The Big Shift: My New Job

This is a polaroid portrait taken of me (and then scanned, old school) in the projectionist’s booth at the Eiszeit Kino in Berlin after the world premiere of Dacia’s Love Machine this past Saturday at the Berlin Porn Film Festival. My days at the PFF this past week have been something of a last hurrah and send up of my years of freelancing, mad traveling, and general sense of liberated panic.

On Monday I’m beginning a full time job as the Program Officer for Online Communications and Campaigns at the International Women’s Health Coalition. That mouthful basically means that I’ll be creating and promoting new media (blog, videos, podcast) about sexual health and reproductive rights on an international scale. I’ll be working to bring IWHC into prominence online as a resource for information about issues like safe abortion, child marriage, gender & health policies, plus many more (see the organization’s extensive resource library). IWHC works with organizations in Asia, Africa, and South America and provides institutional and financial support for programs that serve girls and women in a long list of nations. We’ll be launching a new, and much more dynamic website in the next few weeks, so its an exciting time for me to climb aboard. The new job means that I’ll be staying in New York for the foreseeable future, and that I’ll be trimming back on some of my other projects.

I’m really excited about moving more solidly into the non-profit realm and combining my ability to create content with a bigger and broader vision and a new media plan that stretches into the future. I’m also really excited to be leaving the adult entertainment industry behind - though it’s not really as simple as kissing it goodbye. I’ll be blogging more about that transition in the coming weeks; its something I’ve been grappling with a lot.

Here’s a bit more information about IWHC:

The International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) envisions a world where women are free from discrimination, sexual coercion, and violence; where they make free and informed choices on sexuality and reproduction; and where health information and services are accessible to all.

We Address Urgent Health and Rights Issues
*Young people’s right and ability to prevent HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and unwanted pregnancy. We empower young people to get the information and services they need to make their own choices, be healthy and safe when they do have sex, and have mutually respectful relationships.

*Making HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care work for women and girls. Together with HIV, human rights, women’s rights, youth, religious, and sexual and reproductive health and rights leaders, IWHC increases women’s power to prevent infection in the first place and care for themselves and their families if they become infected.

*Access to safe abortion. Each year, tens of thousands of women die and even more suffer as a result of unsafe abortions—all of which are preventable through greater access to contraception, safer services, and legal reform. Because IWHC receives no U.S. government funding, we are one of the few global institutions with the autonomy to advocate a full range of sexual and reproductive health services, including access to safe abortion.

*Recognizing that sexual rights are human rights. IWHC strives to protect every woman’s right to sexual health, and to freedom from violence, coercion, and discrimination.

We Bridge Two Worlds
For 25 years, the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) has uniquely positioned itself to bridge global movements for women’s and young people’s health and human rights, and governments and global institutions that control health policies and budgets.

*We invest in women and youth leaders as they develop vision, skills, and organizations. With IWHC’s professional assistance and financial support, local organizations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America make their communities and countries safer and healthier for women of all ages, empowering them to advocate for themselves.

*We partner with these leaders to build consensus among multiple stakeholders and constituencies, documenting and exposing where current policies are off track, where women and girls are missing, and where the solutions are.

*We advocate with governments and influential institutions—the United Nations Population Fund, the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, UNAIDS, and other international agencies—to generate essential policies and resource flows that directly benefit women and their families.