Hosted by Audacia Ray and David Henry Sterry Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge, in New York City
Thursday, November 5. Doors at 7 pm, reading from 8-10
Stick around after the reading to dance and party with hos, hookers, and ne’er do wells! 21 and up – FREE
Sex Worker Literati is a 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. The November performance will be celebrating the Sex Blogger Calendar [http://sexbloggercalendar.com] featuring some of the readers that were participants in last year’s Speak Up workshop. 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.
Jo Weldon is the Headmistress and Founder of the New York School of Burlesque. Internationally renowned as burlesque personality Jo Boobs, she’s rounder her heels on stages from Coney Island to Las Vegas. She’s the winner of such exotic titles as Best Bump N Grinder, Best Teacher and Mentor, and Biggest Cougar in Burlesque! She has worked with performers from Leonard Cohen to Spinal Tap, and has been featured on television shows from CBS Sunday Morning to Gossip Girl. Her book, The Pocket Book of Burlesque: A Backstage Guide, featuring a forward by Margaret Cho, is due to be released by HarperCollins in 2010.
Megan Andelloux works as a board certified sexologist and sexuality educator. She is the founder and director of The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health, a non-profit sexuality organization in Rhode Island. She provides sexuality workshops for college and universities and trains medical schools how to create positive health care providers.
Dylan Ryan is a porn star, student, performance artist, sometimes-writer, dancer and all around ho. In her five-plus years as a sex worker, she has appeared in over 100 films and websites primarily in the genres of queer and fetish porn and was voted Heartthrob of the Year at the 2009 Feminist Porn Awards. A recent transplant to Toronto from San Francisco, where she did sexwork outreach and advocacy with the St. James Infirmary, Dylan has made her way to Canada and is finishing up the last year of her MSW at York University. Through her work has taken on a decidedly academic tone the last year, she is exploring writing outside the “box” and is currently working on an autoethnography/1st person narrative that explains how sex workers form identities as workers in a world where they are heavily stigmatized. A self-confessed Pink and White Productions groupie, she believes in hot, radical, empowered sexuality and lots of it and couldn’t live without high heels, chicken fingers, and rainy days.
Solitaire has been an exotic dancer for the past seven years, fulfilling an ambition she had held since childhood. She has danced in over 30 venues in and around London, UK. Entering the adult industry following a degree in journalism and jobs in financial and fashion media, she was nominated in the Stripper of the Year category in the Erotic Awards and later sat on the judging panel three years running. She is active in the political scene, fighting to prevent UK adult entertainment laws becoming stricter, and is a campaigning member of performers’ union Equity.
Miss Calico has dabbled in sex work for about four years now. She writes about the business on her blog [http://blog.misscalico.com/], and smut, when she is lucky enough to have material. Because she’s kinky, there’s lots about dominance, submission, and sadomasochism – especially as they relate to her jobs. Other common themes include feminism, sex worker rights and activism, polyamory and alt-sexuality cultures, photography and modeling, sewing and costume, and her never ending amazement that she is in New York City.
Photo of Kamalabai Pani by Audacia Ray/International Women’s Health Coalition
Pay As You Go: Sex Worker Shorts
Saturday, Oct. 25 – 6pm & 8:30pm
Suggested donation $7 per show, $10 double feature price. Special free panel discussion at 7:30pm between the programs.
PROGRAM 1: 6:00 – 7.30 pm
You Must Know About Me by HOPS and WITNESS. Macedonia, 2009 (18 mins) DVD
“You Must Know About Me” features interviews with sex workers from Skopje, focusing on 3 main themes: Their family lives, the conditions they work under, especially the violence and discrimination they face from police officials as well as some clients, and lastly, the ramifications of a big raid that happened in November 2008. Several sex workers were arbitrarily arrested, held in detention overnight, forcibly tested for STDs and, to add insult to injury, unwillingly featured in national media that had been tipped off, and was waiting as they exited the clinic.
The Line by Nancy Schwartzman. USA, 2009 (30 mins) DVD
A one night stand far from home goes terribly wrong. As the filmmaker unravels her experience, she decides to confront her attacker. Told through a “sex-positive” lens, THE LINE is a 24 minute documentary about a young woman – the filmmaker- who is raped, but her story isn’t cut and dry. Not a “perfect victim,” the filmmaker confronts her attacker, recording the conversation with a hidden camera. Sex workers, survivors and activists discuss justice, accountability and today’s “rape culture.” The film asks the question: where is the line defining consent? THE LINE was completed in July 2009.
Workin Girl Bluesby Damien Luxe. USA, 2009 (4 mins) DVD
An experimental video considering the pluses and minuses of some jobs + a blues song.
VAMP: Sex Work Organizing in Indiaby Audacia Ray & VAMP (with support of the International Women’s Health Coalition). USA & India, 2009. (10 mins) Mini DV
The Sangli district in the rural south of India has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the country. This health issue has become the crux of a powerful sex workers movement that has risen up over the past twelve years, in which sex workers have become agitators for change in health systems and policy that affects them on the local, national, and international levels. VAMP, the sex work organizing project of the non-profit SANGRAM
In Our Own Image by Mandona Productions. USA, 2009 (19 mins) DVD
What happens when sex workers become not just the subjects of media gaze, but reporters and publishers of sex trade news? This documentary short looks at $pread Magazine, an example of sex worker-made media, and discusses its aim to change the way media itself approaches sex work.
PANEL: 7:30 – 8:15pm
Moving Image to Movement: Video as an Advocacy Tool
The widespread availability of the camcorder has morphed into the explosion of digital documentation via cell phones, flip cameras, and other devices. The much trumpeted “democratization of media” has about video as an advocacy tool for sex workers and others working for sexual rights and justice. They will discuss The panelists, who are media makers, activists, and advocates, will discuss their successes and challenges in building advocacy campaigns based around video and other multimedia.
Violeta Krasnicis a human rights advocate, trainer for NGO management, and video producer. She is the Program Coordinator at WITNESS, an international human rights organization which uses video to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations and empowers people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for justice, public engagement, and policy change. Videos she has produced have been screened at the US Congress, State Department, Council of Europe, United Nations, and at advocacy events worldwide. Most recently, she collaborated with Healthy Options Project Skopje (HOPS) in Macedonia to help produce video “You Must Know About Me,” calling for adequate investigation and prosecution of violence against sex workers committed by the police officers and third parties.
Nancy Schwartzman is a filmmaker and activist working for over thirteen years to create community solutions to combat sexual violence and promote public debate. Her documentary film THE LINE is a personal journey that explores consent with a daring stylistic approach. Prior to her directorial debut, she produced the award-winning short film OCEAN AVENUE. Nancy is the founder of NYC-Safestreets.org an online initiative noted by The New York Times, Gawker and The Daily News to engage community organizations and businesses to create safer routes for pedestrians, especially women. From 2002- 2005 she was a founding editor and Creative Director of HEEB Magazine. For six years Nancy was the Program Officer at the Fund for Jewish Documentary Film. Learn more at http://whereisyourline.org
Damien Luxe is a multimedia artist, activist and performer from Brooklyn. She was involved in $pread Magazine from 2006 until 2009, taught media production workshops at the Desiree Alliance Conference 2007 and 2008, and performed in the SF Sex Worker Film and Art Festival in 2007. more at: axondluxe.com
Program 2: 8:30 – 10:00 pm
Tenofovir Trial in Cambodia by Women’s Network for Unity. Cambodia, 2008 (13 mins) Web
The inside story of Cambodian Sex Workers struggle around a trial for testing Tenofovir’s potential for HIV prevention.
In France since 2003, Nicolas Sarkozy has been in charge of national security. Meanwhile, women and men are fighting for the rights to rent freely their body in a political context where the market economy allows through the lens of sexual liberation and with hopes for legalization of commercial intimacy. Stigmatized by moral judgements questioning the relationships of men/women, sexuality and its power, subjects discuss their work and its meaning. * We will be showing a short selection from this work.
Prostitution Free Zone directed by PJ Starr; Alliance for Safe and Diverse DC. USA, 2009 (13 mins) DVD
Constitutional right to freedom of assembly? Not in DC, honey! This film takes a sobering look at how, during attempts to gentrify inner-city areas of our nation’s capital, “Prostitution Free Zones” are being used to move targeted people out of the neighborhoods where they have traditionally congregated. Also featuring a “dramatic reenactment” of a prostitution free zone by Takia Cash, Sugaa Delite and other well-known indie film icons from the District.
Happy Endings? by Tara Hurley. USA, 2009 (90 mins) DVD
An intriguing exploration of the Asian massage parlor industry in Providence, RI, where a 25 year-old loophole has made the exchange of sex for money legal — as long as it happens behind closed doors. As the documentary follows a recent Korean immigrant, “Heather”, working to operate her spa, the city’s mayor fights to change the law that allows her business a legal existence.The film includes interviews with Korean women who work in spas, clients who frequent the spas, politicians from 1980 and today, police, local news footage, radio call-in shows and “voiced” reviews from internet escort review boards. * We will be showing a short selection from this work.
Sex Worker Open Universityby Ellie Gurney. UK, 2009 (7 mins) DVD
Sex workers are routinely portrayed in the media as victims. At London’s first ever Sex Worker Open University over two hundred sex workers, sex workers’ rights activists, and allies from the UK and abroad took part in workshops, discussions, actions and art exhibits. Documenting these events, this film presents an alternative and empowered image of the sex worker.
69 things i love about sex workby Isabel Hosti. Canada, 2007 (6 mins) DVD
A list of 69 things i love about sex work–a list that helps to keep me happy and healthy. This is my list based on my specific experiences in the sex industry. There are many other sex workers worldwide with many things to share–with lists of their own. Search them out.
Readings in Bed: A Sensuous Night at the Supperclub
Put on your nighties and join us at the Supperclub where the country’s foremost erotica authors will tell us spicy bedtime stories — from actual beds. Authors Violet Blue, Rachel Kramer Bussell, Stephen Elliott, Geoff Knight and Carol Queen will read excerpts from their books and answer your hottest questions. Moderated by David Henry Sterry, editor of the new anthology Hos, Hookers, Call-Girls, and Rent Boys.
The Supperclub, 657 Harrison Street, San Francisco
(415) 348-0900
Hosted by Audacia Ray and David Henry Sterry Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge, in New York City
Thursday, October 1. Doors at 7 pm, reading from 8-10
Stick around after the reading to dance and party with hos, hookers, and ne’er do wells! 21 and up – FREE
Sex Worker Literati is a 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 October we are celebrating the release of the New York Times acclaimed book Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys – all the performers are contributors. 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 October 1st performance stars: Sinnamon Love, Perry Brass, Shawna Kenney, Lauri Shaw, Melissa Petro, Jodi Sh. Doff, Zoe Hansen, Jennifer Blowdryer and Justin Jones
Zoe Hansen came to New York as a runaway teen in 1984, with two hundred dollars and a heroin habit. She lived in the Lower East Side when burnt out buildings were the norm and everyone went to Save The Robots and Danceteria. She entered the sex industry at 17 years old,& went on to become a phone girl, street ho, call girl, brothel worker and eventually successful madam. She continues to live in the East Village with her husband & child, where she is working on her memoir ‘My American Dream ~ Going Down in Gotham’.
Lauri Shaw skipped out on college and the American dream in favor of NYC’s colorful nudie bars of the late 90′s, right before Mayor Rudy Giuliani took his pickaxe to Times Square as we knew it. She never regretted her transfer to the world-famous School of Hard Knocks, and she graduated Magna Cum Laude.
Shawna Kenney is the author of Imposters and the award-winning memoir, I Was a Teenage Dominatrix. She’s an arts journalist and creative writing instructor currently living in Washington, DC.
Jodi Sh. Doff, aka Scarlett Fever, has written for BUST, Penthouse, Playgirl, Tear, Cosmopolitan; been included in Best American Erotica ‘95, Bearing Life, Between the Sheets & The Bust Guide to a New Girl Order. She’s one of the Three Naked Ladies, a weekly online series taking a behind the scenes peek at stripping then & now. There’s a memoir of her ten years in pre-Disney Times Square topless business in the works.
Sinnamon Love is an African American pornographic actress, fetish model, and glamour model. She is a single mother of three children. Love began performing in adult films in the early 1990s and has since appeared in around 200 movies. She directed the movie My Black Ass 4, which received nominations at the 2001 AVN Awards for Best Ethnic-Themed Video and Best Anal Sex Scene (Video). In 2003 she was on the cover of the first issue of the hip hop and pornography magazine Fish ‘N Grits with hip hop star Redman. She has survived a bout with ovarian cancer, but lost an ovary and a fallopian tube.
Justin Jones is the pen name for a writer who currently splits his time between San Francisco and Big Sur, where he is furiously penning a scandalous book about his semi-scandalous life as an Olympic hopeful turned dot com drone turned traveling escort.
Melissa Petro is a researcher, writer, educator, feminist and former sex worker. She is published in Research for Sex Work, Post Road and the forthcoming anthology Sex Work Matters: Power and Intimacy in the Sex Industry. She earned an MFA from the New School in 2007 and is currently at work on a memoir.
Jennifer Blowdryer was delighted to meet other people with funny names when she moved to NYC in 1985. Spider Webb and Annie Sprinkle introduced her to the mutual exploitation hack erotica circuit, and she proudly launched Smut Fests at a lap dancing parlour in 1988. Read more of her stuff: www.86edstories.com.
Perry Brass is “A pioneer of gay literature” (ForeWord Magazine). He has published fourteen books. His newest is Carnal Sacraments, A Historical Novel of the Future. A finalist six times for the Lambda Literary Awards. Independent Publisher was also named a ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award finalist. He has been included in twenty-five anthologies, including the groundbreaking Male Muse (1973)—the first-ever openly gay poetry anthology. He lives in the Bronx, New York, where he reads, writes, and watches the Hudson River.
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.
Zak Smith is an artist and occasional porn actor whose paintings and drawings are held in major public and private collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. We Did Porn— a book including drawings and stories about his experiences working in the adult film industry—is his third book and his first to include writing. He lives and works in Los Angeles. Zak will read from his new book We Did Porn.
Ignacio Rivera is a Queer, gender fluid, Trans- Entity, Black Boricua performance artist, lecturer/trainer, activist, new filmmaker, sex worker and self-proclaimed sex educator.
Ignacio is the founder of Poly Patao Productions. P3 is dedicated to producing sex-positive workshops, performance pieces, films, play parties, panel discussions, social/political groups and educational opportunities that are specially geared toward queer women, transgender, multi-gender, gender-queer, gender non-conforming and gender variant people of color. Ignacio is also one of the founding board member of Queers for Economic Justice, a progressive non-profit organization committed to promoting economic justice in a context of sexual and gender liberation.
Melissa Gira (“jee-rha”) Grant is a writer, and also an educator and artist working in sex & technology. She’s a contributor to Gawker and BlackBook, and a columnist for $pread. Her work has also appeared online at Slate, The Frisky. and RH Reality Check, and in print in Make:, Best Sex Writing 2008(Cleis Press) and Dirty Girls (Seal Press).
Essence Revealed‘s yearbook quote: “I’ll become a lawyer or an actress, whichever happens first.” She forgot to include being a stripper. Stripping in clubs from Manhattan to Vegas, enabled Essence to build her acting career.
Under the alias Simone Valentino, Christina Cicchelli has received an AVN nomination for Best Actress for her role in Afrodite Superstar and also won Best New Starlet at the Feminist Porn Awards in 2007 for her role in The Bi Apple.
Christina is now a columnist for $pread Magazine and dishes weekly perversions on her blog, A Fantastic Nightmare. She is also a Professional Fetish Coach for those seeking kinky inspiration in the bedroom.
Gerry Viscois illegally blonde. A writer, performer, photographer, and radio show host on WKCR FM, she regularly covers parties and the arts for New York Press and has also published stories and photographs in The Village Voice, Gawker, the New York Sun, New York Magazine, Fit Yoga, Beyond Race, New York Blade Gay City News, $pread Magazine, and other publications in print and online. She’s writing an autobiographical book about her colorful life as muse, FIT student, actor, fag hag, rent girl, and disco diva in the gritty world of New York City during the 1970s and 1980s.
The launch of our monthly reading series in New York City was a smashing success – Happy Ending was so packed that people were sitting on the floor. If you weren’t there, you missed out on some great stories! But lucky for you, we’re consummate documentarians, so there are both photos and videos.
Here is a video with short clips of each of the performances. We will be posting a video of a different performer every Tuesday until the next reading, on our Blip TV channel.
Photos below are in our Flickr photo pool – which anyone can add to. So if you took pictures and use Flickr, add them to our group! The photos in this slideshow are by Sinead McCarthy and Gerry Visco (a heads up: Gerry will be reading on September 3rd).
After the reading we were able to donate $125 to the St James Infirmary in San Francisco. At our September 3rd event we will be raising funds to donate to $pread Magazine. Stay tuned for the full line up!
Are you a sex worker or former sex worker with something to get off your chest? We’d love to see it here! We want sex workers and their allies to send us your stories, your poems, your dreams, your nightmares, your confessions, your rants, your raves, your movies, your whatevers. We want this to be a place where you can express yourself.
Email Audacia Ray – dacia [at] wakingvixen.com – or David Henry Sterry – sterryhead [at] gmail.com – with ideas, rants, finished pieces, drafts, or previously published pieces that you have the right to reprint.
Book Launch Party, Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission St between 11th and So. Van Ness SF, CA 415-255-1155
Sunday, July 26th at 6:30pm
Starring:
Candye Kane, Dr. Carol Queen, Carla Crandall, Alvin Orloff, Sam Formo, Justin Jones, Diana Morgaine, Berta Avila, Lilycat, Juliet November, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry
Rent Boys Night, A Different Light Bookstore
489 Castro St. San Francisco, CA 94114 415-431-0891
Wednesday, July 29th at 7:30pm
Starring:
Alvin Orloff, Sam Formo, Justin Jones, RJ Martin, David Henry Sterry
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