SASHA AND GRASP PRESENTS
A Queer Carnival of Ideas
Where sexology and psychoanalysis enter the fray, slow dance, wrestle, and keep on talking.
15 to 19 February 2027 · Johannesburg · With Dr Avgi Saketopoulou.
Carnival Countdown
Who is part of the conversation
Line-Up
It’s with great pleasure and excitement we announce the Queer Carnival line up of speakers, presenters, performers, and provocateurs…
(this is just a taster, there are more to come…and we will make a detailed programme available soon)
Dr Avgi Saketopoulou
Originally from Cyprus and Greece, Dr Avgi Saketopoulou is a psychoanalyst currently working in NYC. Her research interests include trauma, sexuality, and their entanglements; aesthetic experience; queer and trans life; race and racialization; and how whiteness is pleated through otherwise neutral-appearing therapeutic concepts.
Prof Sally Swartz
Emeritus Associate Professor Sally Swartz is a practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapist. She has a particular interest in the field of relational psychoanalytic theory. Recent papers have had decolonisation of mind as a central focus. She has published widely in the areas of history of psychiatry, colonialism and relational psychoanalytic practice.
Dr Bev Ditsie
Dr Bev Ditsie is an award-winning filmmaker, internationally recognised human rights advocate, and pioneering queer activist. In 1990, she became the first openly lesbian speaker to address the United Nations. With decades of experience in global LGBTQIA+ movement-building, she is also a respected cultural leader and storyteller.
Michael Benn - Event Host
Michael Benn is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst based in Johannesburg, with more than 30 years in practice. He runs GRASP (Groups for the Reading and Study of Psychoanalysis) and founded an international online psychoanalytic community that now numbers over 250000 members. Michael is passionate about psychoanalytic thinking as a way of interrupting the destructive patterns we keep repeating -Â in ourselves and our societies.
Nicole Ditsie
Nicole is a certified yoga teacher, kink educator, professional Dominatrix, somatic practitioner and trauma-sensitive facilitator. A gifted space-holder and process guide, she creates bespoke wellness and kink education experiences for a range of audiences and industries, including NGOs, filmmakers, festivals, conferences and beyond.
Avri Spilka - Event Host
Avri is a Counselling Psychologist in private practice in Johannesburg and co-director of the Southern African Sexual Health Association (SASHA). Her background spans (photo)journalism, advocacy and activism, community psychology, and sexology. Her greatest pleasure, provocation and praxis continue to be her family and children; a daily reminder and inspiration to work toward justice for all families.
Dr Bruce Laing - Event Host
Bruce Laing is a clinical psychologist and senior psychoanalytic candidate with SAPA/IPSO and works in private practice in Cape Town. He has presented at numerous conferences both locally and internationally and has taught psychoanalytic theory to both GRASP and the SAPI College.
Kelly Bild - Event Host
Kelly Bild is a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist, and part of GRASP’s core working group. She has been actively involved in addressing systemic challenges related to mental healthcare and gender-based violence. Her clinical roots are in work against gender-based violence. As a member of the Rape Crisis Cape Town management committee, she helped draft the clauses of what became the Domestic Violence Act of 1998, and she later became director of POWA (People Opposing Women Abuse).
Elliott Kotze - Event Host
Elliott Kotze is a counselling psychologist in private practice, where he spends most of his time working with queer, trans, and/or neurodivergent adolescents and young adults. Elliott is the president of the South African Sexual Health Association where he gets to geek out about sex and pleasure with other professionals in the field.
House of Ditsie
House of Ditsie is a Johannesburg-based, black woman-owned, queer-led social enterprise dedicated to holistic wellbeing and social transformation.
They design and facilitate integrated mind–body–spirit programmes that focus on narrative justice and wellness, by centering nervous system regulation, sustainable wellbeing, burnout prevention, embodied self-leadership, authenticity and identity integration.
Johannesburg Queer Chorus
The Johannesburg Queer Chorus is a choir for greater Johannesburg’s LGBTQIA+ community and their friends.
Who is part of the conversation
Line-Up
It’s with great pleasure and excitement we announce the Queer Carnival line up of speakers, presenters, performers, and provocateurs…
(this is just a taster, there are more to come…and we will make a detailed programme available soon)
Dr Avgi Saketopoulou
Originally from Cyprus and Greece, Dr Avgi Saketopoulou is a psychoanalyst currently working in NYC. Her research interests include trauma, sexuality, and their entanglements; aesthetic experience; queer and trans life; race and racialization; and how whiteness is pleated through otherwise neutral-appearing therapeutic concepts.
Prof Sally Swartz
Emeritus Associate Professor Sally Swartz is a practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapist. She has a particular interest in the field of relational psychoanalytic theory. Recent papers have had decolonisation of mind as a central focus. She has published widely in the areas of history of psychiatry, colonialism and relational psychoanalytic practice.
Dr Bev Ditsie
Dr Bev Ditsie is an award-winning filmmaker, internationally recognised human rights advocate, and pioneering queer activist. In 1990, she became the first openly lesbian speaker to address the United Nations. With decades of experience in global LGBTQIA+ movement-building, she is also a respected cultural leader and storyteller.
Michael Benn
Michael Benn is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst based in Johannesburg, with more than 30 years in practice. He runs GRASP (Groups for the Reading and Study of Psychoanalysis) and founded an international online psychoanalytic community that now numbers over 250000 members. Michael is passionate about psychoanalytic thinking as a way of interrupting the destructive patterns we keep repeating -Â in ourselves and our societies.
Nicole Ditsie
Nicole is a certified yoga teacher, kink educator, professional Dominatrix, somatic practitioner and trauma-sensitive facilitator. A gifted space-holder and process guide, she creates bespoke wellness and kink education experiences for a range of audiences and industries, including NGOs, filmmakers, festivals, conferences and beyond.
Avri Spilka
Avri is a Counselling Psychologist in private practice in Johannesburg and co-director of the Southern African Sexual Health Association (SASHA). Her background spans (photo)journalism, advocacy and activism, community psychology, and sexology. Her greatest pleasure, provocation and praxis continue to be her family and children; a daily reminder and inspiration to work toward justice for all families.
Dr Bruce Laing
Bruce Laing is a clinical psychologist and senior psychoanalytic candidate with SAPA/IPSO and works in private practice in Cape Town. He has presented at numerous conferences both locally and internationally and has taught psychoanalytic theory to both GRASP and the SAPI College.
Kelly Bild
Kelly Bild is a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist, and part of GRASP’s core working group. She has been actively involved in addressing systemic challenges related to mental healthcare and gender-based violence. Her clinical roots are in work against gender-based violence. As a member of the Rape Crisis Cape Town management committee, she helped draft the clauses of what became the Domestic Violence Act of 1998, and she later became director of POWA (People Opposing Women Abuse).
Elliott Kotze
Elliott Kotze is a counselling psychologist in private practice, where he spends most of his time working with queer, trans, and/or neurodivergent adolescents and young adults. Elliott is the president of the South African Sexual Health Association where he gets to geek out about sex and pleasure with other professionals in the field.
House of Ditsie
House of Ditsie is a Johannesburg-based, black woman-owned, queer-led social enterprise dedicated to holistic wellbeing and social transformation.
They design and facilitate integrated mind–body–spirit programmes that focus on narrative justice and wellness, by centering nervous system regulation, sustainable wellbeing, burnout prevention, embodied self-leadership, authenticity and identity integration.
Johannesburg Queer Chorus
The Johannesburg Queer Chorus is a choir for greater Johannesburg’s LGBTQIA+ community and their friends.
About the Carnival
Into the Fray
A Queer Carnival of Ideas is a provocation of sexual orthodoxy. It is set at the intersection of psychoanalysis and sexology, two major authorities of the sexual, born of a shared ancestry, yet seldom seated at the same table.Â
The Carnival is set to the beat of Sexuality Beyond Consent, Dr Avgi Saketopoulou’s landmark book.Â
With great excitement, we can confirm that Avgi will join us in Johannesburg, all the way from New York, for a five-day cornucopia of learning, connection, playing and thinking together.Â
A Queer Carnival of Ideas brings together psychoanalysis, sexology, activism and the arts in an exploration of sexuality. The aim is to create a genuinely multidisciplinary space in which difficult questions can be explored with curiosity, rigour, creativity, and openness.
SASHA and GRASP have joined forces to bring you a programme that puts psychoanalysis and sexology into dialogue, and Avgi’s work under South African pressures around consent, trauma, race, and queer life.
If your work is in and with the sexual, and you want to delve deeply and queerly into what that means in South Africa today, you’ll be right at home at the Carnival.
Sexologists, psychologists, psychoanalysts and psychotherapists; doctors, nurses, physios and OTs; sex educators and coaches, social workers, bodyworkers, researchers, activists and students: all are welcome. While a background in psychoanalysis and/or sexology helps, please don’t let a lack of familiarity put you off. We’ll find our way into the material together, whatever your starting point.
- Sexuality
- Bodies
- The Unconscious
- Race
- Opacity
- Limit consent
- Traumatophilia
- Exigent sadism
- Queer
- Risk
- Transformation
About the Carnival
Into the Fray
A Queer Carnival of Ideas is a provocation of orthodoxy, set at the intersection of psychoanalysis and sexology, two major authorities of the Sexual, born of a shared ancestry, yet seldom seated at the same table. The Carnival is set to the beat of Sexuality Beyond Consent, Dr Avgi Saketopoulou’s landmark book. With great excitement we can confirm that Avgi will be joining us in Johannesburg, all the way from New York, for a six-day cornucopia of learning, connection, playing and thinking together.
A Queer Carnival of Ideas brings together psychoanalysis, sexology, activism and the arts in an exploration of sexuality, relationality, gender, race, traumatophilia, the limits of consent, opacity, and exigent sadism. The aim is to create a genuinely multidisciplinary space in which difficult questions can be explored with curiosity, rigour, creativity, and openness.
SASHA and GRASP have joined forces to bring you a programme that puts psychoanalysis and sexology into dialogue, and Avgi’s work under South African pressures around consent, trauma, race, and queer life.
If your work is in and with the sexual, and you want to delve deeply and queerly into what that means in South Africa today, you’ll be right at home at the Carnival.
Sexologists, psychologists, psychoanalysts and psychotherapists; doctors, nurses, physios and OTs; sex educators and coaches, social workers, bodyworkers, researchers, activists and students: all are welcome. While a background in psychoanalysis and/or sexology helps, please don’t let a lack of familiarity put you off. We’ll find our way into the material together, whatever your starting point.
- Sexuality
- Bodies
- The Unconscious
- Race
- Opacity
- Limit consent
- Traumatophilia
- Exigent sadism
- Queer
- Risk
- Transformation
A Queer Carnival of ideas · 15–19 February 2027 · Johannesburg
The week at a glance
A Queer Carnival of ideas · 15–19 February 2027 · Johannesburg
Mon 15 In-person SAR
The Bioscope
Tue 16 Study group A with Avgi
French Lane
Wed 17 Study group B with Avgi
French Lane
Thu 18 Conference day one
Whirlpool Theatre
Fri 19 Conference day two, then a queer dance party
Whirlpool Theatre
Tickets · A Queer Carnival of ideas ·  Johannesburg
Step Right Up
Tickets · A Queer Carnival of ideas ·  Johannesburg
Full Avgi: SAR, both study group days, both conference days and the dance party
Members: R6400
Non-Members: R7600
Core Avgi: SAR, one study group day and both conference days
Members: R5300
Non-Members: R6300
In-person SAR
Members: R2000
Non-Members: R2200
Study group, one day (Tuesday or Wednesday)
Members: R1400
Non-Members: R1600
Study groups, both days
Members: R2200
Non-Members: R2800
Conference, per day
Members: R1400
Non-Members: R1650
Queer dance party
Members: R400
Non-Members: R500
Step RIght Up
Get your tickets here!
The Carnival is set over 5 days across different venues in Johannesburg. The week programme is designed to allow for longer, slower, deeper, and multi-modal engagement with the material and speakers. We also have two preparatory events for you outside the main programme and coming up soon!
Places are limited to 150 per conference day, and 40 for the SAR and study groups. The SAR and study groups are more intimate and will fill first, so book early.Â
There are membership specials open to both SASHA and GRASP members. Please sign up if you are not a member to take advantage.Â
2027
The Full Avgi
- Ticket: R6400 members / R7600 non-members
- Includes: In person SAR, two study group days, both conference days and the queer dance party
2027
The Core Avgi
- Ticket: R5300 members / R6300 non-members
- Includes: In person SAR, one study group day, and both conference days
28/11
2026
Learning Laplanche
- Ticket: R1000 members / R1500 non-members
- When: 28 November 2026, 10:00–16:00
- Where: French Lane
A preparatory reading group in Nov 2026 ahead of the Carnival exploring a key theorist underpinning Avgi Saketopoulou’s work – the psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche (1924 – 2012). A day of reading, discussion and clinical reflection on Leplanche’s key concepts and their contemporary relevance. Facilitated by Dr Bruce Laing.
20/01
2027
Babel Fishing
- Ticket: Complimentary for members
- When: 20 January 2027, 19:00–21:00
- Where: Online
An introductory webinar on critical terms and ideas in psychoanalysis and sexology in January 2027. The Babel Fish is a universal translator in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a fictional book by Douglas Adams. Here we use the babel fish to think and talk about the different ideas, concepts and terms that psychoanalysis and sexology use to theorise sexuality. Join us for this crossing of disciplinary languages. Free to SASHA/GRASP members.
15/02
2027
Sexology Training: Sexual Attitude Reflection (SAR)
- Ticket: R2000 members / R2200 non-members
- When: 15 February 2027, 9:00–18:00
- Where: The Bioscope
- Places: 40
A facilitated day of stepping into the kaleidoscopic fray of human sexual expression. SAR is part of the gold standard for sexology training. This is an experiential exposure to erotic media, live storytelling and performance, traversing some of the known and unknown sexual, relational and erotic universe. See where the journey takes you, and what it stirs within. Open to clinical and non-clinical attendees (with boundary management of small processing groups).
16/02
2027
Tuesday Study Group: Critical Intensive
- Ticket: R1400 members / R1600 non-members
- When: Tuesday 16 February 2027, time TBD
- Where: French Lane
- Places: 50
Step away from the crowd for two intimate days with Avgi. In small study groups, we’ll read her work closely and think it through together, with set readings shared beforehand so we can arrive ready to dig in. You’ll choose which study group day you’ll be attending or you can attend both for a reduced price.
17/02
2027
Wednesday Study Group: Critical Intensive
- Ticket: R1400 members / R1600 non-members
- When: Wednesday 17 February 2027, time TBC
- Where: French Lane
- Places: 50
Step away from the crowd for two intimate days with Avgi. In small study groups, we’ll read her work closely and think it through together in the South African context, with set readings shared beforehand so we can arrive ready to dig in. You’ll choose which study group day you’ll be attending or you can attend both for a reduced price
18/02
2027
Queering the Sexual
- Ticket: R1400 members / R1650 non-members
- When: Thursday 18 February 2027, 8:30–17:30
- Where: Whirlpool Theatre
Conference Day 1: The conference days bring sexologists, psychoanalysts, activists, artists and performers into the same room, with Avgi’s keynote sessions and dialogue at their heart.
19/02
2027
Sexuality Beyond Consent
- Ticket: R1400 members / R1650 non-members per day
- When: Friday 19 February 2027, 8:30–17:30
- Where: Whirlpool Theatre
Conference Day 2. The conference days bring sexologists, psychoanalysts, activists, artists and performers into the same room, with Avgi’s keynote sessions and dialogue at their heart.
19/02
2027
Queer Dance Party!
- Ticket: R400 members / R500 non-members
- When: Friday 19 February 2027
- Where: Whirlpool Theatre
Get on your dancing shoes and ready to move. We end the week with a bespoke queer dance party hosted by House of Ditsie.
Step Right Up
Your Hosts
The Queer Carnival of Ideas is a collaborative project of SASHA and GRASP.
The Southern African Sexual Health Association (SASHA) is a professional home for practitioners working in sexual health across disciplines and throughout the region, including clinicians, therapists, educators, researchers and activists. We work to strengthen the field and to support practitioners’ growth through the creation of educational platforms for evidence-based learning, conscientisation and community.
GRASP (Groups for the Reading and Study of Psychoanalysis) brings clinicians and thinkers together in Johannesburg to read and discuss psychoanalytic work. Founded in 1999, GRASP has become one of South Africa’s longest-running independent psychoanalytic reading communities. For more than two decades, it has provided clinicians with a place to explore psychoanalytic thinking through sustained reading, thoughtful discussion, and genuine professional community.
Step Right Up
Your Hosts
The Queer Carnival of Ideas is a collaborative project of SASHA and GRASP.
The Southern African Sexual Health Association (SASHA) is a professional home for practitioners working in sexual health across disciplines and throughout the region, including clinicians, therapists, educators, researchers and activists. We work to strengthen the field and to support practitioners’ growth through the creation of educational platforms for evidence-based learning, conscientisation and community.
GRASP (Groups for the Reading and Study of Psychoanalysis) brings clinicians and thinkers together in Johannesburg to read and discuss psychoanalytic work. Founded in 1999, GRASP has become one of South Africa’s longest-running independent psychoanalytic reading communities. For more than two decades, it has provided clinicians with a place to explore psychoanalytic thinking through sustained reading, thoughtful discussion, and genuine professional community.
Step into the Fray at the Queer Carnival of Ideas
15 to 19 February 2027, Johannesburg. Places are limited. SAR and study group participants get priority access.