Kink.com

Hollie Stevens lived a big life that was tragically cut short

Sasha Cuttler
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Hollie Stevens lived a big life that was tragically cut short

When a slowly unfolding tragedy strikes the young and energetic, fate seems especially cruel, a notion I haven’t been able to shake since learning that my friend Hollie Stevens, a 30-year-old porn star, died this week after a year-long bout with cancer that had spread from her breasts to her brain.

Hollie moved here from the Midwest in her early 20s for a career in porn that included more than 170 films, and she had an infectious zest for life and a strong and expansive sense of her community. She was proudly living her dream, parlaying her film career into an entertaining column on porn life in Girls and Corpses magazine, art projects, and speaking gigs.

I met Hollie in 2008 when working on “Cue the clowns,” a Guardian cover story on the burgeoning local indie circus scene, a memorable meeting that I even included in the article. Dressed as a clown at a Bohemian Carnival event, I asked this statuesque blond if she liked clowns, and she responded that she was a clown and had starred in a film called Clown Porn, a cult classic in this admittedly narrow porn genre.

Hollie combined a fun-loving free spirit with a down-to-earth confidence that made her easy to befriend, as other friends of mine at the time also found. While doing often-extreme BDSM porn shoots at the Armory for Kink.com and live shows at Lusty Lady, she also became a regular in the tight crew that gathers on the north side of Baker Beach and a volunteer with How Weird Street Faire and other community events.

We’d lost touch when I heard last year that she was diagnosed with stage three metastatic breast cancer, which first claimed those beautiful breasts and then her luscious life. But our mutual friends said she was a fighter who maintained her spirit and sense of humor throughout, an inspiration to friends and admirers who held a series of fundraisers around San Francisco to help pay her medical expenses. Just last month, she married her love, artist and comedian Eric Cash, while in the hospital.

Hollie was one of those classic San Francisco transplants, who made a real home and family of her adopted city and lived an unconventional life to its fullest potential. She will be greatly missed by many admirers and kindred spirits.

 

 

 

Key lime hair with a side of porno: the Brande Baugh story

Andrew Lam
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Key lime hair with a side of porno: the Brande Baugh story

“My job is really weird. I think about that all the time.”

The Mission is a neighborhood accustomed to eccentric individuals. One would think Brande Baugh’s key lime hair and vintage Misfits t-shirt would make her fit right in. Yet her presence in a neighborhood cafe still elicited several stares when she walked in — with her perfectly-curated face, pastel pink lipstick, and evenly-powdered face, Baugh looked like one of Warhol’s Marlyn Monroe silkscreens. Though Baugh stays pretty busy living and working in Los Angeles, she also has regular gigs at Kink, a San Francisco-based pornography website that specializes in bondage and BDSM. 

I’ve often imagined what it would be like to be a fly on the wall at Kink, so my talk with Baugh was particularly illuminating. Sample quote: “I’m about five inches away from a person’s face. People start to break down their barriers and tell me things. And when you work with people in the sex industry all bets are off. People just say anything.”   

San Francisco Bay Guardian: How did you start doing makeup at Kink?

Brande Baugh: It started off as a fluke. I did makeup for Pink and White’s first episode of the Crash Pad Series. A talent on that production was starting to work at Kink. The talent identified more with a butch aesthetic and needed to do a femme look for her shoot. So she asked me to do her makeup. After the shoot, Princess Donna, a director at Kink, asked who did the talent’s makeup. The next thing you know, they were calling me in for an interview.

For my interview I did Princess Donna’s makeup. She told me to go all out, so I made her look like a drag queen. Donna said she loved it. It’s really funny in retrospect because I would never do someone in porn’s face like that now. I’m sure Donna in part really liked me. In her mind I was hired, and I could have probably done anything.  

SFBG: What is it like doing makeup for porn stars?

Brandy’s girls: Kink.com looks by Baugh

BB: There are simple differences in doing makeup for a porn production as opposed to a mainstream movie. A lot of the porn shoots I do are gonzo. I don’t have to stay on set all day, and it’s ok for people to see the makeup degrade over time. It seems like people feel like that’s more real. Also, I have to be really conscious about the makeup products I use. I have to use gloss lipstick and things that wear for a long time. I couldn’t use red lipstick. You have to keep in mind where this person’s lips are going to go. My job is really weird. I think about that all the time. 

I have found people in the sex industry to be very open and non-judgemental. I can say whatever I want while I’m at work. We can talk about the type of sex we like, our sexuality, and our gender freely. There is so much less ego in porn. That’s not to say there aren’t some divas. There are a wide range of people who work in porn. Some of the people go to school, some are moms, some are teachers. I’m doing makeup to make them look like they are all the same type of person, but they are all very different. Porn stars are producing something that there is an audience and a large market for, and it’s crazy how much shit they take for doing that.

SFBG: Where does sexuality and makeup intersect?

BB: As a makeup artist I’m creating characters who play out fantasies. Several of the people who work in porn are not the characters they portray. So I have to help transform themdon’t think most people would recognize porn stars if they saw them in the grocery store. There is a certain safety and anonymity behind having people wear this mask of makeup, and there are some porn stars who actually do look like porn stars. There are a lot of ways everyday people use makeup to express their sexuality as well. Sometimes you have to throw on a little red lipstick because it makes you feel sexy.

SFBG: Are you currently working on any other projects?

BB: Yeah, I’m working on a television show called Hollywood Nailz. It’s a show about my friend, a hair stylist, and I, and our interactions with all the people we meet in the beauty industry. We will finish filming at the end of June. I’m really excited.

 

Hollywood Nails: A different shade of Brandy.

 

SFBG: How do you identify with your gender?

BB: Well I’m a girl. I’m a lady. I’m a real butchy femme. I feel like I can be anything — I mean I’m a makeup artist, and I also went to school to be a mechanic. I like that dynamic quality. 

SFBG: What does creating a sex-positive space mean for you?

BB: For me, it’s a place where you can be whomever and not feel judged. People in a sex-positive space are interested in being progressively more open and aware. It’s about educating one another, but never in a negative way.

Sex Talk with Princess Donna: Squirting and the ass icon

Andrew Lam
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1
Sex Talk with Princess Donna: Squirting and the ass icon

You have to have communication skills if you’re going to responsibly wield the amount of sexual power that Princess Donna holds in her sexy little hands in the depths of the Mission District’s very own porn palace, Kink.com. The director-actor of such sites as Kink’s Ultimate Surrender, Bound Gang Bang, and Public Disgrace knows about expanding sexual horizons — which is why it’s so rad we’ve tapped her for this new love and sex advice column.

Submit to it! Really — the email address where you can send questions of your own is at the end of this post. 

Dear Donna, 

I’ve heard a lot about female ejaculation, but I haven’t seen much evidence of it in real life. Is this something that anyone with a vagina should aspire to?

Signed, Hot Springs

Dear Hot Springs,

I am not in the business of telling people what specific sexual acts they should aspire to. I think what’s important is finding out what fulfills you sexually and doing that. So yes, if squirting is something you think looks fun, go for it!

I personally think squirting orgasms are rad. As for the conversation about whether it is piss or ejaculate I would like to quote my dear friend Jeremiah Finklestein Brown, “I don’t care if it’s chicken salad coming out of there, it’s still awesome!”

xo, Donna

Dear Princess, 

I am from Turkey. 33 years old a doctor. I love your movies but it is very hard for me. Because i want to have sex only with you.

I have never fuck an ass, but after your movies sex is only your ass for me. I am far away, but i must fuck u. Please answer me anything. I need you.

Dear Turkish doctor,

Hi! I don’t see a question in there, but it seems you have excellent taste in women.

xo, Donna

DON’T MAKE DONNA RELY ON LOVESICK TURKISH DOCTORS FOR MATERIAL — ASK HER A QUESTION YOURSELF! Sex, love, a combination of the two, a lack of both? Email sextalkwithprincessdonna@gmail.com for the best possible solution

 

Sex Talk with Princess Donna: Sugar daddies and the perils of bromance

Andrew Lam
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Sex Talk with Princess Donna: Sugar daddies and the perils of bromance

One might imagine that there is hardly a personal entanglement that Princess Donna, director and star of Kink.com‘s Public Disgrace, Bound Gang Bangs, and Ultimate Surrender sites, can’t handle with a strong wrist and flogger. While that may be true, the BDSM power player is also a master of the kind of communication involving words. And unlike your standard sex advisor, she’s that frank kind of sex-positive feminist that can help with whatever you want to do in bed (/dungeon) that is safe and consensual. And be real sexy through the processing, to patent leather boot. We had to give her her very own Guardian sex advice column.

Dear Princess,

How do you get a sugar daddy or mommy? And once you get one, how do you keep them happy?

Signed, Broke’s Not Cute Anymore

Dear Broke,

I’ve never personally had a sugar mommy or daddy, but I do know that there are websites out there were you can find them! As far as keeping them happy goes, I’d tell you the same thing that I’d tell you for any relationship, communicate! Talk about what your expectations for one another are, set boundaries, etc.

My other advise for you would be to think about exactly what kind of relationship you want before seeking out your sugar parent. Are you looking for love and someone to take care of you financially, or are you looking to exchange sex for money in a more straight-up way?

As the name implies, these kind of relationships can have a built in power dynamic as one person financially supports the other. Be sure that you have thought about what that implies and that that is truly what you are looking for!

xo, Donna

Dear Princess,

My brother and I have a lot of the same, amazing, sex-positive friends. The chances that we may find ourselves at the same sex party are high — what can we do to avoid weirdness (and incest) between the two of us?

Sincerely, Family Fun

Dear Family Fun,

Avoiding incest should be pretty easy, just don’t get it on with each other.

As far as avoiding weirdness, the first step is to establish what you think is weird. Is it weird for you guys to bang in the same room? Is it weird for you guys to share the same sex partners? Is it weird just to be at the same sex party? Once you have established exactly what makes you uncomfortable you can set boundaries. I know, I’m boring. I’m all boundaries and communication over here…

The only thing is that, in my experience sex parties can often occur spontaneously, so you are going to want to establish the ground rules before you find yourself in a potentially awkward situation. You don’t want to happen upon an awesome sex party and spend the night fighting with your twin when you could be getting laid!!

xo, Donna

>>IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION for Princess Donna on sex, love, or a combination of the two, email her at sextalkwithprincessdonna@gmail.com

 

Hot sexy events: April 13-19

Andrew Lam
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Hot sexy events: April 13-19

Kink.com is getting its star turn in the mainstream media – everyone’s favorite historic-building-cum-porn-palace served as the shooting locaiton for the movie that Stephen Elliott and Kink star Lorelei Lee penned, Cherry (trailer here). The flick, which makes its San Francisco debut at the SF International Film Festival (April 24, 27, 28) stars James Franco and Heather Graham, who plays a female director at a porn company.

It isn’t Kink in the movie, exactly — it’s not a BDSM company, for one. And I met up with Lee at Thieves Tavern this week and she told me that despite the vocation of Cherry‘s protagonist, she didn’t consider it a movie based in sex-positive activism.

“You can really destroy a movie by making it too political,” said the NYU student and star of multiple Kink sites, over a glass of red wine. Lee says she and co-writer Elliott wanted to write a story with a happy ending (er, spoiler alert.) “I think it’s a complicated story that doesn’t try to sell you on anything.” Of course, showing happy, functioning sex workers should be considered activism in and of itself these days.

Theirs isn’t the only project that uses the Armory as a backdrop for for an upcoming non-NSFW film. Filmmaker Simone Jude has been shooting a documentary on the lives of Kink’s women – Lee, Isis Love, and Princess Donna primarily — for the last four years. The trailer looks fucking awesome, and Jude needs your Kickstarting help funding the final editing process. 

The three women portrayed are total badasses, and it’d be great if this film could recieve the same kind of exposure that Cherry, which picked up IFC as its distributor and is being slated for a limited-city release, is enjoying. With all the sex-negative politicking going on these days, we could use some more high profile looks at women who refuse to let conservative social norms guide their views of fucking. People need to be exposed to that kind of stuff. Or at least, as Lee told me “I hope that they leave the theater feeling like they’ve watched a movie about real people.”

And now for your week in sex events.

“A Taste for Brown Sugar: The History of Black Women in American Pornography”

Rad lecture alert: University of California Santa Barbara professor Mireille Miller-Young will be giving a talk about her much-needed manuscript examining the history of black women in porn this afternoon. Miller-Young’s work tends to focus on race, gender, and sexuality as it appears in sex work and popular culture and she is also currently collaborating with sex-positive author Tristan Taormino and others on The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure. 

Fri/13 4-7 p.m., free

California College of the Arts

1111 Eighth St., Room GC7, SF

(415) 703-9500

www.cca.edu

Writers With Drinks with Rachel Kramer Bussel and Curvy Girls

Rachel Kramer Bussel is the editor of Curvy Girls: Erotica For Women, which I recently had the pleasure of reading and is real hot. The stories are all about voluptuous women getting it on – in restaurant kitchens with the head chef, with the house sittee’s relative, with the guy that sold them those hot boots. The erotica follows curves like a racecar, and is a phenomenal piece of work for anyone who is looking for a re-up on body image – no matter what their measurements. Tonight, Bussel is reading at the much-loved Writers With Drinks event, so expect to get nicely liquored and hear her talk about sexy, body-positive couplings. 

Sat/14 7:30 p.m., $5-$10 sliding scale

The Make-Out Room

3225 22nd St., SF

www.writerswithdrinks.com

“A Taste of Rope”

The perfect opportunity to sample wines from around the globe while training your obedient submissive, this Femina Potens event has an value-added feature: different models from rope companies Maui Kink, Twisted Monk, Bind Me, Lover’s Knot, and Jugoya will be on hand, and wrist, and ankle, and ribs so that you can see the difference that quality and texture can make in your play. There’s limited space available here, so you should get on this quick-like.

Sat/14 9-10:30 p.m., $40-99 per couple

Location disclosed upon purchase

www.feminapotens.org

Bawdy Storytelling: Master and Servant

The pervy storytelling series goes on a power trip, with six kinky souls going on the record about their BDSM power play good-times. 

Thu/19 7-10:30 p.m., $12-$15

The Uptown 

1928 Telegraph, Oakl.

www.bawdystorytelling.com

Burning rubber: How do adult film actors feel about LA’s condom regulations?

Andrew Lam
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All video by Ned Halaby

By now, the 2012 AVN Awards are but a sticky-handed, flashbub-popping memory. But not everything that happened that week in the porn business is confined to memory. The Tuesday before the AVNs, LA’s city council passed a law to require all adult film actors to wear condoms — and funded inspections of studios with a mandatory fee for all skin flick companies. 

It was a controversial move. Industry types, wary of an already flagging adult DVD market, have made weak noises about condoms not being sexy — but also that LA clamping down on the issue will only cause studios to move away. Internet porn is a largely amateur, largely diffused phenomenon that doesn’t rely on SoCal so much anyway. AIDS organizations applaud the measure’s potential to cut down on sexually-transmitted diseases.

But what do the stars themselves think? We were able to speak with a few of them on the red carpet: AVN’s official red carpet host Kayden Kross, Kink.com directors Princess Donna and Bobbi Starr — the evening’s winner of Best Female Performer — and Jon Jon, who was nominated for a passel of AVNs that night including Best Group Sex Scene for his work in Asa Akira is Insatiable 2 (hands down, the night’s big winner with seven awards in total). 

Here’s what they had to say. You can watch the rest of our clips from the red carpet — including an interview with Jincey “lesbian Hugh Hefner” Lumpkin, who figured prominently in my “Queer and boning in Las Vegas” cover story here. 

Princess Donna and Bobbi Starr (pardon the screeching that begins the clip) “It’s only going to affect the people that purchase permits for their shoots, and I gotta say that it’s actually a very small percentage of the industry that uses shooting permits.” 

Jon Jon was unruffled by the controversy: 

Kayden Kross was adamant that the regulation was babysitting an industry that doesn’t need it: “I think it’s the most retarded answer to something that wasn’t even a question.”

Of course, what none of these interviews mentioned was a point that this article brings up: that condom regulations are not just for the wellbeing of the professionals who act in pornography. Many of us grow up watching porn — for some of us, it’s our first image of what sex is. If porn stars using condoms can convince teenagers to do the same, more power to the condom regulators. 

Hot sexy events: January 18-24

Andrew Lam
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Thankful. I am thankful for San Francisco sex. Just got back from the AVN awards in Vegas this weekend and couldn’t get over the fake boobs (literally — mountainous cleavage), rubber ducky-esque lips, and rote couplings that took over the Hard Rock Hotel for the better part of the week. Don’t get me wrong, the weekend was all kinds of wonderful and there were buffets and penthouse hot tubs filled with Tina Horn, Princess Donna, and Akira Raine — salacious tweeting and rumors of Robin Leach and deep red carpet conversations about being forced to wear condoms. But for me, SF.

Also, the trailer for James Franco’s new movie based on the life of Kink.com actress-writer Lorelei is out: 

Why am I so stoked on this city? Read on about what San Francisco does best: weird, original, affirming sex events in the City By the Bay. Here’s four reasons that’ll make you glad you’re here (pervert).

 

Good Vibrations’ Lakeshore store opening

Once an employee-owned store in the Mission, Good Vibes has expanded into a nationwide business, powered by an Ohio sex toy corporation, and teaching everyone from Florida to Washington about the power of gadgets in the bedroom through an award-winning sales and education website. (Read our interview with the company’s C.O.O. and staff sexologist Carol Queen here.)The empire gets one bigger today, with the opening of Good Vibes’ first Oakland brick and mortar location. Kandi Burress of Real Housewives of Atlanta will be on hand to promote her superlative line of vibrators, Bedroom Kandi. 

Sat/28 6-9 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

3219 Lakeshore, Oakl.

(510) 788-2389

www.goodvibes.com

 

Perverts Put Out: Midwinter Edition

Accepting his honor at this year’s Guardian Goldies art awards, performance provacateur Philip Huang utilized a neti pot in ways surely frowned up by the Health Department. The man is inappropriateness, embodied — just ask those “God Hates Fags” people, he’s crashed their protests with a colander head, carrying a sign that says “No Fags on the Moon.” So what does a Huang do at a reading made for and by pervy weirdos? You’ll just have to attend the latest edition of Perverts Put Out, to find out. Tonight’s event also features sexy solliquies by horehound stillpoint, Sherilyn Connelly, and Jen Cross. 

Sat/28 7:30 p.m., $10-15

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org

 

John Leslie one-year memorial

Harken back to your best memories of golden age porn star John Leslie, who passed away in 2010. Center for Sex and Culture will be hosting this memory circle for friends of his work — which includes Talk Dirty To Me (1980), Nothing To Hide (1981), and Talk Dirty To Me, Part II (1982). One of the first actor-cum-director hyphenates in adult film, the man was big back in the days of well-budgeted productions. Perhaps this will also be a look back on the long, strange road the porn industry has traveled over the past few decades (after all, Leslie did finish out his career directing gonzo releases). 

Sun/29 5:30 p.m., free

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

(415) 902-2071

www.sexandculture.org

 

[SSEX BBOX] premiere 

Name the sexiest cities in the world. Did Sao Paolo, Berlin, and San Francisco make it on there? They’re the obvious choices, of course — and fertile territory for this global documentary project. The team behind [SSEX BBOX] chased tail around the globe, chatting with all orientations and genders about what makes them tingle below (above) the equator.

Mon/30 8:30 p.m., free

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

(415) 902-2071

www.ssexbbox.com

 

It’s all in the angle

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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It’s all in the angle

caitlin@sfbg.com

SEX “It’s hard when you’re making out with a babe and it’s really hot and you realize you’ve been videotaping a wall for two minutes.”

No one ever said that making self-filmed feminist porn was easy. But for local self-proclaimed “slut kitten” Maxine Holloway, it’s an important — and incredibly arousing — process. Holloway is the newest webmistress on Femina Potens gallery founder and sex activist Madison Young’s Feminist Porn Network. Holloway’s sub-site Woman’s POV (www.thewomanspov.com) is perhaps the first to feature only shoots which are filmed by the actors themselves — the letters in the title standing in for “point of view,” of course.

Hence, her phone interview with the Guardian last week had turned to tricky camera angles. It can be incredibly difficult to film your own orgasm, Holloway says. But she’s learned a lot since her first POV scene (in case you were wondering, it involved a passel of “Italian babes” and a hotel room). The key, she says, lies in reconfiguring the way you look at having sex on camera — which inevitably involves spending a lot more time in your viewfinder.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. “You see things that you wouldn’t normally have the time to focus on,” Holloway explains. “Twitching fingers, a hand on a thigh that looks amazing.”

And she’s hoping that fingers will walk to the site to check out its clothes-on segments, also. “We have these really sexy, amazing, vivacious women on our website, and I want people to lust and jerk off to them. But I also want them to hear what they have to say.” Woman’s POV has posted interviews with Kink.com fetish model Eden Alexander on what it’s like to work in the porn industry. Holloway has penned educational letters to the syphilis infection (Hitler, Van Gogh, Beethoven, and Lincoln, it says, were all rumored to be victims of the STI), and conducted an interview with erotic comedian and dandigrrl AfroDisiac.

“We’re showing the wholeness of what makes women attractive,” she says. “It’s not just their breasts or how they fuck, it’s what’s on their minds.” Bay Area women will have a chance to be featured on the site at Mission Control’s monthly queer sex-dance party Velvet on Fri/2 — Holloway and Young will be trucking out a dirty videobooth for self-filmed couplings (or singlings), not to mention conducting a workshop on the empowering and relationship-boosting aspects of filming your hook-ups with a partner. It will be a “fun and safe place for people to explore their exhibitionism on camera,” promises Holloway.

This kind of multi-lateral approach to sexuality is just what Young intended when she started her first website, Madison Bound, in 2005. Although she was already a successful sex performer who had been curating sex-art shows at Femina Potens for five years — having recently pulled together “White Picket Fences”, a multi-disciplinary look at what family and future mean to local queer artists and sex workers — she found the web to be a particularly useful tool when it came to advocating alternative sexualities.

“The Internet has the capacity to reach a lot more people,” she told the Guardian on a recent afternoon in the large, white Mission-Bernal Heights studio that is serving as the Femina Potens office space while the gallery is between brick and mortar locations. “I’m a girl from Southern Ohio and I’m always thinking about the girl from back there.” Despite her central role in a burgeoning alt sex community here in the Bay Area, she feels a responsibility to make images of queer sex available for Middle America. “You’re just not going to have this stuff happen in front of you in Iowa.” Other subsites on the Feminist Porn Network include Perversions of Lesbian Lust, a slutty take on lesbian pop novels, and Femifist, a site devoted to the much-maligned practice of fisting.

Young has known Holloway for years — Holloway has hosted many of Femina Potens’ “Other View” panel discussions on BDSM, consent, and the anti-rape movement — and over the past two has watched her develop a distinctive voice when it comes to directing porn. “I wanted Woman’s POV to be a place where she could explore that voice,” she says. “It’s super empowering for [the webmistresses and actors] because they’re able to find out what they think is hot. Women aren’t usually put in that position to be able to find what turns them on. People are like ‘oh my god that’s hot. Oh my god that’s me!'”

That kind of discovery, Holloway says, isn’t just sexy — it strikes back at the disempowering way that society treats sex workers. She mentions that she sees the site as an important step in the sex workers’ rights movement. When asked to elaborate, she says that the movement’s about “the ability to support yourself safely and creatively.” In other words, it’s not enough to have a safe working environment for adult film actors — although that’s important too. It’s important that sex workers have the opportunity to portray the kind of intimacy that turns them on. What better way to do that than hand them the camera? 

VELVET

Fri/2 8 p.m.-2 a.m., $20 free membership required

Mission Control

Private location, see website for details

www.missioncontrolsf.org

www.womanspov.com 

 

Hot sexy events: October 27-November 1

Andrew Lam
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Friday evening of the Folsom Street Fair saw a throng gathered in a second-story SoMa apartment for an art opening. The space was owned by a one Mark I. Chester, a man who counts as one of the city’s many hubs of sex culture. Chester tends towards the art side of rough sex — regularily hosting drawing sessions where men pose in various states of disarray — a harness here, a dog mask there, and not much else. But tonight, the crowd was more diverse. It was there to witness the opening of “Fear No Art,” the sex and power exhibition that you watch close its doors on Sun/30 this week.

Black-and-white photographs hung densely on Chester’s walls, but the opening party was 3D. On”stage” (the front of the living room), a man in a gold lamé thong performed comedic showtunes describing his life as a D-List porn star. Soliciting audience interaction, he neatly displayed his aptitude for deep-throating. Lucky banana. 

Any lingering effects of his levity was appreciated for the next act (at least, your hemophobic reporter appreciated them). Next up was Leland of the San Francisco girls of Leather, who announced to the crowd that she’d be etching the exhibition’s name onto the back of the helper she’d brought to the front of the cramped room with her. 

“Don’t be afraid to move in closer, it’s actually really quite beautiful,” she counseled the audience. A handful of art lovers obliged, pushing in for a closer look at her razor-thin lines that blossomed into strips of blood before their eyes as the woman who the back belonged to squirmed in agony — particularly when Leland went back over the lines for a more pronounced look. 

“Fear No Art” advises you in a similar manner — not to be afraid to look at sex in all its forms, and to consider what every kind of eroticism says about us as humans. It closes Sun/30, an excellent chance to take in 2D representations of human beauty, lust, and love. 

 

Naked Girls Reading: Neil Gaiman edition

So lit-sexy it’s scary, this regular reading event — hosted by the area’s hottest female sex activists in their alltogether — welcomes to its featured artist slot Rain DeGrey, professional bondage rigger, Kink.com star, and sex educator. She and the regular crew of NGR will be reading from the works of Neil Gaiman, a novelist whose children’s book featured a young orphan being raised by a graveyard, if that gives you any idication of the creepiness of his canon of work. C. Theodore Walker will perform a “half play, half ritual” based on the works of Aleister Crowley.

Thu/27 8-10:30 p.m., $15

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org

 

Steam’s one-year anniversary party

Powerhouse kicks off Halloween weekend with the 12-monther of its bathhouse revival shindig, Steam. It’ll be garaunteeing that the ghouls drop their sheets with a wet towel contest (winner gets $100, which will buy a zombie Amy Winehouse-sized load of vodka-Red-Bulls. Go-gos, power showers, hot boys — oh, boo. 

Fri/28 10 p.m.- 2 a.m., $5

Powerhouse

1347 Folsom, SF

www.powerhouse-sf.com

 

XXX Haunted Fun House

Halloween at Mission Control is like Christmas Day in Santa’s Workshop — all the work from around the year pretty much leads up to this one big spectacular. Do these swingers have mad flair game? Obviously. Pack more than a sheet with holes in it when you go to this two-night extravaganza featuring performances to fuck to from DJs Jocelyn and Cyril Noir, seances, zombie strippers, and virgin sacrifices (yeah right). 

Fri/28 10 p.m.-late, $25-$35 free membership required

Mission Control

www.missioncontrolsf.org

 

“Building Our Own White Picket Fences”

In a sex events column gone by we talked about Femina Potens’ plans for an art exhibit that re-envisioned what family and home meant in the alt sex-LGBT community. It’s opening on Fri/28, a multi-media presentation featuring artists Midori, Monica Canilao, Harrison Bartlett, Mev Luna, Amelia Reiff Hill, and Madison Young. Go to reflect on your own notion of what the future holds, and be inspired by the imaginings of others. 

Fri/28 7:30 p.m., free

Michele O’Connor gallery

2111 Mission, SF

www.feminapotens.org


“Fear No Art” closing party

“Things I Have Fucked Someone With: An Incomplete Collection” is photographic round-up of just those things by Patti Beadles. It looks like one of those kitchen posters that show you all the different kinds of chili peppers, and at this sex art exhibition she also displays a similarly-configured of things she has not fucked anyone with (shape seems to be the defining factor between the two). Pair this with Jim Duvall’s BDSM romance novel cover of a woman being used as a harp by a lover, Shilo McCabe’s pussy-baring fetish art, and others and you have yourself a panoramic view of human sexuality at local sex luminary Mark I. Chester’s SoMa apartment. 

Sun/30 2-5 p.m., donations suggested

1229 Folsom, SF

www.markichester.com

Halloween 2011

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Halloween 2011

Ghost Hunt! On this week’s cover, the spirits of Johnny Venetti, Jasmine Donaldson, and Jackie Andrews haunt meddling kids Caitlin Donohue, Marcus Banshee, and Walter Gomez on the Kink.com Armory’s Upper Floor (NSFW). Photo by Matthew Reamer, concept by Mirissa Neff. 

This year we’re doin’ it up (f)right for halloween with an issue full of ectoplamic boo-ness. Fear our terrifyingly bad puns!

>>Our spooky, kooky, altogether ookie list of Halloween events to die for

>>A paranormal interview with local ghost detective Loyd Auerbach, with a chilling excerpt from The Ghost Detectives’ Guide to San Francisco 

>>A map of classic haunted San Francisco spots — oooOOooOo!

>>Tagging along on a ghost hunt through horrifyingly charming Pacific Heights

>>The great Houdini died tragically on Halloween — his legend lives on in a spellbinding exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum

>>Forget “The Walking Dead”: Horror classic Zombie shambles through the Roxie

>>Get into the bewitching, haunted pop of local breakout act the Soft Moon

Boonus! Here’s your ghoulishly incredible retro Halloween video:

Fear not Folsom first-timers: advice through the lens of local photographers

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Fear not Folsom first-timers: advice through the lens of local photographers

Folsom weekend has arrived and if you’re new to the game, you’ve got all kinds of decisions to contemplate before running out onto the leather field. Those who trot through the gates minus preparation are still going to win on visuals and play, but those who put in just a minute of pre-fair prep will really score– hard. The best place to garner suggestions is obviously via a Folsom veteran, but take it a step further and open your orifices to advice from those who not only make it a point to attend, but whose job it is to professionally observe, capture, and display erotic action at the fair and beyond.

Fear No Art features 17 local photographers and a body of work that will make you cum, gasp, smile, and laugh (not necessarily in that order). From intense bondage, hardcore sex, pretty toys, notes on death and loss, and even a woman strung like a harp, this collection is going to get you all revved up for the weekend’s plethora of sexual opportunities. Since these photographs are more so for offering inspiration and not the obvious logistical advice you may need for your first-time Folsom adventure, a handful of the artists have offered up some helpful hints to get you off in the right direction.

patti_beadles

Patti Beadles

SFBG: Give us a couple notes on etiquette– what to do or not to do? Are there rules?

Beadles: Be respectful. Don’t touch people without permission. Looking is OK but gawking is tacky. Try not to sound like a drunken frat boy by making crude passes at people. 

SFBG: What to wear? Ahh, the choices!

Beadles: Wear whatever you feel comfortable and sexy in. Leather is good. Lace is good. Heels are good. Boots are good. Whatever you wear, remember that you have to spend the afternoon in it while walking around in the hot sun!

 

morgan

Morgan Weinert

SFBG: Give us three must-sees for newbies.

Weinert: 1. The boot black stand at the intersection of Dore and Folsom. Make sure to tip your boot black! 2. Venus’ Playground. Great performances are open for all to watch but the women/trans only space is a great place to get out of the crowd. 3. The Kink.com booth is a crazy place to watch some interesting public performances. The Kink.com models and directors never hold back!

SFBG: What to wear? It’s so last minute…

Weinert: Multi-Kulti is a great place to get fishnet body suits, sequined booty-shorts, and false eyelashes. Clothes Contact is full of awesome vintage lingerie and great dresses– most of it sold by the pound!

 

rosen

Michael Rosen

SFBG: Name your absolute must-try?

Rosen: Five dollars gets you three minutes of spanking, flogging, or foot worship via one of the ladies of Fantasy makers, a local BDSM establishment. Five dollars can also get you three minutes to fondle the ample breasts of a beautiful, green-haired lady. All proceeds go to charity, this year to the Center for Sex and Culture. 

SFBG: What should I wear?

Rosen: Dress to impress, or not. Nudity is OK; wear clothing you can stuff into a fanny pack. The police are cool, but they will tell you to stop any sexual touching. Bring your camera. Leave your “certified panty/jockstrap inspector” t-shirt at home. It’s OK to wear a law enforcement officer’s uniform, as long as it’s not from the SF Police. 

mim

Mim Weisburd

SFBG: Three must-sees?

Weisburd: 1. Fear No Art Exhibit 2. My Daddy’s hot ass 3. All your friends nekkid in the sunshine

SFBG: How about a must-try?

Weisburd: Something you have never ever done before.

 

shilo

Shilo McCabe

SFBG: Thoughts on etiquette?

McCabe: 1. Please refrain from taking photos without permission. 2. Don’t touch anyone without permission– seriously. Just because someone is showing a little (or a lot!) of skin doesn’t mean it’s there for you to touch. 3. Leave the kids at home! It’s kind of unnerving to see parents pushing strollers or walking around with toddlers in hand.

SFBG: What to wear?

McCabe: I always suggest to my friends that the most important things to wear are sunscreen and shit-kicking boots– in case you have to kick shit. 

 

 


Fear No Art (Opening Reception)

Fri/23, 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., donations accepted 

Mark I Chester studio

1229 Folsom St, SF

http://markichester.com

SEX ISSUE: Fun with cover model Leo Forte

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Photographer Matthew Reamer and Art Director Mirissa Neff had a steamy Sex Issue cover shoot with strapping adult performer Leo Forte last week. Rrroaw!

Leo — a self-proclaimed Latin musclepup, up-and-coming porn star, and jack of all trades — is part of the Kink.com kingdom (we’re partcularly fond of his work on the Naked Kombat series), has appeared in several flicks from Raging Stallion studios, and will be appearing at the huge Falcon Studios 40th anniversary party at Mezzanine, which looks kind of sexy-scary!

Check out more pics of Leo above — and grab a hard copy (tee hee) of the Sex Issue, out now on the streets. If you see him at the Folsom Street Fair, he might autograph it for you!

The Sex Issue 2011

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The Sex Issue 2011

Well howdy — it’s Folsom Street Fair time again, and that means our annual steamy, dreamy Sex Issue. Check out the contents before, and play wild!

>>PRESENTING THE HOTTEST ASS IN THE BAY

The winner of our Bay Buns 2011 contest

>>BECAUSE PRINCESS SAYS SO

The mastermind behind Kink.com’s “Wired Pussy” and “Public Disgrace” sites finds power in perversion

>>SAN FRANCISCO SMUT MAP

A peep at our fair city’s filthy-gorgeous history

>>“AND THAT’S WHEN I CAME”

A steamy tale of SF sex from Bawdy Storytelling

>>WARM LEATHERETTE

Our nightlife column rounds up some smokin’ hot parties for this weekend

>>HIDING THE CONDOMS

Safeway’s decision to move condoms into locked cabinets worries public health advocates

 


San Francisco Smut Map

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San Francisco Smut Map

culture@sfbg.com

SEX ISSUE 2011 In 1969, San Francisco became the first city in the country to permit the exhibition and sale of hardcore pornography. Although “permit” isn’t exactly right. The city’s vice squad (with the help of Supervisor Dianne Feinstein) fought it every step of the way. But by the time a rag-tag band of hippies with cameras began harnessing the Free Speech movement to challenge obscenity laws, San Francisco had already become, in the words of the New York Times, “a sort of Smut Capital of the United States.”

Earlier this year, director Ben Leon and I produced Smut Capital of America, a documentary short about San Francisco’s flesh-filled reign as the center of U.S. hardcore. (The skin flick industry didn’t move down to San Fernando Valley until the 1980s, when VHS took over and Los Angeles stopped arresting filmmakers.) The film industry itself may have been shaved and plucked, but San Francisco never lost its filthy patina, thank god.

Here are a few of the filthy great places, classic and new, that any self-respecting San Francisco pervert and/or fan might want to map.

1. The Condor Club

560 Broadway

The first topless dance took place in 1964 at the Condor when Carol Doda took to the stage in designer Rudi Gernreich’s revolutionary “monokini.” The bathing suit never really caught on, but topless dancing became an export that would become synonymous with San Francisco.

2. The Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre

895 O’Farrell

The good ol’ boys from Antioch made a fortune with movies like Behind the Green Door, but when obscenity busts began taking their toll, they moved to live shows. The place still give a great lap dance, but the days when you could eat a girl out for a dollar are long gone.

3. The Strand

1127 Market

I once heard it referred to as a stop on the underground gay railroad — and for good reason. While this theater showed big Hollywood movies and noir retrospectives, the balcony was the cruisiest, bleachiest-smelling place in town.

4. The Magazine

920 Larkin

This still-operational vintage magazine shop has never shied away from porn. And since few museums find it palatable to save smut, it’s a living archive of the sexual revolution, balls, and all.

5. The Screening Room

220 Jones

In 1970, the Screening Room became the first theater in America to show hardcore pornography, with a law-skirting documentary about the free-loving Danes called Pornography in Denmark. Director Alex deRenzy set off a cinematic revolution, and earned a profile in Time magazine. Perhaps fittingly, it’s now the Power Exchange sex club.

6. The Roxie and the New Follies

3117 16th Street and 2961 16th Street

Long before it was an indie movie rep house, the Roxie showed soft-and hardcore 16mm loops shot by the Mitchell Brothers, then just out of college. The New Follies, just down the street on then smut-filled 16th Street (it’s now the Victoria), pioneered bottomless dancing, and later, live sex shows.

7. The Sutter Theatre

369 Sutter

Arlene Elster and Lowell Pickett plotted the International Erotic Film Festival at their theater off Union Square in 1970, when the area was still known as the downtown Tenderloin. The films themselves screened at the prestigious Presidio Theater in the Marina with a red carpet covered by KPIX. Even smut-opponent Dianne Feinstin showed up to rant against the duo’s “very depraved wares.”

8. Le Salon

1118 Polk Street.

“There out to be a plaque on the building,” says Bay Area Reporter porn critic John Karr, who went to this bookstore to cruise and flip through dirty magazines. Store owner Roland Boudreaux eventually opened a non-smut operation next door with a connecting doorway so that customers could leave and enter without attracting stares from high-society queens.

9. The Lusty Lady

1033 Kearny

The original Lusty Lady showed 16mm films, but by the early ’80s this North Beach smut center had live dancers as well. In 1997, the dancers organized an Exotic Dancers Union to make it the first unionized sex club business in the United States. In 2003, they bought the business, making it a worker-owned cooperative.

10. The Gordon Getty Mansion

2050 Jackson

During the ’80s and ’90s, this Pacific Heights mansion was the home of smut merchant and Falcon Studios honcho Chuck Holmes, whose name now graces the LGBT community center on Market Street. In the afternoons, he shot gay porn in the basement. In the evenings, he hosted spectacular galas to raise money for visiting politicians.

11. The Armory

1800 Mission Street

Does anyone not realize that this former munitions warehouse now houses an arsenal of dildo-equipped robots and that the National Guard training hall is used to film “Wired Pussy” episodes? Thanks, Kink.com for making sure San Francisco is still known as the Smut Capital of America.

Because Princess says so

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Because Princess says so

caitlin@sfbg.com

SEX ISSUE 2011 I saw Donna Dolore for the first time at a Hard French queer soul dance party at El Rio. I remember because she took my drink so authoritatively that I had no choice but to be okay with it. She sipped it, handed it back, and strode away. Can I get a thank you? Throughout the whole, sloppy afternoon, I noticed it was kind of her theme.

But no one seemed to care. Part of it was obvious: Dolore is a Sophia Loren with wider eyes, maybe a little taller, with the same generous tendencies towards sharing glimpses of the bust line. Only — I reflected, shortly before falling back into cheap-beer-and-go-go-dancer melee — that attitude. Who the hell is this woman?

Weeks later, I’m telling her the story in person in the cavernous break room at Kink.com’s headquarters in the San Francisco Armory (everything at the Armory is cavernous). It turns out that Dolore is in fact, a pretty big deal. Just ask her legions of heavy-breathing fans who know her as Princess Donna, the Kink.com director and star queer dominatrix.

“Oh my gosh, I did that?” At the office from where she plans shoots for the three Kink websites she heads, Dolore is a less formidable figure. She’s not wearing any makeup. Her black outfit makes her look like she’s about to take off for a light jog around the Mission.

But she might just be being coy. After all, I’d stalked her up good before our appointment and had come across this gem in a video interview she did a few years back: “I’m pretty true to form — Princess Donna acts a lot like I do.”

Dolore double majored at New York University, perfectly enough, in gender and sexuality studies and photography. She became a stripper while at school, and then on a tip from a coworker, got into professional BDSM shoots. Although she had been to some BDSM play parties, the work was the first time she’d ever been tied up.

“I was immediately into the challenge of being in a really stressful position — being flogged or caned, total sensory overload,” she remembers. “I would leave a shoot feeling really invigorated, a stronger person. It made me want to see what my body was capable of.”

Nowadays, Princess Donna sits — utterly sexily, usually in a short skirt and fuck-me heels — atop the Internet BDSM porn puppy pile.

At Kink she is the mind behind no less than three sites. For “Public Disgrace,” Dolore makes trips around the world to supervise the stripping-down, feeling-up, and penetration of beautiful women in town squares and busy bars. On “Wired Pussy,” she plays with electrical equipment, inducing screaming orgasms in her female partners.

In her latest endeavor, “Bound Gang Bang,” Dolore supervises teams of horny men and one or two women in fantasy-type shoots: high school nerds get their revenge on the bitchy mean girls, a prison warden drops her key and winds up giving head to inmates through a chain link fence. She has guest-starred in many of Kink’s different sites, usually as a top, sometimes as a bottom.

“I get stressed out because we have so much content to produce,” says Dolore, who works on one or two shoots a week. “But it’s a challenge that I enjoy.” One gets the sense that at Kink, Dolore has found a place that can nurture her talent for perversion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYkStoeNtuw

Like most of Kink’s offerings, Dolore’s sites are unapologetically brutal. Women are dominated, wind up covered in ejaculate and with bound breasts that are agonizing to look at (well, at least for the BDSM newbie).

This is exactly the kind of stuff that sends shivers — the bad kind — up the spines of anti-porn feminists. But Dolore is a feminist too. As articulate as she is and as prominent she is and as wild as her porns are, she’s often called on to defend BDSM’s treatment and portrayal of women.

“I think the exact opposite of the people that think that BDSM would promote violence against women,” she says. That tired question — “is porn degrading to women?” — is something that Dolore finds degrading. Why, she asks, don’t the anti-porn musketeers ask the same of men in the industry?

“What is going on in our society that we continue to see sex as something that is put on women that they don’t desire? Why can’t we fathom it being a dream job for a woman?”

Kink is doing its part to raise awareness about the sexual pleasure that can be experienced by submissive actors. Before and after each shoot, the man or woman who you’ve watched screaming, a cattle prod or vibrator pressed against their genitals, is interviewed. That familiar dazed after-sex look is all over their faces, and their endorphin-heavy perk is really all you need to know what Dolore says is true: the models at Kink really, really love their job.

Delore contests the notion that only people who have been sexual abused take pleasure in pain, although she says you’ll find abuse victims in porn studios, just like any other workplace.

“Unfortunately, you could look to any profession and say a lot of them were abused as kids. You could look at secretaries and say that. Personally, I wasn’t sexually abused.” She smiles. “I’m just a natural pervert.”

Delore’s a regular on the queer party circuit — this week, you can catch her stealing drinks at Sunday’s “Deviants” Folsom Street Fair closing party. Her exuberance in exploring the outer realms of sexuality haven’t gone unnoticed in the San Francisco sex community. Kelly Lovemonster, editor of the queer quarterly sexuality zine [SSEX BBOX] is a close friend of Dolore, and calls her a “super heroine.”

“Even when she is portraying a submissive bottom, being cattle prodded, nipples clamped down and attached to electric cords, you can tell she is absolutely in control,” says Lovemonster. “She shows us that our dirtiest, scariest, and wildest sexual fantasies can come true through healthy communication and BDSM play. She rescues us all from a world where sexuality is suppressed and made shameful.”

This, according to Dolore, is a big part of why what Kink produces is important. The website puts BDSM urges out there, lets people that get turned on by being slapped across the face know that they’re not the only ones.

For the dis-empowered and isolated BDSM fan, that can be heady stuff. “You can explore your rape fantasy in a way that the woman is in control of what’s happening to their body — it’s a way to relive a situation where you had no control and relive it in a way in which you do have control,” says Dolore.

In a direct repudiation of the claims that abuse victims fall into BDSM for unsavory reasons. Dolore says she’s seen rough sex and power play rehabilitate partners whose sexuality seems terminally fucked. “I’m not a therapist but I feel like I am sometimes.”

But when I ask her if she considers herself an activist, she says no.

“When I think of the word activist, I think of people who are more outspoken than I am. I do my thing on my website, and people can come watch it if they want to.”

Which is not to say that the forward girl at Hard French doesn’t think she’s affecting change. Says the princess: “I’m just happy that I can help people be honest about what they want in bed.” 

DEVIANTS: OFFICIAL FOLSOM STREET FAIR CLOSING PARTY

Sun/25 4 p.m.-3 a.m., $20-30

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

www.publicsf.com

 

Hard at work: YNOT Summit addresses the business behind web porn

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Hard at work: YNOT Summit addresses the business behind web porn

A man dressed in suit and tie walks into a conference room. A woman stands up to shake to his hand, followed by another man who unbuttons his jacket and outstretches his hand. You anxiously await the stereotypical bow-chika-wow-wow music to signal a wild menage a trios but instead, actual business is conducted. As easy as it is to imagine the inter-workings of the online adult entertainment industry as a porn itself, the reality involves a lot more clothing and a lot of legit, business-type activities. This week’s 15th annual YNOT Summit 2011 is the proof that will eventually become your pudding.

The YNOT Summit began in 1997 as the Cybernet Expo and has since become the longest-running adult industry gathering for professionals to hang-out, swap ideas, teach, and learn about running successful erotic web companies. The event is the physical representation of YNOT, an adult webmaster resource site that provides industry news and directories, basically a Better Business Bureau for online sex. About 400 adult industry professionals from around the country have registered for this year’s three consecutive days of 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. classes. It’s a full-on school day covering all the general subjects, business models, legalities and international market basics, with a couple recess-like networking opportunities, including a game of Two Truths and a Lie and an interactive photo-shoot. 

This year’s hottest session will no doubt be the “Pros and Cons of .XXX Domain Names”; an industry-wide debate over the new voluntary option for sex sites to take on the .xxx domain, which officially premiered this spring. Jay Kopita, the Summit’s director of operations, expects things could get a little hostile, as most industry folks disagree with the system and think it’s simply a disguised measure for governing bodies to collect some cash and increase censorship. Supporters of .xxx claim it’s all about protecting the children– no surprise there. A member of the ICM Registry, the Florida based company who runs all .xxx operations, will be on the discussion panel to answer questions and to tackle the loads of criticism. 

ynot

Not just any conference– check those banners!

The rest of the conference should be pretty predictable and Kopita says the event aims to keep things as professional as possible during the day.

“It’s not about going out and partying all the time. I mean, that happens anyway when you bring together a bunch of adult industry professionals, but the daily actives of the Summit are for people who are looking for a return on their investments,” he says. “These are people who want to learn how to make money from the adult business.”

The group is encouraged to get it all out after hours: each night the Summit throws an exclusive party for attendees. Saturday night’s play time is “Kink at the Castle”–  a sure to-be exciting evening running around the Armory with Kink.com. Work hard, play hard. 

 

YNOT SUMMIT 2011

Thurs/23- Sat/25, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily

Web registration closes Wed/22– ask for SFBG discount at the door

Holiday Inn Golden Gateway Hotel

1500 Van Ness, SF

www.YNOTSummit.com

Hot sexy events: June 15-21

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Hot sexy events: June 15-21

And we’re back! After a brief jaunt around the world, I’ve returned to hunker sexily down amidst a mountain of press releases for SF’s sluttiest happenings (yes, they make press releases). Seems like y’all have been busy since I’ve been gone – this week alone there’s a big-ass conference for nerdy – is there any other kind? – pervs and a class with Madison Young on making your own adult videos. 

Idea: go to Young’s Good Vibes class tonight, complete your star turn post-learnin’, and learn how to market and code the darn thing (or meet someone who can) this weekend! Then give link to all the new friends you meet at Pride. Planning ahead: it pays!

“DIY Porn”

Because it’s not just about figuring out how to many books to prop the Flip atop. No no, recording your sexy precious moments requires a lot more skills – starting off with the skill of knowing what dirty tricks you’d most like to capture for posterity. Femina Potens’ head mistress Madison Young (it’s safe to say) is a master at figuring these kinds of things out, so entrust to her your future on the silver – or laptop – screen. She’ll be touching on scripts, casting, and financing, so dream big.

Wed/15 6-8 p.m., $20-26 

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com


Ecosexual Queer Porn Night

Ecosexuality, the sensual relationship with the world around us. Not surprisingly, Nature (that sexy beast) plays a big roles in many pornos. Beaches, vineyards, parks – all this and more you will see for your own dirty little eyes if you attend a mini-fest incongruously located in the Tall Tree Tambo center, which last I checked was a spa and woo-woo health club-skillshare type arrangement in the back of Lower Haight’s favorite hippie hangout, Pkok. Enjoy! (Psst, if things get really natural, ask to take the party to the sauna out back in the garden). 

Thurs/16 8-11 p.m., $10

Tall Tree Tambo Wellness Center

776 Haight, SF (behind Pkok)

www.feminapotens.org


Ynot Summit 

Formerly the Cybernet Expo, this three day conference for the online sex industry promises to hook you up… with networking opportunities, at least. Attend speed mix-and-mingle sessions with your point-and-click-to-perversion peers, learn about legal issues surrounding online porn and escort services, and of course, the Saturday night show. Last year the nerds hit up the Kink.com palace, but this year they won’t even have to truck out the Mission: Kimo’s is hosting a show by the Asian Diva Girls and Smash Up Derby, which is curiously dubbed “one of San Francisco’s favorite bands” by conference organizers. Well hell, if they say so! 

Thurs/23-Sat/25 

Holiday Inn Golden Gateway

1500 Van Ness, SF

www.ynotsummit.com


Kinky Salon: SanFranSexual

Be entertained by Chadd Behavior of SF Boylesque and the triumphant return to Mission Control by X-rated storytelling doyenne Dixie De La Tour – or just fool around with everyone in the building. This week’s Kinky Salon swinger’s party is themed SanFranSexual for a reason, you’re allowed to do whatever the hell you want, in style. 

Sat/18 10 p.m.-late, $25-30 members only

Mission Control 

www.missioncontrolsf.org


Bawdy Storytelling: Tales of Non-Monogamy

Bawdy’s back – could this be the most popular monthly storytelling series in the Bay, pervy or not? – in its East Bay incarnation. Dixie’s overseeing a night of swingtastic synopses, from fundamentalist Christians at key clubs (I’d love to hear the scripture on that), and other godly pursuits.  

Tues/21 8 p.m., $10

The Uptown 

1928 Telegraph, Oakl.

www.bawdystorytelling.com

 

Hot sexy events: May 11-17

Andrew Lam
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Hot sexy events: May 11-17

On the website for Kink Studios – Kink.com‘s foray into the world of arthouse porn cinema – one scrolls down a quote from, of all people, that strapping hunk of man meat Roger Ebert. It’s about The Last Tango in Paris: 

The movie frightened off imitators, and instead of being the first of many X-rated films dealing honestly with sexuality, it became almost the last. Hollywood made a quick U-turn into movies about teenagers, technology, action heroes and special effects. And with the exception of a few isolated films like The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) and In the Realm of the Senses (1976), the serious use of graphic sexuality all but disappeared from the screen.

But being the innovators, perverts, and getting-things-done Type A’s that they are, the minds behind Kink.com decided to do something about this dearth of sexy, smart art. To wit, they made a film, Indietro, that combines all the flogging and excited screams that you’ve come to expect from the website’s more conventional BDSM flicks, with haunting piano trills and – gasp! – character development. They stocked the film with acting turns by Madison Young, Aurora Snow, and William Van Toland, and is written and directed by Vivian Darkbloom. 

It’s playing at Mission Control (via Femina Potens‘ programming) on Thurs/12, along with a Q&A with cast and crew. See it to believe it – and bring Mr. Ebert, won’t you?

 

Virgie Tovar presents “Burlesque Basics for the Shy and Awkward”

Amazing alert: the fantabulously fat burlesque star Dulce de Lecherous (Miss Tovar if you’re nasty) is doing this course on Burly Q gratis for the wonky and discombobulated set. I bet you never thought you’d be able to shimmy in stilettos, or twirl tassels with tact – but this here Virgie is ready to ease all comers – boys, girls, bois, “girls” – into stageside sexiness. Or, at least get you on the right path. We’re only talking about an hour-long class here, people. 

Thurs/12 6:30-7:30 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com


First Full of Kink: Indietro

Watch Kink Studios’ first foray into art porn, ask all your perverted wonderings of its cast and crew, then enjoy black and white porn and live burlesque performances. Afterwards, you can stay for the play party – if you’re a member of Femina Potens. Keep it classy, art freaks. 

Thurs/12 8 p.m.-1 a.m., $15

Mission Control

www.feminapotens.org


“Saburau: The Warrior’s Path of Service”

A educational run-down of positive power exchange practices in the Japanese samauri tradition. Sure, it’s not your run-of-the-mill Exiles class (they tend to focus on more explicitly S&M teachings), but that’s why this course sounds so cool. Ground your play time in a background of service-oriented community. 

Fri/13 8-10 p.m., $4 members/$10 non-members

The Women’s Building

3543 18th St., SF

www.theexiles.org


Dungeon monitor training

This training is not about loving control – or maybe it is, but don’t walk into it whip in hand. Being a dungeon monitor is a big deal, a crucial role in the pursuit of a healthy S&M scene. This orientation is open to everyone, and features interactive scenes showing problematic dungeon happenings in which you’re asked to practice your better judgement to mediate. Not into becoming a monitor, per se? You’re still welcome to learn and hone your skills as a member of a smart and safe community. 

Sat/14 4:30-7:30 p.m., $5-10 suggested donation

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org 


Naked Girls Reading: Burlesque legends

SF’s regularily-occurring lit night is famous for letting it all hang out. Really — the women on stage are naked as jaybirds. And though once again local luminaries like Lili St. Cyr, Lady Monster, and Cherry Galette will be orating from honored texts, this time around at least part of the show will be occuring offstage. Burlesque legends from Holiday O’Hara to Satan’s Angel will be in attendance – and you can sit next to one of the lovelies, if you’re down to shell out another five bucks. Deal! 

Sun/15 8:30-10 p.m., $15-20

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

(415) 552-7399

www.sexandculture.org

 

 

Hot sexy events: February 23-March 1

Andrew Lam
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Hot sexy events: February 23-March 1

Perhaps you recall a few weeks ago when I espoused my love for Rihanna and slightly-less-intense love for the new music video for her song “S&M.” I’m saddened to report that the lovely RiRi is in a spot of trouble over the new reel – David LaChappelle is suing her for deriving the video’s “composition, total concept, feel, tone, mood, theme, colours, props, settings, decors, wardrobe and lighting” from the fashion photog’s work. Here‘s a helpful guide to the similarities between the video and LaChappelle’s photos. 

But you know what, Violet Blue’s going with RiRi and so am I. David LaChappelle, for the love of Perez Hilton on a leash  – is this video detracting from your personal worth as a pervy photog? Now you can say you made a Rihanna video and maybe people will believe you. Problem = solved! Now onto sex events. Dirty talk and sexy poetry readings, etc.

 

Aural Sex

Word on the street is that sex educator-kinkster Midori’s voice is like buttah, so slide on into her workshop, which focuses on that most sexy, most mind-blowing organ of all – our voice! Uh wait, that’s not an organ so — our throat! Um — our diaphragm! Yeah, you’ll need one of those, so close enough.

Weds/23 6-8 p.m., $20-25

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com


The Art of Sacred BDSM

Wanna bring sacred into BDSM? Perhaps BDSM into the sacred? You are in luck because we have here a genuine shaman (who may or may not look like Melissa Joan Hart from “Clarissa Explains it All”) and a priest of love and eros who has the skillz to pay the billz in balancing the masculine and feminine in our lives. They’ll perform a sacred collaring ceremony for ya, and in general encourage more feeling in your feeling. 

Weds/23 7-9:30 p.m., call for price

Center for Sex and Culture

1519 Mission, SF

(415) 552-7399

www.sexandculture.org


Tongue Tied poetry night

Sex is poetry. Get all those nasty limericks out of your head for good at this kink-friendly (kinda goes without saying when you’re talking about the coffeeshop that hosted a Kink.com shoot a few years back) poetry night at Wicked Grounds. Emceed by a one TheyCallMeVroom. Nice name.

Thurs/24 7-10 p.m., free

Wicked Grounds

289 Eighth St., SF

(415) 503-0405

www.wickedgrounds.com


Kiss 

Hello hetero-centric gentlemen: do you have a lovely lady who is raring to play with you and sexy strangers this weekend? Why don’t you sign the two of you up for Kiss, the Mission Control play party for couples and single ladies only. Reserve your spot now – the night is reservation-only and we hear that the stripper pole at Mission Control books up fast. 

Sat/26 10 p.m.-late, $70 per couple, members only

Mission Control 

www.missioncontrolsf.org


The 15 Association’s Anniversary Play Party

Probably the most exclusive BDSM party going on this particular Sunday, the 15 Association will be celebrating 20 years in the male fraternity bondage business. Of course, if you’re not a member you can go to the open party on Sat/26 – but c’mon, don’t you want to see what sex looks like after two whole decades of hedonistic association?

Sun/27 1-8 p.m., $20 members only

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org

Scrooge you can use

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Scrooge you can use

caitlin@sfbg.com

CULTURE/ALT-XMAS At some point this December, my holiday spirit failed to launch. It’s strange in a way — I love gluttony, formal wear, time with loved ones, and the Latino church procession I saw going down South Van Ness Avenue the other day gave me a little shiver of happiness (not to mention the purple lights bedecking kink.com’s Armory). But I just don’t want to do the tree, the presents, the pressure. Really, this list of Xmas week alternative activities is for me as much as anyone, which I hope means I still get to do the mistletoe thing.

 

OPTION ONE: HEAD FOR THE HILLS

You ain’t got shit to do, so why not take your melancholy and foist it on nature? The recent spate of rain may make for a wet winter wonderland, but that should suit misanthropes just fine. Wear your best raincoat and mittens and you’ll be snug as the baby JC in his manger.

Where to go? The No. 76 Muni bus can get you to the Marin Headlands Recreational Area (remember, the buses run on the holiday-Sunday schedule on the 25th , check www.511.org for times) where foul weather makes for thrilling, wind-whipping hikes about the hills to the north of Golden Gate Bridge. Or you can take advantage of the greenery within city limits. Glen Canyon Park’s many trails are an excellent place to wait out the tinsel and treacle, as are the startlingly beautiful red rocks jutting out over the city in Corona Heights Park and the idiosyncratic bison paddock in Golden Gate Park.

Bonus round: get your conservation on the day after Christmas in Muir Woods with a free hike called “Get Your Spawn On: Searching for Endangered Salmon.” The hike will take you on a hunt for salmonids and reveals how we can help the fishies swim their way back into species security. (Meets at Muir Woods Dipsea Trail Trailhead, Mill Valley. (415) 349-5787, www.wildequity.org. 10 a.m.–noon, free with $5 park entrance fee)

 

OPTION TWO: GET A LITTLE CULTCHA IN YA

Sure, many of our venerable cultural institutions stay away from organizing events over the holiday weekend. But with only a small amount of searching, you can dig up the brave souls who see no reason to halt their arty trot on account of jingle bells. These include Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, which will be celebrating Dec. 24 with part one of its two-part exhibition “Audience as Subject,” a multimedia exploration of crowd behavior. Filmmaker Stefan Constantinescu will screen Troleibuzul 92 (2009), an examination of reactions to a planted actor on a crowded bus making abusive phone calls to his “girlfriend,” and visual and video artists investigate variations on the theme. (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2700, www.ybca.org. Noon, $7.)

If self scrutiny’s not your jam, head to the Contemporary Jewish Museum on Christmas Day, where free admission all day means that you can save your bones for New Year Eve’s and still check out the work of H.A. Rey and Margret Rey, the husband and wife who created Curious George. The couple just barely managed to smuggle the early sketches of George (and themselves) in their escape from the Nazi invasion of Paris, which they accomplished by bicycle. The drama might explain George’s penchant for close calls and saving the day. Kind of makes that cycling slog through this week’s foul weather seem less onerous, no? (Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF; (415) 655-7800, www.thecjm.org. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m.)

 

OPTION THREE: GET IT ON FILM

Going to the movies on Christmas has long been the treasured territory of awkward family gatherings, and with the mega-release of Tron: Legacy (playing at various Bay Area theaters) you can take it to the third dimension! Why talk about each others’ lives when you can plop down in the Castro Theatre with a tub of popcorn, affix 3-D glasses to your face and zone … out … for two hours and seven minutes? Hell, you can even skip the fam-fam and bring your girl Mary Jane, because this is one flick that promises to look real cool with a side of herb — soundtrack, acting, and plot notwithstanding.

And there’s no need to be a lonely anime geek by the Christmas tree. Bebop Nights, the recurring get-together of cult classic TV show Cowboy Bebop fans is holding its sixth installment Dec. 25, a day stereotypically characterized by animated features with way, way less cooler characters. Sure, Rudolph and Frosty are bulbous and ebullient, but Spike, Vicious, and Julie are deep space bounty hunters with a penchant for dope background music. Which cast better characterizes your lump of coal attitude this yuletide? (Bridge Theatre, 3010 Geary, SF; (415) 668-6384, www.landmarktheaters.com. Midnight–3 a.m., suggested donation $4)

Other promising showings include Natalie Portman’s psycho-ballet thriller, Black Swan, camp of the year Burlesque, the Coen brothers’ remake of the western True Grit, and Naomi Watts as CIA agent Valerie Plame in Fair Game.

 

OPTION FOUR: DRINK

And when all else fails, raise a glass to (and of, see how that works?) booze. Many of your watering hole favorites will be open Christmas Eve and day, but why not try on a new barstool and pack of regulars for size? My pick for caroling into the bottom of your glass is Trad’r Sam (6150 Geary, SF; (415) 221-0733. Open noon–late), a kick-ass Outer Richmond tiki bar where I am cautioned that a solo scorpion bowl mission will result in the ability to see reindeers, unless that’s what you’re going for. To make your Christmas denial complete, keep one eye on the jukebox, and your clobbering stick handy for any poor schlub who opts for Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas.”

Hot sexy events October 13-19

Andrew Lam
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Support your local sex workers! We are lucky to live in a city where those salacious somebodies that will take their kits off in the name of our pleasure and payment don’t have to lay down and take it when the man gets all censorious and grabby – lucky to live in a city where St. James’ Infirmary exists, that is. The Lusty Ladies agree, and on Sat/16 they’re holding their annual Playday for St. J’s – 16 hours of girl-on-girl-on-call for justice.

For there was a time where if you got picked up providing sex to paying customers, you got stuck. We’re talking hypodermic needles – part of a policy that used to go down in SF that forced sex workers to give up blood samples in jail for mandatory STD testing. As you can imagine, this was not always done in the most respectful of manners. Enter St. James’, founded by sex worker advocacy group COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics). The center holds a health clinic, trainings and support groups, hormone therapy programming, peer counseling, and oh so much more. Why on earth not head down to the Lusty to make sure our ladies – and gentlemen – of the night continue to be treated as such?

Original Plumbing Bathhouse Reception

Celebrate the notion that a photo-heavy magazine of transmen is one of the most hot publication debuts to hit the racks in 2010 – Original Plumbing’s fourth issue is out! And it features a hunky lineup of working stiffs, all of whom will be at the wine and cheese reception, open to all genders and levels of ab definition.

Thu/14 7 p.m., free

Eros

2051 Market, SF

(415) 255-4921

www.originalplumbing.com


Spanking and Paddling

Don’t worry, consoles the description of this Edu Kink offering: “there will be plenty of spanking time.” That’s because even though this is technically a class on spanking – its possible childhood associations, how to deal with them should they arise, on technique, and enjoying the spank on the receiving end – Edu Kink’s Paideia workshop series has a focus on lecture leading to experience. So prepare you that booty, naughty kids.

Fri/15 7:30-10:30 p.m., $15-$25 sliding scales

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-1746

www.edukink.org


Pink Blues Dance

What better way to amp up for Mission Control’s pansexual play party than this week’s warmup: a chance to swing those hips to the down ‘n’ out blues on the dance floor. Costumes not required, but membership to the club (and a smile) is. 

Fri/15 9 p.m.-2:30 a.m., $20-$30 members only

Mission Control 

2519 Mission, SF

www.missioncontrolsf.org 


Naked Girls Reading

What’s that chill that just ran down your spine? Are you frozen in fear by a classic ghost story, channeling the pre-Halloween vibe – or are you just naked? It could easily be both at this storytelling series that pairs the city’s sexologists and stage presences with a favorite book, a mic, and little else. Watch for the SF Ghost Society’s Elissa Fricano’s tales of personal encounters with the world beyond.

Sat/16 8 p.m., $15-$20

Center for Sex and Culture

1519 Mission, SF

(415) 225-1155

www.sexandculture.org

 

Peter Acworth’s Birthday Deviance

Everyone needs a little extra attention on their birthday. And on the founder of Kink.com’s 40th, you can only imagine what form that personal touch will take. Our town’s foremost world-class fetish porn palace opens its virtual doors to members who want to join in on the fun online. Visit www.theupperfloor.com on Saturday evening and watch live as hot doms and slaves create sexy mayhem during a celebratory dinner in Peter’s honor.

Sat/16 6:30-11 p.m., free for Kink.com members, $.25 cents per minute for nonmembers

www.theupperfloor.com


Lusty Lady Playday RXXX

That’s right, get your dirty, dirty prescription for a Saturday in the hospital – or rather, nurse’s office. The Lusties will be pulling on the rubber gloves for a day of sexual healing. Girl-on-girl action all day long, with a portion of the proceeds going to everyone’s favorite hustler health care provider, St. James’ Infirmary.

Sat/16 11 a.m.-3 a.m., $5 before 10 p.m., $10 after

The Lusty Lady

1033 Kearny, SF

(415) 391-3126

www.lustyladysf.com


How To Be a Top Presenter

Have you been there, done that when it comes to the sex education classes at Good Vibes and the host of other venues around our pervy city that like to teach on the tactics of titillation? Take your love of lovin’ to the next level with this little one-off. Dr. Charlie Glickman is sharing the secrets of his sexpert trade: how to plan and orchestrate sex ed for adults.

Tues/19 6-8 p.m., $20-$25

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com

 

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