Here’s what’s in this letter, so you can skim down to what interests you, if you like:

How can you help? Forward this letter.

* Become a member: here’s how.
* We need donations of any size; we are beginning to look for a permanent space.
* Help organize CSC benefits.
* Sign up for our mailing list.
* Volunteer opportunities.
* Support us by buying raffle tickets win a painting!
* Donate books and sexologically significant materials.
* What is The Center for Sex & Culture? Mission Statement and more about our projects.

How can you help? To start with, you can forward this letter to any individuals or lists you think would be interested in a sex-positive, community-based organization. It doesn’t matter whether or not CSC supporters live in the Bay Area we plan nation-wide programs, although these may not get off the ground as quickly as local ones.

Become a member! For $35 a year ($20 student/low-income) we will keep you informed of all CSC events, and you will receive first opportunity and/or reduced admission to CSC-sponsored classes, salons, and other happenings. Here’s how: Send check or money order made out to The Center for Sex & Culture and send to 2215-R Market Street #455, San Francisco CA 94114. Note that this is a membership request, not a donation, and make sure to include name and contact info. We will inform you about special membership perks as they evolve.
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We need donations of any size nothing is too great or too little, and we’ll gladly provide a donation letter to the IRS for anyone desiring one. Please make checks out to The Center for Sex & Culture (put “donation” in the memo line) and send to 2215-R Market Street #455, San Francisco CA 94114. We need funds now because we are beginning to look for a permanent space for our classes and other events and for our collection of books and sex-related archival material. (We are open to various kinds of involvement from funders, including endowments, long-term loans, and long-term building leases.)

To donate:
send checks or money orders (made out to The Center for Sex and Culture) to:

CSC
2215-R Market St. #455
San Francisco, CA 94114

or, you can now donate via PayPal!

Help organize CSC benefits. Last month the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence kindly offered to make us the beneficiaries of a fund-raising event, and we are shaping up plans for a house party in March anyone with some time to devote and a good idea to develop is welcome to get involved! Besides raising money, CSC benefit events help like-minded people get together and thus they help create community.

Sign up for our mailing list. We will begin our calendar of events shortly and would like to invite you to classes, workshops, salons, and fundraisers.  Email mail@carolqueen.com.

Volunteer your time. We will have many more volunteer opportunities when we have a space of our own, but we need help for one specific project now:

* We just acquired an amazing archive from internationally-known artist Frank Kozik. It contains much burlesque, nudie-cutie, and sexploitation film material way cool. We need people to come over to our house (damn, this will be easier when we have our own office!) and help Robert sort this out. RSVP by email or phone Robert at (415) 255-1155.

Donate books and sexologically significant materials. We already have several thousand volumes and expect the CSC will be the biggest publicly accessible sexuality research library in the US (maybe even the world!). We are eager to collect even more materials. If you have questions as to whether we want what you might have to donate, ask! We are also very interested in acquiring estate collections of erotic material. We have trained erotological appraisers on board and will provide a donation letter for a donor or her/his family.

What is The Center for Sex & Culture?

OUR MISSION STATEMENT: To provide non-judgmental, sex-positive sexuality education and support to diverse populations by means of classes, workshops, social gatherings, and hands-on, practical skills-building events; to maintain and house these events and supporting materials and functions; to maintain a publicly-accessible library and archives; to staff and support this learning environment.

SOME DETAILS: We are not the only organization needing space and trying to effect sex-positive cultural change, and the most involved level of possibility for the Center for Sex and Culture is to create a true community center for education, advocacy, research and support. But many existing organizations that do sexuality education limit their scope, and we want to make ourselves available to the widest range of people we can, with classes that run the gamut from informational to experiential.

Other functions and projects: to house a library and archival material; support research; to conduct SARs and salons; to create an online version of itself. The space could also be utilized by other organizations as scheduling allowed. Such a space could serve a nationally (in fact, globally) significant function. It will add to the few publicly accessible resources for sex education in the country. We have acquired several collections of books, papers, art, erotic material, etc., and are always looking for more. We have a Surrogate’s Project underway to support a long-time sex surrogate in researching and archiving materials about surrogacy (if you would like your donation to be earmarked for this project, just say so).

WHAT NEXT?
We are at work on the details like incorporation and initial fundraising, and have selected a Board of Directors. The next step will be paying a grant writer and doing more extensive fundraising, followed by a search for a home, most likely in San Francisco. We are exploring options for CSC-sponsored classes and events even before our doors open. If you have ideas for places we can hold classes, please let us know!

Thank you! Please forward this as widely as you think appropriate.
--Carol Queen & Robert Morgan Lawrence for the Center for Sex & Culture