Duke porn star Belle Knox talks breaking into XXX, sex workers rights, Catholic school sex education and more

I interviewed Duke University freshman and porn star Belle Knox at Elle.com - we discussed how she got into porn, sex workers rights, her Catholic school education, her porn role models, her relationship status and more. If you like it, I'd love it if you'd pass the link on in some way. I had a tight word count so didn't get to include every interesting thing she said, but she was very articulate, passionate and, in my opinion, fascinating. I know I certainly was not as eloquent at 18.

Double X highlights my comment on "Hookers Give the Best Advice"

I'm working on a list of "10 Sites I'm Grateful For" - I thought of the idea at Thanksgiving. I have the sites, just working on gathering logos and writing them up. Anyway, one of them is Double X, Slate's women's interest blog. Great writing about all kinds of topics related to current events and pop culture and feminism and other things.

So I was thrilled to visit the site and see my comment on yesterday's "Hookers Give the Best Advice" article by Jessica Grose highlighted on the upper-right hand side. The article uses Ashley Dupre's new advice column for the New York Post as a jumping off point for a look at historical courtesans and madams and how their advice helped shape politics and the influence it had over powerful men.

Thursday, August 20th In The Flesh - be there!

This Thursday. Be there. We have free lip gloss to give away, along with sex toys, cupcakes and more. Unfortunately, Desiree can't make it but she will be joining us at a future date. Don't miss the hotness. I just may read one of my extra-dirty stories written under my secret male pseudonym.


In The Flesh reading series logo by Molly Crabapple

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
August 20th at 8 PM (doors at 7; we recommend arriving by 7:30 for a seat)
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey or F/V to 2nd Avenue, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Between Forsyth & Eldridge. Look for the hot pink awning that says "XIE HE Health Club."
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://www.inthefleshreadingseries.com

In The Flesh makes August even hotter with these real-life sex stories and steamy erotica tales. Featuring art star Reverend Jen, author of Live Nude Elf: The Sexperiments of Reverend Jen, D.L. King, editor of the lesbian erotica anthology Where the Girls Are, Lisa Beth Kovetz, author of the new novel Lux’s Practical Erotica Adventures, Ravenous Romance author Sèphera Girónand David Henry Sterry, editor of the Soft Skull Press anthology Hos, Hustlers, Callgirls and Rentboys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex, along with contributors Jennifer Blowdryer, Zoe Hansen and Audacia Ray. Hosted and curated by Rachel Kramer Bussel (The Mile High Club, Do Not Disturb, Spanked). Authors' books will be available for sale from Mobile Libris. Free candy and cupcakes by Baked by Melissa will be served and free lip gloss from Topco as well as sex toys will be given away.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the country's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Mo Beasley, Susie Bright, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Mike Daisey, Stephen Elliott, Valerie Frankel, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Logan Levkoff, Suzanne Portnoy, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Dana Vachon, Veronica Vera, Susan Wright, Zane and many others. The series has gotten press attention from the New York Times’s UrbanEye, Escape (Hong Kong), Flavorpill, The L Magazine, New York Magazine, New York Observer, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Flavorwire, Gothamist, Jezebel.com, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth.

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, forcing performance art patrons to pass through a metered turnstile, and mix with the strangely open minded perverts of the greater new york area. Find her online at jenniferblowdryer.com, www.86edstories.com, jenniferblowdryer.blogspot.com and on Twitter as @valfreedom


photo by Stacy Lanyon

Rachel Kramer Bussel is an author, editor, blogger and reading series host. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and a former sex columnist for The Village Voice. She’s edited numerous anthologies, two of which (Up All Night and Glamour Girls) have been Lambda Literary Award finalists, most recently The Mile High Club: Plane Sex Stories, Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories, Best Sex Writing 2009, Tasting Him, Tasting Her, and Spanked. Her writing been published in publications such as Clean Sheets, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, Fresh Yarn, Huffington Post, Mediabistro, Newsday, New York Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Tango, The Village Voice, and Time Out New York, and in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006. She has hosted In The Flesh since October 2005.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com


photo by Hilary McHone

Sèphera Girón is the author of over 15 published novels, both fiction and non-fiction. Her fiction ranges from erotic horror to erotic romance. Her non-fiction books include House Magic: The Good Witch's Guide to Bringing Grace to Your Space as well as the Kama Sutra Seductions Deck. Sèphera is working on an occult series for Ravenous Romance as well as writing the daily horoscopes. When Sèphera isn't writing or reading tarot, she's involved in community theatre with her teenaged dancer son.
www.sepheragiron.com



Zoe Hansen grew up in London, where she befriended Boy George, who put her in his “It’s a Miracle” video. In 1984, armed with $200, she left London for New York City’s Lower East Side. She started in sex work answering phones for an escort service and eventually doing out calls. In 1999, she opened her own brothel, Sterling Ladies, which was the first of five brothels she opened during the next three years. She is now working on her first book, a memoir entitled My American Dream - Going Down in Gotham, and living in the East Village.



D. L. King is the editor of Where the Girls Are: Urban Lesbian Erotica and the up-coming anthology, The Sweetest Kiss: Ravishing Vampire Erotica, both from Cleis Press, she is also the publisher and editor of the erotica review site, Erotica Revealed. Some of her most recent work can be found in anthologies such as Girl Crazy, Swing!, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am, Frenzy, Best Women’s Erotica, Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica and Best Lesbian Erotica. You can find her also in the soon-to-be-released anthologies, Like a Sacred Desire: Tales of Sex Magick, from Circlet Press and Broadly Bound, from Phaze. She is also the author of two novels, The Melinoe Project and The Art of Melinoe.
www.dlkingerotica.com


photo by Stacie Joy

Lisa Beth Kovetz is an award winning writer and producer. Her first novel, The Tuesday Erotica Club, was published by Sourcebooks, Inc. in April ’06. By 2008 the novel has been translated into 17 languages, with the sequel to be published in April 2009. The feature film rights to the book have recently been optioned by Cinergi Pictures Entertainment. Her second novel is Lux’s Practical Erotica Adventures. Currently, Ms. Kovetz is a senior producer/writer at CUNY-TV, the cable television station of The City University of New York where she creates documentaries and short form episodic magazine format segments. Kovetz is currently working on a half hour documentary on anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising and a documentary about the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
www.lisabethkovetz.com



Audacia Ray is a media maker and activist who is passionate about sexual rights. She is the author of Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing In On Internet Sexploration (Seal Press, 2007) and is the award-winning director and producer of the porn feature The Bi Apple as well as the producer and star of the comedic film short Dacia’s Love Machine. Audacia is a former sex worker who was an executive editor at $pread magazine for three years and is a co-founder of advocacy organization Sex Work Awareness. Dacia has been writing her personal blog, Waking Vixen, since 2004.
www.audaciaray.com



Reverend Jen is a performer, painter, playwright, columnist, underground movie star, open mike host, ASS Magazine founder and elf. She lives in the world's only Troll Museum above a shoe store on New York City's Lower East Side with her Chihuahua, Reverend Jen Junior. She is a columnist for www.artnet.com and a former sex columnist for Nerve.com. Her books include Live Nude Elf: the Sexperiments of Reverend Jen, Sex Symbol for the Insane and Reverend Jen's Really Cool Neighborhood.
www.revjen.com



David Henry Sterry is a bestselling author, Huffington Post regular, award winning actor/comic, book doctor, teacher, activist, and a man who hasn’t worn matching socks in years. He is writer of and performer in the one-man show "Chicken", based on his bestselling memoir Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent (ReganBooks: 2002), which has been translated into nine languages, and is being made into a series by Showtime. He is an editor of a new anthology by Soft Skull Press: Hos, Hustlers, Callgirls and Rentboys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex. www.davidhenrysterry.com



You will hear from the following books:


Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex


Live Nude Elf: The Sexperiments of Reverend Jen


Lux's Practical Erotica Adventures


The Mile High Club: Plane Sex Stories


Where the Girls Are: Urban Lesbian Erotica


Teacher's Pet by Sèphera Girón

I'm getting (almost) naked for the 2010 Sex Bloggers Calendar - sponsor us!

On Wednesday night, I'm getting (almost) naked again for a sexy photo shot by Circe for this:



Why should you buy? To support Sex Work Awareness, and because Miss Calico is offering photos. See www.sexbloggercalendar.com for more info.

If you’re a business think about buying one day each month and being remembered all year or if you have special sales to promote, you can even include a promotion code for a specified time period. If you’re a blogger you can have your blog url on your day, or if you’re a reader, any personal message – you can wish us luck or send a greeting to your favorite blogger or celebrate your birthday or anniversary – up to 80 characters will be printed on your day. That $30 includes one pre-ordered calendar (shipping is extra) with all funds in excess of our expenses going directly to Sex Work Awareness. You can purchase as many additional days as you like depending upon availability for $10 each. Although this is a 2010 calendar, we are on schedule and can only sell days through , August 1, 2009 in order to give our graphic designer enough time before the finished calendar must be sent to the printer.

By clicking on one of the purchase buttons to the right you’ll be taken to the Audacia Ray’s Waking Vixen store to make your purchase. Some of you will remember last year that we used a Paypal account at first but after being reviewed by Paypal twice due to the word “sex” in our name we moved the sales to Dacia’s store to avoid the risk of having our account shut down by Paypal. What some of you may not know is that when Paypal shuts an account for what they feel is a violation of their TOS they confiscate all funds in that account.

When you complete your sale you may use the section titled “Shipping Instructions” to list your top three choices for dates on the calendar you want along with your 80 character message. Within 24 hours you will receive an email confirming your date(s) on the calendar. If you are purchasing more than one day on the calendar please just indicate your choice of dates and we will follow up with you by email for these 80 character messages you would like.

Or:

If you would like to use Paypal to purchase a personalize day on the 2010 calendar or pre-order the calendar email us at nycsexbloggerscal@gmail.com for details.

Top 10 Reasons I Love Kirk Read's essay "It's a Shame About Ray"

I'm a longtime fan of writer Kirk Read. His memoir How I Learned to Snap is brilliant. He is this amazing performer, so of course I turned to his essay "It's a Shame About Ray" in the new Soft Skull Press anthology Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex and was expecting something good. What I got was something that is genius. Trust me. The price of the book is worth it for this essay alone (even though there are some other amazing pieces in it too).



1. The title. He had me at “It’s a Shame About Ray” because I am a Lemonheads fan and loved that song.

2. He references a Burger King commercial to describe his escorting Internet personal add:

I used phrases like “non-judgmental” and “open to the fantasies that grip you.” Remember that Burger King commercial? The one with the jingle “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce; special orders don’t upset us…” It was kind of like that.

3. He is a word nerd.

At the risk of being overly simplistic, I’ll say that all I did was use complete sentences. We live in an age of fission. All around us, the language is being split into tiny, marketable pieces. Here-second chunks of information--visual media is edited in such a way that we’re all careening toward epilepsy. Meanwhile, the sentence is an old friend. The sentence is a familiar revolution. I trust the sentence.

4. He debunks stereotypes while invoking the military industrial complex:

You know that stereotype about how clients want to tell you all their problems, so much so that you don’t spend very much time having sex? The sex worker as talk therapist? It’s complete bullshit. It makes non sex workers feel less threatened by the concept of sex for pay. Like when the government invades a country and launches a media disinformation campaign so people think the troops are just there keeping the peace, when really they’re carrying out midnight raids and razing apartment buildings and shooting civilians point blank. I grew up in a military family. I know that’s what really happens because the men in my family are all emotionally unavailable.

5. He likes guys who aren’t traditionally attractive, and claims that:

For me it’s a deeper practice to arrive with very little to go on. The clients who don’t give you any hints at all--no phone voice, no age, nothing. Those are the guys I end up learning the most from. Especially if they’re not traditionally handsome. Maybe they’ve got some extra weight, maybe their skin has red patches, maybe they have a micropenis. If there’s some characteristic that renders them defective in the eyes of the culture, it makes me more excited to play with them. Like when a firefighter gets a call for a five-alarm blaze. It’s exciting. It’s a challenge.

6. He’s from the South and proud, and explains the politeness of accepting a drink, even in the context of a sex work client.

7. He honors his client, Ray, sharing Ray’s fetish with readers in a way that never vacates his trust, that takes someone who is very likely misunderstood by the general populationæat one point, even by Read--and shows his humanity in the guise of a very specific interest.

8. He’s damn funny. He works in his own fantasies, experiences, and sex worker maxims while also telling a story about a specific client.

9. He’s wistful that he didn’t have more intimate contact with his client, thus debunking another stereotype: that it’s always only about money. Clearly, it wasn’t, so when getting to leave after two hours after being paid for an overnight visit, he’s disappointed.

10. He simply owns this piece. I wish I could carry it around and thrust it upon everyone I meet to read, immediately. It’s that good. It’s funny but never in a way that makes fun of sex. It’s unapologetic in its tone, forthright that he is all these things: a sex worker, queer, Southern, smart. It’s fierce and wistful and horny and forthright. It references Fahrenheit 451 and puts forth a vision of a world where people used full sentences and didn’t beat around the bush when speaking up about their desires. At one point, he writes, “Erotic freedom by any means necessary.” Exactly.

I also happen to think he's drop-dead sexy, so I'm gonna share some photos I found at his site:


photo by Lynnly Labowitz
via Kirkread.com


via Kirkread.com

And if you want to see him naked, covered in money (to be on the safe side, probably NSFW), click here