Rosemary Raven Hearth

Sex Cafe Is This Friday, January 16: What It Is, and Why It Matters

Most of us learned about sex the way we learned about death in this culture: awkwardly, indirectly, and with a lot of silence. And silence doesn’t make us safer. It makes us uninformed. It makes us lonely. It leaves us holding confusion and guilt that we can’t even name.

Sex Cafe is a space to speak what usually gets shushed or shamed. Not performative. Not clinical. Not “sex positivity” as a demand to be loud and liberated. Just honest conversation, held with consent and care. All genders, sexual orientations, identities, and relationship configurations are welcome.

What Sex Cafe is (and what it’s not)

Sex Cafe is:

• A facilitated conversation circle about sexuality, embodiment, relationships, desire, boundaries, identity, pleasure, kink, and the stories we inherited.
• Consent-forward, trauma-aware, and grounded in respect.
• A place where you can come curious, uncertain, tender, or bold and still belong.
• Kink-aware and kink-welcoming, with an emphasis on consent, safety, and zero pressure to disclose.

Sex Cafe is not:

• A pickup scene.
• A group therapy session (though it can be healing).
• A debate club where anyone’s humanity is up for discussion.
• A place where anyone owes personal disclosure.

You can speak. You can pass. You can listen the whole time and still count.

Why I’m Doing This

Rosemary Raven Hearth is about sacred transitions, and sexuality is one of them.

Sex is a threshold. So is coming home to your body after grief. So is learning to say no without apology. So is learning to say yes without fear.

If you have ever felt like your body is a house you live in but don’t fully know, welcome. This is part of the remembering.

What to expect on Friday

We’ll begin with a simple grounding and a few community agreements, then move into conversation.

Expect conversation like:

• What I wish someone had told me earlier
• Consent as a real-life practice, not a buzzword
• How shame shows up, and how we loosen its grip
• Boundaries, needs, and how to say things out loud without combusting
• Curiosity about desire and embodiment, without pressure to perform
• Kink, fantasies, and “taboo” curiosities as normal human territory, discussed with respect and consent

There will be warmth. There will be laughter. There may be a few moments where you think, “Oh. I’m not the only one.” That is the point.

Community agreements (the basics)

• Confidentiality: what is shared here stays here.
• No fixing: we don’t rescue, diagnose, or correct someone’s lived experience.
• Speak from the “I”: no universal claims about what is “normal.”
• Consent in conversation: no pressuring for details. “Pass” is always allowed.
• Respect across difference: curiosity is welcome; cruelty is not.
• Consent includes content: no pressure to disclose, no graphic shock-value details, and no sexual advances toward others.

Event details

Date: Friday, January 16
Time: 6:15 PM
Location: Pollinate Hive House, 1101 64th St, Windsor Heights, IA

Who this is for

This is for adults who want:

• Better language for what they feel
• Less shame and more clarity
• A place to ask questions without being treated like they are weird for having them (spoiler: you are not)
• A community that can hold nuance

If you are nervous, you are in excellent company. Brave does not mean unafraid. It means honest. All genders, sexual orientations, identities, and relationship configurations are welcome. Come as you are.

We’ll keep the lights warm and the conversation real.