I've been debating whether or not I should send this email today, given how much of my reality has changed since I wrote this email. It’s impossible for me to send it without naming the terrible situation in Israel, my home. Since the early hours of the morning, I’ve been scrolling through stories, recordings, videos, and testimonials of people living their worst nightmare. My feed, filled with hundreds of missing 20-year-old party-goers who were ambushed mid-rave, is heartbreaking.
Back to our scheduled programming...
One way that I’m shifting my thinking about communities:
Community attachment. I am feeling a painful tension between how deeply I want to be seen by my community, and at the same time, how private I want to inner world to stay. I just caught Victor Warring’s Decolonizing Eros workshop and was struck by his perspective on how embodying a more communal mindset (”re-wilding”) can be deeply nourishing, but also deeply destabilizing to our colonized nervous system. Be on the lookout for part two of the workshop next month.
Data! Data! Data!:
We just celebrated the 12,000th event on the Bloom platform. When looking through the data we discovered that women-identified members RSVP to events at the highest rate compare to other genders. Non-binary members RSVP to events 15% less than women-identified, and men-identified members RSVP to events at almost half of the rate (-42%). This is especially insightful when you overlay some of unique narratives we hear from men-identifying members about “not being able to find women*”.
#Trending:
Shoutout to Lex for raising $5.6M in seed funding. This is a big deal, given the capital market environment, and especially for an LGBTQIA+ company, which historically represents less than 1% of all VC dollars. I <3 Lex and the hyper-local digital community I’ve been able to find there.
Community Spotlight:
Miss Bloom is a Sex Educator and community builder in NYC. I chatted with Miss Bloom, Niki Davis-Fainbloom, last week and she immediately showered me with some hilarious and educational sexy fun facts from her sexy trivia nights. If you follow Miss Bloom on social, as I do, you will learn so muchaboutso much- from sex on weed, sneeze fetishes, and how to support survivors of sexual assault.
Growing Bloom
Social! Check out our refreshed IG page and follow us for some fun content coming soon. PS- if you’re hosting a Halloween party, reply to this email with the Bloom link, and we’ll add you to our Halloween spotlight posts.
