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
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.
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.
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.
Oh sweet, fluffy bunny rabbit. In other, less frisky climes, your ilk is heralded as the perfect harbinger of spring. And also though we respect your frenetic rates of copulation, we humbly suggest a more apropos sign of the season: radical faerie Cobra’s new art show at gay health center Magnet, featuring both carvings and tapestries devoted to that (second)most fertile of creatures, the penis.
Yay or nay? Whatever your response to this humble re-branding suggestion, this week brings just the exultant sex event for you. Hunky Jesus contests? Drinking til you barf with your fellow leathemen? Read on, bunny dearest, for this week’s sex events.
Act Up Resurrection March
Happy Good Friday! It’s time to storm the oldest Catholic Church in town, deliver the ashes of AIDS victims to its doorstep, and have a bunch of queer nuns exorcise them of the evils the Pope has commited by restricting access to condoms! Today’s march, a commemoration of 25 years of AIDS advocacy rebels Act Up, will start at the Wells Fargo by the 16th Street BART station to highlight the bank’s predatory role in gentrification (a phenomenon that regularly unhouses AIDS patients), then go by the church en route to the Castro, where a list of the names of activists who died during the AIDS era will be read.
“Sacred Cocks: Cobra’s Erotic Nature Based Carvings & Tapestries”
Word on the street is that Cobra has been whittling away at willies since he was but a babe, all part of an effort to bring to light “ancient faggot history, which is intertwined with nature,” says the artist himself. Come for looks at lustful satyrs, and a break from all the hard body party flyers that blanket the Castro.
“Pretending to be Free of Time: Phyllis Christopher”
… Or really take a break from the hard body party flyers that blanket the Castro at this exhibit of erotic photographer Phyllis Christopher’s work. The well known shutterbug will be showing her close-up snippets of the heavy-breathing BDSM life. A flexed wrist here, a drop of blood there — when the act itself left up to the imagination of the beholder, Christopher is lucky that this show is taking place at one of the centers of SF perv culture.
Someone oughta do a study on condom sales during Catholic holidays. We’re just saying. At any rate, one of Folsom Street’s finest is having this all-you-can-drink booze-a-thon in the hopes that your altar boy guilt will translate into titillating party repartee.
They’re 33 years old and still hanging out at Dolores Park — so what’s there to commemorate? This isn’t your crusty roommate we’re talking about, this is the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The purveyors of white face majick, radical queer protest, and lotsa yucks want to celebrate 33 years of troupe-dom with their “traditional” performance at Hipster Beach, and damned if we’re not going to humor them to the best of our abilities. The presentation will be marked by the ever-fresh “Hunky Jesus” contest, so even that roommate of yours has something to celebrate.
After the success of the alternative live sex show Cum and Glitter, it’s clear that the Bay is ready for some onstage hijinx past the standard offerings at the Penthouse Club, or even our foxy babes over at the Lusty Lady. Enter Salacious Underground, a brand-new neo-burlesque event. What does neo-burlesque entail, you ask? Dial up the darkness and the daring on a standard Burly Q tassel-twirl — for more specifics, you’ll just have to head to Brick and Mortar on Sunday.
Everyone’s trying to cash in on the tech dollar these days, including the sexy storytelling shows. Or maybe Bawdy’s not taking that big of a leap from its typically scheduled programming — after all, as one Bawdy bard said: “I really think there’s a lot of overlap between geeks and perverts. Most of the geeks I know are pretty pervy and most of the pervs are pretty geeky.” At any rate, tonight’s stories will revolve around the art-science of dildonics and an engineer’s view of sex.
Today I wrote a story about my sexual initiation. I forwarded my story to my friends, we discussed, they wrote down theirs. Turns out one of my loved ones did the deed over half an ecstasy pill on Staten Island. Another’s first time was with a boyfriend so unmemorable that she couldn’t remember identifying characteristics. Apparently they had a hard time getting it in.
Is there a moment in life that is as important, yet less talked-about than the dismissal of one’s virginity? Hardly. So few things equaled the cheap thrill I got from handing over my own story to local author turned filmmaker Laura Goode to publish on her film’s new fundraising website.
“Society just doesn’t talk about the importance of that first time,” Goode says during her Guardian interview, artfully angling her words around a can of Trader Joe’s beer while sitting in her improbably awesome, rundown-cute Mission District carriage-house-cum-studio. She’s an author, recently having penned last year’s Sister Mischief, a kickass young adult novel about a bunch of high school girls from a elite Christian Minneapolis suburb who bust rhymes in a hip-hop collective, start a queer-straight alliance at their straight-laced campus, and come out of the closet with flair.
Goode’s work tends to have a political plotline with a sex-positive subtext, which explains the next paragraph well enough.
She and co-editor Neelanjana Banerjee created Cherry Bomb as a companion to Farah Goes Bang, a movie that they’re working on with a crack production team. The script – written by Goode and co-writer Meera Menon — follows four young women who take to the road during the John Kerry 2004 presidential campaign, a magical moment (ahem) in United States history if ere there was one. The titular Farah is one of the four, and is hellbent on — as the title neatly references — getting laid for the first time. Cherry Bomb is, essentially, a reward for people who donate to Farah Goes Bang‘s Kickstarter page.
And so, partly as a gift for those who donate to the cause of their movie-to-be, the women have created Cherry Bomb. The forum hopes to be a sex-positive secret space – you can only view the seduction stories after donating to the movie or by speaking your piece yourself. The idea, Goode says, is for the site to be a safe zone to talk about that time in your life when you’re hovering on the brink of sexual activity. Why did you make the decision to become sexually active? How did it feel? What do you remember from that act?
“There aren’t a lot of orgasms, even for the dudes,” says Banerjee. “Which is to say, I think people are being really honest and real about the event. The great thing about this topic is that it swings from the nostalgic to the tragic, and everywhere in-between.”
There is just not enough real talk about sex and sexuality,” Banerjee continues. “There is so much posturing on all sides, so I thought a forum dedicated to diversity would be amazing: stories of girls who couldn’t wait to lose it next to stories of girls who wanted to lose it but didn’t really care that much, side-by-side with stories about guys who still think about the girl who took theirs when they were 15 or guys who waited until they were almost 30, etc.”
It’s worth joining in, and not just to support a film that sounds like it’s going to be an empowering storyline for young women. Writing out the story of how you lost your v-card (and then posting to a semi-public website) is a great way to reclaim your sexual narrative. Especially if you have a bone to pick with that dick who jumped you in dirty (no pun intended, no pun intended, no pun intended.)
For more info on Goode’s film and accompanying cherry-picking website, head to www.farahgoesbang.com
This is the thing, is that pastel is not supposed to be sexy and it’s definitely not supposed to be San Francisco.
But here it is, and nowhere is it more apparent than in this week’s lineup of sex events. It’s not just Mission Control’s pajama bash, but also the parade of parties that will be hitting the decks throughout the next seven days. Actually, maybe it’s just Sat/31 that’s putting forth the highest wattage of lightly-hued light. The 15th anniversary of the Lex? Well sure, it’s hardly pastel in everyone’s favorite dykve bar, but best believe that the world of the Lexington churns based on the wattage that pink provides. And the Clitoris Celebration at La Pena Cultural Center? Rosy shades of powerful. So don’t worry if your dye job’s starting to look a little tie-dye-red — just tell ’em you’re in My Little Pony land and they’ll understand. Hey, maybe even take you home.
In Burning, In Bashing Back, In Blooming
Alexander Alvina Chamberland is a SF native gone Swede — but though they’ve toured their spoken word performance piece all about Europe (try Berlin, London, Stockholm, Manchester, Göteborg, Malmö, Lund, Amsterdam, Copehagen, Norberg, and Uppsala, and don’t ask me what country the last one of those is in) eventually one always must return home. So let’s give the queer performer a big attending-your-soul-baring hug, because In Burning deals in two of the most personal topics there are: sexual assault and gender identity. Plus, Chamberland is an emotive whiz. See the clip of an early performance of a scene from the show for proof:
Thu/29 7:30pm-9:30pm, $5-$15 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds
No one’s going to tell you to stay on your side of the pillow tonight — just make sure you dress your frilly, fierce best because Mission Control’s playspace is all about polyamory permission tonight. Dress code is sleepwear, sweetie, and don’t forget your bedfellow. The buddy system won’t be enforced at the door of the event, but you’ll need a pal for getting into any of the fun zones.
Sat/31 9pm-3am, $20 Mission Control and Love Triangle members only
Sayeth Marke B. in this week’s Super Ego nightlife column: Time flies when you’re a flaming hot lesbian! Can it be 15 years already since the proudly dive-y Lex threw open its doors to the gorgeously rough-and-tumble dykes of the Mission and their humble admirers (like yours truly)? Oh hell yes. Congratulate owner Lila and crew on keeping one of the few lesbars in homocity open, with filthy music, smokin’ go-gos, kinky quinceanera shenanigans, and lipstick-obliterating drink specials.
Not enough lip service is paid to the hood beneath your hood, no? Perhaps it we don’t celebrate it appropriately — which is why this benefit for Global Women Intact, the grassroots nonprofit that raises awareness about African female genital mutilation is so important. An evening of music from the mother continent has been planned, so go to support our right to keep that oh-so-important swatch at the forefront of our lives.
Mr. Sexsmith has recently edited two tomes of stories to get you in trouble — Best Lesbian Erotica 2012 and Say Please: A Lesbian Erotica Anthology. She’ll be reading from the latter today, so if you need a nice little treat for this weekend’s hookup, you can drop by Good Vibes to get a copy sexily signed by its author herself.
Perhaps you caught Soojin Chang’s review of the first month’s edition of Cum and Glitter (my god, the trolls from SFGate sure did!), the Mission’s new alt-queer live sex show that had Ava Solanos squirting, yes squirting, the to thrums of a cello perched mere feet away from her audience-spritzing climax. Yes! Well even if you didn’t, you will note from that description that C&G is the classiest thing that an experienced exhibitionist could be possibly be involved in, in the city these days. And so it is with pleasure that we announce that the show is currently holding auditions. Will you don baby bloomers and molest your babysitter onstage? Sexy ribbon-dance? Those were actually last month’s ideas, babe, but we know you can think of something great. Now, the week’s sex events from lectures to slutty cigar parties.
“Pink Japan: Contemporary Sex Culture”
An expert in Japanese bondage (in fact, she wrote the first English language book on shibari), sex worker Midori brings a unique perspective on the sexual mores and more!s of that particular island nation. Come to her presentation today on her voyages in the East — if you come early you can check out her collection of dirty mags and other goodies from her trips.
Here’s a great reason to start volunteering at town’s premier pansexual playspace: cheese, chocolate, cigars, cabaret music, and sexy time with all the dappers and dandies of the Mission Control community. Live tunes provided by This Can’t End Well, hotness provided by you.
Thu/22 8 p.m.-midnight, only open to Mission Control allies, volunteers, and crew
Remember when Wicked Grounds shut down? Yeah, we’d rather forget that time too. But SF’s best-and-only kink coffeeshop has been re-opened long enough to get back into the swing of things, and we’re excited to see that it’s hosting its standard line-up of pervy-perfect community happenings. Come tonight to talk O with other om-ers — kinky sexuality takes the conversational stage at this meet-and-greet (typically used to hunt down future play partners, lucky you.)
“Sex, Race, and Class: The Perspective of Winning”
Author Selma James has a sexy theory and it is this: capitalism is a ware waged against human life — life that is driven by reproduction. (Small wonder that the Republicans want to take the fun out of sex.) Learn all about it on this stop of her book tour, which is happily timed to coincide with Shaping SF public lecture series. She’ll bring with her Andaiye, the founder of the Guyana’s Red Thread movement for female financial autonomy and community connectedness.
Could be hard to hear, could be heart-warming, will probably be both, this spoken word event has sold out to the gills online, and with good reason. Gina de Vries, Elena Rose, and Julia Serano have crafted an evening of performances that will center around the theme of sisterhood between trans and cis-gendered women. They’re hoping it will be the jumping-off point for a dialouge that really doesn’t get enough play in the queer community (or anywhere, for that matter).
Thu/29 7-10 p.m., $12-$20 (sold-out on line, but limited standing room-only tickets remain)
Last night’s opening of North Beach’s brand spanking new Penthouse Club and Steakhouse (formerly Show Girls, before that Boy Toys) was glittery enough and did have a two-story pole for the women to play on, but – and I will only say this once – ladies, when you are being introduced onstage in the first moments of a strip club officially being open and you are next to a two-story stripper’s pole, and you are a stripper, you better get up there and show the crowd what they’re going to be getting for its rumpled, sweaty single bills.
Like, wrap your calf around its and spin. Blow it air kisses. Something.
Other than that, North Beach has another, very serviceable strip club. Gone is the cramped upper floor of Showgirls, annihilated in favor of a clear view to the main (there are four total) stage below and a round Lucite dais on which platform stilettos can twinkle about, their owners’ rear ends winking attractively for the up-gazers in the nightclub’s round tables on the first floor.
The club is touting its seasonal, locally-sourced menu hard. Last night at the press preview (thanks to the open bar during this segment of the evening, my hangover from the stripper/porn star-themed cocktails made me want to stab myself with a seven inch glitter shoe this morning) there were roast beef sliders, spoonfuls of tuna tartare topped with “mango jelly,” and salmon on toast from executive chef Michael Ellis’ menu. Ellis has a Michelin star earned from his time at Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg.
I hope to god the Michelin people come to dine at the Penthouse Club. Might I suggest the all-white circular booths, or perhaps the seats separated by shimmery silver fringe on the second floor? For more casual dining, take your slider over to the lap dance station, a circular seat providentially perched within swiping distance of the ATM. I’d be interested to see what the service was like for sit-down diners – the waitstaff was hotter than the strippers onstage.
Dancers Samira and Ivy had found a quiet moment during the press preview portion of the evening to snack a slider and a martini at a table marked ‘reserved’ when I started harassing them about their thoughts on the big opening.
“It looks a lot better than it did,” said Samira. Samira was wearing an ass crack-displaying tight blue dress. This is a style, I’ve noticed, that’s been spreading like wildfire among the more trend-forward sex workers (as evidenced by my onsite reporting from this year’s AVN Awards in Vegas). Other vivid entries on the sartorial stage included one young lady’s forest green velvet, off-shoulder frock, and a be-fringed number whose owner told me people were insulting for not being stripper-y enough. Some people have no taste.
But I digress. Ivy, who has been working at the club for three years, told me that business continued as usual throughout the entire renovation process. “It used to be real crazy,” she reflected. Surely the tips will improve now that the dust has settled, I ventured. “I hope so!” said Samira. “But tonight it’s more about getting our name out.” Anything I can do to help ladies! The women were all carrying Clueless-style glitter cube purses available in pink, purple, and green. They use them to carry their cash and, I made up in my head, their lipstick for quick touch ups. One of them in a tight, translucent floor-length dress told me that I could purchase one for myself at Target. Also, that she used to work at an underground Asian coffeeshop in San Jose.
And then the gladiator music started and it was time to stop pole dancing on the structurally unsound glitter tubes lining one of the strip platforms and sit pretty for the introduction of the club’s full lineup, who vamped one by one across the stage. Here we come to the disappointing part of the evening, wherein roughly two of the 1,000 strippers on stage worked the pole in a satisfactory manner.
When the actual performances began, the first few ladies to take their solo turns on the fresh new stage were a little lethargic, but then that thrilling moment came when the first one scaled the full height of the pole, and spun down to the floor with an accompanying shower of dollars and the full, back-breaking explosion that comes mid-break in “We Found Love.” Rihanna, you must make your songs for ladies to take their clothing off to them.
And so: go to the Penthouse Club for Lucite, slutwear fashion, and if you like your lap dance with a side of $3 ATM fees. Also, the top floor bar has ice on it, so your drinks will stay cold if you are the kind of person who takes a long time to pick up your stripper-themed cocktail after you bartender makes it.
File them under “things I don’t understand, ergo I hate them”: getting stood up and online dating. How backwards, no? Thank god for writer Oscar Raymundo, for in addition to being a gleefully catty bitch on this selfsame website and Internet-everywhere, he is taking part in a panel discussion to demystify online encounters tonight, on Thu/15.
On his blog, Raymundo promises to broach such need-to-know subjects as “Craigslist killers, Facebook stalkers and eHarmony homophobes! How fun.” His fellow panelists will include sexy writer goddess Violet Blue, Nick Abramovic, chief strategy officer (scary!) at OkCupid, and a dating coach. And there will be a pool. You won’t want to swim in it, because it’s gross out.
Intimate auteur Travis Mathews has been documenting real boys and their bedrooms for years, and he’s hoping to take his act across the pond. You can help support his efforts to bring realness to the land of guy-on-guy by digging deep in front of your computer. No, I’m talking about his new Kickstarter campaign.
Because how often does a new strip club open up? Not often enough. Broadway Street plays host to yet another shimmy-shake space starting this week – the new Penthouse Club. Penthouse Pets Jenna Rose and Sabrina Maree are hosting, there will be a performance by Jes, and Michael Ellis’ locally-sourced menu will be available for those who are there for more than just the boobs. Fyi, the club is still looking for entertainers, find info on its website about auditions.
Let’s put aside the fact that Mardi Gras was last month and just enjoy the fact that finally there is an arena in which it is not only appropriate, but desirable to offer beads in exchange for sexual favors (Bourbon Street = Hellmouth). This month’s pansexual play party at Mission Control encourages everyone to don their shiny jester masks and screw to the sounds of burlesque and Dixieland brass band.
Any reader of this column worth their salt is having safe sex, but Good Vibrations thinks that even you can take it up a notch. Hence the sex toy chain’s Humpday happy hours, at which perverted patrons can learn about the extra measures of pleasure available to them, from lubes to customized protection correction.
I have been trying my very hardest to ignore the various fascist blowhards currently preening themselves through the Republican primary season. Let them twerk the dialogue so far that it is entirely subsumed by their draconian views on social issues – yes, it’s bruising our souls to hear them tackle reproductive health, but in an era of our country’s history when soaring unemployment rates look to be our new normal, every breath conservatives spend on their outdated ideas of sexuality takes them one vote away from ever taking the White House.
But the Sandra Fluke-Rush Limbaugh debacle is hitting a little close to home. The Georgetown University graduate was called a slut, a “feminazi,” and a host of other demeaning terms by the talk radio blowhard. Slut-shaming, as this op-ed in the LA Times is quick to point out, being the oldest trick in the let’s-discredit-women book. Her crime? Testifying before Congress about how her friend treats her ovarian cyst condition by taking birth control pills.
Perhaps even more disenhartening has been the various media responses attacking the actual content of Fluke’s speech. Wear condoms instead of using spendy contraception methods! Make the men pay for half of your prescriptions! But the issue of latex allergies aside, when used correctly, the pill has a far smaller failure rate than condoms, and hello? When should you bring up the subject of your date paying for your pills, technically that’d be a before-you-have-sex talk, right? Idiots!
We’ll see what comes of all this – maybe the feminism movement will be able to surf the wave of outrage into some exciting new realm of sex-positivity. Somebody even got President Obama to say something supportive; he compared Fluke to his daughters, and hoped some day they’d be following her lead into civic engagement.
When will some red-faced white guy suggest I make a sex tap, if I like talking about sex so much? It’s easy to feel a little scared, an injury to one being an injury to all and all that. But it’s also easy to feel plain pissed off, and ready to strike back. I’m not going to get on the radio and start talking adultery, pill-popping, and general irrelevance in the post-Victorian era – but I am going to share with you all the crazy, proudly slutty stuff happening in the Bay Area this week. This ones for you, Sandra! (And you, Rush.)
Good Vibrations 35th anniversary party at Bootie
It’s come a long way in 35, but Good Vibes is still championing accessible sex toys sold with a side of intimacy education. Celebrate your first vibrator (you bought it here, right?) at this special edition of mashup dance party Bootie, with special guest DJ Robin Skouteris from Greece, and a performance by live music burlesqueteer Trixie Carr.
Sat/10 9 p.m.-after hours, $10 before 10 p.m.-$20 afterwards.
It won’t be the first time that this drag weekly has ventured into untoward territory, and surely it won’t be the last. Host VivvyAnne Forevermore has assembled a crack team for this month’s “young” theme — rest assured that there will be nubile young shiny things out looking for their daddy tonight.
Writer-native San Franciscan-sex worker Gina de Vries can really bust out the lines (we should know, she used to have a weekly column at the Guardian about sex issues) — so if you’re looking to get seamy with the printed word, she’s not a bad woman to turn to. De Vries digs on helping sex workers recount their experiences, and providing a space where they can share triumphs and tribulations in a constructive, celebratory way.
It’s indeed possible for people who identify as men to watch porn and maintain their feminist affliation. So says Zachary Schlosser, who will be gathering up anyone who is interested in the topic for this 10-week workshop. Will you watch porn? Yes. Will you talk about porn? Yes. Will you be doing more than building up a spank bank? Absolutely.
Every Sunday Sun/11-June 3 7 p.m., $100-$150 sliding scale
“Sometimes sex is a continuation of the love and trust two people develop over a period of time – and sometimes, it’s the product of being part of a scene that’s too freaky to pass up.” Sometimes, the Facebook event description is really all you need. Attend this monthly perverts’ show-and-tell for tales of diddling one’s stepbrother and double-teams in the back of a cop car.
The only other time I had been to a live sex show was in the Red Light District of Amsterdam. The thing was crude – even amid the slew of debauchery that makes up tourist Amsterdam. Mostly, that was because of the concrete venue, Eurotrash techno, and slimy men masturbating and jeering behind me. But the Saturday night debut of Cum and Glitter at an underground venue in the Mission was an entirely different experience. Hosted by the elegant and welcoming Ginger Murry of Whore Magazine, the show is the brainchild of Ava Solanas and Maxine Holloway, who started the new monthly event as an expressive outlet for the sex worker community.
The show started at a little past ten p.m. Attendees descended wooden steps to an intimate underground event space that resembled a 1920’s speakeasy. The room was dimly lit, dotted with small round tables, and overflowing with anticipation. Garter belts and playsuit-flaunting babes appeared, accompanied by the deep, warm bellows of a cello being played by the artist Unwoman that vibrated through the air.
The series’ first performance, an enchanting strip tease by Dorian Faust, set a sexy mood that carried through the rest of the evening, despite ensuing acts that registered higher on the comedy scale. Faust looked like a mermaid in her sequined outfit of varying blue hues, and her nimble body moved in waves, creating an optical illusion that carried on until she was stripped down to just her gold and blue glitter and thong.
Next on stage were Courtney Trouble and Maxine Holloway, the latter of whose nipples were swiftly cinched with clothes pins, mouth gagged with her brunette mane. The evening proceeded in this manner, switching off between sensual and expressive solo dances and the longer duo role-plays that involved plenty of spankings, toys, and at times, ordinary household items used in surprisingly creative ways.
Eden Alexander’s lesson on how to be a dominatrix was awe-inspiring to say the least. She spoke with comedic conviction as she took charge of her male submissive, who was ordered to worship his mistress — when he wasn’t being used as a standing surface for her stillettoes. Alexander’s delightful sass was perfectly complemented by her — even sassier — hot pink latex floor-length dress.
Dialogue and interactions were clearly exaggerated, and the performance was more stylized than realistic. However, the sheer and genuine excitement of the performers made the show feel unforced. The audience reaped all the usual benefits of watching a performance in a small venue, and we were able to intimately enjoy every soft moan and fleeting expression –- moments that are normally missed entirely in onscreen porn. Being eye-level with the action literally involved the audience that much more in the ecstasy of the performers — when Solanas squirted in all her glittering glory to the swells of the cello mere feet to her right, barely missing my shoe in the process, it was as if she was coming for all of us.
It is billed as a live sex show, but don’t be misled — the first installation of “Cum and Glitter” was not simply an explicit display of intercourse as it was a series of rather light-hearted scenarios acted out by nine gorgeous women who understand how pleasurable the mix of consent and wild imagination can be. Whether your fantasy is a naughty baby sitter, sexy shoeshine, or being gagged with a rubber chicken, there was an elated smile on everyone’s face by the end of the night — it was clear that everyone left the show feeling quite satisfied.
Check out Cum and Glitter’s website for information on the collective’s next show
Looking for a reason to spend this unseasonably warm weekend hovering over your computer? The sluttiest ticket of them all: the Adult Virtual Convention, an online version of the time-tested, fan-approved pornography fan expo that will go live from Fri/24-Sun/26 on your computer. Yes sir, just as the DVD porn industry has mourned the loss of revenue to low-budget Internet blue film, soon porn conventioneers might be feeling the pinch as well. Here’s a list of reasons why cyber conventioneering just might be better than the real thing:
1. No need to agonize over which that baseball cap makes you look like a slobby creep, or whether you should wear the tee with your favorite starlet’s face on it: AVC is being conducted through Utherverse, an “online adult social center” that to the untrained observer seems a lot like Second Life. Like that site, you’re welcome to concoct your own avatar that may have very little to do with your meat physique. Goodbye wardrobe issues, hello black chaps and a bikini (one of the default ‘fits for women — you can also opt for flame pants or “Hit Me Baby One More Time.”)
2. Could-be interesting lectures. On Sun/26 at 3 p.m. “A Look Inside the Profession of a Virtual Sex Worker” seems like it could be pretty illustrative. How do you get people to pay you for cyber sex? Utherverse minx Ronnie Turner has done it, and has signed onto share the secrets of how she got there. The convention’s Sat/25 noon keynote conversation is entitled “Surviving Porn’s Evolution: A Darwinian Perspective,” and will feature Evil Angel Video’s Christian Mann being interviewed by Colin Rowntree, the founder of one of the Internet’s first BDSM-alternative sexuality sites.
3. Real-life porn movers-and-shakers. Xbiz’s Man of the Year and founder of Girlfriends Films (who I interviewed in a recent cover story on the AVN Awards in Vegas) Dan O’Connell — or at least, O’Connell’s avatar — will be around at 2 p.m. on Sat/25 to talk about how to produce porn. He should know, he’s written and shot over 1500 scenes, by his own count. Sabrina Deep will explore the issues of condom usage in the porn industry on Sat/25 at 3 p.m. Perhaps you’re familiar with Deep’s work from her record-breaking 2007 gang bang with no less than 77 fans from her website over the course of eight hours. She was subsequently named Queen of Bukkake and Gangbangs by Howard Stern, who you may not be surprised to learn is considered a type of royalty himself among porn types.
4. You can be as scandalous as you like. Feel free to explore any fantasy you like while being respectful — no one knows that’s you in the bulging muscles and acid-washed jeans. I mean, you can already do that on the Internet, but whatever. Ultraverse is expecting 20,000 attendees, so get buck.
5. It’s free. Let me tell you, porn conventions are never free. At all. And this one is — well. You do have to pay for outfits beyond the standard defaults. Because no one’s avatar should be poorly dressed for the porn convention.
For more information on the first-ever AVC go here
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.
When we got there at 10:40 p.m., the underwear party was just getting started. The Knockout isn’t a big place, and it wouldn’t take long before it filled up with barely-dressed young people. We shed our pants at the door. My friend slipped her dress over her head while I peeled off my shirt. The feeling of freedom didn’t hit us right away, but by the time our wristbands had been secured and we made our way to the coat check we were looking at each other with elation.
“Do you feel it too? How amazing this is, not having to wear clothes?”
Club Neon has been hosting its annual pants-less Valentine’s Day party since 2004. This year it was DJ’ed by Jamie Jams and EmDee.There was a $5 cover, but only for those too shy and repressed to expose their undies. The primary attraction of this night is, in Club Neon’s words, “the chance to dance with no pants.”
We started dancing immediately. The music penetrated us right away – as if, without clothes, the beat had a more direct line into our skin. 1980s dance hits, of course, captured the joy of the moment perfectly.
Love was certainly in the air. A couple nearby had swapped underwear, so the man was wearing a lacy thong and the woman had on striped boxer briefs. They stood swaying rhythmically while they stroked each other’s respective undergarments.
Pretty soon the entire group I came with was making out, in various permutations and combinations of coupling. Two random French men had joined us somehow, and we were all basking in the collective effervescence of the disco ball-lit dance floor.
The music switched from ’80s to modern pop, and we all started singing the words. We couldn’t hear each other over the music, but we could feel the same patterns of air were exiting our mouths. Something about being in underwear made partial telepathy possible. As strangers partnered up on the dance floor, they found themselves immediately touching all those normally hidden parts of each other – no way to avoid being thrilled.
In conclusion, why can’t all parties be underwear parties?
Dixie De La Tour wants you to talk about sex, for the sake of San Francisco’s reputation. “I am still baffled at how a city as cosmopolitan as SF could not realize that perverts tell the very best stories,” says the host of Bawdy Storytelling. That’s why she started the pervy monthly event that gathers up our city’s sex-positive to share their most tawdry tales of love and lust. Recent Bawdy themes have included cheap sex, public sex, cockblocking, and December’s “Dick in a Box” night (holiday sex!) Usually held at the Mission’s Blue Macaw, the five-year anniversary edition of Bawdy will occupy the stage of the Verdi Club on Sat/18.
We asked De La Tour to recount five of her favorites Bawdy stories in honor of the event’s milestone, which she did happily, including this scene-setting by way of introduction:
My career as a sexuality-based raconteur started innocently enough: about six years ago, a friend invited me to hear him tell a story in a café in the avenues…a story from his life, told to friends and strangers. While other cities have events like the Moth, we don’t, and I didn’t understand what I was going to see, but I ended up loving it. I was immediately hooked: all the stories were true, the person who stood in front of me was telling me a story from their life and how they’d made it happen…it seemed like the Ultimate Insider Guide, a roadmap to finding like minds and the way to create that unlisted San Francisco adventure. I saw immediately that storytelling was a way to find your people.
Except for one thing: My stories were about the underground sex scene… dungeons and sex parties, Craigslist hook-ups. With so many years as a sex event ‘party starter’ (my real superpower), there was not a single story I could share with these storytelling people without using the f-word. The event’s leader suggested I just shy away from profanity and allude to the sex in the story, but I balked: Sex is not an aside, sir; sex is the point of the story.
So five years ago this month, my life took an interesting turn and I became a Sex and Storytelling show producer. Had anybody else ever seen fit to fill this niche, I would not be doing this today (and how glad I am that they didn’t: I truly love creating Bawdy Storytelling). I am still baffled at how a city as cosmopolitan as San Francisco could not realize that perverts tell the very best stories, but it just takes experiencing it once for many people to realize just how essential these stories are. Sex-related storytelling guarantees interesting true tales, and while Donna Reed is standing onstage recounting an awkward attempt to get laid or figuring out she likes girls after all, you’re ticking off factoids in the back of your head: How to find a sex party? Check. How to write a personal ad that can land you in a threesome? Check. Why a dildo needs to be flanged? Ahhh… got it.
I truly believe storytelling is the antidote to loneliness and social anxiety – it may sound counterintuitive, but talking about sex is easier than talking about climbing Kilimanjaro; you know the listener is hanging on your every word when you’re talking about sex. So how’s about we all figure out this shit together?
CURTIS
For his 50th birthday, Curtis’ wife surprised him with a trip to Vegas and asked him to tell her his secret fantasy, the one he’d never dared to share. He told her he’d always wanted to have sex with a transgendered sex worker, and they invited Maria to our hotel and shared a night with her. She liked them and stayed after to talk and at one point she told them that at 14, she’d confessed to her mother she wanted to live her life as a woman. She then showed them the scars: six deep stab marks where her mother had tried to kill her. Curtis raised a toast and said they should all live our own lives as who and what we want to be, and asked them to drink to Maria’s bravery and self-knowledge. (There was not a dry eye in the house.)
SAHRA
Sahra was raised Mormon and expected to wait till marriage for sex, but at 18 she decided to lose her virginity to a guy she was dating. The same week they broke up, her parents found out and put her out on the street, so she called an older gentleman she knew who had a room for rent. Over dinner, he hit on her and when she got back to his house, he brought out a strap-on, a dominatrix outfit and other accoutrements and talked her through using them. She’d never even seen porn and had no idea what she was doing, but in one night she went from sexually inexperienced (she’d had sex three times, missionary position, period) to performing sexual acts that most people have never heard of. In the three years she lived there, she never slept in that room for rent; they repeated those acts for years and she later married him. [Dixie’s note: The reason I love this story is that Sahra had been coming to the show for 6 months, all the while thinking she had no stories of her own worth telling onstage. How wrong she was!]
CATIE
Catie wanted to go to an all-girl sex party, but didn’t want to go alone so she asked someone she barely knew to attend with her. While talking about not knowing what they were looking for, they were approached by a woman and presented to three pro-dommes, out for a good time on a Saturday night. They bound them, spanked them, used them sexually, and when she wasn’t experiencing pleasure she was watching my partner-in-crime’s pleasure – until they fisted her, and Catie thought “I could never do that!’ When debriefing later at home, Catie told her this and her friend side-eyed her… Catie had been fisted, her friend insisted. She later tried to find those professional dominants to see if it were true. You’d think you’d know if you were fisted, right? Sometimes, you just don’t know.
MOLLENA
A handsome young blond man couldn’t stop staring at Mollena, and they ended up going out on a date. Later in bed during sex, he reached around her and grabbed her belly fat. She was appalled; grabbing her ass, she reasoned, was fine, but not her stomach! After he did it repeatedly, she yelled at him to stop and he replied, “I like it. Shut up.” She quickly learned that she was tiny compared to the type of big black women he lusted after…In fact, he liked her extra pounds so much that eventually, she came to like them, too. If you aren’t born loving your body, find somebody who does and let them pass along a little secondhand appreciation for what you’re packing. It’s not the ideal way to find acceptance, but is anything ideal, really?
The final story is one that occurred offstage:
JENNIFER
My husband and I go to Bawdy Storytelling every month, and one night we came home after the show, I sat him on the edge of the bed and announced a final storyteller that night: me. A year before, they’d gone to Burning Man and had given each other a hall pass to do anything without penalty, and then had come home with an unspoken “don’t ask don’t tell” policy in place. After hearing the true stories onstage that night, she felt compelled to tell him about the young cowboy she’d spent the week with and the adventurous “hell, we don’t know each other, so let’s live out our every fantasy together” non-stop sex they’d enjoyed. Her husband sat quietly and then announced “now THAT was the best story all night,” and he told her about his own hall pass adventures. After a year of being with each other every day, it took an evening out gave them the right place to tell each other everything.
Hooray, it’s time for our favorite blog post of the year. Every year Wonkette goes to the huge Conservative Political Action Convention in DC, and trolls Craigslist for attendees looking for gay sex. Then Wonkette posts the ads. This installment features Dan Savage scanning the CPAC crowd with Grindr! Check it out here.
When the Guardian team and photographer Molly DeCoudreaux converged on 18th and Castro Streets to shoot naked pics of Courtney Trouble and her Queerporn.tv posse, we knew we’d attract some attention. But the hood’s laissez-faire attitude coupled with the fact that for months there’s been an ongoing nude-in one block away made us think, eh, perhaps our wee photo shoot wouldn’t cause too much of a stir. Well, as it turns out, it did. Cars screeched and honked, people dodged traffic to get their own photos, and Courtney, Sunny, and Billy worked it to the hilt. Here are some behind-the-scenes images from that afternoon shot by Molly DeCoudreaux and Caitlin Donohue.
Brouhaha! That would be the word I’d use to describe the reaction to today’s cover story, “Queer and Boning in Las Vegas,” about Courtney Trouble and her posse’s adventures at the AVN Awards in Vegas. The crux of the matter revolves around my interview with lesbian pornographer Jincey Lumpkin, whose oeuvre falls into a more conventional mode of pornmaking than Trouble and the other queer pornsters profiled. Jincey commented extensively in the article’s comment section and on her own website:
(This is in regards to a quote we printed that, compared to Bay Area queer porn, Jincey’s work “has more of an emphasis on aesthetics.”)
Throughout our interview what I discussed was my point of view in making porn. That I wanted to create something that was in the middle ground. Real lesbian porn, but created with an emphasis on glamour and aesthetics. Since the quote is taken out of context, it appears as though I am dismissive of the work of my peers, which I am not. I admire my queer porn peers, and I could not be where I am today without the trail-blazing efforts of Shine and Crash Pad Series. I have worked with a lot of the same stars, and have taken influence from their work. However, I don’t see anything wrong with creating work that comes from a different point of view.
When I say that I emphasize aesthetics, what I mean is that we spend a tremendous amount of time researching the look and feel of each series, and we collaborate with people in the fashion industry to achieve a certain look. I’m certainly not saying that the work of my peers is inferior or has no aesthetic appeal. In fact, I find Courtney’s work quite inspiring, even though we have a different point of view in the way we create things.
I’m not printing a correction on that. My reportage on the quote was accurate, however it was intended by the person who said it. But it’s nice to have it clarified here because it did seem like a weird thing to say.
She also clarified that she has shot fisting scenes, but that Girlfriends Films won’t allow them in her releases through them (I updated “Queer and Boning” to reflect that fact). She pointed me to this column she wrote in support of the Trouble-founded International Fisting Day. Also, that she doesn’t do scissoring scenes, but she does do tribbing. At the time that I’m writing this, the porn professionals, and non-professional lesbians I’ve spoken with are unable to tell me the difference between the two. Here’s the Urban Dictionary entries on thetwo, which are completley unhelpful.
So there’s that. I have to quibble with one of Lumpkin’s points though. Saying “I control all of the business of Juicy Pink Box, including the content of what we shoot” and then going on to write in a different part of the same letter “However, because Girlfriends is concerned about obscenity prosecution, my contract with them requires that I cut those [fisting] portions out for DVD release,” (I assume she’s referring to the Cambria List, a rundown of no-nos that also include transsexuals, squirting, bisexual sex, and incest, the last of which Girlfriends seems to have no problems with) is a direct contradiction. She’s filtering the sex she shows, or being filtered. Either way, there’s a big difference between her work and the work of people that include sex acts deemed subversive not only because they’re hot, but because it’s part of their activism.
Lumpkin’s work is significant, which is why she’s in the article. A ton of people get off on the style of porn she makes. If you want my opinion, there’s more than enough room for QueerPorn.TV, Girlfriends Films, and all the rest of the porno continuum in this big, pervy world of ours.
But there’s no denying that differences between them. And that we heart Bay Area-style queer porn. And that’s why we published the piece. So let’s get back on the awesome train, shall we?
The sex shop Feelmore510 is located on the corner of Oakland’s Telegraph and 17th streets, across from an Obama campaign office, in between a pawn shop and the oldest African-American owned shoe store in town. The neighborhood is in transition, a place with old roots and a lot of new blooms – most businesses on this stretch of Telegraph opened within the last five years. Feelmore510 will celebrate its one-year anniversary Sun/12 when owner Nenna Joiner helps host Town Love, a new party at Hibiscus’ Rock Steady.
But those businesses aren’t the shop’s only neighbors. This fall, Feelmore510 also lived alongside Occupy Oakland’s City Hall encampment. Though many local business owners have expressed anxiety about the effect that protests were having on their sales, Joiner is in full support of the movement. She sometimes walked over to visit friends who were “occupying,” and was happy to donate safe sex supplies to the camp. “Sex is a basic need for survival,” she said in a recent in-store interview with the Guardian. Joiner allows protestors to chill in the store and talk politics — as long as they aren’t running from the cops.
Joiner envisions her store as more than just a place to shop – it’s also a community center. On a recent afternoon, Joiner shook each customer’s hand and asked them their name. Her goal is that all comers can shop for augmentations to their love life in comfort.
A cross-section of Oakland’s entire population converges in this particular area of downtown. Joiner sees everyone from rich vintage porn collectors — drawn to her extensive selection of old magazines and videos — to people who ask to pay with California welfare benefit cards.
Her best-selling items, which are taken home by customers who are male, female, straight, bi, and trans, are the queer porn films that Joiner herself directed, edited, and produced. 2010’s Tight Places features diverse actors and she made Hella Brown with a cast of all African American women. Hella Brown is made in a semi-documentary style – Joiner shot interviews with over 50 queer and trans subjects about their sexual proclivities while making the movie.
Artfully-displayed contraptions at downtown Oakland’s favorite sex shop.
Joiner’s films are unique in the way that they showcase different sexual practices and different body types from mainstream porn, which is often geared towards a heterosexual male audience. Her films show women of all shapes, having queer sex — fellating strap-ons and other acts you might not catch in other kinds of porn. While the films are not shot with the straight male audience in mind, that group does seem to enjoy them, often buying the first film and then returning for more. Joiner sees her films as educational tools, especially for what she calls the “brown community,” where things like transitioning from one gender to another are often socially stigmatized and restricted by financial limitations.
“Queer women of color possess a whole different intelligence and mentality,” she says, adding that many women have a certain shyness about “packing,” (wearing a flaccid prosthetic penis underneath clothing) and getting cosmetic gender modification surgery. Joiner fully embraces her role as an educator in the Oakland queer community.
Joiner refers to dildos as “prosthetics,” – she says that this language is less alienating to those unfamiliar with their usage. She keeps a packer on prominent display, in order to provoke people into asking questions, which can open up a dialogue about passing as a man, transitioning, or simply stuffing one’s jock with something more substantial than a tube sock. She says customer preference in prosthetics can vary. Many want a life-like phallus, while others request dildos that don’t look like penises, going for glass, sculptural, or abstract designs.
Joiner feels that she is at the intersection of several different communities in Oakland. Joiner goes to two church services every Sunday. She buys passing school kids lunch at Ms. Tina’s, the little sandwich shop next door. She’s active in the queer scene, and she’s also a small business owner who encourages other vendors to promote their own businesses by using her store as a launchpad.
“Having a space allows other people to identify with a vision of opening their own space.” When she first opened her store, naysayers questioned her brick-and-mortar approach over the Internet. But she says a website cannot replace the tactile satisfaction of a place to gather, to talk, to share. She uses her store to hold classes on topics rarely discussed other places, like sex industry work.
Joiner wants the toys she sells to be safe and fun for anyone, and to open up a conversation about sex, gender, and pleasure with Feelmore510. It works – her space encourages one to think of sex in a different, more open way. Joiner’s toys are all just tools for lovers to transfer feeling, power, and energy between each other. There is no single way to have sex, just endless different first-time experiences. It’s a new kind of space in an old part of Oakland, open for all comers to explore their most innovative sexual selves.
Feelmore510 one-year anniversary party at Town Love
(Insert “saddle friction” joke here.) At the risk of sounding like an episode of Portlandia, we are stoked for the Bike Smut Film Festival, which rides in for its second SF showing in two weeks – the first took place at Bayview’s Cyclecide Swearhouse last weekend – on Fri/3.
Bike smut: people having sex on bikes, sex with bikes, sex with bikes watching – surely there will be bike couplings in there somewhere (a handlebar penetrating a spoke, well greased). This incarnation of the fresh-from-touring-Europe show has an Oregon Trail theme. Yes, we know you loved that game in elementary school. You know who else did? Everyone.
Anyways, the whole shebang rolls into the art collective OffCenter on Divisadero Street this Friday, led by one-time Lusty Lady dancer and full-time bike slut Poppy Cox and that saint (as ordained by the Church of Bicycle Genius) Reverend Phil. It sounds like it’s gonna be a good time.
“From the Collection of Larry Townsend” ongoing art exhibit
I was recently at the premiere of Priscilla Bertucci’s [SSEX BBOX] global sexuality documentary at the Center for Sex and Culture, but I kept looking at the walls. Not because the film wasn’t rad (it was!), but because of all the amazing comic-style drawings of Roman orgies, space orgies, and orgy-orgies currently occupying the sex-positive community center’s walls. I have Larry Townsend to thank for this, and you can too if you head down to the comfy library space of the Center for Sex and Culture, which is adding Townsend’s treasures for a spell to its perma-exhibits of antique vibrators and shelves of queer and sex-positive literature.
Few nights of our lives can match the high-pitched hormonal rush that was high school prom. Outfit agony, whose-your-date torture, the shoes, the corsage – foreplay from hell, really. How could you have known that years later you’d be trying to recreate that same special freak-out with a slutty queer soul party on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk? El Rio’s favorite afternoon dance party takes to the road for the second year in a row this weekend, with Juanita More and the House of Salad drag beauties in tow (check the candidates for the ball’s king and queen, adorable). Will the town of Santa Cruz be the same after tulle-and-tux-encased queers occupy the beachfront? Reserve your hotel room now and pack protection because: no.
“Bros Before Hos: Masculinity and Its Discontents” film festival
C’mon men, look at yourselves. No really – though masculinity studies is often the subject of yucks and early 1990s primal scream mock-ups, men really don’t get the magnifying glass treatment when it comes to their sexuality. Not so at this film series orchestrated by YBCA – from the story of truck-lifting strong man Stanley “Stanless Steel” Pleskun to a collection of ’20s-’70s stag films, the meat of menfolk (c’mon, not just that part) will be offered up as prime conversation-starters. Today, a look at boundary-pushing filmmaker Bob Mizer of the Athletic Model Guild.
Festival runs through Feb. 26, $8/screening
Sat/4, 7:30 p.m.: The Golden Age of the American Male: Films From Bob Mizer’s Legendary Athletic Model Guild
It’s okay not to know about anal sex, Good Vibrations says. So okay, in fact, that the sex toy company is offering this completely free primer on how to get primed, taught by Charles Glickman, that man-about-sex-education-classes-in-town.
Scenes from [SSEX BBOX], the global sexuality documentary project whose long-awaited first episode will premiere at the Center of Sex and Culture on Mon/30:
One. A protest in Berlin, where a presentation is being made on the 16th century physical punishments that religious institutions imposed on sexually “immoral” people.
Two. A conversation between two transgendered men living in Brazil.
Filmed in the form of interviews and group discussions, [SSEX BBOX] is a social justice film project that takes viewers on tour through the different understandings of gender and sexuality from around the globe. The documentary engages the ongoing conversation regarding the cultural, social, and even linguistic implications that are intertwined within sexuality. It will air 15 10-minute episodes bi-weekly from January to August 2012 — but the Mon/30 screening will offer the chance to talk face-to-face with the team behind the project.
Priscilla Bertucci, the executive producer and director of [SSEX BBOX], holds that in an environment where something so primary as a noun is categorized as male or female, sexism and strict gendering become strongly embedded in cultural perceptions of sexuality. Looking back at the project, she commented to the Guardian in a recent phone interview:
SF and Berlin are pioneering cities in that there is a lot of sexual education and many years of work have been [put into those places towards] bringing about awareness. [Exploring sexuality] is definitely more difficult in Barcelona and Brazil where there are still a lot judgments. People perceive gender as male or female, straight or gay, and don’t really think of what may be outside of this divided box.
On location with [SSEX BBOX]. Photo by Danila Bustamante
When shooting in Sao Paulo, Bertucci encountered numerous individuals who had never been exposed to the idea of alternative sexual orientations. That lack of experience wasn’t a surprise to her — she was raised there:
I grew up in Brazil and I experienced a gap in information first hand. In places like Sao Paulo, there is a huge lack of sex education in schools and sex educators in general. When I was very young, I was aware of the gay and lesbian community. But at some point, I started not fitting in the box because I would sometimes be attracted to men and I didn’t really identity as bisexual. But later, I became aware that I could identify as queer or gender queer. But it took me a long time and I had to go out and learn a lot of things on my own. A project like [SSEX BBOX] helps people understand that they don’t have to choose [from] a binary.
Bertucci’s film features interviews with sex activists, educators, psychotherapists, and average citizens from all over the spectrum of sexuality. The documentary was mostly edited here in San Francisco, but its crew was comprised of a globetrotting crew of directors and cinematographers traveling through Sao Paulo, Berlin, and Barcelona.
The international affair was made possible through efficient Skype meetings and Dropbox, and [SSEX BBOX] will continue to embrace the web as a way to distribute their films. The team also launched a pocket-size zine in fall of 2011 that included photography, personal narratives, cartoons, paintings, and writings on gender expression which you can order online in digital or paper form.
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.
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.
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).
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.
All Guardian photos by Caitlin Donohue unless otherwise noted
“We gotta get 500 girls through here in two hours.”
Pre porn star-strutting, the faces on the red carpet before the AVN Awards 2012 were grim. Vegas raged around us journalists, the Hard Rock Hotel – site of the awards ceremony, countless before-during-after-parties, and annual fan expo – awash in men trying to appear nonchalant and tired women in heels. We had many rivers to cross and many starlets to question before the awards ceremony would begin.
The Guardian team was stationed between Howard Stern’s ex-security guard (sample question from the gent, who was wildly popular with the more silicon-ed of the starlets who roamed the runway: “What is the strangest thing you’ve ever put in your asshole?”) and a dapper Frenchman from his country’s first porno channel XXL.
We’d been chatting up porn stars for days (most significantly, Courtney Trouble’s queer porn posse and the lesbian beauties from Jincey Lumpkin’s Juicy Pink Box about the growth of queer adult films – read about those interviews in the Feb. 8 print edition) – but this was different, red carpet-different.
For one thing, Dave Navarro was there, escorting two women in sequin thigh-high boots and highly customized steampunk-y ballgowns, both of their skirts’ significantly missing a front section. Robin Leach had ducked out on his anticipated appearance, but an under-done Chyna of WWF fame – also winner in the Best Celebrity Sex Tape category for Backdoor to Chyna – was there, as was a sloppy Dave Attell, manic in the hours leading up to his awards host gig. Creator of “Girls Gone Wild” Joe Francis lurked through en route to presenting a lifetime achievement award, longingly gazing in our direction for an interview that was not forthcoming.
And of course those 500 porn stars (they weren’t all women), who lined up at the mouth of the red carpet area like so many shiny cattle. Popular looks for the evening included shattered mirror Gaga-inspired bodices, drop-back, crack-baring harem dresses. The self-proclaimed “Valley’s goldstar lesbian” Lily Cade and legendary sex goddess Nina Hartley were notable exceptions to the cleavage-baring carnival at hand — they wore suits. “I’m a fucking professional, so I’m going to dress like a professional,” Cade told us that day at the Expo as she gamely sold her all-girl titles from a booth unfortunately stationed next to a man hawking bargain basement adult DVDs.
Princess Donna found a last-minute date in Bobbi Starr (good choice, Starr took the honors for Female Performer of the Year), porn educatress-onscreen legend Nina Hartley gamely chatted ass acessories with Howard Stern’s buddy and waxed thoughtful on the current state of queer porn with the Guardian. We met porn stars excited about their budding hip-hop careers, porn stars excited about the new Fleshlight modeled after their various orifices, porn stars who were just plain excited.
Our favorite line of red carpet questioning was as follows:
– What are you up for tonight?
– What was your favorite scene from last year?
– What do you think of the new condom regulations in LA? Is this going to dramatically affect the industry? Cue fallen smiles and synaptic struggles. For the record, talent was divided between the “I’m sexy and people are going to watch me regardless and the “get your laws off my genitals” camps – no one really thought the anti-AIDS measure was a positive thing.
And then it was the awards ceremony, we which will sum up like so.
BIG WINNERS
Portrait of a Call Girl – This drama is reportedly awesome if you like your porn with lots of crying in it. Kudos to lead Jessie Andrews, who was also the most calm actor that made her way across the red carpet. It won Best Feature, Best Director – Feature, and Andrews took Best Actress.
Asa Akira – The woman, thanks in large part to her work in Asa Akira is Insatiable 2, walked with no less than seven awards this year. Though her outburst after winning for Best All-Sex Release was memorable (“my ex boyfriend broke up with me over this movie, so fuck yeah!”), she is indelibly etched in my mind by her acceptance speech for Best Anal Scene, an honor she also took home in 2011. To whit: “Thank you to my asshole for putting up with all my shenanigans.” Akira’s partner for said award-winning anal shenanigans was named Nacho Vidal, which we will now be bestowing on my most swarthy future male child. Vidal was nominated twice in the Anal category – making him and Akira a powerhouse couple not to be denied.
Good Vibrations – The SF-based chain walked with the Best Boutique award, and since it’s our Bay-Bay that makes us happy. (But does it still qualify as a boutique? Read our interview with the chain’s leaders last week and decide for yourself.)
Too Short — Perfomed a song to close out the show entitled “I Need a Porno Bitch.” He got them — about twenty game female actors swarmed the stage as he happily name-checked many of them in his lyrics.
BIG LOSERS
Whoever was responsible for the Joint’s A/V and technical performance – Truly, everything that could have possibly gone wrong here, did. We’re talking no clips for the Best Actress nominees, people walking off into exits with no outlet onstage (okay, maybe that was the presenters’ fault). The ceremony’s fail screen – a static shot of a galaxy of stars – played so often we became accustomed to it, like a running joke you can’t get your friend to stop telling.
Two-time Female Performer of the Year Tori Black, who was arrested on charges of domestic battery along with her five-month-old son’s father at the Hard Rock in the wee hours of Friday morning. Black says she hadn’t drank in awhile (baby) and stirred up a scene after hitting the town Saturday night. Nothing to see here folks!
Anyone requiring more than four hours of sleep per night, or that enjoys daylight and monogamy.
For a full list of this year’s AVN winners, you should definitely, definitely go here because of winning titles like Mission Asspossible and Internal Damnation 4
In a culture where pain equates to pleasure and sexual power is deliberately manipulated for ecstatic highs, how far is too far? Kitty Stryker and Maggie Mayhem are two local activists who are confronting rape and abuse within the BDSM community. The two are gearing up to take a workshop they’ve prepared on the subject called “Safe/Ward” on the road. You can support their educational tour at a Center for Sex and Culture fundraising event on Tue/24.
Stryker and Mayhem have been spreading word about their efforts through blogs and online confessionals, which — Stryker was proud to tell the Guardian in recent interview — has helped to open up a dialouge about these issues in the sex-positive community. The workshop Kitty and Maggie hosted locally in August was a huge success, and the duo have been invited to present their project at Momentum, a feminist sexuality conference taking place March 30 through April 1 in Washington, D.C.
On Tuesday, the sextivists will be hosting a mini-workshop-party to help raise funds for the big journey. They promise nothing short of titillating raffles, awesome art and performances, tasty drinks — there’s even rumors of a kissing-spanking booth. Read on to learn more about what inspired the “Consent Culture” tour, and what it’s like to bring up these issues in the sex-positive community.
San Francisco Bay Guardian:What is “Safe/Ward” and inspired this project?
Kitty Stryker: “Safe/Ward” is a workshop that Maggie Mayhem and I put together. The purpose is to talk about consent culture. Basically, we realized that we have had very similar negative experiences in the BDSM scene. When we started talking about these abusive situations more, we realized this was more of a widespread problem. It wasn’t just us. So we started a workshop talking about consent and abuse in the BDSM community and how to promote a more consensual environment.
SFBG: What goes on in these workshops?
KS: We generally like to ask the people who come to talk about their experiences. We also watch a lot of videos regarding consent and we discuss how abuse is generally never seriously confronted. For example, consent — especially in regards to kinky sex — is joked about and made a punch line. These jokes about safe-wording have a darker undercurrent since essentially we are laughing about the lack of consent. We like to talk about why this is problematic. And one of the main issues we’ve noticed is that many people don’t feel comfortable going to their community leader or dungeon monitors about their sexual assaults. In the workshop, we provide some actual steps that party hosts can make to make their space safer.
SFBG: What is a major issue that you find important to address?
KS: The concept of safe-wording. I wrote a piece called “I Never Called it Rape,” and the responses were very intense. There’s this “victim blaming attitude” people like to take. Many people responded saying that maybe if I safe-worded, I wouldn’t have been abused. But there’s not always a definite time to safe-word sometimes, because such unexpected and out of the ordinary situations come up. And who really is going to safe-word in a culture where the person who safe-words is called a wimp? Sex is supposed to be fun. It’s not a competition. And there’s this attitude that if you are a submissive who safe-words, you’re a difficult submissive. When it should be that you are a better submissive because you are communicating. It’s kind of surreal that people are being so defensive about it.
SFBG: What is one crucial aspect of consent culture that “Safe/Ward” encourages people to become aware of from the workshop?
KS: That BDSM is not about who is the most able to withstand torture. It’s about consent and respect. We talk about consent all the time, but it’s a little bit more nuanced within the BDSM community. We’re playing with sex and power, and neglecting the possibility of rape and abuse is symptomatic of our unwillingness to talk about consent and the reality that it’s not always there.
Guardian culture editor Caitlin Donohue will be live Tweeting the AVNs this year. For the latest in Lycra and non-judgemental observations, follow her @caitlindonohue
Once a year, the porn industry gathers to honor its own. Cash is dropped on sparkly stripper gowns, breasts are wedged into places that are too small for them, too-little or too-much time is spent on crafting acceptance speeches and: Viagra. Sometimes Flo Rida is there (this year Coolio will captain the official after-party) – but like an enthusiastic blow job, the Adult Video News Awards are always a triumphant good time. This weekend the ceremony and attendant fan expo are at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas. The Guardian’s going to be there on the red carpet, obviously – but we thought we’d get you all hot-and-bothered with some sage words from two industry insiders – who happen to be members of the academy to boot.
Your skin flick experts are Chris Thorne and Steve Javors, who graciously submitted to phone interviews with us last week. Thorne is the founding editor of Xcritic.com, a Portland-based website that reviews stacks upon stacks of adult DVDs round-the-calendar. Thorne’s been voting in the awards for two years now, but has been following them “since the Tera Patrick-Jenna Jameson era.”
Javors is the managing editor of AVN Magazine, so he’s not only a voter in the awards, he also decides the nominations. It’s a small porn world, after all. He’s been voting for the awards for five years, our veteran judge. He’s confident that this year’s awards will continue to be the screaming climax of a time they’re always been. “We have a pretty successful formula,” he told us. “I think the challenge is just to top what we did last year.”
On being an AVN voter:
Chris Thorne: It’s punishing. It’s punishing. I don’t think anybody quite realizes the magnitude of the task that is voting in the AVNs. It is by far the most demanding thing you can do in the adult industry. The box of DVDs – we had two stacks of them, both around six feet high. We’re talking about high 800s to a thousand titles. Some titles are nominated for specific scenes, so you’re like okay, I’ve watched that scene, I don’t have to watch the rest of [the movie].
Big winner predictions:
CT: This year’s field is not as clear-cut as it was in years past. There were a lot of really good performances and good films, but in years past it was pretty darn clear that one or two movies would take it and go. Digital Playground’s Pirates and Pirates 2 — when those films came out it was pretty clear that they were above and beyond everything else that was going on. In terms of handicapping it, I think it’s going to be a difficult year.
Steve Javors: I think Bobbi Starr had a spectacular year. She’s been a critics’ favorite for a few years now. She distinguished herself more so this year, she’s one to look out for. Also, the star of Portrait of Call Girl, Jessie Andrews, that movie should do well. With Jessie it’s her wide-eyed innocence that grabs you. She’s naturally beautiful, she’s 19, she looks like a girl form an American Apparel ad. I thinks that’s her appeal. I think this is going to be her star vehicle. She’s so sweet, so accommodating, super-professional.
Dark horse picks:
CT: I am particularly enamored with a company called New Sensations, their Romance series. [Xcritic.com] named one of the films from that series as our top title of the year. That was called Lost and Found. This was an interesting year for porn, it’s adjusted quite a bit for the recession – it’s found in the last couple years that it’s not recession-proof. One of the things it’s done is try to expand its audience. Lost and Found is a romantic comedy with sex. Also, Wicked Picture’s Horizon, Elegant Angel’s Stephen Soderberg-esque Portrait of a Call Girl, and Digital Playground’s Top Guns and Fighters. Vivid did a few notable parodies: Spiderman XXX, Superman XXX, The Incredible Hulk XXX, Wicked’sRocki Whore Picture Show, that was really good! Sometimes you see something and you’re like, there’s actual filmcraft involved, it’s not just two hours of people fucking with a loose plot attached.
SJ: Brooklyn Lee might be one of those. Last year was her first full year in the business and she came out doing incendiary scenes in Spiderman XXX from Axel Braun and Vivid.
On the best part of the AVN Awards:
CT: In terms of the awards show, it’s gone from cool, to watching-paint-dry-boring, to absolute absurd. You never know if this year it’s going to be a good year or a bad year. My favorite parts are not on the program. Everyone knows each other, especially the performers. Some of them know each other quite intimately. They’re “on” when they’re on the red carpet, but there are some nice moments when they don’t have to be on and performing. Everybody kind of comes together, so there’s this nice opportunity to connect.
On the worst part:
CT: The middle part of the awards show. It starts out really fun and exciting but there are hundreds of awards. Somewhere in the middle there it can feel like there’s no end in site. It’s like, there’s an award for best porn soundtrack? In the big butt category there’s four awards. Sometimes the acceptance speeches are longer than the Academy Awards.
On who was cheated this year out of a nomination:
CT: Y’know, they nominate so many people. There are so many nominations. I think the nominations are extensive enough that they cover their bases. Sometimes there’s 15 nominations in a category.
On the evergreen appeal of DVD porn:
SJ: When people say the DVD market is dying – it’s not what it once was, but going through the list of nominees this year, you can see products that people want to buy. Viewership has moved to the Internet, but there’s tons of stuff that people want to own. Parodies have really propped up the DVD market. It’s unbelievable the quality of the parodies that have come out. It needs to be that way because otherwise you upset the fans. If you read the chat boards and go to Comic Con, see what goes on with the fans that are new audiences to porn – they’ve taken to these parodies in a big way.
On his voting critiera for the Best Double Penetration Scene category:
CT: How we evaluate sex scenes is not necessarily rocket science. Great sex scenes boil down to a couple key critieria. One, chemistry between the performers. It’s like fine wine, you know it when you see it. When two performers like each other — or maybe they don’t like each other but they have real chemistry. Two, you look at presentation – how do the three performers work with each other? Is it exciting to watch? Do you look at it and say wow, that looks painful? When you look at [a sex act] that’s – I don’t want to say on the fringe – you want to see it presented in a way that is exciting, titillating, it fulfills a fantasy that the viewer might have. Third, how is it shot? Are we close up and center on the penetration? Good directors can present scenes in a way where it’s not just that.
On the evolution of the awards:
SJ: it’s really evolved, it’s become this gigantic event. Even if you’re not a fan, everyone and their mother has heard of the AVN Awards. It’s now broadcasted on Showtime, seen by millions of people – they’re still repeating last year’s show. It’s in its 29th year and it’s changed from a smaller ceremony for industry people in a small ballroom in Vegas to this grand spectacle that is certainly on par with the Golden Globes or other Hollywood awards show. Girls spend thousands of dollars on their dresses, Dave Attel is hosting this year. Dave’s a perfect fit for our business. He’s a big fan of the business, he knows all the girls.
Correction: An earlier version of this article identified Rocki Whore Picture Show as a Vivid Entertainment production. It was actually made by Wicked Pictures.
