This is the second of two videos I shot at the sex blogger calendar shoot at the end of September. It’s shorter, a bit sweeter, and shows a lot more of our outfits.

The big calendar bash is this Friday, November 14th from 6.30-9.30 pm at The White Rabbit, 145 East Houston. There will be raffles of amazing stuff, plus gift bags for the first 100 people who come to the event. There are sex bloggers coming into NYC from all over the country to hang out at the party, get their calendar ($20 each) and support Sex Work Awareness. Pretty excellent.

I’ve been pretty immersed in my work at the International Women’s Health Coalition, plus teaching my human sexuality class at Rutgers University, so I haven’t really been coming up for air at all - I do have stories to tell, but not a lot of time or energy to tell them.

I do have a smidgen of my writing to share with you though to tide you over - I wrote up Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno for Premiere. It’s a pornographer’s perspective on the movie, which overall I thought was damned hilarious.

Anyway, if you’re in NYC, come on out to the calendar party on Friday. It should be a good time indeed.

In addition to asking the women standardized questions about their sexual health, the researchers used a Female Sexual Distress Scale to measure the women’s levels of personal distress related to their sex lives, such as feeling of unhappiness, anger, guilt, frustration, embarrassment, and worry.

Some level of SD was reported by 43 percent of respondents; 39 percent reported low levels of desire, 26 percent had arousal problems and 21 percent had problems with achieving orgasm. But only 12 percent reported distress related to any of these problems. “Sexual problems are common in women, but problems associated with personal distress, those which are truly bothersome and affect a woman’s quality of life, are much less frequent,” said study leader, Dr. Jan Shifren, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Vincent Menopause Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, both in Boston, in a news release. “For a sexual concern to be considered a medical problem, it must be associated with distress, so it’s important to assess this in both research studies and patient care.”

With a percentage number that high, I want to know - dysfunctional compared to what? Compared to the rapid moan and groan of porn performers, the persistent cultural belief that orgasm from intercourse is ideal, or less concrete examples of the pressure that is exerted on women to conform to an ideal of sexual performance that is imagined?

With numbers that high, I think it’s essential that we question the very basis of the study. Desire, arousal, and orgasm problems don’t exist in a vacuum. They are relative to a woman’s own expectations, cultural expectations, and in comparison with her partners and peers (or at least in comparison with people’s self reporting, which might be different than their reality). Is the fact that some women take upwards of half on hour to reach orgasm a “problem”? Says who?

Granted, I have committed the sin of not reading the study before blogging about it (I think there’s a special place in hell for bloggers who do that), so this is a knee jerk reaction to an article about the study, not the study itself. Towards the end of the article there is some discussion of “it’s all relative” - and it’ll be interesting to see how the study compares to the media attention its getting (I’ll bet there’s a bit of a disconnect). That said, I can’t help but be furious about this kind of thing - the number 43% constitutes a norm as far I’m concerned. This doesn’t necessarily mean that folks should just chill out and not try to improve women’s sexual function and pleasure - after all, there are plenty of normative things that aren’t good (sexual assault, for one). But it does mean that it’s important to look at the underlying stuff. This probably can’t be fixed with a pill - and incidentally, the study was funded by “Boehringer Ingelheim Gmb H, a German company with an experimental medicine for pre-menopausal women with low sexual desire not caused by a medical condition or drug” (quoted directly from the end of the article, which you can read in full here).

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.

Though I think I look plenty lovely in front of the camera (in my humble opinion), these days I’m much more eager to be behind the camera - video camera especially. During the shoot that we did for the calendar on September 28th, I shot a bunch of video, and I’ve managed to whittle it down into two different segments. One is the below behind the scenes video, which is just shy of eight minutes long. It’s totally rough and doesn’t have much of a flow to it, but it’ll give you a peek at us putting together our outfits, getting our hair and makeup done, and making our way to the shoot itself. I’ve got another video that will be a bit more revealing that will go up about a week and a half before the launch party.

Oh, launch party? Yes, of course there’s a party. Friday November 14th from 6.30 to 9.30 pm there will be a party for the calendar at White Rabbit, at 145 East Houston. There will even be some sex bloggers present from out of town. Calendars will be for sale for $20 a pop and there will be raffles and giveaways too.

Enjoy the video!

Here we go:
1. I have never been on a rollercoaster and I find amusement parks really depressing.
2. When I come back from Berlin, I’ll be starting my dream job. I know that’s a tease, but I’ll have a full post up about it on October 27.
3. I am a graduate HA rated Pony Clubber. I miss horseback riding a lot, and in the spring I plan to start up again. It’ll be 4 years in March since I’ve been on a horse’s back.
4. The last two months of my life have been the scariest, most frustrating, and saddest ones I’ve experienced in a very long time. I’m trying to feel hopeful (#2 is a great reason to be excited about life) but sometimes I’m so sad I can’t breathe.
5. I really loathe condiments. Mayo, mustard, ketchup, etc. All yuck.
6. I’m an atheist (and was raised by atheists so it isn’t even rebellion against stuffy upbringing) but the most interesting and smart person I’ve befriended this year is a preacher.
7. I really really like eating in bed, and I use my set of Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s Lost Girls as trays.

Dacia’s Love Machine is the story of a girl (me!) who has acquired a sex machine for review and then tries to get rid of it via Craigslist. As you might imagine, hilarity ensues.

In the past month, the above six minute preview of my new short film Dacia’s Love Machine has been watched almost 10,000 times on YouTube - but only a handful of people have seen the 25 minute director’s cut because of problems with credit card processing.

I’m excited to say that as of yesterday, the store is back up and running, so if you can pony up $2.99 you can check out Dacia’s Love Machine as it was meant to be seen - with nine more peculiar people parading through my apartment to look at the Love Machine. I have a real credit card processor now, not a third party processor - its totally secure and keeps you on Waking Vixen for the whole process instead of sending you elsewhere to do the businessy parts.

So please join the small but widening circle of people who are watching Dacia’s Love Machine and being amused by it - right now the internet is the only place where the film can seen, but that’s going to change next week.

On Saturday, October 25th Dacia’s Love Machine is having its World Premiere on the big screen at the Berlin Porn Film Festival. I’ll be there too - preceding the screening I’ll be talking about my career in new media and sexuality, and afterwards I’ll be hosting a discussion about the trials and tribulations of being a sex toy reviewer.

I went to the Berlin Porn Film Festival last October to screen The Bi Apple and to participate in a panel about porn by and for women, and it was a really awesome experience. Berlin is really fun and I felt right at home there, since you can get food at obscure hours of the night and it’s a very active and artsy place. In addition to screening Dacia’s Love Machine I’ll be giving this workshop:

What Does Feminist Porn Look Like? at the Berlin Porn Film Festival, October 24, 2008 from 4-6 pm. Number of participants limited to 20, all genders welcome. Fee: 25 €, registration via email to office@pornfilmfestivalberlin.de. Exact location TBA!
In the last few years, feminist, independent, queer, and alt pornographies have become a visible and viable part of the adult industry, to the excitement of many porn fans, performers, and producers. But there are still a lot of arguments about whether or not porn can be feminist and ethical, and what exactly that looks like.

In this workshop, we’ll deconstruct the meaning of feminist porn and then try to put it back together again in photos and video that will be produced during the session.

We’ll evaluate some examples of sexual media and discuss whether or not they are feminist, and how to tell whether or not they are ethically produced. Then, we’ll set up a scene with a live model (the workshop leader!) and experiment with shooting in a feminist and ethical way. Will what we make challenge assumptions about feminism and porn? Is it possible to make images by ethical and feminist producers look different than other images?

Participants are encouraged to bring their cameras and come prepared to shoot either stills or video. Amateurs are more than welcome!

I’ll be sure to write a full report of how it all goes - though I think I’m actually not going to bring my laptop with me, so I probably won’t be updating a daily play by play.

And if you’ll be there, come say hi! I’ll be checking out lots of different screenings and definitely hanging out at the Nacht Bar so I can see what peculiar entertainments the PFF crew has cooked up for this year.