When Portland theater artist Eleanor O’Brien started touring last year with Lust and Marriage, her play about resisting bed death after marriage, she was so excited by the new work she encountered from fellow artists on the road that she decided to curate her own local festival of sex-positive theater. While other cities already have well-established, similarly focused programs—O’Brien cites the Seattle Erotic Art Festival—she notes that Portland does not, despite seeming like a community that would be receptive to the idea. So she created her own: Come Inside, a festival of sex and culture, featuring Shirley Gnome (“almost pure entertainment,” in O’Brien’s words), O’Brien’s own show, GGG: Dominatrix for Dummies, San Francisco’s Bawdy Storytelling, and slew of other performances that examine various aspects of queerness, gender identity, sex work, and sex education. MEGAN BURBANK
Click here for a full list of performances and showtimes.