It's About Labor Rights, People!

I was recently at a very upsetting Tantric Massage class.  It was upsetting for a lot of different reasons- which I could go off the deep end bitching about if given just a little bit of room.  However! Instead of doing that I want to focus on one upsetting statement made in that class - and some insightful conversations I’ve had since - about sex work, the sex-positive community, and activism for sex worker rights. 

Back to the nightmarish tantric class, for just a moment.  At the end of the horrific 2 hour session, the teachers showed (for no clear educational reason..) a soundless video of a man (shot from the shoulders down) in a plaid shirt doing a “sacred spot massage” on a tantric client.  A sacred spot massage, as far as I can tell, is code for “finger-blasting”- because all I was seeing was some aggressive g-spotting of some headless lady's cunt by a plaid-shirt wearing hand.  A student in the workshop timidly raised her hand and asked our teachers, “So…if this woman paid you for this service, what makes this different than prostitution?”  My teachers simultaneously gasped in horror, and then the one responded…as if explaining why hitting is wrong to a child, “No, you see, this isn’t prostitution because we were doing this in the healing light.  And! These are nice, normal people- so you see this is really different than prostitution!” 

My brain exploded.

I’ve been very interested in sex worker rights for a long-time now.  I have dabbled, since my early twenties in different forms of legal sex work from foot fetish (my favorite!), to pro-domming, to trying out (and not getting accepted...head hung low) as a stripper, to considering working as a phone sex operator.  This topic is very complicated, even within the communities of people who agree that sex should be something that is legally traded for dollars.  Recently, Audacia Ray, a really well respected sex workers’ rights activist and sex worker came out and said that the sex-positive movement is not good for sex workers rights.  My first reaction -as an outspoken and fierce sex-positive activist - was, well, “Ouch!”.  But the more I think about it, the more I can see where I can support these words.  A conversation with a friend helped me to clarify these things in my mind.

Recently, an article was written about a strip club in Philadelphia getting busted for solicitation of prostitution because the dancers implied they would give handjobs to police officers who asked for them (turns out a harmless handjob is illegal. Guns? Legal.  Just talking about a handjob? Illegal.  Just saying, that shit's cray!).  The article that was written about this situation was extremely reductivist and made broad sweeping generalizations like having a title that connects dancing to prostitution and violence, and that a lot of dancers end up with addictions because they need to drink or do drugs to disassociate from their jobs.  Many people I know in the industry in Philly were pissed about the way the article was written, and the way it presented dancers.  

I was chatting with a friend of mine, who works 40 hours a week as a stripper, about the whole situation.  She had some serious critiques about the fact that burlesque dancers were out there protesting and holding up signs saying “burlesque is not prostitution”.  She was sad that they were ONLY protesting how the article portrayed dancers, and not about: the fact that the raid went down at all, that dancers were the only ones arrested, or that the dancers were essentially set up by the police officers.  In her mind those are the sex workers RIGHTS issues to be dealt with in regard to this article.  She was also very clear that burlesque is not stripping and is certainly not what that article was written about.  !!!Here’s what I do NOT mean to do.  I am not trying to create a binary where some people’s experiences of sex work are more valid than others.!!!  Here’s what I DO mean to do.  I mean to be very clear that for a lot of people stripping is not an expression of their sexuality, or a romantical, empowering act of feminism. It doesn’t incite them to violence or addiction- it's just their job.  I know a few people who have enough hustle in them to make some good money as burlesque dancers.  And they are talented, and hard-working people.  They could even say that burlesque, and taking off their clothes for money is their job.  However, that's a really different job than stripping.  The atmosphere at a strip club, and the atmosphere at a burlesque performance are really different- there’s a lot of class differences, different expectations and challenges, the culture is really different.  I just think about it like comparing apples and oranges.

So when the Daily News wrote a stupid and offensive article about strippers and strip joints, why were sex-positive burlesque dancers the ones to stand up and get angry? From my perspective they brought attention to themselves and their experience of sex work than necessarily to the experiences of people working as strippers. 

So why do I have beef about this?  Welllll…because when you’re talking about sex workers rights I believe that this conversation should really be focused on the rights of WORKERS. Put more simply- the conversation should be about labor rights.  The conditions people work in. The article described sexist, classist, fucked up dynamics of how the raid went down and how strip clubs are run. This protest did not have issues with those violtions of sex workers rights?  Instead the main focus was on the sex-negative messages. Why do a lot of strippers give hand jobs?  Because they get paid more money if they give hand jobs.  I know burlesque isn’t prostitution and I kinda disagree that sacred spot massage isn’t prostitution- but what I wish people would unite together and say back in these circumstances is that regardless of what form, people should be able to do sex work in SAFE and LEGAL avenues.  The article in the daily news was obviously trying to shut strip joints down.  That’s fucked up- and not because now burlesque dancers are offended because violence has been equated with stripping (which is also bullshit, I don’t disagree) but because people WORK in strip joints to support themselves.  They should be able to make enough money to pay their bills.  They should not worry that they are going to get entrapped by police officers posing as clients.  They should have their rights as workers protected- by the management at the strip clubs, by laws and policies that have strippers health, well-being, and rights as WORKERS in mind.

 So.  My rant is pretty much over.  Here’s the synopsis in case the above was too much. Dear Sex-Positive Activists (who don’t make their living doing sex-work)- When you stand up for sex worker rights, will you try and focus on WORKER rights?  Labor rights? And not only on your right to express your sexuality? Because although I think there are important sex-positive things to discuss when discussing sex work…for sure, I think those things should come after sex workers are able to support themselves, have healthcare, and provide their services legally and in  a safe environment.  When I read the Daily News article I was pissed because it made strippers out to be the bad-guys, instead of shedding light on the fact that in the US most strippers do not have good work conditions.  Ya know?

love!

Donkey

Adult Playtime: Re-Learning Recess with ScrewSmart by Reindeer

Winter steals my sparkle. Mojo, Sexy, where have you gone? Wrapped in the itch of wool, I am cranky and play only with my cat. It’s the last week of January, do you know where your sparkle is?! Did you resolve to have more play, more mojo, less cranky-pants in 2012? When winter began back in December, I knew I needed to learn some skills to combat the doldrums. I sought relief from those warriors of pleasure and fun, Screwsmart! who led the Adult Playtime workshop at Passional.

A workshop about playfulness and sex for us big kids??? We adults can be tough customers; I arrived in my Lacking Sparkle State on a Friday at the end of a work week. Deciding to attend Adult Playtime also seemed harder than signing up to learn a particular skill, such as spanking or rope bondage. In play class, I might be goofy or vulnerable; mastering knots seems simple in comparison. By the end of Knots for Grown-ups, I’m bound (pun intended) to have learned how to secure my partner without reducing her circulation. Although, I’d hate to be so worried about my performance of the perfect knot that I didn’t notice my lover’s eyes or her wicked smile…play and a generous spirit keep any act fun and hot!

 So, Let’s play… said in a sultry voice or a tiny child-like voice…Will you be my teacher and keep me after class??? Play often begins with a request; asking requires mustering courage. During Adult Playtime, we asked to be called by a new name. Just call me Reindeer! Check out my big…antlers? (It was December). Complete your creature and present a gesture of a hobby. Yum, Yum, Yum, Reindeer munches grass!

No wild beast wants to play alone. Remember Simon Says? You go first, I copy you. Will you be my reindeer? In Adult Playtime, we repeated the person’s name and tried to mimic their gesture. We mimic to flatter and jest; I like you enough to try your eyelash batting or imitate your tough stare. You watch and laugh when I both miss and succeed at trying to be you for a few seconds. I discover that I’m not you and might not want to be! However, through these moments of mimicry, we meet anew and learn how we perceive and appreciate each other.

My most memorable attempts at mimicry were studying another person’s walk in a college theater class. Walking behind a person with a hand on their sacrum, at the base of the spine, I tried to study his or her gait, pace, and manner or moving. By attempting to be another body, I “met” my own shape; my hips are lower than hers, feet are more arched but our speed of walking is precisely matched. One of the joys and frustrations of relationships is learning how we are similar and quite different; those skills can be developed through play.

Not all play is as studious as my walking exercise, what about rough play, or play with power? The key to most kinds of play might be learning technique and maintaining some empathy, levity and acceptance of similarities and differences between self and partners. For example, when learning to flog, I was terrified I would harm the person receiving; the person watching me saw the grimace in my face. She smiled at me and suggested that I “offer from my heart.” That sounds wuzzy-fuzzy I realize, but I started to smile and allow my wrist to move in a figure 8 motion so the tails of the flogger impacted and swept over the skin with more precision and generosity than my anxious heart would have been able to offer. The result was a better experience for me and for the person receiving. Even shifting my state of mind from “I am doing this flogging” to “I am offering this flogging to a person who is trusting me,” allows me to relax and focus.

What are your most memorable playtimes, as a child, as an adult, as a lover? Play is good work! As a child, my friend Maureen and I played labor. Inspired by the moans of women birthing on the TV drama, Dr Marcus Welby, MD, we labored many times. We didn’t play with dolls but only blocks, smooth wooden blocks we laid on the bed and on which I rubbed to make babies. There was danger too, sometimes the birth produced a clawed creature, like a crab that gave pain upon leaving my body! More reason to howl!

Whether you prefer a light joke or intense scene, generate a list of how you play. The top of the ScrewSmart worksheet urges: “Ideas from Class Or Life? Jot ‘em down!” Striking is the number of different senses in my list, “Simon Says” from my mouth to your ears… “Scent,” based on an erotica story “Dropping the Hint” in “tasting her” a collection edited by Rachel Kramer Brussel in which a woman welcomes her lover home with a various scents that signal him to respond with different acts. If the nose knows isn’t for you, how about Silence Play!!! Never heard of it? neither had I until my magic marker wrote “Silence Play” on my paper. I love being in the company of a friend or lover and not needing to speak. Not because I’m afraid to communicate but because shared times silence can also be a choice that leads to a different kind of bonding, such as in meditation groups. In art school, I remember a friend trying a speaking fast for a few days to see might experience through note-passing and listening without the burden of talking. Play with your pets! Joke at meetings whenever possible! And of course, play in your erotic life.

 

For more discussion of the science that supports how we grow and bond through play check out Stuart Brown says play is more than fun!

the In-flatulist: the dangers of dating while farting

There are some dangers of dating and being human. You might get caught picking your nose. You might get dehydrated after a particularly raucous bout of fucking. And you might go out for a meal at the beginning of a date that would cause you to fart by the end. Hi. I'm Pumpernickel. I fart. And it's been an issue.

I offer up exhibit A: it's a Michael Gondry short that a teeny, tiny woman hepped me to. 

Gondrey points out the site where most of the hard times happen: in bed. I spent years developing painful techniques so that I could have overnight guests. After a while, pulling aside one ass cheek or waiting for my partner to fall asleep began to feel like denial. I decided to give in to the final corporeal comfort and start disclosing at any costs. As you might imagine, this wasn't always well received.

At one time, I was dating the most phenomenal guy. At eight months, I was blue in the face from with-holding farts around him. He was pretty much the essence of cool and I got the silent but deadly message that farting was off the table. When I broached the topic, he told me that I was free to fart around him but he wouldn't fart around me. *Sacre Bleu!* For me, this was like saying: go ahead, be imperfect, but I won't join you there. I sought advice from one of my dearest friends, a sweaty freak, who understood that whenever I inhaled oxygen, it induced farts in my ass. He was newly married at the time and admitted that he wished there was still the chance to rewind the clock and gain back some of the mystery. This I could get on board with. I am a disclose-a-holic. I want my partners to see all my worst parts early so that they can opt out if they want to. Maybe I get this from my brother who told me that he tried to fart on every first date. He said that it weeded out the weak.

So what's the middle ground? One month? Two months? A verbal warning first? A jog out of the room and a laugh from the hallway each time? I still struggle to know.

I've also dated folks that whenever sex queefs and sex farts happen, they're just another reason to high-five. What Mike Gondry calls "girlfriend type-III." While revealing your inner-self and your inner-stink are two different things, I think there's also something that connects the two. Farting may not be romantic, but it is pretty funny. The folks that i most want to beast with are folks who can laugh with/at me like a friend. 

I remember a poem from my high school literary magazine that was titled: It's As If Everyone Wanted To Pretend They Smelled Like Nothing. This continues to stick with me. There's a real divide between folks who want to act like they don't shit, like they don't bleed, or grow hair, or have bad days, or wear make up; it's as if everyone just wanted to fade into the background. I don't love that I'm a fart-machine, well, no i kinda do. But I acknowledge that the only people who might be into it are the one's who bookmark Cakefart. However, there's something i like about someone who celebrates le petite mort with a little smell of death on top.

pumpernickel releasing a wicked one at dyke march

Juan Pumpernickel Epstein meets MEChA

Juan Epstein, my first hispanic jewWhen I accepted the offer to present at a radical Chicano conference this past week, my first thought was: oh crap, now everyone there will know I'm not Dominican enough. I don't speak Spanish, my Jewish nose  makes my olive skin look more Ashkenazi than Latina and most importantly, I have never felt totally at home when I visit Santo Domingo. This is less about the fact that no one there seems to look like me, but also, because when I'm down there (ha), I feel just how American-brand a queer I am. I didn't know if it was right for me to go and present for students about sexuality when I am so often at odds with my own Hispanic experience. So, selfishly, I decided to go for myself.

Sin Cadena's (Without Chains) was a conference on sexuality and identity put together by MEChA, a radical chicana/o student organization. The day was a collection of workshops and panels kicked off with a commencement speech by Philadelphia's LGBT liaison Gloria Casarez. Students came from all over America to discuss what is was to be young, sexual, thinking folks. I was excited to see what would come of the hour we were given to present.

Together with my friends from Galaei, (an amazing organization dedicated as much to pleasure as it is to sexual health) we put together a workshop, which would be a self-run situation. We all agreed that we wanted to stay away form defining anything about sex- a topic as slippery to get into as a diaphragm. Instead, one of my colleagues suggested we do a fishbowl. This is a facilitation game in which a question is asked to a small group for discussion and folks listening can join by tagging someone else out. She thought it might be good to start with the question "do you ever not feel latina/o enough?" It was a staggering moment. After I crapped my pants, I remembered the lesson I keep having to learn over and over again: everyone struggles with feeling like not enough. For those of us who have strong cultures pulling us in different directions, it’s hard to sometimes feel the smooth blend that all those cooking/culture metaphors refer to. Sometimes you’re less a melting pot than a rock sitting in a bowl of porridge… sometimes the rock is porous, sometimes it is a porridge rock, sometimes the rock is a guy named sue. Wait, sorry, I was taking life seriously again.  But suffice to say, sometimes a mixed experience is merely a fractured one that, in turn, becomes it’s own whole experience.

During the fishbowl, I awkwardly acknowledged not feeling like enough. And I didn’t disappear into a puff of smoke and shame. In fact, I stayed in the fishbowl speaking to these bold and articulate students. I was struck by what one person said after he tagged in on the question “what does queer mean to you?” I had discussed ScrewSmart’s blog uproar around the idea that someone straight could be queer. This guy agreed with the sentiment and went on to liken it to his own understanding of what it was to be Chicano. He said that at a certain point it stopped being about where you were from and became how you politically aligned yourself. My mind was officially blown. Maybe this was a new umbrella term that I could actually begin to own as my own. One that was malleable as, well, as porridge. A global word that could encompass as my own experience as a true whole as opposed to a part of a fractured sum. And so this is me, Juan Pumpernickel Epstein, chicana-at-large, saying thank you to all the brave young thinkers who present us with the words that get closer to being seen.

BONK! A sex-nerd's wank bank!!

Friends- I know I'm late on the uptake.  Bonk: the Courious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach is a sex-nerd's wet dream that was published in 2008.  I don't know why I've been twiddling my thumbs instead of obsessively reading and re-reading this book at least 4 times a year since it came out.  

The good news is that a friend, who cares about the thoughts that jostle around in my dome, DID give it to me a few weeks ago.  Jenny- you win the prize.  I LOVE.  Ahem.  Let me repeat.  I FRIGGIN' LOVE...this book.  It is chock-full of sound research all about sexuality and science about sex.  This is a book that was BOTH enjoyable to read AND about my very favorite subject.  But my love comes also from the little activist inside of me that I should let out more often, feed better, and definitely let play in the sunshine more.  That little activist is currently doing a celebration dance because they're realizing how important it is to have books out there that approach sex from a serious point-of-view that aren't preachy, aren't too dry to finish, and aren't only aimed at academics.  This is a book that Joe-the-plumber (remember him.  Oh my god, I just did, and wished I hadn't) could happily pick up and read in excerpts while he moved his bowels every morning.  

Bonk points out how hard it is to try and seriously study sex and sexuality in this world.  What do I mean by "this world".  Let's just say that this morning getting on the train I heard a woman shouting, "DON'T HAVE SEX BEFORE YOU'RE MARRIED!! YOU'LL GET AIDS! GONORHEA, CHLAMIDIA, AND GO TO HELL!!" At that moment, I was living in "this world".  Sex is central in all of our lives.  But I bet it is easier for people to study duck migration than it is for them to study dick dilation (that is unless they work for a pharmacuetical company).  Sex is: THE behavior that keeps our species continuing on through the generations, one of the most important ways that we socialize and create bonds (I would hope it's assumed, but my definition of sex is not limited to penis in vagina here people), and is a huge portion of content on the internet (though not as big as I thought...).  However, it seems like people who want to study it are seen as being weird for being interested in the subject.  I think that the importance of sound scientific information about sex and sexuality can be easily linked to quality of life issues, social justice philosophy, and basic human curiousity.  But than again...I live in a self-constructed sex-positive bubble.  

Besides giving a shout out to how small the scientific literature about sexuality is compared with it's importance in the human experience, Roach also has an amazing historical look at sex science.  From a woman who had her clitoris surgically moved closer to her vaginal opening in the early 1900's (because she believed this is why she could not experience orgasm during penetrative sex), to the classic cure for "hysterical women" (orgasms!), she covers so much interesting history of how we know what we know about sex.  Like did you know that testical implants were a fad at the turn of the 20th century?

Anyway I'm starting to ramble (maybe I'm getting hysterical! Maybe I should go "treat" myself for that before it gets out of control...) and so I thought I'd leave y'all with some of MY favorite sex facts! (some are in the book, some are not...you'll have to read it to find out!!)

-people with XX chromosomes have the same amount of erectile tissue, on average (if you count all the tissue beneath the surface!) than folks with XY chromosomes. That being said...

-1 in 100 people are born with some sort of male/female ambiguity (kinda taking the air out of my previous fun fact)

-70% of ciswomen are unable to reach orgasm from penetrative sex (if they don't have clitoral stimulation).

-Dan Savage claims (but I'm having a having a hard time finding evidence to back it up) that ciswomen report on average greater sexual satisfaction if they're sleeping with cismen with micropenises than they do when sleeping with cismen with average or above average sized cocks.

Do you have any other interesting sexual trivia? Sex facts?  Share, please?

With love!

Donkey