Aasect

From the bottom of our hearts: gracias, Puerto Rico. 🇵🇷

Thank you to the AASECT Board, the conference committees, our members, volunteers, presenters, speakers, and every person who helped bring this gathering to life.

Thank you to the people of Puerto Rico for welcoming us with warmth, culture, rhythm, generosity, and open hearts.

A special thank you to the technology, audio/video, and interpretation teams for making connection, access, and participation possible throughout the conference.

We leave with full hearts, meaningful conversations, new connections, and memories that will travel with us long after this conference ends.

Hasta la próxima. ❤️

A beautiful farewell to Puerto Rico. 🇵🇷

Our AASECT members closed this gathering with connection, gratitude, and a delicious piña colada tasting—one more sweet reminder of the warmth, culture, and joy this island shared with us.

Thank you to everyone who came, connected, learned, laughed, danced, and helped make this conference so meaningful.

Puerto Rico, gracias por recibirnos con tanto corazón.

Until next time. ❤️

What an experience we had with Maribella and the beautiful Bomba experience. 🇵🇷

A heartfelt thank you to the community for dancing, sharing, and coming together with so much joy.

It was more than music and dance. It was rhythm, history, body, memory, joy, and community coming alive in the room.

Thank you, Maribella and El Junte Loiceño, for sharing this powerful cultural moment with AASECT and for reminding us that connection can be felt through movement, sound, and tradition.

Drop a ❤️ if you felt the rhythm, and don’t forget to tag us in your photos!

S*x Research as Resistance ✨

What a powerful and necessary conversation with Dr. Carlos Rodríguez-Díaz at AASECT.

His presentation reminded us that s*x research is never only about producing knowledge. At its best, it can also be an act of resistance, disruption, and social change.

Dr. Rodríguez-Díaz also highlighted the importance of community-engaged research—research that does not simply study communities, but works with them, listens to them, and centers their lived realities.

By challenging stigma, inequity, and harmful assumptions in health systems, policy, and scholarship, s*x research can help us ask deeper questions: Who has been excluded? Who has been pathologized? Whose stories have been ignored? And what would research look like if equity, dignity, and community were at the center?

A meaningful reminder that rigorous research, community engagement, and justice-centered practice can belong together.

*xResearch *xualHealth *xuality *xualJustice

AASECT 2026 was an unforgettable experience, thanks to the warmth, knowledge, and connection shared throughout this incredible community. Thank you for being part of it.

AASECT 2026 fue una experiencia inolvidable, gracias a la calidez, el conocimiento y la conexión que se compartieron en esta increíble comunidad. Gracias por ser parte de ella.

At AASECT 2026, learning and connection extended far beyond the sessions.

We are grateful to our sponsors, exhibitors, and supporting partners for helping create a meaningful conference experience. Thank you for sharing your resources, supporting our community, and being part of the AASECT 2026 journey.

Script from Mallory

Hi everyone, my name is Dr. Mallory Hanfling.

I am honored to be co-presenting today with my cohort mate and esteemed colleague, Dr. Dalia M. LaFontaine, for her session:

Through Their Eyes: Exploring Gender Violence, Masculinity, Power, and Feminicide in Puerto Rico

This presentation explores an urgent and deeply important topic: how gender violence, masculinity, power, and cultural narratives shape the conditions that make feminicide possible.

I am grateful to stand alongside Dalia in this work and to be part of a conversation rooted in accountability, prevention, and social transformation.

We hope you’ll join us today at 5:30 PM.

✨ Celebrating Dr. Yael R. Rosenstock Gonzales ✨

What an insightful, compassionate, and extraordinary presentation by Dr. Yael R. Rosenstock Gonzales, also known as YaeltheS*xGeek.

Yael brought depth, clarity, tenderness, and courage to a conversation rooted in s*x, identity, power, consent, desire, pleasure, embodiment, and belonging—especially within Latine and Caribbean communities.

As this year’s local ambassador, Yael has helped make AASECT’s presence in Puerto Rico more connected, intentional, and supportive of our local communities.

Thank you, Yael, for your brilliance, your care, and your commitment to creating spaces where people can feel seen, respected, and free to belong.

Drop a ❤️ or leave a comment to celebrate Yael’s beautiful work.

*xGeek *xuality *xPositive *xualHealth *xuality