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!
Jan 16, 2012
Jan 13, 2012
Consent in Porn: Sobriety on Set
Let's talk about something really important, everybody. Let's talk about performer consent in porn. This is a topic that I've brought up here and there, but that I've largely avoided a frank blog post or column about because, to be honest, it scares me. The lines around what works as consent in my mind (the word "yes" explicitly said and restated as often as possible, eager participation by both parties, continual confirmation of eagerness to participate, and so on, not to mention all the correct forms signed by all parties of legal age and of sound mind and body) are not exactly the same as the lines around what constitutes consent on the set of every porno ever filmed. I know this. And it makes me uncomfortable.
I'm lucky to have a status in the world of professional pornography that brings me a lot of porn DVDs for review material. Which is to say that the majority of what I watch for review is made by large-ish companies that have a big enough budget to: A) make DVDs of their content, B) ship those DVDs to me for free, and most importantly C) employ professionals working in the adult industry, pay them on time and well (though that's open to much discussion, of course), run all their paperwork, etc. One of the best things about content from these companies is that, because most of their content is protected enough to require people to buy it a lot of the time, they tend to film people who are, if not at the very top of their game, at least know what's going on. They are professionals, who come to the set with a full understanding of what is expected of them and what they're getting into. There are no "Surprise, buttsex!" moments, or forced situations--or at least very few of them and very unsurprising ones when they do happen--that would blur the lines of consent for me, the viewer. And just as important, there are few instances in which a performer appears to be less than sober in these movies, thus making consent a very sticky topic indeed.
This might be one of the main reasons I've avoided this topic. I do believe that there are certain jobs that can be performed absolutely brilliantly when certain substances are in use. I am not a hard-liner about intoxicants--I feel like, if I were cornered on the subject, I might argue that coming to work with a head full of cold medicine could affect my work performance just as much as smoking a joint beforehand, or somesuch nonsense argument. But the point is that while I absolutely see the need for total sobriety on set for legal reasons, I have never been one to think that if someone were to show up to a porn set with a little THC in their system, or a glass of wine with lunch beforehand, that should negate the scene. But there are limits. One reason I tend to steer clear of online pornography is that one is apt to see people who are not in control of their faculties--"party girl" scenes shot in clubs (whether these are really amateurs or not is open to debate, of course) where alcohol has obviously been consumed make me feel nervous. Girls Gone Wild makes me uncomfortable. Scenes in which any of the performers look "out of it" or "wired" or generally not in a sound enough frame of mind to decide whether they really want to be filmed doing what they're doing... these all make me blatanly unhappy because I believe that pornography is a generally good thing that, although it's often done wrong, deserves our money and a bit of respect. I want very much to believe that the porn industry can thrive on informed consent, depictions of real pleasure, and professionalism. I want very much to spread that message.
But it's to my detriment if I pretend that a large part of the industry, the part that I rarely see, thrives on exploitation and loopholes in the law. I someone is sober enough to scripple a signature on a piece of paper and show an ID, that does not mean that the same person is sober enough to make the decision to be blowbanged on camera for all the world to see. But it happens to people who are not sober. And I wish it didn't. My usual answer to this is to encourage people to pay for their porn--to spend some dollars on the offerings of companies who operate above the board and who would never film, much less release, footage of someone who was obviously intoxicated. Reward those who do good with your consumer dollars and more of the products they make--legally, consensually, and pleasurably--will be filmed. Avoid contributing in any way to the very real exploitation that some other companies participate in. The laws of economics will, if everyone follows my advice (hah!), tip in the favor of the Good Guys.
All of this is the elaborate build-up to me telling you that a few days ago I popped in a DVD from a VERY large and VERY well-known company with the intention of reviewing it. I decided to watch that one because I've gotten into a habit of reviewing only feature films with plots and scripts lately, and wanted to get back in touch with what was going on with gonzo porn. This one was a few months old, but it looked fun, and I was familiar with a few of the performers in it, so it would make a good study. I got most of the way through the film and had some really interesting notes, including some on one scene that was so intensely hot and so screamingly consensual that I couldn't wait to tell the world how fabulous it was... when a performer I haven't seen much of lately, but who I met a few years ago, showed up on the screen. Though the rest of the scenes thus far had followed a "tease" dance followed by sex, this went directly into the sex without any dancing or teasing from the actress. "Well, ok," I thought. Gonzo movies often are just compilations of similar scenes and you can't always get what you want.
But as the scene progressed I realized something was really wrong. The actress was visibly drunk. She seemed to be having a good enough time, but the vacant look in her eyes and the fumbling way she went about what she was doing made me realize that, if I were a director and this woman stumbled into my scene, I would get someone to drive her home because she was too far gone to get herself there. And in my book, if a person is too drunk to operate a motor vehicle, that person is certainly too drunk to be filmed having sex.
But then, of course, it's not that simple, is it? This being a big company with "contract girls" who are actually employed and paid to make a certain number of movies or scenes, this actress may have already had all her paperwork squared away. She may have shown up to other sets drunk and was perhaps in danger of not fulfilling her contract; the director may have been trying to help by letting her shoot. There are all sorts of reasons that her inability to soberly consent may have been only one of many considerations going into this scene. But the fact remains: she was too intoxicated to be legally filmed. And if she was filmed, the footage should never have been released.
I tried to deny it to myself; this was a very above-the-board company. The director is well known. The performers were both professionals. But that look on her face told me another story. And was it just me, or were her nostrils a bit pinker than they needed to be?
I don't like to stir up controversy, and I really don't want anyone to ever see that scene, so I won't use any names. But I remembered the first time I'd met this woman a few years before. She had been at a party after a convention and making an absolute spectacle of herself at the hotel bar. There's social-drunk, which I absolutely was at that point, and then there's self-destructive blackout drunk. She was the latter. It was uncomfortable to be around her in that state. Not that what I saw at a party years ago has much bearing on someone's current state, but it did at least give me a clear memory of what this particular looks like when she's far-too-many-sheets to the wind, and I was seeing it on my TV. I had turn off the movie and nix the review. I hope to my very bones that she is ok and that the scene I saw was just a one-off affair. I hope that things like that never happen to her again, or to anyone else. And I really hope that companies with reputations to uphold, who could act as good examples for the rest of the industry along with anyone who wants to cast aspersions upon it, don't let things like this happen on their sets. Ever. Because I want so much for porn to be ok, and for people to be able to make movies and have fun and make money. But sometimes... it gets hard to keep up my hopes.
I'm lucky to have a status in the world of professional pornography that brings me a lot of porn DVDs for review material. Which is to say that the majority of what I watch for review is made by large-ish companies that have a big enough budget to: A) make DVDs of their content, B) ship those DVDs to me for free, and most importantly C) employ professionals working in the adult industry, pay them on time and well (though that's open to much discussion, of course), run all their paperwork, etc. One of the best things about content from these companies is that, because most of their content is protected enough to require people to buy it a lot of the time, they tend to film people who are, if not at the very top of their game, at least know what's going on. They are professionals, who come to the set with a full understanding of what is expected of them and what they're getting into. There are no "Surprise, buttsex!" moments, or forced situations--or at least very few of them and very unsurprising ones when they do happen--that would blur the lines of consent for me, the viewer. And just as important, there are few instances in which a performer appears to be less than sober in these movies, thus making consent a very sticky topic indeed.
This might be one of the main reasons I've avoided this topic. I do believe that there are certain jobs that can be performed absolutely brilliantly when certain substances are in use. I am not a hard-liner about intoxicants--I feel like, if I were cornered on the subject, I might argue that coming to work with a head full of cold medicine could affect my work performance just as much as smoking a joint beforehand, or somesuch nonsense argument. But the point is that while I absolutely see the need for total sobriety on set for legal reasons, I have never been one to think that if someone were to show up to a porn set with a little THC in their system, or a glass of wine with lunch beforehand, that should negate the scene. But there are limits. One reason I tend to steer clear of online pornography is that one is apt to see people who are not in control of their faculties--"party girl" scenes shot in clubs (whether these are really amateurs or not is open to debate, of course) where alcohol has obviously been consumed make me feel nervous. Girls Gone Wild makes me uncomfortable. Scenes in which any of the performers look "out of it" or "wired" or generally not in a sound enough frame of mind to decide whether they really want to be filmed doing what they're doing... these all make me blatanly unhappy because I believe that pornography is a generally good thing that, although it's often done wrong, deserves our money and a bit of respect. I want very much to believe that the porn industry can thrive on informed consent, depictions of real pleasure, and professionalism. I want very much to spread that message.
But it's to my detriment if I pretend that a large part of the industry, the part that I rarely see, thrives on exploitation and loopholes in the law. I someone is sober enough to scripple a signature on a piece of paper and show an ID, that does not mean that the same person is sober enough to make the decision to be blowbanged on camera for all the world to see. But it happens to people who are not sober. And I wish it didn't. My usual answer to this is to encourage people to pay for their porn--to spend some dollars on the offerings of companies who operate above the board and who would never film, much less release, footage of someone who was obviously intoxicated. Reward those who do good with your consumer dollars and more of the products they make--legally, consensually, and pleasurably--will be filmed. Avoid contributing in any way to the very real exploitation that some other companies participate in. The laws of economics will, if everyone follows my advice (hah!), tip in the favor of the Good Guys.
All of this is the elaborate build-up to me telling you that a few days ago I popped in a DVD from a VERY large and VERY well-known company with the intention of reviewing it. I decided to watch that one because I've gotten into a habit of reviewing only feature films with plots and scripts lately, and wanted to get back in touch with what was going on with gonzo porn. This one was a few months old, but it looked fun, and I was familiar with a few of the performers in it, so it would make a good study. I got most of the way through the film and had some really interesting notes, including some on one scene that was so intensely hot and so screamingly consensual that I couldn't wait to tell the world how fabulous it was... when a performer I haven't seen much of lately, but who I met a few years ago, showed up on the screen. Though the rest of the scenes thus far had followed a "tease" dance followed by sex, this went directly into the sex without any dancing or teasing from the actress. "Well, ok," I thought. Gonzo movies often are just compilations of similar scenes and you can't always get what you want.
But as the scene progressed I realized something was really wrong. The actress was visibly drunk. She seemed to be having a good enough time, but the vacant look in her eyes and the fumbling way she went about what she was doing made me realize that, if I were a director and this woman stumbled into my scene, I would get someone to drive her home because she was too far gone to get herself there. And in my book, if a person is too drunk to operate a motor vehicle, that person is certainly too drunk to be filmed having sex.
But then, of course, it's not that simple, is it? This being a big company with "contract girls" who are actually employed and paid to make a certain number of movies or scenes, this actress may have already had all her paperwork squared away. She may have shown up to other sets drunk and was perhaps in danger of not fulfilling her contract; the director may have been trying to help by letting her shoot. There are all sorts of reasons that her inability to soberly consent may have been only one of many considerations going into this scene. But the fact remains: she was too intoxicated to be legally filmed. And if she was filmed, the footage should never have been released.
I tried to deny it to myself; this was a very above-the-board company. The director is well known. The performers were both professionals. But that look on her face told me another story. And was it just me, or were her nostrils a bit pinker than they needed to be?
I don't like to stir up controversy, and I really don't want anyone to ever see that scene, so I won't use any names. But I remembered the first time I'd met this woman a few years before. She had been at a party after a convention and making an absolute spectacle of herself at the hotel bar. There's social-drunk, which I absolutely was at that point, and then there's self-destructive blackout drunk. She was the latter. It was uncomfortable to be around her in that state. Not that what I saw at a party years ago has much bearing on someone's current state, but it did at least give me a clear memory of what this particular looks like when she's far-too-many-sheets to the wind, and I was seeing it on my TV. I had turn off the movie and nix the review. I hope to my very bones that she is ok and that the scene I saw was just a one-off affair. I hope that things like that never happen to her again, or to anyone else. And I really hope that companies with reputations to uphold, who could act as good examples for the rest of the industry along with anyone who wants to cast aspersions upon it, don't let things like this happen on their sets. Ever. Because I want so much for porn to be ok, and for people to be able to make movies and have fun and make money. But sometimes... it gets hard to keep up my hopes.
Jan 11, 2012
Porno Product Placement: WTF?!
So I was watching a porno from a majorly huge company for review the other day when I saw, for the first time in my sexy movie experience, flagrant product placement. For another movie by the same company. I was stunned. And I'm not sure why. It's not as if I expect porn to live up to some kind of moral code that precludes advertisements or something; product placement is a good way to sell products. I get that, and it's cool. Especially in porn, which is one of the least apologetically money-grubbing of the industries, and one which has been steadily losing revenue for years. And it's not as if there isn't room in porn for product placement--really, every time you see a toy in use, it's an advertisement for the company that made that toy. But then again, you don't usually hear the performers discussing the merits of this toy made by this company, which can be purchased at this website or anything nearly so explicit. You just see people using these toys and enjoying them, and then if you really want to try that toy you can go find it on your own. It's not usually product placement so much as product use.
But in this movie, one of the characters was interested in trying anal sex, and her friend told her very specifically to get the DVD of jessica drake's Wicked Guide to Anal to learn how to do it. Which is absolutely acceptable, really. It's a good idea to get some advice on the subject of buttsex before trying it, because anal brings with it FAR more opportunities for disaster than most other sex acts. Learning about it first is excellent advice. And since Wicked made this movie, and also a movie about how to do anal, there's absolutely no good reason not mention it. I have a personal contempt for product placement in "art," but this movie isn't exactly art for art's sake, or any kind of sacrosanct advertising-free zone.
But still, it jarred me. Like, what was this, a Britney Spears video? (If her recent videos [check out the 0:40 mark] are any indication, that woman wears SO MUCH [0:40 again] of her own perfume I think I could smell her coming from miles away.) And I think that's the thing that made me do a double-take: porn is one of the biggest industries on the planet, so why not advertise more blatantly? The thing is that, because of its sexual nature, porn gets virtually nothing done in the way of advertising. Sure there are ads for porn and sex products on porn sites, and at the beginning DVDs, and in the pages of skin magazines, but the jizz biz doesn't really need to advertise for people to seek it out. It's a self-contained industry in terms of its own promotion. And within actual porno movies, there's no room for advertisements. It's not as if your average porn viewer is going to stand for 30 second ads in between sex scenes--that's when we'd turn to the fast-forward button or ad-free content online. Nobody wants to be bothered by encouragement to buy more porn when they're already watching porn.
So when this "casual" mention of another movie by the same company happened, I sat in stunned silence. I think even rewound it to play it again. Did that just happen? It all seemed so commercially meta, I couldn't figure out if it was smarter than I expected porn to be, or more self-referential, or just more boldly greedy. But the fact remained that it happened, and it worked pretty well, actually. Porn, at least from the big companies out in the Valley, is so hugely commercial now that it can do product placement. It's so much like mainstream media that advertisements seem like the next logical step. Or so seems to go the logic of Wicked.
And after all, why not? I think this is one of those instances in which I give in to my knee-jerk reaction about something in porn, but when I reflect upon it I find that whatever my knee jerked against was something I absolutely can't argue with. I've been writing for years, literally, about how porn should be treated more like other forms of entertainment: how we should talk about it more, think about it more, write about it more, and give it more respect. How porn should treat itself with a little more dignity so we can start to view it that way. And while I wouldn't necessarily call product placement a dignified thing to do, by definition it does make whatever product is being placed and the medium on which it's placed more of a serious deal. Product placement in porn is like that medium's way of saying, "We have something really good going here, and in fact it's so good that we're going to take this opportunity to shed light on something else good that we do." It's placing a porno squarely in the same kind of league as any other form of entertainment that assumes its audience is large enough to be advertised to, and that they respect its message enough to be open to suggestion while watching it. So really, this is a great sign.
Right?
But in this movie, one of the characters was interested in trying anal sex, and her friend told her very specifically to get the DVD of jessica drake's Wicked Guide to Anal to learn how to do it. Which is absolutely acceptable, really. It's a good idea to get some advice on the subject of buttsex before trying it, because anal brings with it FAR more opportunities for disaster than most other sex acts. Learning about it first is excellent advice. And since Wicked made this movie, and also a movie about how to do anal, there's absolutely no good reason not mention it. I have a personal contempt for product placement in "art," but this movie isn't exactly art for art's sake, or any kind of sacrosanct advertising-free zone.
But still, it jarred me. Like, what was this, a Britney Spears video? (If her recent videos [check out the 0:40 mark] are any indication, that woman wears SO MUCH [0:40 again] of her own perfume I think I could smell her coming from miles away.) And I think that's the thing that made me do a double-take: porn is one of the biggest industries on the planet, so why not advertise more blatantly? The thing is that, because of its sexual nature, porn gets virtually nothing done in the way of advertising. Sure there are ads for porn and sex products on porn sites, and at the beginning DVDs, and in the pages of skin magazines, but the jizz biz doesn't really need to advertise for people to seek it out. It's a self-contained industry in terms of its own promotion. And within actual porno movies, there's no room for advertisements. It's not as if your average porn viewer is going to stand for 30 second ads in between sex scenes--that's when we'd turn to the fast-forward button or ad-free content online. Nobody wants to be bothered by encouragement to buy more porn when they're already watching porn.
So when this "casual" mention of another movie by the same company happened, I sat in stunned silence. I think even rewound it to play it again. Did that just happen? It all seemed so commercially meta, I couldn't figure out if it was smarter than I expected porn to be, or more self-referential, or just more boldly greedy. But the fact remained that it happened, and it worked pretty well, actually. Porn, at least from the big companies out in the Valley, is so hugely commercial now that it can do product placement. It's so much like mainstream media that advertisements seem like the next logical step. Or so seems to go the logic of Wicked.
And after all, why not? I think this is one of those instances in which I give in to my knee-jerk reaction about something in porn, but when I reflect upon it I find that whatever my knee jerked against was something I absolutely can't argue with. I've been writing for years, literally, about how porn should be treated more like other forms of entertainment: how we should talk about it more, think about it more, write about it more, and give it more respect. How porn should treat itself with a little more dignity so we can start to view it that way. And while I wouldn't necessarily call product placement a dignified thing to do, by definition it does make whatever product is being placed and the medium on which it's placed more of a serious deal. Product placement in porn is like that medium's way of saying, "We have something really good going here, and in fact it's so good that we're going to take this opportunity to shed light on something else good that we do." It's placing a porno squarely in the same kind of league as any other form of entertainment that assumes its audience is large enough to be advertised to, and that they respect its message enough to be open to suggestion while watching it. So really, this is a great sign.
Right?
Jan 9, 2012
Links-a-matic Time: the Good, the Bad, and the Baffling
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.
Jan 7, 2012
New Years Resolution: be my own megaphone
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.
Jan 4, 2012
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!
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!
Jan 2, 2012
First Revelation of the New Year: I'm a Pervert
My beautiful friends, it is the 2nd of January, and I have returned to the interwebz refreshed, healthy, and several pounds heavier after the excesses of the holiday season. With a half dozen bottles of booze, some sundry beers, leftover cookies and truffles, and assorted other calorie-laden gifts still cluttering apartment, my waist expansion sees no clear end, and that makes me very happy.
But you know what else does? I took a month off from this blog, writing for WHACK! Magazine, and even... yes... even watching porn. I was doing interviews for my art show the whole while, and thus doing a lot of thinking and talking on the subject, but my actual exposure to naughty films was severely curtailed. I thought this would make for a nice thought experiment, to whit: what happens to a girl's brain when her nearly constant exposure to x-rated material is cut off? It's been so long since I've gone more than a week without interviewing a porn star for promotional purposes, watching at least one full-length blue film, writing a blog post about the adult industry, etc, that I had begun to wonder how much of what goes on in my filthy little cranium was actually a result of my own impulses and ponderings, and how much was the result of an unending intake of sexual imagery. I thought that this month off, taken for health and sanity reasons mostly, would serve as a way to see backward in time--a short journey back up the rabbit hole. Certainly not enough time to reach the surface of "not being in the porn industry," but a peek back into the pre-porn times of my youth.
Well ladies and gents and gender-benders, I have news for you all. As I write this, I am settling down to review Courtney Trouble's newest flick, Live Sex Show, starring some of my all-time adult favorites (Courtney herself, Nina Hartley, Jiz Lee, April Flores, Tina Horn...), and I cannot tell you how fucking excited I am! I've been wanting to pop this puppy into the DVD player ever since it arrived weeks ago, but I was trying to maintain my porn fast to preserve whatever effects the absence of smut might have on my psyche, so I persevered and didn't even open the package until today. And seeing that manila envelope sitting there for weeks, with my name on it, knowing it was from San Francisco and contained all the joys of a surprise live-action gangbang full of queers... Well, it hasn't been easy.
And that's the thing, people. I've been watching porn professionally for years, and I've gotten very very very very very burned out on it more than once. I thought that maybe, by the end of this month--during which, might I add, I had plenty of real sex, so my little libido wasn't suffering from lack of stimulation without sexy viewing material--I would be ready to turn a new leaf and be done with porn forever. Or at least be less than excited about watching the stack of DVDs that's piled up during my absence. Or just generally be thinking in the same "meh" way that I did a month ago about the whole world of adult entertainment.
But not so. I am STOKED. I get to watch porn for work again, and, seriously, WHAT MORE FUN WORK COULD THERE POSSIBLY BE?! The truth, my dearest deranged mutant friends, is that I am a pervert. This month proved to me over and over again, in every conversation and every daydream, in the bored silences during car rides and lying awake at night in bed, even once when I was too hungover to move but found myself desperate to masturbate, that I am an incurable sex fiend. Even when the first week's porn detox had been long gone and I had entered the mid-month doldrums, I found myself sneaking double-entendres into conversations and pointing out the ones nobody had giggled at. I went after sex with a new enthusiasm, since I didn't have any to watch to keep me placated. I fantasized, I dreamed, and I thought--constantly--about sex.
And so, if any of you have been on a long pattern of withdrawal from my lunatic antics and fuck-frenzied fancies, never fear. I'm back, and I'm happier than ever to be here!
Review of Live Sex Show to come.... I think we all know it will be glowing, as will I.
But you know what else does? I took a month off from this blog, writing for WHACK! Magazine, and even... yes... even watching porn. I was doing interviews for my art show the whole while, and thus doing a lot of thinking and talking on the subject, but my actual exposure to naughty films was severely curtailed. I thought this would make for a nice thought experiment, to whit: what happens to a girl's brain when her nearly constant exposure to x-rated material is cut off? It's been so long since I've gone more than a week without interviewing a porn star for promotional purposes, watching at least one full-length blue film, writing a blog post about the adult industry, etc, that I had begun to wonder how much of what goes on in my filthy little cranium was actually a result of my own impulses and ponderings, and how much was the result of an unending intake of sexual imagery. I thought that this month off, taken for health and sanity reasons mostly, would serve as a way to see backward in time--a short journey back up the rabbit hole. Certainly not enough time to reach the surface of "not being in the porn industry," but a peek back into the pre-porn times of my youth.
Well ladies and gents and gender-benders, I have news for you all. As I write this, I am settling down to review Courtney Trouble's newest flick, Live Sex Show, starring some of my all-time adult favorites (Courtney herself, Nina Hartley, Jiz Lee, April Flores, Tina Horn...), and I cannot tell you how fucking excited I am! I've been wanting to pop this puppy into the DVD player ever since it arrived weeks ago, but I was trying to maintain my porn fast to preserve whatever effects the absence of smut might have on my psyche, so I persevered and didn't even open the package until today. And seeing that manila envelope sitting there for weeks, with my name on it, knowing it was from San Francisco and contained all the joys of a surprise live-action gangbang full of queers... Well, it hasn't been easy.
And that's the thing, people. I've been watching porn professionally for years, and I've gotten very very very very very burned out on it more than once. I thought that maybe, by the end of this month--during which, might I add, I had plenty of real sex, so my little libido wasn't suffering from lack of stimulation without sexy viewing material--I would be ready to turn a new leaf and be done with porn forever. Or at least be less than excited about watching the stack of DVDs that's piled up during my absence. Or just generally be thinking in the same "meh" way that I did a month ago about the whole world of adult entertainment.
But not so. I am STOKED. I get to watch porn for work again, and, seriously, WHAT MORE FUN WORK COULD THERE POSSIBLY BE?! The truth, my dearest deranged mutant friends, is that I am a pervert. This month proved to me over and over again, in every conversation and every daydream, in the bored silences during car rides and lying awake at night in bed, even once when I was too hungover to move but found myself desperate to masturbate, that I am an incurable sex fiend. Even when the first week's porn detox had been long gone and I had entered the mid-month doldrums, I found myself sneaking double-entendres into conversations and pointing out the ones nobody had giggled at. I went after sex with a new enthusiasm, since I didn't have any to watch to keep me placated. I fantasized, I dreamed, and I thought--constantly--about sex.
And so, if any of you have been on a long pattern of withdrawal from my lunatic antics and fuck-frenzied fancies, never fear. I'm back, and I'm happier than ever to be here!
Review of Live Sex Show to come.... I think we all know it will be glowing, as will I.
Dec 1, 2011
A Holiday for the Holidays: I'll be back in a month
Dearest darlings, my pookies:
I'm taking some time off. Not much time--just a month, four weeks, 28-days-ish. But I won't be here writing. I won't be answering most of my e-mails. I won't be on Twitter more than a few times. I'll probably share some links and etc. on Facebook, and it's possible that I might check in and type up a few things for this darling little blog, but for the most part, the month of December will see me dipping under the radar.
There are many reasons for this, but suffice it to say that all the forces at work in my life are telling me that I desperately need a break and that this is the time to take it. I've been struggling with my health, which is difficult to keep up in the presence of abject exhaustion, and I need to spend some time focusing on the interviews and preparation for my art show in the spring. I've also realized that my writing about sex and porn has become diffuse; I feel that in the past few months things have gotten so busy that I've lost sight of what it is I'm actually trying to SAY. I feel as if I'm just treading water to keep my head up, and the only way to find a direction to swim in is to get my bearings. Crawl onto a little porn-free island for a month. Get a good look around. And then of course, there's this quote from Susannah Breslin that hit home really hard: "The sex industry can be really ruthless and brutal. If you’re around that enough, you start to wonder if everybody’s impulses are really base and everyone’s either trying to fuck or kill each other."
It's true. I need a break.
This is also an experiment. I'm going to try my hand at a porn-free life for one month (not very strict--I don't think this is the time for cold turkey, although given the recent holiday I guess it really is) and see what happens. I have an idea brewing for a book with a real point to it, and I think this will help me find out if it's worth a shot.
But the point is, my dears, I will see you all in about a month! Keep fighting the good fight and having fanastics sex, and feel free to tell me all about it in e-mails or in the comments. Happy merry enjoyable early winter and holidays of all kinds to you, each and every one!
Smooches!
I'm taking some time off. Not much time--just a month, four weeks, 28-days-ish. But I won't be here writing. I won't be answering most of my e-mails. I won't be on Twitter more than a few times. I'll probably share some links and etc. on Facebook, and it's possible that I might check in and type up a few things for this darling little blog, but for the most part, the month of December will see me dipping under the radar.
There are many reasons for this, but suffice it to say that all the forces at work in my life are telling me that I desperately need a break and that this is the time to take it. I've been struggling with my health, which is difficult to keep up in the presence of abject exhaustion, and I need to spend some time focusing on the interviews and preparation for my art show in the spring. I've also realized that my writing about sex and porn has become diffuse; I feel that in the past few months things have gotten so busy that I've lost sight of what it is I'm actually trying to SAY. I feel as if I'm just treading water to keep my head up, and the only way to find a direction to swim in is to get my bearings. Crawl onto a little porn-free island for a month. Get a good look around. And then of course, there's this quote from Susannah Breslin that hit home really hard: "The sex industry can be really ruthless and brutal. If you’re around that enough, you start to wonder if everybody’s impulses are really base and everyone’s either trying to fuck or kill each other."
It's true. I need a break.
This is also an experiment. I'm going to try my hand at a porn-free life for one month (not very strict--I don't think this is the time for cold turkey, although given the recent holiday I guess it really is) and see what happens. I have an idea brewing for a book with a real point to it, and I think this will help me find out if it's worth a shot.
But the point is, my dears, I will see you all in about a month! Keep fighting the good fight and having fanastics sex, and feel free to tell me all about it in e-mails or in the comments. Happy merry enjoyable early winter and holidays of all kinds to you, each and every one!
Smooches!
Nov 30, 2011
A Pervert's Gift-Giving Guide: from one degenerate to all of you
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| Thanks to ColumbiaChronicle.com for this awesome pic! |
Many of us make donations to charities in the names of friends and family for holiday gifts, and even more buy products that support causes we agree with. But one cause that often gets overlooked in the family-friendly season is good sex. But why? Is it really so weird to give a friend an account at your favorite online sex toy purveyor, or a membership to your favorite pay-for-porn site? It's not as if you're asking them to use these in front of you, and spreading the word about excellent, ethical, incredibly hot sex industry goods is super-important for those of us who want to support the best of sex. These companies can't exist without income--help them out!
Here's a list of companies, causes, and carnal corruption to consider spending some bucks on for your loved ones this year:
- Genderqueer superstar Jiz Lee's Karma Pervs: "What is Karma Pervs? In a nutshell, I post unique photo sets of images taken by exciting photographers and visual artists. The proceeds are donated to non-profit organizations in my community." Or of course you can support Jiz directly by purchasing one of their excellent, mind-and-groin-expanding films. If you do either by tomorrow, Dec. 1, you'll get a gift card from Jiz!
- Help support Madison Young's vision for Building Our Own White Picket Fences: an art exhibit-turned-movement that celebrates and explores queer families. Forthcoming books and DVDs commemorating the show still need funding!
- Donate to The Red Umbrella Project a sex-worker advocacy group based in New York that uses storytelling in public venues as a platform for building understanding of sex work and sex workers. I've attended; it's fabulous.
- Get your honey a membership to The Crash Pad, Shine Louise Houston's groundbreaking queer porn series that will leave misconceptions about queerness in the dust, and everybody's underpants on the floor.
- Or, for those with a penchant for penis, The Heavenly Spire offers a queer look at the glories of masculinity.
- Good Vibrations is a San Francisco-based feminist and LGBTQ-friendly sex mall! Get what you need from them, or donate to their GiVe program: "By donating products, advertising and sponsorship for fundraisers, along with a percentage of retail sales, we've provided much needed support for women's shelters, HIV/AIDS research, art programs, LGBT benefits, breast cancer awareness and much more."
- Smitten Kitten is your one-stop shop for sex toys, porn, books, and how-tos, with equal variety for men, women, and all other genders. The website features excellent articles from many of my favorite porn peeps including Danny Wylde!
- Subscribe your friends and fuck-buddies to Whore! Magazine, "a quarterly print publication dedicated to celebrating the current and historical qualities of women who have defined a role for themselves outside the status quo."
- Want something a little hardcore-er? Try Salacious Magazine, a queer feminist sex magazine that just MIGHT be featuring an interview with moi in the next few issues...
- Donate or subscribe to Bitch Magazine, the feminist response to pop culture! No weird sex-issues required for this one, so you can give it to family with no awkwardness... except the inevitable, "Yes I'm a feminist get over it" talk.
- Send a donation in your gift-receivers' names to Planned Parenthood. Because why would you NOT want to do that?
- Support the Free Speech Coalition, "the trade association of the adult entertainment industry. Our mission is to lead, protect and support the growth of the adult entertainment industry."
- Purchase from Papaya Toys, the new, no-nonsense, socially-conscious sex toy company winning awards like it's going out of style... and all of it is pthalate-free!
- Donate to one of love artist and sexecologist Annie Sprinkle's ongoing, always entertaining, mind-opening, and totally sparkly projects.
Nov 29, 2011
Cabaret Desire
CABARET DESIRE
Lust Cinema
A film by Erika Lust
CABARETS AND CABARETTES Toni Fontana, Sofia Prada, Saskia Condal, Mario Mentrup, Lady Diamond, Matisse, Liandra Dahl, Didac Duran, Samia Duarte
Here’s why Erika Lust’s films are so awesome: they’re really films. I don’t mean that they’re super-arty or intellectual, even though sometimes they are. And I don’t mean that they have totally engrossing plots and developed characters, although that’s sometimes the case. I mean that Erika Lust makes films that are about sex and that are totally unafraid of showing the sex graphically, but that’s not all that’s going on. There’s music—really good and very sensual music—and background and imagination and realism and eroticism all rolled into sleek, utterly sexy packages. They are entertaining to watch and definitely breathless enough to spur couples to shag or singles to whack it. And they are made with loving care — Cabaret Desire, for instance, was filmed this summer and has just been widely released. For comparison’s sake, most porn movies are released within a month of shooting. Lust Cinema gives more than a shit about its films — it gives a heart. Cabaret Desire has all of the above going for it, and perhaps more. It’s taken the best of Lust’s films and boiled them down into a slick, delectable mix that’s driven more by desire than by sex, a difficult balance to strike and an even more difficult one to keep.
Cabaret Desire is a heady series of vignettes tied together by storytellers at the eponymous cabaret where poets and storytellers mingle with burlesque dancers and jazz singers in a sensual environment, titillating clients with tales of lust for a fee. Members of The Poetry Brothel from New York City and Barcelona serve as narrators for the four carnal encounters that unfold as actors pound out the action to great effect. I’m not sure how she does it, but Erika Lust always pairs actors who seem to have been wanting desperately to get into each other’s pants for years. The chemistry on screen between Sofia, for instance, and her two lovers of different sexes both named Alex, is face-melting hot. Sofia fucks both of them for the viewers’ pleasure, but in two different scenes spliced together into one fluidly delicious scene that manages to be explicit, immoral (in that she’s sleeping with both of them behind their backs), and tasteful all at once.
With a deftness that would be dazzling on its own if it weren’t overshadowed by the panties-moistening sexiness on screen, Lust juggles casting both male and female actors in an equally desirable light, a feat that American pornographers and even mainstream filmmakers are generally incapable of accomplishing. Not only are the men in her films usually as well-rounded in character as they are in their jeans, they’re shown to be objects of not just lust, but full-fledged desire: in a cat-burglary scene that could easily have become a woman-in-latex ogle-fest, Lust instead decides to undress and expose a skinny older man who is physically unimpressive while leaving the curvaceous actress entirely sheathed in a catsuit — except for her crotch. And even with her face in a mask and her body concealed, the degree to which she wants to bone the scrawny old naked dude is undeniable and carries the scene from creepy territory into absolutely fappable land. It’s like magic: desire can transform people.
Ok, let’s be honest. I could go on and on about Cabaret Desire. It’s a film by one of my favorite filmmakers. It’s European and therefore exotic, but it stars several people I happen to know personally from The Poetry Brothel, which makes the super-sexy mood even more surreal. It’s filmed in such a way that fans of softcore (are there fans of softcore? I don’t know any) can enjoy it, but hardcore hand-lovers still have plenty to appreciate. The scenes are cut together so that the sex is part of the story: flashbacks layer over the present and sex mingles with background in beautifully filmed patchwork that gives the brain something to do while the body responds. The music is fantastic. The cabaret environment is stunningly sexy. The whole film drips sensuality and sweats eroticism. You should watch it. Right now.
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