I’m a porn performer. I’m out as a sex worker in pretty much all areas of my life, but up till about a year and a half ago I was fairly quiet about the specifics of my sex work. That’s been changing for me as of late, as I’ve been performing in porn that means a lot to my politics and personal ethics (as well as my pocketbook).

I could say a lot about my work in the porn industry in this post — what I get out of it, why I keep doing it — and perhaps I’ll write about all of that at some later point. But what I want to note here in this post is that I’m very privileged to be as out as I am about my work in the porn industry, and to have performed in pornography that links back to my real name and indentity. I’m very deliberate about that choice, and it was a decision I came to after a lot of thought: The way I see it, people can’t “dig up dirt on me” if I’m already out and proud about being, well, dirty.

This choice absolutely limits some of my work/career choices down the line, especially in the academic/teaching sphere. I’m currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing, with a correlative in teaching, and a hope to some day teach at a university level. However, I’m honestly not as concerned about the “limitation” factor of being out about my porn work as I would be about having to hide a big part of my identity. The way I see it, if a particular school’s Creative Writing Department would have an issue with my work in the porn industry, or my work in the sex industry in general… Well, then they’d probably also have an issue with me teaching a writing class for sex workers and working at a clinic for sex workers and being a pervert and writing porn & erotica, and they’d probably have issues with sex workers in general, and you know what? Then that’s probably not a department I want to be teaching in.

I don’t blog super-frequently about my porn industry experiences here. I usually tweet more about porn than I blog about it. This is mostly because my work in the porn industry (like that of many folks who perform in porn, especially those of us performing primarily in queer & indie porn) waxes & wanes. I’ve had months where I’ve done 4 shoots in a week, and I’ve had months where the Porn Well has been completely dry (so to speak). My tendency is to tweet about shoots “on the go” as they happen, and then slack on doing further publicity till the footage comes out months (or sometimes years) later.

But in any event: Several porn movies I’ve shot over the past couple years are finally seeing the light of day, and I’m feeling excited about this and want to tell you about them.

Note to platonic friends, family members, and others who don’t want to watch me having sex: All trailers & links feature explicit sexual footage. You have been warned. ;)

First off, Doing It Ourselves: The Trans Women Porn Project (which I blogged about when it first came out a year ago) finally has a trailer up on the internet! DIO is also available for purchase at various locations, including but not limited to directly from Handbasket Productions.

To steal from the back of the DVD:

“Doing it Ourselves is a hot collection of trans women and their partners of all genders engaging in sex the way they want to be represented.  Starting with a group of trans women who are tired of the way that they have seen trans women portrayed in porn, this film tells the story of its own creation when they decide to, well, do it themselves.”

I think this trailer is beautiful, and I’m very proud of both my sex scene (with the amazing Tobi Hill-Meyer) & my interview for this film. Take a look:

Secondly, The Genderfellator (a very silly, campy, sci-fi porno parody of The Gendercator) has a trailer up and will be available for purchase over at Handbasket Productions very soon. The Genderfellator just won an Honorable Mention at the Feminist Porn Awards (DIO also won an FPA in 2010!), so I’m especially excited to have a role in it. In this film, I play (I am not kidding) an Evil President who gets the revolutionary furvor fucked back into her (by the very dreamy Texas). Performing in The Genderfellator is pretty much the campiest thing I have ever done. (And I have done many campy things in my life. So that is saying a lot.)

Thirdly, GUSH: The Official Guide to the G-Spot & Female Ejaculation* is out, and I’ve got a scene in that (with porno newbie Altair Shadow — it was hir first scene, what an honor for me!) that I am stoked to finally get to see. :) The cast & crew are having a release party at the Roxie Cinema on May 5th, so if you are local, you should come out. I’ll even sign your DVD!

Also, amusing GUSH notes: 1) I went to college with Mirabelle Hayes (one of the lovely starlets who is featured in the film) and 2) I went to high school with one of the owners of The Roxie. So this will be a weirdly nostalgic porn screening for me. Also, I was bemused to find a picture of my tits up on FleshBot last week as a part of the GUSH promo — 38,000 views? Jebus!!!

* Foxy folx, what are some alternative words/phrases for what is commonly referred to as “female ejaculation” that don’t specifically gender the act? The term “female ejaculation” has always bugged me for that reason — plenty of men and genderqueers and non-binary-id’ed folks have g-spots and can ejaculate that way, you know (not to mention that plenty of trans women “female ejaculate,” just in a different way)? All I can think of is just referring to ejaculating, squirting, coming, etc… but I’m wondering if other folks have other words/ideas. I’d love to hear so if you do. Thanxxx!

Hello & happy Pride, lovely peoples!

“Girl Talk: A Cis and Trans Woman Dialogue” is in SEVEN DAYS, ohmygod! I am so unbelievably proud to have created this event, to co-curate & co-host with the phenomenally brilliant Julia Serano (www.juliaserano.com, check it!), and to perform again this year. It was a truly amazing night last year, and I have no doubt it will be equally awesome this time around. Please come out for this show, and please forward this announcement far & wide. (Full show details & cast list are below the asterisks at the bottom of this letter…)

Girl Talk: A Cis and Trans Woman Dialogue
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
7:30pm - 9:30pm
S.F. LGBT Community Center - Ceremonial Room
1800 Market Street
Tickets: $12-$20
Buy Tickets On-line!: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/111553
More info here: http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest10/GirlTalk.html

Queer cisgender women and queer transgender women are allies, friends, support systems, lovers, and partners to each other. Trans and cis women are allies to each other every day — from activism that includes everything from Take Back the Night to Camp Trans; to supporting each other in having “othered” bodies in a world that is obsessed with idealized body types; to loving, having sex, and building family with each other in a world that wants us to disappear. Girl Talk is a spoken word show fostering and promoting dialogue about these relationships. Trans and cis women will read about their relationships of all kinds – sexual and romantic, chosen and blood family, friendships, support networks, activist alliances. Join us for a night of stories about sex, bodies, feminism, activism, challenging exclusion in masculine-centric dyke spaces, dating and breaking up, finding each other, and finding love and family.

Some notes about Girl Talk:
1) I would *highly* recommend that you get tix in advance — the room was *packed* last year, and it is very likely we will sell out.
2) We have a nobody turned away for lack of funds policy. If you can afford to pay full price, *please do*, because that money goes directly towards paying our artists. But we want you in the audience no matter what — remember that!
3) In the long term: I am actively interested in taking this show on tour in some form, and would love to talk to people about ways to make that happen. Wanna bring us to your community center or campus? Write to me, please!

Other exciting announcements (Doing It Ourselves and the St. James Infirmary)!:

1) Doing It Ourselves: The Trans Women Porn Project:

My brilliant friend & ex, Tobi Hill-Meyer (www.handbasketproductions.com, check it!), recently won a Feminist Porn Award for her first film, Doing It Ourselves: The Trans Women Porn Project. To steal from the back of the DVD: “Doing it Ourselves is a hot collection of trans women and their partners of all genders engaging in sex the way they want to be represented.  Starting with a group of trans women who are tired of the way that they have seen trans women portrayed in porn, this film tells the story of its own creation when they decide to, well, do it themselves.”

I’ve got both an explicit sex scene in DOI (as in, you will see me having sex on camera, platonic friends) and an interview in the film. I’m out as a sex worker in pretty much all areas of my life, but up till recently I’ve been fairly quiet about the specifics of my sex work That’s been changing a bit for me as of late — I’ve been performing in porn that means a lot to both my politics and personal ethics (as opposed to just my pocketbook). I made the conscious choice to use my real name for DOI because the project hit so close to home for me. I want to be out about my performance, and I want to hear what you think about the film.

Many of you have written to me to ask me how to get a copy of DOI. So, here’s a link:
http://www.handbasketproductions.com/video/doingitourselves.htm

Tobi is also hosting screenings all over the West Coast this summer (check her website for details), and she and I are hosting the San Francisco screening together in July (more information about that soon — stay tuned!).

2) St. James Infirmary:

Switching gears slightly: I am pleased as punch to announce that I’ve recently been hired as the Grants Development Coordinator at the St. James Infirmary, the nation’s only occupational health clinic for current & former sex workers! (You can read more about my awesome workplace here: http://stjamesinfirmary.org/)

In addition to being psyched to announce my sweet new gig, I also wanted to let folks know that SJI is actively looking for volunteers over San Francisco Pride weekend (June 26-27, esp. Pride Sunday). If any of you want to pitch in on behalf of sex worker community, even for just an hour or two, it would be greatly appreciated. Please email me with your name and contact info (a telephone number is best) at develop@stjamesinfirmary.org if you’d like to help out over SF Pride.

Whew, that was a whole lot! Happy Sexy Gay Month, folx. I hope you’re all splendid.

xxx,
Gina de Vries

*****

Girl Talk: A Cis and Trans Woman Dialogue
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
7:30pm - 9:30pm
S.F. LGBT Community Center - Ceremonial Room
1800 Market Street
Tickets: $12-$20
Buy Tickets On-line!: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/111553
More info here: http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest10/GirlTalk.html

Queer cisgender women and queer transgender women are allies, friends, support systems, lovers, and partners to each other. Trans and cis women are allies to each other every day — from activism that includes everything from Take Back the Night to Camp Trans; to supporting each other in having “othered” bodies in a world that is obsessed with idealized body types; to loving, having sex, and building family with each other in a world that wants us to disappear. Girl Talk is a spoken word show fostering and promoting dialogue about these relationships. Trans and cis women will read about their relationships of all kinds – sexual and romantic, chosen and blood family, friendships, support networks, activist alliances. Join us for a night of stories about sex, bodies, feminism, activism, challenging exclusion in masculine-centric dyke spaces, dating and breaking up, finding each other, and finding love and family.

CAST BIOS:

D. Rita Alfonso teaches LGBT and Queer Studies at UC Berkeley, and offers LGBT seminars to the queer public under the rubric of www.LGBTStudies.ning.com. Photography is another of her passions, and you will often see her about town documenting queer and trans events and performers; her photography can be found at dralfonsophotography.com.

Ryka Aoki de la Cruz is a poet, performer, and composer who has been honored by the California State Senate for creating Trans/Giving, LA’s only art/performance series dedicated to trans, genderqueer, and intersex artists. Ryka’s long poem “Sometimes Too Hot the Eye of Heaven Shines” has won RADAR Productions’ first Eli Coppola Memorial Chapbook Contest, and is forthcoming from Inconvenient Press. Her current project is Trans Office Hours, which matches trans-identified professors with trans-identified students entering or re-entering college. Ryka has a third-degree black belt in Kodokan Judo and is a professor of English at Santa Monica College.

Daughter and granddaughter of anarchist feminists, Danielle Askini is a feisty high femme hailing from all over. A queer activist since the womb, Danielle grew up doing battle with big boys—and winning. As a Trans activist Danielle has focused her work on creating safe schools, depathologizing trans and femme identities, and liberating health care for all people. Her writings have included “Social Work or Sex Work?” a critical examination of class inequality in social work education, and “Gender Refugee” a chapbook of poems and essays on gender transition and migration. She is fluent in Dutch and working hard on Swedish. Stockholm is her second home.

Meliza Bañales aka Missy Fuego writes books, sews clothes, and makes movies. She has toured with Sister Spit: The Next Generation and Body Heat: The Femme Porn Tour. She is currently working on a spoken-word album with Crunks Not Dead Records and another collection of short stories, Life Is Wonderful, People Are Terrific. She makes art in San Francisco.

Annie Danger is a fierce and fearsome performer. Raised in the desert by a pack of drag queen werewolves who were themselves a litter produced by Leigh Bowery, Marina Abramovic, and Andy Kaufman, Ms. Danger wants nothing more than your allegiance to the tenets of your own thoughtful ethics and a sturdy but flexible sense of humor. She is a transsexual woman who lives and loves in the San Francisco Bay area mostly. You can find out more at:www.anniedanger.webs.com

Gina de Vries is a queer cissexual femme woman, a Paisan pervert, and a writer, performer, and activist with a long history doing political organizing in and with queer, trans, and sex worker communities. As an activist, she is especially interested in the intersections of intersex, trans, reproductive justice, sex worker, multi-cultural, cross-class, and disability activism; and using art, writing, and performance as political tools. Gina’s writing has appeared dozens of places, from the academic to the pornographic – recent publications include Issue #4 of Bound to Struggle: Where Kink and Radical Politics Meet, Girl Crush, and The Revolution Starts at Home. Gina has performed, taught, and lectured everywhere from chapels to leatherbar backrooms; recent university appearances include Harvard University and Yale University. She is the founder and facilitator of Sex Workers’ Writing Workshop, a writing class for current and former sex workers at San Francisco’s Center for Sex & Culture (where she also serves on the Advisory Board). And, she’s currently pursuing her MFA in Fiction Writing at San Francisco State University. She likes glitter, the color fuchsia, leopard print, and political discussion as foreplay. Find out more at queershoulder.tumblr.com.

Zarah Ersoff is a queer musicologist, Southern dyke, teacher and activist. She divides her time in academia between exposing college students to the pleasures of camp, codes and concealment in LGBT popular music, and writing about the relationship between same-sex desire and colonialism in 19th-century French music. Originally from Winston-Salem, NC (illustrious home of Krispy Kreme donuts and Camel cigarettes), she now enjoys living richly without riches in Los Angeles with her lovely and talented partner Lauren Steely.

Julia Serano is an Oakland-based writer, performer and trans activist. She is the author of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (Seal Press, 2007), a collection of personal essays that reveal how misogyny frames popular assumptions about femininity and shapes many of the myths and misconceptions people have about transsexual women. Julia’s other writings have appeared in anthologies (including BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine, Word Warriors: 30 Leaders in the Women’s Spoken Word Movement, and Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape), in feminist, queer, pop culture and literary magazines and websites (such as Bitch, AlterNet.org, Out, Feministing.com, Clamor, Kitchen Sink, make/shift, other, LiP and Transgender Tapestry), and have been used as teaching materials in gender studies, queer studies, psychology and human sexuality courses in colleges across North America. For more information about all of her creative endeavors, check out www.juliaserano.com.

E. Rose Sims, a Filipina-Ashkenazic mixed-class trans dyke mestiza, is a writer, religion scholar, medic, and survivor from rural Oregon. Dedicated to the projects of media justice, radical love, and community building, she writes online as “little light” at http://takingsteps.blogspot.com and elsewhere, serves on the advisory board of the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, and was a charter member of the Speak! Radical Women of Color Media Collective. She has recently performed with such diverse organizations as Detroit’s Allied Media Project, Seattle’s TumbleMe Productions, the National Queer Arts Festival, and the Bay’s own Mangos With Chili. Her writing has found its way everywhere from law school classrooms and academic conferences to bathroom mirrors and protest marches. Rose is currently busy being in good stories and getting preachy in Portland, Oregon, and is moving down to the East Bay this fall; she carries a pen, her ancestors, and the mismatched ID of a citizen of the borderlands with her at all times.

***This event received a Creating Queer Community Commission from Queer Cultural Center funded through the San Francisco Foundation.***

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ginadevries.com /// queershoulder.tumblr.com