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Miss Vera in SF at Center for Sex and Culture

This Sunday at 7:30 PM - 10 PM


Bye bye binary! Why is cross gender exploration not just for trans people? This and other questions will be part of the discussion when I present my new book, Miss Vera’s Cross Gender Fun for All.

How does the shady history of trans color what we understand about transgender today? What are the topics, who are the people left out of the equation as a movement claims legitimacy?

Cross dressing encouraged!

So excited to be seeing friends and fans in SF!

Veronica Vera, D.H.S., author and founder, Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls


Come prepared to learn some flawless tricks and tips.

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CSC co-presents ‘Nelly’

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The Mill Valley Film Festival presents Nelly. Québécoise literary superstar Nelly Arcan took the French-speaking literary world by storm with her 2004 autobiographical debut novel, Putain (Whore). Director Anne Émond’s haunting portrait of the writer vividly illustrates the intense pressures faced by women artists and writers in the 21st century.

 Tickets on sale now.

Screening dates:

Sequoia - Thursday, Oct 13 at 9:15 PM
Lark - Friday, Oct. 14 at 3:15 PM

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Perverts Put Out - Folsom Edition

Join us for PPO!’s annual pre-Folsom-Fair blowout on September 24th.
Celebrating the universe’s largest leather event, it’ll feature some truly perverted performances by Jen Cross, Gina DeVries, Daphne Gottlieb, Philip Huang, horehound stillpoint, Na'amen Tilahun and Xan West, presided over by your hosts Dr. Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard. Please don’t make us get down on our unworthy knees and beg!

Saturday, September 24, 2016
Doors 7:00, show 8:00
The Center for Sex and Culture
1349 Mission Street, San Francisco
$10-25 sliding scale, no-one turned away.
A benefit for the Center for Sex and Culture!
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Sex.Culture.Expo! + SHOW!

CSC’s Pop-Up Sex Culture Expo!

Saturday, September 10, 11am-6pm
(Don’t miss our special Burlesque Night afterwards! Doors at 7, show 7:30-10pm) 

Center for Sex & Culture, 1349 Mission, SF

Tickets:

Expo Only: $40 in advance, $50 at door (choose 1st option)
Burlesque Only: $30 (NOTAFLOL)
Super Ticket (both events!): $60, $70 at door (choose 2nd option)
AT THE DOOR ONLY: If you want to attend only one or two panels (including the keynote), you can do so for $10/panel.

Let’s talk about sex and San Francisco! Featuring a keynote conversation with porn great (and Bay Area native) Nina Hartley interviewed by Whorecast podcaster and The Whore Next Door author Siouxsie Q, plus three great panels, a live literary reading, and tables by local arts and sex-related organizations. THIS SATURDAY! Get up, grab some brunch, and come on over!

Nina and Siouxsie Q: 11:30am
PS—Can’t get enough of that Siouxsie Q? Scroll down to “Other People’s Events”—she’ll be at Good Vibrations Polk St. on SUNDAY, 4-6pm, for a FREE book launch!

Panels

Sex & Politics: 1pm
Featuring: Yoseñio Lewis, Siouxsie Q, Greta Christina, Mychal Copeland, moderated by Carol Queen

San Francisco’s Sex & Gender History: 2:30pm
Featuring: Janetta Johnson, Katie Gilmartin, Carol Queen, Ivy Anderson, moderated by Reid Mihalko

Space for Queer/Sex/Gender Art & Life in Today’s City: 4pm
Featuring: Dorian Katz, Juliana Delgado Lopera, Tessa Wills, Allison Moon

PLUS readings: 5pm
Featuring: Julaina Delgado Lopera, Aya de Leon, Katie Gilmartin, Ivy Anderson, Devon Angus.

Participants (this is a nearly-complete list—expect a couple more special guests!): Yoseñio Lewis, Greta Christina, Juliana Delgado Lopera, Aya de Leon, Ivy Anderson & Devon Angus, Katie Gilmartin, Allison Moon, Dorian Katz, Tessa Wills, Carol Queen.

Merch and info from the Center for Sex & Culture, Expo authors, California Institute of Integral Studies, Adobe Books, Radar Reading Series, Godless Perverts, the Leather Alliance, ReidAboutSex and more!

Inspired by our desire to reach out to new San Francisco residents with info about the sexy history and culture of our City By The Bay (and give old-timers a great day of sexual discourse and celebration), the #SexCultureExpo is a benefit for the Center for Sex & Culture’s “Wait, What!? Our Rent Just Doubled” Fund.

After a quick dinner break we’ll be back with a burlesque and performance night! After our day of juicy discussion, let’s get frisky with some of SF’s great burlyQ performers! Get an eyeful, win prizes, and thrill to the sexy, sultry, saucy art of burlesque! We’ve invited some of our fave performers to welcome new San Francisco residents with hometown SanFranFrisky culture.

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#SexCultureExpo Burlesque Show!
Saturday, 9/10, from 7:30 to 10:00 PM, doors open 7pm
$30— (NOTAFLOL)

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2601997
https://www.facebook.com/events/1672816396370483/

After a quick dinner break we’ll be back with a burlesque and performance night! After our day of juicy discussion, let’s get frisky with some of SF’s great burlyQ performers! Get an eyeful, win prizes, and thrill to the sexy, sultry, saucy art of burlesque! We’ve invited some of our fave performers to welcome new San Francisco residents with hometown SanFranFrisky culture.

MC: Magnoliah Black

Featured performers include:
Blackberri Singer
Elena Rose
Dottie Lux
Oliver Quimm
Avery Cassell
Lady Monster
Blue Charisma
Dahlia Kash
Mikey Strider (Dakota)
RosaLinda Colin
Alexandria Nichandros
Cemora Valentino-Devine
Ava LaShay
Gina De Vries
Terry De Grace-Morris

and more to be announced soon!

Don’t miss the ReidAboutSex Kissing Booth! Silent auction too! 

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Betty Dodson: Sex By Design Book Party

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Friday, August 26, 6-8pm

Dr. Betty Dodson pretty much single-handedly sparked feminist discourse about masturbation when she began her Bodysex workshops in the early 1970s; she is as forthright, inspiring, and interesting in person as that biographical tidbit implies. Join CSC for a reception and gathering honoring Betty—and buy her memoir, just updated and with a new title: Sex By Design: The Betty Dodson Story.

Betty Dodson’s memoir is the story of one woman’s struggle to liberate female sexuality while enjoying her own.

In the 70’s, as the feminist movement evolved focusing on various platform issues—equal pay, voter registration—Betty latched on to sexual liberation as a symbol for self empowerment. Realizing that so many women weren’t enjoying sex, she asked, “How can women ever be truly equal if they are reliant on men for their sexual satisfaction?”

She quickly became the leader of the sex positive feminist movement… and the rest is history.

Donations gladly accepted—NOTAFLOF! 

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Cheap ‘N Easy: The Great CSC Book ‘N Zine Sale

Attention, sexy book lovers and bookish sex lovers! The Center for Sex and Culture is hosting a book and zine sale on Saturday, August 27th from 12 pm to 4 pm!

CSC is moving out some texts from our extensive zine collection and library at irresistible prices; these beloved objects need new owners! PLUS hit us up for high quality, low-cost sex toys, lube, porn DVDs, and more!! In addition to browsing through CSC’s ample offerings, there will be an array of side-attractions, including book spankings, erotica readings and a porn showing. Look out for tables staffed by the wicked cool RE/Search Publications and Adobe Books and—fingers crossed!—by the sauciest shop in town—#GoodVibrations.

If you missed #GiveOUTDay, here’s another chance to support CSC–and get some goodies, too!—We’re calling it Cheap ‘N Easy: The Great CSC Book ‘N Zine Sale!
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You gotta put the book on the table: Art by Charles Gatewood

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July 3rd – August 29th, 2016

Reception: Friday, August 12th, 7 – 10 pm


Gallery hours: Tuesdays from 11-6 pm, an hour before events

and by appointment (contact info@sexandculture.org)  


Center for Sex & Culture 1349 Mission St., SF 94103


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Charles Gatewood, who died this spring, took pictures from the 1960s until the end of his life. His passing on April 28th 2016, leaves a gap in our lives which we are temporarily seeking to fill with an amazing, career-spanning show of his photographs, collages and personal ephemera - You gotta put the book on the table: Art by Charles Gatewood.


Gatewood made his first sale of a photograph in 1966 with his iconic portrait of Bob Dylan. From 1966-1975, Gatewood worked on assignment for Rolling Stone,_ The New York Times_,_ Harper’s_,_ Time,_ and other national publications. His photos of musicians and authors include William S. Burroughs, Etta James, Allen Ginsberg, Rod Stewart, Al Green, Abby Hoffman, Miriam Makeba, Joan Baez, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Quentin Crisp.


He was known as ‘the anthropologist of the forbidden,’ according to kink newsletter The Fetishistas. His documentation of sexual and alternative subcultures in San Francisco is unmatched. Beginning with his book in 1975’s Sidetripping documenting queer and trans nightlife (with an introduction written by William S. Burroughs), through 1989’s Modern Primitives, in which Gatewood’s photographs of tattooed and pierced Americans and Europeans alongside Andrea Juno and V. Vale’s writing changed style and subculture dramatically, and continuing to recent fetish videos and books, Gatewood captured the beautifully odd and outcast in a way that we think of now as a genre that must be larger than just this one man’s work.


Charles Gatewood has published over a dozen books, including Burroughs 23, Forbidden Photographs,_ The Body and Beyond_,_ True Blood_,_ Publishing Ink: The Fine Art of Tattooing_,_ Badlands and Messy Girls_ in addition to over 40 videos and films. He received 3 fellowships from the New York State Arts Council, the Leica Medal of Excellence for his book Wall Street. Charles Gatewood’s images have been archived in over a dozen libraries and universities across the United States and the largest collection, the Gatewood Archive, is at the Bancroft Library at University of California, Berkeley.


At the reception on August 12th, there will be a gallery discussion at 8 pm with Carol Queen (Executive Director of CSC and long time friend of Gatewood’s), Dorian Katz (CSC Curator), Eve Mohrman (artist and Gatewood’s partner), Robert Tat (art dealer who exhibited Gatewood’s photos at Robert Tat Gallery in San Francisco).

  

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Memorial and Gathering to Celebrate the Life of JD TaylorSunday, 8/7, 2:30pm
JD Taylor was a San Francisco dyke-about-town, musician, and supporter of women’s and queer community. She would have turned 70 on August 5, so let’s celebrate everything...

Memorial and Gathering to Celebrate the Life of JD Taylor

Sunday, 8/7, 2:30pm

JD Taylor was a San Francisco dyke-about-town, musician, and supporter of women’s and queer community.  She would have turned 70 on August 5, so let’s celebrate everything she brought to us. JD made us a community. She loved to introduce us to each other and make connections.

Contact Naomi CopperJet if you want to perform, or if you have computer access, fill in this Google Docs spreadsheet. (No need to be logged in to edit)

Tell a story or sing/play a song. Stay for a jam session of rock, pop and jazz covers to close out the afternoon. Bring your instruments and voices and songs to share that JD liked to play.

I’m still working on the plan for food and drinks, probably light snacks.

If you have any files you would like to share and aren’t into posting on Facebook, please upload here

Audio and Videos of JD Taylor and friends can be uploaded here (you don’t need to be signed in):

or here:

Images of JD Taylor and friends can be uploaded here (you don’t need to be signed in):

Memorial Facebook Event

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Donate to Give OUT to support CSC


Lovely people!

Happy birthday to me! It’s my 59th birthday today. It’s been lovely, and as I do every year, I spent part of the day working on our summer fundraising project for the Center for Sex & Culture. This year it’s more important than ever that we reach out successfully for support and contributions (did I mention they’re tax-deductible?): Our rent has doubled, and we have to redouble our efforts.

Here’s a bit of info about our finances and operations. We are essentially all-volunteer. There are only two people at CSC who get any money at all for their work with us (and I’m not one of them): the bookkeeper, and the person who comes in to clean. The rest of us are here because we think CSC is important, with no other entity doing what we do: collecting and preserving the full spectrum of sexual history; creating the largest publicly-accessible sex-related library we know of; serving as a community center not just for the LGBTIAQ communities but also for sex workers, kinky folk, and others in the big world of sexuality; hosting memorial services for sex community people whose full selves are not welcome at family funerals; maintaining a gallery for artists who may not always be able to show their most sexual work anywhere else; hosting all kinds of sex education classes, and prioritizing cultural events because the arts are, for many, the only way they regularly grapple with issues of sex and gender.


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On top of that, we fiscally sponsor other organizations who need to function as nonprofits but who are too small (or too busy doing their good work) to incorporate as such: Scarleteen, Feministing, and other focused projects like the one that researches sexuality and other understudied aspects of homeless youth.

We think we do important, unique work, and we are so proud of the Center for Sex & Culture and its impacts on the community and the culture.

We’ll pay $6700 per month in rent on August 1; that’s just about twice what we were paying a year ago. In September our annual insurance payments come due, and we will need to raise another $5000 for that, roughly. We get almost no corporate support (except for a certain SF-grown ‘net business that has been generous to us every year), and the largest single other donor is Charlie Anders, who runs Writers with Drinks every single month as a benefit for us. (Charlie, we love you!) Our neighbors in the new tech gulch don’t seem to know we’re alive, though we have an amazing sex symposium we’re working on (September 10, save the date!) in hopes of getting their attention… or at least their workers’. We raised our rental rates, very reluctantly, this year, but the income still does not cover our operating expenses. As I tell you every month in our announcements, we rely on the generosity of our community to do our work and keep our doors open. That’s why I’m taking time on my birthday to write this letter to you.

This year we’re working to focus our summer fundraising on one virtual event (but it’s all too real to us!): Give OUT Day. It’s on August 2nd this year. Please calendar it! Please tell your friends, and talk about it on social media. Give OUT Day is one special day of fundraising for LGBTQ and allied organizations, and it has long been our single most important fundraising day each year. Please participate with us this year! Here’s the link:  


https://www.giveoutday.org/c/GO/a/sexandculture


You can click that link right now and schedule a donation for August 2. The “Donate” button, once you choose your contribution and click it, should give you the option of donating right now, or scheduling your donation for another time. There’s a good reason to do this; On Give OUT Day, the nonprofits that make the highest number of individual donations are eleigible for extra bonus money. That’s right, even if you can’t afford a large contribution, your donation of ANY amount helps us hugely! Only donations made or scheduled on August 2 count toward this bonus, though. 


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This is my favorite picture: Doesn’t it remind you just a titch of that Uncle Sam “I Want You” pic? My version: “I Want You to Celebrate MY 59th Birthday by Helping Me Get the Word Out About CSC’s Give OUT Day Fund Drive!” Please copy that URL onto Facebook, Twitter, or wherever you hang out online. Just as important as contributions is spreading the word! 

Of course, maybe you just want to become a CSC member. OK, we’ve got you!:
https://squareup.com/store/center-for-sex-and-culture-2/

And if you’re all, “Carol, sigh, I just want to use my damn checkbook, this 21st century stuff makes my head hurt,” I feel you.

Mailing address here:


2261 Market #455-A, SF CA 94114


I’m 59 today, and Robert and I have been working on the Center for Sex & Culture, from applying for our 501©(3) status to getting our first venue to growing the entity to the state it is today, since I was about 43! That’s over half the time I’ve lived in the Bay Area, and I moved here in 1986, at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. So much has changed, but one thing hasn’t: San Francisco is still home to a dizzyingly diverse sexual community, and even now, people come to the Bay Area every day hoping to find the freedom and support to simply be the sexual or gendered people they are. I have had a life I could never have imagined back when I was a little oversexed queerdo growing up in the sticks in Oregon. Moving to San Francisco allowed me to find my life’s work, find my voice, stand up for what I think is important. The reason the Center for Sex & Culture came to be was because we ALL need that in our lives, and CSC is a resource for it. Its ripples fan far beyond the Bay Area, and it is our intent to make, and preserve, culture for everyone. Please help us do that. And please come see us when you’re in San Francisco and enjoy the community space we built… we made it for you.


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Sending lots of love and gratitude your way–I am SO blessed on my birthday, and all the rest of the year, that you are part of my community.

xoxox–Carol Queen

7/13/16

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Charles Gatewood Memorial 

Sunday, July 3

Gather: 4:30 PM
Memorial: 4:30 - 6:30
Afterglow: 6:30 - 9pm

Friends, Colleagues, Fans, & More Invited to Celebrate Author, Photographer, & Counter-Culture Anthropologist’s Life & Work at Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco

A memorial for Charles Gatewood, who passed away peacefully on April 28 at age 73, will be held Sunday, July 3 at the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco. Friends, fans, colleagues, admirers, lovers, and all those inspired by the famed photographer, videographer, and cultural anthropologist are invited to attend.

Attendees are invited to gather at the CSC at 4:00pm. An “afterglow” will then be held until 10pm. All are invited to bring stories, art, performances, items and photos to show and tell, and to participate in the open mic to share their experiences and memories of the late cultural icon. The event will be filmed, to be added to the Charles Gatewood Archive; those who choose not to be in any photos or videos will have their requests honored.

“Please come as you are, or dress up if you like,” says the event description in regards to attire for the event. “Charles was an artist and loved toys, props, and accessories! Feel free to don your favorite fetish outfit or best costume. We look forward to celebrating his life with everyone.”


In the Gallery:
You got to put the book on the table: Art by Charles Gatewood
Through August 2016


Charles Gatewood, who died this spring, took pictures from the 1960s all the way til the end of his life. He photographed rock royalty, Wall Street, Mardi Gras, street queens, and fetish players; trained in anthropology, he was called “San Francisco’s Family Fetish Photographer” by many, and his passing leaves a gap in our lives which we are temporarily seeking to fill with an amazing, career-spanning show of his work. With tons of private and rarely- or never-seen collage art, lots of portraits, and more, with pieces loaned by Dragon Sundancer, Fakir Musafar and Cléo Dubois, and Eva Marie Mohrman as well as those owned by CSC (Gatewood was a generous contributor to our archive). Curated by Dorian Katz with Eva Marie Mohrman.   

“Charles Gatewood, the man known as ‘the anthropologist of the forbidden’, has been documenting America’s sexual underground and alternative subcultures since the 1960s,” explains Fetish newsletter “TheFetishistas.” “And though his name may not be that familiar to some younger pervs whose knowledge of fetish history is not that broad, the chances are that even these people will instantly recognize some of his best known images… Gatewood’s work can be traced back to photographs that appeared in the late ’80s ReSearch publication “Modern Primitives,” the seminal work on body modification cults and characters, which introduced the original Modern Primitive, San Francisco’s Fakir Musafar, to a much wider audience.”

“Much of the activity that Gatewood documented on the margins of society in the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s is now part of contemporary youth culture,” continues TheFetishistas. “Today, tattooing is commonplace, and pop stars regularly appear in SM-influenced attire. As sexual and body modification practices once seen as radical and taboo become increasingly accepted by the mainstream consciousness, Gatewood’s photography can be seen as showing the way.”

Gatewood’s documentation of alternative culture in San Francisco is unmatched. His photo books include “A Complete Unknown,” “Burroughs 23,” “Badlands,” “True Blood,” “The Body and Beyond,” and “Primitives.” Pocket Books also published a novel, “Hellfire.” His collection may be seen at http://charlesgatewood.com/books/index.html. Over his expansive career, Charles Gatewood received numerous awards, including:1974-1977 — CAPS fellowships in Photography, NY State Arts Council1975 — American Institute of Graphic Arts award1976 — Artist in Residence, Light Work, Syracuse University1980 — Awarded publishing grant by the New York State Arts Council1983 — New York State Arts Council fellowship for “Wall Street”1985 — Art Director’s Club Merit Award1985 — Leica Medal of Excellence for Outstanding Humanistic PhotojournalismIn addition to numerous private collections, Charles Gatewood’s images have been archived in over a dozen libraries and universities across the United States. The Gatewood Archive is currently curated at the Bancroft Library at University of California, Berkeley; the Bancroft is the university’s primary special-collections library.The Gatewood Archive contains several thousand vintage and modern silver prints, 250,000 slides and negatives, plus contact sheets, proof prints, personal papers, correspondence, over a thousand books, and special collections. The archive also contains master edits of 36 Gatewood videos, plus three films (including a copy of "Dances Sacred and Profane,”) and a selection of prints by other fine art photographers.The Center for Sex and Culture is located at 1349 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103. For more information on the Charles Gatewood Memorial Celebration
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@planetmidori  Bondage: Control & Dominance Moves. San Francisco class with Midori

THURSDAY, JUNE 2 2016 7:00 PM — 9:30 PM

Learn effective rope moves to enhance control. What ever style of bondage or rope play you enjoy, these skills will boost the emotional and psychological intensity. In this hands-on class you’ll practice safe moves that are body-smart for the top side and bottom sides.
Whether you enjoy Kinbaku, Shibari, Westen, Predicament, Damsel in Distress, Take-downs or Confrontational play, these techniques will integrate well into your fun!
No experience necessary.

Bring: Two or three length of rope that you usually play with. If you’re not sure, bring two or three lengths of 20 to 30 feet of ropes. If you don’t have rope, there will be some available to borrow

Wear: Comfortable clothing.

Pair attendance is encouraged, but solos are welcome as well. If you come solo, you’ll be paired with other solos for practice.

This Rope Dojo Elective is open to those who play at one or both ends of the rope.
You do not have to be a Rope Dojo graduate to attend. If you’ve not attended, this class will provide excellent foundation for the two-day intensive.    More info: www.RopeDojo.com

Midori has been pivotal in the rise of awareness and popularity of Shibari in the US and the West. She wrote the first English language instruction book on the topic, ‘The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage’, and then founded the Rope Dojo in 2002

Rope Shopping Suggestion:

  • For exceptional hemp ropes, go to the good folks of Twisted Monk.  Use my discount code and get $10 off your purchase of $75 or more. MIDORI2Q16    Expires 6/30/16.
  • I love cotton rope as well. This is great stuff, especially if you’re just starting out.  Feels great, easy to tie with, great for sex play and very reasonably priced.   Midori’s Favorite Cotton Rope
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SEX WORKERS’ WRITING WORKSHOP


Saturday, 6/11, 2-4pm


Usually held at CSC, this is a writing workshop for current and former sex workers to share their writing and get honest, non-judgmental feedback. Workshop participants are not obligated to write exclusively about sex work, but writing about work in the sex industry (as well as writing about other topics) will be welcomed. This is a place where people can write and share about their sex work experiences without having to censor themselves or explain every detail. Beginning writers are encouraged to attend along with more seasoned wordsmiths.

Sex Workers’ Writing Workshop is all-genders. We define the term “sex worker” broadly, as people who have exchanged erotic labor for money/food/shelter/things that we need, including but not limited to:
+Street and Survival Sex Workers
+Escorts, Personal Companions, and Sugar Babies
+Sensual Massage and Sensual Body Work Providers
+BDSM workers; pro-dom/mes, subs, and switches
+Adult Film Actors; Porn Models and Performers; Nude Models; Cam Girls and Boys
+Exotic Dancers; Strippers; and Peep Show Workers
+Phone Sex Operators
+And many other Sex Workers and Adult Entertainers!
(If we’re forgetting your area of the industry in this definition, tell us!) 

** Email questions, volunteer inquiries, etc, to Gina atqueershoulder@gmail.com.
** Disability accessibility info in detail here.
** Speaking of accessibility: While we can’t 100% guarantee a scent-free space, we ask that all attendees please refrain from wearing scented products to ensure that workshop members with chemical sensitivities can attend.
** We ask that our non-sex worker friends, lovers, partners, allies, and clients respect that this space is FOR SEX WORKERS ONLY.

INSTRUCTOR BIO: Gina de Vries is a writer and cultural worker from San Francisco. Ze is founder & facilitator of Sex Workers’ Writing Workshop, a proud alumna of St. James Infirmary, and on the Advisory Board at The Center for Sex & Culture. Ze holds a Master’s in English and a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction Writing from San Francisco State University. Find out more: howtohaveabody.tumblr.com | ginadevries.com(under reconstruction, coming back soon!)

Close to both Civic Center BART & Van Ness MUNI, and are also accessible by the 9-San Bruno, 12-Folsom, 14-Mission, 19-Polk, 47-Van Ness, & 49-Mission/Van Ness MUNI bus lines, among others.
* Sliding scale $10-$20. (More if you can, less if you can’t, nobody turned away — if you’re broke you should still come write with us!)
* Workshop facilitated by Gina de Vries.
*

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Saturday, 5/21, 2016, from 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM, doors open 6:30 PM

How much: $5 to $20, all proceeds benefit the CSC

Where: The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd. St., San Francisco, CA

Guy Gavriel Kay (Children of Earth and Sky)

Yangsze Choo (The Ghost Bride)

David Lau (Virgil and the Mountain Cat)

Kwan Booth (Black Futurists Speak: An Anthology of New Black Writing

Ariel Waldman (What’s It Like in Space?)

Variety is more that just the name of Prince’s favorite girl-singer sidekick. It’s more than just having sex dressed as Alien Greenspan every once in a while. It’s also a Literary Imperative! Which is why Writers With Drinks combines erotica with literature, stand-up comedy with science fiction and poetry with essays. Plus mystery, romance, memoir, rants and “other.”

All proceeds benefit local non-profits. Charlie Jane Anders MCs and vamps.

Proceeds benefit the Center for Sex and Culture.

About Writers With Drinks:

Writers With Drinks has won numerous “Best ofs” from local newspapers,

and has been mentioned in 7x7, Spin Magazine and one of Armistead

Maupin’s Tales of the City novels. The spoken word “variety show”

mixes genres to raise money for local causes. The award-winning show

includes poetry, stand-up comedy, science fiction, fantasy, romance,

mystery, literary fiction, erotica, memoir, zines and blogs in a

freewheeling format.

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As Queer As You Wanna Be: Avery Cassell & Friends bookparty & reading

   Sunday, 5/22, 3pm

Avery’s new book is Behrouz Gets Lucky. Join Avery with guest readers Wickie Stamps, Sinclair Sexsmith and Xan West, with your host CQ.

Four local smutty writers, Sunday afternoon, and you!
Avery Cassell - Behrouz Gets Lucky, Sinclair Sexsmith - Sweet & Rough, Wickie Stamps - Io Facc’ l’Omm, and Xan West - Show Yourself to Me.

Avery Cassell
Avery Cassell is an older genderqueer San Francisco writer, poet, cartoonist, and artist who grew up in Iran. They live with their Maine Coon cat, Lulu, and bake yeasted waffles every Sunday morning. You can find their erotic short stories sprinkled in various anthologies, including Best Lesbian Erotica 2015 and Sex Still Spoken Here. Avery is currently working on a book of more of Behrouz and Lucky’s shenanigans, transcribing a collection of aerograms from Iran to the States in the early 1960s, and an illustrated early reader children’s book about a eight year old transgender boy and his family.

Behrouz Gets Lucky is a romantic, literary, kinky, and political novel about two older San Francisco queers - a butch dyke gardener named Lucky and a genderqueer librarian named Behrouz. A coffee date at Café Flore in the Castro sparks a fiery trans masculine relationship that ends with the couple eating falafel in bed at 3am half way around the world in a Tehran, Iran hotel room. Forced gentrification in modern San Francisco goads Behrouz and Lucky to find their own uniquely sexy way of reclaiming the city’s lost queer spaces. Behrouz Gets Lucky is also tenderly sensual – an immersive novel, full of fragrances, delicious food, delirious sexual touch, dandy fashion, and beauty.

Sinclair Sexsmith
Sinclair Sexsmith is a genderqueer kinky butch writer who teaches and performs, specializing in sexualities, genders, and relationships. They’ve written at sugarbutch.net since 2006, recognized numerous places as one of the Top Sex Blogs. Sinclair’s gender theory and queer erotica is widely published in anthologies and online, and they are the editor of Best Lesbian Erotica 2012 and Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica, both published by Cleis Press.

In 2014, Sinclair’s first collection of erotic short stories, Sweet & Rough: Sixteen Stories of Queer Smut, was published. They use the pronouns they, them, theirs, themself. Sweet, sensual adoration and dirty, rough sex meet in this anthology of queer smut penned by Top Sex Blogger Sinclair Sexsmith. The complete collection includes sixteen of Sinclair’s best queer erotica short stories, full of dapper dates, femmes in pretty dresses, flogging, bondage, flirting on the subway, bold moves, and (of course) strap-ons. From ongoing lovers to one-night stands, the kinky queer butch top protagonist delivers heart and dominance, over and over.

Wickie Stamps
Wickie Stamps is a widely published writer whose work has appeared in The Advocate, OutWeek, Gay Community News and over a dozen short-story collections. Wickie has won accolades for her writing of the staged drama Fugue State (Fringe Festival, San Francisco) and the multiple-award-winning film Foucault Who? Prior editor of both the notoriously hypermasculine Drummer magazine and the equally infamous Socialist Review, Wickie continues to make films, zines, and other work as part of San Francisco’s Heads Will Roll Studios. Keep an eye out for the upcoming Zeboiim, a queerly Southern tale of trauma and crime, and for Io Facc’ l’Omm, a disturbing crossroads of gender and obsession.

Xan West
Xan West is a recent transplant to Oakland from Brooklyn, who has been doing community kink education for over ten years. Xan has been published in over 35 erotica anthologies, including the Best S/M Erotica series, the Best Gay Erotica series, and the Best Lesbian Erotica series. Xan’s story “First Time Since,” won honorable mention for the 2008 National Leather Association John Preston Short Fiction Award. Xan’s work has been described by reviewers as “offering the erotica equivalent of happy ever after” and as “some of the best transgressive erotic fiction to come along in recent years.”

Xan refuses pronouns, twists barbed wire together with yearning, and tilts pain in many directions to catch the light. Xan adores vulnerable tops; strong, supportive bottoms; red meat; long winding conversations about power, privilege, and community; showtunes; and cool, dark, quiet rooms with comfortable beds. Find Xan’s thoughts about the praxis of sex, kink, queerness, power, and writing at xanwest.wordpress.com.

In Show Yourself to Me: Queer Kink Erotica, Xan West introduces us to pretty boys and nervous boys, vulnerable tops and dominant sadists, good girls and fierce girls and scared little girls, mean Daddies and loving Daddies and Daddies that are terrifying in delicious ways.

Submissive queers go to alleys to suck cock, get bent over the bathroom sink by a handsome stranger, choose to face their fears, have their Daddy orchestrate a gang bang in the park, and get their dream gender-play scene—tied to a sling in an accessible dungeon.

Dominants find hope and take risks, fall hard and push edges, get fucked and devour the fear and tears that their sadist hearts desire.

Within these 24 stories, you will meet queers who build community together, who are careful about how they play with power, who care deeply about consent. You will meet trans and genderqueer folks who are hot for each other, who mentor each other, who do the kind of gender play that is only possible with other trans and genderqueer folks.

This is Show Yourself to Me. Get ready for a very wild ride.

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