Aug 3: Activist Audacia Ray on Sex Worker Activism, Sex Industry Reform, and How Sex-Positive Feminism Failed Her

Jul 302012
 

This Friday on Sex Out Loud, I talk to writer, media maker, and crusader for people in the sex industry Audacia Ray about her role in the sex workers’ rights movement. We’ll discuss the work she does with the Red Umbrella Project, an organization she founded and directs as well as her thoughts on strategies for increasing awareness of the myriad issues facing sex workers. Plus, she’ll address her controversial remarks at this year’s Momentum Conference, and tell is why she no longer identifies as a sex-positive feminist. This will be a live show, so be ready to join in the conversation online and call in with questions!

Audacia Ray is the founder and director of the Red Umbrella Project, where she works to amplify the voices of people involved in the sex industry. At the Red Umbrella Project, Audacia hosts monthly live storytelling events and a weekly podcast, leads media and storytelling workshops, and provides communications support and leadership for individuals and communities who wish to tell their stories and reframe public debate. In 2010, the Village Voice named the Red Umbrella Diaries series and Audacia’s blog Waking Vixen to their Best of NYC list. As the Program Officer for Online Communications and Campaigns at the International Women’s Health Coalition and a communications consultant for the Global Network of Sex Work Projects, Audacia has worked with activists all over the world to build communications strategies around challenging topics like youth sexual health, sexual rights, HIV, and sex work.

Her skills are rooted in years of experience as an activist, writer, and media maker. Audacia is a former sex worker who was an executive editor at the Utne Reader award-winning $pread magazine for three years and is the author of Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing In on Internet Sexploration. She has been blogging about sexuality and culture since 2004, and has shot and edited a variety of videos and video podcasts, including Naked City TV, a twenty-two episode documentary video show that she produced for the Village Voice in 2008. Audacia also developed a syllabus and taught as an adjunct professor of Human Sexuality at Rutgers University for three semesters. She has a BA from Eugene Lang College at the New School and a MA from Columbia University.

Feminist Pornographers, Kinky Summer Reading, and Queer Heterosexuals

Jul 262012
 

  • Glorified Love Letters wrote a review (aka a love letter) to Ultimate Guide for Kink and Sinclair Sexsmith featured the book in Lambda Literary’s Cliterotica 2012, a quarterly lesbian erotica review roundup.

Ask The Intern: Feeling Let Down After a Passionate Weekend

Jul 252012
 

Welcome to our newest feature: Ask The Intern, where each week, our intern answers your questions about sex, dating, and relationships (and sometimes Tristan chimes in as well). Our interns are smart people interested in working in the field of sexuality in some capacity, and you can find out more about the current intern in the byline below. Got a burning question, problem, dilemma, or issue for our intern? Email intern at puckerup.com.

I met this guy, really liked him, and we spent three days together—no sex, but did things that would lead to it. The first day, he told me he was talking to a girl. I assumed he meant dating a girl and it wasn’t serious. The next day, he said he was dating her for a year. But, that didn’t stop me from pursuing what I wanted—him on the third day. On Monday, he went back to New York, in love and intact.

And I’m in Chicago—confused. I really liked him and vice versa. Perhaps I’m mislabeling my confusion for nostalgia or anger? I let my guard down, and I never do that with guys. I told him private things and vice versa. A part of me despises myself for portraying myself as a sex object. How could I do that—to me and his girlfriend? I feel cheap, used and empty handed. I fell too fast. I want to believe he’s a nice guy but…I feel robbed of my own words and experiences. But there’s this quote: “Sharing doesn’t make you charitable, it makes you free.” Perhaps I don’t feel that way because I felt obliged into opening up. Or, perhaps I’m just thinking too much into this? Bottom line is will I ever be someone’s girlfriend and not some girl for the moment? How can I be a girlfriend? 

First things first—take the idea of being someone’s girlfriend off a pedestal. It’s not worth it. Despite what fairy tales tell us, there is no simple formula to being a significant other. Relationships are amorphous, confusing, DIY activities. So, instead of striving to be “a girlfriend,” ask yourself what you actually want from a romantic relationship. Stability? Monogamy? Consistent sex with a familiar body? Consistent sex with a handful of familiar bodies? The best part of real life is that you get to make your own relationship formula.

But there is one thing that most people want from a relationship, the glue that holds this DIY project together—trust. Unfortunately, it was this crucial puzzle piece that was missing from your weekend tryst. He wasn’t being honest with his long-term partner, which, in turn, made you question his motives. Moreover, he wasn’t being honest with you! Saying that you are “talking to a girl” sends a very different message from dating someone for a year.

At the same time, sneaking around can be exhilarating and sexy, so this “other woman” feeling might be part of what drew you to him in the first place. And that’s okay. It is natural to lust over what is off-limits. Red tape—both literal and metaphorical—is an incredible aphrodisiac.

But don’t feel cheap. Don’t feel like a sex object (unless you enjoy objectification, but it doesn’t sound like that’s your thing). Don’t judge yourself for letting your guard down. You opened up to someone you enjoy spending time with. That’s a skill you should value. It’s natural for you to feel bad for his girlfriend, but that is his problem. He should (and probably does) feel guilty and confused.

However, keep your letter to me. Use it to remind yourself how these situations make you feel in the long run. Next time you find yourself in a weekend love affair ask yourself: is it worth it? I think the answer will be pretty clear.

Abby Spector is a recent graduate of Wesleyan University, where she majored in Feminist/Gender/Sexuality Studies. She is currently interning for Tristan, a job that allows her to write about sex, research feminist porn, and play with dogs (among other, equally awesome things). When she isn’t working, Abby enjoys comfortable nudity and salty foods. Her dream? A world where she could sit around naked and eat overly-salted french fries. Her blog is Sexy Awkward Times.

Sexing the Transman XXX: Review

Jul 242012
 

We’re starting to review feminist porn titles on the site, and here is our first one. I had the chance to see a screening of some excerpts of Sexing The Transman XXX on the big screen in Toronto during the Feminist Porn Awards. I remember when I first heard Buck’s voice on film as he talked to his interview subjects from behind the camera, I thought, “Buck sounds like some creepy dirty old man.” Then I watched, and along with this dialogue were these long, lingering camera shots, following the ripple in a guy’s chest, the muscle definition of his arm. Buck and his camera were ogling these men – objectifying them even. It was all so lascivious and voyeuristic. It even reminded me of some of those old straight porn movies where the camera guy checks out the woman he’s filming in a really leering way. And then it struck me: we never see transmale bodies objectified or sexualized. We rarely see them naked or represented in erotic contexts. Buck’s camera was not simply ogling, it was worshipping these trans male bodies and his voice reinforced this adoration. The whole thing is incredibly subversive. Now, here’s Raybear’s take on the film. —Tristan

Since 2005, Buck Angel has proven himself to be a tenacious and consistent porn star in representing who he is and how he likes to fuck on screen, without a trace of shame or apology. In fact, he displays quite the opposite – absolute confidence and pride in his body and sexuality. His latest move, Sexing The Transman XXX, is an educational porn that expands his trademark attitude into the bedroom of other transmen. Buck is primarily behind the camera in this film, playing the role of sexy interrogator who asks each guy provocative questions about their gender, their body, their transition, and most importantly what turns them on, which leads them to strip down and show us how they like to get off. Sure Buck quizzes the guys about hormones and surgery, but he asks with even more enthusiasm about tattoos and working out.

A variety of toys to stimulate different parts and holes for each solo scene, including such favorites as a Feeldoe dildo, a Hitachi vibrator, and NJoy anal plugs. The film focuses on four different transmen, each at different stages of their own transition and with their own sexual predilections – MJ identifies himself as flamboyant, Eddie Wood is a hairy squirter, Sean sports ink and muscles. During the James Darling interview, he informs us he’d been on hormones since he was 18 and Buck Angel was the first transman he’d ever met, and in that moment I was able to really appreciate the reach of Buck and his work. This movie answers a lot of common questions posed to transmen, such as effects of hormones, body changes, and surgical procedures, but is done with the respect and understanding of a fellow transman and not in the least bit dry and boring. It’s also a well-edited film, both visually (picture-in-a-picture orgasm shot!) and sonically (opera arias and rock music that don’t drown out the sexy live sounds of the performers). After the four solo performances, Buck finishes the film with a fuck scene between himself and Fallen in a seedy basement romper room complete with wood paneled walls.

Sexing the Transman is an informational PSA that’s sexy, so folks interested in bedding a transman get both educated and titillated, while those of us who already appreciate the joys get to see trans bodies eroticized on screen in ways rarely shown.  Lucky for us, the sequel is already in the works with more types of transguys, so here’s to a much-needed series that will keep expanding the diversity of sexual experiences and bodies, and just keep getting sexier.

—Raybear

Watch the trailer for Sexing the Transman XXX here.

Buy Sexing the Transman XXX at these fine retail sites:

Hot Movies for Her (VOD)
The Smitten Kitten (DVD)
AEBN (VOD)
Sexing the Transman

Listen to or download Tristan’s interview with Buck Angel on Sex Out Loud.

Pushing the Boundaries of Feminist Porn with performer/director Bobbi Starr and Clarisse Thorn

Jul 232012
 

This week on Sex Out Loud, AVN’s 2012 Female Performer of the Year Bobbi Starr joins us to talk about her love of the oboe, her award winning performances in movies like Belladonna: No Warning 4, directing her own line of films for Evil Angel, why she loves to push sexual boundaries, and where she sees herself in relation to the feminist porn movement. She gives us the scoop on creating ElectroSluts.com, what kinky sex does for her, and why electricity play is so hot. We’ll also get her take on the current controversy around mandating condom use for all porn performers in California. Plus, pro-BDSM sex-positive feminist activist, blogger, and author Clarisse Thorn discusses her new book The S&M Feminist. She’ll breakdown BDSM, women’s submissive fantasies, and the tensions between kink and feminism. Plus, she’ll give us a glimpse of her years spent researching pick up artists (like those in Neil Strauss’s bestselling book The Game and VH1’s hit reality show The Pick-Up Artist), which became the basis for her book Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser.

Bobbi Starr is a very hardcore kind of performer and director. Her scenes have been shot for gonzo companies like Evil Angel, Jules Jordan Video and Red Light District and she won AVN Awards for Most Outrageous Sex Scene and Best Double Penetration Sex Scene as well as an XRCO Award for Most Orgasmic Oralist and two consecutive wins for Superslut. You may have seen her on Kink.com’s websites in many of their scenes, and she’s also in demand in Europe, having received an AVN nomination for Best Sex Scene in a Foreign-Shot Production for “Into the Dark” from Daring Media Group and a coveted Hot d’Or nomination for Female American Performer of the Year. She’s also a former nationally ranked swimmer and a trained professional concert oboist. Follow her on Twitter @BobbiStarr

Clarisse Thorn is a feminist, sex-positive educator who has delivered sexuality workshops and lectures to a variety of audiences, including museums and universities across the USA. In 2009, she created and curated the ongoing Sex+++ sex-positive documentary film series at Chicago’s historic feminist site, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. In 2010, she returned to the USA after working on HIV mitigation in southern Africa. She has also volunteered as an archivist, curator and fundraiser for that venerable S&M institution, the Leather Archives & Museum. Clarisse’s writing has appeared across the Internet in places like The Guardian, AlterNet, Feministe, Jezebel, The Good Men Project, Role/Reboot, and Time Out Chicago. Follow her on Twitter @ClarisseThorn

Beyond Fifty Shades, plus the new collection Stripped Down

Jul 192012
 

“If you’ve been reading (or have heard about) Fifty Shades of Grey and you’re curious about how those kinky games are actually played, this book’s for you. Even if you don’t want to tie up your partner, you’ll learn how to do it right and why it appeals to the folks who play that game.”

 

July 20: Buck Angel on Sexing the Transman plus Tobi Hill-Meyer’s erotic documentary-in-progress, Doing It Again

Jul 162012
 

This Friday, July 20th, on Sex Out Loud, I’m happy to welcome educator, filmmaker, and pop culture icon Buck Angel. We’ll discuss changing representations of trans male sexuality, including the making of his docu-porn Sexing the Transman and its success on the film festival circuit. Buck will also discuss the upcoming sequel, Sexing the Transman 2, due later this month and his transition from being an adult film star to a speaker and educator. I will also get a chance to talk to Tobi Hill-Meyer, a filmmaker currently working on Doing It Again, an erotic documentary about trans women’s sexuality that weaves together explicit scenes and interviews with trans women and their partners.

Buck Angel

As a visionary filmmaker, activist, educator and lecturer, Buck Angel launched Buck Angel Entertainment as a vehicle to produce multi media projects that will motivate viewers to think outside the box. Buck Angel’s message of empowerment through self-acceptance and being sexually comfortable in your own skin has struck a passionate chord with folks all over the world. Since Buck coined “it’s not what’s between your legs that defines your gender!”, the phrase has become an anthem for people everywhere who have been inspired by this message of self acceptance. Buck has been featured in nearly every imaginable international media outlet: television, radio, web, and print. Buck Angel made history when he received the prestigious award from Adult Video News (AVN) for Transsexual Performer of the Year in 2007 for his groundbreaking work in the adult entertainment industry. Buck has received international recognition and continues to be a huge box office hit in numerous markets.

Tobi Hill-Meyer

In 2010 Tobi Hill-Meyer made her film making debut, winning an Award for Emerging Filmmaker of the year and being named #3 in Velvet Park Media’s list of the 25 Most Significant Queer Women of 2010. She is a multiracial trans woman with a long history of working with feminist and LGBTQ organizations on a local, state, and federal level, having served on several boards and offering support as a strategic consultant. Since receiving her degree in Sociology and Women and Gender Studies, Tobi has turned her focus to media analysis and productions. She is a founding member and major contributor to the media collective, Handbasket Productions. Handbasket Productions is a radical, oppression aware media collective focusing on queer culture, trans experience and sex positivity. Spanning non-fiction, fiction, and fantasy genres, we use books zines, film, music and other art to cover a variety of topics including sex work, polyamory, racism and queerspawn experience.

July 13: Maggie Mayhem and Ned Mayhem on DIY Indie Porn, Nerd Sex, and Consent in BDSM Communities

Jul 132012
 

 

Tonight I’m excited that The Mayhems are able to join us on Sex Out Loud! Here’s some info about them before we go live at 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT. (Don’t forget you can listen here.)

Meet The Mayhems
One day while shooting a couple’s scene for QueerPorn.TV, Maggie and Ned came to the sudden realization that there were no porn sites on the internet featuring real couples who both identified as queer switches. They were cautioned that viewers wouldn’t be able to handle a website where the content was unpredictable and especially warned that featuring footage of Ned having sex with women, men, and trans* performers would never sell because people weren’t ready for it. It was a challenge that they were prepared to face. Putting their mutual nerd chops to work, they built their website together from ground up as a 100% independent venture. In addition to challenging audiences with a couples website that was largely non-heteronormative, they have also included their own coverage of the Occupy movement, their challenges with credit card company censorship, and their exceptionally geeky experiments like the PSIgasm (Masters & Johnson in a wireless computer buttplug that detects quantitative data about the human arousal and orgasmic process in real time*). After being online for only 8 months they received a Feminist Porn Awards nomination and they are excited by the one year anniversary of MeetTheMayhems with no signs of slowing down yet.

Maggie Mayhem

When Maggie Mayhem started volunteering as an HIV test counselor at UC Santa Cruz in 2003, she had no idea how radically it would change the direction of her entire life. Before long, she became a vocal activist for harm reduction and sex positivity. She has served as the coordinator of the UC Santa Cruz Anonymous HIV testing program, HIV Senior Specialist of Larkin Street Youth Services, and grant recipient for HIV prevention and care work in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. Maggie Mayhem is also a writer, speaker, and performance artist as well as a queer porn performer who has appeared on Kink.Com, Crashpad Series, Madison Bound, Girlfriends Films, QueerPorn.TV, and on the website she built with her partner Ned, MeetTheMayhems.Com

Ned Mayhem

Ned Mayhem is a physics graduate student who has been a performer in straight, gay, and queer pornography since 2010. He has appeared in films that have been recognized at Cinekink, AVN, and Feminist Porn Awards. With his partner Maggie Mayhem, Ned runs the independent “DIY” porn site MeetTheMayhems.com showcasing the couple’s own brand of perversely heartwarming queer sexuality. Ned also uses the software he has developed for MeetTheMayhems to empower other adult performers and independent studios to control their own web presence and monetize their own content. In addition to MeetTheMayhems.com, Ned’s software runs such sites as Femifist.com, QueerlySF.com, and KittyStryker.com. Ned loves to share his pornographics enthusiasm with crowds, and he’s spoken at MomentumCon 2012, Sex Week at Harvard, Arse Elektronika, Hackmeet, Nerd Nite SF, and OpenSF.

 

 

What Makes A Baby has arrived!

Jul 112012
 

Back in March we told you about Corey Silverberg’s children’s picture book, What Makes a Baby….and it is now out in the world. Congratulations, Corey!

Check out the newly revamped website (with details on how to get your own copy) and watch the trailer for the book here.

 

 

 

Backstage at Melissa Harris-Perry

Jul 082012
 


My head is still spinning from my first appearance on Melissa Harris-Perry on Saturday. Watch it below or at these links—Segment 1: Porn in America and Segment 2: The Business of Pornography. I’ve done a fair amount of television appearances, and I have mixed feelings about them. In the past, I feel like many TV producers shy away from difficult topics, don’t allow for complex, nuanced analysis, and often want me to “dumb it down.” This time, none of that happened. I was excited when a producer for the Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC contacted me last week about a show about female sexuality and porn. We had a spirited conversation where I feel like she really listened to me, rather than attempted to fit me into a quasi-script she had already written. When I found out that one of my co-panelists was author and activist Jaclyn Friedman, I felt relieved to have a sex-positive feminist sister there.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Segment 1 of 2 “Porn in America”

Fun fact: Jaclyn Friedman and I were both in the class of ’93 at Wesleyan University, and we were fellow activists and friends during college. Although we’ve followed and supported each other’s careers since then (I blurbed her newest book What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame Free Guide to Sex and Safety and she appeared on my radio show Sex Out Loud), we hadn’t been in the same room since the late 90s. We had dinner the night before, and Jaclyn reminded me we wouldn’t talk about the show, so that everything would stay fresh for the next day. We had plenty of catching up to do, so it didn’t matter!

At every stage of the booking process, the folks behind the scenes at MHP were competent, respectful, and, well, have their shit together. In the green room before the show, Jaclyn and I met Zephyr Lookout (author of Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope: Lessons from the Howard Dean Campaign for the Future of Internet Politics) who sat on the panel for an earlier segment and would be joining ours. She is a law professor at Fordham. I liked her immediately, and we bonded over our love of the children’s book Tuck Everlasting. She admitted she was “probably the most anti-porn of everyone on the panel,” which I appreciated her saying up front. It’s actually refreshing to engage with someone who really wants to dig into the topic and isn’t just ready to shut you down (like Gail Dines and crew are). After being fitted with our mics and mic packs (during which Jaclyn had her hands all the way up my dress to assist the sound guy), the three of us sat down at the table. That’s when I met the fourth panelist, Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson (author of Holler If You Hear Me), and I truly had no idea what he was going to say about porn. I was pleasantly surprised to discover he knows quite a bit about it (he name checked Lexington Steele and Mr. Marcus!) and had smart things to say.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Segment 2 of 2 “Business of Pornography”

MHP introduced me as a feminist pornographer and showed the cover of my new book The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure, co-edited with Celine Parrenas Shimizu, Constance Penley, and Mireille Miller-Young and forthcoming from The Feminist Press at CUNY in 2013. The two segments just flew by so fast, and suddenly, she was doing the closing of the show (naming activist teen Julia Bluhm the Foot Soldier of the Week for petitioning Seventeen magazine).

Afterward, we all stood in the hallway, continuing the conversation, and I got to meet several more of the show’s producers including Jamil Smith and Executive Producer Shirley Zilberstein. Melissa Harris-Perry is so smart, it’s actually intimidating. But in a good way. Obviously, we barely scratched the surface on some pretty important topics. I have a whole lot more to say about race politics in the porn industry, shifting representations of sexuality in porn, today’s porn economy, queer porn, and on and on. But this was definitely a start, and great one.

Jaclyn Friedman, me, Melissa Harris-Perry, Michael Eric Dyson backstage at MHP

Very few mainstream media outlets, and even fewer, if any, television news shows are willing to look at porn in an intelligent or balanced way. I am so impressed that Melissa Harris-Perry and her producers took a risk and really broke down a barrier. I know they have already gotten flack about it from conservatives and anti-porn feminists. So, if you want to show your support for the topic of this show, applaud Melissa Harris-Perry and MSNBC for making space for this conversation, you can do so in a number of ways:

Watch the clips: Segment 1 “Porn in America” and Segment 2 “The Business of Pornography”

Comment on the blog about the segments

Email the MSNBC network with your support

Tweet your support to @MHPShow and @MSNBCTV

 

 Older Entries  Newer Entries