About
Our purpose. Our mission.
Sexual Difference is a space created to serve as a resource, promote education, highlight lived experience through BLACK SHEEP BLEAT, and advocate for empathy and understanding of sexual difference.
The fire that fuels the BLACK SHEEP BLEAT video project is humanizing sexual difference to create empathy and understanding by highlighting personal stories of people to illustrate the unique intersections of oppression that are constructed around sex, gender, and sexuality due to our sex-negative culture.
The sexual difference logo is symbolic of the growth that transpires when difference comes together. Inherently, there is awareness; however, a process of education begins. As people share, empathy is born. There’s a little difference that runs through all of us because God created only one of YOU.
About Sex Positivity...
What does it mean to be Sex-Positive?
4 Tenants of Sex-Positive Feminism
What turns you "on" may be different than what turns your lover "on". That's MORE than ok.
- There's no such thing as “normal” sex
- Public discourse about sex is oppressive
- People exercise pleasure in numerous ways
- We need more varied representations of sex and sexuality
Informed about risks, Enthusiastic about the experience, and Continuously checking in each step of the way without being Coerced = Consent. It's getting a YES instead of avoiding a No.
- Consensual and Voluntary NOT Coerced or Required
- Understand & Respect each other’s boundaries
- Respect young people’s developing sexualities
- ALL people have the right to sexual agency and education
Sexual Health is to be Enjoyed by Everyone
- Masturbation is Healthy
- Respect Partnering Choices
- Reduce Risk of STIs
- Reduce Stigma of STIs
- Access to Comprehensive, Nonjudgmental Healthcare
- Safe & affordable access to contraceptive & procreative health
Comprehensive Education for Everyone
- Sexual education is appropriate for ALL levels of life
- Information should be appropriate, accessible, comprehensive
- Should not be limited to harmful consequences
- Include benefits of healthy consensual sex
- Education about pleasure and non-genital zones
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About the Person Behind the Curtain
Carrie Reffitt, MA - Sex & Sexuality Educator
After spending 17 years in the field of marketing in a variety of industries, my creative juices began flowing in a digital media direction in 2012 when I launched Cat Pants Media and became a visual storyteller. However something profound happened to me when taking a gender and identities class at NEIU. I suddenly started understanding myself as a queer woman in a way I never had before. My gender fluid childhood was clarified for me and I finally discovered a term actually existed to describe how I choose to love and practice my relationships. Learning there was more than just male and female, I couldn’t understand why we were not taught these things back in 6th grade Sex Ed class.
Life could’ve been so much easier for me and a host of other folks. Sadly, that’s not the case.
Thirsty for a deeper understanding of how sex, sexuality, and relationship practices/choices are communicated, disseminated, and perpetuated through media I started a Master of Arts in Communication, Media and Theatre at Northeastern Illinois University. The journey has led me to the creation of this space, my humble beginnings as a sex educator, and the burning desire to give back; my attempt to take action against our cultural sex-negative narrative.