After Sex: Launch

Who decides what happens after sex? What use is fair pay if childbearing and child-rearing prevents you from working? What might reproductive freedom, healthcare, childcare and sexual liberation look like in the future?

The last decade has seen an insidious rise in the criminalisation of abortions and the diminishing of bodily autonomy across the world, culminating in the dissolution of Roe v. Wade in the US. In the UK data from period-tracking apps could be used to prosecute people, and British healthcare providers warn that police are testing those who have suffered miscarriages for abortion pills.

Rather than just being about personal choice, reproductive justice is situated within wider struggles: the control and criminalisation of abortion most affects people of colour, immigrants, people with disabilities and those living in poverty, who will also be at greatest risk from the denial of medical care, the psychological and physical harms of forced pregnancy and unassisted miscarriage.

The editors of After Sex (Silver Press, 2023), Edna Bonhomme and Alice Spawls are joined by playwright Beth Steel and journalist Sian Norris and special guests as they delve into personal, political and cultural perspectives on abortion and reproductive justice, highlighting the experiences of people of colour and working-class people through essay, poetry and politics.

The Silver Press series continues across the weekend of 1, 2 & 3 Dec with events including After Sex on Screen with Club des Femmes, Fugitive Feminism with Iniva and *we shape ourselves with the force of each other*.

CW: care is advised, some people may be affected by the subject matter

The editors of After Sex, Edna Bonhomme and Alice Spawls are joined by playwright Beth Steel and award-winning writer Laurie Nunn, creator of the hit Netflix series Sex Education, as they delve into personal, political and cultural perspectives on abortion and reproductive justice, highlighting the experiences of women of colour and working-class women through essay, poetry and politics.