Voices of Discovery

My Voices of Discovery group focused on Gender and Sexuality. My experience was overall very positive. Our group really opened up from the beginning and a lot of personal stories were shared in the first session, which I didn’t really expect. 

During our first session, we talked about gender as part of a continuum and then tried to identify where we felt we fit in on that scale. After each meeting, we filled out a form and could suggest topics that we wanted to discuss. I really liked that we were able to discuss topics that were interesting to us and didn't have a prescribed list.

One of my favorites was when we talked about 50 Shades of Grey and the potential impact it could have on how younger generations express their sexuality. We discussed it a bit in our class already and it was interesting to further delve into the topic. The differences of opinion between people who had read the book/seen the movie and those who had just heard about it through various media sources was really interesting. Those who had read the book thought that the media frenzy surrounding it was exaggerated and misleading. Those who hadn’t read it had a far more critical opinion of the portrayal of a BDSM relationship. As with most of the topics we discussed, awareness was the biggest obstacle most of us faced. Talking through them, listening to such varying opinions and having the space to discuss them was wonderful.

I really enjoyed my experience with Voices of Discovery. It was the first one I participated in, so I don’t have much to compare it to. I thought our facilitators did a great job of keeping the conversation going but many in our group also posed questions or played devil’s advocate. Although most in our group were very open and agreed on many topics, I liked that we prompted each other to consider different views.