Consent Week: The Good Guise: Pods as Praxis

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Session description: The Good Guise is a creative collective of racialized men (Black, brown, latinx, cis, trans, queer) who are still in the process of defining who we are; however, we all agree we want to create loving alternatives to patriarchy and patriarchal masculinity. Over the past year, we have been engaged on a City of Toronto funded community art project titled “My Public Living Room” (MPLR) which seeks to explore pods as Radically Loving Alternatives to shame, disposability, punishment, and lack of care. The first half of the project focused on drop-in programming that involved curated activities, workshops, and discussions, while the second half will focus on activating exhibitions and performances in October in the Eglinton Glibert Parkette, and in November in Trinity Square.
As part of our contributions to the Center’s Consent Week, we are proposing to do a presentation on the ideas that underpin our approaches, as well as practical lessons drawn from our critical praxis in action. We hope to stimulate conversations on how we see pod creation and development as necessary for dismantling gender-based violence and the oppressive systems that it relies upon with the York University community. See: https://www.sketch.ca/publicart/mplr/ for more details on MPLR

*Pods: Intentional small groups of friends that meet regularly for specific purposes: mutual aid, emotional support, intimacy, learning vulnerability, practicing boundary setting and relationship skills, and centred in consent, accountability, interdependence and the belief that no one is disposable.

(Pods were a tool queer communities of colour used to survive and find intimacy and love during the HIV and AIDS pandemic in the 1980s)

Facilitated by: Javier Davila and Mobólúwajídìde Joseph

Mobólúwajídìde Joseph, also known as Bo, is a writer, and community organizer who has facilitated training workshops for three years on anti-oppressive practices and sexual violence. As a writer, his work often circles the axis of borders and bodies, the diaspora and the postcolonial, sexuality and gender, race and religion. Outside of his creative endeavors, Bo is a University of Toronto M.A Geography Candidate whose research agenda is centered on how constructions of space and geography affect experiences of Blackness in Canada. He believes in the power of storytelling to create space for healing, growth, and radical change.

Javier Davila (he/him) is a queer Latine award-winning educator in Tkaronto. He aims to co-create radically loving alternatives centred in interdependence, collective care and transformative justice. He is author of several resources and programs in intersectional gender-based and sexual violence prevention, healthy relationships, and transformative justice. A Student Equity Program Advisor for the Toronto District School Board for the past 16 years, he aims to centre the wisdom of QTBIPOC and disabled youth in building communities of care. He is co-facilitator of Boyboy at Central Toronto Youth Services, a drop-in program for queer, trans and non-binary guys and is currently writing a thesis on masculinity, vulnerability, and accountability. Follow Javier on Twitter: @XjusticeXpeace