The Ombuds Committee handles complaints and concerns regarding the conduct of NCSF board, officers, staff, and the operations of NCSF institutions. The NCSF Ombuds Committee was established as an Advisory Committee, as per NCSF bylaws, to review coalition administration and activities, assuring ethical and effective fulfillment of NCSF's mission and goals.

In the largest sense, an ombudsperson's job is to assist the Board of Directors in overseeing the administration of their policies, to comment critically upon how they are being administered and to recommend policy changes where they seem appropriate based on complaints escalated to Ombuds.

As our current Ombuds committee terms are ending, we are looking to update the process with our new team. The NCSF is looking for 6-8 people to serve as the new NCSF Ombuds Committee for a two (2) year term.

To find out more about the qualifications and time commitment, click here.

Tickle.Life (Tickle-dot-Life), World’s First Community based Discovery Platform for Sex and sexuality, today announced the latest development in their goal to support the cause of the alternate sexuality by becoming an ally of NCSF, a coalition of almost 100 groups, clubs and businesses, including mental health practices and law firms. The Foundation of the NCSF is a charitable foundation that provides education and conducts research.

Under this new development, Tickle.Life will try to use their resources and network to spread the message of the organization for consenting adults who engage in alternative sexual and relationship expressions. Speaking on this announcement, Susan Wright, NCSF Spokesperson said “NCSF looks forward to working with our ally, Tickle.Life, in expanding the reach of both of our organizations internationally. NCSF is proud to be listed among Tickle.Life’s expert collaborators, providing our content on sexual freedom for consenting adults.”

“Tickle.Life’s goal is to support the entire industry to be discoverable and escalate the reach for organizations like NCSF. I am proud that our organization is able to support them and 100s of people and organizations that they have helped.” says Shakun, Founder and CEO at Tickle.Life.

Tickle.Life based in San Francisco, California, was founded in 2019 by serial entrepreneur Shakun Sethi and Parag Gupta, Co-Founder and CTO. Tickle.Life creates an ecosystem for all sex-positive people across the world by supporting sexuality exploration, sexual and mental wellness, LGBTQIA+ communities and sex education. Tickle.Life is the world’s first community-based Discovery platform which features sex and sexuality-related content from over 350+ plus world-renowned sexual well-being professionals for sex-positive people.

The NCSF Board has renewed our pandemic travel policy to not send any volunteers in-person to any event for the foreseeable future. This policy will be revisited by the NCSF Board every 90 days.

Our NCSF volunteers ARE providing virtual workshops on consent, media training, NCSF research on kink and non-monogamy, and an introduction to the NCSF's programs and activist projects. Contact us at ncsfreedom@ncsfreedom.org

By Anna D. Hirsch, MFA, MS with LiveLikeLove

Sex and sexuality geeks are the people who make a habit and even a career out of studying sex and sex culture, and sex savvy communities have become increasingly well versed on the subject of pleasure as an epicenter of healing and flourishing. Indeed, the science of wellbeing is clear: we have to stop addressing healthcare through the lens of discrete diseases and do more to care for whole people and whole communities. In the mental health field, that means we have to attend to people’s joy along with their sorrow. One way people find a lot of joy in life is through the pleasure of having sex.

In a way, the current situation is very simple. In the era of COVID-19, we need our pleasure more than ever. And we need to feel pleasure in community — with a lover, in our homes, with friends, and in our work lives. While pleasure may feel antithetical to quarantine and physical distancing, sexperts know that it is no less vital, imperative, and instructional. And they’re working to adapt, learn, and spread the love.

When the first shelter in place order for Oakland, California, was extended for a second month, I was already paying close attention to how local sex-positive community was keeping joy alive — and our sex nerd world has been on fire. Groups are reaching out to each other in new ways and around the world. Bawdy Storytelling has transitioned from a live stage show to a livestream show, upping their virtual game from podcast and YouTube videos to full-blown Saturday night events. The Bonobo Network is putting on a full weekend (August 14-16) of activities to support people in getting reconnected to their bodies, and reconnected socially, in an epic event they’ve dubbed Pleasure Fest. Perhaps in the same family as Dawn Serra’s Explore More Summit, Pleasure Fest brings the goodness of sex and sexuality to the forefront. Kinky Salon launched KS+, a private social network and video party portal for members.

OPEN TO LOVE: Inspired by the writings of bell hooks and the vision of MLK’s Beloved Community, our theme celebrates the abundance, liberation, and unlimited possibilities of love. When we are Open To Love we are free to experience intimacy without the constraints of others’ prejudice, oppression, and opinion of who and how we love. Being Open To Love does not embolden us to a preconceived notion of an ideal “look and feel” of true love. We are no longer shackled to a one size fits all expression and identity of love. This is the time of global uprising. This is the time for transformational love.

PDM's entire programming is dedicated to living and loving within our current environment. Our presenters will be Black & Brown people; presenting from a mix of their lived experiences and expertise in their chosen presentation topic. Register here!

Find out more about the Pre-Symposiums, including Ruby Bouie Johnson's Cultural Humility: Race, Gender and Class in Nonmonogamous Communities, which will explore through a social justice lens, the paradigms, theories, and modalities in clinical practice through case studies. Click here!

Nearly 100 people participated in PCDA's Consent is B.A.E - A Virtual Consent Summit sponsored by NCSF on Hopin on September 19, 2020. NCSF was a Proud Sponsor of the Virtual Consent Summit, and our Board Members and Advocates participated on the panel presentations and breakout sessions.

We typically discuss consent in the sense of physical touch; ie “Does someone have permission to touch our physical bodies in a particular way”? In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and our new virtual reality, The Poly Cultural Diversity Alliance created a conversation about virtual and emotional consent practices. The discussion included consent-focused topics like: Who has access to your virtual information? Should conversations and images be shared outside of the intended recipient? What does emotional consent even mean?

Black Poly Pride, presented by PCDA, is a Coalition Partner of NCSF!

This poster based on NCSF's Narrative Project survey was presented at the American Psychological Association virtual conference on August 6-8, 2020.

NCSF has been working with a research team at Caldwell University to analyze the stories we have received so far through our Narrative Project.

Common themes include beliefs about the lifestyle, details about consent and coming out, discrimination, the need for education and the importance of community.

Susan Wright, Spokesperson for NCSF, attended the SexTech Connect Virtual Happy Hour and Brunch on Oct 18th. This is a meeting of like-minded peers in tech, porn, business, and the sexuality research, journalism, and arts industries. 

The discussion included a review of NCSF's resources and direct services, including Incident Reporting & Response and the Media Outreach Project. We also discussed legal issues that our communities face as well as lobbying efforts to decriminalize sex between consenting adults.