Sex, Rights and Pleasure Lab

In the Sex, Rights and Pleasure Lab we will see teams of students creating new interventions to digitally mediated gender based and sexual violence, using a sexual health rights approach that highlights the importance of the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence for all persons.
With the help of the designers, researchers and marketing experts they will develop interventions –technical or social or a combination - which they pitch to senior international gender research specialists and record these on film to an expert jury and a general audience on the internet. The best interventions will be selected to compete for the Sex, Rights and Pleasure Lab Public Award and a £200 cash prize. The Sex, Rights and Pleasure Lab takes place at the University of Sussex from Tuesday 17 to Friday 20 January 2017.
Across the four days the workshop will bring together a range of students (social sciences, engineering, medical sciences, media studies, and computer sciences) with commercial and non-profit designers, marketing and media experts, sex educators and researchers working internationally on gender and digital technology.

Agenda:

Tuesday 17th January
09:00 Registration
09:30 Introduction and ground rules
10:00 Introduction to digitally-mediated sexual and gender violence (Pauline Oosterhoff, Research Fellow, IDS and Frances Ridout, Deputy Director, Legal Advice Centre)
11:00 Facilitated discussion: How do we recognise digitally-mediated sexual and gender violence? (Kerry Smith – Head of Girls Rights and Youth, Plan International UK)
13:00 Break for lunch
14:00: Digitally-mediated sexual and gender violence: what is happening on campus? (Andrea Cornwall, Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Equalities and Diversity and Grainne Gahan, Students’ Union)
15:00 Thinking about design: from concept to product (Kelly Shephard, Head of Open Knowledge and Digital Services, IDS)
16:00 Facilitated discussion: students to discuss their ideas and groups are formed (Kelly Shephard, Head of Open Knowledge and Digital Services, IDS)

Wednesday 18th January
09:30 Welcome back and recap
10:00 World Café : Introduce the experts.Students will be asked to think about their theme and will be asked to move around the tables of experts – moving on when a bell rings – they will need to pose the issue to the expert and ask them:
What is the existing evidence in this area?
Experts include:

Esther Kissiedu Social Media and Digital Manager, MTV Shuga, MTV Staying Alive Foundation, UK

Caryn Gooi Global Professional Relations Manager - Sexual Wellbeing at RB (Durex) UK

Simon Oboler Global Digital Manager - Health Wellbeing at RB (Durex) UK

Kerry Smith, Head of Girls Rights and Youth Plan International UK

Cheryl Overs, international sex workers rights activist and researcher IDS

Frances Ridout Deputy Director & Barrister Legal Advice Centre, Queen Mary University of London

Andrea Cornwall, Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Equalities and Diversity, University of Sussex

Pauline Oosterhoff, Research Fellow, Gender and Sexuality IDS

Becky Faith, Research Officer, Digital Cluster IDS

Dan Glass, UK queer HIV activist

Lyndsay Burtonshaw, activist, Safer Sussex and Role Models project

Kelly Shepherd, Head of Open Knowledge and Digital Services unit, IDS

Vivienne Benson, Communications Officer IDS

Carol Smithyes, Communications Officer IDS

Beki Aly, international LGBT activist

Stephen Wood, Research Officer, Gender and Sexuality, IDS

Nichi Hodgson, journalist and former dominatrix

Catherine Mueller, Research Fellow, Gender and Sexuality IDS

13:00 Break for lunch
14:00 Students will be given space and guidance to thrash out ideas. Experts circulate the room to help support ideas.
By end of the day students need to be clear about:

What is the issue that you wish to address?
What tools/ formats would you need to address this?
Who is the audience? Why should people care? How would you reach them?

15:00 World Café : Introduce the interventions. Students will present their interventions and experts will be asked to move around the tables to give input to these ideas
16:00 Reflection and wrap-up

Thursday 19th January
09:30 Welcome back and recap
10:00 How to pitch your idea, presenting and sharing (IDS Communications Team)
11:00 Students work on their ideas/presentations
12:00 Break for lunch
13:00 Building support on social media (Stephen Wood, IDS)
14:00 Peer-review session. Teams present to each other for feedback
15:00 Teams rehearse presenting to IDS Communications Team for feedback
16:00 Allocation of filming slots

Friday 20th January
09:30 Welcome back, evaluation and feedback
10:00-15:00 Filming slots as allocated on Thursday

10th February
Online voting of the YouTube films ends

14th February
Winning student teams awarded with prize at event to on Valentine’s day to coincide with the launch of the IDS Bulletin ‘Sex Education in the Digital era’