Lesbian Herstory Archives

In honor of the Lesbian Herstory Archives’ 50th Anniversary, and in the spirit of hot dates everywhere, Archives Coordinators Alexis Clements and Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz are organizing a 40 over 40 speed dating event. 

The event will be held in-person on Wednesday, September 25th from 7 – 9pm at the Lesbian Herstory Archives (484 14th Street, Brooklyn, New York 11215). During that time participants will:

• receive an orientation to the speed dating experience
• have multiple dates
• join a reception where you’ll be able to meet the singles you didn’t get to date
• pass love notes via the missed connections wall

How to Express Interest in Participating

We want everyone in the room to be interested in dating. We want you to be excited to meet someone new. And we want to give you the opportunity to have multiple potential matches. With that in mind, this will be a curated event.

In order to curate the best possible group for dating, rather than take the first 40 people to sign up, the goal is to have those interested complete an interest form by September 10 (as modeled in our cunt-sciousness raising group). Your honest answers will help ensure that those attending will be people with whom you actually *want* to chat and flirt, and vice versa!

Filling out this form doesn’t guarantee you a spot (we’re expecting to get more responses than we have spots since the Archives is a limited space). We’ll use the answers to that form to work toward our goal of creating an attendee list that represents a variation of identities across race and gender expression, and if we are successful, a cross-section of matching desires. 

Once we’ve gotten responses from those interested we’ll reach out to attendees to let them know they’ve got a spot, and confirm their attendance. We’ll also reach out to those we can’t accommodate in this first event (if we get enough responses, we may do this more than once).

How to Secure Your Spot!

After filling out the interest form you will be contacted saying that you have been selected (or waitlisted!). Once selected, you have FIVE DAYS to purchase your ticket. Tickets will be a sliding scale donation of $5-$15 through a private Eventbrite link shared only with you and other selected participants. If you decline the invitation to participate, or do not respond, we will open it up to someone else on the waitlist. No one will be turned away due to lack of funds.

Because of the structure of the event and the space limitations of the building, only those who are signed up via Eventbrite will be able to attend. We won’t be able to accommodate walk-ins.

Why Am I on the Waitlist?

After filling out the form, if you are waitlisted, it mostly means we got a ton of responses and that your demographic profile was similar to the demographic profile of others and we wanted to balance out the group. If seats become available we’ll bump people from the waitlist into the event.

And remember, if we get more than double the number of respondents than we can accommodate in one event, we may end up hosting another one, so stay tuned!

Is there a certain way I should complete the form?

• Answer the form honestly! 
• Be yourself.
• Tell us your desires.
• Tell us why you want to participate.
• Tell us who you are looking for.
• Talk to us. 
• Though we are not a match-making service, we do want to make an effort. Help us curate by telling us all the things you think we should know!

Accessibility

This event will make use of lots of spaces within the Lesbian Herstory Archives, from the front stoop, to the first floor, to the backyard, to the second floor. There is an accessible bathroom on the first floor of the building and also a lift that gives those using mobility devices such as wheelchairs access to the first floor. The backyard and second floor are not fully accessible (there are steps required to access both). With that in mind, we’ll make sure that participants with accessibility needs are able to fully participate by keeping their dates and the reception on the first floor. If you have accessibility needs, there is space to mention this on the interest form.

Suggested Donation

In honor of the Archives 50th year, we’d like to ask participants in this event series to donate $5 – $15 (more if you can/less if not). Your donations will help cover the cost of supplies for the event and operating costs for the Archives, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Only selected participants will be prompted to donate to secure their tickets, however, anyone may make a donation to the Lesbian Herstory Archives at any time using our donation page.

Questions?

Email us at events@lesbianherstoryarchives.org.

A Few Notes on Dating, Sex, and Love…

“No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees,
sycamores blazing through the sulfuric air,
dappled with scars, still exuberantly budding,
our animal passion rooted in the city.”
– Adrienne Rich, excerpted from “Twenty-One Love Poems I” in The Dream of a Common Language (1978)

“We were healthy young female animals mercifully more alive than most of our peers, robust and active women, and our blood was always high and our pockets empty and a free meal in convivial surroundings—meaning around other lesbians—was a big treat for most of us, even if purchased at the price of a bottle of beer, which was fifty cents, with many complaints.”
– Audre Lorde, excerpted from Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

“Every sexual relation involves a crossing of borders.”
– Amber Hollibaugh and Cherríe Moraga, excerpted from “What We’re Rollin Around in Bed With: Sexual Silences in Feminism”, published in Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality, edited by Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell, and Sharon Thompson (1983)

“To me, being queer means doing without the false solace of categories.” 
– Dodie Bellamy, excerpted from “My Mixed Marriage,” published in the Village Voice (2000)

“In her essay, ‘On the Issue of Roles,’ Toni Cade [Bambara] explains that if we want to have a revolution, we have to craft revolutionary relationships, in action, not simply in rhetoric.”
– Alexis Pauline Gumbs, excerpted from “The Sweetness of Salt: Toni Cade Bambara and the Practice of Pleasure (in Five Tributes),” published in adrienne maree brown’s book Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (2019)