Lips Page, Billie Holiday, Cozy Cole and others jam in 1939.
Photograph by Charles Peterson
I absolutely love this six-minute video by Karen B.K. Chan, tweeted to us by Alex Darasang. A professional sex educator, she tries to re-frame how we think about sex, and sexual consent, by offering a different metaphor. While we use metaphors to talk about sex all the time — weirdly, often related to carpentry: bang, nail, screw, etc. — she wants us to introduce an alternative metaphor: jam.
Jamming — shared musical improv — asks us to work together with others to spontaneously create a piece of art that has never quite existed before. It’s a lovely way to think about what sex should and could be. And, importantly, it utterly changes what consent looks like and its role in sexual pleasure.
Written by Lisa Wade, PhD
