Feb 262013
 

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This Friday on Sex Out Loud I talk with Joan Price, author, editor, and ageless sexuality advocate. Joan will discuss her book Better Than I Ever Expected which first got her named “the senior sexpert” and her latest book, Naked At Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex. We’ll get a sneak preview of her presentation at Catalyst Con in Washington DC in a couple weeks, as well the scoop on the latest anthology she edited, Ageless Erotica, a collection of hot stories where age is no limitation to getting busy.

Joan Price (www.joanprice.com) calls herself an advocate for ageless sexuality, though she has also been dubbed “senior sexpert,” “the beautiful face of senior sex,” and “wrinkly sex kitten” by the media. Joan, age 69, has been writing, speaking, and blogging about senior sex since 2005. Formerly a health & fitness writer, she switched topics to senior sex when she wrote her spicy memoir, Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty, to celebrate the joys of older-age sexuality. Her blog (www.NakedAtOurAge.com) attracted a growing community of sex-positive (and sex-inquisitive) seniors who sent Joan their stories and questions. This led to her next book in 2011: Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex, a compilation of 130 reader stories, advice from 45 experts, and Joan’s candid commentary. Naked at Our Age won Outstanding Self-Help Book 2012 from the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) and 2012 Book Award from the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, and the audiobook was nominated for an Audie in 2013. She recently edited a steamy senior sex anthology titled Ageless Erotica. Visit Joan’s zesty, award-winning blog about sex and aging at http://www.NakedAtOurAge.com, where Joan continues to talk out loud about Boomer/senior sex, partnered or solo.

Feb 122013
 

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This week on Sex Out Loud I celebrate the release of The Feminist Porn Book, a new book I co-edited. The Feminist Porn Book brings together for the first time writings by feminists in the adult industry and research by feminist porn scholars, and this week on Sex Out Loud I’ll be talking to my co-editors – Celine Parreñas-Shimizu, Constance Penley, and Mireille Miller-Young – about our 5 year journey to get the collection published. This book investigates not only how feminists understand pornography, but also how feminists do porn—that is, direct, act in, produce, and consume one of the world’s most lucrative and growing industries. Then I’ll talk to Claire Potter about REACT: THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE AT 50, an upcoming two-day symposium and exhibition on Betty Friedan’s groundbreaking book.

Celine photoCeline Parreñas Shimizu teachs film and performance theory and production as Professor of Asian American, Comparative Literature, Feminist Studies and Film and Media Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She is part of a decades long history of race and media production in the U.C. system. She is the author of the award-winning book The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene (Duke University Press, 2007) and Straitjacket Sexualities: Unbinding Asian American Manhoods in the Movies (Stanford University Press, 2012). Her first feature documentary Birthright: Mothering across Difference (2009) won Best Feature Documentary at the Big Mini DV Festival in 2009. Her films The Fact of Asian Women (2004), Super Flip (1997), and Mahal Means Love and Expensive are distributed by Progressive Films and Her Uprooting Plants Her (1995) is distributed by Third World Newsreel. Her numerous articles are included in the journals Concentric, The Journal of Asian American Studies, Signs, The Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, Wide Angle and Theatre Journal.

 

MireilleMireille Miller-Young, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She researches and teaches about race, gender, and sexuality in popular culture and the sex industries. Her forthcoming manuscript, A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women, Sex Work, and Pornography (Duke University Press) examines African American women’s sex work in the porn industry.

 

Penley-Constance-low-res_0002Constance Penley is Professor of Film and Media Studies and Co-Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and studied at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Her major areas of research interest are film history and theory, feminist theory, cultural studies, contemporary art, and science and technology studies. She is a founding editor of Camera Obscura: Feminism, Media, Cultural Studies and editor or co-editor of the influential collections Feminism and Film Theory, Male Trouble, Technoculture, The Visible Woman: Imaging Technologies, Science and Gender, and The Feminist Porn Book. Her books include The Future of an Illusion: Film, Feminism, and Psychoanalysis, NASA/TREK: Popular Science and Sex in America, and the forthcoming Teaching Pornography. Her collaborative art projects include MELROSE SPACE: Primetime Art by the GALA Committee and Biospheria: An Environmental Opera. Penley is a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Award and the Kenneth Burke Society Prize for Excellence in Rhetorical Studies.

claire potterClaire Bond Potter has been Professor of History at The New School for Public Engagement since 2012. Prior to that I worked at Wesleyan University. I am currently writing a political history of anti-pornography campaigns, Sex in Public: Feminism, the Reagan Revolution and the Politics of Pornography, 1968-2000 (due to be completed in 2014.) I received my BA in English Literature from Yale University and my Ph.D. in History from New York University. I am the author of War on Crime: Bandits, G-Men and the Politics of Mass Culture (Rutgers University Press, 1998) and an editor, with Renee Romano, of Doing Recent History: On Privacy, Copyright, Video Games, Institutional Review Boards, Activist Scholarship, and History That Talks Back (University of Georgia Press, 2012). Since 2007 I have blogged at Tenured Radical, which moved to The Chronicle of Higher Education in July 2011.

Feb 052013
 

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This Friday a 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT on Sex Out Loud, I interview author, speaker, and researcher Paul Joannides about the newest edition of his successful book, The Guide to Getting it On: A Book About the Wonders of Sex. The book has become wildly popular amongst students and college classes (and even Oprah Magazine) since first being published in 1996 and we’ll learn about Paul’s journey to get it published. We’ll also discuss what’s been added to the 7th edition and what he’s been learning from the anonymous sex surveys he currently collects through his website, GoofyFootPress.com.

Paul Joannides is a research psychoanalyst. In addition to being the author of the Guide To Getting It On, he is on the editorial board of the Journal of Sexual Medicine and he was formerly on the editorial board of the American Journal of Sexuality Education. He is an NCAA approved speaker for college athletes on sex. When he’s not writing, he’s a speaker on college campuses about sexuality. The Guide To Getting It On is now in its 7th edition and is used in more than 50 college sex-education courses and in medical schools. For the past year, he has done a daily broadcast for Playboy radio called “90 Seconds on Sex“.

Jan 282013
 

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This week on Sex Out Loud I talk to two of the leading experts in the sex toy industry from The Smitten Kitten: founder Jennifer Pritchett and general manager Clare Jacky. What is a toxic sex toy? What are phthalates and why are they bad? How do consumers find out what a sex toy is made of? What is The Smitten Kitten’s philosophy about safe sex toys? They discuss the organization Jennifer founded, the Coalition Against Toxic Toys, new products and trends in the sex toy industry, and Clare’s report from the Adult Novelty Manufacturers Expo. Plus, Jennifer and Clare give their recommendations for some of their personal favorite toys and great Valentine’s Day gifts.

The Smitten Kitten is a hub of community activity. We consider ourselves sex-positive culture makers and community members. When we opened in 2003, there were only a handful of places like this in the country—in the world even. We were tired of scouring the internet for helpful and relevant information about sex, and we were totally exhausted by shopping online for toys and supplies that too often ended up being disappointing. So, for the better of our own sex lives, we opened our own sex toy store. What you’ll find at Smitten Kitten today is the place we wish we had when we were first adult retail consumers ourselves. Our store is welcoming. The folks who work here are friendly and honestly helpful. The products that we sell are well-researched, are good quality, and represent the best value in their class. Read some of our reviews online and you’ll see that it’s not only us who think we’re doing a pretty good job. What you will
find are wholesome, sexy Midwestern folks and visitors of all ages, races, abilities, sexual orientations, and genders shopping with common purpose: a happier, healthier, sexier and more inspiring love life.

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Jan 222013
 

 

Dee Dennis (Catalyst Con)

 

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This Friday, January 25th, Sex Out Loud is live and the show starts at 5 pm PT / 8 pm ET. First we’ll talk with Dee Dennis, creator and founder of CatalystCon, a conference she refers to as a “melting pot of sexuality” that will unite sex educators, sexologists, sex workers, writers, activists, and anyone with a passion for creating change. She’ll discuss what to expect this March when the conference hits DC and how you can join in. Then, Patricia Johnson and Mark Michaels, authors of the book Great Sex Made Simple, will discuss what exactly is tantra and how everyone can benefit from their tantric tips to deepen intimacy and heighten pleasure within sexual relationships.

An activist in the field of sexuality, Dee Dennis started her career as a sex blogger, writing about the end of her marriage and starting the next chapter in her life. Through this metamorphosis, Dee discovered her passion for sexuality rights and issues for people around the world. Dee’s commitment to taking the conversation about sexuality offline and into the real world lead in part to the creation of MOMENTUM, a conference she co-founded to empower people to come together and exchange ideas that would further the conversations about sexuality, inspire people and motivate them to carry the conversation forward. In 2012, Dee founded CatalystCon, which she regards as a “melting pot of sexuality” that unites sex educators, sexologists, sex workers, writers, activists, and anyone with a passion for creating change. To Dee, “knowledge is power, and sharing that knowledge is the first spark in igniting change.” This is the fundamental principle behind CatalystCon.

Mark A. Michaels (Swami Umeshanand Saraswati) and Patricia Johnson (Devi Veenanand), a devoted married couple, have been teaching Tantra together since 1999. Their approach combines traditional lineage-based Tantra with the best contemporary methods so that students can bring heightened awareness and an expanded capacity for pleasure into all aspects of everyday life. Michaels and Johnson are the authors of The Essence of Tantric Sexuality (Llewellyn, 2006), which won the USA Book News National Best Books 2007 Award in Health: Sexuality. Their second book, Tantra for Erotic Empowerment: The Key to Enriching Your Sexual Life (Llewellyn 2008) won the 2008 USA Book News Award, also in Health: Sexuality, was selected as an Indie Excellence Awards finalist in New Age Non-Fiction, and was a ForeWord Magazine Books of the Year Award finalist in the Body, Mind and Spirit category.) Their meditation CD set, Ananda Nidra: Blissful Sleep(Projekt Records) was a finalist for the 2012 COVR Visionary Award for Innerspace/Meditational/Healing Music.

Michaels and Johnson wrote and appeared in two instructional DVDs produced by the Alexander Institute: Tantric Sexual Massage for Lovers and Advanced Tantric Sex Secrets. They have been featured on television (Good Day Colorado, AM Northwest, Naked New York), radio (Afternoon Advice and Nightcalls on Playboy Radio, Go to Bed with Cosmo Radio, The Derek and Romaine Show, and NPR’s A Chef’s Table) and have been quoted as experts in numerous publications and on many websites – from women’s magazines to dating websites to men’s magazines to GLBT- oriented media – including Redbook, Latina, Jane, Cosmopolitan, The Village Voice, Metro, Pregnancy and Newborn, More, Rockstar, Woman’s World, The Sydney Star Observer (Australia’s most popular GLBT weekly), Emotion (Germany), The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Tantric Sex, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Enhancing Sexual Desire. They have also contributed articles to various online and print publications, including Chronogram and Debonair, and give sexuality and relationship advice at Dick-n-Jane.com.

The couple has taught throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, the Caribbean, Europe, and Australia. They are senior students of Tantric pioneer Dr. Jonn Mumford (Swami Anandakapila Saraswati). Dr. Mumford has named them his lineage holders for the Americas and Europe. In addition, they have studied Bhakti Yoga with Bhagavan Das and Tantra with Dr. Rudolph Ballentine.

Michaels is a graduate of New York University School of Law and a member of the Bar in New York State. He holds master’s degrees in American Studies from NYU and Yale. Formerly, a playwright and translator, he translated and adapted Goldoni’s The Mistress of the Inn for the Roundabout Theatre Company, and co-wrote The Thrill of Victory, The Agony of Debate, which premiered at New York’s Primary Stages. Johnson is a retired professional operatic soprano who toured throughout the United States, Europe, and South America and performed with the New York City Opera, the Houston Grand Opera, and the Komsiche Oper Berlin. She currently is active in the conservation and preservation of New York’s native turtles.

Michaels and Johnson are co-founders of the Pleasure Salon, a monthly gathering in New York City that brings together sex-positive people and pleasure activists from a variety of communities.

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Jan 142013
 

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This week on Sex Out Loud I welcome Charlie Glickman & Aislinn Emirzian, the authors of The Ultimate Guide to Prostate Pleasure: Erotic Exploration for Men and Their Partners, who bring their combined years of expertise as sex educators to answer all of your questions about the prostate. They’ll discuss common concerns and questions on the topics of prostate health, massage, toys, and pegging, as well as teach how prostate pleasure can improve your sex life. This show is live and we’ll be taking questions on the air from listeners as well, so call in at 866-472-5788 with your question or post them on Facebook or Twitter.

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Charlie Glickman: I’ve been a sexuality educator for over twenty years. I got my start providing queer outreach and safer sex workshops as a student at Brown University and when I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, I volunteered at for LGBT outreach and support organizations, the rape crisis center, and sex education organizations. In 1996, I was hired at Good Vibrations, where I was the Education Program Manager until 2013. I received my PhD in Adult Sexuality Education from the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati in 2005, and I’m certified as a sexuality educator by the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists. I’ve taught university courses for therapists and clergy, provided in-service trainings for medical and mental health professionals, and I teach workshops on a wide range of topics, including sex-positivity, sex & shame, gender & masculinity, sexual orientation, communities of erotic affiliation, and many sexual practices such as prostate play, anal sex, pegging, sex toys, BDSM, and polyamory. I also present at conferences and community events.

Aislinn Emirzian: I became involved in sexuality education as a student at Smith College in Massachusetts, where I joined a student-run peer sex ed group that was affiliated with the college’s health services. During my 2 years of participation in this program, I facilitated workshops for fellow students on topics like safer sex methods, sexual anatomy and sex-positivity. I was also thrilled to have the opportunity to give a lecture and Powerpoint presentation on feminist pornography! Following graduation, I continued in the field, working with sex positive adult toy stores: First, Oh My Sensuality Shop in Massachusetts, and later Good Vibrations in California. During my involvement with Oh My, I developed and managed a new in-home toy party program run by the store, while also facilitating toy parties, assisting customers at the shop, and representing the store in outreach workshops. At Good Vibrations, I received a great deal of sexuality training, attended as many After Hours workshops as I could, and generally dove head-first into the thriving sex-positive community of the Bay Area. Having landed myself in “sex world,” I noticed that there was a growing interest in prostate massage (especially among heterosexual couples), but very little information available on the subject. With Charlie, I co-authored The Ultimate Guide to Prostate Pleasure: Erotic Exploration for Men and Their Partners. During the year 2013, I will begin a year-long book tour during which I will teach my prostate pleasure workshop at venues all across the country.

 

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Jan 062013
 

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This week’s episode of Sex Out Loud has two different guests talking about their work giving voice to sexual minorities who are often marginalized in the community. Dr. Eli Sheff will talk about her new book based on her groundbreaking work with Polyamorous Family Study, a 16 year project. The mission of the Polyamorous Family Study is to provide high-quality, research-based information about poly families with kids using sound research methods based in years of sociological study. Sinclair Sexsmith is the kinky butch top behind the the popular Sugarbutch Chronicles. They’re also a writer, storyteller, and performer who studies critical feminist & gender theory, sexual freedom, social change activism, archetypes, and the tantric and buddhist spiritual systems.

dr eli sheffA pioneer in research on polyamory, Dr. Elisabeth “Eli” Sheff is the foremost academic expert on polyamory in the US, and the worldwide expert on poly families with children, having conducted the only longitudinal analysis of poly families with children to date. After teaching Sociology for 15 years at three universities, Dr. Sheff established the Sheff Consulting Group (SCG), a think-tank of academicians and professionals who specialize in legal and educational services for unconventional populations, and those who need to know about them. As the Senior Legal Consultant at SCG, Dr. Sheff specializes in families of sexual minorities, providing expert witness services, home evaluations for unconventional families facing child custody issues or attempting to adopt kids, andcontinuing education to lawyers, educators, counselors, and therapists. Her book The Polyamorists Next Door: Inside Multiple Partner Relationships and Families is being published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2013.

sinclair sexsmith
Sinclair Sexsmith (MrSexsmith.com) writes the award-winning personal online project Sugarbutch Chronicles: The Sex, Gender, and Relationship Adventures of a Kinky Queer Butch Top at SugarButch.net. They have contributed to more than a dozen anthologies, and is the editor of Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica. They teach workshops ongender and sexuality throughout the US, including at various colleges.

Jan 012013
 

nina hartley

I’m so thrilled to welcome the legendary Nina Hartley to the first 2013 episode of Sex Out Loud, this Friday, January 4th at 5 pm PT / 8 pm PT. We’ll talk about her long and varied career as well as her perspective on the new generation of sex-positive performer/activists and how social media provides her with opportunities to spread her message of knowledge and empowerment. She’ll discuss the recent launch of her fleshlight as well as her book, Nina Hartley’s Guide to Total Sex. This show is live and calls are welcome – we want to hear from all you Nina fans! Tell your stories of how you first came to her work and take advantage of this chance to ask a question on the great Nina Hartley.

Nina Hartley is a pioneering feminist worker, using her body in the service of promoting a sexually sane and literate society. She is thrilled to see a new generation of sex-positive performer/activists take its space and spread the good news about sex. For the past thirty years her rock-solid commitment to the importance of sexual autonomy has fueled Nina Hartley’s career in adult entertainment. As a performer, director, writer, educator, public speaker, and feminist thinker for all, no matter their orientation, she’s traveled the world to deliver her message. She believes that sexual freedom is a fundamental human right and welcomes the new social media opportunities for spreading her message of knowledge and empowerment to the widest number of people. She’s the author of, “Nina Hartley’s Guide to Total Sex,” from Avery Press. Putting to use her B.S. degree in nursing, she and her husband, I.S. Levine, have produced the million-selling sex-ed video series collectively known as “The Nina Hartley Guides,” from Adam & Eve, currently in its 38th episode. Still active in front of the camera, she and her husband live in Los Angeles.

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Dec 262012
 

David Jay, SF and Mary Kame

On December 28th’s episode of Sex Out Loud, I’ll be talking to David Jay, the founder of Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), the world’s largest online asexual community as well as a large archive of resources on asexuality. We’ll discuss what asexuality is, the growing movement of people who identify as asexual, and how asexuality fits into the queer organizing movement. Jay will talk about his interest in the way that relationships and communities form, as well as his role in the recent documentary, (A)sexual.

David Jay is the founder of asexuality.org, the world’s largest organization of people who identify as asexual. He has helped grow the asexual community from a dispersed group of individuals to an international movement with over 70,000 members. His work has been highlighted in the New York Times and on 20/20, and has been the subject of a feature-length documentary, (A)sexual. He regularly speaks on asexuality and works to promote open, honest dialog about the asexual community.

Dec 182012
 

anne sabo

This Friday, I spend an hour live with Anne G. Sabo – speaker, writer, academic, public educator, and author of the new book, After Pornified: How Women Are Transforming Pornography & Why It Really Matters. She will discuss the growing number of women radically changing porn to respectfully capture the authentic sexual lives of women and men and how feminist porn has become a vehicle for people to explore and define sexuality on their terms. We’ll also be taking calls during the hour and want listeners to share their views on how women have changed porn.

Anne G. Sabo is a former academic turned public educator, author, speaker, freelance writer, and mama- and sex blogger. Her new book After Pornified: How Women Are Transforming Pornography & Why It Really Matters has been called “a goldmine for all sex-positive women and men,” and a “candid, well-informed personal story of how a good girl became involved in porn.” As a college professor, she taught courses in literature, film and women’s studies. She has researched feminist pornography for more than a decade and has become an acknowledged expert in the field. She has written numerous articles and essays on the subject, and is a frequently consulted speaker on the topic. She grew up in Norway, earned her Ph.D. from University of Washington, and has been living in Northfield, Minnesota with her spouse and their now preschooler daughter.