Ingredients
The four characteristics of consent: Enthusiastic, Informed, Reversible, Voluntary
1-Planning session
4-Making sessions
The Greenpoint Reformed Church
30-Different contributors/collaborators (should I list??)
As much cardboard as one can get donated (Greenpoint Reformed Church donated all of the cardboard for this project!)
6- Pairs of Scissors
3- Box cutters
2-X-Acto™ knives
4- Hot glue guns
A lot of hot glue sticks (lost track of how many used)
4-Pints of paint (so much less than we estimated!!)
8-Brushes/rollers
1-Short throw projector (for tracing letters and images)
1-40’ piece of bright orange fabric
1-Niece-in-law with a CriCut ™
4- 36” Hula hoops
60-Zip ties
25-Sex Ed BakeshopXMerpeopleXConsent branded t-shirts
1-Collapsable wagon
2-friends with access to a laser cutter
Music
2-Bottles of Sunscreen
A LOT(!!) of Water (for parade day)
2000-Consent Condoms to give away
800-Temporary tattoos with messages about consent to give away
The 41st Annual Mermaid Parade
Enough pizza, wine, cookies, brunch food and coffee to feed collaborators at the making sessions and on parade day
Instructions
- Make the decision that the 41st Annual Mermaid Parade is when and how to launch the Sex Ed Bakeshop on a platform of consent.
- Register for the parade with the Tails of Consent name.
- Make a really silly, awesome drawing of what you envision.
- Send an email out to all trusted friends, family, colleagues with information about the project and invite participation with details for all of the ways people can contribute, and include a save-the-date for the parade.
- Host a planning meeting on Cinco de Mayo, serve delicious blackberry margaritas and guacamole, and pick the brains of the brilliant people you know re: optics, messaging, colors, scale, specific elements and props.
- Based on ideas and feedback at the planning session, draw the multi-element plan for the parade.
- Ask a smart, organized friend to help coordinate the project with you and pay them for their time. Thank you, Amy Hsiao!!
- Secure a place to host the making sessions. In the case of Tails of Consent, we reached out to the Greenpoint Reformed Church, because we had heard that they shared similar values and advertised that they rent their space for all occasions.
- Set up the church space as the Tails of Consent studio with tablecloths and floor coverings to protect the beautiful rented space, adorn the space with standard definitions of consent that include the 4 characteristics (enthusiastic, informed, reversible and voluntary) and large banners with the consent messages developed during the planning session.
- Provide the 18 individuals who attend the making sessions with sustenance, supplies and space to contribute their design, construction, production, painting, engineering, and activist and political communication strategies.
- Talk about consent as you work and make props. Ask collaborators to define consent for them, what role it plays in their lives, and what they wish they had known.
- Produce 2,000 consent condoms designed by a friend to give away, with “Does this cock have consent?” printed on the latex and the Sex Ed Bakeshop website printed on the package.
- Produce 800 temporary tattoos, designed by a friend.
- Produce the following: eight giant iridescent cardboard bubbles with messages about consent for the marchers to carry; six wearable cardboard tails; a 6’ tall Tillie, the face of Coney Island to lead the parade; a two-part giant tail constructed of bright orange fabric with painted gold scales and gold iron-ons of the four characteristics consent attached to 36” hula hoops; and a parade sign comprised of laser-cut cardboard letters spelling out Tails of Consent attached to a 14’ fishing net.
- Commission 25 T-shirts from your niece, with the Sex Ed Bakeshop logo and messages about consent.
- Hire an awesome photographer (Shreya Phadke) to document the parade.
- Send email with the details of parade day and all of the things you need people to know and bring (i.e. a water bottle and comfortable shoes).
- Make trays of frittatas and crumb cake and buy boxes of coffee and host a pre-parade brunch on the boardwalk with 30 friends and family members, and kick off the day’s events.
- March proudly in the parade with 17 of your nearest and dearest friends and family members, who are excited to hand out condoms and temporary tattoos and talk to people about consent.
- Connect with fellow parade marchers and talk about consent.
- Invite parade attendees to contribute to the Tails of Consent by writing their personal definitions of consent on cardboard shells that are then tied to the Tails of Consent sign.
- Finish the parade by hanging the Tails of Consent sign on the Cyclone rollercoaster fence.
- Take a brief break from the sun and off your feet.
- Gather friends and family at a bar on the water in Brooklyn and celebrate the day and the launch of the Sex Ed Bakeshop.
Background
It is the belief of the Sex Ed Bakeshop that understanding consent and its four characteristics (enthusiastic, informed, reversible, and voluntary) is essential to participating in and cultivating all healthy relationships, not just sexual ones.When considering a way to launch the Sex Ed Bakeshop, centering on consent made the most sense. It is one of the core flavors at the Bakeshop, and we decided to provide a healthy sample of this flavor as our introduction to the world.
Parades are pure spectacle and crowd engagement. They are celebratory spaces that bring people together. Body and sex positivity reign supreme at the annual Mermaid Parade at Coney Island in Brooklyn. It is a beautiful display of identities, creativity, and odes to the sea and all of its creatures. The Mermaid Parade celebrates and honors individuality, queerness, openness and artistry, and it quickly became the perfect stage to make the splash we desired for the Sex Ed Bakeshop coming out project. The 41st Annual Mermaid Parade represented both safe space and the scale of platform fitting what we decided to call the Tails of Consent project, which would bring messages of consent in fun, engaging ways, and mer-tastic ways to Coney Island and the parade attendees.
Bakers Tips
- We dedicate this project to Marco Antonio Castro Cosio, who we lost tragically in October 2023. Marco had an open and creative spirit, which he shared generously with everyone he met. We will miss him every day and at every event.
- Don’t be afraid to reach out to schools, libraries, churches and/or community centers you think share your values. They might give you free space,cut you an unbelievable deal on space rental, and/or become an important collaborator.
- You do not need to sew in order to work with fabric. Hot glue can do the trick! Mood Fabric confirmed this when the fabric was purchased for this project.
Use house paint, because it’s WAY cheaper and works well on cardboard and for outdoor props. - Supplying coffee, cookies, wine and pizza goes a long way, but don’t forget that some time and skills should be paid for with actual money.
- Parade photography by Shreya Phadke
- Resources and inspirations:
- TOMORROW SEX WILL BE GOOD AGAIN: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent, Katherine Angel
- Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution, Mona Eltahawy
- Not that Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture, Edited by Roxane Gay
- The Selected Works of Audre Lorde, Edited and introduction by Roxane Gay
- UNF*CK YOUR BOUNDARIES: Build, Better Relationships Through Consent, Communication, and Expressing Your Needs, Faith G. Harper, PhD, LPC-S, ACS, ACN
- Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness, and Becoming a Man, by Thomas Page McBee
- PARADES PARTIES AND PROTESTS: Creative Resistance Culture, by Sarah Sparkles
- ASK: Building a Consent Culture, Anthology by Kitty Stryker
- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/magazine/consent.html
- https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/19/opinion/sex-education-college-consent.html
- Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network: https://www.rainn.org/resources
- We, As Ourselves: https://weasourselves.org/
- National Women’s Law Center: https://nwlc.org/
- Me too. Movement: https://metoomvmt.org/
