Dacia: incomplete thoughts and unofficial musings

(via rollertrain)

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:32:35 -0400

"I remember years ago being on a 3-girl late night escort call with some young jock types. I sat..."

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:18:44 -0400

“I remember years ago being on a 3-girl late night escort call with some young jock types. I sat chatting with a few of them in the front room while waiting for the third call to finish up and one of them said to the other, “I can’t believe we’re having such a good time with a hooker, man.” We all kinda laughed about it, but these are the kind of moments I look back upon fondly. Because oftentimes they don’t expect us to have opinions, to have interests, to have anything going on in our lives that’s worthy of talking about. When you’re able to change someones mind like that, it’s revolutionary.”

- Serpent Libertine, Sly Sex Pro: Clients Are Not The Enemy

curate: (via lovealesia)

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:22:00 -0400

curate:

(via lovealesia)

CALL FOR SUBMISISONS—PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:17:30 -0400

thestripperhatesyou:

spreadmagazine:

$PREAD CALL FOR MODELS AND CONTRIBUTORS, ISSUE 5.3

In our upcoming issue, we’re exploring age and aging within the sex industry. Feature pitches (ideas for articles of 2000-3000 words) should be sent to contribute@spreadmagazine.org. We’re particularly interested in finding someone to write a “How To” Guide for escorts and dancers on remaining profitable and in-demand when catering to a mainstream clientele (i.e. not working in fetish or niche markets) and approaching/entering their 40s, to be supplemented with quotes and advice from others. Our deadline for content is November 1st at the latest, so please send your pitch in ASAP.

MODELS NEEDED

DOUBLE TAKE:

Requires two separate shots, one in work gear and the other in street clothes, to be accompanied by a brief interview about your style. If you could take self portraits, awesome; if not, we can hook you up with a $pread volunteer photographer. Include your location and profession in your reply.

SEX WORKER PETS:

Must be LA-based and own at least one non-cat pet who could pose with you in the picture. Your face can be obscured. Photos will be taken by talented $preadster Jenny DeMilo.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

REVIEWS:

Reviews on a recent sex work related book/film/performance/etc. Please inquire about available items or suggest material before submitting full piece as we may already have someone covering it. Specify your location in your reply if you do not already have the item for review. 400-600 words.

HOT TOPIC: Age-play requests.

Do you do infantilism sessions, incest role plays, or regularly perform in schoolgirl character? We’re looking for brief meditations on how you experience this dynamic as well as any ideas you have about its benefits/consequences on a social level. 200-300 words.

POSITIONS: Would you help a baby pro?

We’re looking for someone to argue “yes” and someone to argue “no”; each angle is allotted 400 words to explain why a more seasoned worker should or should not encourage and assist someone new to the biz.

SCENE REPORT:

What’s it like to work in your hometown? How are the clients, the LE, the other workers, the activists and outreach teams? Although this piece can be framed as a personal essay, it should contain information useful to working visitors and not seem entirely unique to the writer. 500 words.

Consumer Report: Self Tanner (100 words per)*

We’re looking for pointed, possibly humorous, product reviews of self-tanner. Please provide one-to-two sentences per product and be specific about its usefulness, or its incompatibility, in relation to your line of work. Items should be identified by brand and shade/color name. (100 words per)*

HEROES:

What older worker(s) have inspired you and shown you that there is life in the industry after your ’20s? We’re hoping to use this space to acknowledge women and men who have worked into their golden years (’50s onward) 300 words.

INDECENT PROPOSAL:

Did a client look exactly your uncle? Have you danced for someone barely legal or spent the night with a guy old enough to be your great-grandfather? What work request totally caught you off-guard? Details don’t need to be graphic or wild as much as you need to convey why the situation unsettled or surprised you. 500 words.

NEWS REPORT:

News Reports should be on a timely topic, ideally an issue relevant to sex workers outside of North America. We’re particularly interested in hearing more from Eastern Europe, South America, and Africa for this issue. This is not space for a personal essay or op-ed; the approach is decidedly journalistic and should include important dates, names, places, and quotes. 800-1000 words.

"In short, the person-to-person donor-to-borrower connections created by Kiva are partly fictional. I..."

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:43:32 -0400

“In short, the person-to-person donor-to-borrower connections created by Kiva are partly fictional. I suspect that most Kiva users do not realize this. Yet Kiva prides itself on transparency.”

- Kiva Is Not Quite What It Seems | David Roodman’s Microfinance Open Book Blog

"Radical masculinity is a way to present, perform, play with, celebrate, and liberate masculinity, in..."

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:02:27 -0400

“Radical masculinity is a way to present, perform, play with, celebrate, and liberate masculinity, in thousands of multi-dimensional expressions. It is still being created, recreated, formed, and reformed, and I want to be a part of its ongoing evolution.”

- A Manifesto for Radical Masculinity - Page 2 | Carnal San Francisco

Sinclair Sexsmith is brilliant. You should be reading this. It gave me a lot to chew on.

Participate in a Cultural Exchange with Indian Sex Workers!

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:24:23 -0400

Participate in a Cultural Exchange with Indian Sex Workers!:

I want to bring Indian sex workers a cultural gift from American sex workers. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of room in my suitcase, and I just know that I’d get weird and customs-unfriendly stuff in the mail, so I’m asking for this: if you are a present or former sex worker in the United States, send me a digital artifact that represents your experience in the sex industry.

Send me a picture, a screenshot, a video that you think reflects your experience as a sex worker. If you have a story to tell, call and leave it on my voicemail: 718-554-1714.

I’ll need all these artifacts by next Wednesday, September 2, so I can put them together into some kind of finished product and bring it to India with me. When I’m in India, I’ll share this little lump of digital culture from American sex workers, and I’ll create something with the sex workers there to bring back here.

Here are two suggestions of the kinds of things I’m looking for:

•An object that you use everyday in your work or something that you find really useful in whatever part of the industry you’re in
• A symbol that you think represents your experiences as a sex worker in the United States

Please circulate this to networks of sex workers you think would be interested in participating. Remember, I need your stories, pictures, and other digital ephemera in my inbox or my voicemail by Wednesday, September 2. Email me at aray [at] iwhc.org or leave a story on my voicemail at 718-554-1714.

"I think that one of the hardest things that sex workers today face is that if they are out at..."

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 23:20:27 -0400

“I think that one of the hardest things that sex workers today face is that if they are out at all…and if they are proud at all, there’s such a burden to have to all the time be like, ‘No, I do sex work and it’s great and let me tell you why,’ to change people’s perceptions. And the fact is that it’s not great all the time, a lot of the time it sucks, because it’s a job and they all suck. And all service industry jobs are basically the same- you get clients that are rude or smelly, or distasteful in whatever ways, and you know, it’s like anything else. I know I don’t feel comfortable talking about that to other non-sex worker people, like shitty clients that I had, or times when I felt like I did the totally wrong thing, or times when I was really scared or times when I was just like, ‘Ugh, I so don’t want to go to work,’ or whatever it is. The fact is that it’s just like anything else, but like when there’s so much against you, you’ve got to be like, ‘No no no no no, it’s rad, all the time.’ And I think that’s hard.”

- Penny from ‘Survey Says: Job Satisfaction?’ by Alexandra Lutnick (via katstories) (via melissa)

The way this manifests in media is the empowerment vs degration binary - how do we come up with a better soundbite to deal with this? Saying I felt empowered by my time in the sex industry isn’t 100% true. Neither is the “opposite” - because these two things aren’t in opposition at all in my mind.

Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work!

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 10:12:16 -0400

amberlrhea:

katoleary:

nonotyou:

Kat reposted a nice piece about true rape prevention, which reminded me of this little list I whipped up a few months ago. As I just did a college RA training yesterday, re-reading this made me laugh. I mean seriously, the “tips” they give potential victims are so condescending. It’s fun to turn the tables.

Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work!

1.       Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.

2.       When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!

3.       If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!

4.       NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5.       If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!

6.       Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.

7.       USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.

8.       Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.

9.       Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!

10.   Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone “on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.

Bwahahahahahaha!

Sex::Tech_2009_002 (via ISIS.Inc) From a series of illustrations...

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:23:43 -0400

Sex::Tech_2009_002 (via ISIS.Inc)

From a series of illustrations of Sex::Tech conference in San Francisco.

The Ishita I’m commenting on is the founder of the YP Foundation: http://theyouthparliament.blogspot.com/

September 3, 2009 – Sex Worker Literati, $pread Edition |...

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:06:23 -0400

September 3, 2009 – Sex Worker Literati, $pread Edition | Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys

Hosted by Audacia Ray
Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge, in New York City
Thursday, September 3. Doors at 7 pm, reading from 8-10
21 and up – FREE
Portion of proceeds from the bar supports $pread Magazine

Sex Worker Literati is a new free monthly performance series that features sex workers, former sex workers, and people with stories about the sex industry who will read, monologue, perform, and shimmy their ways into your hearts, minds, and naughty bits. In September we celebrate $pread, a quarterly magazine by an for sex workers – all of the performers have contributed to or been featured in the magazine. To get a taste of what the Sex Worker Literati is like, check out: videos of past performances (and subscribe to the video podcast on iTunes or Miro), pictures taken at the event, and be our fan on Facebook.

The September 3rd performance stars: Zak Smith, Ignacio Rivera, Melissa Gira, Essence Revealed, Christina Cicchelli, and Gerry Visco.

sexartandpolitics: [Katrien] Jacobs works as an assistant...

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:16:50 -0400

sexartandpolitics:

[Katrien] Jacobs works as an assistant professor at City University of Hong Kong. She is a scholar, writer and activist in the field of digital art and culture who has published widely on netporn, sex art, and censorship. She has a Ph.D. degree in comparative literature and media, with a thesis on dismemberment myths and rituals in 1960s/1970s body art and performance media. She recently finished her book ‘Libidoc: Journeys in the Performance of Sex Art.’ (Maska Publications), a grand-scale emotive and illuminated travelogue into the work of 27 artists, with tales and commentaries by the double-narrator ‘Libidot’ and ‘dr jacobs’.

Why have I never seen or read this woman before? What else am I missing? World, you contain too much.
The Art and Politics of Netporn » katrien jacobs

gotta love when posts from other people job my memory and send me on a reading binge. I’m so easily distracted by good sex geekery.

Right. I’ll just paste in the comment I left for Danny:

Oh! I know Katrien! She’s fabulous. I met her a few years ago when she curated an event called C’lick Me in Amsterdam (June 2007) - there’s an anthology of writings that she co-edited after the conference. It’s called C’Lick Me: A Netporn Studies Reader. Available as a free PDF here: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/inc-readers/the-art-and-politics-of-netporn/

(extra Audacia trivia: I took this pic for my C’lick Me talk, and it’s my all time most viewed pic on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wakingvixen/529212435/)

"People Who Are Secret Hookers They’re your friends, but they’re hookers!..."

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:23:29 -0400

“

People Who Are Secret Hookers
They’re your friends, but they’re hookers! Ssssh!

Recession Hookers
Oh. This hooker joke isn’t that funny anymore. When the recession is over, and your friends and coworkers and parents come to you to tearfully admit that they had to do a little recession hooking at the end of the month to make rent, let’s institute a nationwide policy of hooker amnesty. No judging. Sometimes these things happen. There but for the grace of writing a bunch of bullshit in the newspaper go I.

”

- The Different Kinds of People that There Are | Lifestyle | Portland Mercury

Activism around Article 30 in the Dominican Republic Continues

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:12:17 -0400

Activism around Article 30 in the Dominican Republic Continues

So refreshing… at Street Anatomy

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 01:22:14 -0400

So refreshing… at Street Anatomy

"Being a male stripper is sometimes a bit like being a celebrity with none of the protective..."

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:39:43 -0400

“Being a male stripper is sometimes a bit like being a celebrity with none of the protective mechanisms. Male strippers drive themselves and carry their own bags. They get heckled and adored in equal measure. My phone number is widely available (how else would prospective people book me), but this means I get an array of weirdoes phoning me up at strange hours. Some I have met on my travels, others I have never even heard of. Unlike genuine celebrities, the male stripper is accessible. You can book him, talk to him, touch him and harass him at anytime.”

- It Shouldn’t Happen to a Male Stripper | Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys

"PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A group of 50 professors signed a letter urging Rhode Island lawmakers not to..."

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:45:53 -0400

“PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A group of 50 professors signed a letter urging Rhode Island lawmakers not to ban indoor prostitution. Rhode Island is the only state in the country besides several counties in Nevada where indoor prostitution is legal. Prostitutes and their customers who operate outside can still be prosecuted. In a letter issued Saturday, George Washington University professor Ronald Weitzer and Nassau Community College professor Elizabeth Wood said prostitutes who work indoors are less likely to be assaulted, raped or robbed. They said treating indoor and outdoor prostitution differently is a step in the right direction. House and Senate lawmakers have backed sharply different bills that would ban indoor prostitution. They are trying to reach a compromise before a vote expected in September.”

- Professors Oppose Rhode Island Banning Indoor Prostitution - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com

If you are in NYC, you should make your way to the New Museum...

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 10:57:08 -0400

If you are in NYC, you should make your way to the New Museum and see Dorothy Iannone’s solo show, Lioness.

It’s really amazing.

image via www.balkon.hu

A one minute video I made about Berlin.

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:56:17 -0400

A one minute video I made about Berlin.

This pic: a very Dacia vacation. Me, Sadie Lune, a sandwich, and...

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:31:08 -0400

This pic: a very Dacia vacation.

Me, Sadie Lune, a sandwich, and her cervix on display.

Taken at the Schwarzer Kanal queer squat in Berlin.

200 plus pics of my adventures in Berlin and Amsterdam are on my Flickr stream (you have to be logged in to flickr to see, since my account is labled unsafe - can’t image why).