Sex Positive Culture Jamming

On Monday, January 30th, I was part of a quiet, revolutionary act.  While people drove on Central Ave, Route 66 in Nob Hill, Albuquerque, their drive was interrupted by signs of sex positivity.  There were only five of us standing on the median, but our messages still led to smiles, laughs and hopefully feelings of well being among unexpected commuters.

I love the concept of culture jamming and random acts of kindness.  I also love the idea of combining the two.

Culture jamming is often used to describe disrupting corporate messages to the masses in media like Adbusters.  But it also means simply challenging socially accepted behavior and using a public forum to change the negative, mainstream messages people see and hear all around them.  Random acts of kindness are a simple way to offer more kindness and generosity in the world, without apparently getting anything in return.  One of my favorite stories is the Free Hugs campaign documented on youtube.

Sex negativity is everywhere.
We have begun challenging it in creative, positive, and affirming ways.  On Monday, we simply held up signs with sex positive, body positive messages. 

What's the ABQ Sex positive Street team?
A direct action group created by and for the community of Albuquerque. Our goal through the year of 2012 is to do a bimonthly action aimed at responding to issues of sex negativity with messages of sex positivity

Why now?
Self Serve is celebrating five years of spreading the love in ABQ!  We love what we do everyday in our store and out in the community. We believe that we are changing the culture around sexuality one conversation at a time. We can say with confidence that the space that we share at 3904 Central in Albuquerque is safe space to talk about sexuality, our bodies, our feelings, and anything else that comes up. Creating safe space around sexuality is our daily job and we love it.

We wish the world was a safer space for sexuality.
It's not.

We are activists at heart and working to create empowering events that support the radical acceptance of self and desire.

In a world where custom paint colors and even designer water are easy to come by, the basic human need for a healthy sex life too often goes unspoken or dismissed. Sexuality is everywhere, yet access to good information, discussion and products for promoting healthy sexuality is limited.

We hope that by taking to the streets we will help create a more sex positive world. We want to start a community group that is created by and for our community, because our voices together are hard to ignore.

Learn More...

What is sex positivity?
"The sex-positive movement is an ideology which promotes and embraces open sexuality with few limits. Sex positivity is "an attitude towards human sexuality that regards all consensual sexual activities as fundamentally healthy and pleasurable, and encourages sexual pleasure and experimentation. The sex-positive movement is a social and philosophical movement that advocates these attitudes. The sex-positive movement advocates sex education and safer sex as part of its campaign."[1] The movement makes no moral distinctions among types of sexual activities, regarding these choices as matters of personal preference." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-positive_movement

What is Direct Action?
Activists have used direct actions to spur significant social change, such as the occupation of the all-white lunch counters during the sixties, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the anti-Vietnam and Gulf War protests, and the American Indian Movement occupation of Wounded Knee. Many famous activists have participated in civil disobedience, including the Reverend Martin Luther King, Ghandi and Rosa Parks. These actions have brought attention to many injustices and led to the growth of progressive movements.
http://www.ibiblio.org/netchange/cco/orgaction.html

Even if the media buries the story, activists see each other. For a few minutes or an hour you own a chunk of public space. You exist in a way you don't at home alone. Your voice and your life are amplified in unimaginable ways
http://www.lesbianavengers.com/direct_action.shtml

Join the ABQ Sex Positive Street Team!
Join on Facebook or sign up online... 

Help us create a sex positive health provider database!

Self Serve Sexuality Resource Center is compiling a free directory of sex positive health professionals in the Albuquerque metro area.

If you have any suggestions to add to the list, please either email sexpositiveabq@gmail.com or call us at 505-265-5815 with the name, practice and contact info (if available) of the person you are recommending. If you stop by the store, we have forms you can fill out, as well.

Feel free to sing the praises of someone who was happy to help you without judgment or prejudice.

Your community will thank you.

505-265-5815

Sexpositiveabq@gmail.com

What is Sex Positive?

Lots of times at Self Serve we describe our approach as sex positive.  So what does that mean?

Here is a stream-of-consciousness list of what defines it for us.  Add your own thoughts in the comments!

Sex Positive Means:

• sex is healthy and pleasure is good for you
• getting away from fear, and building towards empowerment in your sex life
• talking about subjects that are typically taboo
• teaching comprehensive safer sex without fear that education causes infection (quite the contrary)
• having an open mind to a variety of desires and sexual activities
• if everybody's consenting and happy, what someone's doing isn't morally wrong
• all our bodies are normal and different
• there are (almost) no wrong answers in sexual exploration, just trial and error 
• like anything you care about or want to be good at,  study it! Read, experiment and talk about sex
• there is no shame in having desires or seeking pleasure 
• loving someone of the same gender is ok
• changing your mind about your sexual identity throughout your life is ok
• sexual identity and desire can be fluid
• gender identity can be fluid
• masturbation is safe, healthy sex
• sex toys are fun, labor-saving devices that can enhance any sexual activity
• you are beautiful

My first time... at AVN/AEE

What an amazing week we had in Las Vegas.  There was a whole lot of sexy going on this past weekend, and not just because of the AVN awards (the Oscars of porn). 

I was turned on by seeing so many amazing sex educators and sex toy innovators in one place.

At the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, Matie and I were able to meet up with sex educators and sex shop owners from around the country, discuss the industry with sex bloggers and writers, and talk ideas with hot queer porn stars and directors.  What a weekend!

We at Self Serve are building beautiful relationships with sex positive shops all over the country, and we got to hang out with folks from the Tool Shed in Milwaukee, Sugar in Baltimore, Good for Her in Toronto and Smitten Kitten in Minneapolis and Denver. 

We also enjoyed talking shop with the creators of Je Joue's G-Ki, Njoy's gorgeous stainless steel, Sex is Fun writers and podcast stars and innovators at Sliquid lubes.

It was an honor and pleasure to share brunch with queer porn stars Tina Horn, Syd Blakovich, Jiz Lee, and Directors Shine L. Houston and Courtney Trouble.  We heard about new exciting projects like QueerPorn.tv and Qtube.  Look for new glass toys from porn star Buck Angel soon, too. 

Look for interviews and panel discussion from the trade show on our blog soon.  Also check out Lynn Comella's coverage in LV Weekly.

Matie and I had lots of fun checking out the newest and coolest toys, which we'll be proudly sharing soon! 

The Pornotopia Community

It's pretty amazing how much work it is to put on a porn festival. The 3rd Annual Pornotopia Erotic Film Festival takes place in nine days according to the countdown clock on our website, and I continue to be grateful for all the individuals and organizations making Pornotopia 2009 possible.

Tickets are about to be printed, Pornotopia T-shirts are being designed, flyers are being distributed, sponsors are preparing their screen ads, all so we can enjoy a unique weekend of excellent porn on the big screen. It truly takes a village to produce a one-of-a-kind film festival. I love that our committee of volunteers includes married couples, LGBT women and men, kinksters, swingers, and people of various ages, ethnicities and backgrounds. A cross-section of sexual preferences and desires all unified in pursuing good porn and a sex-positive community.

I laugh and think of a sticker I saw yesterday on a presumably conservative car bumper: "Freedom is Not Free." I agree. Your right to go see porn on the screen of the last independent cinema in Albuquerque is hard work. More than thirty volunteers have watched good and bad porn and argued about its merit for the Pornotopia audience. The brave folks at the Guild Cinema join us at Self Serve in risking all sorts of silly zoning violations to exercise our first amendment rights. A UNM class is studying the politics of pornography, attending the festival, and even writing papers on feminist porn. The size-positive group Brickhouse Betties, which started at Self Serve, raised over $250 in support of the festival at the Curvy Carnival. Eight core volunteers have been strategizing for months on everything from showcase selections to printing and marketing. The ACLU works tirelessly to defend our constitutional rights. The staff of Self Serve and event volunteers do all sorts of organizing and coordinating with sponsors, filmmakers, vendors,and community members. Award-winning sex toy manufacturers are donating raffle items worth hundreds of dollars for our Sexy Silent Auction. Most of our featured filmmakers are donating their films and charging no rental fees. Members of Fetlife are donating time and money to help bring feminist pornographer, writer, and sex educator Tristan Taormino to Albuquerque. Local businesses support the film festival with their already-limited funds. Superstar performers Saywut, September Smith, Burlesque Noir, Gender Offenders, Eve and others are donating their time to put on spectacular live shows at Vintage & Vaudeville.



The freedom to see porn is certainly not free, and Matie and I are ever so grateful for the liberated, sexy, proud people of New Mexico exercising their right to enjoy Pornotopia. There are only a handful of erotic film festivals in the country, and we know why. It's not easy. But the people of Albuquerque have a special opportunity to take a deep breath, giggle or smile, and sit down to watch indie porn with complete strangers in nine days. In our too-often sexually repressed society, this is one freedom you don't get to exercise everyday.

If you are in the Albuquerque area and wish to join us for an exciting weekend, check all the details and film schedule online. Tickets will be available starting this weekend at Self Serve. Don't miss our kick off party November 5th, 6 pm at Self Serve. We'll celebrate indie porn, drink locally-brewed Marble beer, introduce the sexy silent auction and have a whole lot of fun. You must RSVP to attend- so sign up now!

Tristan Taormino, serendipity & a female ejaculation contest

It's exciting to me when the world feels small, and the universe seems to say, "you are exactly where you should be."

I didn't know attending a G Spot workshop would be so serendipitous and foreshadow events three or nine years later. I didn't think about the next time I would run into someone I met at that Michigan Womyn's Music Festival workshop in the woods. I didn't know I'd start a sex shop with a woman also at that workshop, a woman I wouldn't meet for another three years. I didn't have any sense that it would be nine years until I saw Tristan Taormino in person again. But there are certain times in life when you look back and it seems life shifted just then, in that moment.

In 2000, I attended and worked at Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. I was a baby (bull) dyke (in a china shop) -- a big, empty sponge- absorbing culture, music, traditions, craft, community, sex-positivity, herstory, inter-generational art and adventure. I saw first hand how positive and radical a self-created women's space can be. I loved how women from all over the world taught workshops and shared skills.

I hadn't learned much about sex toys, the g spot or female ejaculation. I had heard of Tristan Taormino, the sex writer and sex advice columnist in On Our Backs. I knew the female ejaculation workshop sounded like the sexiest workshop at Michigan, so if I could only attend one workshop as a worker -that was it. So I went.


I had no buddies beside me, and sat next to a friendly, quiet, middle-aged woman. My eyes were surely big and my world was rocked as I learned how to find a g spot and watched women learn first hand. Literally. It was so radical seeing sexy, gloved volunteers gently show women where to find their g spots. The workshop ended and then began the only female ejaculation contest I have had the pleasure to see. Women won in categories like quantity, distance and single-handed-job. The quiet woman next to me won for speed. Little did I know when I sat down next to her, but she clearly could ejaculate in 45 seconds flat. It was a talented group. The workshop was one of the most exciting experiences for me- not just the live sex demo, but the brilliance of women showing other women new ways to find pleasure. I didn't know it then, but I found my passion...

Three years later and after lots of travels, I found myself living in a share house in Lower Allston in Boston. There I met my best friend and future business partner, Matie Fricker. Sometime in the first year of getting to know each other, we figured out that she, too, was in that crowd of women at Tristan's workshop in the woods. Lo and behold, in looking through my Mich Fest photos, I found one with Matie in the crowd.

Now in 2009, Matie and I are about to host the 3rd Annual Pornotopia Film Festival and Self Serve is almost three years old. It feels like a milestone and a re-connection that Tristan Taormino is coming to be part of this year's festival. It seems the first time Matie and I unknowingly crossed paths was when we both sought out accessible, hands-on sex education with Tristan Taormino. Now we can share her brilliance with the rest of Albuquerque. Full circle.

So glad the stars aligned the way they did.

p.s. I blurred all the faces (except Tristan's) in the Michfest photo. Your secrets are safe with us...

Sex just keeps getting censored

It still ceases to amaze me. People are so very afraid of sex. Why else would there be so many censorship battles? Self Serve is just two and half years old, and we've had more than our share of brick walls, closed doors and unwanted editing. All in the name of preserving what? Some puritanical fantasy of an asexual, totally repressed world?

Why now do I bring this up? Thanks to an abundance of recent inspiration:

• A sex educator in Rhode Island is being blocked from opening the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health due to (you guessed it...) zoning issues!

• Google Checkout, of the all-amazing (and all-powerful) Google, shut down our account after a mere 48 hours of having selfservetoys linked to their shopping results.

Rhode Island deserves sexual pleasure and health!

Seriously? I keep thinking of the SNL weekend update with Amy Poehler and ... where they just get more and more astounded by the stupidity of the actual news. Well, so am I! Megan Andelloux in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, wants to open a welcoming, safe space to learn about sexuality and improve relationships. Megan Andelloux is supported by sex educators, sex therapists, the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists and all her potential business neighbors. But the city is using zoning (as usual) as an excuse to keep her from doing great work. Now she has an expensive legal battle on her hands.

What are you so afraid of, people?! I have to admit, it reminds me of the cold-hearted adult children on Grey's Anatomy last week. I was so proud of the 82-year-old character for pursuing his penile implant. Sure it's not a liver transplant, but if that man wants to enjoy his good health with a new love, that is a beautiful thing! Yet his middle-aged children were embarrassed, critical, condescending and judgmental.

Sex is healthy and pleasure is good for you. This concept is apparently still radical. What a pity.

The first time I got really mad at the all-mighty Google.

How Google felt justified closing our Checkout account is a whole other story of hypocrisy. Self Serve uses Google. We typically love Google. We use Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa, Blogger (apparently) and we were excited to start using Google Checkout. We had our web programmer lady work for hours on setting up a new Google Checkout account. I was so excited for the new visibility for our site. The account went live, and within hours we had new orders. Then within three days, Google closed our account and claim their policies do not allow the sale of adult items.

Well guess where you can find over 5 million pages of shopping results for even one vibrating item in Google Shopping results? Oh, silly me. I thought that policy was bunk since all the most gigantic online retailers seem to be selling adult toys through Google Checkout.

Hmm, how odd. Little companies like the Center for Sexual Health and Pleasure and Self Serve are fought tooth and nail for the basic right to teach healthy, happy sex education, while Amazon, Walgreens, Drugstore.com, Buy.com and others can go on undercutting prices of independent retailers and get away with ignoring Google's anti-adult policies.

Unfortunately, we're not new to this whole censorship thing...

If you are new to the world of Self Serve Sexuality Resource Center, here are a few more reasons we get fed up with censorship:

• Banks won't lend to any sex education business. Even with the economy in a slump, no SBA loans for new businesses teaching sex education. Even when we won an award for our business plan, no institutional lender would touch us. Instead, we found 9-plus amazing real people willing to help fund our start-up.
  
Four landlords in Albuquerque said no to us before we found a retail space.
Our Pornotopia independent erotic film festival is awaiting another court decision about zoning violations in 2008. We'll keep you posted as this year's festival approaches.
• We once had to fight to publish a subtle picture of a bunny when designing a $700 magazine advertisement.
Online merchant service-providers say no to adult web sites of any kind.
• After paying hundreds of dollars for insurance for over a year, our provider gave us 30 days to find a new underwriter -- because of what we sell.
• We once donated a silent auction item worth $50 to support continuing education for teen moms. The auction organizer rejected our donation. We found out only after the fundraiser.
  

So how do we cope without pulling our hair out?

Yes, of course the first obvious answer is therapeutic masturbation. But after you finish your nap- then what? The world is slowly changing, minds are opening and powers-that-be are recognizing the possibility of healthy, empowered sexuality for all. But change will not arrive without speaking out and taking action. Here are some suggestions.

• Pay attention. Speak Out. When voices are not being heard -anyone's voice- free speech is being censored. As Audre Lorde famously stated, "Your silence will not protect you."
• Support small, local and minority-owned businesses. Your money is exponentially more likely to stay in your community.
• If you believe in the right to a sex-positive life- support free speech and sex education.
• Support Megan's effort to open the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health in Pawtucket, RI. We're getting more action steps from her soon!
• Attend Pornotopia Erotic Film Festival in Albuquerque, NM!
• Support your local ACLU!