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!

Monday Funday Links-o-tron!

Good afternoon, all you beautiful people. It is my birthday (yes, please, lavish me with gifts and compliments and cupcakes and happy vibes!) and so I am not going to spend too much time doing anything that requires effort, like blogging. Instead, I am going to redirect you to some awesomeness. Behold:

1) The Cinekink film festival wrapped up yesterday after five days of fabulous filminess, with some of my favorite filmmakers (Courtney Trouble and Erika Lust) winning for their smutty offerings (Live Sex Show and Cabaret Desire, respectively). More to come soon with a writeup and picture orgy over at WHACK! Magazine, and you'll be able to watch all my live interviews with filmmmakers on the Cinekink website at the end of this month!

2) The San Francisco Bay Guardian published a sweet-ass story on queer porn's showing in Vegas for the AVN awards this year, with a so-sexy-it-hurts-in-a-good-way photos of Courtney, Dylan Ryan, and Billy Castro hitchiking nekkid. Hell. Yes. There were some issues with the journalist's representations of Jincey Lumpkin throughout, as you can see in the comments, but all things told this is a BIG victory for queer porn visibility. And boobs. Of course.  HAWT.
3) In more-serious-but-still-happy news: MTF transsexual porn performers are getting together and demanding more visibility and better treatment from their indusstry peers. I'd heard some rumors here and there, and read some press releases about how trans women were making a stink about being treated like second class citizens at the AVN awards this year, and that AVN had promised to do better in the future. AWESOME. And now there's this article in Salon, a major news source! I am so excited  to think that trans performers might be getting to a point of more acceptance in their community--after all, as Tracy Clark-Flory points out, TS porn is MASSIVELY popular and brings in millions for the adult industry, yet gets little attention or recognition because it's "taboo." I've always thought it's odd how TS women in the industry get shunted to the side, after all the hard work they do and the difficulties they face--shouldn't all of us here in the sticky-floored, taboo underworld be able to stand together as a community? It looks like we're starting to see that happen, and to get some allies outside the industry, too. Happy, happy day! 

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!

Links-a-doodle Monday: Condom Laws, Bacon Lube, Anal Tails, and James Franco

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

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?

Links-a-matic Time: the Good, the Bad, and the Baffling

Darling readers, in the month I was gone, a whole lifetime of insanity seems to have gone by in the news. I thought of writing a few posts about some of the things that have happened in my absence, but the blogosphere, I'm sure, has already taken care of Gingrich and Bachmann and Perry, discussed Sandusky into oblivion, and kept right on rolling. So I'm going to keep up with the pace and direct you to a few fun, a couple outrageous, and some absolutely batshit links for your back-to-work pleasure this week! Enjoy! Or, you know, foam at the mouth with rage. Or whatever rocks your boat.

1) Some bad news first: this study from the Center for Disease Control was, in fact, released over the time I was gone. But it's so important I'm reiterating it. I'm going to just quote from GlobalPost because typing the words hurts my soul:

"The study found that almost 12 million men and women are affected by sexual assault in the United States each year; that means 24 Americans are raped or abused every minute."

A few months ago I got into a conversation with my boyfriend about whether the rape statistics from South Africa were worse or comparative to those in the US. While there are far fewer people in South Africa than the US, and therefore there over-3,000-rapes-a-daynumber is more dramatically awful from a percentage standpoint, I argued that I was certain at least taht many, if not more, people were raped every day here in the States. And lo and behold, I was right. Yayyyy.

This number is intolerable. My suggestion? Education, education, education. And not the "Girls, don't wear skirts when you go out" kind. The "People, don't rape other people, EVER, EVER, EVER" kind. This is something that needs more reporting, more media coverage, more talking, and more exposure. If America is the land of the free, then we need to be braver about discussing this issue. It starts everywhere, and it starts now.



2) David Bowie turned 65 yesterday, amidst much media fanfare. But the recently-elusive Father of All Things Cool and Androgynous was nowhere to be seen. Artist Ed Chapman created a beautiful stone mosaic portrait of the artist during his Ziggy Stardust era, fans and celebrities alike called for the Man Who Fell to Earth to return to the public spotlight with a comeback tour, and the internet celebrated his legend. I did a lot of dancing to Low in my apartment and reflected upon just how much of a massive impact this man has had on my life. David Bowie is my inspiration--the man has taught me how to be myself, no matter what self that happens to be at any given time, and to use discipline and hard work to back up my talents. And his willingness to experiment with blurring gender and sexuality lines way before it was even part of the world's public conversation taught millions to rethink the way they saw themselves and others. And, well, his music is amazing. I submit for your consideration the below panty-wetting lusciousness:

3) The baffling: Rick Santorum. I can't believe I'm actually mentioning him in a semi-serious context. This guy has been pissing me off for YEARS, but when he became an internet meme, courtesy of the legendary Dan Savage, and lost his Senate Seat a few years back, I thought the world had gotten its priorities straightened out enough to see him for the peurile infant he is. Apparently, says Iowa and the three-ring circus that is the GOP race, I was wrong. There are so many things I find abhorrent about his politics and so many links I could post to that it overwhelms my poor mind to even think of being thorough, but his latest gaffe was comparying gay marraige to polygamy in front of a college Republicans in New Hampshire. On the basis, you see, of the foregone conclusion that both gay marriage and polygamy are inherently wrong. And their evilness, it seems, connects them in his mind, which seems to be void of all logical reasoning skills. How two men getting married translates, in his mind, to the same thing as three men getting married... well, it's beyond me. But so is the idea that non-procreative sex, even within marriage, is bad. So I guess we're just not on the same level.
But anyway, the upshot of this is that, whether because young Republicans these days are more open-minded or have just more recently studied how logical fallacies work, the students he was speaking too openly booed him for making this comparison. The forces of reason: + 1. Santorum -587 (approximately--I've lost count).

4) The head-shake-inducingly gross: And this is a rather minor story, given that most of the civilized world already knows that New Jersey governor Chris Christie is something of a wallowing, porcine specimen of political weirdness, but yesterday at a Mitt Romney (whole other story) ralley, when he was heckled by some female participants about jobs going down, he responded, and I quote: "You know, something may be going down tonight, but it ain’t going to be jobs, sweetheart."
...
Apparently this man isn't aware that calling a woman you don't know "sweetheart," especially in public and as a politician, is frowned upon. Not just by feminist extremists, but by anyone who's ever gone through a workplace sexual harrassment training. Or, you know, anyone who respects women. And that's without even mentioning the actual gist of what he said. Was he implying that random hecklers in the audience should stop heckling and give him a blowjob? Or that he would give them oral sex if they shut up? Or...? I can't even wrap my brain around this one. What a pig.

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!

Links: Lust, Ladygasms, Leg-Ups, and Lunacy!

This pizza? For slightly effeminate bisexual men only, obviously, as denoted by the vegetables. More effeminate bisexual men only like olives..

To all of you out there who make a habit of reading my blog: thank you for bearing with me. The past few weeks have been non-stop and have involved a whole lot of me feeling hypersensitive and sad, and I just haven't had much of a will, or the time, to come up with original content. So thanks for sticking with me if you have; it means a lot!

Now moving on to more interesting things than my own navel-watching (which I think is a much more interesting hobby, personally, than bird-watching--after all, there's sometimes lint in there!)! Some brief thoughts and links and the like:

1) Lust: Erika Lust's newest feature film from Lust Cinema is officially OUT! Keep your eye on this blog and on WHACK! Magazine for a review from yours truly (I'm way more excited to watch this one than I've been about a sexy movie in quite some time), and in the meantime, wrap your brain around this little small-world weirdness: I review porn and other sexy fare for this blog and other websites, as you well know, and I also perform as Fanny Firewater with NYC's own Poetry Brothel--an intimate salon with dressed up poets parading around as whores and giving private, sensual readings for poetry nuts in speakeasies around New York. The Brothel has gotten a lot of attention here in New York and has spread to a few sister brothels here and abroad; one is in Barcelona. Erika Lust's new film, Cabaret Desire, is based on the idea of, and actually set in, Barcelona's Poeetry Brothel. Am I the nexus for the coolest things in the world, or what?

2) Ladygasms: In what may be the most flat-out cool and also exciting science I've heard about in months (yes, "science" is a broad term but I like keeping it all in its place, you know?) scientists at Rutgers (hell YEAH New Jersey, way to be cooler than I thought you were!) have made the first-ever brain scans of a woman before, during, and after orgasm... and put it all in a video so we can watch it! The results are absolutely incredible, with oxygen levels and activity in almost every part of the brain lighting up like fireworks at the moment of climax. Basically, or at least as some journalists have optimistically implied, the female brain is at its most functional during orgasm. That explains a lot, no? While Professor Barry Komisaruk, the lead researcher on the project, stresses how learning about the brain during orgasm can help in a wide range of other areas--as I'm sure he has to do in order to keep his funding--the implications seem clear to me: sex is good for your noggin, and so is masturbation! Rejoice!

3) Leg-Up: (I realize that the term "leg-up" might not be that familiar to everyone, though I use it a lot... I'm not sure if this is something I've taken as a known fact for a while or if other people actually sometimes use it, but just to cover all my bases: a "leg-up" is when someone cups their hands together so that a short person can put a foot or knee into the offered hands, then boosts that person up onto a horse's back... I use it to refer to generally giving someone a hand, but "leg-up" just sounds so much cooler.) Madison Young and her fierce cadre of queers in San Francisco are looking for support for their "Building Our Own White Picket Fences" project. Madison is using this project, which incorporates art, sex, love, and writing, as a platform for discussing the new models of the American family that the queer community is forging; it's not only super-hot and super-cool all at once, but it's mondo important for our society moving forward into a post-prejudiced society. Please go preorder some goodies to help fund those goodies being made, or support the project at its Kickstarter page. For progress! For love! For art!
(Also, I wonder if "leg-up" is pluralized as "legs-up" or "leg-ups." Hm.)

4) Lunacy: I have stayed pretty hands-off with the whole Penn State scandal for several reasons. I'm from Pennsylvania, from a staunchly pro-Joe-Pa family, and I've been very hesitant to make any bold statements until more of the facts about what actually happened came in. I absolutely can't condone the behavior of anyone involved in not reporting the incidents to the police (or maybe not, since the assistant coach who witnessed something [rape? "horsing around"?] now says he did talk to police), but it's been very difficult to watch an icon that made many of the hours of my youth gleam with moral rectitude be torn down, and I don't want to go pointing fingers until I know what really happened. But this morning I heard a short piece on NPR that made me crinkle up my face. I can't remember the correspondent's name, because I'm terrible at names, but on WNYC this morning right around 8:00 am, he read a piece about how he can't help wondering if the cult of hypermasculinity surrounding the sport of American football might have helped this horrible failing to stay quiet--if the fact that men who play football are perceived as SOO-OOO manly that it seems like twice the indignity, twice the shame, twice the wrongness, to imply that they might get involved in the least masculine of all activities: the rape and destruction of young boys' childhoods.
I see what he's saying. I can make the connection myself. Football in America is the ultimate (or at least close to the ultimate) expression of manly manness. There is no women's football league--except the lingerie one, which is pretty much a reinforcement of every male stereotype, just in reverse. Football is accompanied by beer and wings. Football is chest-pounding, Budweiser-swilling, we-are-so-tough-it-hurts fodder for the male masses. And to think that something so absolutely not traditionally American-man-and-flannel-and-workboots as pedophilia could be mixed in with it in any way--it's almost sacrilege. The fact that this piece came on the radio right after a piece about how there have been more people coming forth to talk about their experiences of childhood sexual abuse after the Penn State scandal than after the Catholic Church scandal really drives home the sacrosanctity of the pigskin.
But... Really? Are we really so concerned with masculine stereotyping, so absolutely shit-the-pants terrified of anything breaking the hetero man facade, that we might be able to overlook one of the most abominable crimes known to our species to protect it? That's overstating it--I doubt anyone involved saw or heard something and thought, "I better not say anything because it'll make football seem less manly." But... I just don't know. It's sure food for thought.
And then this afternoon I raed this article in Salon about how Herman Cain doesn't eat "sissy pizza" with "vegetables." Seriously, Herman Cain really said this in an interview with GQ: he associates pepperoni and sausage with men "because the more manly man is not afraid of abundance. A manly man don’t want it piled high with vegetables!" And he meant it.
And I thought... "Oh my god. How did we get here? How the hell did our society reach a point at which we are so completely wrapped up in make-believe ideas about what makes a person with a penis 'normal' that we are now calling vegetables 'sissy' food? How did this happen? Where did we take a turn down Lunatic Alley?" This is utter craziness. Seriously, people: your food preferences, sporting interests, clothing color choices, sexual orientation... they're just parts of YOU. They're not the things that define who you are, and if they are... they're still your choice. What you like on a your burger and fries does not give you a free pass into some secret society of the manly or womanly or sissy or whatever. How did we get to a point where we think it could?
Uck. I'm going to go home now, and sigh a lot, and then eat some tofu and vegetables in broth. I guess we know what my genitals look like!

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.

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!

This is Fabulous!

I haven't been writing reviews of porn for a while. Sometimes, in this line of work, you just get maxed out and have to give it a rest for a while, to get your breath back. And I'm happy to report that today I got a shipment that I am really excited to watch. It's been a long since I've felt excited about watching DVDs that I've been sent; hopefully this means I'm ready to dive back into watching way more porn than is strictly necessary or advisable. In fact, I might just dive in right now...

See you on the flip-side! I've got a loooong night ahead of me!

Links-a-Million: Hell is a Drag, Performers are Coming Together, K-Y is Cool, A Cop is Horny, and Porn is the New Punk

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

The HIV Scare is Over, But Probably Not the Hysteria

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

Big-Time Announcement About My Big-Time Art Show!

Big  news, my dearies! Remember that post I wrote a while back about porn is and is not art at the same time? Well I wasn’t just examining the nature of art for fun… although really it is a fascinating subject. No, I was brainstorming. For what? Well, folks,yours truly has been asked to curate an art exhibit in TriBeCa, NYC, next March-May… on the subject of “video sex”! Am I the bomb or what, folks? I won’t give away too many deets just yet, as I’ve still to sign the contract and settle on a specific set of ideas, but check out apexart.com for more information on the space, and check out… well the rest of my writing on the internet… for info on me!

Right now my major thoughts are focusing on the difference between how we all perceive our own personal experiences with pornography and how we exhibit our ideas and feelings about those experiences to the rest of the world. To my way of thinking, for many of us on both the consumer side and the production side of video sex, there is a gulf between what we show to the world as our “public face” about porn—we laugh it off, make fun of it, denigrate it, overthink it, pretend we don’t use it, get all vehemently against it, love it too much, modify our bodies or behaviors to fit into what we see in porn, hate porn stars for their bodies… The list of ways in which we behave toward porn in public conversation is almost neverending. But it is not nearly as nuanced or interesting, I think, as the real, unfiltered, unchecked response that we have privately to this material. The interaction that goes on between us and our TVs or computer screens or romance novels or what have you, the stuff we don’t talk about that happens in our hearts and minds when we encounter porn… That’s the good stuff. Not the masturbation—that’s boring. The thoughts and feelings and ways in which we reconcile the ones we don’t like with the ideals we hold. The ways we ignore or fixate on those things we hate and let ourselves be bared completely, physically and emotionally, to what we DO like. And even more interesting than these private thoughts and experiences or the outward displays we show each other is the space between. If we can assume that people’s public faces with regard to filmed sex, whether we take a positive or negative or somewhere-between stance, are held an arm’s length away from the real experiences we have with pornography when we’re alone in our intimate spaces…. Then what happens between point A and point B? How do we get to point B at all?

I want to examine this idea. I want this to become art. I’ll keep you all updated!

Logical Fallacy #2 (Ok Maybe Not a Fallacy, but Still Bad Writing)

More on Naomi Wolf's ridiculous "Is pornography driving men crazy?" article, which has now been reposted on HuffPo. Thank goodness, the commenters there are taking her to the cleaners for her myopic writing. I'd like to keep taking her there.

Ahem:

"Given the desensitisation effect on most male subjects, researchers found that they quickly required higher levels of stimulation to achieve the same level of arousal. The experts I interviewed at the time were speculating that porn use was desensitising healthy young men to the erotic appeal of their own partners."

Well, again, I'm not a brain scientist. I don't know much about how this all works. But it seems a safe bet (that I've read about, too, but hey look at me I'm not trying to deploy factoids I don't fully understand! Wheee!) that the dopamine hit that men get from jerking off to porn is similar to the one they get from having sex. Orgasm itself releases a flood of chemicals that provide a variety of pleasant effects--dopamine is just one. All of these chemicals are powerful and they work to make us feel happy, slightly sleepy, and emotionally close to the thing or person we've just shared our intimate act with. It applies particularly well if that partner is a human being, and facilitates bonding (evolutionarily, of course, this was meant to help pairs bond in case a child had been produced, so they could both stick around to take care of it).

Many theorists have concluded that perhaps this bond gets shared with porn and develops an even stronger emotional attachment--I'd argue it might make someone bond more with his or her hand. But, hey, what about sex partners? Does this mean that people who have sex with their partners will eventually need more extreme sex to get off?

Well, yeah. I mean that's kind of the whole thing about even the healthiest of sex lives, isn't it? When they start out, most male-sexed people are so excited they have an orgasm in seconds. But after they've done it a bit more often they can go a bit longer, and sometimes after a while they take for-friggin-ever. Right? So does this mean that men who have sexual relationships with other people are going to go around needing to be choked, slapped, and submerged in wax or something every time they get it on, because they've been overexposed to sex?

Well, for some men, yes. But so what? The assumption Ms. Wolf is making is that "extreme" sex acts are always bad. But that's another blog post.

The point HERE is that masturbation and porn are blamed for all sorts of social and sexual evils when both masturbation and porn are simply pieces of the larger sexual puzzle. Yet, when it comes to the things that make these two habits "bad" to commentators and the larger culture, these same things, as applied to other sexual behaviors (like sex with a partner), cease to be as bad. If you need more and more stimulation to get off with your partner, there seems to be little in the way of a stigma attached to it. When things do get out of control, people often divorce or go into counseling for sex addiction, which, incidentally, is just expression the same issues inherent in pornography addiction. It just tends to involve more people in the "addict's" life. I'm not sure where I stand on the idea of sexual addiction in general, and again, I'm not a scientist.

But I'd venture to say that it's not the sex or the porn itself that causes compulsive behavior and addiction that we can write condescending articles about; it's the need for the dopamine. It's the chasing after the rush. It's the inability to put the rush together with a healthy feeling of self-worth, intimacy, or attachment that makes it dangerous, or the ability to find only the rush worth pursuing at the sake of real, meaningful human interaction.

Logical Fallacy #1

Ok, Naomi Wolf. Let's discuss some of this theory you're working with over on Al Jazeera.

One thing at a time. There are so many issues I see in what you wrote about how porn may be "driving men crazy" that I'll take it nice and slow. Ease into it, like a man eases into a hardcore porn habit.

I'm going to just talk about one issue for the moment, and it's succinctly stated in this little paragraph, that's basically restating... ummmm.... your argument:

"As with any addiction, it is very difficult, for neurochemical reasons, for an addict to stop doing things - even very self-destructive things - that enable him to get that next hit of dopamine. Could this be why men who in the past could take time-delayed steps to conduct affairs behind closed doors now can't resist the impulse to send a self-incriminating text message? If so, such men might not be demons or moral ciphers, but rather addicts who are no longer entirely in control of themselves."

Ok, so, you've just spent a few paragraphs building up the idea that porn addiction is the result of a chemical addiction to dopamine that's released when men watch porn, and that technology is making it easier than ever for them to access the porn that they're addicted to. I'm not enough of a scientist (and I'd dare say you probably aren't either) to really extrapolate on whether you're right or wrong about the addiction of pornography (though I'd venture to say that your argument falls short of convincing me because it ONLY talks about porn and not about other modes of sexual release, but we'll save that for another time). But I am definitely enough of a thinking human being to see that what you've built up as the basis for your argument (the effects of jerking off while watching porn) is not the same thing you're trying to make a point about (sending dirty pictures of yourself via text). Not the same thing, like, at ALL.


Again, I'm no neuroscientist. There may, for many people with exhibitionist leanings, be a similar release of dopamine in the brain when revealing pictures are taken and sent to other people, but you haven't really bothered to find out, have you? You've basically set up an argument based on one sexual behavior you consider deviant and then tried to use that argument, with no brandishing of studies or science or even logical extension, to condemn another. But, Ms. Wolf, jerking off to a porno video is not the same thing as pulling down one's pants, snapping a photo, and sending it to someone. They are just not at all the same thing. One is voyeuristic, one is exhibitionist. One is an act of consumption, the other is an act of production. One comes into one's technological device to be used, the other is recorded upon it and then sent out. The first is made, most often, by professionals in a well-lit environment with lots of paperwork having been signed about age and consent--the other is a spur-of-the-moment cock picture. They're just... They're not the same.

I can understand using current news items (or in your case, slightly over-with-already news items) to back up a point you want to make. As a fellow writer, I understand that pitching articles can be a circus trick of delicate timing and balance, and when something really mainstream pops up that even marginally goes along with what you have to say, you have to pounce on it. There's not always time for thorough research or interviews. But, Ms. Wolf, you should try to make sure the point you want to make at least matches the evidence you're amassing. Just because someone really likes drinking wine, that does not make him a vintner. Nor does sending naughty texts of oneself make one a porn addict. This isn't quite apples to oranges, it's more... oranges to, like, planting an orchard or something. Vaguely related in that both tend to involve penis pictures (or oranges). But if you want to blame "extreme porn" for the behavior of certain male politicians, try at least equating them using some data or at the very least a logical argument. Otherwise... well... You get blog posts like this happening.

The Miami Report: A Recap

Well, I'm back from the madness of the Exxxotica Miami Beach convention with the WHACK! Magazine crew! I won't go into exhaustive detail here about the goings-on, since WHACK! is scheduled to have a full week of coverage, from editorial writeups to picture galleries to video interviews (some done by yours truly and some by the beautiful Lexi Love) with many of the performers in attendance!

Suffice it to say, I had a LOT of fun. For some reason, I had it in my head that I wouldn't like Miami. My only experience with it came from TV, movies, and one really lame layover in the tiny international terminal at the airport, where I wasn't allowed to by duty-free since I was returning to the US, and the only food options were Starbucks and bad hot dogs. I had an image in my head of a New York, just plopped on the beach and coated in sleaze, and for some reason, this didn't appeal to me. Until I got to said beach. I had a blast! Beautiful people walking around in skimpy clothing night and day, on the beach and at the convention center, a whole lot of fun porn people to hang out with, and a booth of our own for the WHACK! crew to call home made the weekend fun, and if there's one person in this world who can deal with heat and humidity, it's me. I can honestly say I wasn't cold once all weekend, which is a rarity for me.

Unfortunately, I had a little too much fun, it seems; after three nights of 3-4 hours sleep and much substance abuse (hey man, cigarettes are only $4 down there! what was I SUPPOSED to do?), I woke up on Sunday with a throat so terribly sore I couldn't go back to sleep after 7:00 am and absolutely NADA going on in the voicebox. This was majorly problematic. I felt a little sick overall, probably as a result of dehydration and exhaustion, but aside from my inability to speak, there was nothing really WRONG with me, so I couldn't get out of going to the convention center for the day. However, all the interviews I'd been scheduled to do (Teagan Presley, Keni Styles, Inari Vachs, Adrennalyn, Kirsten Price...) were null. (As was my hawking of the WHACK! booth's hilariously irreverent game, "Toss Your Load." The deal was this: for $1, you got three sperm-shaped beanbags, which you attempted to toss through a hole cut out of Lexi Love's mouth in a large photo. Lexi sat next to it at her signing table and signed a free photo for anyone who got a beanbag in, thank goodness. If she hadn't been there I'd have been too afraid of being labeled a horrible misogynist for yelling things like, "Toss your load all over Lexi Love's face!" "Cram your sack into Lexi Love's mouth!" and so on, but everyone, including Lexi, found this hilarious.) Hey, I may be all about equal rights and representation, feminism, and turning tired stereotypes on their heads, but there are some things that are just endlessly hilarious, and sex jokes are pretty much the top of the bunch. Sadly, without a voice, I couldn't keep up my startlingly long list of ways to make the game sound funny to passers-by, much less my string of interviews.

Thankfully, Lexi came to my rescue and did a lot of interviews for me, which was great since she knew most of the people there far better than I do, and I got to sit at her signing table sipping tea and pretending I was her, very unconvincingly.

It's now Tuesday, I'm back in NYC catching up on mucho work, and my voice is ALMOST back. I CAN talk now, but have decided to write and e-mail all day and not leave the house to avoid over-stressing the old pipes and going back to square one. This is working out beautifully, actually. I think more frequent days of no-talking could be a beautiful, very productive thing.

I'll be blogging some ponderings and musings that have been going on in my head in response to the Miami convention over the next few days, but in the meantime, I'll just tell you the most major development from the weekend, aside from my laryngitis: I have officially gotten my first huge male pornstar crush! It's not much of a secret that I have a gigantic girl-boner for April Flores, Jiz Lee, and several other female-bodied performers. And while I like a whole lot of male-bodied performers a whole lot and have almost given in to some of their wheedling and hopped into bed with a select few, I never went home sighing about how dreamy any of them were... before now! I feel like a total geek admitting my susceptibility to masculine beauty and a British accent, but Keni Styles got me going first in his films, then in charming person, then at LIV at Fontainbleu during Jenna Haze's big party Friday night... And I haven't stopped yet. He's sweet, charming, laid-back, and seems very smart, to boot. Interview coming up? Definitely. One for WHACK! and the mainstream crowd? For sure. One for the blog here, where we can talk more intimately? I'm thinking yes. I'll keep y'all posted!