We would not be here if it wasn’t for the power of friendship. Our mission is inspired by the powerful personal experience of three of our co-founders: Imogen, Nina and Marlene.
Our organization would simply not exist today without a tradition called “Vag Night” that we started together back in 2012. (We will share the unusual origin story of these meetups another day.)
Today we just wanted to share that, in our experience, peer support is a key ingredient in exploring our intimate relationships - including our relationship to our sexuality, and ourselves in general.
And no, we don’t mean getting naked with your friends or strangers. What we mean is an activity that is as old as humanity itself: listening to personal stories from peers.
A campfire is certainly a nice optional bonus. But any comfortable location where you feel safe will do. (The living room where we held our first "Vag Nights" was everything but glamorous. It featured saggy couches and an ugly black carpet. But because it was in our own home, and because we greatly enjoyed each others’ company, it felt cozy nonetheless.)
Peer support can of course take many different forms. It can be in person meetups with one or a few close friends. It can be reading about someone else’ experience in a book, magazine or online. It can be listening to someone’s story at an event or in a video.
What all these things have in common is that they provide a way to discover that we are not alone in our experience. There are always others who have struggled with the same challenge and it can be so supportive to feel like we are “in the same boat”, and that we could discover helpful steps together.
In addition, learning about someone else’s experience can be very inspiring. Maybe they have managed to work through the challenge that we currently feel stuck with, or maybe they have explored something that had never even crossed our mind but that sounds so intriguing.
It can also be valuable to share about our own experiences. Talking about our experiences or writing down our reflections can be therapeutic because it helps us to literally get our thoughts out of our heads. Plus, by doing so, we can get more clarity on what our thoughts and feelings are and how we might want to respond to them.
The power of peer support is the reason that with our work we bring people together in whatever way feels comfortable to them. (More about that in our next post.)
This year we will share a bunch of personal testimonials and stories about people’s intimate exploration journeys on this page. Stories from people of diverse ages and backgrounds. So follow us if that sounds like something you would appreciate.
And if you’d like to read a story right now, here are two stories from participants from our program: "My pleasure is mine" and "This is me!"
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