Member Best Practices
SexPositive Portland is a community and are actively creating a culture of care, confidentiality and consent. To foster a loving and drama-free environment, the following are the best practices and standards of our community.
- Personal hygiene must be maintained without any perfumes, essential oils, or a strong odor of tobacco, marijuana or other substances at SPP events.
- Arrival to all SPP events sober and not become altered with drugs or alcohol to the degree that compromises the ability to give clear consent or cause of conflict with others.
- If a member cannot make an event, they must change their RSVP more than two hours prior to the start of the event. If less than two hours please leave a message or notifythe event host on the event page as well as changing the RSVP.
- Members will take responsibility for their own decisions and experiences at events and will seek support from the event host/facilitators or other members as needed.
- We protect the privacy of our members. Not everyone is out and open as queer, polyamorous, open, or ethically non-monogamous (or any combination of the above) in their personal or professional lives, and we go to great lengths to respect our members’ right to privacy. This means not tagging on social media, photographing or outing anyone without their explicit verbal consent.
- Direct communication is used to resolve misunderstanding and conflict. All communications are voluntary and consensual (meaning free of coercion, harassment, or pressure).
- As much as possible, we agree to talk about and listen through issues in a constructive and caring manner.
- We will avoid using blaming language or language that includes a diagnosis of someone else. We strive to talk from our own observations of what happened, how that affected us, and to say how we wish to be treated in the future.
- Other than speaking briefly to another member to help clarify our own thoughts and feelings or speaking to the facilitator or host of the event where the conflict or concern happened, we will not share our concerns about other members, including Leaders and Board members, outside of the MCCC.
- We do not participate in gossip, repeat hearsay or build coalitions to gain support against other members.
- We will see help to help us directly communicate with others if needed. We will do this by contacting the MC3 via the Incident Report
- We take care of fellow members by offering assistance or notifying the event host when someone seems stuck, lost, confused, lonely or in trauma.
- We step up or notify the event host/facilitator if I see a person crossing someone’s boundaries or allowing their own boundaries to be crossed.
- SPP social media forums, such as the private SPP Facebook group and the Meetup event group discussions are not an arena to air grievances or concerns about a specific person. All such posts will be removed by the Administrator or moderator. Any person who posts such items will be directed to submit their concerns to the MC3 via Incident Report
- Our members agree to do the safer sex talk (STARS) prior to any sexual or strongly sensual engagement with others. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:
- Honestly discussing STI status, including last tested and results.
- Communication and respecting boundaries without judgement or coercion prior to any engagement and during the engagement if they change.
- Ethically disclosing any relationship agreements with others.
- Discussing intentions and expectations pertaining to engaging with others in a sensual/sexual context.