Working Sex
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SHOSHANA VON BLANCKENSEE is a native San Franciscan, a veteran of the Sister Spit Ramblin’ Road Show, who has been featured at The Coco Club, The Chameleon (remember those ole places), The Paradise Lounge, and K’vetch (at Sadie’s Flying Elephant). She also coran a reading series at The Bearded Lady Cafe (yet another place that doesn’t exist anymore). She is the author of a play, Show Me Your Arms, which went up in March 2000 in a little theater called Bindlestiff, and the star of the lesbo mommy movie Playdate, which came out in last year’s Frameline festival. She has been published in On Our Backs (Los Angeles, CA: Alyson Books, 2004) and the anthology Bottoms Up! (Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press, 2004).
ANA VOOG is an omnisexual Minneapolis-based multimedia performance artist. At this time she is most known for her 24/7 in-home webcam, which is now the longest-running homecam on the net. Thee modern grrl is infotainment value: Ana Voog becomes sexual stereotypes and then blows them up from the inside out—knowledge through nonsense. By doing and being what sexual stereotypes are not supposed to she hopes these roles will be abandoned and new ideas will spring forth. Now, as she nears age 40, she has been through many incarnations as an artist. First as painter and musician on her eleven-year journey as singer/songwriter of the allfemale band The Blue Up, which brought forth five records on two major labels. Second as “camgirl,” photographer/ pornographer and writer/documentarian, which brought her worldwide recognition from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, The New York Times, A&E, Playboy, Hard Copy, etc. Thirdly, she’s become almost a recluse in North America, crocheting avant-garde hats and spinning yarn from exotic animals and futuristic textiles. Say wha? Fourthly, after all this she says, Jedi-style, “I emerge still a cocoon” now at the end of her beginning, she starts . . . just like the paradox she is. She can be found at www.anacam.com.
about the editor
Annie Oakley is an activist, artist, and curator, as well as a ten-year sex industry veteran. Oakley created and continues to organize the Sex Workers Art Show Tour, a nationally acclaimed cabaret-style show featuring visual and performance art by sex workers. She has lectured and performed at colleges and theatres across the country, and is a firm believer in cultural production as activism. For more information, please visit www.sexworkersartshow.com.
Selected Titles from Seal Press
For more than thirty years, Seal Press has published groundbreaking books. By women. For women. Visit our website at www.sealpress.com
INDECENT: HOW I MAKE IT AND FAKE IT AS A GIRL FOR HIRE by Sarah Katherine Lewis. $14.95, 1-58005-169-3. An insider reveals the gritty reality behind the alluring façade of the sex industry.
NOBODY PASSES: REJECTING THE RULES OF GENDER AND CONFORMITY edited by Mattilda, a.k.a Matt Bernstein Sycamore. $15.95, 1-58005-184-7. A timely and thought-provoking collection of essays that confronts and challenges the notion of belonging by examining the perilous intersections of identity, categorization, and community.
BARE: THE NAKED TRUTH ABOUT STRIPPING by Elisabeth Eaves. $14.95, 1-58005-121-9. A closer look at the way sexuality is viewed in our culture: what, if anything, constitutes “normal” desire; the ethics of swapping money—or anything else—for sex.
GETTING OFF: A WOMAN’S GUIDE TO MASTURBATION by Jamye Waxman, illustrations by Molly Crabapple. $14.94, 1-58005-219-3. Empowering and femalepositive, this is a comprehensive guide for women on the history and mechanics of the oldest and most common sexual practice.
CUNT: A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE by Inga Muscio. $14.95, 1-58005-075-1. “An insightful, sisterly, and entertaining exploration of the word and the part of the body it so bluntly defines. Ms. Muscio muses, reminisces, pokes into history and emerges with suggestions for the understanding of—and reconciliation with—what it means to have a cunt.”—Roberta Gregory, author of Naughty Bitch
NAKED ON THE INTERNET by Audacia Ray. $15.95, 1-58005-209-2. Sex rights advocate reveals that many young women use the Internet to explore their desire and develop their sexual identities.
Working Sex
Sex Workers Write About a Changing Industry
Copyright © 2007 Annie Oakley
Published by
Seal Press
A Member of Perseus Books Group
1400 65th Street, Suite 250
Emeryville, CA 94608
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Working sex : sex workers write about a changing industry / edited by Annie Oakley.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-0-786-75087-0
1. Prostitutes—Biography. 2. Prostitutes—Social conditions.
3. Prostitution—History—21st century. I. Oakley, Ann.
HQ118.W67 2008
306.7409’045—dc22
2007039519