Opening night

March 30, 2006

I spent twelve hours at the LGBT Community Center yesterday. I still have a fuck of a lot to process about the event, and my illness has come back with a vengeance, but a sort of general recap… I’m sure I’m leaving lots of stuff out…

I have arrived at a point in my life where I get 9 a.m. phone calls from Veronica Vera, calmly field questions from the NY Times and get thanked for my work by Lily Burana. This is awesome, but also a little stunning, since whatever you want to say about my work, I do almost all of it in my pajamas (not naked, as Jossip would have you believe), which would make me an extremely boring subject for a documentary.

On Monday, the $preadsters and I had installed about half of the show, partly because we ran out of time to install the rest of it, but mostly because the other half of the artwork had not yet arrived in New York. In a leisurely paella marinara lunch on Tuesday, my lunch companion marveled that I wasn’t screaming into my cell phone and freaking out about the missing pieces. I had adopted a kind of zen attitude about the whole thing - really, what the hell could I do?

Pretty much everything arrived by Wednesday, and I set about the task of hanging it: pencils, tape measures, levels and annoying-to-hang hooks and such. Everything was well under control, and even as the hours ticked by, things stayed pretty low stress. This is the awesome thing about being in charge - though its true that when shit goes wrong it is my problem, its also true that I set the pace and the level of stress in the air, and I made sure that everything was easy-breezy. As huge of a project as this was, there weren’t really moments of horror and thinking that it couldn’t possibly get done.

Around 4.30 pm, the lovely Bella Vendetta was being my eyes on the ground and helping me hang art, Carol Leigh aka Scarlot Harlot was setting up her little space, and I just felt this wave of dizziness, and realized I needed to get the fuck off of that ladder, eat a ham sandwich and take a damn break. Once that was done, the wall text arrived, and we were entering the final moments before the show. The room looked great in those calm moments - and then the madness began.

People started to meander in just before six, and by 6.30 the gallery was packed. And when I say packed, I mean it was seriously insane, like at some points in the evening it was completely impossible to move around. I’ll be posting pictures as soon as I get them (and if you were there and you took pictures, please let me know), but for now just imagine a space too small for lots of sexy people.

Melissa Gira arrived directly from the airport, a little flustered but ready to rock, and started her cam show, with Ana Voogand Echo Transgression running their shows alongside hers. The archived show will be up on boa real soon (and the site is worth checking out, cam archives or not). Jane (did I mention she’s in town? yep, and its awesome) assisted her with set up and keeping sace between her and the crowd. I didn’t get to see any of the cam shows since I was so busy with talking to people, but it was really fascinating to have the whole live/online thing all tangled together, in an art exhibit taking place in a computer room, based on hype largely created online. I’m going to write more about this soon, as I’ve got a lot percolating in my head about it.

A lot of the artists came to the opening and it was good to see them all there. Paul Sarkis was one of the first to arrive and stayed quite a while, and later I said brief hellos to Cristy Road and George Pitts, talked quite a bit with the always perfectly attired Molly Crabapple, Joe Gallant appeared early in the evening and told me he’s proud of me (which warmed my heart, as he’s known me since i was a wee tart), Charise Isis was there and I was able to introduce her to Les Barany (who is interested in her work and is agent to HR Giger and Spider Webb), Val Dejardins and Tobaron Wacman made appearances, Shane Luitjens was there early but didn’t stick around for my shout out, Bella Vendetta showed up early but then I lost her in the crowd, and Catherine McGregor was there but I didn’t get to meet her til today. There were also awesome non-artists there: Tristan Taormino, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Lily Burana, Lux Nightmare, Veronica Vera, Tracy Quan and a cohort of NYC sex bloggers - Chelsea Girl, Lex and Les, Jefferson, Emma, Mitzi, and Viviane …I could go on because I’m sure I’ve missed people, but shit. It was quite the room full of people.

Around 8 o’clock I climbed up on the table we were using for the bar to give a speech, but first Veronica Vera and Melissa Ditmore presented Carol Leigh with a superwhore award for service to the community, which thrilled her to death. I kept my speech as short and sweet as I could and just introduced and gave love to the $pread folks, all of whom were wearing tiaras for easy identification. I also got a big cheer from the crowd when I introduced myself, which was kinda cool and flattering.

Shit is happening, and its so energizing to be a part of it, to feel connected with people who are working hard on their own and collective projects, to swap ideas and support and all this stuff. Lately people have been asking me about how to get involved, how to make things happen, and I think back to a conversation I had with Lux Nightmare the last time we had brunch, about not feeling a part of a community or a part of a scene - and working to create the thing you want to be a part of. Making things happen starts with thinking and talking, and then doing it your goddamn self if need be. That’s what I’ve been doing, and by golly its working.

And tomorrow, I’ll write about the roundtable that Melissa and I did at Sex Work Matters. SO much to say about all of it. Whew.

Posted by Dacia at 06:06 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Sex Worker Visions happens tonight!

March 28, 2006

If you’re in New York City, tonight anywhere between 6 and 9 pm, amble on over to the LGBT Community Center at 208 West 13th street between 7th and 8th avenues, head up to the second floor and into the David Bohnett Cyber Center and you’ll be greeted by lots of fabulous art by amazing people, a room brimming over with interesting folks, booze, cake and who knows what else.

If you’re not in NYC, from 7-8 EST you can join us at boa for a historic melding of cammer minds and bodies. 30 Second Sex is masterminded by multimedia artist and erotic professional Melissa Gira and featuring webcam pioneers Ana Voog and Echo Transgression all together on cam for the first time.

Here’s the final lineup of artists and the titles of their pieces for the exhibition:
Norene Leddy, “The Aphrodite Project: Platforms”
Anne Hanavan, “Paranoid”
Molly Crabapple, “Curtains”
Charise Isis, “Narcissus”
Edel Tripp and Kire Carlson, “The Booth”
Dana Sweeney, “Body”
Joe Gallant and Belladonna, “Summer’s Eve”
Fly, untitled illustrations for $pread magazine
Chris Student, “Nell Geyn Tea Set”
Val Desjardins, “Spread MTL”
George Pitts, “April Flores”
Paul Sarkis, untitled photographs of Seymour Butts and Mari Possa
Eve Ryder, “Look Angry”
Cristy Road, illustrations for $pread magazine
Heather Corinna, “Another Satisfied Sex Worker”
Carol Leigh aka Scarlot Harlot, “Free Whores”
Kathryn Delaney and Lainie Basman, “Public Faces”
Bella Vendetta, “You can never get clean”
Sadie Lune, “Kitty’s Pedicure”
Tobaron Waxman, “Tradewinds motel, Melissa circa 1950, Untitled still life”
Shane Luitjens, “You Are My Fat Check”
Erin Siegal, “Nikki” and “Foot Party”
Catherine McGregor, “Foot with Money”

Posted by Dacia at 09:24 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

This week in the press

March 27, 2006

I expect to add to this post as the week wears on.

Fantastic bit of press #1: a text and video piece on NYC24.org called Tired of the Private Show: Taking sex work out of the shadows and into public consciousness

Both of the projects that I’m working on right now are featured: Sex Worker Visions (March 29, 6-9 pm) in the video called “The Magazine” and the Perverts’ Saloon (April 3, 7.30-10 pm) in the video piece called “The Blogs.” There are also really fabulous videos about the Sex Workers Art Show and the Movement more generally, featuring Annie Oakley and Carol Leigh aka Scarlot Harlot.

Add this to the SexTV piece, and you might almost start to think that we’re getting through to the media in a new and awesome way.

UPDATE There’s an interview with me over at Gothamist… see if you can catch the new sliver of outness.

Posted by Dacia at 07:38 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Sensitive topics and attempts at sensitive treatments

March 26, 2006

Of course, I am sick. I expected to get sick between the conclusion of Sex Work Matters and the Perverts’ Saloon on next Monday at Galapagos, but it came early. Goddammit. But whatever, it is a manageable sickness I hope, and I was able to spend a leisurely weekend at home with my fellow $preadsters, stuffing envelopes with what is definitely our best-looking issue to date.

Tomorrow I’m packing up all the art I’ve been framing at my house (so far without slicing my fingers open on plexiglass, a pretty major feat) and heading to the LGBT Center to install it. While I’m at that my good buddy Joe Gallant is bringing by his aforementioned enema painting, freshly done this weekend, and doing a short segment on me and mine for The Screw Show, his public access show tied in with Screw Magazine and devoted to all things smutty in NYC. There’s also going to be a piece (with pictures) in Screw tomorrow on the art show, plus other press stuff I’ll be linking to shortly. A Canadian reader alerted me to a really terrific piece on $pread airing on SexTV that was shot at our last event back in January. The short version of the piece is available on the SexTV website, here.

On Thursday this past week I went to fetch Anne Hanavan’s mini dv of her short film “Paranoid,” which is in Sex Worker Visions (still from the film below). Anne is a former streetwalker who now runs a really hip little boutique on the Lower East Side called Lost Shoe; she’s fantastic because she’s survived some serious shit, lives to tell the tale, and isn’t afraid to share, warts and all. Her video piece is really intensely visceral and sexually explicit. When I took it to get transferred onto DVD, I warned the folks that it’s explicit – I just feel like I don’t want to stun or upset people who don’t want to see sexually explicit material, even if it ostensibly is part of a paid job for them. They wanted to clarify what this meant: “It isn’t porn is it? We don’t do porn.” It is probably fucked up and hypocritical of me to support a business that doesn’t deal with porn, but after calling around they were the place with the best price and fastest turnaround, so… I assured them, “Oh no no no, it’s not porn.” I hated myself a little bit for the act I put on, like I’m so distant from porn and was surprised they asked the question. They accepted the job and the DVD is done so they didn’t discover that I’d duped them in to dealing with porn, but it still makes me squirm a little. Anne’s film doesn’t really have the intent to arouse that porn does, but the content is on par with the kind of stuff you see in porn – there’s anal sex.

I also did this “sexually explicit” warning at a talk I did at CUNY on Wednesday morning (dudes, this was the week of being cognizant and talking about sex work by 9 am, quite a feat considering my normal bedtime is sometime between 3 and 5 am). I gave people in the class the option to step out of the room while I was showing images from the art show, a few of which show penetration. A couple people graciously took the opportunity to excuse themselves. It’s an interesting thing – while I do definitely think that it is useful for people to be exposed to sexual experiences outside of the norm for them, I don’t want to feel like I’m foisting offensive content on anyone and I certainly don’t want to traumatize anyone. It’s such a fine line to walk: expanding the mind versus making it shut down further.

One of the really interesting dynamics in the classroom in my talk at CUNY was that the men in the room stayed totally silent and didn’t ask any questions. The women who spoke up – and there were many of them – were unabashed in their interest in the politics and personal issues around sex work. The women were unafraid to voice personal opinions and feelings about the industry, many of which were negative. I went home thinking about the silence of the men in the room, and I wonder if anything would be different if the men in the room outnumbered the women, or if the professor was a man instead of a woman. My sorta conclusion is that the men probably were afraid to speak with too much interest in the topic because of the risk of seeming pervy or inappropriate, and it’s possible that they didn’t want to risk outing themselves as consumers in the sex industry to whatever extent that may be true. It’s also possible that they were wary of the ire of the women in the classroom if they reacted with negative thoughts about the sex industry or sex workers – it all made me wonder about the ways that men are and are not allowed to voice their opinions about sexuality in mixed company. Of course, all these assumptions are built around the core assumption that there was a lot of heterosexuality in the classroom, which might not have been true. And of course it’s always possible that the men just weren’t that interested or engaged in the subject.

Posted by Dacia at 09:43 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

AVN: the press insanity begins

March 24, 2006

Expect more of this kind of stuff in the next bunch of days. AVN posted an article about my art show and the fascinating realities of enema painting, via my ole buddy Joe Gallant:

New York Show to Feature Porn Star Art By: Carlos Martinez

New York indy auteur and VCA contract director, Joe Gallant, along with adult performer April Flores are among the industry members whose art work will be featured in Sex Worker Visions exhibit at the LGBT Community Center and David Bohnett Cyber Center, 208 W. 13th St. in Manhattan.

The event, scheduled to run from next Wednesday to May 20, will feature a number of industry members’ works including Gallant’s fresh enema painting, made in a collaboration with one of his starlets.

“It’s basically a paint enema we give her,” Gallant said.

“This way, girls blow colorful geysers out of their well-trained sphincters and you let the chips fall where they may, so to speak.”

Also featured are Paul Sarkis’ black and white photos of Seymore Butts and Adam & Eve contract performer, Mari Possa, as part of his series on real-life couples who work in the adult industry.

George Pitts, former photography director at Vibe magazine, will exhibit his portrait of adult performer April Flores, who recently made her first girl-girl scene in Belladonna’s Evil Pink 2.

Gallant, whose artworks have been on public display in the past, said the exhibit is one way of showing the creativity behind those who work or perform in the industry.

“Too often people in the sex industry are either glamorized or demonized and too often we don’t see the complex and artful person behind the performer,” he said.

For more information, log onto www.sexworkervisions.blogspot.com.

Posted by Dacia at 12:30 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

perverts' saloon

March 23, 2006

Posted by Dacia at 10:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

sex worker visions sneak peek

March 22, 2006

Sex Worker Visions sneak peek: To get a look at some of the art in Sex Worker Visions, click here.

Posted by Dacia at 10:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The press, the publicly funded university, and the sex worker activist

March 21, 2006

Sex work, as you know by now, is a hot topic. It’s an especially hot topic when sex workers, activists, academics and various allies, enemies and otherwise interested parties get together to talk about it in a forum that is open to the public, like the Sex Work Matters conference next Thursday will be.

Last December a writer at everyone’s favorite right-wing rag, the New York Post, caught wind of the upcoming Sex Work Matters conference co-sponsored by CUNY and the New School and did some phone-calling around to get some quotes for his piece (the text of which is behind the cut at the end of this post). He was doing his research the week between Christmas and New Year’s – I was the only person from $pread who he was able to get a hold of, and when he started firing away with his questions I knew immediately that this wasn’t going to be a good article. Instead of being all “no comment, no comment” I gave the blandest, most uninteresting quotes I could manage, and hence didn’t get quoted in the article. The organizers of the conference weren’t in the country at the time, so they weren’t interviewed at all. The writer did, however, have a conversation with Carol Leigh aka Scarlot Harlot, who was her usual outrageous self, and delivered the goods on her efforts with last year’s Whore College as well as other activism she’s been involved with.

The subtext of the article – which uses the charming non-word “prosty” in the title – is an outrage at the idea that YOUR tax dollars are funding prostitution! Talking to Carol about it on the phone last week, she said that in retrospect, she sees that the reporter was really trying to get her to talk about CUNY funding in particular and the ways that taxes are supporting whoredom. Although the article is ostensibly about the conference, the Post’s readers got the gist, angry letters were sent and CUNY officials got crazed and decided to ban “that woman” (Carol) from participating in the conference or they would yank funding (Incidentally, the New School’s reaction to the scandal has unofficially/allegedly been “Who reads the Post anyway?”). For good measure, Norma Jean Almodovar, a long-time colleague of Carol’s and one of the early organizers of the west coast sex worker rights org COYOTE, also got shut out of the conference at CUNY’s request. This sent the organizers scrambling and left Carol and Norma Jean bewildered about what exactly had just happened to them.

In recent weeks there’s been a lot of careful calculating to figure out exactly how to include these two women in the conference – the official word was that they wouldn’t be forcibly removed from the conference but couldn’t officially be present either. Norma Jean decided it wasn’t worth it to come to New York, but Carol has persisted in trying to be heard. Because $pread isn’t aligned with the conference in any formal way and we can do what we please, I included Carol in the art show – a video of hers will be playing and on the night of the opening she’ll be signing her book Unrepentant Whore. Melissa Gira and I started to talk about ways to include her in the actual conference – as moderators of a panel, we realized the potential of our power and wanted to use it to facilitate discussion and potentially confrontation. Over this past weekend Carol started to circulate a long email about the situation with CUNY and the fact that she’d been banned. It started to really pick up steam, and now it seems that she’ll be permitted to participate in the conference, officially.

These conflicts are not new, but they are frustrating and a little bit ironic – the subtitle of the conference is “beyond divides” and everyone has really had to work to show that it’s possible to get beyond divides. The whole incident (which I’m sure has not yet come to its peaceful conclusion) shows exactly why a conference like this is necessary – the often ill-informed, right-wing and just plain nasty members of the press have made up their minds about what their stories on sex workers are before they do their research, public universities won’t stand up for the free speech rights of sex workers, and the movement itself is fraught with mixed opinions on how “we” want to be represented, what political ideals should be forefronted. Its ugly, and I don’t know that it’ll “all work out” but the talking is good. And hopefully that’s what will happen at the conference, more talking about these hot issues, between people who should be talking to each other.

The roundtable will actually be webcast live – I’ll be sure to give details of that as we get closer to the date.

And now, I should get my ass to bed, because in the morning I’m giving a talk at CUNY. Funny eh?

New York Post, January 6, 2006

CUNY SEX TALKER TO GIVE PROSTY-TUTORIAL By PHILIP RECCHIA CUNY is bringing in the “dean of academic studies” from “Whore College” - a hooker who advocates legalized prostitution - to speak at an on-campus scholarly conference on sex workers’ rights.

Carol Leigh, 54, who markets herself as “Scarlot Harlot,” is scheduled to be a featured panelist at the public college’s spring conference, “Sex Work Matters: Beyond Divides.”

The academic event - said to be a first for the Big Apple - “brings together sex workers, artists, activists [and] academics” for a discussion on recognizing prostitution and sex work “as a legitimate profession with the accompanying legal protections.”

It’s slated for March 30 at the City University of New York Graduate Center. The public conference kicks off the night before with a “Sex Workers Soiree” sponsored by Spread, America’s only magazine covering “the sex industry from a workers’ perspective.”

“Prostitution is legal in most civilized countries, but the U.S. has done a pitiful job of protecting the rights of sex workers,” said Sibyl Schwarzenbach, a CUNY ethics professor and adviser on the conference, who holds a Ph.D. from Harvard.

Schwarzenbach also slammed the Bush administration for making a “repressive situation” worse by backing a law that requires federally funded HIV/AIDS programs to oppose legalizing prostitution.

“The current political climate necessitates that New York - home to many academics engaged in the sex-workers-rights debate - host a sex-workers conference this year,” Schwarzenbach told The Post.

While the conference topics are not yet finalized, those on the short list include “Sex Work Careers,” “Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Transsexual Sex Work” and “Sex Work and the Family.”

The event is the brainchild of CUNY grad student Antonia Levy and New School grad student Alys Willman-Navarro, whose Web site says they have “funding for travel scholarships for eligible participants.”

Leigh, who hails from San Francisco, said she is among those participants. In May 2005 she launched Whore College - a series of classes for sex workers - in conjunction with the San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Art Festival.

Courses included “Safer Oral Sex Techniques,” “Advanced Erotic Touch” and “Six Herbs That Can Cure Anything, with a Focus on Genital Health.”

To date, Whore College has bestowed diplomas on 40 students. The next round of classes is scheduled for July, in Las Vegas.

Leigh’s CUNY presentation on ‘sex-industry politics’ will be lifted directly from her WC curriculum, she said. Asked if she still practices ‘the world’s oldest profession,’ WC’s self-proclaimed dean of academic studies answered: “Of course - though just part-time now.”

CUNY officials declined to comment.

Posted by Dacia at 10:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Sex Worker Visions and other awesomeness

March 18, 2006

Lest you think I’ve been farting around this week and neglecting my blog (well, I have been neglecting my blog, but I haven’t been farting around), let me share a slice of what I’ve been up to.

This week I’ve reviewed three websites over at SugarClick:
Dirty Dees: Dirty in that good way, not done dirt cheap
Blue Blood: Hands-down, the premier site for Gothic pin-ups
College Invasion: A hardcore step above and beyond Girls Gone Wild

But, the super amazing exciting thing that I’m working on is Sex Worker Visions. Bask in the awesomeness of the press release:

$pread, a quarterly magazine by and for sex workers and their allies, presents Sex Worker Visions, an exhibition featuring art by sex workers and about the sex industry, at the LGBT Community Center David Bohnett Cyber Center at 208 West 13th Street, New York City, from March 29 – May 20. Visions kicks off with an opening reception on March 29 from 6 to 9 pm.

Visions is curated by Audacia Ray, Executive Editor of $pread and former Assistant Curator at the Museum of Sex. Artists include sex activist and educator Heather Corinna, former SuicideGirl and illustrator Molly Crabapple, exotic dancer and photographer Charise Isis, and former prostitute and filmmaker Anne Hanavan, as well as Paul Sarkis and George Pitts’ intimate portraits of porn stars. Photographs by Erin Siegal and illustrations by Fly and Cristy Road originally appearing in $pread will also be on display. Sales will benefit the non-profit magazine.

The March 29 event is also the opening night of the Sex Work Matters conference, a joint venture of CUNY and the New School. For $pread, the evening will also mark the start of its second year of publication. In its first year, $pread, won Best New Title from the Utne Indepenent Press Awards. The Spring issue of $pread will be available for sale at the reception.

For opening night only, the exhibit will be completely interactive with a webcam video project, “30 Second Sex,” masterminded by multimedia artist and erotic professional Melissa Gira and featuring webcam pioneers Ana Voog and Echo Transgression camming from remote locations. Computer monitors around the Cyber Center will display the websites of sex worker rights advocacy groups for the public to peruse. Former call girl Tracy Quan along with sex worker activist Carol Leigh (aka Scarlot Harlot) will be signing copies of their respective books, Diary of a Married Call Girl and Unrepentant Whore.

I’ll be putting up sneak peek images from the show here.

Posted by Dacia at 08:12 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Interviews, Articles, Kind Words

March 15, 2006

INTERVIEWS
Audacia Ray, Writer, Sex Worker Rights Advocate
Gothamist.com
March 28, 2006

Feminist sex worker rights advocate Audacia Ray is part of a burgeoning movement of young women (and some men) looking to reclaim words like hooker, prostitute, and whore that were formerly used as epithets. She proudly takes off her clothes to reveal her ringlets of brown hair, glasses … and often not much else. But this naked girl uses her brain as much as her bod, whether it’s working as Executive Editor of $pread magazine, reviewing porn sites for Sugarclick.com, getting her master’s degree, or blogging at WakingVixen.com. She’s also modeled—nude, in mud, in boxing gloves, in paint and on the New York City subway—for a host of alt porn sites, earning her the ranking of Fleshbot’s #3 Hottie of the Year for 2005.

On top of her already full plate, she’s curating an exhibit of sex worker art debuting this Wednesday called Sex Worker Visions, helping to organize the conference Sex Work Matters: Beyond Divides, and booking local sex bloggers for next week’s Perverts Saloon. The silicone-free model, writer, organizer and activist emailed Gothamist about studying sexuality in Amsterdam, why she loves getting naked for her favorite photographers, running a magazine, being taken seriously as a sex worker and academic, and what makes for good porn.

Click here for the full interview.

Tired of the Private Show: Taking sex work out of the shadows and into public consciousness
NYC24.org
March 27, 2006

“When people tell me that sex workers should remain behind closed doors I basically tell them that is bullshit,” said [Audacia] Ray. “Culture, society and the legal world are set up to shame sex workers. I think it’s really important that sex workers come out of their own volition and combat the way they are portrayed in the media.”

[Annie] Oakley agrees, noting that the porn industry alone makes more money than professional baseball, hockey and football combined. “Americans consume porn and sex voraciously,” she said. “But people are very invested in not knowing anything about the people who are servicing them. And it’s that otherness that allows the abuses that happen in the sex industry to go on.”

Click here for the full story and two videos that feature me, the Blogs and the Magazine.

$pread Magazine
SexTV
Episode 8-13

$pread Magazine is the only magazine by and for sex workers of all genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, across the globe. Including writing by professionals in all areas of the sex industry, with a focus on personal experience and political insights, the magazine aims to provide a forum for marginalized voices and a sense of community and support among sex workers, as well as a balanced and honest view of the sex industry.

Click here for a video preview of the story.

What Are You Working On? Interview with Audacia Ray
Mark Pritchard’s Too Beautiful
March 4, 2006

What led you to this project?
The organizers of Sex Work Matters asked $pread to help them out by throwing a party on March 29th to welcome conference participants and to raise the profile of the event a bit. $pread has thrown a party for each issue we’ve released — its part of how we do fundraising to publish the magazine — including a fashion show this past November and a Sex Worker Olympics in January, which included a challenge where participants had to wear stilettos through an obstacle course while not spilling a very full martini glass. For this event, however, we wanted to do something a little less raucous, where people could actually talk to each other, and we came up with the idea for the exhibition, Sex Worker Visions. The show will feature art by and about people who work in the sex industry.

Click here for the full interview.

Miss Meep interviews Audacia Ray
Bella Vendetta
December 29, 2005

How did it feel to go from being one on end of things (editing porn, working at the Museum of Sex) to actually being a sex worker, or was it more of a continuum? To use a word that some may think is wildly inappropriate for this case - it felt natural. In the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century as novels became more widely read, there was a continuous debate about the degenerative effects novel-reading would have on the minds and morals of young women - I like to joke that this is exactly what happened to me. I got the knowledge, the mind-expansion and the degenerate viewpoint from books and people I met along the way, got the curiosity bug, and ended up a sex worker and porn performer. The horrors!

Click here for the full interview.

An Interview With Waking Vixen’s Audacia Ray
Goodie Bag TV
November 22, 2005

In addition to her roles as a teacher, model, and sex worker activist, Audacia Ray is the dynamo behind the superb sex blog Waking Vixen, where she regularly posts her literate and increasingly expansive thoughts on sex and sexuality. The site�s links serve as an excellent primer on the world of alt porn, and if you just want some juicy erotica, take a peak in the archives.

Click HERE for the full interview.

ARTICLES
An Old Profession That’s New to Doing Taxes
New York Times
April 5, 2006

The tax outreach program “helps sex workers who don’t know they can and should file taxes,” said Audacia Ray, 26, of Brooklyn, an executive editor at Spread magazine, a quarterly publication based in New York, who also reviews pornography for a Web site — and pays her taxes, she said.

“A lot of prostitutes are making just enough to get by and can qualify for certain tax credits, so filing can help them as well as make them feel like part of society,” she said.
Click HERE to read the article.

New York Show to Feature Porn Star Art
Adult Video News
March 23, 2006

Audacia Ray’s Comprehensive Safer Sex/Safer Sex for Sluts Workshops
NotForTourists.com
February 16, 2006

Whether you’re single or taken, sex educator Audacia Ray can teach you a thing or two. With her extensive background in all matters sexual (she is a sex worker rights advocate, alternative model, and the executive editor of $pread), she has developed two workshops for those delving in to the world of sexual exploration. Before masterminding a night of romance, flirtation, and mindblowing sex, consider attending either the Comprehensive Safer Sex or the Safer Sex for Sluts workshop. Taking into account monogamy, open relationships, and other alternative sexual practices, Ray teaches the down and dirty facts surrounding all sexually transmitted infections, and then leads disucssions of safer sex strategies, stressing the fact that everyone has a different comfort level when it comes to the risks they are willing to take in the name of pleasure. These workshops are reminiscent of our old high school sex ed classes, but who was paying attention back then anyway? Attend this much-needed refresher course and leave with a goody bag of condoms and a determination to have safer sex. Lots of it.

Click HERE for this and other sexy reviews.

The Cogs of Porn
Photographs by Brad Nelson
Time Out New York
October 6-12, 2005

They work hard for the money: writing, shooting, performing and promoting. Meet the folks who help keep New York’s smut factory in business.

“I’m the news and shorts editor of $pread magazine, a new sex-workers’-rights magazine. I write a blog at WakingVixen.com and do porn reviews, erotica and personal essays for various publications. I also get naked for fine art and porn projects, am a professional foot and leg fetishist and teach HIV prevention workshops.”

Click HERE to read the complete article.

Waking Vixen
Review by Sara at Jane’s Guide
May 30, 2005

Audacia Ray is no Sleeping Beauty. That’s her tag line, and it is perfect. This poly-slut sex activist model-writer makes her home in Brooklyn, NY. Her writing is fresh, real, and very, very hot. She seems to be as at home describing anal masturbation, female ejaculation, her new boyfriend’s first foray into a sex party, or her wardrobe dilemmas. For extras, there are fabulous photos of our heroine scattered throughout the blog, and links to websites that are actually meaningful to her. This blog is definitely a keeper - Audacia is that rare mix of bright, sexy and interesting that definitely makes me damp! Click here to check out Jane’s Guide

Meet Audacia Ray
Fleshbot
May 18, 2005

If there’s such a thing as an alt porn renaissance woman, it’s the proudly silicone-free Audacia Ray: not only does she share her thoughts on a variety of sex topics (including genital piercing, female ejaculation, and wrestling around in fake blood for charity) on her well-written and entertaining blog, she also puts her money where her, er, mouth is via an active nude modeling career and her upcoming hardcore debut in the next volume of Profane Pirate’s “Psychocandy” series. (All that, and she wears glasses too. We think we’re in love.) Click here to read the Fleshbot original

Sex Worker Blogs, Sacred Whores, and $pread
by William Dean in Clean Sheets
April 6, 2005

Before the World Wide Web, few sex workers had what might be called a “public voice.” The most usual historical form was the tell-all autobiography, such as A House is Not a Home, by Polly Adler, published in 1953, and Xaviera Hollander’s The Happy Hooker, in 1972. More recently, we have seen Michelle Tea’s illustrated and autobiographical book, Rent Girl, Nelly Arcan’s novel Whore, and Tracy Quan’s Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl: A Novel. These books garnered both public acclaim and pseudo-scandalized reactions from media book panderers.

For more cogent and gritty information, these days, however, interested readers turn to those formidable WWW inventions, the blog and the e-zine. Why are sex workers becoming web-columnists, and what are they achieving? Click here to read the rest of the article

Whore Pride: Young, Empowered Sex Workers Want Respect Along With Your Dollars
by Rachel Kramer Bussel / Village Voice column “Lusty Lady”
January 13th, 2005

For blogger [Audacia] Ray, being open and honest with most people she knows is vital to her. “It’s important to me to be outspoken because I’m putting my cunt where my sex-positive mouth is. The combination of talking, writing, and doing is really the only way to destigmatize sex work and diverse sexualities generally.” Click here to read the rest of the article

Posted by Dacia at 12:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Linklove

March 14, 2006

First of all, as much as curating Sex Worker Visions and getting through the final design stage is stressful at $pread (no! sleep! til April!), I love them bitches I work with, they are brilliant and amazing. Our art director and one of our interns collaborated for a photo essay/interview on foot fetish parties over at Nerve, which you should go oooh and aaah over.

M’ladies Viviane and Madeline are betrothed to Sam Sugar’s latest creation, TGP, which is excellent in both its comic and boobtastic qualities.

The very smart and charming Lex of Naked Loft Party infamy has started a new blog, Ethnorotica which I’ve been mercilessly promoting everywhere but here. I’ll just quote his description of the site: “Colorful commentary on sex, race and culture. And smut, lots of smut.” He’s struck a really excellent balance of things, proving that there is such a thing as the thinking person’s porn, and turning a critical eye on the way that race and sex intersect and bump uglies in the porn world.

Jamye Waxman is casting several different roles for an upcoming Candida Royalle movie. She is looking for a variety of different women, all of whom have some acting ability. Check out the full call here.

Also, Benny Profane has a trailer up for his autobiographical porn flick, “Barbed Wire Kiss.” You should check it out.

Posted by Dacia at 10:40 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Alt-ercations

Since the whole alt porn thing has started to happen and become a force not just on the internet but in the land o porn DVDs, I’ve been thrilled to see it happen. I’m a cheerleader (but in a mopey goth way, of course) for the whole damn movement and I love seeing my tattooed and pierced sisters (and increasingly and encouragingly, brothers) fucking on film, and more than that, I love seeing porn in their hands as producers and directors.

We’ve got Eon McKai at VCA and now Vivid, Ron Royster’s AlternativeWorldz distributed through Adam & Eve, Rob Rotten wheeling and dealing, Joanna and Burning Angel working with Hustler and getting a distro deal with Pulse, Jack the Zipper making some edgy stuff for Hustler as well, Benny Profane moving from his ultra-DIY Silverlake digs into the financial graces of VCA, and several others I’ve got my eyes on moving in from the fringes.

It’s awesome, and I pump my fist in the air for them all (uh, but not in a lame Arsenio Hall way, a cool solidarity way), but I also find myself having moments of doubt. It’s not like there are rules against criticizing alt porn and the community around it, but I’ve been hesitant to do it because I feel like it might be a little dumb to whine about this thing that, basically, I support. I prefer to jerk off to the weird and the tattooed than the blonde and the tan.

However, the thing about porn is that of course it’s about identifiable characteristics – alt porn is now synonymous with tattoos and piercings. But is that all alt porn is and can be? Fuck no – what makes alt porn an alternative to mainstream porn (or what could, anyway) is a potential for different kinds of performances, different kinds of management behind the scenes. Is this happening, or is alt porn getting swallowed up and becoming just like everything else but with funny-looking performers? I fear it’s the latter, but I hold up hope for the former.

As things spin bigger and lose some of that idealistic alt edge and gain big money backing (uh, hello Larry Flynt and hello Vivid) many people who I consider to be doing alt porn have expressed disdain for the term. Being someone who is not a joiner (this is a world class understatement) I get that, but being a bit of a pragmatist, I also think it is silly. Beyond the general silliness of being part and parcel of creating a movement and then shunning the label slapped on it, this belies the increasing unrest and turmoil within the beast. Alt is a useful marketing term – use it, unified front-style. If you aren’t happy about what alt is, and you’re inside it (or outside it, for that matter), work to change it. Bitching is good too, but best done in pointed and measured ways.

Sometimes, even if pieces of a label are ugly/irritating, it is good to keep on using it and become a representation of what it could be – here I’m thinking of words like “feminist” and “American.” I accept responsibility for both of these labels, though I’m neither your typical feminist nor your typical American. Some feminists and/or Americans hate me and don’t consider me feminist or American, but there is beauty (and perhaps madness) in wearing these labels and doing my fucking thing.

It’s fair to say that money and power – or the potential for these things – make people crazy. Furthermore, money and power bestowed on people without either can fuck shit up, and maybe it’s meant to make subcultures devour themselves and each other. This is not so awesome. It would be awesome if it’s possible to both bolster up people who are doing good things (even if they are competing with you) and critique and call people on their bullshit when that could be productive. But how to do this without a catty, cataclysmic meltdown ensuing? How can you encourage diversity, competition and disagreement without shit-talk?

Posted by Dacia at 02:03 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

5 Questions: Trouble from No Fauxxx

March 10, 2006

So as a part of my obsession with community building and dialogue, I’m starting a new series of interviews, called “5 Questions,” which as you might guess, are five question interviews with people I think are interesting. The interviewee also has the option of asking me five questions in return. I can’t say how often I’ll be posting these, but hopefully it will be a fairly regular feature.

Trouble, the brain behind No Fauxxx, is the first up. Also, be sure to check out today’s SugarClick review of No Fauxxx. My answers to Trouble’s five questions will appear on her yet-to-be-launched latest blogging adventure.

Before you decided to start No Fauxxx, you’d been running a site called Fat Girl Breakdown. When you decided to start making porn, what were the reactions of people from the community at FGBD?

FGBD (which you can see the remains of here) had a certain amount of sexual exhibitionism to begin with, and when I decided to move on to No Fauxxx, I just had to remember that this may not be my audience’s natural progression, but it’s mine. I felt like I was extremely selfless for FGBD, and like most heart-felt activism, you get burnt out eventually when the activism becomes your life. And like most activist communities - when the leader burns out and closes shop, the community is usually quiet non-understanding and pissed. There were some angry girls, believe me, but in the end - I feel like I did the right thing. This is what I have to say to them: If you’re still angry about FGBD closing, then why haven’t you started your own fat girl community? Let’s take turns leading each other, instead of resorting to catty girlcomp(etition).

What kind of support is there between the body/fat positive communities and altporn/sex positive communities?

I don’t really label what I do “alt porn.” I don’t buy the word “alternative” anymore - alternative is a kind of music from the early 90’s, not a genre of porn. That being said, No Fauxxx is an institution of sex positivity, and I think of body positivity as well. I believe that any truely sex positive project/space/person should be inherently body positive. Isn’t that what it’s all about, learning and fighting for our right to be ourselves and find the right love/support/space for who we are? If sex positivy is about coming out as your own unique sexual self and finding youself in a welcoming community, then being fat shouldn’t even be an issue. In the real world, that’s not always the way it is - but that’s what I’m trying to teach people here.

To what extent do you think radical politics are compatible with capitalism?

I read an interview with Diane DiMassa (who wrote the Hothead Pasian comics, paints, etc) in Bitch magazine (#25) where she quoted her girlfriend Stacy Sheehan: “If there’s gotta be crap in the world, it might as well be ours.” I’m not completely anti-capatalism. I think that we all want to own our time to pursue our own dreams, and not have to sell-out or take too much from the earth or our communities to achieve that. I’ve been thinking alot about this lately, and I haven’t come to any conclusion, except perhaps that small businesses, radical organisations, and projects that truely give back to the community, really fuel radical politics and there needs to be more of that? There definitely need to be more radicals starting thier own projects, and I think we would all like the chance to support ourselves off of those projects. You know, instead of the alternative of working so hard on YOUR shit, but selling your time to something you don’t fully participate or agree with.

How do you think supply of and demand for content interact in the adult industry?

I think the demand for adult products and services is endless - every adult has an adult demand of some sort. The supply, unfortunatly, is lacking for anybody who isn’t a man.

Do you think people learn and take seriously sexual behaviors (condom use, gag-fucking) from porn, or is porn only fantasy for most people?

I think it’s a little of both. Mostly, it’s just fantasy. It was created as fantasy, unless it’s one of those couple-friendly instruction videos (Yawn!). I think most sources of entertainment, especially porn, are purely for fantasy. If you look at video games, there are plenty of people who play Tony Hawk but never learn how to skate. There are lesbians who watch gay male porn, but they don’t want to go out and 69 with some fags you know? (Maybe except for me!!!)* However, I do hope that people see condom use in porn and learn to eroticize it and take it seriously, or that my viewers can look at my work and learn something new about sex, or thier own desires. If you’re talking about people learning from gonzo or violent porn - Plenty of people, including myself sometimes, watch it and can get off on it as a fantasy. Only a sicko would take that seriosly, and I think they would be into it even if there wasn’t a visual source for it.

*ed’s note: me too.

Posted by Dacia at 01:11 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Gogogo

March 09, 2006

Baseline task: survive March. Goal: do it with fucking panache. I’m on my way.

Last night I had dinner with the lovely Cherry Bomb, and we agreed that doing what we do (with the naked and the writing) is only really fully worth it if we make connections with other people. Its “easy” to not do that - well, easy for hermity me anyway, but only because taking the first steps to reach out to people is hard. Going it alone is far harder. We also talked a lot about the value of sharing bad sex experiences, which I know is a serious boner biter, but what can I say. Its a part of the picture (and goddammit, I need to podcast my WYSIWYG piece).

After dinner we went to the Sex Workers Art Show where I heard someone behind me comment that the audience was like a who’s who of hip sex worker activists. The show was different than past years - for one thing, there was a hell damn lot of full nudity. Now, I’m no prude, but I was really surprised to see bare nipples, and later in the show full bush, as the whole nudity + alcohol thing is a big no-no in the empire state. No one seemed to mind horribly though, and I was delighted to see that the girls who went sans culottes were sporting nice big fluffy pubes. What kind of sex workers have pubes? Awesome ones.

I didn’t have enough time today to soak up the awesomeness of the full launch of SugarClick, which since I announced it here last week has gotten Fleshbotted and praised by Wired and mentioned on AVN Online. And then there’s that whole 10,000 unique visitors in the first week thing. Not to brag, but SugarClick is awesome.

This evening I headed out to Bella Vendetta’s 25th birthday party, which though I was feeling cranky and reluctant to leave the house, was totally worth going to, as always. There was fire spinning, bondage (with cupcakes), a live radio broadcast, and miscellaneous awesomeness, plus seeing Ms B always brightens my day. Though I’m not really involved with the whole BME scene, I have lots of respect for those folks, and I can say that beyond a shadow of a doubt that people with tattooed faces and various things etched, stretched and implanted into their skin are some of the nicest fucking people I’ve met. Nicer than sex people even. Or maybe I’m just saying that because I don’t have to deal with them all the time.

I didn’t get to blog against sexism today, but I think I did my small part by deleting an application for the open SugarClick writer job because it was addressed “Dear Sirs.” Okay - seriously, this means that the applicant didn’t check out the bio page on SugarClick, which lists three women. Also, its 2006 and “dear sirs” is just not fucking appropriate. Deleted, motherfucker.

I should’ve just gone straight to bed when I got home tonight, but instead, with the blogging. And now, with the sleep, and then the doing of insanity all over again.

Posted by Dacia at 01:14 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Art vs porn, installment 42

March 06, 2006

So I’m curating this art show, Sex Worker Visions, and I think maybe I’ve finally really started to understand the difference between art and porn in a different and compelling way. I’ve always maintained that art and porn are superclose in proximity to one another, and get a bit of a smirk on my face when people get up in arms about separating the two when the lines are blurry. However, I’ve really gotten a new round of schooling on the art versus porn issue since I’ve started to curate this show.

Here’s the thing – yeah, so, porn is supposed to inspire you to drop your pants and have at it, while ostensibly art is supposed to inspire a “higher” experience. I don’t really buy into the whole higher/lower, base/noble thing, because its overly simplistic, has peculiar class implications, values mind over body, and is just kinda dumb.

But, I can take a page from Justice Potter Stewart’s 1964 statement about obscene materials and say: “I know it when I see it.” More than that, I think I can explain it. Huzzah! A headshot or glossy promotional picture for a porn performer is not art – a portrait of the same person, even taken as part of the same shoot/outfit/backdrop, might be. It’s not about technical proficiency or lighting or degree of explicitness any of that, it’s about the meanings tangled up in and invested in the image. Headshots, porn film stills and promo images have a simple message: “I am hot! Beat off to me! Buy my movie/toy/whatever!” Art might also encourage you to beat off, but it will inspire you to engage with the image in a different (notice I didn’t say “better”) way as well.

In further nuances, there’s also the matter of erotic art versus art about sexuality. Erotic art is very often about sexuality in a deep way, but art about sexuality is not always erotic. In putting out a call for art by and about people in the sex industry, I’ve gotten a sizable number of submissions that are just too sexy. I mean, I know the topic is sexy in the cultural/hip senses, but the visual reality of sex work isn’t always sexy. That’s just too easy.

So I’ve solved the art vs porn debate, once and for all. Right.

Posted by Dacia at 02:39 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

What are you working on?

March 04, 2006

If you mosey on over to Mark Pritchard’s “What are you working on?” you can find out (almost) all about what I’ve got up my sleeves. My sleeves, apparently, are awesomely big.

The quick run down is:
I’ve recently become the editor of SugarClick.com (as you know).

I’m organizing a NYC sex blogger reading, called the Perverts’ Saloon, which is taking place at Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Monday, April 3 from 8 to 10 pm.

I’m wrapping up edits and we’re heading into hardcore design phase for the spring issue of $pread - which is our birthday issue.

Said issue of $pread is being released in conjunction with the Sex Work Matters conference on Thursday, March 30, where I am co-moderating a roundtable with Melissa Gira called “Managing Roles: Sex Workers, Activists and Academics.”

Last but not least, I am curating an art show to benefit $pread called Sex Worker Visions, which has an opening on March 29th from 6-9 pm at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center and will feature art by and about people who work in the sex industry. On the night of the opening only we will have lots of cool interactive art, plus special appearances by awesome people. Fuller details in the interview at “What are you working on?”.

I had my sleep removed and my blood replaced with coca-cola. Just kidding. Kind of.

Also, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Paul Sarkis, Anton Diaz and I are apparently part of the “New York ‘sexerati’” according to this press release.

Posted by Dacia at 05:01 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Writing and honesty

March 01, 2006

A year ago, I wrote a post about heartbreak and bad things and emotional upheaval in the extreme. This past fall, I took it down, along with a host of other posts that made me uncomfortable to read in their emotional rawness (I know, I’m a horrible link-breaker and I am going to the special place in hell made for bloggers, where there is no internet at all). I know these posts are still out there in the internet archives and can’t truly be erased, but I just wanted them gone from my site, not to erase history but so my life would be not as infinitely cross-referenced. Though it’s true that there is always a slight split between blog and life, even when you blog about your life, I know I veered into the dangerous territory of living/writing my life on the blog to an extreme, where these things got tangled and mangled each other.

I now have a more conservative approach to blogging about my life. Though some readers can and have said that this is boring, and that my blog is a shadow of what it once was, I have to cut my internet infamy losses and live a healthier life, not live solely to write an amazing and personal blog. But, a year away from writing about my heart being shattered, I find myself back on the heartbreak train, on the exact same week as last year. And though I know I’m being ridiculous, I wonder: has anything changed? Have I made one damn iota of progress? Or am I still that girl, living in my head, not fully and well expressing my heart, not feeling entitled to what I think I might want?

People often complement me on my honest writing, and I wonder about it, about what constitutes honesty, privacy, secrecy, all these things, and I know that my perception of these things is a little screwy. When I started WakingVixen I tore back the curtain on my life and revealed everything – my personal and professional sexual exploits, my feelings about everything, my experiences of my body, my relationships, followed by photos and a video that will soon be released. I threw everything into the ring all at once, to challenge myself, to beat myself up, to… actually I’m still working out the whys to it all.

It was immensely cathartic and “liberating” in the head swirling “I can’t believe I’m brave/stupid enough to do this” way – and also immensely risky and kinda fucked up, I see now. There isn’t inherently anything wrong with this list of experiments and indulgences, but maybe it was a bad idea to kick my own legs out from under me and consume/expose it all at once and not keep anything for myself.

These days I am sometimes afraid my writing is somehow dishonest, disingenuous because I’m not relating every orgasm, every late night soul-searching moment, every weird detail. But really, maybe it’s not so much dishonest as it is grown up and right and healthier for me. Honesty doesn’t need to mean all information all the time, though it has for me in the past. Honesty is being true to myself, and I think I’m just learning how to do that, several shocks to my emotional system later.

Posted by Dacia at 01:15 PM | Comments (16) | TrackBack

Top secret project revealed!

Hey kids, it’s the first of several installments of what the fuck I’ve been up to lately!

Today marks the soft launch of SugarClick.com, a porn/sex website review blog that I’m editing. Its a part of a cluster of sex and culture sites being put together by Sam Sugar and Paul Scrivens. We haven’t sent out the Big Bad Official press releases yet, so you’re getting a sneak peek.

So far the network includes Sam’s SugarBank: sex + business = porn, SugarPit: queer intelligence, SugarJoy: sex + games, as well as Podnography, and is about to be expanded to a few more sites, plus the first sex blog network, SexNotWork.

I’m looking to add one more writer to my review team, preferably a dude. If you think you might be interested, email me at editor@sugarclick.com with an intro and I’ll give you more details.

Go check out SugarClick and let me know what you think!

edit It came to my attention that this here is my 500th post. Dang. end edit

Posted by Dacia at 09:07 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack