My Mother's Day sex column for DAME on sex positive parenting

My new DAME sex column is up and it's tied to Mother's Day so I focused on mothers who've been shamed about sex and mothers who approach parenting from a sex-positive perspective. Those may seem like two separate topics, but I think they all tie back to how women, and mothers especially, are expected to act a certain way and if they step out of line, watch out, which includes how they parent. I quoted Jillian Lauren (from her new memoir Everything You Ever Wanted as well as Kendra Holliday, Airial Clark, and Crista Anne. See the column archives here.

Read this: Fathermucker by Greg Olear

I love that this trailer for a book full of snark and sex and suburbia has children's drawings in it. So fitting for a fun read for parents, suburbia dwellers past, future and present, and those who like humor, and dads, and wackiness. I reviewed Fathermucker in Penthouse and definitely encourage you to check it out. Oh, and especially if you're not like me and don't drool over small children and parenting blogs, you'll still like it.






From the official site:

You will like this book if you a) have young children, b) enjoy laughter, and c) can’t get the theme songs to various Nick Jr. television programs out of your head. If you are a subscriber to US Weekly, a resident of New Paltz, N.Y, or a stay-at-home dad, that’s icing on the cake.

Greg, who's also an editor at The Nervous Breakdown, has a great site, fathermucker.com, where you can read all sorts of posts by him and others on parenting. Here's Some Girls and Pretty author Jillian Lauren on "The Art of Bad Parenting":

But the thing about my relationship with my son is that I’m not fake with him. I let him know when I’m frustrated or when I’m ecstatic or when I’m having a hard time paying attention. I tell him when I had a lousy writing day and how that makes me feel sad or angry. I let him know me — his mom. Bad parent. Selfish artist. Who loves him like mad.

Do I think that honesty is better than being patient and empathetic and present at every moment? No, I don’t. But it’s the best I can do while I work on the other stuff.

Read ths: Pretty by Jillian Lauren

Some Girls author Jillian Lauren, who I interviewed last year, is back with her first novel, Pretty. It's part of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club and I'm going to finish reading it this weekend. So far it's gripping and the language and story are fierce.



Here's the official description, more on this soon, and check out Jillian's site for her book tour dates!

It’s been one year since the car accident that killed her boyfriend left her scarred and shaken. Flanked by an eccentric posse of friends, she is serving out a self-imposed sentence at a halfway house, while trying to finish cosmetology school. Amid the rampant diagnoses, over-medication, compulsive eating, and acrylic nails of Los Angeles, Bebe looks for something to believe in before something–her past, the dangerously magnetic men in her life, her own bad choices–knocks her off course again.

"Your Face Here" at Pop tART Gallery in LA January 29-March 6

I'm so excited that I'll be in LA for this opening! I was supposed to go to a one-woman show called Sugar Daddy last time I was in town and we got calls that it was canceled due to illness, so I feel like I missed out on my LA artistic moment. Must email and hope I can get my portrait done! Last time, it was getting my ass photographed (maybe even for a book) by Dave Naz. This time I want to see art and hang with my friends and their kids. And eat grilled cheese and maybe get some sun and that's really, really it. Via Jillian Lauren.

YOUR FACE HERE

by Austin Young

January 29th - March 5th, 2011

opening reception: January 29th, 7-10p

closing reception: March 5th

Pop tART Gallery

3023 W. 6th St.


Los Angeles, CA 90020

Los Angeles, CA - National news-making curator Lenora Claire and popular

drag performer Phyliss Navidad are proud to present both the launch of

their new gallery Pop tART, as well as a solo exhibition - part

portrait, part participatory, part performative - by Los Angeles based

artist, Austin Young.

YOUR FACE HERE is a solo exhibition by artist Austin Young that

challenges the normative conditions in which portraits are produced and

exhibited. Young, for over 25 years, has been a celebrated portrait

photographer and artist, whose works blurs the lines, and transcends the

distinctions, between fashion, portraiture, and gender. This exhibition

marks a rare and glamorous moment when Young will generously open his lens onto the public.

For the duration of the exhibition, Young will establish his art studio

for a 5 week residency at Pop tART Gallery. The artist will be present

during gallery hours for portrait sittings, which will eventually fill the


walls of the gallery. The public is invited to participate as the subject

of the exhibition through the purchase of the pop cultural real estate

of the gallery walls. Participation extends beyond simply sitting for a

portrait - it will be a collaborative process where the participants

determine the portrait’s size and placement. Following the legacy of

Warhol’s Factory, Young will transform each participant into an art

celebrity. Or, just impress your high school chums by having the man who

just broke attendance records at LACMA with his co-collaborator’s of


Fallen Fruit take your Facebook profile pic. Bring your face!

Opening reception will be on January 29th, from 7-10pm. Celebrity

make-up artists will be on site for beautification as well as a fabulous

performance by Killsonic, a 50 piece ensemble band. Floral arrangements

and landscaping on patio by Tenley Young, 1st place winner of “The

Arrangement” on LOGO. Makeup provided by Urban Decay. Accessories by

Skingraft. Refreshments by Customized Celebrations. The closing reception


will be your reception! Come see you face in lights.

Contact Lenora Claire at Pop tART Gallery for more details and to reserve

your portrait. Lenora@LenoraClaire.com or poptartgallery@gmail.com

Jillian Lauren on not making resolutions

One of my favorite people I met in 2010 was Some Girls author Jillian Lauren. Loved her book too. From her blog post "No Resolution":

I resolved years ago to bag the whole resolution thing, because “resolution” is just a fancy term for the never ending lists I keep of all the ways I’m not good enough, thin enough, productive enough, disciplined enough, selfless enough etc etc.

So screw resolutions. Every day is a new beginning and there is no such thing as a new beginning. Tomorrow is not a magical day during which I will suddenly find the inner reserves to keep my yard tidier, finally hang that curtain rod in my kitchen, volunteer at an orphanage in Tibet, write another book, win the attachment parenting award and not eat candy bars at night. Tomorrow is just another chance for me to practice compassion toward myself and the world around me.

Some Girls kiss and tell very, very well

I know that was a cheesy rhyme, but I will have to write at another time about how amazing Jillian Lauren is. You should go read her book, Some Girls: My Life in a Harem, right now. And catch her on her book tour (this Thursday in NYC at Sex Worker Literati at Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street, 8 pm, for a start). I'll be there, bearing cupcakes (for Jillian, but she will probably share). Follow her @jillylauren on Twitter. Currently #98 on Amazon!!

FYI, I'd never heard of her before about a month ago when I picked up Bust (which has a great review of Best Sex Writing 2010 which I will post soon) and saw an interview with her by Shira Tarrant. I was intrigued, but the book wasn't out yet. Then that Monday, two days later, I got a copy in the mail, like magic, and was riveted, and emailed her to tell her how much I loved and was moved by the book, and we got to meet at the LA Times Festival of Books.

You can watch her appearance on The View here and read an interview with her at The Gloss here. There was a fabulous profile of her in LA Weekly and I will be blogging on a related note (about what happened when I went to Digg that piece) in "I Don't Care About Your Husband" (an homage to Julie Klausner in the title) soon.



I wrote this review on Amazon:

Some Girls is about, on the surface, Lauren's time spent in a harem in Brunei, but dig just marginally beneath that surface and you will see that this is a memoir that tackles major moments in both her life and one's that many women struggle with. Lauren leaves home at 16 to head out on her own at NYU, but soon finds the life of the theater and, later, escorting, more her style. She is young, brash and carefree, but Lauren never makes it as easy as "I was rebelling." She transposes her freewheeling time against her search for meaning--and her birth mother. Her descriptions of life in the palace, the over-the-top, almost sickening shopping sprees, and encounters with Prince Jefri vividly, including rivalry, jealousy, desire and boredom.

Some of the most moving scenes here, though, having nothing to do with the harem, even if they were informed by her time there. Her quest, and eventual success, in finding her birth mother is at the core of what it means to find oneself, and the ways that meeting falls short of Lauren's expectations are poignant. When she writes of her accidental pregnancy, the boyfriend who wasn't interested, and how she chose to deal with that, she starkly highlights the humanity within the debate around abortion in a way we truly need to see more of in our society. And when Lauren finds tattoo culture (fun fact: Ed Hardy once had a magazine called Tattootime, which becomes Lauren's bible), she writes of having found her people, and promptly gets a major tattoo that even her tattoo artist advises her against.

I found myself repeatedly marveling that the protagonist is only, at most, 19 or 20 when most of the scenes here take place. Lauren displays a maturity beyond her years in her self-assurance (though, again, beneath the surface much more than toughness bubbles up) as well as in the writing and self-reflection. This is a memoir in the truest sense of the word, not a dashed-off "I did this for a year" but a piece that flashes back and reveals her childhood piece by piece, showing why she had this restless yearning to travel so far and get involved with the Prince, even dreaming of having his child at one point. She complicates prostitution and her role in it, while never disowning or disavowing that word or the reality of what she did, and in doing so, has written an outstanding story that is both a fast, at times glamorous read, and one that is very likely to make you cry which, in my book, makes it a winner.

This is how she signed my book in LA: