Photo by Rose Glass Photography
Shaan Lashun
Shaan Lashun
“So much of kink and fetishism is about delving into your erotic self, which is not necessarily sexual but what you most deeply desire,” Shaan Lashun explains. As a kink event producer, leatherworker and sex educator, his goal is to promote a consent-forward culture and cultivate a healthier, sexually-well community. “I think a better understanding of consent and power would do wonders for humans with how we communicate with each other, even outside of sex.”
Lashun produces the annual Kinky Carnival and currently serves as education coordinator at The Tool Shed (2427 N. Murray Ave.). In developing events, he takes a non-alienating, non-intimidating approach that never involves lectures or formalities while having a little something for everyone. “Sometimes education is just having a carnival where people can get flogged, see some pups and eat a muffin. I try to bring something for everyone, like bigger and more active parties and burlesque stuff for the nightlife crowd, or discussion groups and book clubs for the more pensive folks.”
He says that creativity in sex education is essential “in a country that’s terrified of people talking about sex. One of the biggest things I’ve had to learn has been meeting people where they are but without sacrificing my own comfort and authenticity. For me, a big part of organizing events and educating is creating environments where people feel open to receiving new ideas and experiences, and that openness requires a sense of safety.”
Lashun greatly appreciates questions about kink and sex. “It’s usually trans or queer folks who can’t necessarily type ‘how do I have good sex?’ into Google without doing a lot of deep digging,” he says. “When people feel safe enough to come to me, it feels like they’re seeking joy and trying to heal past wounds and resist a mainstream story or narrative about how they should be having sex. I want people to lean into what they want and not what they’re told to want. In the kink and fetish communities, people are in all kinds of relationships. They’re negotiating the interactions they want to have instead of going by some social script, and that is a really difficult thing to do in this world that demands conformity.”
Fetish-Friendly Performances
Kinky Carnival is an education-centered festival held annually at Kuumba Juice & Coffee (274 E. Keefe Ave.) for kinky and kink-curious folks. Here, one may find demo booths run by vetted community members as well as kink and fetish-friendly performances, adult product vendors, games and refreshments.
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This summer, Lashun is excited to debut a new event, Cream City Pleasure Fest, August 17-23. The fringe-style festival “celebrates erotic empowerment and the artistry of pleasure” by way of independently produced workshops, performances, markets and playful gatherings, concluding with Kinky Carnival on August 23. “The goal is to create these different ways that people can touch sexual health and wellness and kink in a way that works for them,” Lashun says.
Since 2020, Lashun has hosted Virtual Bootblack Jam, a monthly free online social event for bootblacks that features classes and discussion panels. Outside of Milwaukee, Lashun has participated in International Ms. Leather & Bootblack (IMsLBB) in New Jersey, where he recently concluded his third year as bootblack coordinator. Over the summer, Lashun is also the stage manager for PrideFest’s Red Light District.
On becoming a sex educator, Lashun remembers, “Like many young queers, I discovered Tumblr and built a really great community of folks and learned a lot about what we call “alternative lifestyles” like fetish and polyamory.” While living in Washington D.C., Lashun attended his first play party and eventually started producing play parties of his own. “Around that same time in my life, I wound up doing HIV advocacy work and focusing on trans sexual wellness.”
Having been involved in leather, kink and sex ed work for more than a decade, Lashun has observed newcomers in these spaces sometimes struggle to understand exactly what they are getting into or know their own boundaries. He encourages folks to familiarize themselves with RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink). “Culturally, we’re expected to just know how to have sex in a one-size-fits-all way, when we know from our experiences when we’re sexually active that that’s not how it works,” he explains. “It’s important to take your time, as I’ve seen people come in and try to dive head-first in and have no idea what they’re consenting to, and that burns people when you have weird experiences.”
Model for Consent
Consent is an ongoing conversation and not a one-time yes-no interaction, to which Lashun refers to Planned Parenthood’s FRIES model of consent, an acronym for freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic and specific. “It gets at the different elements that need to be present, and that framework does really well for people who are new with what they should be considering.”
Kink events and conventions like Black Kinky Academy Weekend, Women of Drummer, IMsLBB and Thrive Con are examples of spaces Lashun identifies as championing accessibility, visibility and representation or challenging the whitewashed or cis male-centric mainstream imagery of kink and leather scenes. “Kink is not this lovely fantasy world where we just stop having oppression,” he makes clear. “It’s still present in the community, and there are some very big differences between the Black kink scene and the white kink scene. One of the most obvious cultural differences is white people continuing to fetishize actual oppression, whereas I find people of color engaging in kink as a way of healing from oppression. That changes how we’re actually relating and experiencing fetish play. In BIPOC kink spaces I see more layered conversations about things like HIV, history, community care and transformative justice because we’re more impacted and more interested in making things better.”
Lashun is trying to connect with local Black and Brown folks working in sexual violence prevention and care work as well as sexual health and wellness. To continue subverting harmful paradigms and improving existing kink and sexual wellness spaces in the Milwaukee community, Lashun directs folks to support local groups and organizations like Wisconsin Leather Pride, Milwaukee Queer Munch, Diverse & Resilient and the local ballroom scene with time, money and resources.
He contends, “People can best support spaces by investing in a better sex culture in their everyday lives. Unlearn non-consensual fetishisms that have now been deemed acceptable and learn how to actually talk about sex and desire and get tested and treated when something is burning or itching instead of spiraling and being ashamed about it.”
