but helping facilitate a safe environment for sex is one of their main priorities.

"Sex positive means more than reproduction," Gabosch says. "It's more than pleasure. A lot of it is about personal growth. In that way, all [consensual] experiences are valid."