February 2, 2010
The lovely and amazing Megan Andelloux, who is an alumna of the first class of Speak Up trainees from last year, has great cause to celebrate. Her Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health (CSPH) is finally being allowed to open its doors in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The CSPH has been awash with controversy and legal battles over the zoning of the building it is in since last September.
Join me in congratulating Megan by emailing the Center at thecsph [at] gmail.com and telling her how glad you are she fought for her right to educate adults about sexuality.
Megan told the story of the CSPH in a piece called, simply, “Dildo” at Sex Worker Literati in November. The video of her story and this morning’s press release are below.
Pawtucket, RI February 2nd, 2010 The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health (CSPH), the first non-profit sexuality resource and information center on the East Coast, has won the right to open its door and provide sex education for adults.
The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health will provide one on one coaching services, group classes, drop-in hours, teaching resources, access to sexuality journals and in the fall, start an internship program and conduct sexual health studies. Megan Andelloux, a board certified Sexologist and Sexuality Educator is the founder and director of the non-profit Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health.
On Monday evening, February 1st, after applying for a special use variance,” The CSPH was granted unanimous permission to provide education from the Pawtucket Zoning Board. George Shabo, Zoning Board member, made a special note from the Pawtuckets Planning Board who had also wanted to recommend approval, saying that the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health fit in with the master plan of revitalizing the downtown.
This is a huge victory for the field of civil liberties, sexuality education and advocacy”, Andelloux stated. For the past five months, The CSPH has demonstrated to the public what sexuality professionals all over the country experience on a daily basis: roadblocks from politicians to open legit businesses, requirements to masquerade conversations about sex and fear of coming under personal attack for publicly acknowledging the simple fact that people are sexual and its ok to talk about it.
The battle to open the CSPH was closely watched and discussed by lawyers, university professors, The ACLU, news sources and sexuality professionals all over the country. While the introduction of The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health started off rocky, and false rumors swirled about what the CSPH would be providing, members of the conservative, liberal and libertarian,” community eventually stated that The CSPH mission, to provide adults with a safe space to access information about sex, did indeed fit in with their community values.
The CSPH will meet with its first client today.
In conclusion: yay! A big win!
I have always thought that research on sexuality is cool. Plus, having engaged in various kinds of research on sex, its presence (it being sex research, not actual sex) in my life allows me to make lots of puns (actual sex provides plenty of opportunities for punning as well). But in all seriousness, sexuality research is important, especially the good kind, done by good people. How many times have you read an article about the latest sexuality research report and been annoyed by not just the tone of the article, but the way the research is done? If you’re a thinking sex positive person who interfaces with mainstream media, this has probably happened a lot. You’ve probably also thought: who the hell are these researchers polling?
And so! When there are opportunities to participate in research on sexuality – especially the easy, fill out an online survey kind of participation – you should do it. Here’s one such opportunity, from the Center for HIV Studies and Training (CHEST) here in NYC. Primarily, CHEST conducts research on social and psychological factors that contribute to HIV transmission, with a particular emphasis on the promotion of sexual health. Here is some info about their lead researchers and their latest study:
Dr. Jos E. Nann, associate professor of Health, Physical Education & Recreation at Kingsborough Community College along with Dr. Jeffrey Parsons at the Center for HIV/AIDS Educational Studies & Training (C.H.E.S.T.) of Hunter College are working together on this research study. The purpose of this study is to better understand variations in adult sexual behavior, and these behaviors relationships with mental health, physical safety, and sexual identity. This survey is designed for people at least 18 years old.
This survey should take about 20 minutes to 45 minutes to complete and will ask you for demographic information as well as information about your mental health, sexuality, and sexual behaviors. Approximately 1000 people will complete this survey.
To read more and take the survey, click here. Be forewarned that the page with the info and the survey will not make you a happy camper if you like smooth and spiffy web 2.0 design. It also won’t blink at you or steal your identity. It will likely take itself too seriously. But that’s not the worst thing in the world. Put aside some time, go on over, and contribute to the greater academic good of sexuality studies.
Also: this post is buttering you up for some sexuality research that I’m working on with two other folks from Sex Work Awareness. I blogged briefly about the fact that we received a grant from the Association of Progress Communicators to do a study about restrictions to online access of sexuality information in the United States. That’s going to be rolling out at you in the next week and change and I will, of course, be keeping you in the loop (slash begging you to help me out).
February 1, 2010
This upcoming Thursday, February 4th is the “Love and Pain” edition of Sex Worker Literati. We’ve got a great line-up (below) that will be a complex mix of brevity and misery – we like to keep things complicated.
And, I’m totally getting better at posting video on the regular. Above is Dylan Ryan’s performance from November. It’s got a lot of love and pain in it – this piece actually brought tears to my eyes when she performed it.
Here are the details for Thursday, hope to see you there!
Hosted by Audacia Ray and David Henry Sterry
Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge, in New York City
Thursday, February 4. Doors at 7 pm, reading from 8-10
Stick around after the reading to dance and party with hos, hookers, and neer do wells!
21 and up FREE
15% of the bar goes to support the Sylvia Rivera Law Project
Our performers this month:
Tyler Knight writes short stories and poetry largely rooted in the worlds of adult film, corporate finance and the Fellini-esque characters that occupy them. Hes recently completed an autobiographical short story collection, and a semi-biographical novel.
Since he began writing in 2009, his short stories have been published in several literary magazines including Thieves Jargon, Sex and Murder, and Thirst For Fire. In January 2010, London based publisher Ronin Press published his first chapbook. Tyler also writes a monthly column for For The Girls magazine.
He lives in Los Angeles with his girlfriend, parrot and turtles.
********************************
Mistress Astrid has been a professional dominatrix and lifestyle player for four years. She is also a proud member of the Leather Family of
La Domaine Esemar, the oldest s&m training studio in the country. She has written for $pread Magazine as well the The Indypendent. She has worked as an event emcee, a fetish performer, a nude model and a BDSM educator. She is currently working on her Masters with a focus in Human Sexuality. She hopes to one day complete a dissertation on the female professional dominatrix, as it relates to womens historical narratives.
********************************
Reverend Jen is a performer, painter, playwright, columnist, Troll Museum Curator, underground movie star, open mike host, ASS Magazine founder and elf. She is a columnist for
www.artnet.com and a former sex columnist for
http://www.nerve.com. Her books include Live Nude Elf: the Sexperiments of Reverend
Jen, Sex Symbol for the Insane, Reverend
Jen’s Really Cool Neighborhood and a number of handmade books that can be found in collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the MoMA Library and the Warhol Museum.
********************************
Alex Kinney is an old whore who has prostituted himself in the Ivy League, Americas regional theaters, in the Golden Hills of Hollywood, one cold Christmas in Dublin, and more lengthily, the South of the Slot in San Francisco. Yes, Virginia, there really was a Golden Age of sexuality in San Francisco, and some of us were even getting paid for it. Actually, a LOT of us were getting paid for it, right, David?? The stuff you get me into, jeez. Alexs most recent play, Holy Hell, was developed at The Actors Studio.
********************************
Nica Noelle is an adult film actress, writer and director. She conceptualized and created Sweetheart Video and Sweet Sinner Films with Jon Blitt of Mile High Media, and was recently hailed by Nightline ABC as the top female adult film director. Nica has been a published writer for many years, and her work has appeared in numerous national magazines and websites. Aside from her continuing work in adult films, Nica is also an avid science and nature writer, and she is currently writing a book about urban wildlife and the relationship between humans and backyard animals.
********************************
Dane Cross is a performer in the adult entertainment industry who won Best Male Newcomer at the 2010 AVN Awards. Prior to entering the industry he went to film school and worked in photojournalism.
He is 26, and enjoys traveling as much as possible. Currently he’s working on a travel show pilot on youth hostels that he created.
********************************
15% of the bar tab goes to support the Sylvia Rivera Law Project.
The
Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence. SRLP is a collective organization founded on the understanding that gender self-determination is inextricably intertwined with racial, social and economic justice. Therefore, we seek to increase the political voice and visibility of low-income people and people of color who are transgender, intersex, or gender non-conforming. SRLP works to improve access to respectful and affirming social, health, and legal services for our communities. We believe that in order to create meaningful political participation and leadership, we must have access to basic means of survival and safety from violence.
January 25, 2010
I am very excited to officially roll out the applications for Speak Up! Media Training for the Empowered Sex Worker. For the second year Sex Work Awareness, the organization that I co-founded with a few ex-$preadsters, is hosting a media training workshop for current and former sex workers. Last year the training was one day – this year we’re expanding to a whole weekend. Speak Up is taught by me and Eliyanna Kaiser (aka the smartest person I know) – we met when we shared the title of executive editor at $pread. We are an awesome team (if I do say so myself) and we’re looking forward to more in depth, more workshop-style sessions. Our 2010 training will kick off with an evening seminar on Friday, April 9th and consist of two full days of workshop on April 10 & 11. We have the capacity to train ten people, which means… application time!
The training is funded by sponsorships and sales from the 2010 Sex Blogger Calendar. In addition to the training and skills, workshop participants will get: a $50 stipend; dinner on April 9th, breakfast and lunch on April 10 & 11th; and the opportunity to apply for a $500 grant to continue their media advocacy work. Our current budget does not include funds for travel stipends and housing for those coming from out of town, however, we will do our best to accommodate the travel/housing needs of all successful applicants.
I cannot tell you how excited I am to be actively creating space to share my brain and energies with sex workers. This, along with another (non-sex work, but sexuality) big project I’m heading up for IWHC that I’ll be going public with later this week, is a symbol of what my career is becoming. I’m all about training, capacity-building, and movement making. I’m really keen on transitioning into this new kind of leadership where I don’t need to be yakking away as the center of attention (though I’ll probably still do that more than I should), but instead giving other people a leg up into leadership and shaking things up. I know a lot of stuff – and I want other people to know a lot of stuff too. Even if that means I’ll be overshadowed, pushed aside, maybe even forgotten. Kill the ego, nourish the community… that’s where it’s at.
So, again, that link: full info and application to Speak Up.
We will be accepting applications until February 17, 2010. Accepted applicants will be informed no later than March 1.
January 23, 2010
More video from Sex Worker Literati in September!
The first is Gerry Visco, who describes herself as “illegally blonde” and writes about outrageous NYC nightlife at the New York Press. Gerry’s not just a chronicler of nightlife, she’s also a creator of mayhem. You can see what I mean in the below video, in which she not only has a lookalike but is also accompanied by two go-go boys. She’ll be making a second appearance at Sex Worker Literati in March for our “My Favorite Outfit” event.
Also from September is a reading by Zak Smith (aka porn performer Zak Sabbath). The piece he reads – or should I say, delivers deadpan – is from his book We Did Porn, which I reviewed here.
And that’s all the perfect lead-in to announcing the performers for the February 4th edition of Sex Worker Literati. Theme: Love and Pain (full details at link, or click the image below). The event will feature Tyler Knight, Reverend Jen, Nica Noelle, Mistress Astrid, and Alex Kinney.
January 18, 2010
I’ve been a bit lax about it over the past two months, partly due to some hard drive messiness (le sigh), but I spend some time this weekend digging into my archives of video files from Sex Worker Literati.
There are a lot of good stories coming down the pike, since I’ve now got 10 videos edited and ready to go, and I’ll be posting at least two a week for the next while. I still have to edit videos from the December and January readings. At the moment, there are eighteen videos online – you can watch them all on our blip.tv channel or subscribe via iTunes or Miro. It’s not quite as good as being there, but these stories are damn awesome.
The video above is of Melissa Gira Grant reading “The Secret Diary of Melissa Gira Grant” at the September event.
I can’t believe we’ve been doing Sex Worker Literati for 6 months already! It’s been such fun, and I’ve got a lot that I’m hoping to do with it this year. For starters, all the events are themed. Speaking of, we’re working on booking the shows for this year, so if you or someone you know has a story to tell, please get in touch:
Call for Performers: Sex Worker Literati
Everyone has a story to tell…and Sex Worker Literati is the place for sex workers to tell theirs! Through spoken word, song, dance, or writing, each person on stage has a chance to lure the listeners into their world – to tantalize, scandalize, and give them a look into the life of a sex worker.
If you’re a current or former sex worker, or you have stories about the sex industry, please consider joining us for an evening as a performer!. The event is held on the first Thursday of each month at the Happy Ending bar in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and is co-hosted by Audacia Ray and David Henry Sterry. While we cannot pay performers, we will shower you with gratitude, offer you a place to sell your books / zines / CD’s, and let you have a drink on us.
Our upcoming themes are:
February 4 – Love and Pain
March 4 – Show & Tell: My Favorite Outfit
April 1 – Goddesses, Sinners, and Saviors
May 6 – Embarrassing Things I’ve Done for Money
June 3 – Coming Out & Passing
July 1 – The Craziest Ho I Ever Did Know
August 5 – Why Being a Whore Sucks, and/or Why It’s Great
September 2 – Tricks, Johns, Clients, and Sir Save-A-Hos
October 7 – Healers and Whores
November 4 – Dicks, Cops, & the Long Arm of the Law
December 2 – Family Affairs
Interested in participating? Email host@hoshookerscallgirlsrentboys.com with your name, your website, and/or any samples of your work! We especially encourage newer writers and untested performers to inquire – the themes that we’ve developed are intended to inspire sex workers to tell their stories, big or small.
January 13, 2010
Yesterday I had my first feature go up at RH Reality Check, and it’s about sex work activism, the ways that the sex worker rights movement is sometimes misconstrued by the feminist movement, and it has some substantive writing on my time in India. Plus, there’s a bit about the process of producing the short doc about IWHC partner org SANGRAM.
It was inspiring to meet the HIV-positive rural women, illiterate sex workers, and community health advocates who are working together to facilitate change in their communities. Many told me how for years, doctors in the local primary health centers refused to provide health services to sex workers or avoided touching them by giving them inoculations with extra long needles. With SANGRAM’s assistance, sex workers have been able to form alliances with some of the doctors and achieve a higher standard of care and respect. Their efforts have resulted in health system improvements that benefit the entire community: advocates have been successful in demanding that the primary health centers be functional, with trained staff, adequate supplies, and medicine.
In Sangli, I worked with SANGRAM to document their work and successes. On International Human Rights Day, we released a five minute video about sex worker organizing, the first collaborative media project of the International Women’s Health Coalition & SANGRAM.
Since we posted the short documentary about SANGRAM and the mobilization of sex workers in Sangli, it’s been interesting to read the posted comments and reactions. One of the most frequent responses is a well-meaning but slightly problematic one. To paraphrase: “It’s so great to see these women getting the protection and help they need!” Obviously, the respondents want what’s best for women, but this response doesn’t instill much trust in the agency of sex workers to realize what’s best for them on their own. Furthermore, it casts sex workers as damaged goods: victims in need of saving, delicate flowers in need of protection.
Click here to read the whole piece.
January 8, 2010
I am 90% happy that I am not in Las Vegas this week at the Adult Entertainment Expo. I do not miss the endless walking and leg ache of the convention hall, I do not miss the inevitable reminder that most of the porn industry isn’t at all like the feminist queer bubble I exist in. I do, however, miss hanging out with my friends and especially chowing down at the Grand Lux Cafe and having weird moments. But I can certainly make my own weird moments here in NYC.
The thing I feel most bummed about missing this year is something happening outside of AEE – the fabulous Laurenn McCubbin is producing an art piece on Saturday, January 9th that just looks so awesome.
Here’s her press release, and an awesome sample of one of the cards she’s made:
Artist Laurenn McCubbin aims to uncover some of the roots of the hidden economic exchange between sex work and the Las Vegas economy, and what better time to highlight it than during one of the largest conventions in Las Vegas – the Adult Entertainment Expo? Taking place from January 7-10, this convention brings in upwards of 30,000 convention goers and will bring in untold money to Las Vegas’ struggling economy. But how much more money will be paid into Las Vegas’ “underground economy”, and to the sex workers who keep the “sin” in Sin City?
McCubbin has created her own array of illustrated “hooker cards” featuring actual Las Vegas sex workers, that mimic the advertisements passed out on the Strip by escort agencies. Accompanied by the same workers that the agencies hire, she will be passing these cards out in front of the Venetian Hotel & Casino, right around the corner from the Sands Convention Center, which is hosting the Adult Entertainment Expo. As well as the hooker cards, McCubbin has created her own rolling billboard (sponsored by Vegas Mobile Media) that will be trolling the Strip during this performance. By recreating what is admittedly a common occurrence on the Strip, the artist hopes to draw attention to the contradiction of Las Vegas – a city built on sin and sexual excess that keeps prostitution illegal, while maintaining a financial relationship that continues to make sex work a viable and profitable economy.
The secondary part of this project will take place off the Strip, via the phone number and website that McCubbin is promoting on the mock hooker cards – (877) LADY-BIZ and www.vegasladybiz.com. These multimedia presentations go live on Saturday, January 9th, and include audio and video interviews with the sex workers depicted in her work.
On February 5th, at the Grant Hall gallery at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, McCubbin will be presenting photo and video documentation of this performance in a gallery setting, as well as pieces involving giant sized hooker cards, a memorial wall of custom made hooker shoes, and a burlesque performance.
For more information, please call Laurenn McCubbin at 702.524.5676, or email her at laurenn@laurennmccubbin.com
January 5, 2010
Hosted by Audacia Ray and David Henry Sterry
Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge, in New York City
Thursday, January 7. Doors at 7 pm, reading from 8-10
Stick around after the reading to dance and party with hos, hookers, and ne’er do wells!
21 and up – FREE
Our readers this month:
In order to fund her Ph.D. habit, Chelsea G. Summers worked most of the go-go ’90s as a stripper. Later, she found herself uninspired to write her doctoral dissertation and thus she began writing her award-winning blog, pretty dumb things, in March 2005. Since then, Chelsea’s work has appeared in magazines like GQ and Penthouse and in multiple anthologies. She has been interviewed by the legendary Susie Bright for her Audible.com show “In Bed With Susie Bright,” and her work has been featured in fine online publications such as Filthy Gorgeous Things.com. Chelsea is currently working on any number of projects, when she isn’t suffering from paralyzing crises of confidence. Chelsea lives and sometimes writes in glamorous New York City.
Jennifer Blowdryer was delighted to meet other people with funny names when she moved to NYC in 1985. Spider Webb and Annie Sprinkle introduced her to the mutual exploitation hack erotica circuit, and she proudly launched Smut Fests at a lap dancing parlour in 1988. Read more of her stuff: http://86edstories.com.
Damien Decker’s writing has appeared in $pread magazine and the anthology Unhoused Voices. He has been featured on The Daily Beast and is currently working on a memoir. Damien was born in Zambia but moved as a young child to Scandinavia to become one of the first black people in northern Europe. He recived his degree in USA and is a former college, semi-pro, and national team athlete. Damien is a multilingual jack-of-all-trades who speaks fluent Swedish, Norwegian, English, plus enough French to not starve when in Paris and enough Swahili to know when mother was angry. He currently resides in New York.
Jodi Sh. Doff, aka Scarlett Fever, has written for BUST, Penthouse, Playgirl, Tear, Cosmopolitan; been included in Best American Erotica ‘95, Bearing Life, Between the Sheets & The Bust Guide to a New Girl Order. She’s one of the Three Naked Ladies, a weekly online series taking a behind the scenes peek at stripping then & now. There’s a
memoir of her ten years in pre-Disney Times Square topless business in the works.
Zoe Hansen came to New York as a runaway teen in 1984, with two
hundred dollars and a heroin habit. She lived in the Lower East Side
when burnt out buildings were the norm and everyone went to Save The
Robots and Danceteria. She entered the sex industry at 17 years old,&
went on to become a phone girl, street ho, call girl, brothel worker
and eventually successful madam. She continues to live in the East
Village with her husband & child, where she is working on her memoir
‘My American Dream ~ Going Down in Gotham’.
January 4, 2010
Ok, yeah, it’s officially old news since it’s now 2010, but I’m wrapping up my promised (to myself, as much as you) wrapping up of 2009 (for those playing along at home, I have yet to post my favorite images and favorite blog posts, those will be up in the next two days).
I was pretty picky about engaging with the press in 2009, but as these things seem to happen, there were a few bursts of activity inspired by various controversies, plus my second major mention in the New York Times. Here are my favorite pieces of press from last year:
1. The Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys anthology got reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review in late August. Kind of amazing, right? Even more amazing was the direct mention of my piece:
Audacia Ray, who now teaches human sexuality at Rutgers University, certainly earned her degree out in the field, having at one point paired up with a woman named Lily as a massage team offering happy endings. “Money got us hot and bothered,” she writes, and one evening, after Lily cashed a disability check from the federal government for $10,000 (she had no bank account, of course), she poured the money — “mostly $20 bills” — onto the bed. They shut off their phones, bathed together, got “very, very high” and then rolled around “naked in the cash. . . . Even now, when I think of the hottest sex we had, I think about currency stuck to her flesh.” Now there’s an image to promote the beneficence of Uncle Sam.
2. Last spring, the Speak Up media training coincided with some violence propagated against sex workers by the “Craigslist killer.” In the wake of the violence there was of course a flurry of media about sex work, and I took the opportunity to write a letter to the editor of the Boston Herald about their use of language referring to sex workers. Here’s a screenshot of the LTE and a related blog post I wrote about it called The Impact You Can Make.
3. In early May, a colleague pointed me at this story (link to my blog post): Escort Gets Robbed, Reports It, Gets Outed and I quickly followed up with a letter to the reporter and editor, and encouraged other folks to do the same. It created something of a bloggy shitstorm, but well worth it I think, because it got a lot of people thinking about talking about how the media can enable violence against sex workers.
4. My best bit of live media for the year was an appearance on the WNYC show The Takeaway in early July. I got up at 4:30 in the morning to load myself into the car the station sent for me and talk in studio about the ways that South Carolina “Governor Mark Sanford’s indiscretions have sparked a conversation about marriage and what constitutes infidelity in America”
5. When a college student tried to sell her virginity on the internet there was a big hullaballoo about it, and I commented on the story in two different places, a CNN.com article What is virginity worth today? and a piece that Susannah Breslin asked me to comment on at Slate, When Economies are Tight, Virgins Go to Auction
