Let's Bonobo!

Every society develops its own rules for how closeness emerges, how conflicts are resolved, and how attention is distributed. Most of these rules are absorbed long before we become aware of them. They shape the way we form relationships, how we understand touch, how we respond to jealousy, and why we instinctively offer care to some people but not to others.

It is only through encountering a different social culture that we begin to recognise that our own habits are not laws of nature, but simply one among many possible ways of organising community.

The society of bonobos offers one of the most fascinating examples of such an alternative. Although they are among our closest living relatives, they organise their social lives according to remarkably different principles. Cooperation takes precedence over competition. Care is not an exception but an everyday practice. Touch serves not only eroticism but relationship itself. And sexuality fulfills a variety of social functions that extend far beyond reproduction or romantic pair bonding.

This retreat invites you not merely to discuss these principles, but to explore them in practice over the course of a weekend. Not by attempting to imitate bonobos, but by asking which aspects of their social organisation might enrich our understanding of human relationships. What changes when attention is shared generously? When tension is regulated before it turns into conflict? When touch becomes an everyday language of care? And when erotic energy is understood not as possession or destination, but as one possible form of connection among many?

Together, we will create a temporary social culture with its own set of principles. We will experiment with conscious attention, co-regulation, touch, play, care, and community. Some exercises invite participants, always on the basis of explicit consent, to explore sensual or erotic encounters. Others contain no erotic component at all. Sexuality is neither the centrepiece of the retreat nor something that is deliberately excluded. Instead, it is approached as one element within a much broader spectrum of human connection.

Let’s experience together that community can be lived differently. That closeness does not necessarily imply possession. That care creates stronger bonds than status. And that relationship is not a resource we own, but a culture we continuously create together.

For who? → This retreat welcomes both experienced members of the sex-positive, kink and conscious communities as well as people entering these spaces for the first time.

You may arrive on your own, with a partner, or as part of an existing relationship constellation. Throughout the weekend, however, we invite everyone to engage with the retreat as a shared group experience. While existing relationships are respected, they are not intended to define the social landscape of the retreat. Instead, we encourage participants to remain open to meeting, caring for and connecting with the community as a whole.

Your age, gender identity, sexual orientation, relationship style, body, appearance or physical abilities are not what determine whether this retreat is for you. What matters is that you are of legal age, able to take responsibility for yourself and others, and willing to participate with curiosity, respect and care.

More than any previous experience, we value openness: the willingness to encounter unfamiliar ways of relating, to communicate honestly, to respect boundaries (your own and those of others) and to contribute to a culture in which connection is created collectively rather than assumed.