SEASON 3 FEATURED VOICES:
Yveka Pierre is the litigation counsel for If/When/How where she litigates civil and criminal defense cases. She is a former public defender, who has been involved in justice driven work for a decade. She is committed to transforming legal systems, to move powers from oppressive systems, to those they seek to oppress. She is a Haitian born, Florida raised, New York transplant, who is committed to raging against the dying of the light.
Daniel Saynt is the Chief Conspirator of the movement brand New Society for Wellness aka NSFW, a members-only club and a creative agency for sexual wellness and cannabis brands. I’m an activist fighting against censorship, an evangelist for cultivating consent culture and a public speaker on all the things not safe for work. He got his start in the fashion industry, first as a blogger behind the industry skewering FashionIndie. He then became Chief Marketing Officer for a women's lifestyle brand and launched an agency called Socialyte which represented social media influencers. He has worked on campaigns for brands like Vogue and Burberry, but realized that he wanted to use my marketing skills on categories that bring people real happiness and fulfillment. He stopped selling shoes and makeup and began selling sex and cannabis.
The Clubhouse was created as an experience space where people can learn about sex, but also connect with products from brands like Uberlube, Motorbunny and Womanizer. Currently, they work with over a dozen brands in the space and our membership has grown to over 1,800 people including models, artists, photographers and celebrities. Activism and the desire to change perspectives around sex is a major focus for the New Society for Wellness.
Sid Azmi is a self-made social entrepreneur and a kinetic leader within the realm of educated pleasure who is transforming the way we think about sex. Her epiphanic timeline spans growing up a Malay Muslim girl born and raised in Singapore; she was circumcised at birth, disconnected from her body, and then moved to America on her own at 19, and worked as a radiation therapist and taught radiation therapy to college students. Today, Sid is the owner of and the head educator at the beloved Brooklyn-based educated pleasure shop Please. Please is the epicenter of Sid’s mission to change the way people think and talk about sex, and bring it to the mainstream as a daily indulgence for everyone, and anyone, at various stages of life.
Zoe Ridolfi-Starr is an activist and advocate whose work focuses on sex, gender, family, and the law. As Policy Chair of the Sex Education Alliance of NYC and a coordinator of the statewide #SexEdNowNY campaign, she advocates for better sex education policy. She is also a law student at NYU and earned her Bachelor’s at Columbia University. Prior to law school, Zoe led community organizing and legislative advocacy efforts across a number of issues, including LGBTQ youth homelessness, gender violence in schools, juvenile incarceration, and abortion access. She regularly speaks and writes on these topics; her writing has been published in outlets including the Yale Law Journal and the New York Daily News.
Dr Rebecca Levy-Gantt is a Board Certified ObGyn and a certified menopause practitioner who has been practicing for the last 10 years in Napa, California. She is originally from New York City, where she grew up and went to medical school at the NY College of Osteopathic Medicine, graduating in 1992. She practiced on Long Island for 11 years before moving to Napa. Her special interests are menopause management, including hormones and alternative management strategies, as well as vaginal and vulvar pain syndromes. She owns a solo private practice which has been growing for the past 5 years, teaches medical students from Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, and spends her free time teaching, traveling, running and writing.
Alix Fox is a multi award-winning broadcaster/journalist/sex educator, who jokes that there are "more slashes in her job description than there are in a werewolf’s T-shirt". She's a script consultant on hit Netflix series Sex Education; co-host of BBC Radio 1's comedy podcast Unexpected Fluids, which uses 'real-life tales of sexual fails' as a springboard for constructive conversation; and has answered listeners' most intimate questions as an X-rated Agony Aunt on The Modern Mann show for almost half a decade. You can also catch her advising patients on Channel 4's The Sex Clinic, and busting myths and misconceptions about emergency contraception on the My Morning After pod.
Alix is a proud Ambassador for Brook young people's sexual wellbeing charity, and Bloody Good Period, who are all about menstruation education. In addition, she's employed as resident Sex Expert at Superdrug; and is a spokesperson for Japanese sex toy firm TENGA, German pleasure innovators Womanizer, and female-founded sex subscription start-up The Sway. She’s a face of National HIV Testing Week campaign, in collaboration with Terrence Higgins Trust.
Janet Lieberman-Lu, Dame Products’ Chief Technology and Product Officer, knows how to get things made. After graduating from MIT with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 2007, Lieberman-Lu designed everything from dustpans to 3D printers before deciding to start her own company. She was the lead engineer and project manager for MakerBot’s award-winning Replicator Mini Compact Desktop 3D Printer, one of the first ten employees at the crowdsourcing consumer product development company Quirky, and spent time as quality engineer for multinational soft-goods brand Microdry. After having the epiphany that the sexual aids for women weren’t being developed, manufactured, or marketed the way a quality consumer good should be, while pornography (traditionally aimed at men) has always been at the forefront of technology, Lieberman-Lu founded Dame Products to try to be the change she wanted to see in the world.
Senti Sojwal is a South Asian-American New York native, reproductive justice activist, and co-founder of the Asian American Feminist Collective. She has written widely on feminist issues and politics and identifies as an intersectionality evangelist and bold lipstick aficionado. Senti holds a BA in Gender Studies from Hampshire College and is pursuing her MPH in reproductive & sexual health at NYU. You can follower her on Twitter @senti_narwhal.
Alice Pelton is the Founder of theldown.com, the world's first review platform for contraception. Alice created The Lowdown after she realised that she couldn't find user based data on women’s experiences and side effects from contraception at scale, anywhere. For years, she struggled to find a form of contraception that didn't impact her mood - so she decided to do something to help women like her, and create the 'Trip Advisor for contraceptives'. Since launching in early 2019, The Lowdown has collected over 1,200 anonymous reviews and received coverage from The Sun, Bustle, Pretty 52, Marie Claire and Yahoo. Alice hopes the platform will help to shortcut the trial and error approach many women have to finding the right contraception for them.
Andy Duran is a Bay Area native sexual health educator and the Education Director for Good Vibrations. As a trainer for over 15 years, this California bear cub and proud blue collar dandy loves providing accurate and accessible sex information with hopes to arouse curiosity and spread truth.
When not philosophizing about all things sexual, Educator Andy can be found singing George Michael, blushing, and keeping up his teddy bear figure.
Olive Persimmon (a nom de plume) has been developing a fan base on the internet with her observational and quirky humor everywhere from Elite Daily to SheKnows Media to Reddit. She has performed with the World Champion of Beat Boxing, emceed a TEDx conference, and spoken at the NYC Salon. She is the author of The Coitus Chronicles and Unintentionally Celibate.
Thandi Harris is an avid and passionate HIV activist and spokeswoman of Positive Women’s Network. She is a graduate of the first cohort in the Positive Women’s Network (PWN) policy program who used her activism to help change the old HIV criminalization laws in California. Currently, she does community outreach at W.O.R.L.D (Women Organized to Respond to Life-Threatening Diseases) the only organization in the bay area that supports women living with HIV and their families. She also is an active member of the local Ryan white community council and writes a blog in her free time about health and wellness living with HIV.
Safeena Mecklai is a current second-year student at the New York University School of Law. Prior to starting at NYU Law, Safeena worked as a lobbyist and strategic consultant with the top government relations firm in New York City. As the founder and head of Capalino+Company’s Digital Strategy practice, Safeena co-founded the firm’s flagship mobile application, MWBE Connect NY. Safeena is a graduate of the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs, a post-graduate leadership training program in NYC, and the University of California, Berkeley.
Ashwini Hardikar (she, they) is Director of Grants Administration at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center. She is an advocate for relevant sexual health education and access to resources across the lifespan. Ashwini previously ran sex education programs in NYC public schools in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. She is a member of NYC’s HIV Planning Group, and Mayor DeBlasio’s Sexual Health Education Task Force. She loves reading, watching TV, running, singing, playing guitar, cooking, and eating (often in that order).
Julie Ae Kim (she/her) is the Co-Founder of the Asian American Feminist Collective. A native New Yorker raised in Queens, her day job is in New York City politics as the Director of the Women's Caucus. She is also a writer focusing on themes of sexuality, family, and Asian America.
Less McCullars (He, Him) is a HIV case manager at The LGBTQ Center in Manhattan. His work is centered around HIV prevention as well as advocating for people living with HIV. He’s a member of NYC’s HIV Planning Group as well as the New York Knows. He loves queer art, working out, cooking, singing, house music, and Beyoncé.
Jaclyn Freidman is a writer, educator and activist, and creator of four books including Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (one of Publishers’ Weekly’s Top 100 Books of 2009) and her latest, Unscrewed: Women, Sex, Power and How to Stop Letting the System Screw Us All. Her podcast, also called Unscrewed, is paving new paths to sexual liberation, and was named one of the Best Sex Podcasts by both Marie Claire and Esquire.
Friedman’s work has popularized the “yes means yes” standard of sexual consent that has been made into law in several U.S. states and has been codified on countless campuses around the country and the world. Her commentary has appeared in outlets including The New York Times, Vox, Time, The Washington Post, Glamour and The Guardian. Friedman is a founder and the former Executive Director of Women, Action & the Media, where she led the successful #FBrape campaign to apply Facebook’s hate-speech ban to content that promotes gender-based violence.
Ellen H. Blais is One Love’s Executive Director of the New York Tri-State Region, leading initiatives to increase educational programming and partnerships in New York, New Jersey, and southern Connecticut and empowering communities to end relationship violence through education and awareness.
Una Aya Osato aka exHOTic other aka Norms is a performer, writer and educator from NYC, who dynamically merges her art and politics. She’s been featured in the New York Times, Teen Vogue, NPR's CodeSwitch, NowThis, HuffPost, MSNBC, to name a few. Una’s been performing in NYC for over three decades. And she’s been writing, performing, and producing her award-winning original work for over fifteen years, performing nationally and internationally for tens of thousands of people in theaters, festivals, universities, conferences, community organizations, classrooms, and prisons. She is also a co-founder of the renowned troupe brASS: Brown RadicalAss Burlesque, who have a queer POC monthly show called "Compost Bin!" in Brooklyn. Una and her sister Michi Ilona Osato's written work can be found in adrienne maree brown's NY Times Bestseller book "Pleasure Activism" in their chapter: Burlesque and Liberation. | www.UnaOsato.com |
Mia Davis is the Founder & CEO of tabú, a revitalized approach to sexual and mental health care. Prior to starting the company, Mia earned a BS with a focus in Product Design from Stanford University and pursued a career building out a CRM-powered community platform as a UX Designer at Salesforce. Due to her personal experiences with sexual trauma and pelvic pain, she was inspired to apply her design background to create meaningful, approachable tools for people to take care of the more "tabú" aspects of their overall wellbeing. Mia is constantly thinking of new ways to democratize comprehensive sex, relationship, and mental health education for the masses and make it easier for all of us to advocate for ourselves in the bedroom and beyond!
Amelia Bonow is the Founding Director of Shout Your Abortion, a movement dedicated to broadening the discourse surrounding abortion through art, media, and real life events all over the country. Bonow's writing has appeared in The New Republic, The New York Daily News, BUST Magazine, Salon, and she coedited SYA's eponymously titled book, which is currently in the waiting and recovery rooms of over 250 abortion clinics. Bonow proudly serves on the Board of Directors of the Abortion Care Network as well as Dr. Leroy Carhart's AbortionClinics.Org, and has been honored by Abortion Conversation Projects, numerous Planned Parenthood affiliates, filmmaker Michael Moore, and the Webby Awards. Amelia loves abortion providers, has the best friends in the whole universe, and she believes that we are going to win.
Robin Marty is a freelance reporter and the author of the new book "Handbook for a Post-Roe America," a guide for what to do if and when Roe is overturned and states make abortion illegal. She is also the co-author of "The End of Roe v. Wade" (formerly "Crow After Roe"), an updated account of 12 different abortion laws meant to provoke challenges to Roe v. Wade, to be published in August of 2019. Robin specializes in abortion rights and access and the anti-abortion movement and figures, and is a regular columnist on reproductive rights issues at DAME Magazine. Robin has been covering the state based actions to limit reproductive health access since 2009 ,and her work is frequently published in Cosmopolitan, NBC, The Guardian, Politico and other news outlets.
Fatmata Bah is a Peer Health Educator at The Door - A Center of Alternatives. In a space dedicated to approaching youth development in a holistic sense, they relish in the chance to broaden young people's ideas around sexuality. Moreover, in working with youth within The Door and across the city, they're able to promote discussions around comprehensive, inclusive sexual health, healthy relationships, and gender and sexuality.
Additionally, in the future Fatmata hope's to combine their interests of history, sociology and anthropology with their love of being an educator; teaching students a curriculum from a decolonized lense - reflective of themselves and their heritage.
Samantha Hanson is an Engagement Coordinator for One Love Foundation working to bring Escalation to schools in the tri-state area as well as assisting on the Campus Ambassador program.
Tracy MacNeal is an engineer, a healthcare innovator, a mother, and a champion for women’s health. Fueled by two decades in medical innovation, as CEO of Materna Medical, she maintains a focus that is both personal and universal. Her leadership empowers women to protect and restore their pelvic health. As women experience health and healing, they and their partners live fuller, happier lives. Serving as the national Chair for Advamed’s Women’s Executive Network, Tracy is a “head to heart” trailblazer who inspires the next generation of women leaders to create the future of healthcare.