i'm so excited

13 décembre 2009

Coming out

Whether one decides to show publicly their interest in porn or their consumption of sexual services or not is their choice, and it is a complicated one, that can sometimes have serious consequences - losing jobs, breaking up with wives, getting rejected by family, etc. The social stigma on clients of prostitutes is very hard. Coming out as a consumer of sex for money is not easy, and I am not allowed to judge someone for not wanting to take the risks that it entails.
However I've often felt offended or hurt when people around me were telling me they didn't want to expose their porn viewing habits, or other stigmatized sexual behaviors. I have been thinking they were cowards, and I have felt angry and sad, I have over-reacted. A friend of mine once asked me if I could give him something to hide his anal plug in, and I refused : "you can hide it if you want to, but I'm not going to help, because I disapprove", I said. Another friend, who wanted me to send him good porn links, asked me to send them in private messages instead of posting them on his facebook profile where his relatives could see them - I said I'd either send him the links publicly or not at all. And just recently, a fan told me he wasn't sure he wanted to subscribe to my facebook fanpage because that would mean to much of an exposure.
Of course I understand them. The stigma is a heavy burden to carry, and the shame and taboo are still very deeply engrained. Of course the reactions I had meant more than just "how do you dare not wanting to be my fan?", there was much more at stake than the apparently unimportant situations where the issue emerged. My reactions came from a feeling in me that I wasn't really able to formulate clearly, and now I have put my finger on it. Here is what I want to tell these people :
Do consider this - as sexworkers, it is much harder to stay closeted than as clients. As porn actresses, we are out and exposed every day of our lives. As porn actresses, we are confronted with the social stigma of being a sexworker, so that people like you around the world can have beautiful images of sex to look at and jerk off to. We take the risk of exposition and all the consequences it can have, to provide you with porn and other sexual services.
And there is something people can do to thank us for what we give them. The more people will say proudly they watch porn, the less shameful it will be considered for people to be making it or performing in it, and the easier my life as a porn actress will be. The more people will say publicly they are consumers of adult entertainment and sexual services, the less stigma and taboo there will be around the people who work in the sex-industry, and the easier it will be for all the sexworkers around the world to take care of their health and well-being, to find someone to turn to when they need help, or to say "I've had a bad day at work" when they come home - while on the contrary when you're ashamed of your job or rejected because of it, it is harder to find support.
Now of course what I'm telling you is not that you should subscribe to my fanpage, because if you don't, God will kill a whore. But I guess what I'm trying to tell you is it does take guts and courage and generosity for us sexworkers to do the things we do, and it is not fair that the people who consume our work should always be hidden and never stand up for us.
One of the slogans of the sexworkers movement in France is
"vous couchez avec nous, vous votez contre nous !",
which means "you're having sex with us, but you're voting against us !"
It pretty much sums up what I think. Whether it is on their facebook page, in public speeches, or in everyday life conversations, there are many things one can do, tiny acts of bravery to lift the taboo and the shame. The things one should do are not for me to judge. If you don't want to be out as a porn consumer on your facebook profile you certainly have very good reasons for that, and it's not a big deal. There are also times and places when I choose not to be out, to protect myself, and of course it is fine, I don't have to be a hero all the time, and you don't either. But maybe there's still something you can do, some situation where you can act, some other way. I'm sure there are many of them that might be easier to do, and have less consequences than outing your porn consumption habits to your family. Please do try and find things, costless things, that you could do to support sexworkers. List of things you can do to be an ally. You owe it to them because they have given you so much.

PS - December 17th is the annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.
Here are organizations and projects you can donate to, volunteer for, resort to, learn from :
Pétition contre la Criminalisation des Travailleur-se-s du Sexe : Sign it !
Syndicat du Travail Sexuel
$pread Magazine
Sexwork Awareness
NYC Sexblogger Calendar
Sexwork 101
Sexwork Outreach Project
Video : SANGRAM, sexworkers organizing in India
Sex Worker Literati

08 décembre 2009

Bruises

Fetlife is giving away presents to the naughty children for Xmas ! Go get yours if you think you deserved it.

Le Strass, Syndicat du Travail Sexuel, a élu ses nouvelles et nouveaux représentantEs ce week-end.
Accessoirement, le syndicat a créé des badges, qui disent "sex work is work", "my body is my business", "fière d'être une pute"... Ils seront bientôt en vente sur le site.
Signez ici la pétition contre la criminalisation du travail du sexe.

J'ai essayé récemment la mooncup, une alternative écologique, économique et pussy-friendly aux tampons et aux serviettes hygiéniques. C'est une coupe en silicone chirurgical, qui au lieu d'absorber ou de boucher l'écoulement menstruel, le contient. On l'insère dans le vagin, on la retire toutes les 4 à 12h pour la rincer, et on la remet. On peut la désinfecter environ une fois par cycle en la faisant bouillir. ça coûte 20€ et ça peut se garder jusqu'à 15 ans, le prix est donc amorti rapidement par comparaison au prix des tampons et des serviettes, et ça fait nettement moins de déchets.
Il existe plusieurs marques, divacup, mooncup, keeper, femmecup... Jsais pas trop c'est quoi les différences, peut-être que certaines sont en latex et d'autres en silicone, bref. En tout cas c'est beaucoup moins agressif pour la chatte, pas d'agents blanchissants, pas de Syndrome du Choc Toxique, pas d'absorption des sécrétions et d'assèchement, pas de tampons-bouchons qui empêchent l'écoulement naturel, pas de couche-culotte qui gratte l'intérieur des cuisses...
J'avais des réticences jusque là car j'avais peur que ça soit dur à mettre, pas confortable... Et en fait c'était vraiment facile à insérer, un peu moins facile à enlever (le fameux "effet ventouse" qui faisait une drôle de succion un peu angoissante), mais surtout une fois mise je la sentais à peine dans ma chatte, j'étais vraiment tranquille, je l'ai gardée toute la nuit et le lendemain matin elle n'était même pas pleine. Pour la première fois j'ai vu le sang de mes règles à l'état liquide, j'ai pu voir vraiment sa couleur, sentir vraiment l'odeur chaude et sirupeuse... C'était vraiment cool.

Courtney Trouble continue à travailler comme une folle, et sort dans quelque jours son 7e film en DVD, Roulette Berlin, dans lequel j'ai tourné une scène avec mon boyfriend !
Voici la bande-annonce.
Acheter le DVD.

J'ai lu et écouté des dizaines et des dizaines de fois ce poème de Bob Flanagan, "Why", qui répond à la question "mais pourquoi aimes-tu le BDSM ?". Je le connais presque par coeur.
Je crois bien que c'est mon poème préféré.
Les passages qui me plaisent le plus :
-"because my parents loved me even more when I was suffering"
-"because I'm nothing but a big baby and I want to stay that way, and I want a mommy forever, even a mean one, especially a mean one"
-"because of motherhood,
because of Amazons,
because of the Goddess,
because of the moon"
-"because it's in my nature,
because it's against nature"
-"because I'm attracted to it,
because I'm addicted to it"
-"because surrender is sweet"

Du coup j'ai écrit le mien, à la manière de. Le voici :

"Because it makes me feel good, because my mom always made nail clipping such a ritual, because I was born with my umbilical cord around my neck and it almost killed me, because I was a sad kid and an angry teenager, because the future is dark, because life is too short, because I need you to take care of me, because I'm not brave enough to hurt myself, because I like to feel powerless, because it makes me feel powerful, because I'm so fragile, because I'm so tough, because I can take it, because I don't want to be in charge, because I don't want to grow up, because of the martyrs of sainte Agathe and sainte Marguerite, because I feel nostalgia for a time that never was, because I'm lazy, because I'm selfish, because my mom didn't masturbate, because I'm a feminist, because I'm a woman, because I want to, because I am bored, because I'm open-hearted, because I've watched too much porn, because I like it, because it makes me serene, because I'd wither without it, because I am queer, because I am punk, because I am a pervert, because it's my definition of tenderness.

Les prochains AVN Awards (Adult Video News Awards), la plus grosse cérémonie de récompense du porno, qui se déroulent à Las Vegas, auront lieu le 9 janvier 2010. Les nominations, qui ont été dévoilées il y a quelques jours, sont vraiment une bonne surprise pour le porno queer. Jusqu'à présent, les AVN ont récompensé quelques productions et acteurs/actrices queers, tels que SIR Productions ou Buck Angel, mais de manière générale le porno queer n'était pas inclus dans la cérémonie. D'ailleurs l'an dernier il y avait eu un scandale quand Madison Young, nominée pour son travail plus mainstream, avait décidé d'arpenter le tapis rouge au bras de Syd Blakovich - c'était la première fois qu'une fille choisissait une autre fille pour cavalière, et ça n'avait plu à personne de voir un couple de vraies gouines, si bien que Syd avait failli se faire virer.
Bref, cette année, Jiz Lee est nominé-e, le film de Shine Louise Houston "The Champion" est nominé, Dylan Ryan est nominée, Good Vibrations est nominé... et pas dans des catégories de rien du tout ! Peut-être que ça vous impressionnera pas, les AVN ne sont pas vraiment connus en France, mais moi je suis vraiment émue de cette reconnaissance du porno queer par l'industrie mainstream. Depuis un an, il est vraiment en train de se passer quelque chose. Voir la liste des nominés.

Quand j'étais à Berlin, j'ai rencontré le créateur de la compagnie de sextoys NJOY, qui m'a donné trois jouets gratuits : la Pure Wand, le Pure Plug, et le Eleven.
Ils sont en acier inoxydable, faits à la main et polis soigneusement, de vraies oeuvres d'art.
Très beaux et très lourds. Je prends mon temps pour les inaugurer, j'ai testé les deux premiers et je vais bientôt m'attaquer au dernier, le Eleven, qui est un vrai mastodonte.
Au prix où ils sont vendus, c'était vraiment généreux de sa part de me les offrir. Je suis allée le voir dans son hotel à Berlin, un monsieur pas tout jeune en robe de chambre qui m'a raconté qu'il adorait se mettre des trucs dans le cul depuis qu'il était ado, et qu'il avait commencé à dessiner des sextoys lorsqu'il travaillait dans une compagnie qui fabriquait des poignées de portes, dont le design lui avait inspiré son premier plug. Il m'a donné un échantillon de ses produits, et je lui ai promis en échange d'en parler autant que je peux, de les utiliser dans des pornos, etc. Je ferai donc des sextoy reviews dans les posts qui vont venir pour vous parler de ces trois objets.

You got me in subspace in seconds, blood rushing and flushing to my face. Thank you Sir. Visions of you pulling on my pigtails, getting me down on my knees. Tenderness and playfulness, with just the right amount of cruelty. And I'll cherish my bruises and my marks, when they're all I have left to remember.

Why wasn't there one single allusion to Stonewall or the gay and lesbian movement in my American history class on "minorities protest movements in the late 1960s" ? Don't we fucking qualify ? Where is our history ? When I asked my teacher if we were going to study Stonewall, he said "study WHAT ?" and when I explained to him what Stonewall is, he just answered "no".

Now there's much much more I want to write about, but it's late and this is already a very long post about too many different things. Good night !

27 août 2009

Nomination

Je viens de voir que quelqu'un m'a nominee pour la liste des Sexiest Bloggers of 2009 !
Bon, c'est une amie a moi qui m'a nominee, et je ne suis nominee qu'une fois, alors que la plupart des autres blogs soumis aux votes du jury sont proposes genre 15 fois chacun, par 15 personnes differentes. N'empeche, ca me ferait drolement plaisir d'etre sur cette liste - et ca me ramenerait grave du traffic.
Bon, mais suis-je vraiment qualifiee et eligible ?
Est-ce que mon blog est un sexblog ? Ouais.
Mais d'une, ce blog est partiellement en anglais, partiellement en francais. Peut-etre qu'ils voudront pas de moi car j'ecris trop souvent en francais ? Ensuite, contrairement aux gens qui tiennent leur blog serieusement, moi je poste assez irregulierement, et surtout j'ecris pas toujours un article qui a un theme, une histoire a raconter, une these a soutenir - souvent, je parle de 15 trucs differents, 3 lignes pour chaque info, je mets plein de liens vers des trucs que j'aime bien, et je divague beaucoup.
En plus mon blog est moche, j'ai pas de logo, de jolie mise en page, de photos de moi toute nue, tout ca. J'ai fait expres qu'il soit austere pour que faille vraiment le vouloir pour le lire, mais bon, j'ai des remords parfois.
Est-ce que, si je rentre pas dans la liste cette fois-ci, je devrais ecrire en anglais plus souvent, et des articles plus rigoureux, pour essayer de remplir les exigences de cette liste d'ici a l'an prochain, pour etre dans les Sexiest Bloggers of 2010 ? D'ailleurs, lecteurs francophones, ca vous empeche de me lire quand j'ecris en anglais ? Vous attendez le prochain post en francais ? Ou bien vous comprenez l'anglais aussi et ca vous importe peu ? C'est quoi vos articles preferes ? De quoi vous voulez que je vous parle ? Y a quelqu'un qui lit ce blog ? J'espere que vous lisez tout hein, et en cliquant sur les liens, et en prenant des notes ! Voila cette nomination m'a fait me poser plein de questions. Alors laissez-moi plus de commentaires, je me sens un peu toute seule parfois !
Au fait je sais pas pourquoi mais il y a de la pub sur mon blog maintenant. Elle etait deja la avant et j'avais pas remarque ? Ou est-ce que c'est depuis que j'ai mis mon blog dans la categorie "Pour Adultes" ?

Tina Fiveash est une photographe australienne, et Catherine Opie une photographe americaine, et je connais pas tres bien leur travail mais elles m'interessent. Jetez un coup d'oeil !

Le SexBloggerCalendar aide a soutenir SexWorkAwareness. Achetez-le !

Et visitez ce site aussi : Audacia Ray est super cool !

Je suis pas trop sure de comprendre exactement comment ca fonctionne, mais je vais essayer de participer au Sugasm #172.

15 août 2009

overwhelming whirlwind

so, after reading my last post, someone told me the exhaustion i talk about at the end of the text is very typical of sexworkers, and such women as Annie Sprinkle and Virginie Despentes mention similar feelings.

here's what i wrote back :
my exhaustion has very little to do with sexwork though.
i started feeling this way long before i began sexworking.
it's just the way my life is meant to be.
a constant overwhelming whirlwind. hectic frantic and fantastic.
i can hardly keep up with it, but most of the time the breathlessness just makes me a little dizzy and light-headed with happiness and excitement.
except the times when i get burnt out and have a nervous breakdown.
maybe sometime i'll come to terms with the existential anxiety that leads me to run after time the way i do, keeping myself busy all the time, maybe trying to escape something, who knows. i'm sure i'll work that out.
until then, this neurosis makes my life pretty darn interesting.

voici un lien vers un site qui vient d'etre cree : Les mots de la chair.

ce soir j'ai performe pour SIZZLE, une soiree de lectures et de performances organisee a la galerie Femina Potens. c'etait interessant et agreable. les autres auteures invitees etaient Madison Young, Luna Maia, et Thea Hillman, et ce qu'elles ont fait etait chouette.

je suis pressee de voir ce que San Francisco aura a m'offrir dans les deux semaines a venir.

(j'ai largement augmente l'article precedent depuis que je lai mis en ligne, si vous l'avez lu juste apres sa publication, vous devriez y jeter un nouveau coup d'oeil. je vais probablement le retravailler encore dans les jours qui viennent.)

vous devriez aussi jeter regulierement un oeil sur ce que fait Courtney Trouble :
elle a realise trois longs-metrages dans les derniers mois : Roulette, Nostalgia et Speakeasy, qui m'ont bien l'air d'etre des oeuvres d'art en plus d'etre des pornos queer excitants.
elle vient de faire passer son site internet, NoFauxxx, a la vitesse superieure : il y aura des updates plus regulieres a partir de maintenant (et un troisieme photoshoot de moi vient d'y etre mis en ligne) !
lentement mais surement, son projet d'inventaire exhaustif, que dis-je, de pantheon du porno queer, avance petit a petit : RealQueerPorn. d'ailleurs si vous voulez offrir votre contribution benevole a ce projet, contactez-la, elle a besoin de petites mains !

Sinon, voila une serie de liens vers des trucs sympas :
Bitch Magazine, un magazine lesbien feministe assez cool
$pread Magazine, un magazine qui "illuminate the sex industry"
On Our Backs, un magazine porno lesbien qui n'existe plus...
Fetlife, un reseau social genre myspace ou facebook sauf que c'est pour les deviants sexuels et autres kinksters
The Inverted Eye, une boutique en ligne qui vend des accessoires vintage et des antiquites dont l'usage initial peut etre detourne et perverti au gre de vos kinky games (fragments d'uniformes, materiel de barbier, materiel medical, materiel d'equitation... y a des tresors)

11 août 2009

Tour

The Queer X Show tour just ended.
You can read extracts from our tour diaries and see pictures on this blog.
There are also articles here, here, here, here (en Français), and pictures here and here.

I haven't written on the blog, or anywhere else really, during this tour.
I started trying to write, but I was just reporting facts.
A detailed report of every single event, every single feeling and emotion and sensation...
Long long long texts, that no-one will ever have time to read.
RECORD ME ! Mad Kate screamed in her performance, and it echoed deep inside with this obsession I have.
The obsession to record my life, to make archives of my life, with words and sounds and images and bits of papers put together.
I was trying to write it all down, but I was constantly failing, never enough time, never enough paper, never enough ink, I kept failing and being late, losing my breath. Je faisais la course avec le temps, j'essayais de rattraper la réalité, je voulais écrire ce que je vivais quasi simultanément, mais j'étais toujours en retard sur les évènements, le temps que je finisse de raconter l'histoire de la veille la journée d'aujourd'hui était passée, pleine de nouvelles histoires à raconter...
Alors j'ai arrêté. I stopped trying after a few days, and I started living it to the fullest, taking as much as I could take from this experience.
I was discovering new cities, new people, all these landscapes unfolding outside the windows of the van, all these stories unfolding on the rows of seats inside the van...
Berlin Wendy Brussels Sadie Paris Madison Cologne Katie Copenhagen Emilie Stockholm Ena Malmo Judy.
The seven of us, coated with sweat and filth after hours and hours of road, dirty with our little secrets and fears and ego battles and love letters, dirty with our little voices and laughters and underwear and fantasies. So much time spent together in this van, learning who I was, learning who each of them was, telling them about me and hearing about them, while another one was trying to sleep and couldn't because we were too loud. So much time spent laughing, screaming with laughter, laughing until my muscles hurt with it, laughing until I couldn't breathe, because Sadie was just so funny. So much time spent talking, my little high-pitched voice going further and further as I was telling my story, trying to be as faithful as possible to the truth, over analyzing everything I was saying... Each conversation that started seemed to end up being an exhaustive exploration of everything that could be said on the matter, with all of us participating, and all of us learning so much in the process. It was incredible.
We talked about psychiatrization and how harmful it can be to people in general and to women and queers in particular, we talked about how problematic it is to label someone crazy and how helpful it can be to be diagnosed sometimes, and how complicated all of this is.
We talked about art and money and how we manage to deal with the apparent contradiction and how we work out the issues that come up when your job is your passion, or when your passion doesn't pay the bills.
We talked about sexual orientation and the limits of defining oneself as homo/hetero/bi, or generally making the gender of your partners what determines your own identity.
We talked about sexwork and being out and being closeted and educating people and taking care of yourself and choosing your battles.
We talked about compulsive grooming like popping zits and plucking hair and how weird it is that it feels so good.
We talked about the porn industry and how it is in LA as opposed to in Europe, and how to prepare yourself for an anal scene.
We talked about race and class and gender, beauty standards, sexual freedom, objectification, transgression and taboo, shame and guilt.
We talked about our fetishes, our exes, our first times, our partners, our families, our body issues.
We talked about white people with dreadlocks and cultural appropriation.
We talked about alcoholism, codependance and relationships.
We talked about group dynamics.
We talked about linguistics.
We talked about so many other different things and in the end I'm so grateful that we were able to share so much, and I was confronted with so many worldviews that I'd never thought of before, and I was able to give a voice to so many ideas or stories that I'd had to hush or I hadn't been able to express before.
These girls are all such exceptional persons, performers, writers, thinkers, and besides super hot, and I felt so honored to be a part of this.
I grew and improved as a performer, too. When I accepted to take part in the tour, I really didn't think of myself as a good performer, and I certainly didn't think of my performances as art.
Whenever I performed, it was in front of an audience mostly filled with my friends, or if they were not my friends I felt I was lucky to be on this stage, it was almost undeserved, I thought of it as "I'm a beginner, they are offering me this stage for me to try out, experiment, learn, and if there weren't other more professional, more talented performers in this show, the audience wouldn't be as indulgent with me." I felt that I was Wendy's little sister, she had given me the chance to be there and I almost apologized for being there and never felt like what I did was really worth anything. Things changed slowly, I started developing my own solo performances myself, instead of always doing duos with Wendy, working on them alone instead of always asking her for coaching. Of course her help and her teaching was extremely valuable, and she was a great mentor to me, and she gave me so many opportunities. But at some point I had to try and fly with my own wings, and I did it little by little, and this tour definately created a new level of independance and self-confidence for me as a performer. I no longer think I'm bad. I'm definately inexperimented, and a beginner, but what I do is beginning to have its own little personal flavor, it is my work, it is my creation. I'm beginning to see performing as "hello, here I am, I'm Judy Minx, this is my art, I'm putting it out there for people to see and to criticize or praise".
Our show was a whole, it was a complete entity. The structure of it, the line-up (which number goes first, second, ..., last), we thought about all of this together and that way we integreated each little fragment, our solo numbers, into a bigger picture, an artpiece, a show. I was proud of all of us. When I felt I'd been bad, I was still able to see how great a show we'd done. When I felt I'd been great but the audience hadn't been very receptive to the show as a whole or the connection I'd had with the other performers hadn't been that good, I wasn't satisfied. It felt good to be working together like that. We all contributed to making the show good, we weren't just going on stage and doing our own piece and then letting the others do theirs. We gave suggestions, processed and brainstormed about each other's pieces, we asked for advice or opinions on our performance ideas, we made the others contribute to our solo numbers to make them duos, trios, quartets... Backstage we asked each other for bobbypins, hairspray, glitter, fake blood, fake eyelashes, lipstick, help with zipping the costume on or taking the shoes off...
Another very interesting thing was to perform to so many different audiences, in so many different venues and contexts, and to adapt our show according to the circumstances. A few hecklers from time to time. Some awkward shyness. Young drunk dykes at 1am the night of the gay pride in a huge club in Stockholm. A very quiet, seated, intellectual and artsy audience on a very interesting and newly built stage in Malmo at 10pm. A very receptive, very interested audience at 8pm in a small gay bar in Paris, who instantly got carried away with us in a very intimate and ritual-like connection, although they were totally unused to seeing anything like us... I could obviously not do a 15 minutes spoken word act, that requires silence and attention from the audience, at 1am in a club where people were standing and getting drunk and wanted to party. We couldn't do a fisting performance in Stockholm where the restrictions on nudity and explicitness and public sex are tough. I couldn't do twice the same number in the same city. etc. Working out all of this was a very interesting part of our work.
Sadie Lune wrote this rap for me (she made one for each of us) :
Tits for a minute, legs for days
Spreads em wide and invites your gaze
Drinks from a bottle fresh soy milk
And pisses all over your new silk
Judy Minx ! Judy Minx ! Baby pornstar really makes you think
Judy Minx ! Judy Minx ! You'll miss a mouthful if you stop to blink !
Tranny cock and kinky sex
Born in heels and raisin' heck
She'll never believe you might be right
Unless the rope's tight extra tight
Judy Minx ! Judy Minx ! Baby pornstar really makes you think
Judy Minx ! Judy Minx ! Brains and a pussy and a load of high jinx !
I got to see my cervix, meet incredibly talented people, chew on a red hot chili and find it sexually arousing, question my assumptions about who I'm attracted to or not, whip myself with branches in a sauna on wheels just a few meters from the Baltic sea, laugh at stupid private jokes shared by less than ten girls on this planet, have sex with hot queers after the shows in the backstage/in the ladiesroom/in the van, and get away with it without any polyamorous drama or yeast infection, do ageplay under the full moon, be attacked by an army of ladybugs and stung by a wasp, eat disgusting food in freeway rest-stops and delicious food in great restaurants, meet many people whose names end in -a, like Anna Erica Cecilia Christina and Alva, go to the Pere Lachaise and the Sacre Coeur, two touristy things I'd never taken time to do in my everyday life in Paris, decorate a van with garlands of tampons and hair-rollers and fake flowers and barbies in bondage and dick-shaped mint candy, hit on perfect strangers and not fear rejection, develop my creativity and feel validated as an artist, have crushes on people I probably wouldn't have thought were my type at first, see friends of mine who live far from Paris and that I don't see often enough, meet real straight feminist men, visit Christiania and be disappointed, buy a faux-vintage girdle, feel how much I miss you when I'm away and how thankful I am to have you, eat ice-cream, feel my belly aching with desire, not take enough showers, create more femme solidarity...
There's something else I want to talk about. While we were in Paris, a very close friend of mine who is trans', who had worked at helping us with the props and the stage, got assaulted. He was called a dyke by a men, then he was punched in the face and he fell to the floor and fainted, bleeding a lot. Noone came to help, although it was in the metro in the middle of the afternoon and people were passing by. He got two stitches and a lot of fear and shock.
On August 1st, while we were in Copenhagen, a masked man entered a LGBT Youth Center in Tel Aviv and started shooting, killing two persons and injuring 11 more.
You're always much more free on the stage than on the dancefloor. If I'm topless on the stage I'm considered to be doing art with my body and the distance with the audience prevents anyone from non-consensually touching me. If I'm topless on the dancefloor I'm just a drunk girl who's asking for it and they can all touch my tits without asking for permission, and then the bouncers can kick me out because "this ain't a strip club".
These things remind us that we can't be apolitical artists, we can't just do pretty and sexy things and not care about what is actually going on out there. Being an artist puts you in a very privileged space, and it makes you safer from these attacks. Performing feels very good to us, but we can't just do it because we enjoy it or just because it's empowering for us. We need to make something good for the world, good for our audiences. We can't stay in ivory towers, we can't disconnect our art from what is going on out there. Because when they attack one of us, they are attacking us all. Because it keeps happening, in Tel Aviv, in Paris and everywhere else, and it needs to stop. Because art can be and needs to be a force that impacts change, an element of the social and political context in which the world evolves. Because it all feels so close to us, because it has happened to us, and it could happen again, to be the victims of someone's hatred, to be the victims of the states's institutionalized discriminations, and we don't want to go through this in silence. Our art is political, and I have never been interested in creating anything that wasn't. (although there's an article in Swedish on the internet that misunderstandingly quotes me. it says I said that there's nothing more to our show than entertainment and fun. it is not true and i didn't say that.)
On a little square in Malmo, we went to a ceremony with candles and a march and a kiss-in on Aug 5th in remembrance of the victims of the Tel Aviv tragedy and to express solidarity with its survivors. Vendela, the organizer of this little demonstration, who is also one of the most wonderful persons I've met during this tour, read passages from the Queer Manifesto. Her voice was so strong and so broken and so beautiful I wanted to cry. AN ARMY OF LOVERS CANNOT LOSE, she chanted. I hope she's right. Until we're proven wrong we'll keep fighting.
After the last show in Berlin, everybody was sad that the tour was over. I loved it, it was definately a life-changing experience that helped me understand more about where I want to go with my life, what kind of person I want to be... But I was not sad that it was the end. I really needed it to stop. The sleep-deprivation needed to stop. I needed to be on my own again, release myself from the constant tension and self-consciousness and fears that group dynamics like this one raise in me, spend a few days with my partner, get things done in Paris...
I am now in San Francisco, where I got less than 24 hours ago. I really wish life was slower. It all happens all the time, I never get a rest from all the craziness, and it has just begun ! It drives me insane, and I mean it. I undergo a whole little personal revolution every three months. It's been like that for a while now, things get more and more hectic as it goes, I always think it can't get worse but it does, I have a serious problem with FOMO (fear of missing out) so I keep trying to do it all, I think "I'll sleep when I'm dead" but I actually need some sleep or I'll get burnt out. I keep having to choose between sleeping eating and taking showers and I end up not doing enough of either. One life-changing experience a day is too much. I can't process it all. The next one ends up erasing the previous one, because it was too quick, I couldn't get over the first one and there's already something new sweeping me off my feet. I need some rest, I need a slower pace in my life. It's just so hard to not do everything, to not make the most of every opportunity that I get. When you're 20 and you're offered to participate in projects with people who not so long ago were your idols and heroes, you can't say no. You can't tell yourself "I refuse this one and I'll get another chance later". So I'm living it up. I wanted my stay in San Francisco to be a vacation. Spa, manicure, shopping, sleeping, drinking fruit smoothies and having healthy food, writing and seeing friends... But then Madison offered me to perform for her art gallery, Femina Potens.

So tomorrow night, August 14th, I'll be performing for the first time in the US ! I'm excited, come see me if you get a chance. The event is called SIZZLE. The details are on www.feminapotens.org

18 juin 2009

Art & Culture

Ce soir (jeudi 18 juin) vernissage de l'expo Weird & Wonderful, dans le cadre du JerkOff festival. 19h, à la galerie Loft 19 - Suzanne Tarasiève, passage de l'Atlas, métro Belleville.

Demain (vendredi 19 juin), projection du documentaire "Les travailleu(r)ses du sexe" de Jean-Michel Carré. 20h30, au cinéma Utopia Stella, 1 place Mendès-France, Saint-Ouen l'Aumône.

Le 4 juillet il y a une nuit Russ Meyer dans le cadre de la Nuit du Cinéma, en clôture du festival Paris-Cinéma. c'est au cinéma du Panthéon, 13 rue Victor Cousin, métro Luxembourg. je crois que c'est 5€ par film, pas sure.

tous les quinze jours, le samedi, à minuit, a été lancée depuis peu l'Absurde Séance de Paris. au Nouveau Latina, 20 rue du Temple. 5€, et ils prennent la carte UGC. je pense qu'ils vont passer des trucs bien.

17 juin 2009

The US porn industry, HIV, STDs and STIs, and condoms

Here are the articles that Jiz Lee, Courtney Trouble, Baby Sinead, Audacia Ray, wrote on the matter.

I might write one too, sometime, when I have time.

12 juin 2009

Answer to some pornblogger

Alright, I got a bit fired up. What this guy is saying isn't so insulting really - I understand his point, and even if he was really insulting me and didn't have a point, it's not a big deal either. Just a pornblogger using his freedom of speech on the Internet, not harming anyone. It's just late at night, I had three exams today and I have another one tomorrow and I should be working on it, and so I found a way to procrastinate by answering that guy. It made me angry though, how he's making such a cliché of me, and what he says is not fair.

http://artandporn.com/judy-minx-mix-and-a-hilarious-sasha-grey-blog/

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Hey,

I'm Judy Minx, and I've been a porn actress for two years now.
I'm not an existentialist, and I am not a philosophy student at the Sorbonne.
I do have North African blood though - you got that one right.

My thoughts about sexwork are NOT excuses to legitimize my career. I actually say on several occasions in articles of my blog that the political and theoretical aspects of sexwork are NOT the reason why I do porn. I do porn because porn is the best way, or at least the most suitable to my skills, tastes and needs, that I have found to make money - I do my job for just about the same reasons that most people do their jobs.

The reason why I write about the theoretical and political aspects of sexwork are NOT because it's "hip" either. I write about them because I am and have always been interested in non-conventional sexual choices - sex for money, kinky / BDSM sex, and queer sex. How and why the people who make these choices are oppressed minorities. This is what I talk and think about most. Sometimes I use "pseudo-intellectual language" to write about that and maybe it's because I've been told that sex isn't a serious matter or cannot be intelligently and rationally discussed, that I over-compensate with academic language.

I don't mind that you prefer the anal shots - fair enough. I am glad that people watch my porn and jerk off to it. That is what it's for. As I've written on my blog too : I don't make porn that has huge subtitles saying "this person is a sexworker, she is a respectable person who is intelligent and fights for political rights". I make porn for people to jerk off to. Most of them won't give a fuck who I am, and what I'm thinking. And it's fine. My blog is not for them. My blog is for the people who want to read it. It has happened to me sometimes to be interested in what such or such porn actress had to say. Plus, my blog doesn't only target porn-watchers like you, but also people who've never seen my porn, and among them people who think porn is evil. In lots of articles I am trying to write for them. This pseudo-intellectual language is the only one they'll take seriously.

I don't mind that you're not interested in my blog. I mind the contempt and sarcasm in your post. It's so easy to joke about it, from where you stand. You are not confronted with what it means to be asked a hundred questions a day about your job, by people who think you are either a victim of patriarchy or someone with low moral standards. There's also the people who are "just curious" and can't help asking intrusive questions. You are not the one who gets harassed by a society that thinks it's such a big deal to fuck for money. People keep telling me what I should and should not do, questioning my choices, asking me to justify myself. It gets in you. After you've been asked the question a hundredth time, you ask yourself. You doubt. You wonder. You feel like you have to answer them, you feel that you have to find a thousand intellectual and political reasons for what you're doing, although you shouldn't have to answer more questions than any other person who's working any job.
You know what ? I'd like it to be so easy and widely accepted, that I wouldn't have to ask myself these questions. Mostly, my blogposts about porn and sexwork were not written spontaneously, out of the blue: they were written as answers to questions I was asked, to someone who called me anti-feminist, to someone who said they pitied me. This text I'm writing right now will end up on my blog. I'm angry that you're making fun of how I'm made to think about this all the time. Seriously, I'm tired of it too. But as long as most people will think sex can't be work, I'll feel it's my mission to explain that yes, it's my job, and I'm a worker.

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Dans le même registre :
je réponds à un commentaire d'un mec qui dit que l'enfance malheureuse de la pauvre Lorelei Lee explique pourquoi elle a choisi de devenir actrice porno qui est évidemment un job dans lequel elle se fait exploiter par des mafieux.

Similar situation :
I answer to a comment written by a guy who thinks poor Lorelei Lee's unhappy childhood explains why she chose to become a porn actress, which is obviously a job in which she gets terribly exploited by evil pimps.

"Hey dumbass, what about YOUR life ?
Was your life a happy life ?
Has one single person ever tried to explain to you that the reasons why you chose the job you’re working are linked to childhood traumas ? What about a person you’d never seen or talked to ? What about a hundred people you’d never seen or talked to ? What about a thousand ?
THAT is abuse. The way we as porn actresses can’t get a fucking break from amateur psychoanalyses.
%@$# dammit it pisses me off !"

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Talking about powerful women in porn, Madison Young has a brand new website and it's amazing !
And it was designed by another powerful porn woman, Courtney Trouble !

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And finally, I wanted to share this great quote with you :
"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a terrible warning"
Apparently it's Catherine Aird who said it, I have no idea who that is and I won't research it now.

05 juin 2009

International Squat Jet-Set

the title is from an e-mail I received from Amelia Mae Paradise, a performer from the American burlesque troupe The Diamond Daggers, a few days after we met in a squat in Amsterdam (yeah, the one I was talking about in this post). I liked the expression.

these past months, we've been specializing in welcoming international queers in our community with warmth, and i'm working on keeping the tradition alive ! i know how annoying it is to be in a city, and to know there is a queer community somewhere but not to be able to get hold of it. in NYC i cried at night because i was too shy to approach the few butches i saw in the metro/streets, and ask them if they could show me around the queer new york. i wasn't 21 yet so i couldn't get in bars and clubs where i would have met people... this law on alcohol consumption is fucking homophobic. i don't even drink alcohol !
no but seriously. i'm reading this text right now by Gayle Rubin that's explaining how the state wants to make it hard for migrating/travelling young members of sexual minorities to find the people, parties and places they're looking for in the cities where they go. as a minority-community, it's very much political to try to make yourself inclusive, accessible, and not rejecting, to newcomers.

Totally unrelated
I usually choose to make a very clear separation between my private sexlife and my mainstream on-camera sexwork, which is why I try not to take too much sexual pleasure out of what I do in porn. The people I do porn scenes with are not the type of partners I pursue in my private sex life, and the sexual practices I show in porn scenes are not the ones I enjoy in my private sex life.
I like to keep some things to myself, and I think exposing the more sacred and intimate parts of what I enjoy, sexually speaking, would be damaging.
The only times I resort to sexual practises I really enjoy while at work, is when I am having a hard time being relaxed/wet/open enough to do my job well. On these occasions, I request some sort of "fluffing" from the people I'm working with. But in any case when I can avoid it, I do. Porn is a job to me, and it gives me professional gratification to do it well, not sexual gratification - although I do have orgasms during shoots pretty often. Sex, to me, is much more than (or at least different from) the in-and-out of someone's genitals in my genitals.

14 février 2009

Février - Mars (RELISEZ ! NOUVEAUX EVENEMENTS AJOUTES !)

Je recherche un/e gynéco sexworker-friendly sur Paris, de préférence pas en honoraires libres.
Help !

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Postez des commentaires ! Sinon je m'ennuie !

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Voici un agenda des prochains évènements queers etc.
(MEME SI VOUS LAVEZ DEJA LU, RELISEZ LE, J'AI RAJOUTE PLEIN DE DATES !)

Aujourd'hui : concert de Déborah Degout au Lieu-dit (métro Ménilmontant) à 15h

Demain : K-Baret des miches à la Péniche Antipodes (métro Stalingrad) à 20h.
10€. avec Monsieur Katia, Deb, etc.

Du 23 au 28 février : festival XXYZ, festival de films DIY queertranspédégouine à Toulouse.
Après les éditions #3 et #4, voici le programme de la #5 !

Le 25 février : conférence à l'EHESS sur la prévention et la réduction des risques (MST, IST) à destination des trans et des lesbiennes. de 19h à 21h. 105 bvd Raspail.

Le 27 février : projection de The Champion (j'en ai parlé ici et là), un film porno queer de Shine Louise Houston, au cinéma Beverley (métro Bonne Nouvelle) à 21h30. 6€/8€. organisé par FloZiF.

Le 28 février : manif en soutien au mouvement social de Guadeloupe Martinique Guyane Réunion. Rassemblement 15h à Nation.

4 mars : lecture de Wendy Delorme à la librairie Violette and Co, à 19h. organisé à l'occasion de la sortie de son nouveau livre, Insurrection ! En Territoire Sexuel

10 mars : projection du film L'Ordre des Mots au cinéma Action Christine. 20h30.

11 mars : lecture de Michelle Tea à la librairie Violette and Co, à 19h. Michelle lira en anglais, et je lirai ma traduction française.

15 mars : soirée PLUG au Tango. gratos si tu ramènes un gateau.

19 mars : journée nationale d'action contre les réformes du gouvernement

20 mars : Assises de la Prostitution

21 mars : PUTE PRIDE, la marche des putes

21 mars : PlayParty pour les filles, les gouines, les transboys et les queers. à partir de 21h30.

22 mars : soirée GPT à la Péniche Antipodes 

25 mars : performance de Lazlo Pearlman au Palais de Tokyo

29 mars : soirée Butch is Beautiful

AND IF YOU LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO, YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THE PREMIERE OF ROULETTE, NOFAUXXX'S FIRST DVD, ON MARCH 12TH @ THE ROXIE THEATRE !

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J'ai envie d'écrire plein d'articles ! Sur le communautarisme queer, sur la différence entre fem et lipstick, sur mon rapport hyper primitif au corps... Sur le LSD, sur le porno queer... Jamais le temps.

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I have added new tags : "en français" and "in english". people who can't read one of these languages at all will be able to sort the posts and show only the ones written in the language they can read.
J'ai ajouté deux nouveaux tags : "en français" et "in english". les gens qui ne savent pas lire l'une de ces langues pourront trier les posts et afficher uniquement ceux qui sont écrits dans la langue qu'ils savent lire.

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