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With the research done in EPP, I am continuing on the same pathway and I have expanded into trying to create a safe space for people who’ve experienced kink-shaming, and this branches into understanding the community, and what their idea of a safe space, but with technology, I aim for a physical-digital hybrid. For this I decided to take a leap of faith and check out any events where I can interact with members, and understand what their safespace is, and since I am also into the lifestyle, maybe not as active as someone would expect me to be, but I’s still identify my sexual behaviour as kinky. 

I went to a munch which is meant for people Under25 in North London. Prior to going I put up a post on the group’s page that I am open to talking to people about this and no one really approached me though about it, but they weren’t too surprised either. I was much more comfortable in this compared to the previous one and there was a mix of people from the queer community too, and I had anticipated the intersectionality so I was not surprised, but I did see a representation of South Asian and Asian too, and disabled people which warmed me to see people being open and welcoming, which made me understand that these people felt safe here, and I interacted with people and asked them what they do in their daily lives, and when I mentioned my research they seemed surprised, but one of them also told me that the owner of the restaurant is also in the scene and hence most of the nice/decent/safe munches are held here, since she’s forthcoming and understanding about this stuff, and I thought to myself I should talk to her the next time I go there, since it’s a monthly thing, but they had mentioned that the owner and the staff know what is happening and how to handle the situation and that some of them are in the scene themselves, which makes it a safe space for the people to interact, and this one person I talked to, when I asked for feedback said they didn’t know what it would look like, so he wouldn’t comment on it, but overall I’d say I’m going to look and find similar events and other places like clubs to talk to people, but I feel like I haven’t narrowed my target age group which would be helpful and more targeted.

In terms of intervention, I am thinking of a sort of get together at a place where people can talk about their experiences. I am trying to find a group of participants and collaborate with a group of qualified professionals, until such a time where I have had suitable training to handle such complex and sensitive topics in a professional manner. In terms of receiving training, I have contacted an expert who uses conflict and self-love as a method of communication, and I’m hoping to learn if similar techniques can be applied to people who’ve experienced shame about their sexual preferences and desires.

I am also looking into in-depth methodologies in designing research as well as collection, analysis and evaluation of data to be able to better design my interventions and also have better basis for reflections. 

I have weighed the pros and cons about having a set group of participants, because in terms of developing a safe space within marginalised and vulnerable communities, it is important to give space and time for the stakeholders to become more comfortable and trust the researcher themselves, and this trust and comfort can become an important factor in gathering better data, but I may be wrong? Definitely no harm in trying to work with a set group and gathering data. 

The psychologist I had interviewed for my EPP project seems interested in collaborating, which should be interesting and something I am looking forward to, and hopefully we can come up with some interesting frameworks!

This is the last week of the project, and we had some finishing touches to be given to the presentation. This included planning the structure of our presentation so that it conveys our individual collaboration as well as our speculative scenario. I think the both are not necessarily co-related because a “good” end result does not mean good collaboration, and a good collaboration does not imply a “good” end product.

I personally feel like I have learnt a lot in this group collaboration and that it was a fruitful journey, the various skills I have learnt in terms of collaboration, adaptability, compromise ( compromise does not necessarily mean letting go off an idea, it means that we as a group try and incorporate it’s essence in the group), and listening to another perspective and understanding it are some things I have gained a deeper perspective on.

In this week, we gathered our data and feedback from the incubator, which was actually quite surprising, people engaged with our narrative, but they also felt a little uncomfortable with the narrative of HAPPY company, but they also felt like they’d be a part of it, if given the chance. We also tried to analyse and evaluate our research process and our collaborative process in general, since both go hand-in-hand and talking about it verbally might not be the best use of our time, since we have only ten minutes to talk about presentations, learnings, challenges, etc. We also glossed over minor details that we may have missed but found that we did have a foundation for our speculation. /

In terms of conveying our process, research and world-building, we may have missed out a few points like what do people in HAPPY organisation actually do, when they are employed? what are the social implications of our scenario in 2046, I personally think we were not able to go over some details due to time constraints and maybe we would have done a better and well-informed scenario if there was more time. We developed a sequence to do our presentation effectively and efficiently, and with the aid of visuals, we used it to communicate our collaboration and narrative, which gave us ample amount of time to do our process.

To convey our process, we used a 4-step diagram of discovery-definition-process-development-delivery, which talks about our challenges in ideation, problem definition and outcome. For conveying our extensive research, we used Saunders’ research onion to explain our approach, strategies, time, methods, and subjects of inquiry, which definitely helped us convey our research better, which would’ve otherwise taken up so long of our time. We also referred to the TV shows and journals we referred to since they also played an important role in forming our speculation.

I personally believe that I have learnt a lot from this collaboration in terms of skills, application etc. which I would carry further ahead in my own personal research.

How can we create a safe space for kink-shaming victims and enable them to explore their desires? 

This question reflects on how we, as a society, are made to differentiate between different sexual activities and are told some are “normal”, and the ones who express desire for the ones which do not count as “normal” are shamed for their desires, this takes a toll on a person and may prevent them from being themselves fully. 

The above actions, made me plan an intervention wherein, I created an anonymous Google Forms, and over the course of one week, I have received one response. The potential for change is trying to empathise with the victims, and understand the psychology of the situation and creating a space where one feels vulnerable and comfortable enough to open up. In terms of changing perspectives of the society as a whole, it would help to raise awareness and spreading knowledge about the different dynamics, and the benefits one might gain from such practices.

Some background on the above summary would be in continuation with my research from Box of Uncertainities-1, and using the Question Formation Technique(QFT), I had developed a list of questions, I drew in, which I am going to elaborate in further in here:

1. How can we combat kink-shaming?
2. How can kinkenabling help kink-shaming victims?
3. How can we develop a service to help victims?
4. How can we educate people more about kinks?
5. How can we use kinkenabling as a method to deal with body image issues?
6. How can we use kinkenabling to help people explore their desires?
7. How can we combat online kink-shaming?
8. How can we use kinkenabling to uplift and boost self-confidence and esteem in people?
9. How can we spread awareness on kink-shaming and it’s effects?
10. How can we use kink-enabling to help trauma(emotional and sexual) victims?
11. How can we build a safe space for people to explore their desires?

As per the QFT, I had reflected on my questions and what resonated more with me personally, and felt more impactful was numbers 2, 8,11, and I was thinking if there’s a connection between them or if they could be used in conjecture? well playing around with the words, i did end up with a question as is the first line of this post, which is ‘How can we create a safe space for kink-shaming victims and enable them to explore their desires?’ this questions called for an intervention for a space which is free from judgement/bias/control, which translated into anonymity to me, and hence i created a Google forms, which is anonymous(to the recipient and me as well), but it also served as background research into my project further, but surprisingly it received ONE response, and even today, on March.10th, over a month later, it still has one response, which says a lot about anonymity, technology, trust etc., which I am going to address further.

For the pop-up showcase, I created a poster to explain my research question and intervention, which I am attaching to this post, in the poster I explain various forms of shaming which are present, and how it affects one’s life, and why does one kink-shame another, and how can we combat, and what is the opposite of this, and the benefits of enabling/practicing kink in one’s life.