I'll be in the Bay Area next week for the San Francisco Sex Worker Festival. Here's a summary of scheduled events, make sure to check the web site for full details.

* Saturday, May 30: Radar Spectacle Benefit with Michelle Tea and more
* Sunday, May 31: BelleBazaar: An Orgy of Shopping
* Sunday, May 31: SWOP Benefit Party at Diva's
* Monday, June 1: SWOP Roundtable and Hospitality Day
* Tuesday, June 2: Whore-A-Palooza
* Wednesday, Thursday, June 3 & 4: Army of Lovers
* Friday, June 5th: Migration, Sex Work and The Evil Empire: Movies and Discussion
* Friday, June 5th: Cirque X, a St. James Infirmary benefit
* Saturday, June 6th: Movies at The Roxie
* Sunday, June 7th: Intersections: Krip Sex! Krip Sex Work!

For just $40, buy a pass to most of the week's events here.

I'm proud that my company is a sponsor, along with a lot of other great companies and groups.

Like many loudmouth sluts, I am contacted by people who want to get quotes from me for their school newspaper, class assignment, or an article they're hoping to have published. The following is a guide mostly for college kids, but it also applies to freelancers and writers from small publications/web sites. It's culled from my personal experiences, and I'd like to think it's useful reading for anyone interested in interviewing sex workers.

* The primary rule to remember is that you are asking me to do you a favor by being your interview subject, and you must treat my time and my expertise with respect. You get paid, get a good grade, or sell ads based on generating pageviews. In return, I get a small altruistic glow of hoping that more people will think about the politics of sex work. I'm not trying to be snobby and belabor this point, but often, the more obscure and tiny the intended audience, the more a writer has a chip on their shoulder about how I'm supposed to be grateful to them.

* (As an aside: If you're inquiring from an established media outlet with a significant following, it's different. I have something to gain from reaching large numbers of people. If more people see my blog every day than will ever see your project, it's clearly you who's the one benefitting from our exchange.)

* Be honest (with yourself) about the size and importance of your audience. Don't cop an attitude as though I should be thanking you profusely for this very special opportunity to be in your sociology term paper. On the personal side, I already am getting my opinions out there on my own terms without someone else shaping my words to suit a moral agenda, so "being able to tell my story" isn't a big motivator for me. On the business side, a blurb in your women's studies thesis is the last place on earth where I think I'll make a lot of pornography sales. I once had a guy huffily tell me I was flushing away untold amounts of money by declining to be in his college newspaper. I run specialty adult web sites with niche audiences, and if I thought that The Tinytown Junior Tech Journal was the best place to find customers, I'd already be advertising there.

* If you're coming at me breathless about having just gotten interested in the topic, I have to disabuse you of the notion that you are a unique snowflake for wanting to write about "alternative porn". Not having the money or the debt-lust to attend university myself, I can't know for certain, but I'm pretty sure that colleges these days require all students to write at least one essay on "alternative porn" to obtain degrees.

* While the idea that intelligent, politically-aware people opt to sell sexual services might be news to you, it is not actually a new thing, and it's patronizing if you treat it like a fad. Think of it this way: would you interview a black person and ask, "Now that Obama is our president, what do you think of this trend where people of color say smart stuff and achieve things with their lives?" Clever people have been amongst the ranks of sex workers since the dawn of time, so please don't assume that we began existing three months ago when you first discovered Suicide Girls. The non-newness doesn't make smart sex workers any less compelling - far form it - I'm just not into being treated as an amusing novelty.

* Never, ever tell me that you'll only "let" me be interviewed by you if I tell you my real name. I've had several people do this. It's like walking up to a stranger and saying in a smarmy voice, "I'll let you give me $20, but only if you buy me an iPhone, too." It's all fail.

* Do not contact me at the last minute because you have been procrastinating and need an interview done in a day or two. I'd say a week is the minimum notice you should provide. Nothing makes an interview subject fell less special than being treated as your half-assed last-ditch effort at cranking out a quick essay.

* Do tell me the deadline for your project. It's incredibly dickish if, after I answer your questions in a week, you reply back and tell me your project was already due and you can't use my quotes any more.

* Do some basic background research and familiarize yourself with what I do. Make your questions count. Ask me things that show you've actually put more than 2 minutes of thought into the topic. Read the public pages on my web site(s) that you are interviewing me about. It's rude to expect me to fill in every single blank for you when it's obvious that you've never really looked at any of my work. For example, one of the questions I've been asked in almost every interview request about VegPorn.com is how many models the site has. Seriously- you can't go to the model page and count them yourself? Or even notice that the site repeatedly states how many models appear on it?

* Search for interviews that other people have conducted with me so you can get a feel for what I think about things. Or read my blog. You can then tailor your own questions more specifically to me so I don't feel like I got a form letter that you sent to dozens of other indie porn webmasters.

If you're a socially inept person who cannot follow these rules, you are still welcome to conduct an interview with me live on my web cam at the rate of $4 a minute. You'll get to see my tits and have an anecdote to repeat to your straight friends for years to come.

To prepare for a British friend coming to visit Seattle, I picked up "Weird and Wacky Washington Places" from the library to see if there's anything neat I hadn't heard of. What's weird and wacky? A banana museum, the Space Needle, Slug Fest, the Jimi Hendrix statue, and the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway.

As surprised as I was that Gary Ridgeway is listed in a guidebook of zany and funny things for tourists, I was also struck by the authors' omission of the fact that his victims were (mostly) sex workers. Is that a good thing- does it reduce the horror of his crimes in the eyes of normal people if he was "just" killing prostitutes? Or is it a bad thing- glossing over an important case in terms of getting international attention focused on the violence against sex workers?

I'm still not sure which part of this perturbs me the most.

On a 2008 episode of the Point of Inquiry podcast, civil rights attorney Edward Tabash touched on an issue that, to me, resonated well beyond beyond the Prop 8 topic he was discussing.

If people with a religious motive can appeal to bogus junk science to get around the church-state issue, then church-state separation has been nullified. So, let me elaborate. So if somebody says, "Well, I'm not trying to restrict gay rights because of any religious belief, but these scientific studies show these psychological problems with gay men, or show these psychological problems with women who've had abortions," then what they are doing is using pseudo-science to try to create a bogus - but smokescreen alternative - to their true religious motive, and they've made an end run around church-state separation. So that is the danger. If we have pseudo-science, and you say, "You cannot base your law on religion, you have to have an empirical study", and they have a bogus scientific study, what they have done is that they have done a devious end run around church-state separation by bootstrapping fake science into some kind of fake - but possibly passable - secular justification for what's really a religious motivation.

I remember someone once arguing with me that they read a study that showed that most sex offenders have looked at pornography, so therefor, pornography makes people become sex offenders. That line of reasoning makes total sense- but only if you're grasping at straws to justify your unflinching moral beliefs (whether or not those moral beliefs are directly based on a religion). I bet most sex offenders also enjoy masturbation, but that doesn't mean that rubbing your happy places turns you into a rapist.

"Junk science" is used by many different kinds of groups trying to make their religious/moral message appeal to wider audiences. Don't let people do an end-run around logic by throwing in the words "study" or "research".

Conference organizer Match and I at the porn and brownies party. We're 2 of only 4 people at the conference of 166 who don't call ourselves feminists. Photo by Diva.

Since the weekend in DC, I've been decompressing in a friend's place in Manhattan, objectifying his body and eating the city's most delicious vegan foods.

This year's Sex 2.0 conference had at least 50% growth since last year's event in Atlanta. There were a lot of awesome faces, a sexycute porn shoot, tons of cupcakes, a strong representation of sex worker issues, oodles of intelligent conversations, and very few creepers. On the down side, I barely got to say hello to some people since there was just so much good stuff happening. For a reclusive pervnerd like me, it was overwhelming, but in a positive way. FurryGirl.com has been online for over six years and receives over half a million unique visitors per month, but this was the first time I really felt like anyone has ever heard of me. Even when not wearing my name tag, I had some people do the "O hai, you're Furry Girl, right?" Strangeness.

In my mind, Sex 2.0 2009 kicked off online, with a critical post by previous conference organizer Amber Rhea. Coupled with the many comments, it was a perfect microcosm of why I longer identify as a feminist. It was like playing a game of Cliche Bingo, down to how the commenters (basically) split apart into two camps of opinion: The Feminists and The Sex Workers. (And, of course, it didn't occur to any of the feminists that if the sex workers and a transwoman felt unwelcome by feminists, then maybe the problem wasn't that the sex workers and transwoman were the ones who needed to modify their beliefs.)

There was a pinch of other random bitching and moaning here and there at the conference- complaints that carried as much weight as freaking out about how unfair it is that Wikipedia's entry on your favorite subject is only a stub. While I do plenty of criticizing the world myself, I'm not one to knock a transparently-organized unconference for not reading my mind and creating the panels I wanted to watch. One of my greatest hot buttons is when people complain about that which they have taken absolutely no steps to positively remedy, instead, choosing to pick at people who are doing something.

Moving on- I was a part of two panels. (See the list of the all talks/panels here.) I even wore my Inter-Web Debaters Club shirt so as to solidify my commitment to not fighting too much with people in person. I experienced not one real clash, bless my caustic little heart.

The first panel, Customer Relations for Sex Workers (with Sabrina Morgan, Renegade Evolution, Kimberlee Cline, Monica, Ellie Lumpesse, and David) started in a really solid direction to address issues of safety, how we've changed how we relate to our clients over the years, and a bit about how to screen clients for sex workers who do offline work. The conversation got a bit derailed into a discussion on one's rights when arrested and how to deal with the police, but it only goes to show how many different sex work topics the audience was interested in talking about. A group of us later convened in the hotel bar over champagne to get into a lengthier discussion about the ways in which we stay in touch with clients, the development of genuine friendships, fantasies we feel uncomfortable with (forced feminization and race play were two topics), and an annoyance with sex workers who engage in shit-talking on clients with "weird" fetishes.

The second panel I was a part of, Revisiting Naked on the Internet (with Audacia Ray, Amber Rhea, and Melissa Gira) had me as a bit of the odd-duckling-out. Not being a professional writer or someone who's changed a lot in the two years since the book's release, I didn't have much to give as an update. Dacia turned the conversation to online feminist spaces, where I had to try and not panel-jack by briefly explaining why I no longer identify as a feminist and why the term doesn't mean anything to me any more. (The writer from Feministing.com didn't even jump out of her chair and stab me in the eye with a fork, which was pleasantly surprising.) I told the group, "I was sick of seeing 'feminism' as a euphemism for 'awesome'." Jack hollered out at me, "Are you an awesome-ist?", to which I replied, "I am a militant awesome-ist!" (Thank you, dear Jack, for helping me inject some levity.) One of the other issues brought up in the panel was how profoundly exhausting is is for sex workers (and their allies) to always be on the defensive and doing "101" work. Surprise: We get tired of having to justify our existence to feminists who can't be bothered to educate themselves about our real issues and demands.

All in all, an excellent fucking weekend.

Deep in the Furry Girl archives, I have a scanned bit of my early writing. Judging from the handwriting and poor spelling, I would place this as having been written at age 6 or 7 at most, reflecting on life when I was about four years old.

Ah, "objectification", one of those buzzwords - like "empowerment" - that I've heard so many times, it just sounds like gibberish. And really, I'm not sure if I ever knew what it was supposed to mean in the first place.

This topic is one of my major headdesk issues with anti-porn crusaders. They say, "porn objectifies women!" as though that's some kind of end-all analysis. I address this topic from two directions.

Firstly, as a porn model and cam girl, it's my job description to "be a sex object", (as the anti-sexers would define it), and it's a job with which I'm very happy. My friendlier customers treat me like a multi-dimensional person, too- but it's not required of them, and I don't resent the ones who don't try and get to know me. (Hell, I know it annoys me when I, as a customer, get an overly chatty waiter or cab driver who tries to impose socializing on me when I'm not feeling up to it.) On cam, my customers pay $4 a minute for the expressed purpose of not having to wine and dine me and pretend to care what I'm saying in order to get me to take off my clothes. It's so much more honest than dating.

I have never met a sex worker who was unaware of that their job entailed before taking it. When asked why she got started, not one replied, "I became a stripper because I was looking for the true love of an intellectual partner who appreciates my inner beauty and doesn't oggle my body." Those types of people answer romance ads on eHarmony.com, not ads in weekly papers for "B/G anal scene $500 cash". It's not as though this whole thing is sprung upon random unsuspecting victims- it's the definition of the work.

"Being objectified" by customers is not something that sex workers themselves are railing against as an injustice they seek to overcome. It's a half-baked analysis being imposed upon our work from outsiders- outsiders who presume to tell the world what we experience and how we feel about it, without ever having asked us. That, in and of itself, should tell you a lot about whether or not it's a real problem.

(Sex workers do, however, regularly rail against being objectified by the media, anti-porn crusaders, anti-sex feminists, clueless academics, women, and others. We work as consensually "objectified" people who are and paid for our work, but we hate being nonconsensually objectified by outsiders who neither pay us nor respect us, and use/abuse us to suit their own agendas and make a profit.)

Secondly, everyone at their job is "objectified" in their roles. I don't profoundly care for the cashier at the grocery store, but no one's ranting online about how he's being oppressed and "objectified" because, at work, most people see him as "a cashier". I don't care to delve into the inner intellectual passions of the woman who made me tea at a cafe, but I'm not aware of any college courses being taught on the "objectification" of baristas. I have never fallen into deep romantic love with a nurse who's weighed me and taken my blood pressure at the doctor's office, but if there are protesters outside the clinic that day, their signs don't read, "Stop the exploitation of women! Planned Parenthood objectifies nurses as mere one-dimensional healthcare workers!"

We can't have a genuine connection with everyone we encounter in our lives, whether they are strippers or bus drivers or sales clerks at a shoe store. To say that "being objectified" as a sex worker is somehow so vastly different than "being objectified" in any other role is telling about the accuser's personal issues with the sex, not the work.

Some people try to "take a step back" and use this as a part of a broader critique of capitalism, but I disagree with that, too. So, under socialism, anarchism, or what-have-you-ism, every human will express heartfelt interest in the well-being of every single human they come into contact with over the course of a day? I find that quite silly.

We all choose how we pick some people as our lovers, some as our friends, some as acquaintances we smile at politely once a week. It's not about economic systems or patriarchy or oppression- it's about time and energy. No one has the time and energy to emotionally/intellectually intertwine themselves in everyone they interact with, and it's ludicrous to think that one should or could.

Whether we choose to not invest ourselves in the janitor or to not invest ourselves in the cam girl, it doesn't matter on an ethical level. One is not inherently a Major Social Problem just because it involves sex.

Feminism is the shitty relationship you had in your early 20s. The lover who was charismatic and creative and gave great handjobs, even though, in moments of clarity, you could see that the two of you had a very real potential for detesting one another some day.

She was dodging a couple creditors, yes, and you'd heard that many of her other relationships ended in dramatic failures. But, the two of you could stay up all night drinking Cooks by the beach and exchanging breathlessly clever observations about the world around you. He was theoretically down with the number of notches on your bedpost, but in practice, he could get all pouty, or even confrontational, about how your sexuality made him uncomfortable. She had a great record collection, could do neat tricks on her unicycle, and she always knew the days of the month when museum admissions were free. You were willing to put up with seemingly minor insults to your dignity, like doing his laundry and picking up the tab for dinner most of the time.

When something would go inevitably go wrong, you'd attempt to convince yourself that the problem wasn't really her fault, even to a point of ridiculousness that makes you cringe in retrospect. "He's stressed and afraid of losing his job right now since they caught him stealing company property and eBaying it, so it's not the time to pick at him about the fact that when it was his turn to get groceries, he bought only a 24 pack of cola and a can of blueberry pie filling."

You glossed over her problems and dismissed them as "that's not the real her" until the red flags just got too big to ignore any longer. You finally cut your losses and realized that even if he's only truly shitty some of the time, it's still too much.

After it ended, you resent them all the more not just because they still owe you two months of rent, but because you tried so hard to make it work. Years later, you can still get worked up about the relationship because you went out of your way to overlook their serious faults and only acknowledge their good traits. When she failed you and was clearly at fault, you blamed yourself for interpreting her incorrectly. You tried to fit yourself into his pre-existing framework, rather than finding someone who didn't require that you shuffle any part of yourself the first place. You're mad at yourself and a bit embarrassed for putting up with the whole thing for as long as you did. You despise the whole thing with an almost undue passion because you once cared about making it work so damn much.

In my mid-20s, I finally sat down and mentally wrote a dear john letter. "The thing is, feminism, it's not me, it's definitely you..."

And for what it's worth, feminism never even bought me a can of pie filling.

When I was pondering what to name my blog, I devoted several days of intense shower-thinking to the matter before settling on "Feminisnt". To me, if a feminIST means one who is a proponent of feminism, a feminISNT is one who is not, without necessarily being anti-feminist. Huzzah! Clever unique term coined! Point me!

But, alas, like most good ideas, this one had been thought of before.

A Google search for the term netted the term almost exclusively as a typo by people who can't spell feminist.

There already existed one blog with the title: feminisnt.blogspot.com A few months later, another one with the title came along, feminisnt.wordpress.com

Most notably is a Vancouver group/person who puts "FEMINISN'T" stickers/stencils on advertisements that feature images of women. Nothing says "nuanced discussion of sexuality and gender politics" like stickering random advertisements that feature images of attractive women, I suppose. It doesn't matter what the women in the ads may think about the subject, if they're volunteers with any real causes, or donate to help women's organizations - they're sexy, so they obviously they're bad. Much like the graphic porn photos anti-porn campaigners use without consent of the human beings they feature, the women here have had their likenesses reappropriated without their consent and have been objectified to suit the will of the outsider. Mmmm... solidarity with all womankind, that.

So, yes- I know I'm not the first person to use the term, and I will try harder to be clever in the future.

How did you get into sex work?
When I was 17, I read a book called Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush by Lael Morgan, and was fascinated by the strong, feisty, independent women who left behind comfortable lives and families to become sex workers in the harsh north.  I pondered my options for joining Team Ho, and decided to give porn a try once I hit 18.  I did my first day shoot in LA in May of 2002 for a big online porn company, where the creepy, fumbly photographer and I cranked out 20 solo photosets of me in various outfits, looking increasingly tired/bored as the day wore on.  I was paid $750, and the porn site paid the photographer $1250.  I realized I was doing it wrong, and researched starting my own company.  I launched my first site in January of 2003 with a startup cost of a few thousand dollars.  I now operate four membership porn sites, three of which are comprised mainly of other performers/models, and a small specialty store selling vegan sex products.  I don't make piles of easy money the way many people assume I do, but I love calling all the shots and not having to work for anyone else.

So, uh... what kind of sex worker are you?  Are you a hooker?  Why not?
I work primarily in indie porn, and also do private web cam shows, which is like being a work-from-home peep show performer.  I've also dabbled in a little bit of pro-domming/fetish work in person, but that's rare.  Since 2002, I have been involved in things where money has exchanged hands, involved all genders, and orifices have been penetrated in every configuration, but I have never actually had a man pay me to put his penis in me.  I find that funny.  I am not at all morally opposed to prostitution, I just doubt it's for me.  Never say never, though.

You were obviously raped or molested as a kid, right?
No, but thanks for trying to use that as a means to discredit me.  It's very "right on" of you to use accusations of surviving sexual violence to make fun of women and deny them a right to make decisions and express themselves.

What's your educational background?
I have a general disdain for the theory class.  I barely completed junior high, and I use the term "completed" only in the sense that they allowed me register for high school, where I soon stopped showing up all together.  Before totally dropping out, I started out as an overachiever kid with killer standardized test scores and dweeby extracurriculars like the Science Olympiads.  Then, I had the important epiphany that school was optional, and that there were much more engaging uses of my time and energies.  Dropping out of school is, by far, one of the best decisions of my life.

What are your politics?
I am an antiauthoritarian pragmatist who has a low tolerance for pretension, bullshit, and asshattery.  I pick and choose the best bits of many philosophies like a cheapskate assembling a full meal from cocktail garnishes and condiment packets.  I am an atheist with an equal-opportunity distaste for all religions, since every single religion is anti-sex, anti-woman, anti-queer, anti-critical thinking, and anti-science.  I rejects all forms of superstition and faith-based "medicine," from communion to homeopathy.  I am also vegan, because I don't believe in exploiting and killing others for my temporary amusement, including animals.

Why would you NOT want call yourself a feminist?  Barring being a feminist, the only option left is that you must be a misogynist.
I don't call myself a suffragette, either, but that doesn't mean I am against women being allowed to vote.  I consider myself very much anti-sexist and pro-equality, because sexism is still a problem in my society.  However, oppressive attitudes based on gender and sexuality are frequently perpetuated by people who call themselves feminists, and anti-male sexism (perpetuated by feminists in particular) is on the rise.

What could you possibly have against feminism?  It's the bestest thing since rainbow kitten cupcakes!
For starters: "feminism" doesn't have anything close to a singular meaning, so you can't even discuss it without a hundred qualifiers and caveats; the feminist pendulum in the West has run its course and too often turns into pointless misandry; feminism used to be about women's right to be more than just barefoot and pregnant, and now it fights for the "right" of women to be barefoot and pregnant and be given a ton of government and corporate handouts for churning out babies; feminism is commonly embraced by people whose underlying beliefs are that women are stupid, feeble creatures who need to be controlled and saved; feminism these days focuses way too much on imaginary first-world problems like women who choose to feel badly about themselves because they think they're not pretty enough; some feminist leaders are obsessed with fanning and exploiting insecurities in women in order to indoctrinate them to their style of victim feminism, rather than being positive and helping women see that they can be strong and powerful.  Last but not least: it's REALLY FUCKING DIFFICULT to spend your entire life being picked on by girls and women for various reasons, then swallow the idea that women are your true sisters and that men are the cruel enemy that oppresses you.  Bitches be crazy, yo.

What do you mean when you use the terms "feminist" and "feminism"?
Except when noted, I'm referring to the feminisms of Western, industrialized nations - the sort spouted by shrill, irritating people with too much time on their hands and a bizarre desire to feel oppressed by everything.  I know that not all feminists are anti-sex crusaders and/or feeble-minded hysterics, but those rare exceptions don't disprove that the majority of feminist-identified people are oftentimes working against the things I believe in, not for them.

Are you a mean and spiteful person?
Only some of the time.  I come across more abrasive online than I am as an overall person because I don't create heaps of "filler content" for my "online persona" the way other "internet personalities" consciously do while building their brand.  I don't have the time or interest to create pointless fluff to try and make myself seem relatable.

I'm a journalist/student/blogger/aspiring author, can I interview you?
Maybe.  I hate doing interviews in general because so many people usually only want me to talk about pointless navel-gazing bullshit like "can sex work be empowering?"  Please read my post for writers and students before contacting me.

Here's a link I found to a feminist blog post that's anti-sex work, will you come jump into the comments?
I get a lot of people sending me links to anti-sex work blog posts, urging me to go and set everyone straight.  Sorry, I've wasted enough of my life debating with random internet users on their own tiny blogs and forums.  It bores me to tears now.  I fully welcome you to jump in and fight with them if you like, though.

[Last updated September 2011.]

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