O’s For Obama: Because Change Is Coming

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Last Friday evening Sami Saud, an exchange student from Jordan who had been in the US for about three months, stood smoking a cigarette outside of the doors at 1015 Folsom, a dance club in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood. “I want to see how people come together for this guy,” Saud explained.

“This guy,” was Barack Obama. The event Saud waited to attend? An all-night fundraiser, the highlight of which was a “guided breath-gasm experience” put on by O’ s for Obama. Tagline: “Because change is coming.”

O’s was the creation of San Francisco-based Obama supporter and “certified somatic sexologist” Destin Gerek. The 30-year-old Gerek, who calls himself the Erotic Rockstar, said that the goal of the event was “to lead the world through a large scale orgasmic breathing experience culminating in a simultaneous group energetic breath-gasm.”

Deep techno music played in the main room while guests bought drinks at the bar. At the tables next to the bathrooms, one group sold Obama paraphernalia (proceeds went to the Obama campaign) while another group distributed Proposition K literature (the women at the second table hastened to explain that the junior senator from Illinois was unaffiliated with their group). The techno was occasionally interspersed with taped clips from Obama’s speeches. The cue for 200 people to enter the largest room of the club for a simulated orgasm guided by Gerek was this Obama phrase:

“We are the change we seek.”

Gerek, shirtless and otherwise dressed in leather, started the guided three-part sensual breathing exercise by explaining that he was once a self-described anarchist who came to identify with the potential of Obama. Participants were told to focus on the warmth and tingling they felt and yell as loudly as they could while experiencing the “group simultaneous breath orgasm,” not to be confused with an actual orgasm. After the exercise, there was a vaguely post-coital feeling in the room. “Now imagine election night,” Gerek said. “Imagine him winning in a landslide.

Sonia Van Meter, visiting from Austin, Texas, was blasé about the affair. “Um, I think all women already know how to do that,” she said of simulating an orgasm.

Gerek explained later that the goal of the event was to help people access and raise their erotic energy, not get off (though apparently there is an Obama-based way to do that, too). Yes, the connection between the group imitation of an orgasm in a San Francisco club, and Obama winning the majority of the votes in the Electoral College, may seem a bit thin. But as Gerek points out, Obama asks his supporters only to give what they can. “And well, this is what I do,” Gerek said.

—Daniel Luzer

Image by flickr user PhantomX

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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