A Real Blog Entry! Vibrators and Awards and Santorum and Art!

Ok, guys, I'm going to attempt to do a semi-real post! I have about an hour of time and a computer at my disposal! And there are a few things that MUST be mentioned:

1) I am getting a REAL website! It should be up by the time the art show opens on Wednesday and I am SO excited! Right now it'll be mainly a work in progress, but it will tie together my many writing names, publications, art projects, and other sundries under one domain: lynseyg.com. Pretty exciting!

2) Consent is almost ready to go, and you guys, it's going to be amazing! The art space has been turning away dozens of people a day who arrive hoping to see it, since they're still installing, we've got some MAJOR art and mainstream press attending the opening, and I am a huge ball of nerves. But I'm so proud. I really believe that this show, which may just be the beginning of a larger project, is an important step toward sex positivity with regards to pornography--it will pull in artsy types, mainstream press, and people who never have even considered porn as a serious topic, and ask them to think about it. Really think. I'm so stoked! If you can make it out to the opening, please do--and wear your most outrageous outfit! It's free and open to the public, AND there's booze! There will be an after party at M1-5 bar around the corner afterwards.

3) Before the opening, I am going to chop most of my hair off.

4) Rick Santorum, I despise everything about you and your ideas. Even your sweater vest. I do usually try to approach negative feelings like this from a more friendly, love-the-sinner point of view, but for you I make an exception. I've been despising you for your hate-mongering for over a decade now. But at this monent, I want to hug you. Your promise to "crack down" on hardcore pornography and to "vigorously enforce" obscenity laws (which could be interesting, given that his standards [sex is baaaad] and most people's community standards [sex is fun] are very, very far apart) when elected president (*snort*) is exactly what I'm fighting against. You claims that you have access to research that porn causes major changes in the brain and that porn has caused a "pandemic of harm" to Americans in recent years. You know, Rick Santorum, your last name appears on plenty of porn sites. Maybe THAT'S why you're so upset--lathered up into a positive froth, if you will. And you know... it's because of small-minded, paternalistic pains in the ass like yourself that events like my art show, which invite people to speak about pornography in rational ways, are so important. As Annie Sprinkle said (and I'm stealing this directly from Jiz Lee's blog, which I'm about to link to): “The answer to bad porn is not no porn, but to try to make better porn!”

2) Jiz Lee is amazing. They have brought it to my attention, via their blog, that they are involved in 10 of the nominated projects up for awards at this year's Feminist Porn Awards! Go Jiz! I'm so excited for them, and I so wish I could be at the awards this year. Seriously, best porn-related party I've ever been to. Ever. But alas, I have plans already to escape to an upstate spa/hotel with my girlfriend that weekend for a much-needed vacation. I've already paid for the hotel, so no rebooking! Have fun, you feminist fappers!

3) And lastly, this guy is awesome. He's a fan of the vibrator in the bedroom, and for good reason. On the topic of sex toys as rivals for male sexual dominance, he mirrors my sentiments exactly: "What we’re talking about here is a vibrator. It has no soul. It runs on double A’s. It’s not your rival. It’s your helpmate."

It's a good day.

Wednesday is Link Day! John Waters, GOP asshattery, double features (with porn!), and the First Amendment

My lovely, lusty, lovelies! I bring you links of joy and tidings of excellence in general!

First of all, I want to thank Jiz Lee for bringing it to my attention that one of my favorite John Waters quotes ever (which is saying a lot; that man is a great quote machine) now exists in FB-friendly meme graphic form! Please, share with your friends:

Secondly, the obscenity trial of Ira Isaacs was just dismissed due to a hung jury of 10 (guilty) to 2 (innocent). If you haven't been following this one, Isaacs is a small-time pornographer known for making... shall we say... controversial movies. Corpophilia, bestiality... Not exactly the kinds of things that get you accolades from the artistic community, or really any community. And though Isaacs is happy to be let off the hook (for now--the trial may be brought again), he's disappointed that the porn community isn't rallying around him in his time of need. "I should be a hero, not a pariah, in the industry," he stated to Tracy Clark-Flory of Salon. "I’m fighting for their empire, but they don’t realize it." He brings up an interesting point--when a pornographer stands trial for obscenity, it's rare for the community to come to their aid. Similarly, while Max Hardcore was on trial a few years ago, nobody testified against him, but the porn contingent didn't exactly show up to stand in solidarity, either. He was left to hang, and to spend over two years in La Tuna federal penitentiary. Lots of people, however, stood beside John Stagliano, whose "obscene" movies tended more toward milk play than Isaacs' poo porn or Hardcore's piss siphoning. I guess the question becomes less one of freedom of speech and its importance to the porn industry as one of levels--the general public doesn't put pornographers on a spectrum from "more" to "less" respectable. Porn is pretty much lumped into the "bad people" end of the larger scale of things. So when someone is brought up on charges for doing things that push the very furthest boundaries of the uncommon and looked-down-upon kinds of pornography, it might seem to behoove other pornographers to stay away from the whole thing to avoid being lumped in at that end of the spectrum. And it probably does, in many ways. But at the same time... freedom of speech is what the porn industry survives on. There may be lines in all of our minds that indicate where the acceptable limits of First Amendment protection stand, but for an industry that's already maligned as the dark corner where the freaks hang out, a little solidarity might be of greater service than careful selectivity. Interesting tidbit that helps my point: the people who stood up for Isaacs on the jury? Little old ladies in Christmas sweaters.

Thirdly, what the FUCK is going on in South Carolina? Thank the gods of reason that the Laurens County "purity pledge" has been knocked down at the state level as the piece of horse shit it clearly is, but let's reflect for a moment on how far afield from reality conservatives are going: not only is Rick Santorum--RICK SANTORUM, for crying out loud--a real contender for a Presidential nomination, but a county in South Carolina wanted to enforce a "purity pledge" that any GOP nominee would have to sign, stating that the candidate must: have "a compassionate and moral approach to Teen Pregnancy" (hm, you mean like supporting reproductive health rights? probably not); oppose abortion under any circumstance (didn't think so); practice faithfulness to one's spouse, who cannot be of the candidate's gender (ohhh, blatant bigotry! nice, GOP, very nice); abide by abstinence before marriage; and--the kicker--swear that they don't "look at pornography." I think, between these and the other 23 rules they were going to stick in there, this rules out every human being on the planet. Jackasses. "Purity pledge." They must be talking about "purity" as in "pure, unadulterated dedication to intolerant bullshit." What are conservatives trying to do? Create some kind of fantasy land where they can all walk around talking about how none of them ever fucks around on their spouses, slapping each other's asses about how great it is that they never have "gay" thoughts, and acting like they've never jerked off to Belladonna? What is the damn point of creating such an elaborate system of lies? I don't get it.

And lastly, dude. Check this out. Double feature of The Graduate and The Graduate XXX, with popcorn and wine, at my art show. April 4. It is going to be GREAT. Details at the link.

Success = Federal Censorship

Well, everyone, I've made it. I have arrived at artistic legitimacy, and I wasn't even trying! The way I figure it, if a Federal agency takes notice of what you're doing enough to tell you not to do it, you are a success, which makes me, now, legit.

Check out this image. It's the front of a postcard that apexart was planning to send out to promote my art show, Consent (crappy snapshot, but you get the idea):

Pretty cool, huh? Evocative, intriguing, and yet not explicit. Kind of the perfect thing to mail to 9,000 people in 110 countries, right? Not according to the US Postal Service. I'm getting this all secondhand--I wasn't there for the meeting in which this was actually discussed--but the gist of it is that, when the people at apexart took these postcards and a mockup of the brochure that will feature more explicit images and an essay by yours truly to the Post Office to find out if they would be better off using envelopes, the USPS kind of freaked out. Apparently, according to the Powers That Be, the above image is blatantly pornographic and therefore cannot be mailed out to anyone who has not explicitly requested it. If it is, say the Postal people, apexart could face Federal prison time.

Seriously. They said that.

Look at that image. True, it's from a porn movie (Tristan Taormino's Rough Sex 2) and it features a porn star (Sinnamon Love). And it says the word "porn" on it. But let's take a moment to reflect on what can be sent in the mail. For example, a Victoria's Secret catalogue:

Call me crazy, but that beautiful lady is showing a lot more skin and boob than Sinnamon is on my postcard. And I'm pretty sure that Victoria's Secret catalogs get mailed to hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom don't really want them (like me, for example).

How about a print magazine with a readership of at least several hundred thousand, if not millions, that's sent through the mail every month?

Now, granted, Aubrey Miles isn't getting flogged in that picture. But I've got this suspicion that, given the choice between jerking off to a mostly-clothed, vaguely BDSM image like the one on my postcard, or the one with the totally naked woman with handprints on her tits, most American males might go for the handprint photo.

But my postcard just got censored. Some of this has to do with mailing lists--not everyone on the apexart mailing list signed up for it and therefore there's a bit of a legal leg for anyone who gets offended to stand on if they object and never signed up. But still. Seriously? This is straight up censorship. Freedom of speech my ass.

I'm so fucking edgy, people!

And I'm so glad that this has happened, in a way. Even though it's ridiculous, it points out exactly why it's important for me to speak up on this issue in the first place. The dialogue around pornography and sex positivity in general in this country, despite the efforts of so many for so long, is still nearly nonexistent. The Postal Service would still rather censor material like this that asks people to stop, think, and discuss than deal with any possible fallout. It would rather help disseminate material like the FHM cover above, which is unquestionably sexual and even, many would say, actively promoting the continued objectification of women in America, than help myself and apexart promote a conversation about what pornography is and how it affects us--and how mainstream imagery also affects us. Censorship and a larger unwillingness to talk about these issues is the reason why it's so important for me to keep trying.

The art space is printing up simple white-text-on-black-background postcards with the same text that will be mailed out, and we'll change the brochure to make it more mailing-safe as well. But in the meantime, I've got 3,000 postcards with the image you see above on them that the art space can't mail out. I can, however, mail them to people who request them... Sooooo who wants some postcards? Send me your mailing address to misslagsalot@gmail.com, and proof of government censorship will be yours!

A Quick and Dirty Post About Nothing in Particular: I am super busy

My darling babies! My sweet readers! Please don't forget I'm alive--because I am! So very alive, and so very well, and kind of stressed and freaking out maybe a teensy bit. So busy I've had no time for blogging, and when I have had it, I've been so tired I couldn't muster anything to write about! Some blogger I am! But for real, I did an interview for the show (someone else interviewing me) weeks ago that we just discovered was a bust because the footage was awful, so we had to re-do the whole thing, which is a pain in the booty because now I have to cut up entirely different footage. Ick! But things are moving along. Trust me, this show is going to kick every possible variety of ass.

But I hope all the waiting around for me to post--I'm certain you're all spending your days listlessly clicking around the internet, dully wishing for the shining light of my brilliance to light up your lives--will be filled with the breathless anticipation of the ha-yuge things I'm busy working on! When they land--oh the amazing-tude! Your lives will once again be filled with joy and wonder, I PROMISE. I'll have a whole website that ties together all my writing personas, my modeling portfolio, my artwork, my poetry, my fiction... all of it. AND I'll have an art show full of awesome stuff and rockin' events to show the world! If they're nor rockin' then... well... I don't know, I can't really promise any compensation for the wait, except that I'll (hopefully) be able to blog more.

Anyway, in the meantime, somethings to look forward to:
1) THIS is the sticker for my art show. How badass is that? I'll be plastering them all over NYC in the next few weeks. And look! They even have one of those cool new-fangled scan things on them! If you scan it, you get taken to the site for my show!

2) There are also sweeeet postcards to be mailed out soon. Want one to show off to all your friends? E-mail me your snail mail address! misslagsalot@gmail.com. I'll be mailing a crap-ton of them out this weekend!

3) I am seriously considering using Offbeatr, the new Kickstarter for porn projects, to fund a long-standing idea of mine... And I only tell you that because Offbeatr is a GREAT idea and I'm SUPER excited that it finally exists!

4) It's a damn good thing I'm so busy lately because Rick Santorum makes me want to vomit all over myself and everyone around me, and the fact that he is somehow a serious candidate for the GOP nomination is intolerable to me. But at least somebody made his image entirely out of gay porn:

 That is all for now, my ducklings! I'll be back someday, with awesomeness in hand!

Apexart and Lynsey G Present: Consent

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Cinekink and Links! (And also, the MTA is awful.)

This morning has been a testament to the indignities that New York inflicts upon the people desperate and/or crazy enough to be determined to live here, come hell or high water. I spent about 20 awful minutes trapped in a subway car with an incredibly stinky person--and, readers, when I say "incredibly stinky," I really mean it; in New York I am exposed daily to numerous horrific smells, and this was about an eleven on a scale of putridness--before being stranded while trying to transfer to another train for another 15 minutes. When the train finally came, it was too crowded to fit onto, so I ended up walking 15 blocks to get to my dayjob.

Luckily, I love New York, and it was a warm, sunny morning. And also luckily, New York is awesome. Because, disgruntled and grumpy as I was by the Meteropolitan Transit Authority's absolute inability to operate according to its schedule, I still get to go to the Cinekink film festival from Wednesday-Saturday in the East Village this week, acting as a juror for the Kinky Film Festival's short films, and interviewing directors from all over the world. Because New York is amazing.

If you don't know about Cinekink, go to the link and find out more. It travels, so even if you're not in NYC you can catch the kink- and sex-positive awesomehood that is this super-fun film festival. It's one of the best experiences you'll have all year. I say that without any irony--I went last year and I'm SO psyched to be taking part in an official capacity this year that I'm slacking off many of my other duties just to do it. F'realz. Go.

Anyway, on to fun early-in-the-week links to peruse at your liesure (btw that should beproncounced "leh-zherr" like you're British because that's cooler)!

1) The rock star stuff: A fantastic interview in Richardson Magazine with the ever-awesome Jiz Lee, along with a whole lot jaw-droppingly sexy and powerful images of the genderqueer powerhouse!
2) The hilarious-yet-troubling stuff: Nightline did a short piece last week on James Deen. Sounds great, right? "OMG a popular male porn star on a network news show?! That's so great! Men in porn are getting more attention and porn is becoming less taboo!" That's what I wanted to think, too. But, true to form, prime time network television couldn't be progressive or even intelligent about this one. Apparently, according to Nightlime, James Deen's everyman appeal, charm, and sex positivity are "deeply disturbing" because, obviously, Deen is luring underage girls into watching porn. That's right, folks, this nefarious sin-monger is after your children! He'll make off with them in the night and... expose them to new sexual positions and pornography in which he kisses and respects his costars... which is... terrible?
Honestly, I'm annoyed by this bilge, but the way they cherry-picked the quotes for the interview to make him seem as ridiculous as possible (because, let's be real, I'm sure James Deen has got his dark secrets and what-not, but all things told, I don't think he's exactly the plotting, scheming, supervillain type, so they had to go for ridiculous over evil) is just so entertaining. And I'm not sure if the creators of this knee-slapping little segment are aware of this or not, but telling people on prime time that something is bad means more people will Google it. D'oh! Porn and sex-positivity: +1, sex-negativity and small-mindedness: 0.  
3) The absolutely fucking terrible: spoon-feeding semen to elementary students for a "taste test." Worst. Teacher. EVER. Holy CRAP. Let the fact that nobody had any idea this was happening for so long be a reminder that sexual predators are not always the monsters we want them to be. Not ever child molester wears a mustache and skeezy, too-tight pants and goes around gaping openly at children. They're part of our communities. That's why talking to kids about sex. their rights, and their bodies early is so important--so they can learn how to feel empowered enough to say no to weird shit like this. Ugh. This makes me want to go join some other class of animal altogether--amphibeans are looking pretty good right about now.
4) The redemption of humankind through positivity and sharing and porn--and Jiz Lee, again: They've put out a call for submissions to an open-ended "coming out about porn" project that you MUST get involved with if this story applies to you. If you work in or around the sex industry, particularly porn, Jiz is asking that you share your "coming out" story/stories with them. Personally I think this is the best idea anyone's had in a while: sharing stories of similar problems overcome is a surefire way to humanize the experiences and to bring people together. Sometimes the porn community is so dispersed and possessed of so many different types of people that it's hard to reach a consensus or feel a sense of community, but everyone who's worked in the sex industry has got some kind of story about how their friends/family/etc. "found out." They're funny, uplifting, heartbreaking, and ultimately SO human. Porn and sex work of all kinds needs as much humanization as it can get. Please, if you've got a story, submit.

5) Kind of sigh-worthy but still generally good: Susan G. Komen changed its mind about cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood after massive displays of outrage swept the country last week. This is awesome. Not because a bunch of fickle fucks at a bloated charity enterprise were brought back into touch with women's needs and how important listening to the people you serve is (although, yeah, that's great), but because its decision to stop donating to Planned Parenthood's breast cancer screenings brought out the sleeping dragon of Fucking With Women. Last year's Boehner-led assault on federal funding for Planned Parenthood was well-timed in that everyone was so busy worrying about Iraq, the economy, and so on that it met with resistance but still managed to pass. This year, though, when Susan G. Komen for the Cure tried to follow suit, Americans had had enough and vocalized as much--loudly. It's about time that the non-conservatives amongst us who value women's reproductive health all shouted about it at once. "What kind of fuckery is this?" we asked. "The kind we are SICK of taking." Go team!

A Letter to Max Hardcore

So here I am, on my lunch break, composing an e-mail to Max Hardcore. The bogeyman of porno--the man anti-porn zealots can point to when they're making their accusations. The guy who just got out from a 30-month stint in a federal penitentiary for disseminating obscenity across state lines. The one who more or less invented the term "skull fuck." Who gets his actresses to call him "Mister" in knee socks and pigtails, and then, in some cases, syphons his bodily waste into various orifices. That guy.

He and his case have both fascinated and repelled me for years and now that he's out of jail and filming again, I'm hoping he'll agree to a live Skype interview in front of an audience during the run of my art show. I want to show a few minutes' worth of one his movies to the audience, then bring him up on a big screen and ask him some questions before letting the audience ask theirs. Because I think he and what he does and what's happened to him, for better or worse, is important. But honestly, he freaks me out.

I ran into him last weekend in Vegas at the Adult Entertainment Expo, and did an on-the-spot five-minute interview with him on video. I'd been wondering what it would be like to meet him: everyone I know who knows him assures me he's a nice guy. Some even call him sweet. He's certainly well-spoken. When I wrote him a letter in prison, hinting at doing an interview with him about his work, he wrote back a five-page letter on lined notebook paper that he'd turned into stationery. "Max Hardcore," it said at the top, "America's Most Infamous Prisoner (TM)"--or something like that. He'd gone into detail about how shocked he'd been when a jury of "his peers" had found him guilty of violating their community standards for obscenity, citing First Amendment issues and the rights of the artist. I discontinued our correspondence after that, less interested in the technicalities by which he was incarcerated and more in why he made the films he made in the first place, but his arguments were valid.

Max may have done some things on camera that I can't agree with, but so have Eli Roth, Stanley Kubrick, and Michael Bay. The difference is that Max deals with a part of our human nature that we don't see as fundamentally ok--sexuality--and brings in aspects of one that we love--violence--and mixes them together in a really disturbing way. Is he an artist? I don't really know about that. But did he deserve to go to jail for making those films? Surely not. Although I don't like his tropes of violence, feigned rape, dressed-up-to-look-underage girls, etc., I don't agree that he should have gone to La Tuna for allowing one of his distributors to mail his European (read: much hardcore-er) materials across state lines into a more conservative community (a problem which digital distribution may largely nullify in coming years). The charges for which he served two and a half years were rididuculous; what he really went to jail for was having sex some people didn't approve of, and filming it. And that's ridiculous. Nobody forced anybody to watch his movies--except, probably, in court. Nobody has ever filed charges against him for forcing any of his actresses to do anything they didn't want to. Nobody testified against him in court. He swears up and down that if anyone had a problem on the set of his movies, they stopped filming. The guy didn't need to do hard time, as far as I'm concerned.

But what I really think is fascinating and important about Max isn't his martyr status or the freedom of speech issues he represents. It's what goes on in his brain in the first place. Everyone I know who's worked with him or known him personally seems to genuinely like him. He's got a kind smile and an easy-going attitude. Every film he's made had all the necessary paperwork filled out, the i's dotted and t's crossed. He uses only consenting adults on shoots that it's hard to believe anyone could go into without understanding exactly what they're in for. But what they're in for is so far above and beyond the norm, so wildly over the top, so violent and--at least for me, but I realize that this doesn't apply to many others--upsetting to think about, much less to actually watch, that I can't help wondering. What goes on in his head? How is such a kind, gentle guy also Max Hardcore? How does the guy who everyone vouches for turn off his sweet demeanor and turn on the degrading language, the water-works that get siphoned into anal cavities, the willingness to skull-fuck someone until she vomits? How does this disconnect happen? Does he really hate women, or does he really love women who like this kind of sex? Is there really a disconnect here or just a love of extreme sex? How does this work?

This is what I want to find out. It's deeply interesting. But it's also scary. In Max Hardcore I see some of the things that porn gets blamed for and shunned over, the things that your mother fears when she tells you not to look at dirty movies. But I also see our neverending worship of the morbidly fascinating--the rubbernecking at the train crash. Whatever's going on behind his blue eyes is, maybe reassuringly and maybe terrifyingly, universal. I don't want to judge Max in front of an audience, because I don't think I'm qualified to judge something that interests us all. I don't want to hold him up as an example of "what's wrong with the world" or any such silliness. I don't want to say that what he does and did is right or wrong. I just want, like everyone else, to understand it.

So. How do I start this e-mail?

I'm Off!

Wish me luck, everybody! I will be flying to LA tomorrow morning to conduct interviews with as many adult industry insiders as I can get my grubby little hands on! Or... not hands, I mean. Um. My... interviewing prowess.
Yeah.
Errr... that got awkard.

Yes, so anyway, I will be in LA from Tuesday-Friday, then I will fly to Vegas to try to nab a few more interviews, then back to NYC on Sunday. It is going to be a whirlwind trip, but I think it will be absolutely amazing.

Why?

Because the people I have interviewed so far about their personal relationships to sex and pornography have been fascinating. Everyone is different, and everyone is so eager to talk about their lives and experiences and ideas. The thing I have found the most in common with everyone I talk to is that, while everyone's words are different, their excitement about discussing this part of their lives is almost boundless. While many of us have talked about our sexualities over the course of our lives, I find that few people have been asked about their relationship to porn--sexual, intellectual, spiritual, whatever. This isn't as true, of course, for people who work in the adult industry, but so far, even they have opened up to me in a really amazing way. I have felt privileged to hear the very personal thoughts, feelings, and experiences of everyone I have spoken to so far, and I can't wait to hear more.

I will try to update the blog as often as I can during my trip! I will be all by my lonesome the whole time, so free time will be hard to find. Wish me luck!

New Years Resolution: be my own megaphone

I'm no good at promoting myself. Never have been. It's not that I don't value my own work--it's that I'd rather other people like it and do the advertising/word of mouth/buzz for me. I don't know if it's modesty that keeps me from pushing my brand, or narcissism that makes me think others should recognize my genius and take care of it, or some bizarre mixture of the two. Or perhaps it's just laziness--I work very hard and when I'm done, I don't feel much like spending the rest of my energy on promoting. But whatever the case may be, it's come to my attention, via a very determined photographer who found me on ModelMayhem and then spent an entire day Google searching everything about me on the internet (this sounds a bit creepy perhaps, but it's not, he's actually a fantastic guy), that my body of creative work is actually pretty goddamn extensive. I never have time to do all the things I want to do, but when I had someone else point it out to me, it became clear that I still do a LOT. And have done a lot. And I should really be showing it all off more.

Last year I had a tarot card reading from a dear friend who is excellent at what he does. I wrote down what he told me and let it sit in a stack of papers on my desk for a long time. At the turn of the new year, I unearthed it and glanced over it, and here's what it says in huge letters at the top:

MAKE YOUR VOICE LOUDER.

It's become clear that, while sometimes others are kind enough to take up the banner and do my promoting for me, even then they could not possibly be as dedicated to my cause as I am. Hell, even the people I've hired to do this (read: literary and entertainment industry agents) can't be bothered to do it. Last year the team of agents I'd been working with unceremoniously dumped me after they'd decided that I was not, in fact, going to crap out some piece of sparkly magenta chick lit they could stamp some "Sex and the City" reference on and sell, sell, sell. They weren't interested in promoting me or helping me, just making a dime on me. And I wasn't interested enough in promoting what I actually was interested in making to do the work myself. And now I'm agentless--very freeing, in its way, but not really ideal.

The point here is, it's time for me to start taking myself seriously. I write under no fewer than four different names, some in print and some online. I write fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. I do interviews, long thought-pieces, columns, product reviews, DVD reviews, and coverage of events in New York and beyond. I draw, paint, and curate. I do poetry readings live and on video, and translate poetry, and network with people from all over the world to keep it all going. Shit, I can sing. And hell, I even do some modeling for fun. I am a goddamn renaissance woman. But nobody f-ing knows about it.

So here's my resolution for 2012: MAKE MY VOICE LOUDER. I'm getting a mothafuckin' website. I'm migrating this blog to it, and I'm putting up photos of my visual work, and I'm linking to my art show, my McSweeney's column, my articles, my fiction, my poetry, and maybe even my photos. I want it up and running by the beginning March so people interested in the art show can find out as much about me as possible.

So, yeah. RAWR. Expect it.

Consent: Careening through Curatorial Carnality

How's THAT for an alliterative title, folks? I love alliteration when I'm writing about porn and sex. I know it's hokey. I know it's campy. But it's an aside to often deadly-serious subject matter that brightens my day. Of course, I've long suspected that I have the sense of humor of a 70-year-old man (for instance, I adore puns), but so what? I like my rants to be rife with ridiculous reams of consonants.

Anyway.

I've been doing interviews with porn consumers for this art show at apexart I'm curating in the spring (March 21 - May 12). Most of them are just friends who have an interesting perspective on the subject matter, and I'm really just getting started. So far I have about six under my belt, and I've got eight more scheduled in the next two weeks. We've been talking about people's experiences with pornography and how they have or have not thought about them. How those experiences have or have not changed the way they view sex or sexuality. How they've affected relationships, self-awareness, and understanding of the issue of consent. It's been fascinating so far. I'd always known in the abstract, of course, that the way people think about these things is as varied as anything else about human nature--infinitely. But these conversations have made me realize just how much people differ on topics of sexuality, and how much they're the same. For instance, I've spoken to people who have used pornography regularly for their entire adult lives, sometimes to a point of near obsession, and yet have spent an incredibly small amount of time reflecting upon what that means for their experience of sex or their understanding of themselves. But then others have amazed me with the depth of their reflections upon their habits and desires. Some are blithely unconcerned; some are deadly serious. It's absolutely riveting. And I'm sure there's more learning to come from them. I can't wait.

On January 17th I'll fly to Burbank for a few days to collect as many interviews with porn industry insiders as humanly possible there, until flying to Las Vegas on the 20th to catch even more performers, directors, producers, etc. in Sin City for the AVN awards and AEE expo. These interviews will cover the same general topics as the consumer interviews, but of course branch off into other areas. It's interesting for me, right now, to realize that I have no idea what I'll end up talking about out there--every time I do another interview with a consumer here in NYC--and I'll also be interviewing a few industry insiders here in the city, of course--I notice my perspective shift just a little bit. Each time I talk to someone new, my area of interest expands and colors itself just a tad. By the time I get to Vegas, who knows what I'll be talking about.

The idea here is that after these are all over, I will have hours upon hours of video interview footage, which I will cut up and arrange according to topic, then layer with clips from actual porn. I very much like the idea of layering porn footage with audio clips of people discussing pornography; I like the idea of watching other people watching these videos and tracking their levels of arousal--both intellectual and physical. I like the idea of pulling people together in a space to watch porn on its own terms (that's another installation) but to also think about it. Reflect upon it. Find themselves inside a discussion of what it means to be a person in the modern world who deals with pornography in whatever way, realize that we are all in this discussion space together, and the more we talk, the more interesting it gets.

So basically... I'm having a blast, you guys. I hope you'll all come out to the show!

Putting Flowers in My Hair as I Type

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Buzz is All Justified!

This week keeps getting better! I wish I'd had more time for substantive posts, but your questions and suggestions are coming in way handy, and I'm super busy planning for my trip and etc. Newest news?

1) I'm going to be tracking down Jiz Lee for an interview for my art show. Oh man. I get all fluttery when I know I'm going to see them, and now I'm getting a whole bunch of their time just for ME? Swoon! What am I gonna WEAR?!

2) Plans have officially been announced for a big ol' porntastic event here in NYC the weekend of November 5, when Exxxotica will be on the East Coast for the yearly trade convention! We're teaming up with Amnesia and the indomitable Lola Bastinado of HedoOnline to throw a mega event. This is going to be a huge media circus, so if you're a blogger, journalist, writer, or just a fan or a gawker, or a performer who wants a shot at the red carpet, spread the word! We want mainstream media there to cover--Time Out, Daily News, Gawker, Fleshbot... all y'all! COME ONE, COME ALL!

3) Someone sent me this link and I can't stop laughing about the many good points it makes about what's considered appropriate for women being... umm... kind of ludicrous. Men Posed as Pin-Ups. Their kissy faces are kind of adorable, especially the bearded guy.
4) If you haven't watched or shared this trailer yet with a woman you love... do so. Miss Representation. It's easy to think that what we see every day about women in advertising and media is normal and expected, but when it's presented in such bald-faced terms, it really makes you think. Huge question: how do we make this better for those in the adult industry? Is this where the changes have to happen first? Or never? (Thank goodness for new queer porn!)
5) The picture on this particular iteration of this story says it all: here come a bunch of wealthy, out-of-touch white dudes in suits to legislate against women's rights to choose and/or receive important medical treatment based on a bunch of morality/religion-dredged moral hoo-hah. I am LIVID about this "Protect Life Act." Protect whose lives? How on earth did it become more important in the minds of the GOP to protect an unborn life than a life that has grown up already and is... duh... PAYING TAXES? And who the HELL do these guys think they are? These congressmen who think they have the right to legislate against my right to make healthy decisions about my own body and future? Oh, wait, I know--they're a bunch of privileged white men who will never, EVER have to go through a decision like this about their own bodies or live in fear that they may not be able to get necessary treatment for their condition just because somebody somewhere doesn't like it. They will never be faced with serious risks to their health because of pregnancy complications. They will never be burdened with a pregnancy as a result of date rape. They will never... ever... TRY to understand those who do. I just... GRRRR!!!

...and I'm done. So. Mad. But so excited! Wow, I think I need a drink.

OMG This is Gonna Be So Awesome!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Gimme Your Questions

I've been writing answers to people's sex and relationship questions here and on WHACK! Magazine for a while now. And I've been pondering the questions people ask me in person when they find out that I write about porn--the role I play as the middle ground between the "inside" of the porn industry and the "outside" consumer culture. I think there's something really important going on here.

I realized last night when I was thinking about how to turn this rare perspective of mine into an art exhibit in the spring that I don't find porn itself particularly interesting. I don't think I ever have. Nor do I find the majority of pornographers or consumers all that interesting, generally speaking. I think what I find interesting is the interaction between them--the way in which pornography is made and sold, and the way in which the larger society accesses it, freaks out over it, embraces it... all of that. There's an interplay between the two worlds--which are, really, just one world that doesn't like looking at itself in much detail--that is fascinating. It tells me much about the people around me, and even more about myself if I'm willing to be honest about it. I'm usually not. And neither are most of the rest of us. Which is what makes being lodged here as an insider/outsider hybrid so fucking rad.

I have never understood people who perform in porn. Not really. I can get the idea of why it would be fun--physical pleasure for pay, attention, easy-ish money, glamorous lifestyle... All of these things make sense. But I would never be able to do it. I'm uncomfortable being videotaped. I have a very small, very sickly exhibitionist streak. I like sex but I don't think my body would take hours of intense sex very well on a regular basis. I could never do it, and though I can recognize why others would, I don't understand them. The camera doesn't make me come alive.

But that's why it's interesting. If I understood it, that part of the puzzle would be solved and I'd be bored. And while I will never be able to understand people who become investment bankers, either, or ever want to do that myself, I think examining those who have sex on camera is a lot more interesting than cracking open the psyche of Wall Street. I'm in an exciting and exotic place here, perched like a gargoyle looking into the building I'm outside of, and lucky me, they're having sex in there!

What I want to do with this art show is make myself a direct conduit for those inside to look out, and for those outside to look in. I want to spend time interviewing consumers of porn and pornographers. I want to find the threads that tie the inside and outside together, tie them to my fingers, and connect them myself. I want to spin a gorgeous web out of it all and show it off.

So tell me: what are your questions? What do you want to know about the other side? About porn? About watching porn? About me? Send me your questions (misslagsalot@gmail.com) or Tweet me (@misslagsalot) or FB me (Miss Lagsalot) or just leave a comment. I want your ideas, your questions, your fears, your fantasies. Gimme gimme...

I Interview Nica Noelle About the APA

I had a pretty interesting chat with Nica Noelle, adult director and head of Sweet Sinner films and a porn industry staple for years. She, along with Madison Young, January Seraph, Maggie Mayhem, and others, are at the helm of the brand-spanking-new Adult Performers Association out in Lalaland. Some have claimed that the APA is a personal politics vehicle for Nica and her friends, who have quite publicly complained about the Free Speech Coalition's new attempt at a centralized testing agency for the porn industry, Adult Production Health & Safety Services, while others are hailing the APA as a long-overdue resource for porn stars. I wasn't sure what to think, and I had a lot of questions about this "organization of adult performers and our supporters who are passionate about improving health, safety and quality of life for adult film entertainers." So I asked Nica all of them.

I was very impressed with her articulate answers and am verrrry interested to see how things shape up for the APA. A snippet from the interview, the rest of which you can read (and PLEASE comment on!) over at WHACK! Magazine:


The organization plans to facilitate dialogue and understanding between the gay and straight porn industries. What steps would the association like to take?
 
There’s a lot of tension between the gay the straight porn communities, and a lot of fear, hostility and misinformation. Obviously both sides would benefit from increased understanding and cooperation as well as unified safety and testing standards.  We plan to facilitate some much needed dialogue so we can move forward as a group.


Another goal is to be a group health plan for performers. Is health insurance a major issue in the industry?
 
It’s beyond major. It’s at a crisis level. Performers should and must have access to health insurance, and there is no item of higher importance on our agenda than this one.  It’s untenable that any adult performer should go without basic medical care. We work with our bodies, and we kiss and touch each other on a daily basis. It is absolutely necessary that we get our physicals, mammograms, and wellness appointments as needed, and investigate and treat symptoms in a timely manner.

If you're interested in the welfare of porn performers, this is a must-read. Not to toot my own horn (toot-toot!), but this is big stuff. Tell me what you think, here or over on WHACK!

We Are Experiencing Scheduling Difficulties

I want to apologize for the paucity in blogs the past week, folks... I'm having a sort of headless chicken few weeks here and not much time for blogging. Cross my heart and hope to die: next week will be better! I'm working on a few posts and will be all over this bitch soon!

In the meantime, well, it's the weekend! Go have fun, for goodness sake! Get away from your computer and enjoy the weather before it gets cold! Silly bastards.

...still here? Ok, fine, go read my review of Salacious Magazine over at WHACK! It's fabulous, as is Salacious itself. Want proof? Here:

"It’s like Penthouse Forum back in the day, except if Penthouse was a particularly horny sub boi with a thing for comic books and sleaze, and had a bunch of super-queeny theater kid friends who all wrote dirty love letters to each other. Kind of drunk. And covered in glitter, leather, and Vaseline."

Go read it! Love you all!

Two Totally Terrific Questions, Part II

Dale asked: New follower. Discovered you on twitter and have started to follow your blog. I absolutely loved your piece on you former military friend! Questions. Do you have a book out? You mentioned somewhere that you had both a girlfriend and boyfriend. Do you still (or at all) think of yourself as bisexual? Looking forward to reading from your archive. Thanks.

Hello, Dale. Thank you for following my blog! Due to the nature of what I write about, I don’t get many comments (I think people are hesitant to take part in some of these questions in case their wife/mom/whoever finds out… or maybe just nobody’s reading… but I’ll take the former option), so it’s always good to get feedback!

As to your questions:

1)      No, I don’t have a book out, but I am currently (and slowly) working on two! One will be fiction (probably a graphic novel) and the other will be more essay-based. I’m so glad to hear you’re interested, because I’ve been needing a kick in the pants to jump-start my work after the summer craziness subsides. This might be it!

2)      As for my orientation, that’s a great question. I’ve been pondering it lately. I’d like to consider myself queer, in that I don’t go for men and/or women but am turned on by certain people regardless of their gender. However, as I have yet to place myself squarely inside the queer community or indeed have any lovers who identify on the queer scale, I can’t say I’m certain of this. But I will say that I love women, and men, and androgyny turns me on like woah. I have quite a thing for 70’s era David Bowie, genderqueers, many types of bois, and femme men. So yes, bisexual is a start. J

Shameless Self-Endorsement (and India Summer, too!)

Well, hey, if I'm on a "not really thinking but posting anyway" kick... Let's do more self-promotion and links! Weehoo!

1) I did a really fun interview with the hyper-hot, super-spiritual, highly horny, and impressively articulate India Summer for WHACK! Magazine that published today. I think anyone who reads this blog will like it. A sampling:


WHACK! You’re big in feature films and are one of the industry’s most prized actresses. Did you ever act before you got into the biz?

INDIA SUMMER Can I tell a fart joke here?

WHACK! You mentioned once in an interview that you want to make your own sexual statement without boring, banal, thrown-together sets. If you wrote a sexual manifesto, what would you call it?

INDIA SUMMER In that interview question I was probably just shooting for having high production values and avoiding cookie cutter scenarios in anything I produced, (easier said than done) but if I wrote my sexual manifesto what would it be titled?
“Make Fuck Not Hate,” or
“I Fuck Therefore I Am,” or
”How to Have Mind Altering Sex,” or
“The Fucking Truth,” or
“How To Experience Guilt-Free Sex by Transcending Your Social Conditioning,” or
“I’d Rather Be Fucking,” or
“Who Said Love and Sex Have to go Together?”
But seriously maybe “Enlightened Sexuality.”

2) I absolutely hate sharing videos of myself, but I'm rather proud of this one, so without further ado, my reading at Bluestockings Books in NYC this weekend as part of LitCrawl NYC, on behalf of Sean Labrador Y Manzano's anthology, Conversations at the Wartime Cafe:

Conversations at the Wartime Cafe

I just returned from reading a short piece I wrote for inclusion in my fellow McSweeney's alum Sean Labrador Y Manzano's anthology, Conversations At the Wartime Cafe. A few of us east-coast scribblers included in the anthology got together and read at Bluestockings Books on the LES here in New York. Our pieces centered around our experiences as writers during the War on Terror. It's not the kind of thing I like to glamorize often by talking or writing about. My life as an adult has centered around New York City, and I have been against the wars raging in the Middle East since day one. I saw the towers fall here and it shaped my life, and it still does. But it seems almost disrespectful to talk about it that way sometimes. Commodifying the experience of terror. Sentimentalizing something that is real. Making ceramic plates and conservative mantras on the pain and confusion of that day. Building wars of aggression on the backs of the suffering.

But writing the pieces for Sean's anthology and tonight reading them in a room full of New Yorker's on the almost-ten-year anniversary... I came to realize just how much the twin towers falling and the aftermath that continues to drag itself along on blood-stained feet has shaped me. The images of bodies falling from a hundred stories up when I'd just learned to call New York City home ten years ago--I hadn't realized until now just how burned into my memory those silhouettes are. How much my reality as an adult has been the constant reference to that one moment.

I've felt for a long time that we were crybabies about the whole thing. Not that it wasn't horrible; it was. Not that I don't mourn those who died; I do. But the number of lives our country has taken away from the rest of the world in retribution, holding up that attack ten years ago as a shield against blame for the wrongs we have committed... it makes me sick to think of it. And so I often don't. I avoid thinking about the profound influence that these things have had on me and my life. But right now, sitting here alone and running a fever and somewhat confused, it's washing over me. This is my reality and has been since I was eighteen: that there is nothing just here. There is and never has been an easy black-and-white in war or in politics. There is always that grey cloud of asbestos and fear, even in the brilliant fall morning light, because simplicity was lost long ago, sometime before we knew how to write it down. I often feel that my generation is diffuse, dissolute, disillusioned. That we lost our sense of magic on that morning. But really, I don't think we ever had it to begin with. Really, I think every generation must find this truth in one way or another. We simply have a moment in our collective memory to point to as the root of our childhoods falling away into ideologies clashing, stock markets flopping like dead fish, religions exploding. But what's funny is that in the world we live in, where we are at once more connected than ever and yet further from one another, separated by each other by the screens of our gadgets while tethered to the realities of what our military is doing abroad displayed on those same screens... that we have chosen to largely avoid banding together under that moment. We are too cool, or something. We see the grey in it and we can't figure out how to stand side by side, hand in hand, to find a common emotion here. We clutch our smart phones and can't look each  other in the eye, having come of age in a time when there is no common ground that is sure footing. It's all slippery, it's all subjective, it's all relative, and there is no real comfort there. But is adulthood a place where there can be comfort?

I'll read again tomorrow afternoon, with Sean Labrador Y Manzano, Nick Johnson, Britt Melewski, Keely Hyslop, M.G. Martin, Annie Wilner, Molly Kat, Soumeya Bendimerad, and Tess Patalano. Unnameable Books, 600 Vanderbilt Avenue, Brooklyn. Would love to see some friendly faces.

You Know What I Love? Ladysex

A friend told me a few days ago that when she told her husband she was excited for my impending visit, during which we would spend some time with our lesbian friend together, he said, "So what, are they going to spend all their time talking about having sex with women?"

She was offended by this question, and I'm glad she was, because that's a willfully stupid thing to say. Obviously women who have sex with women, like our mutual friend and I, don't restrict our conversation to "ladysex," as my friends and I laughingly called it all weekend. We made a joke out of it and referred to "ladysex" at every possible opportunity to poke some fun at the sadly narrow-minded husband. Normally we wouldn't talk that much about it: those of us who enjoy the sexual company of women don't freak out and only talk about that subject when in the presence of others like ourselves, any more than people who have sex with any other type of person talk about the kind of sex they have. That's just small-minded and silly.

But then again, I've started thinking about it on my own, and you know what? While we might not restrict our conversation to ladysex normally, I think that when I'm with my lady-loving female friends, we actually do spend a fair proportion of our time talking about that topic. Here's why:

1) I'm a horny person and I write about sex and porn professionally for several publications. I'm particularly interested in the social, cultural, political, and personal impacts of non-normative sexual practices, gender roles, and queerness of all kinds. So when anything tangentially related to ladysex comes up, my mind veers in that direction.

2) My friends--particularly those with interests in ladysex or any of the things I write about--know that I'm knowledgeable and curious about these topics. They also know I love to talk. So they discuss their ideas, experiences, and frustrations with me, and sometimes ask questions.

3) It's not all that often that those of us women who like ladysex actually get together and have an opportunity to talk about it. So when we do, we really enjoy talking about it. Sharing experiences, ideas, techniques...  you know, war stories and the like. It's fun, and in a world where "ladysex" is referred to by numerous even sillier names ("girl-on-girl" when obviously everyone involved is at least 18 and therefore a woman, etc), represented so flat-out badly so much of the time (we've all watched "lesbian" porno scenes in which it could not possibly be more obvious that none of the women are at all interested in other women), and rarely discussed openly and honestly (safer sex practices between women, for example, are mysterious at best and completely unknown at worst), it's actually important to talk about it. To remember that even though our tendency toward "ladysex" might not be the defining trait of our characters, it is a part of what makes us who we are. To be happy that we've had the experiences we've been lucky enough to have and to feel validated amongst a group of people who understand those experiences--isn't that what people do with everything else? Isn't that what's so often missing in the discussion of sex? I say, talk about ALL the sex you have, whether it's with a man or a woman or a toy or a genderqueer or whatever! Talk about it, validate it, think about it, write about it. Do it and love it and be proud!

So, that being said... you know what I love? Ladysex! Loud and proud, baby!