Make a donation to help keep this site going! I spend many hours writing, editing, and researching information for this website, and if it's useful to you, and you have the cash to spare, it would make a big difference.
The Femme Conference 2008, taking place in Chicago in August, is put on by the Femme Collective. Take a look at their mission statement: Femme Collective is committed to creating conferences by Femmes, about Femmes, and for Femmes and their allies. We understand that Femme is more complex than just being a queer person who is feminine; it is a part of how we interact with and shape our world as queer academics, activists, artists, homemakers, parents, professionals, students, teachers, etc.
I really hope to attend the conference … we’ll see if I can make that happen. More information at femmecollective.com.
Here’s the press release:
Queer Femmes from all over the Globe to Gather for Conference
Femme 2008: The Architecture of Femme will take place August 15th-17th in Chicago
(CHICAGO, IL – JUNE 12, 2008) The Femme Collective proudly presents “Femme2008: The Architecture of Femme,” an international conference celebrating queer femininities August 15th through August 17th 2008 at the Chicago Wyndham O’Hare: 6810 N. Mannheim Rd. near O’Hare International Airport. The conference will feature three full days of programming, including keynotes, workshops, panels, performances and even a film festival. Regular registration is $75 through July 15th, 2008 and then registration will go up to $95 for late registration, which is open through the conference. Registration covers all of the conference events and can be made by going to www.femmecollective.com.
Cynthia Nixon has sent a message to us gay women: learn the facts & take control of your breast health.
Don’t forget those breast exams too - they say it’s so important to detect cancer early. (Doesn’t it feel sometimes like it’s not whether or not you will ever get cancer, but when, and how early you will find it? Sometimes I feel like we live in a scary time, when we’re so susceptible to such mutations of our bodies.) So don’t forget to do those breast exams, your own, your girlfriend’s, your lovers, your fuckbuddy, your booty call … I do find it’s best if you ask first. Just sayin’.
June 20-22 - Seattle
There is still time to experience
Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women
Led by Lizz Randall
Dear Friend,
This Solstice Weekend I invite you or a woman friend to join me in a circle of women in a safe, serious and playful space to explore and celebrate empowered sexuality and spiritually integrated eros. Through breath, movement, communication, touch and massage:
* Feel more alive, curious and safe in your body
* Deeply tune in to your body, mind, heart and spirit
* Expand awareness, sensation and pleasure
* Receive and give without losing yourself
* Release fear, shame and negative patterns
* Communicate your desires and boundaries more clearly
* Accept yourself just as you are
* Enjoy sex more and have more fun
* Discover the healing potential of sexual/spiritual energy
The workshop runs Friday night 7-10PM, Saturday and Sunday 9AM-7PM both days. It is non-residential and held in a convenient Capitol Hill location. I welcome women of all ages and sexual orientations who are open to learn about their own power to illuminate and enjoy sensuality and sexuality. Please share this email with any friends who might be interested.
Tuition: $395 (Register with a friend and you both receive a 10% reduction)
The opening reception for Pink& Bent: Art of Queer Women is tomorrow night here in New York City. One of the contributing photographers, Sophia Wallce, sent me a few of the shots that will be in her show. I love them all, but this one might be my favorite - the colors in the background are so stunning.
I have yet to write up my experiences at the most recent Body Electric Celebrating the Body Erotic workshop that happened just at the end of March (I’m so behind on my writing), but I cannot recommend these highly enough. If you are in the Bay Area, or Seattle, or have access to those two places, it really is worth it. Ask me if you have more questions, I’ll tell you all about it.
JUST ADDED - June 20-22 Seattle Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women
We heard your requests for more opportunities to experience this amazing workshop. Please come join a circle of women in a safe, serious and playful space to explore and celebrate empowered sexuality and spiritually integrated eros. Through breath, movement, communication, touch and massage:
* Feel more alive, curious and safe in your body
* Deeply tune in to your body, mind, heart and spirit
* Expand awareness, sensation and pleasure
* Receive and give without losing yourself
* Release fear, shame and negative patterns
* Communicate your desires and boundaries more clearly
* Accept yourself just as you are
* Enjoy sex more and have more fun
* Discover the healing potential of sexual/spiritual energy
This workshop starts Friday night and ends Sunday and is for women of all ages and sexual orientations who are open to learn about their own power to illuminate and enjoy sensuality and sexuality. Please share this email with any friends who might be interested.* June 20-22 - Seattle - Led by Lizz Randall - contact Robyn Lynn at 206-579-2603 or robyn@thepresentsense.com
Tuition: $395
Take advantage of one of two offers (cannot be combined):
1. Pay in full by May 30 and receive $30 off
2. Register with a friend and you both receive a 10% reduction
Power, Surrender & Intimacy
After an absence of several years this powerful exploration into the nature of trust, exquisite attention and heightened sensations returns. Join with like-minded women who are ready to go beyond the life ordinary. In a grounded, respectful container discover and clarify edges of liberation, empowerment and embodiment. Learn to recognize aspects of yourself that are continually engaged in power dynamics, and hence become more choiceful about how you can share power with compassion and skill. Led by Alex Jade.
* June 20-22 - New York City - Contact Debi Soler at 212-726-0679 or
passionjustice@gmail.com
Tuition: $395
Prerequisite: Celebrating the Body Erotic
Take advantage of one of two offers (cannot be combined):
1. Pay in full by May 30 and receive $30 off
2. Register with a friend and you both receive a 10% reduction
Oakland Celebrating the Body Erotic
In addition to the upcoming Seattle CBE, you also have the option of attending a CBE in Oakland if that fits your schedule better.
* May 16-18 - Oakland - Led by Lizz Randall - Contact Ursula Goulet at 510-333-4721 or bodyelectricforwomen@yahoo.com
* October 3-5 - Oakland - Led by Elfi Dillon-Shaw - Contact Ursula Goulet at 510-333-4721 or bodyelectricforwomen@yahoo.com
Tuition: $395
Take advantage of one of two offers (cannot be combined):
1. Pay in full by April 25 (spring) or September 12 (fall) and receive $30 off
2. Register with a friend and you both receive a 10% reduction
I’ve got tickets to go see the Beebo Brinker Chronicles in a few weeks … based on Ann Bannon’s series of pulp novels from the 1950s, they’re classic lesbian books reprinted by Cleis in the 90s. Here’s the description:
Fueled by booze and furtive sex, BEEBO BRINKER CHRONICLES follows the lives and loves of four friends in pre-Stonewall Greenwich Village. Beth and Laura, secret lovers in college, still pine for each other. Before they can reunite, they find themselves entangled in a web spun by Beebo Brinker, a butch denizen of the underground bar scene, and Jack, a flamboyant fop with caustic wit.
Makes me wonder if me & Beebo are kindrid spirits! All those romps, free-lovin’, through this city, makin’ the ladies swoon. Love it! I haven’t read the books in years, I should pick ‘em up again.
I’ll be giving my full report after I see the play - if you’re near New York City, consider seeing it yourself - it runs through April 27th. Press release & more info below.
BEEBO BRINKER CHRONICLES
Continues Off-Broadway run thru April 27 at 37 Arts
** 2008 GLAAD Media Award Winner**
BEEBO BRINKER CHRONICLES is a stage adaptation of Ann Bannon’s groundbreaking, award-winning pulp novels of the 1950s. It is written by Kate Moira Ryan (25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, 2007 GLAAD Media Award Winner for Best Play) and Linda S. Chapman (Gertrude and Alice: A Likeness to Loving) and directed by Leigh Silverman (Well). Performances of this Limited Off-Broadway engagement run through April 27 at 37 Arts Theater in Manhattan.
Fueled by booze and furtive sex, BEEBO BRINKER CHRONICLES follows the lives and loves of four friends in pre-Stonewall Greenwich Village. Beth and Laura, secret lovers in college, still pine for each other. Before they can reunite, they find themselves entangled in a web spun by Beebo Brinker, a butch denizen of the underground bar scene, and Jack, a flamboyant fop with caustic wit.
The producing team includes Tony Award winner Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner (The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe), Harriet Newman Leve (STOMP, The 39 Steps), Elyse Singer (Mae West’s Sex, Trouble in Paradise), Jamie deRoy (Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, Coram Boy), Pam Laudenslager (The 39 Steps), Douglas Denoff (The 39 Steps) and Double Play Connections (Radio Golf).
The production stars Jenn Colella (High Fidelity, Urban Cowboy) in the title role, along with David Greenspan (2007 Obie for Some Men and Faust), Carolyn Baeumler (Trouble In Paradise), Bill Dawes (Gross Indecency / Burning Blue), Autumn Dornfeld (The Graduate), and Xanthe Elbrick (Tony Award and Drama Desk Award nominee for Coram Boy). The design team includes Rachel Hauck (set), Theresa Squire (costumes), Nicole Pearce (lights), Jill BC DuBoff (sound), J. Jared Jana/Rob Greene (wigs, hair & makeup), Pamela Edington (stage manager), Bradley Thompson (production manager) and Roy Gabay (general manager). The original production was produced by Hourglass Group at The Fourth Street Theatre.
Kate Moira Ryan’s critically acclaimed collaboration with Judy Gold, 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother won a 2007 GLAAD Media Award Winner for Best Play. This past spring, Voice/Hyperion published a book based on the play and it was recently nominated for the prestigious Quill award in the category of humor. Linda S. Chapman co-created and played Alice B. Toklas in the Obie Award-winning and GLADD Media Award Nominee Gertrude and Alice: A Likeness to Loving. Leigh Silverman is the critically acclaimed director of Lisa Kron’s Well on Broadway, David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face at The Public Theater, Brooke Berman’s Hunting and Gathering at Primary Stages, and From Up Here at MTC later this season.
BEEBO BRINKER CHRONICLES runs through April 27 with performances Tues. at 7pm; Wed, Thus. & Fri. at 8pm; Sat. at 5pm & 9pm; and Sun. at 3pm & 7pm. 37 Arts is located at 450 West 37th Street (between 9th & 10th Aves. — accessible from A,C,E trains to 34th St). Tickets are $46.25 - $56.25. To buy tickets call 212-307-4100 or visit www.TicketMaster.com.
Sex In The Public Square Presents: Sex Work, Trafficking, and Human Rights: A Public Forum
New York, February 20, 2008 - Ten prominent sex worker advocates, writers, researchers will be publicly discussing the issues of sex work and trafficking from a human rights and harm reduction perspective, February 25 - March 3, on SexInThePublicSquare.org. The week-long online conversation will conclude with a summary statement on March 3, International Sex Worker Rights Day.
Sex work and trafficking are two issues that must be discussed as distinct yet intersecting, and we’ve invited some of the smartest sex worker advocates we know to help sort out the complexities. “This forum is not about debating whether or not we should be using a harm reduction and human rights approach instead of the more mainstream abolitionist and prohibitionist approach to sex work,” explains Elizabeth Wood, co-founder of Sex In The Public Square and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nassau Community College. “Instead our goal is to create a space for nuanced exploration of the human rights and harm reduction approach so that we can use it more persuasively.”
Wood explains: “The human rights and harm reduction approach seeks to reduce the dangers that sex workers face and to stop human rights abuses involved in the movement of labor across borders, a movement which occurs in the service of so many industries. We want people to be able to learn about this perspective, and to develop and refine it, without having to dilute that conversation by debating the legitimacy of sex work.”
Questions and themes include:
Defining our terms: Is the way that we define “porn” clear? “Prostitution”? “Sex work” in general? What happens when we say “porn” and mean all sexually explicit imagery made for the purpose of generating arousal and others hear “porn” as indicating just the “bad stuff” while reserving “erotica” for everything they find acceptable? When we say sex work is it clear what kinds of jobs we’re including?
Understanding our differences: How do inequalities of race, class and gender affect the sex worker rights movement? Are we effective in organizing across those differences?
Identifying common ground: What are the areas of agreement between the abolitionist/prohibitionist perspective and the human rights/harm reduction perspective? For example, we all agree that forced labor is wrong. We all agree that nonconsensual sex is wrong. Is it a helpful strategic move to by highlighting our areas of agreement and then demonstrating why a harm reduction/human rights perspective is better suited to addressing those shared concerns, or are we better served by distancing ourselves from the abolition/prohibition-oriented thinkers?
Evaluating research: What do we think of the actual research generated by prominent abolitionist/prohibitionist scholars like Melissa Farley, Gail Dines, and Robert Jensen? Can we comment on the methods they use to generate the data on which they base their analysis, and then can we comment on the logic of their conclusions based on the data they have?
Framing the issues: What are our biggest frustrations with the way that the human rights/harm reduction perspective is characterized by the abolitionist/prohibitionist folks? How can we effectively respond to or reframe this misrepresentations? What happens when “I oppose human trafficking” becomes a political shield that deflects focus away from issues of migration, labor and human rights?
Exploring broader economic questions: How does the demand for cheap labor undermine human rights-based solutions to exploitation in all industries, including the sex industry?
I’ve been to many of these Body Electric workshops for women over the past 8 years or so, and I can’t recommend them highly enough. They’re terrifying, and life-changing, and amazing. I recommended last year’s CBE here and wrote about some of my revelations and experiences after the workshop as well.Two workshops for were just announced for the 2008 schedule. Highly, highly recommended, I can’t say that enough.
Safe, playful and profound workshops for women of all ages and sexual orientations
Taught by two very gifted teachers
Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women
March 29-30, NYC, Sat-Sunday 9am-7pm
with Isa Magdalena
(back teaching at Body Electric after many years)
• Feel comfortable in your body
• Improve your body image and self-esteem
• Expand awareness, sensation and pleasure through conscious breath,
movement, touch, and communication
• Release fear, shame and old patterns that hold you back
• Communicate your desires and boundaries more clearly
• Learn to give and receive without losing yourself
• Explore the power of sexual energy / ibido / life force / kundalini
• Learn from your own and others’ experience
• Enjoy sex more
• Have more fun
Isa Magdalena was the first woman teacher at Body Electric (1993-98). She teaches sexological bodywork at the Institute of Advanced Studies of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, is author of Libido: Where Sex, Science Spirit Meet (2006). Isa is featured in several sex education videos from the New School of Erotic Touch, is a practitioner and leads classes in Taos, New Mexico. For fuller information, visit www.xtasia.info
*
first time in many years!
Power, Surrender and Intimacy for Women
June 20-22, NYC, Friday 7-10pm, Sat-Sunday 9am-7pm
with Alex Jade
* Learn BDSM techniques and develop skills
* Discover and clarify issues of empowerment and liberation
* Recognize how you engage in power dynamics in your everyday life and exercise more conscious choice
* Heighten awareness of your body’s capacity for sensation
* Explore power and sensation games for fun and healing
* Experience the joy of surrender and trust
Presequisite for this workshop is Celebrating the Body Erotic
Alex Jade has been a leading teacher at Body Electric for a decade and has developed several courses for the School. She is a gender-fluid sex activist, community organizer, shadow explorer and body-based therapist living in Seattle. She uses her training as a massage therapist, movement therapist and masters degree in social work to teach experiential sexual education classes and has a private healing practice.
Both Isa and Alex are profiled in Reclaiming Eros, Suzanne Blackburn and Margaret Wade, editors (2007).
Tuition: $395 per workshop. Recent CBE grads receive $50 discount on repeat workshops. Register with minimum $100 deposit. Full tuition is due three weeks before start of workshops. Contact Debi Soler, NYC coordinator, 212-726-0679, passionjustice@gmail.com
Madeleine, I so apologize - we definitely met through Sugarbutch, definitely slept together.
Wow, I have no idea how you could’ve possibly slipped my mind when I wrote that. As I’ve said, you were the first Sugarbutch Star, after you kept whispering let go, just let go into my ear that night after the Sex Blogger’s Tea Party last year.
I don’t know why I hadn’t made that connection - I guess it’s because it feels like we’re friends!
An acquaintance of mine sent this on to me, she is going to be playing Santa at Sylvia’s Place Homeless Youth Shelter again this year, and they need donated gifts for queer youth.
If you want to be a Gay Santa, they’ll send you a “dear santa” letter from one of the youth, and then you an drop off or mail the gift with their name on it back to the shelter. if you’ve got the means, it sounds like a really fun process to be a part of! I’m excited to participate.
More information about Sylvia’s Place: We provide emergency shelter to homeless LGBTQ youth in New York City. A 2006 report from the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force estimates that a third of homeless youth identify as LGBT. In New York City, this means that something like 8,000 to 10,000 youth are without shelter every night. This has led many to refer to this as an “epidemic” of homelessness among LGBTQ youth. Find out more…
Happy Holidays from Sylvia’s Place Homeless Youth Center! We are hoping you will consider being a ‘Gay Santa’ this year.
To participate, send us your postal mailing address and you will be sent a “Dear Santa” letter from a homeless young person asking for a gift. Wrapped gifts, labeled with the young person’s name, can be mailed or dropped off at the shelter: Metropolitan Community Church , 446 W 36th st, NYC NY 10018
Our goal is to make sure each of our young people receive a gift this Christmas. With your support, we know this goal will become a reality.
Many thanks and warm holiday wishes,
Kate Barnhart, Director
MCCNY/Homeless Youth Services
446 W 36th St, NYC NY 10018
I'm Sinclair Sexsmith, a chivalrous kinky writer, queer butch top, and feminist sex educator in New York City.
Turn ons: femme girls, strappy sandals, fishnets & garter belts, accessories in general (belts, glasses, bags, shoes), submission, blow jobs, intellectual curiosity, packing, avocados, dark chocolate, accoustic folk music, literary & gender theory, whiskey, the perfect pen. Turn offs: chick lit, pop music, cheap beer, apathy, complacency, chewing gum, fingernails, celebreality.
Sugarbutch Chronicles is a personal writing exploration of sex, gender, and relationships, and attempts to celebrate queer theory, sexuality, gender, and culture in ways that are expansive rather than restrictive, liberating rather than limiting. Read more ...
Want to be added to the list for the password protected posts? Leave a comment here.
Sinclair Elsewhere
Eden Fantasys: I write sex toy reviews, primarily cocks & harnesses, and occasionally "fantasies" that detail stories including particular sex toys. Take a look at my profile with links to all my writings.
The Lesbian Lifestyle: a group blog with various voices from the lesbian communities; I write here occasionally. Check out my author profile for all of my contributions.
BEEBO BRINKER CHRONICLES
