Archive for 'A Sex Blog'
Audacia Ray’s “Speak Up! Media Training for the Empowered Sex Worker” NYC, Apr 18
Posted on 13. Apr, 2009 by Staff Reporter.
Audacia sends the following…
Audacia Ray
I am easily wooed into the gimme gimme now now world of Web 2.0. As such, my usual internet haunts include my blog Waking Vixen (which celebrates its 5th birthday in 2009); Twitter, where naturally I am @audaciaray; and the loathesome Facebook.
I’ve been busy and will give you a run down in just a sec – first though, a few events that if you’re in NYC you’ll be excited about but might be mad about if you don’t live nearby.
First up, a panel I’m part of on Tuesday, April 14 at Brooklyn Law School entitled, Porn, the 1st Amendment and the State of Obscenity Law in an Online Society.
The Internet has changed the face of pornography by allowing for unprecedented participation in the creation of explicit media. In addition, the internet has provided means for Web proprietors to promote sex-oriented services that have enabled people with HIV, minorities, and others to connect and explore their sexuality in a way that was once impossible. Within this framework, speakers will explore the current obscenity law, and its chilling effects on this new discourse.
And the details:
Brooklyn Law School
250 Joralemon Street
Student Lounge
Brooklyn, New York 11201
From 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Speaker(s): Featuring Prof. Derek Bambauer (BLS), Prof. Elizabeth Glazer (Hofstra) and activist and former sex worker Audacia Ray.
This weekend I’m teaching a full day workshop called Speak Up! Media Training for the Empowered Sex Worker to a small group of sex workers here in New York. The workshop is being planned by Sex Work Awareness, the small non-profit that I co-founded last year. Speak up is made possible by a fundraiser we did last fall – the NYC Sex Blogger Calendar: http://sexbloggercalendar.wordpress.com. I’m pretty proud of the work we’ve done to make this media training happen, and we’ll be turning out 10 women thoroughly prepared to do activist battle, media-assault style. To celebrate, we’re having a bit of a cocktail hour after the conclusion of the workshop – and though the workshop is open to participants only, the cocktail hour is open to all. Come gawk at super-smart hookers, strippers, dommes, and porn stars – or just buy us drinks. We’ll be at XES, 157 West 24th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, starting at 5.30 pm on Saturday, April 18.
In other news, I’ll be attending Sex 2.0 for the second year – this time around it will be in DC on Saturday, May 9. I’m leading two sessions, “Revisiting Naked on the Internet” (my book is turning 2!) and the other is “Sex Work 2.0 in the Time of Obama” More info here: http://www.wakingvixen.com/blog/2009/04/09/sex-20-in-dc-may-9th/
Other big changes in my life:
I’m working in the non-profit world as an online strategist at the International Women’s Health Coalition, where among other things I’m running a blog called Akimbo at http://blog.iwhc.org, plus making videos about sexual health and rights: http://youtube.com/intlwomenshealth. I’ll also be doing my third semester as an Adjunct Professor of Human Sexuality at Rutgers University this summer (see, I told you I’d gone legit).
I’ve got lots of other stuff up my sleeves, which hopefully I’ll remember to tell you about. Feel free to look me up around these here Internets in the meantime!
xo
Dacia
Audacia Ray
Waking Vixen, Personal Projects and Blog: http://wakingvixen.com
International Women’s Health Coalition: http://iwhc.org
IWHC Blog, Akimbo: http://blog.iwhc.org
Sex Work 101: http://sexwork101.com
Speak Up! media training: http://speakup.sexworkawareness.org
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Amara, Shyena and the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas
Posted on 09. Apr, 2009 by Stephen Kastner.
A little more than a hundred miles north of San Francisco in Mendocino County, there is a very unique community located within the town of Talmage, California. In 1974 the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association purchased the grounds and buildings of the former Mendocino State Hospital founded in 1889. The facilities included more than seventy large buildings, three gymnasiums, a fire station, a swimming pool and almost everything else required by a typical small municipality like fire hydrants, an underground water and electrical grid and a central heating and air conditioning plant.
Under the leadership and guidance of the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua, an international Buddhist community and monastery was established on the 488 acre site. The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas as it is known today, is one of the first Chinese Zen Buddhist temples in the United States, and one of the largest Buddhist communities in the Western Hemisphere.
Into this pious realm, steps our heroes… Amara and Shyena, two westerners, lifelong students of eastern philosophy and yet advocates of the sensual life – ready to undertake a 7-day retreat, meditating and celebrating Guan Shi Yin, the Goddess/God who helps us cultivate compassion.
“I never imagined I would visit a Buddhist monastery, and to tell the truth, I often felt something too complex or grand in all of it for me,” Amara explains. “It took hearing Guan Yin’s name to lure me into the Dharma Realm, and the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, after which, perhaps, nothing will ever be quite the same.”
Read all about her life-changing adventure in “How Lucky We Are… About the Guan Yin Retreat.”
Monks at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas
It turns out that Amara has more secrets to reveal and what better place than at a Buddhist Monastery that was once an insane asylum to come back to one’s senses.
“Returning to our room after an entire day of recitation I am dying for a cigarette,” she reveals. “Of course there is no smoking permitted within the place, so I must go outside to sneak one. This is day one of seven. I’m thinking, God, this is awful. Ridiculous! I can’t do this here.”
Find out how she beat back the Nicotine Demons and rekindled her love of film making while you enjoy her latest online video production, a glimpse within the walls of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in “Two Confessions… on the making of this video.”
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I’ve never seen a more beautiful book… “X”
Posted on 08. Mar, 2009 by Staff Reporter.
Susie Bright – if you don’t already know who she is, you should. Her latest book, “X: The Erotic Treasury
Susie Bright’s Journal is the title of her blog where you can find a ton of information about her, subscribe to her audio shows and find links to her other videos.
Susie Bright, also known as Susie Sexpert, is an author, editor, activist, performer, lecturer, sex guru, teacher, and mom. She has a weekly program entitled “In Bed with Susie Bright” distributed through audible.com, where she discusses a variety of social, freedom of speech and sex-related topics. Bright co-founded and edited the first women’s sex magazine, On Our Backs, “entertainment for the adventurous lesbian,” from 1984 to 1991. She founded the first women’s erotica book series, “Herotica” and edited the first three volumes. She started “The Best American Erotica” series in 1993-2008. Bright taught the first university class on the subject of the aesthetics and politics of pornography at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California in 1986. She became well-known for her scholarship in sexual representation through her courses on the subject at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She currently resides in Santa Cruz, California.
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“Labor of Love” by Cara Muhlhahn
Posted on 08. Mar, 2009 by Stephen Kastner.
Cara Muhlhahn is a certified nurse midwife (CNM) with more than 30 years of experience. She is a graduate of Columbia University’s school of Nursing, and SUNY Downstate Health Science Centers Midwifery Education Program. She practiced midwifery at Beth Israel Medical Center and Maternity Center, Manhattan’s first birthing center, before establishing her own private homebirth practice in Manhattan in 1996.
During her career, Muhlhahn has delivered more than 700 babies and has practiced midwifery in New York, Texas, and Oregon. She is the midwife featured in Ricki Lake‘s controversial documentary, “The Business of Being Born,” which provides an insider’s look at natural childbirth in the home setting, and her expert opinion has been included in articles in The New York Times, Vogue, and Parents Magazine.
Muhlhahn’s debut memoir, “Labor of Love” hit bookshelves in December 30, 2008 and includes tales of the homebirth of Muhlhahn’s son, recounts the formative experiences of her adolescence, and offers readers engaging stories culled from her practice of midwifery. This powerful book chronicles the unconventional decisions she has made to find, then honor her profession.
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Every Birth Should be an Orgasmic Birth!
Posted on 03. Mar, 2009 by Staff Reporter.
Orgasmic Birth, a new documentary film by first time filmmaker Debra Pascali-Bonaro, is generating tremendous attention and quite a bit of controversy. It was originally featured on a special presentation of “20/20” Friday, January 2, 2009. Previously only seen at film festivals and educational screenings, this highly rated ABC program kicked off an hour-long special on what has been titled “Extreme Motherhood.” The segment on Orgasmic Birth and ecstatic births should be required viewing IMHO. It features Ms. Pascali-Bonaro along with OB/GYN Dr. Christiane Northrup, and several women whose births are featured in the film.
The film is shattering traditional impressions of labor and delivery by showing that the natural birth process can actually be a euphoric experience!
“With 4.3 million babies born in the U.S. each year it’s time to reexamine what we’ve been told and look to what is possible,” says director Debra Pascali-Bonaro, an internationally renowned childbirth educator and doula who witnessed so many ecstatic births she was inspired to begin filming them. “If you don’t know all your options then you don’t have any. Orgasmic Birth will strip away your fears and reveal how to create a powerful and transformative experience. It is time to reclaim this sacred event.”
Five years in the making, Orgasmic Birth has had an international impact on the film festival circuit and was screened this year at the prestigious Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, Baltimore Women’s Film Festival, Usti Film Festival in the Czech Republic, and Festival Caminhos in Portugal, to name a few. It won the Audience Choice Award at the 2008 MotherBaby International Film Festival in Bermuda.
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I Love 2 Hot Girls in the Shower…
Posted on 10. Feb, 2009 by Staff Reporter.
In the latest episode the girls give advice on how to have a memorable Valentine’s Day. 2 Hot Girls in the Shower is a PG-rated video comedy advice show in short episodes…
Confused about something somewhere? ask2hotgirls@gmail.com
Subscribe to their Youtube channel at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/LKGProductions
Find them on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/ 2-Hot-Girls-in-the-Shower/1148 6109210
and on MySpace…
http://www.myspace.com/2HotGir lsInTheShower
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Happy Valentine’s Day…
Posted on 10. Feb, 2009 by Stephen Kastner.
Poetry, candy, flowers… we’ll provide the poems in our emerging Poetry section to include the erotic from ancient to modern author/poets.
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Daoist Spiritual Sexual Energy Retreat for Women Upcoming in New Mexico
Posted on 07. Feb, 2009 by Stephen Kastner.
Women who are interested in exploring the Daoist feminine methods of healing and restoring their personal spiritual sexual energy have an upcoming opportunity. A 7-Day New Mexico Retreat with two dynamic expert teachers is set to take place April 25 to May 2 , 2009.
Livia Kohn
Livia Kohn is professor emerita of Religion and East Asian Studies at Boston University. She has written and edited twenty-odd books on different aspects of Daoism and has taught it for over 20 years. She is also a practitioner of Taiji quan, Qigong, Yoga, hypnosis, and meditation. She will present the historical context of women in Daoism, sharing knowledge of the transformational practices women have used to cultivate themselves for thousands of years.
One of our regular contributors, Amara Charles, will present the Daoist feminine methods of healing and restoring your spiritual sexual energy.
Amara explains, “Each day we will share meditation, qigong, exercise and teachings in honor of the Mysterious Female. Plus, we will share in the preparation and consumption of Daoist-inspired meals and tea, take walks and enjoying each others’ company. Both Livia and I are big fans of living what you teach. We want you to return home inspired to make these teachings come alive as an integral part of your daily life from this point on.”
Click for a pdf flyer with registration details.
Amara Charles
Director of Nourishing Arts, a Phoenix, AZ learning center, Amara publishes a journal of her thoughts and observations and describes how she first met Olivia Kohn, in the lead in to her story on the Transformational Teachings for Women, a 7-Day Retreat.
“Here is the moment I knew I liked her a lot,” says Amara in her description of Professor Livia Kohn. “She had tenure at Boston University and gave it up – walked away! I asked her why, and she said she couldn’t go on teaching what she already had been teaching – she wanted to broaden her understanding and teach a variety of subjects rather than the same course again and again. A woman after my own heart…”
Watch for an upcoming revue of Livia Kohn’s latest book and more from Amara…
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Welcome to Sexologie Magazine…
Posted on 11. Jan, 2009 by Stephen Kastner.
Despite the fact that we are swimming in a plethora of Internet sex talk and porn sites, you have found what I intend to fashion as a pearl… an on-line magazine with a number of very informed contributors who regularly provide the antidote, the missing pieces in America’s over-sexed but under-informed culture. Let’s face it, we’re living in Babalyon, a land where subliminal sex is used to sell everything… but where sex workers are criminals in 49 out of 50 states, a land where the porn industry makes over 300,000 new films each year and Hollywood produces about 600. Porn producers complain they have exhausted every possible theme…
Consider venturing in the opposite direction. Step back in time with us to explore the lost and ancient magical approaches to human sexuality as practiced in Asian and Meso-American societies. The Daoist, Hindu, Tantic and Toltec cultures all sought to understand and honor this fundamental and primal force. The arts and literature have always held a special respect for the erotic. We intend to continuously delve into both the ancient and modern in provoking an ongoing dialogue on sex.
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Comedic Commentary on a Tragic State of Affairs… BTR to the Rescue!
Posted on 28. Nov, 2008 by Stephen Kastner.
I have come to admire Louis C. K. – no puns intended – as you watch the following uncut video. Let’s hope YouTube does not yank it. I just can’t help myself, the words are spurting out effortlessly… enjoy!
Seems like a theme is developing here because I just stumbled across the Japanese solution… the Tenga. Maybe Louis CK should buy himself a few of these and maybe equip his wife with one, two, a dozen. But then, maybe she’s busy.
What we are really seeking is genuine answers. Our first broadcast on the BlogTalkRadio Quantum Sexuality Call-in Show was s debate on male ejaculation, “To Come or not to Come… That is the Question.”
I admit I am still a greenhorn as a radio host, but the content was meaningful and thought-provoking as Dagny and Amara squared of with diametrically opposing viewpoints. Each week the shows get noticeably better so tune in and call in live each Thursday evening!
Our next featured guest on Quantum Sexuality Magazine’s weekly Thursday evening show on December 4 is Sunyata, a Daka, Sacred Intimate, Certified Tantric Healer and educator of sacred sexuality and consciousness expansion. The subject will be “Sexual Healing,” how couples can restore the love and trust and return to a state of bliss with each other. Sunyata is also a fine art photographer, creating “Goddess Imagery” in devotion to the feminine divine (a.k.a. Bruce E. Brown: Fine Light Photography). Find out more about him at: Lotus Heart Tantra.
Sunyata will be joined by his partner, Kali Devi, an accomplished dakini with a depth of Tantric knowledge and experience received through both neo-Tantra and a “traditional” Tantric lineage.
Join us if you can, starting at 10 pm EST, 9 pm CST, 8 pm RMT and 7 pm PST for this one-hour live discussion with chat on BlogTalkRadio at www.blogtalkradio.com/Quantum-Sexuality or call-in by phone at: 646.929.0049.
And… if you can’t make it, don’t worry. The shows archive, remain free, as downloadable podcasts afterward:
