Meet the guys behind the No Safeword podcast, the guys behind the YouTube channel Watts the Safeword, and the woman behind the Center for Sex Positive Culture.
The Stranger
by Matt Baume
It was in 1991 that one of Allena Gabosch’s friends came to her with a problem. The friend was taking a class on sexuality at Highline Community College, and told her, “We just got to the part about S&M, and it’s all wrong. Can you come in and speak?”
Allena was a little taken aback. Sure, she was well known in the kink community. With a friend, she ran the fetishy Beyond the Edge Cafe, located on Capitol Hill where Honey Hole is now. (Back then, there was a dungeon in the basement, and she recalls some guy named Dan Savage regularly coming by to get cookies.)
But she was also unaccustomed to public speaking. Professionally, she was a restaurateur; although she was recognized as a leader in the kink community, it was still just a pastime. The first time she’d ever addressed a group, it was a bunch of students who’d come to hear about healthy food, and her hands shook so hard she could barely pick up a can of tuna.
To make matters worse, sexual anxiety was an integral part of her childhood. She was raised fundamentalist, and as a teen she was forbidden from talking about boyfriends.
But as a young adult, Allena discovered an attraction to kinky sex—what was then referred to as S&M, and today more commonly as BDSM. What’s more, she reminded herself, she’d gotten into the restaurant business because she liked nurturing people, and opening eyes about sexual fulfillment could be a way to do that.
“I can do this,” she told herself, and she told her friend, “Sure.”
“Great,” her friend replied. Then she added sheepishly, “Just… don’t tell anyone you know me.”
Allena laughed as she told me the story. “And I’ve never looked back,” she said.
Although she didn’t realize it, Allena was about to embark on an accidental sex-lecturing career that blossomed throughout the 1990s. When Beyond the Edge closed in 1999, she and some friends founded the Center for Sex Positive Culture in the Interbay neighborhood, to educate the public and strengthen Seattle’s kinky community.
Now nearly two decades later, the center’s mission continues with multiple daily events. Items currently on the calendar: a workshop on incorporating martial arts into sex, a clothing-optional dance party (“Special note: Bring a fun hat!”), an erotic massage class, and an arts and crafts night. Whatever your predilection is, there’s a good chance that you can hone it at the center—or if you don’t think you have any kinks, that you’ll discover one.
Allena is in the process of stepping back a bit from full-time education. She’s reduced her involvement with the center, though her schedule remains busy. The week that we spoke, she was scheduled to appear at three colleges, participate in a panel, and present to two groups about senior sexuality. She has a podcast called The Relationship Anarchy Show and a coaching business at EroticCoaching.com. She’s also a frequent podcast guest, appearing on shows like No Safeword and Polyamory Weekly.
“I have a personal mission statement,” she told me. “Remove shame from sex and bring joy.” Her college friend’s reluctance to be publicly associated with her S&M talk remains a harsh memory, all these years later. She’s seen firsthand that feelings of horror around sexual conversations are instilled in us from the time we’re kids.
“It’s really scary to go to your mom and say, ‘Mom, tell me about anal sex,'” Allena said, and I did not argue. “And what about kink or fantasizing? When I was a kid, I depended on Playboy or Playgirl—when I was young, there was nothing.”
She added, “In sixth grade, the boys went to one room and the girls went to another. I don’t know what the boys learned about. Girls learned about menstruation.” (I experienced a similar lesson, and all I remember of what the boys were taught is that you’re not supposed to say “boner” in public.)
The forbidden mystique of sex began to fade for her in the mid-1970s when she was 18 years old and living in Portland. Still a bit wide-eyed and innocent, “I snuck into a gay bar and met an amazing trans woman who let me ask her the most stupid questions,” she said. It was the best sex education she’d ever had. …