AASECT 48th Annual Conference - Plenary Session Overview
The 48th Annual AASECT Conference is June 8-12, 2016 in beautiful San Juan, Puerto Rico. Our 2016 conference theme is Putting the Pieces Together: Inclusivity in Practice, and as part of this, the conference planning team has been focused on cultivating a program that explores the various pieces in the mosaic of human sexuality, with an eye towards expanding our understanding of the utmost importance and significance of practicing inclusivity and impact-awareness in the field of sexuality. As part of this, the conference will feature four unique plenaries over the course of four days.
Nafeesa D
awoodbhoy & Sonalee Rashatwar will kick off the conference on Thursday June 9, 2016 with their Engaging Diversity and Opening Plenary, The Colonization of Sex Positivity. The presenters’ thought provoking plenary will deconstruct the global intersections of colonial and imperial influences on sex positivity, sex research, and sexual liberation. Using an anti-oppressive framework, they will share the value of using a lens attuned to intersecting systems of power and privilege and discuss the significance of counter movements in expanding conceptions of indigenous, black, and brown sexual liberation.
Friday afternoon will feature the Whipple Plenary & Symposium, Community-Based Participatory Research for Sexual Health Promotion and Advocacy: Experiences from the Field in Puerto Rico. Scientists from the sexual health promotion field, Carlos E. Rodríguez-Díaz, PhD, MPHE, MCHES, Brian M. Dodge, PhD, MPH, Erika Collazo, PhD, MPH and Debby Herbenick, PhD, MPH will deliver this special panel. They will share their experience building and conducting community-based participatory research for sexual health promotion and advocacy in Puerto Rico. Additionally they will discuss how their approach to research led to collaborations to address sexual health inequities in Puerto Rico, especially in the development of culturally-specific sexual health promotion interventions. Directly after the panelists’ presentation a cultivated symposium of various sexuality professionals working in different capacities in Puerto Rico will share their experiences.
Saturday morning D. Narayana Reddy, MD, PhD, DST, CSSP will deliver a plenary entitled Love Hormones: The Nature and Function of Love. Dr. Reddy’s plenary will elaborate on the nature and function of love. In particular, he will expand on the physiological processes and inter-connection between hormones and emotions and detail how hormones and neurotransmitters impact love. This will help the clinician to understand better the psychosomatic concept of the wonderful feeling called love.
The 2016 conference will end with a plenary entitled Ethical Storysharing: How to Disrupt Stigma and Promote Wellbeing by Aspen Baker. Aspen will discuss the philosophy, challenges, and benefits, of ethical storysharing which puts the wellbeing of the storyteller front and center. Aspen will provide practical tools to help celebrate the voices of people with hidden experiences and create a culture more welcoming to each person’s unique story. This talk is sure to stimulate conversation and storysharing among conference attendees.
In addition to plenaries, the conference will feature over 70 concurrent workshops, 40 poster presentations, and 7 pre-conference workshops. Concurrent sessions of roundtables, dialogue panel presentations, and traditional workshops will highlight diverse identities and honor various intersections of sexuality. Sessions will also focus on issues that impact many of our communities like racism, social justice, privilege, accessibility, and more! We hope you will join us as June 8-12, in San Juan for the 48th Annual AASECT Conference! For full descriptions of the plenary sessions and other program pieces visit our conference website.
See you in Puerto Rico!
Melissa Keyes DiGioia, CSE & Mariotta Gary-Smith, MPH, CSE
2016 Annual Conference Committee Co-chairs
