About the Sexual Freedom Festival

An African Feminist Movement for Sexuality, Pleasure and Collective Liberation

The Sexual Freedom Festival is an African feminist movement that creates spaces for people to explore sexuality, pleasure, embodiment and collective care through art, storytelling, healing, education and community.

Since 2009, the movement has brought together African feminists, queer communities, artists, organisers, healers and movement builders to learn from one another, challenge silence, celebrate diverse sexualities and imagine more liberated futures.

More than a biennial festival, the Sexual Freedom Festival is a growing ecosystem of conversations, relationships, creative practice and knowledge that continues to evolve across the continent and beyond.

Why We Exist

Across Africa, conversations about sexuality have too often been shaped by silence, stigma and systems that limit how people understand themselves, their bodies and one another. The Sexual Freedom Festival was created to help change that.

We believe that sexuality is more than a private experience. It is deeply connected to identity, culture, creativity, wellbeing, spirituality, justice and the freedom to live with dignity. Creating space for these conversations is essential to imagining more just, joyful and liberated futures.

Through festivals, storytelling, art, healing, education and collective care, the Sexual Freedom Festival nurtures spaces where people can question inherited narratives, share lived experiences, celebrate diverse African sexualities and learn from one another across generations, communities and disciplines.

This work is not only about challenging what limits us. It is also about creating new possibilities for how we relate to ourselves, to one another and to the futures we are building together.

Understanding why the movement exists begins with understanding the conversations it set out to create. The next chapter of our story explores how those conversations became a festival, and how that festival grew into a movement.

Our Story

Every movement begins with a conversation.

The Sexual Freedom Festival was created to open space for conversations about sexuality that were too often silenced, misunderstood or left at the margins. From the beginning, the festival brought together African feminists, activists, artists, storytellers, healers and communities to ask bold questions, challenge inherited narratives and imagine new possibilities for freedom.

Today, the Sexual Freedom Festival is more than the moments we gather together. It is an evolving movement sustained by relationships, creative practice, shared knowledge and the communities who continue to carry its work forward across the continent and beyond.

Our Journey

2026

Sankofa: African Sexualities and Traditions from a Feminist Lens

2024

Sexual Utopia: Sex and Money

2023

Sexual Utopia: Compelling Freedom and Liberation

2022

Sexual Utopia: Here, Now and Beyond

2021

Adventures Live! Transformational Adventures: Sex. Power. Magic.

2020

Adventures Live! The Odyssey of Desire

2019

Adventures Live! Decentring the 'D'

Our Community

The Sexual Freedom Festival is shaped by the people who bring it to life.

Across every edition of the festival, African feminists, queer communities, artists, organisers, healers, storytellers, educators, researchers, cultural practitioners and movement builders have come together to share knowledge, create art, hold space, ask courageous questions and imagine more liberated futures.

Every participant contributes to the movement in their own way. Some facilitate conversations. Others perform, create, document, organise, care for the wellbeing of the community or simply arrive with openness and a willingness to learn. Together, these contributions create the relationships and collective energy that continue to shape the Sexual Freedom Festival beyond each convening.

The strength of the Sexual Freedom Festival lies not in any one individual or organisation, but in the many people who continue to nurture, challenge and grow this movement across Africa and beyond.

As our community continues to grow, so too does our vision for what the Sexual Freedom Festival can become. Together, we continue imagining new possibilities for connection, creativity and collective liberation.

What Guides Our Work

WE GATHER WITH CARE

We create spaces where care, consent and collective responsibility shape how we come together and relate to one another.

WE CENTER AFRICAN FEMINIST KNOWLEDGE

We honour the wisdom, histories and lived experiences of African feminists while creating space for diverse voices, critical reflection and new ways of knowing.

WE EXPLORE SEXUALITY AS PART OF LIBERATION

We believe that conversations about sexuality, pleasure and bodily autonomy are essential to personal wellbeing, collective justice and more liberated futures.

WE LEARN THROUGH CREATIVITY AND COMMUNITY

Art, storytelling, healing, dialogue and collective practice are not separate from learning, they are how we imagine and build new possibilities together.

WE HONOUR COMPLEXITY

We embrace the many ways people experience sexuality, identity, relationships, spirituality and belonging, creating space for dialogue rather than simple answers.

WE IMAGINE BEYOND WHAT ALREADY EXISTS

Every gathering invites us to dream, experiment and co-create futures rooted in dignity, joy and collective liberation.