Godless Perverts

Sex, Atheism, and Other Heresies

DATE CHANGE! Godless Perverts Book Club: The Technology of Orgasm

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DATE CHANGE! This event is now on Friday, Nov. 17!

Godless Perverts Book Club is reading The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction by Rachel P. Maines. Friday, November 17, at Borderlands Cafe in SF. All orientations, genders, and kinks (or lack thereof) are welcome. Please join us!

From the time of Hippocrates until the 1920s, massaging female patients to orgasm was a staple of medical practice among Western physicians in the treatment of “hysteria,” an ailment once considered both common and chronic in women. Doctors loathed this time-consuming procedure and for centuries relied on midwives. Later, they substituted the efficiency of mechanical devices, including the electric vibrator, invented in the 1880s. In The Technology of Orgasm, Rachel Maines offers readers a stimulating, surprising, and often humorous account of hysteria and its treatment throughout the ages, focusing on the development, use, and fall into disrepute of the vibrator as a legitimate medical device.

The Godless Perverts Book Club is at Borderlands Cafe, 870 Valencia St. in San Francisco. That’s on Valencia at 20th: it’s near the 24th and Mission BART, and it’s close to the parking garage on 21st and Bartlett between Valencia and Mission. Friday, November 17, 6:00 to 8:00 pm. It’s free: we ask that you buy food and/or drink to support the cafe if you can — and tip the cafe staff generously — but we understand that cafe prices are prohibitive for some people, so please don’t let that stop you from attending. We will be meeting at a large table in the back of the cafe.

All orientations, genders, and kinks (or lack thereof) are welcome. Community is one of the reasons we started Godless Perverts. There are few enough places to land when you decide that you’re an atheist; far fewer if you’re also LGBT, queer, kinky, poly, trans, or are just interested in sexuality. And the sex-positive/ alt-sex/ whatever- you- want- to- call- it community isn’t always the most welcoming place for non-believers. So please join us!

Godless Perverts presents and promotes a positive view of sexuality without religion, by and for sex-positive atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other non-believers, through performance events, panel discussions, social gatherings, media productions, and other appropriate outlets. Our events and media productions present depictions, explorations, and celebrations of godless sexualities — including positive, traumatic, and complex experiences — focusing on the intersections of sexuality with atheism, materialism, skepticism, and science, as well as critical, questioning, mocking, or blasphemous views of sex and religion.

Godless Perverts is committed to feminism, diversity, inclusivity, and social justice. We seek to create safe and welcoming environments for all non-believers and believing allies who are respectful of the mission, and are committed to taking positive action to achieve this. Please let the moderators or other people in charge of any event know if you encounter harassment, racism, misogyny, transphobia, or other problems at our events.

Godless Perverts Social Club — Game Night!

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Godless Perverts is having another game night on Tuesday, November 7! 7-9 pm. Our game nights are big fun, and they’re becoming some of our most well-attended events. We play games that are easy to learn and easy to drop in and out of — so please join us! All kinks, genders, and orientations (or lack thereof) are welcome.

Wicked Grounds has a huge stash of games including Fluxx, Slash, Gloom, Snake Oil, Cards Against Humanity, ((If you decide to play CAH, please be cautious; it can be a really hard game between people who don’t know each other and aren’t familiar with each others’ limits and triggers.)) and much, much more. Feel free to bring your own games if you’re not sure that Wicked Grounds has a copy of your favorite.

So please join us at Wicked Grounds, the kink cafe and boutique, at 289 8th Street at Folsom in San Francisco (near Civic Center BART). 7-9 pm. Admission is free: if you can’t afford cafe prices, Wicked Grounds customers have bought coffee and tea for you, just ask for your beverage to be paid “from the wall.” Wicked Grounds has beverages, light snacks, full meals, and milkshakes made of literal awesome sauce. We meet at Wicked Grounds on the first Tuesday of every month, for topical discussions, general chat sessions, or game nights.

Godless Perverts: Our Policies on Building Safer Spaces

All orientations, genders, and kinks (or lack thereof) are welcome. Community is one of the reasons we started Godless Perverts. There are few enough places to land when you decide that you’re an atheist; far fewer if you’re also LGBT, queer, kinky, poly, trans, or are just interested in sexuality. And the sex-positive/ alt-sex/ whatever- you- want- to- call- it community isn’t always the most welcoming place for non-believers. Godless Perverts is committed to feminism, diversity, inclusivity, and social justice. We seek to create safe and welcoming environments for all non-believers and believing allies who are respectful of the mission, and are committed to taking positive action to achieve this.

Godless Perverts presents and promotes a positive view of sexuality without religion, by and for sex-positive atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other non-believers, through performance events, panel discussions, social gatherings, media productions, and other appropriate outlets. Our events and media productions present depictions, explorations, and celebrations of godless sexualities — including positive, traumatic, and complex experiences — focusing on the intersections of sexuality with atheism, materialism, skepticism, and science, as well as critical, questioning, mocking, or blasphemous views of sex and religion.

Godless Perverts Social Club! Discussion Topic: Sustaining Resistance

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We’re having a Godless Perverts Social Club on Tuesday, October 3, at Wicked Grounds, 289 8th St. in San Francisco (near Civic Center BART), 7-9 pm. Our discussion topic for this evening: Sustaining Resistance.

How do we sustain political resistance for the long haul? How do we stay involved and informed, without becoming overwhelmed and burning out? How do we move forward with our everyday lives, without letting fascism become normal? Join us for a discussion about self-care, taking care of each other, deciding on priorities, taking breaks, folding resistance into our everyday lives, and more.

The Social Club is free, and all orientations, genders, and kinks (or lack thereof) are welcome. Wicked Grounds has beverages, light snacks, full meals, and amazing milkshakes: please support the cafe if you can, and please tip generously. If you can’t afford cafe prices, Wicked Grounds customers have bought you coffee or tea: just ask for your beverage to paid for “from the wall.”

Community is one of the reasons we started Godless Perverts. There are few enough places to land when you decide that you’re an atheist; far fewer if you’re also LGBT, queer, kinky, poly, trans, or are just interested in sexuality. And the sex-positive/ alt-sex/ whatever- you- want- to- call- it community isn’t always the most welcoming place for non-believers. So please join us! Hang out with other nonbelievers and chat about sex, sexuality, gender, atheism, religion, science, social justice, pop culture, and more. Godless Perverts is now a non-profit organization, and donations are tax-deductible.

Godless Perverts presents and promotes a positive view of sexuality without religion, by and for sex-positive atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other non-believers, through performance events, panel discussions, social gatherings, media productions, and other appropriate outlets. Our events and media productions present depictions, explorations, and celebrations of godless sexualities — including positive, traumatic, and complex experiences — focusing on the intersections of sexuality with atheism, materialism, skepticism, and science, as well as critical, questioning, mocking, or blasphemous views of sex and religion.

Godless Perverts is committed to feminism, diversity, inclusivity, and social justice. We seek to create safe and welcoming environments for all non-believers and believing allies who are respectful of the mission, and are committed to taking positive action to achieve this. Please let the moderators or other people in charge of any event know if you encounter harassment, racism, misogyny, transphobia, or other problems at our events.

If you want to be notified about all our Godless Perverts events, sign up for our email mailing list, follow us on Twitter at @GodlessPerverts, or follow us on Facebook. You can also sign up for the Bay Area Atheists/ Agnostics/ Humanists/ Freethinkers/ Skeptics Meetup page, and be notified of all sorts of godless Bay Area events — including many Godless Perverts events. And of course, you can always visit our Website to find out what we’re up to, godlessperverts.com. Hope to see you soon!

Godless Perverts Book Club: Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places

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Godless Perverts Book Club is back from summer vacation! We’re reading Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey. WEDNESDAY, Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday, September 20, Borderlands Cafe in SF. Please note that it’s on Wednesday this time. All orientations, genders, and kinks (or lack thereof) are welcome. Please join us!

An intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history, Ghostland takes readers on a road trip through some of the country’s most infamously haunted places — and deep into the dark side of our history. In this secular exploration of the belief in ghosts, Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. With boundless curiosity, Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes left unsolved. He conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living — how do we, the living, deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed, for whatever reason, haunted?

The Godless Perverts Book Club is at Borderlands Cafe, 870 Valencia St. in San Francisco. That’s on Valencia at 20th: it’s near the 24th and Mission BART, and it’s close to the parking garage on 21st and Bartlett between Valencia and Mission. WEDNESDAY, September 20 (it’s normally the third Tuesday of every month, this month only it’s on Wednesday), 6:00 to 8:00 pm. It’s free: we ask that you buy food and/or drink to support the cafe if you can — and tip the cafe staff generously — but we understand that cafe prices are prohibitive for some people, so please don’t let that stop you from attending. We will be meeting at a large table in the back of the cafe.

All orientations, genders, and kinks (or lack thereof) are welcome. Community is one of the reasons we started Godless Perverts. There are few enough places to land when you decide that you’re an atheist; far fewer if you’re also LGBT, queer, kinky, poly, trans, or are just interested in sexuality. And the sex-positive/ alt-sex/ whatever- you- want- to- call- it community isn’t always the most welcoming place for non-believers. So please join us!

Godless Perverts presents and promotes a positive view of sexuality without religion, by and for sex-positive atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other non-believers, through performance events, panel discussions, social gatherings, media productions, and other appropriate outlets. Our events and media productions present depictions, explorations, and celebrations of godless sexualities — including positive, traumatic, and complex experiences — focusing on the intersections of sexuality with atheism, materialism, skepticism, and science, as well as critical, questioning, mocking, or blasphemous views of sex and religion.

Godless Perverts is committed to feminism, diversity, inclusivity, and social justice. We seek to create safe and welcoming environments for all non-believers and believing allies who are respectful of the mission, and are committed to taking positive action to achieve this. Please let the moderators or other people in charge of any event know if you encounter harassment, racism, misogyny, transphobia, or other problems at our events.

The Impurity Ball Ring Toss Game

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We’re getting very excited for the Impurity Ball, a benefit for the Center for Sex and Culture and Godless Perverts on August 5. It isn’t just a dance party — it’s an events extravaganza, a bit like a school fair. We’ll have ten-minute dating, debaptisms, prom photos, and an impurity supply station courtesy of Wicked Grounds. And we’re very excited about what we’re sure will be one of our most popular activities: the Impure Ring Toss game.

Ring toss game made with dildos

Ring toss game made with dildos

Ring toss game made with dildos

Many thanks to Vixen Creations, who provided several of the, er, supplies for this game.

The Impurity Ball is at the Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission St. in San Francisco (near 9th Street, close to the Civic Center BART). Saturday, August 5, 7-10 pm. Suggested donation $10-$30: no-one turned away for lack of funds. RSVP on Facebook or Meetup (RSVPs appreciated but not necessary). All proceeds to benefit the Center for Sex and Culture and Godless Perverts. Hope to see you there!

Impurity Ball Art!

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Ember has been busy making art and decorations for the upcoming Impurity Ball — a dance party and events extravaganza spoofing purity balls and celebrating sexual freedom, and a benefit for the Center for Sex and Culture and Godless Perverts. Saturday Aug. 5!

sign reading "Godless Perverts Impurity Ball" with image of diamond ring

We’re going to have an Impurity Ring Toss game:

Sign reading "Put a Ring on It -- Sponsored by Vixen Creations"

Debaptisms:

Sign reading "Debaptisms"

An Introverts’ Lounge:

Sign reading "VIP Lounge: Very Introverted People. Keep voices low, please."

And a station for prom photos!

Sign reading "Prom Photos"

For the Prom Photo station, we’ll have some props for you to use to take the naughty prom photo of your dreams — including these nifty little Valentine candy heart signs, with a variety of smutty, kinky, romantic, and/or political messages.

Ember holding Valentine signs reading "Call Your State Reps" and "Listen To My Needs"

A variety of Valentine heart signs with text

Chris holding Valentine heart signs reading "Experiment With Me" and "Use Your Safeword"

Woman holding Valentine heart sign reading "Use Lube"

Valentine heart sign reading "Talk Dirty"

The Impurity Ball is at the Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission St. in San Francisco (near 9th Street, close to the Civic Center BART). Saturday, August 5, 7-10 pm. Suggested donation $10-$30: no-one turned away for lack of funds. RSVP on Facebook or Meetup (RSVPs appreciated but not necessary). All proceeds to benefit the Center for Sex and Culture and Godless Perverts. Hope to see you there!

Godless Perverts Social Club — Game Night!

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Godless Perverts is having another game night on Tuesday, September 5! 7-9 pm. Our game nights are big fun, and they’re becoming some of our most well-attended events. We play games that are easy to learn and easy to drop in and out of — so please join us! All kinks, genders, and orientations (or lack thereof) are welcome.

Wicked Grounds has a huge stash of games including Fluxx, Slash, Gloom, Snake Oil, Cards Against Humanity, ((If you decide to play CAH, please be cautious; it can be a really hard game between people who don’t know each other and aren’t familiar with each others’ limits and triggers.)) and much, much more. Feel free to bring your own games if you’re not sure that Wicked Grounds has a copy of your favorite.

So please join us at Wicked Grounds, the kink cafe and boutique, at 289 8th Street at Folsom in San Francisco (near Civic Center BART). 7-9 pm. Admission is free: if you can’t afford cafe prices, Wicked Grounds customers have bought coffee and tea for you, just ask for your beverage to be paid “from the wall.” Wicked Grounds has beverages, light snacks, full meals, and milkshakes made of literal awesome sauce. We meet at Wicked Grounds on the first Tuesday of every month, for topical discussions, general chat sessions, or game nights.

Godless Perverts: Our Policies on Building Safer Spaces

All orientations, genders, and kinks (or lack thereof) are welcome. Community is one of the reasons we started Godless Perverts. There are few enough places to land when you decide that you’re an atheist; far fewer if you’re also LGBT, queer, kinky, poly, trans, or are just interested in sexuality. And the sex-positive/ alt-sex/ whatever- you- want- to- call- it community isn’t always the most welcoming place for non-believers. Godless Perverts is committed to feminism, diversity, inclusivity, and social justice. We seek to create safe and welcoming environments for all non-believers and believing allies who are respectful of the mission, and are committed to taking positive action to achieve this.

Godless Perverts presents and promotes a positive view of sexuality without religion, by and for sex-positive atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other non-believers, through performance events, panel discussions, social gatherings, media productions, and other appropriate outlets. Our events and media productions present depictions, explorations, and celebrations of godless sexualities — including positive, traumatic, and complex experiences — focusing on the intersections of sexuality with atheism, materialism, skepticism, and science, as well as critical, questioning, mocking, or blasphemous views of sex and religion.

ACT UP Workshop A Big Success!

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All four presenters at ACT UP workshop hosted by Godless Perverts on Jan 9, 2017. Left to right: Ingrid Nelson, Rebecca Hensler, Crystal Mason, and Laura Thomas.

The ACT UP workshop hosted by Godless Perverts on January 9 was a huge success! It was standing room only at the Center for Sex and Culture, all the more notable with the weather being so bad. We actually had to turn people away at the door. (A nice problem to have, but still a problem: we apologize again to anyone who wasn’t able to get into the workshop, and we hope to have another one soon.) And the feedback we’ve gotten has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s impossible to summarize the entire workshop in one blog post — we made an audio recording of the event, which we’ll post as soon as possible — but here are a few highlights. [Read more…]

Godless Perverts Social Club — Game Night!

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Godless Perverts is having another game night on Tuesday, March 7! 7-9 pm. These are big fun, and they’re becoming some of our most well-attended events. As you may have noticed, Wicked Grounds has a huge stash of games including chess and checkers, Cards Against Humanity, ((If you decide to play CAH, please be cautious; it can be a really hard game between people who don’t know each other and aren’t familiar with each others’ limits and triggers.)) Scrabble, Fluxx, Slash, Gloom, Snake Oil, and much, much more. Feel free to bring your own games if you’re not sure that Wicked Grounds has a copy of your favorite.

So please join us at Wicked Grounds, the kink cafe and boutique, at 289 8th Street at Folsom in San Francisco (near Civic Center BART). 7-9 pm. Admission is free: if you can’t afford cafe prices, Wicked Grounds customers have bought coffee and tea for you, just ask for your beverage to be paid “from the wall.” Wicked Grounds has beverages, light snacks, full meals, and milkshakes made of literal awesome sauce. We meet at Wicked Grounds on the first Tuesday of every month, for topical discussions, general chat sessions, or game nights.

Godless Perverts: Our Policies on Building Safer Spaces

All orientations, genders, and kinks (or lack thereof) are welcome. Community is one of the reasons we started Godless Perverts. There are few enough places to land when you decide that you’re an atheist; far fewer if you’re also LGBT, queer, kinky, poly, trans, or are just interested in sexuality. And the sex-positive/ alt-sex/ whatever- you- want- to- call- it community isn’t always the most welcoming place for non-believers. Godless Perverts is committed to feminism, diversity, inclusivity, and social justice. We seek to create safe and welcoming environments for all non-believers and believing allies who are respectful of the mission, and are committed to taking positive action to achieve this.

Godless Perverts presents and promotes a positive view of sexuality without religion, by and for sex-positive atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other non-believers, through performance events, panel discussions, social gatherings, media productions, and other appropriate outlets. Our events and media productions present depictions, explorations, and celebrations of godless sexualities — including positive, traumatic, and complex experiences — focusing on the intersections of sexuality with atheism, materialism, skepticism, and science, as well as critical, questioning, mocking, or blasphemous views of sex and religion.

Godless Perverts at Women’s March in SF

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March with Godless Perverts at the January 21 post-inauguration-day Women’s March!

On January 21, the day after the presidential inauguration, there’s going to be a massive national Women’s March, opposing the rise of bigoted hatred in the United States. (Here’s more detail about their mission.) The main march is in Washington, DC, with sister marches all over the country, including the Bay Area. The march isn’t just for women: it’s open to anyone, regardless of gender or gender identity, who believes women’s rights are human rights.

In San Francisco, there will be a rally and candlelight march, starting at 4:00 pm at the Civic Center. The rally will be from 4:00 to 6:00 pm, with the march going down Market Street to Justin Herman Plaza starting at 6:00. There will also be marches in Oakland and San Jose.

Godless Perverts will be marching in the San Francisco march. Please join us! We’ll meet at Wicked Grounds, 289 8th St. in San Francisco, just a few blocks from the starting point of the San Francisco March. We’ll start gathering at 2:00 pm to make signs: we’ll be leaving for the rally at 3:45. (You can also try to find us during the rally or march, but we can’t promise that we’ll be findable in the crowd.) Let’s turn our perverted godlessness into action!

Godless Perverts presents and promotes a positive view of sexuality without religion, by and for sex-positive atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other non-believers, through performance events, panel discussions, social gatherings, media productions, and other appropriate outlets. Our events and media productions present depictions, explorations, and celebrations of godless sexualities — including positive, traumatic, and complex experiences — focusing on the intersections of sexuality with atheism, materialism, skepticism, and science, as well as critical, questioning, mocking, or blasphemous views of sex and religion.

Godless Perverts is committed to feminism, diversity, inclusivity, and social justice. We seek to create safe and welcoming environments for all non-believers and believing allies who are respectful of the mission, and are committed to taking positive action to achieve this. Please let the moderators or other people in charge of any event know if you encounter harassment, racism, misogyny, transphobia, or other problems at our events.

If you want to be notified about all our Godless Perverts events, sign up for our email mailing list, follow us on Twitter at @GodlessPerverts, or follow us on Facebook. You can also sign up for the Bay Area Atheists/ Agnostics/ Humanists/ Freethinkers/ Skeptics Meetup page, and be notified of all sorts of godless Bay Area events — including many Godless Perverts events. And of course, you can always visit our Website to find out what we’re up to, godlessperverts.com. Hope to see you soon!