Controversial Sex Workshop Happening This Weekend in Colorado

Somewhere in Greenwood Village, a person is paying $150 to share a queen-sized bed with someone they don't know and receive spiritual sex education from members of an organization that some critics claim is a "cult."

The sold-out event is called a Quodoushka workshop, and around twenty of them have been held in Colorado since 2003, according to Karen Krauss, lead teacher of the latest gathering. From November 30 to December 3, Krauss will instruct a group of Coloradans on breathing exercises, anatomy lessons and other activities intended to connect them with their sexual energy.

Do people fornicate? The answer depends on whom you ask, but Krauss insists: "A Q is not an orgy."

"Sex is sacred and natural, and understanding it helps to take away a little bit of the mystique," she tells Westword. "There's not a lot of places in the world where you can learn information that's really helpful."

Hundreds of Quodoushkas have been held across the globe over the years, from Arizona to Germany to Australia. While they've stayed relatively under the radar and are billed as positive experiences, some participants have spoken out about the up-to-$500 workshops not being what they expected.

Several have accused the group behind the Quodoushkas, the Deer Tribe Metis Medicine Society, of being a cult organization that puts people into perverse sexual situations that are veiled as spiritual retreats. In 2002, one woman told Phoenix New Times, a Westword partner paper, that the "chakra cleansing" exercise at her workshop required "fingering" each other's vaginas and anuses.

In a podcast last year, Heidi Yvonne Thompson said her first "Q" involved each participant sitting on a chair and exposing their genitals to the room; women were told to spread their labia open and make eye contact with every person present. Thompson added that siblings, parents and adult children are often at these workshops together.

At another Quodoushka, Thompson said, she witnessed her own mother performing oral sex on a stranger during one of the exercise breaks — just feet away from her.

“These people don’t know what they’re getting into," Thompson explained in the podcast, noting how participants are forbidden from telling anyone about the genital-flashing part of the workshop in order to avoid dissuading others from signing up. "I’ve talked to so many people since then who felt so uncomfortable and said, ‘I did so many things I didn’t want to do.'"

Thompson could not be reached for comment.

Krauss disputes some of the accusations about Quodoushkas, but not all of them.

"You're not fingering anybody," she tells Westword, but voluntary genital flashing does happen as part of a ceremony identifying each individual's genital anatomy types, and participants are instructed not to tell anyone about it.

"That's accurate," Krauss admits. "Because it's a personal thing."

Krauss is one of the few Quodoushka facilitators in the world. She has taught workshops for 25 years and has studied the practices since she was 27 years old. Now 66, she says Quodoushkas aren't about teaching sex acts, but about teaching how to be present.

"None of the exercises require or have as a basis genital focus," Krauss says. "But people can make personal choices. ... There's no judgment one way or the other."

According to Krauss, many participants choose to be naked during the workshop exercises — many of which involve touching. But she emphasized the importance of consent and the workshop's focus on communication and agreement, and noted that drugs and alcohol are prohibited.

Thompson said she had a completely different experience than the one described by Krauss. On last year's podcast, she spoke about being groped by other participants and pressured by staff to do exercises she didn't enjoy, with them promising that it would heal her sexual trauma.

“I didn’t realize that Quodoushka was actually harming me," Thompson said. "I didn’t realize how unethical it is and exploitative it is.”

For ten years, Thompson was a member of the Deer Tribe Metis Medicine Society. The nonprofit was founded in 1986 and provides teachings on everything from sex to martial arts to healing. Critics and former members blast it as a cult that takes thousands of dollars from its members to fuel a depraved sexual society that appropriates Native American traditions and names for profit. 

Quodoushka was initially advertised as a Cherokee ritual by Deer Tribe founder Harley SwiftDeer Reagan when he promoted the ceremony on HBO's Real Sex series in 1992. The Cherokee Nation condemned Reagan and threatened to sue the network for misrepresentation. Cherokee Nation research and policy analyst Dr. Richard Allen later told Phoenix New Times that Reagan falsely claimed to be half-Cherokee and made up all of the teachings he attributed to the tribe.

Krauss has been a member of the Deer Tribe for 39 years. She says the Deer Tribe is not a cult, instead arguing that members are ideologically diverse and free to come and go as they want.

"In my personal opinion, in what I've discovered and learned, I do not feel that I am in a cult," Krauss says. "Our main purpose as an organization is really education."

For the next three days, that education will be bestowed on Coloradans within the walls of an unassuming Greenwood Village home, whose location has only been revealed to participants. Hopefully, they know what they signed up for.