FrEquently Asked Questions
What is New Culture?
What is Unique About New Culture Camps?
No Gurus and No Dogma. We've found that no single human technology or practice can encompass the human experience; our goal is to build a *culture* in which insights drawn from many sources are common knowledge, *available* but not imposed. We bring in many new presenters every year, and the result is that our participants have a huge pool of technologies and practices to draw from. Each person is fully "at choice" in any of our events, and each person is free to use the insights and practices that work best for them.
Gather for an Extended Period of Time.
Many of us have been consciously involved with personal growth for years, but it can be difficult to integrate what we learn into our daily lives. Winter Camp offers both a 6-day and a 10-day experience, giving us time to move beyond brief workshop encounters and into the realities of being in community together. Relationships form and shift, people stretch their edges, misunderstandings happen, and opportunities for connection, reflection, and repair emerge. We practice staying present with ourselves and each other as these experiences unfold. In the words of one past participant, "Ideas become practiced ways of being."
What can I expect to take away?
Results.
Attending camp often leads to powerful and long-lasting results. People often make significant changes in their lives as a result of camp—new jobs, new communities, new projects. They may also leave camp with meaningful relationships, new perspectives, greater self-awareness, and practices they carry into their everyday lives. Every person's experience is different, and we don't promise a particular outcome. What we offer is an opportunity to experiment with more embodied, connected, and intentional ways of relating.
IS CAMP ALWAYS COMFORTABLE?
No. New Culture Camp can be a joyful and nurturing experience that offers a welcome respite from some of society’s more restrictive social norms. It can also be personally and interpersonally challenging. Being in community across differences can bring up discomfort, misunderstandings, emotional activation, and conflict.
Camp can offer opportunities to face our own inconsistencies, insecurities, and growing edges, and to encounter and respond to those of others with greater awareness and compassion. We don't expect ourselves or one another to get everything right. We do ask participants to approach these moments with curiosity, accountability, compassion, and a willingness to engage in repair when possible.
You are always at choice about whether to participate in a particular workshop or activity. Traditionally, many campers have practiced multiple loving relationships. However, our community includes people with many different relationship structures, sexual orientations, gender identities, and approaches to intimacy, and we strive to honor those differences.
Transparency and Honesty
Supporting Transparency and Understanding.
Camp includes a variety of practices designed to support connection with ourselves and one another. These include morning movement, ZEGG-style Forum, workshops, affinity spaces, consent and attunement practices, shared meals, community service, and participant-led activities. We also build teams around consent and belonging to help support the community through ruptures, microaggressions, misattunements, and opportunities for repair.
I see that you value transparency and radical honesty. Do I have to tell everyone everything?
No. Transparency does not mean that you are required to disclose everything you think or feel. You are always at choice about what you share and with whom. Transparency means being willing to verbalize what is in your heart, including things you may feel reluctant to say. We value authentic communication, self-awareness, attunement, and the willingness to name what is happening when doing so feels appropriate. We also recognize that boundaries, privacy, pacing, and context matter. Our intention is not to pressure people into disclosure, but to create more room for honest, embodied connection.
Kindness, mutual respect, choice, accountability, nonviolence, acceptance, active listening, and community care are also important to us. We encourage participants to share with awareness of the impact their words may have on others and to speak from a place of kindness, curiosity, and a genuine desire for understanding and connection. We practice affirmative consent and encourage participants to pay attention to both verbal and nonverbal cues, while using verbal communication to clarify rather than making assumptions.
Intimacy
I heard from a friend, who hasn't actually ever been to camp, that the camp is called a "sex camp". Is this just a rumor? Is everyone being intimate with everyone else all the time? What can I expect?
Most workshops and exercises offered at camp are entirely nonsexual. You will find that the degree of sexual interest at camp runs the full spectrum. For many people, sexual exploration isn't a significant part of what draws them to camp. For others, it may arise naturally in an environment where intimate, heart-centered connections are encouraged and supported.
If an attendee chooses to engage in sensual or sexual activities, alone or with others, there is no rule against this, but these activities are limited to certain times and places so that everyone remains at choice. Affirmative consent is expected in all sensual and sexual interactions.
Occasionally there are also guided safer-sex-oriented activities such as sensual and erotic touch, Tantric exercises, and other intimacy-focused practices. These events, like all camp events, are entirely optional. This year we're also offering more alternatives to sensual and erotic evening spaces, along with platonic touch explorations and gentler on-ramps into sensual spaces, so you can find the pace that's right for you.
Weather and land
What's the weather like?
There is no usual weather here, and temperatures are typically in the 80s (27°C). Nighttime temperatures can range from the 70s to the 60s.
Will I have time to explore Hawai'i?
Not really during camp, unless you bring your own car and skip some of the programs. The events happen in rural areas that require a bit of driving to get to most sites of interest. If you are new to Hawai'i, plan to arrive early or stay later on the island to explore.
Is it likely to rain?
Yes. Sometimes very intensely. This is a tropical rainforest, and the nearby city of Hilo has the highest rainfall of any city in the U.S. It is warm rain and not constant, with frequent sunny periods. Sometimes it only rains at night! Come prepared to get wet.
What clothes should I bring?
Bring cool clothes for hot days in the 80s, something a bit warmer for cooler evenings (typically from the high 60s to the mid-70s), and something warmer still for the occasional chilly night. By all means, bring fun clothes to dress up in, dance in, party in, be comfortable in, spend some time in—or not!