I finally got my hands on the clip of me on CNN Prime News from March 13th. In case you don’t recall, I got a call to do a segment on CNN Prime News. This was the day after “Eliot Spitzer’s call girl” - quotes because, what, he owns her? - got outed. The interview is all about the harm that has befallen “Kristen” - and yeah, not the harm the media is doing to her, but being a prostitute, even one who has chosen that line of work.
They didn’t edit anything down, they just ran the full interview, which is awesome. I stammer a little bit here and there, but I think I did a good job of staying on message and not getting wrapped up in the leading questions I’m being asked. And also, I’m pretty proud of my serious face. Bring it!
And here is my favorite piece of writing I did during that week of Spitzer insanity: Why sex workers aren’t represented in the media. It’s important to note that I wrote that piece before I appeared on CNN, and the booker had read it before she called me. She prepped me with the same questions the interviewer asked on air - though the interviewer said the same words with a very different tone. Behold:
As you might be able to tell from the radio silence here on Waking Vixen for the past bunch of weeks, I’ve been busy pursuing other stuff. That other stuff is primarily in the form of writing posts and shooting video for Naked City, though there’s other stuff in the works too (teaching my first college course, working on a new book, brainstorming dirty movies, planning a trip to Amsterdam, falling hopelessly behind on answering email, not posting wrap ups of my internet goings on).
Though for years I’ve played around in the weird space of being an Interesting Person Worthy of Media Attention and a media maker, this little dance has gotten increasingly interesting since I’ve become editor of the Village Voice sexuality blog.
I’ve been writing the blog in the first person - none of that editorial we stuff - and I haven’t been afraid to express my opinions. After all, the Voice hired me for me and my whole thing (I’m gesticulating wildly, FYI). However, I’ve also been leaving myself out of the picture more often than not. Though you’ll hear my voice overs in the weekly Naked City TV episodes, I haven’t yet done an on camera appearance. I like being in the spotlight sometimes, and I’m good at doing the media thing. But I don’t want it to be overkill, I want other people’s voices to come to the forefront, in a way that isn’t totally mediated by the Word of Audacia. I know that all media I produced is tainted with my perspective (tainted I say!), which is fine, cool even - but it doesn’t all need to be about me.
While I don’t want Naked City to be all fangirly posts about people I think are awesome, I’m also acutely aware of the stresses of being interviewed and trusting someone else to represent you. I’ve been asking thinky and sometimes tough questions in my Four on the Floor interviews, but I also strive to represent people at their best. Shooting and editing weekly video episodes has been challenging in this regard - sometimes people are bad on camera. Sometimes they say dumb things or things that make them look crazy. I edit that stuff away as an attempt at paying it forward.
I hope this doesn’t make me a less critical member of the media - I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. But there are still some stories I cringe away from. For example, in my first week of blogging at Naked City, I was offered a set of nude photos of a reality show star. These images had been made a few years ago, and would be upsetting to the star if they were leaked. Part of me was excited about the potential for breaking a story, getting lots of traffic, etc. Overwhelmingly, though, I had a sense of dread with pangs of creepiness. That’s not at all the kind of editor I want to be. I didn’t have to make this tough choice since there weren’t any releases for the images and I wasn’t going to tangle with that. I’m sure other stuff like this will come up. I do love me some gossip - but I like to hear it, not publish it. Is it even possible to maintain that party line and have a successful blog? Time will tell, I suppose.
Attending Sex 2.0 gave me lots of things to think about, and I’ve been mulling these things over in my brain a lot since April 12th. The first session I attended was Melissa Gira’s Sex Styles of the Internet Famous, in which there were a number of cute role plays around issues that arise from dating within the web 2.0 culture. Such as: what happens when you Twitter about sex with one partner but not another? What if one person demands a recognition of relationship status on Facebook but the other prefers these things to stay private? What if one person in a group outing doesn’t want their name and face on Flickr?
During the session, Melissa joked that maybe the only way to work around these questions is to date someone who doesn’t give a shit about the internet. That’s pretty much what I’ve done. Sure, my guy uses the internet to send email, check out porn, and lurk on a few messageboards, but he could care less about the world of social media. This resistance to social media is simultaneously cute, relieving, and slightly annoying. If there’s something I want him to have a look at, I still have to do the old fashioned thing where I email him a link. I don’t do that with anyone else, except my family.
We’re preparing to send our first fully collaborative project off to the Paris and Berlin Porn Film Festivals (technically, I should be writing a press release instead of this blog post). It should be interesting to see the ways my sweetie’s relationship with Web 2.0 changes as he becomes more fully and visibly a part of the Audacia Ray media machine story. He’ll probably still think it’s all pretty silly.
And yeah, this is a cock-teasing way to let you all know that I’ve been working on a short film. It’s not porn, but it is adult in nature. More info and a trailer to come.
Many people seem to be interested in having a weekly wrap up of my doings, so I’m going to start doing that on Saturdays… though of course it took me two weeks to actually sit down and do this. I’ve been busy, as you’ll see below! I’m planning to use these posts to pull together the stuff I do online - and in the otherwise recorded world - every week.
The big news (and big reason why it’s so quiet around here) is that I’ve got a new job! I’m now the editor of Naked City, a new sexuality blog from the Village Voice. I’m responsible for 25 posts a week there, many of which I’m writing, though I’ve also got a few terrific columnists, and I’m producing a weekly video show called Naked City TV (links below in the video section).
Before I unfurl the links, I just wanted to say that I’m always on the lookout for people and events to feature on Naked City. Please drop me a line if you have suggestions for people to feature in my 4 question interviews (they don’t have to be in NYC) and people or events to feature in my Naked City TV shows (they DO have to be in NYC).
Live Action Adventures
I went to Atlanta last weekend for Sex 2.0, an unconference about the intersection of feminism, sexuality, and social media. It was really terrific, and there were a lot of interesting conversations happening, in ways that are actually only possible in person. Though there was some liveblogging and a hell of a lot of Twittering, there was a lot of face to face interaction that wasn’t captured, which for me was actually the coolest part of the day. I posted the text of my keynote speech here and you can watch the video of the keynote here (and then tell me that they’re different).
I talked with Jamillah Knowles on BBC Radio’s Pods and Blogs about making sex media - my segment starts 5 minutes into the show. Click to see the show notes for Sex online and Rise and Shine
The Nerve Scanner named the first episode of Naked City TV “Video of the Day” on Wednesday, April 10th.
A pair of Columbia Journalism school students interviewed me and some other NYC pornographers for a piece on HD Porn for the website NYC Interactive.
The Naughty American did a piece on Sex 2.0, and they couldn’t resist a play on words for the title: Web Conference Erects Web 2.0. The piece also compares Amber Rhea to Martin Luther King, Jr. (seriously).
On Naked City, you’ll find a whole range of posts, from short posts about fashion - Dressed for Sex, posted twice a week, to moderately ridiculous lists, to four question interviews. I’m also doing a four-part series every month so I can go a little more in depth about a variety of topics without writing obnoxiously long posts. This month, I’m examining the religion and the sex industry in a series called Sexiness, Next To Godliness. The first installment is an introduction, called Religion and the Sex Industry. The second piece is called God Loves Sex Workers and Doesn’t Require Them to Repent.
Videos I’ve Produced
On Live Girl Review, I reviewed The Porn Report, an Australian book about a research study on porn, and the G Pilot, a strange little purple device designed to help guide men’s penises towards their lady’s g spot.
Since I wrote my book “Naked on the Internet,” one of the questions I get asked in just about every interview is: how did you get interested in this topic? And sometimes I draw a total blank when I try to respond, or I just want to say, “duh – cuz it’s awesome.”
But the answer I give is that I’m interested in sexuality and the internet in both the personal sense – I use it to find people to fuck and to entertain my horny little eyeballs – and the professional sense – when I was a sex worker, it brought me clients, and as a lapsed academic and a new media professional it’s brought me research “subjects,” community and a variety of jobs.
And not to speak for everyone here, but I think this covers a lot of our interests. Furthermore, what’s so cool about Web 2.0 – and the way Sex 2.0 “the movement” is taking shape – is the transparency, the wearing down of the lines between the personal and the professional. Sexuality online is a really intriguing site for all this. When I watch other new media people struggle with how much “social” content they should put on their Facebook accounts and stress about seeming unprofessional, we sex media makers are a hot mess of tangled emotions and media, and have been for years. They’re thinking about this stuff – we’re doing the messy, sticky exploration. This is not to say what we’re doing is seamless or that we’re so brave. Sometimes we – ok, I’ll totally own this and say I – do stupid things online, reveal too much, give away things we should keep for ourselves. These are growing pains, though sometimes the price to pay looms large.
Today is our chance to bridge the gap between the words and images on the screen and our in the flesh existences. That’s not to say that the two things are totally separate or unrelated, just to remind you all that we’re privileged to be able to step into three fleshy dimensions. And if that sounds a little naughty - that’s not a bad thing either.
Today is also a chance to tangle with some of the peculiar and hilarious intersections of our lives – we all have multiple facets and some of us have multiple identities. Many of us juggle and try to maintain so-called “secret” lives, sometimes trying to balance more than one job where people know us under different names, while others balance multiple relationships, multiple blogs – we’re busy people.
And though the people in this room represent many different interests, abilities and degrees of involvement online, we are all struggling to find our places within the awesome world of Sex 2.0 – which is not just a place to check stuff out, but to make cool stuff and meet cool people.
But - the main challenge I want to throw out to you for today and beyond is to think about not just your immediate community – the cool people in this room and the people who couldn’t be here who are playing along at home - but also people who don’t quite know that they need what we do. That sounds almost like I’m charging you with a missionary task - but I’m not asking you to go out and convert people to our cause, because that’s creepy and I’m not so sure “we” have one cause anyway. But what I’m saying is that it’s important to build community, but it’s also important to reach outside of our communities – spend some time in non-sexual spaces online, learn as much as you can about new media – and if you’re feeling feisty, challenge people’s assumptions about what sex and Sex 2.0 are all about.
So welcome – mix and mingle, learn and have fun, and make some sex media, for now and the future.
[I also have video that I’ll be posting shortly - and then you can compare and contrast the written with the spoken, if you’re into that kind of thing]
This is a rough edit without fancy title cards or a sound edit. The sound gets a little low towards the end, you’ll have to turn up your speakers, sorry - because I just ran out of time!!
I’ll post the final version of this video after I return from Atlanta on April 13.
Speaking of… I’m headed for LGA and my flight to Atlanta for Sex 2.0 (plus hanging out with Amber and Rusty and making them take me to delicious restaurants) in an hour and a half. Agggh!
I am newly gainfully employed, and it’s pretty much my dream job: I’m editing a brand spanking new sexuality blog for Village Voice Media. It’s called Naked City, and it went live this morning.
I know it seems like I have a hundred million different projects - and I do. Naked City, however, takes top billing (though at the moment it’s part time so I have some room for other stuff). Because it’s a paid gig, it will give me the opportunity to cover sexuality in a much more in depth, consistent, and wide-ranging way than I do through my other outlets. It also means that my coverage in other places will be a little more sparse, but I’m excited to deliver cool stuff on Naked City that will complement the other sex media that is already online.
Naked City’s main beat is New York, as that’s the home of the Village Voice and I’m shamelessly New York-centric, but I’ll also be taking it with me when I travel to far away (and not so far away) lands. For instance, I’ll be reporting on Sex 2.0 in Atlanta this coming weekend.
So far I’ve got four posts up, and over the next week I’ll be adding a variety of columns and features to the blog. We figured that leaping in and sorting it out while the blog is live isn’t the worst thing in the world. Feedback is welcome.
One of the things I’m most excited about doing is Naked City TV, a weekly video show which will document and explore the personal and professional lives of people for whom sexuality is central. I’ve got some interesting stuff shot, some interesting stuff planned, and I’m also totally open to suggestions. I’m producing, shooting, and editing the show as well as doing the interviews, and I take issues around media representations of sexuality very seriously (as you probably know if you’ve read my blog for more than a day or two).
Sex 2.0 will focus on the intersection of social media, feminism, and sexuality. How is social media enabling people to learn, grow, and connect sexually? How is sexual expression tied to social activism? Does the concept of transparency online offer new opportunities or present new roadblocks — or both? These questions, and many more, will be addressed within a safe, welcoming, sex-positive space.
Respecting the confidentiality and protecting the identities of participants who wish to maintain a degree of anonymity will be a top priority at Sex 2.0.
I will be delivering the keynote talk for Sex 2.0 bright and early in the morning - at 9.15 (roughly) on the nose.
I’m well aware that people gravitate towards different kinds of online content for different reasons - people who are friends on Flickr might not check out anything else I do online, while Twitter followers might just dip in to my more content-heavy stuff occasionally. Still others might want access to all my various outputs at once, but are annoyed by my stuff cropping up in so many different places with RSS feeds and logins to deal with. Or maybe no one thinks about this stuff other than me. Anyway, as my output of internetty fun grows, I’ve begun to wonder how much of that other stuff (Twitter, Tumblr, Live Girl Review, and now Sex Work 101) you’d like to see here on Waking Vixen - or if you think Waking Vixen should remain the place for more fleshed out posts, while the other stream-of-webbiness stuff stays in its rightful place.
And hence, a poll! I may end up doing more than one of the below if interest warrants it, and you’re also welcome to make suggestions by email: dacia[at]wakingvixen[dot]com.
Sex Work 101 was inspired by conversations that happened during the Women, Action and the Media 2008 conference held in Cambridge, MA from March 28-30, 2008.
I gave a talk at WAM called Sex Workers and Media Representation (click to see notes for the workshop), and questions during and after the talk made me realize that many people are curious about the sex industry and want to support sex workers in their struggle for rights, but they have no idea where to start. This site is an attempt to fill that gap in public education in an approachable, easy to understand, and engaging way - it’s also the first public education project from Sex Work Awareness, a new non-profit in NYC founded by four $pread staff members. Sex Work 101 is meant to add to public knowledge about sex work and to encourage discussion about the issues sex workers face.
Participate in Sex Work 101! I’m looking for questions non-sex working people want answered and their perceptions of/thoughts about the industry, as well as posts from sex workers who want to share stories about their work (a day in the life, how I got into the industry, reposts from personal blogs, etc)
The official email for the site is ask[at]sexwork101.com but people can also email me at dacia[at]wakingvixen.com. I’d also love to hear from people who want to help with the site - writing posts, answering questions, etc.
