Center for Sex and Culture

Hello, lovely people! It's #GivingTuesday time and we are SO grateful for you!

If you are new to the Center for Sex & Culture, more info about us below. Thank you for visiting!

The Center for Sex & Culture is a virtual community center providing judgment-free education and cultural events, and exploring and preserving knowledge and materials about sex and gender. Our physical space closed early in 2019 due to expanding rental costs, and most of our library and archival materials went to other institutions, but we continue our mission via sponsorships, online events, pop-ups, and publishing. 

AND! In 2021, we began to restock a NEW library/archive space thanks to the generosity of the Folsom Center in SF! We hope to see you there when it's time to gather together again. (Stay safe in the meantime!) If you want to donate books/papers or do research in the library, please contact us at carolqueenphd@gmail.com.

We so appreciate your interest and your support.

This platform allows one-time or recurring monthly donations. We do not primarily operate by grants, as many nonprofits do. Our primary source of support is YOU and others like you.

We're so very grateful to all who contribute--but you can help us whether or not you're in a position to donate. Just grab this URL and tweet or FB it, send to your list, email that one friend you think would get what we're about.

Our site sexandculture.org is in the process of being revamped--keep stopping by, or join our email list: https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/1410022/1404292.231800196/ 

If you would like to support our fiscally sponsored project Butch Voices, please let us know in the memo so we can earmark your donation accordingly!

Contributions are deductible for the 2024 tax year.

This is the Center for Sex & Culture's story:

In 1994 my partner Robert and I (I'm author and sexologist Carol Queen) were visiting our friend Betty Dodson, sometimes known as "the Mother of Masturbation," in NYC. Why didn't she bring her Bodysex workshop to the Bay Area? we asked. There wasn't an appropriate venue there, she said. And then she said the words that begin the story of The Center for Sex & Culture: "You kids should start a place."

We had connections in many sex-related communities. We both have doctorates in sexology; I work at Good Vibrations and in those days I wrote for Spectator magazine; I wrote stories and essays for zines and anthologies and was working on my book Exhibitionism for the Shy; we traveled around teaching, speaking, and meeting people from many sexual worlds; and we'd both been directors at SF Sex Information. Together, we could identify with much of the range of sexuality. "A place"! We started to talk it up.

At last an angel donor helped us get over the fence, become a non-profit and begin looking for a space. Interns and donated materials came our way even before we had room to house them. When we did get a place, in 2004, we invited every sexually interested adult to be part of it: as member, performer, teacher, patron, life-long learner. We've hosted countless sex classes and cultural events. In the absence of good sex ed in the US, many of us learn about sex and develop our attitudes about it via culture, and we want to participate fully in that discussion. Academics and journalists used our library and inspected our collections. Librarians descended on us, helping us to organize the many books and journals we'd amassed. We believe we accumulated the largest publicly-accessibly sex library in the country, maybe the world!

We were and are all volunteer, a labor of love and community for everyone involved. Now CSC is preparing for the next phase in our work. The doors of our previous space may have closed, but our materials are safe at other archives, and we will continue participating in the fascinating history of sex in culture in every way we can--via the new reading room, virtual and pop-up events, and more.

Thank you so very much for reading about our history and supporting us. EVERY donation helps us do our work.

Wishing you pleasure, culture that speaks to your erotic self, community, and all the sex information you need!

--your friends at the Center for Sex & Culture