As Carole Vance, the Academic Coordinator of the Conference wrote in her letter inviting the participants "sexuality is a bread and butter issue, not a frill."
[citation needed] The day before the conference was scheduled to begin, Barnard College officials—in response to phone calls from angry members of anti-pornography groups—confiscated 1500 copies of Diary of a Conference on Sexuality, designed by Hannah Alderfer, Beth Jaker, and Marybeth Nelson.
WAP members picketed the conference and gave out handouts, leaflets and protests, wearing T-shirts with the words "For a Feminist Sexuality" on the front and "Against S/M" on the back.
[2] Accusations about the specific sexual practices of individual women involved in the conference were central to the outcry around the event.
Many articles and books have been inspired by this conference, the most famous being Carole Vance's Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality.