Sex Education II: Diagnosis + Consentire
- Nika RozmanPerformer
- Tea VidmarSound Perfromer
- Tijana TodorovićPerformer
- Barbara KapeljPerformer
- Costume design: Tijana Todorović
- Set design: Barbara Kapelj
- Music: Tea Vidmar
- Expert from the field: dr. Gabrijela Simetinger
- Editing audio tapes: Klara Otorepec
- Sound design: Marijan Sajovic
- Lighting design: Barbara Kapelj, Tjaša Črnigoj
- Production management: Tina Dobnik
What do women need and want to feel comfortable during sex? How do neoliberal capitalist structures in their patriarchal core oppose this? These are the questions that link the first two lecture-performances in the series.
In Diagnosis, the creators explore vaginismus* and painful intercourse, which, as certain studies claim, is experienced by up to 40 percent of women. Decades after the sexual revolution, the majority of people equal a (hetero) intercourse with vaginal penetration. Numerous women find this painful, and some can never even experience penetration. Vaginismus and painful intercourse are connected to the contracture of the pelvic floor muscles. How do social forces contract these muscles and does this leave any room for pleasure?
In the lecture-performance Consentire, its creators dive into sexual consent, whereby the context is most often the lack of consent and rape. Sex education doesn't go beyond that to concretely and bodily reflect on the sexual practices that are connected to consent. Often, these are full of misunderstandings, doubts, and reflection on (personal) boundaries, and reflect the power relations in society and the (non-)autonomy of women in asserting their sexual rights in consensual sex.
*Vaginismus is considered the most difficult sexual dysfunction in women. Vaginismus causes the pelvic floor muscles to spasm, which completely disables vaginal penetration even when a woman desires it.
Although contemporary theatre often brags about its sexual openness and liberation, which makes it seem that everything has already been told about sex, talking about female pleasure and sexuality so that the patriarchal and phallocentric view of them would not prevail is still a very rare phenomenon. For this reason, the lecture-performance in progress Sex Education II: Diagnosis + Consentire is a radical exception, which once again reminds us that intimate is political. The first part […] is dedicated to vaginismus, the disease that many women experience and its symptoms show as painful sexual intercourse or a complete inability to engage in one. […] On the white walls, we can see the different forms and types of vulvas, which with their pick colour spectrum, in combination with the green reflection of the trees outside create an intimate, almost dreamy space. These are the images that we actually rarely see outside pornographically deformed content. […] In contrast to the tenderness of the first part, in the Unsafe Space we are greeted by Nika Rozman’s videos as the actress describes a rape experience and questions the definition of rape. […] Along the room, Rozman opens sacks of soil and rubs herself against it so that later she can use seeds to spell out on the scratched floors ‘Consentire’, consent, which is also the title of the second part of the production. […] Although Sex Education II still emerges from the binary logic of gender and presumes that all women identify with the sex assigned to them at birth, and consequently focuses predominantly on heteronormative sexual practices, this is definitely one of the more important productions which opens up a space for discourse about how twisted the image of our sexuality is today. With political subtext that these practices must – and can – urgently be changed.
- Week of Slovenian Drama, Kranj, 3 April 2023