How did you get into sexblogging?
I don’t know that I’d call myself a sexblogger, exactly; I blog about sex but I also talk about sex, write about sex, give people advice about sex, and generally focus my whole life on sex. So it’s more like my life revolves around sex and the blogging is just another way I can blather about it.
When did you become interested in becoming a sexologist?
I’ve always been interested in the background and sociology of sex; I read the entire “For Parents” shelf at the local library when I was about 8 years old and have been totally fascinated by human sexual behaviour ever since. When I found there were university programs around the world that let me study sex at a graduate level, I was overjoyed; that’s when I applied for a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to study in Perth, Australia. So in some ways I guess I have always been a sexologist, in that I’ve always studied sex…but I only finished a graduate-level degree in sexology in 2011!
Who are your inspirations?
Man. Tristan Taormino does so much in the community, both from an academic standpoint and from a sex positive standpoint. I was really impressed with Amber Dawn’s writing; she did a reading of her recent book How Poetry Saved My Life at Drawn & Quarterly here in Montreal awhile ago, and I loved the blend of clever narrative, touching poetry, and references to queer and community organizing. I’m really impressed with Audacia Ray‘s work on the Red Umbrella Project in New York. My friend, Sex Geek Andrea Zanin is always inspirational, as well: her work is so positive and informational, and she is a great person as well. And of course, the old guard: Annie Sprinkle, Nina Hartley, Carol Queen.
What lead you to relocating to Montreal?
A series of things! I had just returned from Australia and wanted to settle in Canada instead of returning to the United States, which is where I was living before I left North America. I had a lot of friends in Montreal, it’s a hotbed of social justice work and community organizing, and the francophone community in particular is very welcoming to the study of human sexuality—UdeM has a Masters of Sexologie program that I briefly looked into. The cost of living is also very low here, so all of that combined into making Montreal an excellent place to base myself!
Have you had any resolution to the difficulties you experienced at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality’s Sexual Attitudes Reassessment conference?
Not really. I sent a letter to the head of the Institute, well-known old guard sexologist Dr. Ted McIlvenna, about my concerns, and he basically dismissed them as being unwelcome. He minimized my concerns about racism and the age of the materials being presented, and didn’t even mention my concerns about consent. I’m making plans with some other sex-positive activists and sexologists who feel similarly to me to try and develop a SAR program that we feel provides a balanced, intersectional experience that encourages sex educators and those in the field of sexology to think holistically about their professional lives. So hopefully we will be getting that off the ground sooner rather than later.
In what areas are our sexual politics conversations generally lacking?
I feel like a lot of conversations about sexual politics ignore intersectionality, which is a huge problem for me. Intersectionality is the idea of everything social justice-y being sort of related—that you can’t discuss issues of sexual rights without addressing how those rights might be experienced differently by people of colour or by trans* people or by people of different socioeconomic status. Ignoring those aspects of people’s sexual expressions is denying people’s ability to express themselves fully, healthily, and safely. I’ve heard a lot from queer PoC, for example, that they feel really unwelcome in “traditional” LGBTQ clubs or meeting spaces, because there is not a lot of effort to include racial issues. Same with discussions of feminism: some WoC have taken on the term “womanism” to distinguish themselves from the white feminist subculture, which is often very dismissive of PoC issues.
And in what areas are we currently making good progress?
I feel like we’re really making good headway on normalizing and feminizing and queering pornography. Having seen some really great revolutions in independent pornography, and with Cindy Gallop’s MakeLoveNotPorn.tv drawing more and more viewers, I really feel like pornography is losing the stigma…and that mainstream pornography is losing its grip on how sexual expression is allowed to be portrayed. Maybe that’s just the people I hang out with, though! Maybe it just seems normal to us.
The second Montreal Masturbate-a-thon is already in the works! How did the first one go and what can we expect with the second cumming?
The first one was FANTASTIC, it far exceeded our expectations for attendees and positive quality of the event overall! We had about 60 watchers and wankers by the end of the evening, and raised a large chunk of money for Head & Hands, the charity we donated to. We also started the Sexploreum project, an adult play experience that I am working on with Cameryn Moore, designed to help people find more fun in their sexuality. The second one is mostly a response to the overwhelming requests for another Masturbate-a-Thon! Since this one is at the beginning of December, we wanted to give it a holiday theme and call it Happy Wankmas. We’ll probably try to donate to a new organization this time, to spread the (self) love around a little bit.
What else can we expect from you in the future?
Well, as I mentioned above, I’m working on developing a SAR that focuses more on intersectionality and social justice aspects of sexuality: trans* rights, slutwalks, victim blaming, and issues around colonialism and patriarchy impacting on ability to consent would all be stellar topics for what I have in mind. I’m also continuing to write for Nerve pretty regularly and have been vaguely considering pulling together a book of nonfiction essays about sexuality, if I can get the pitch organized! I’m also looking forward to working on and producing more episodes of my fledgling podcast 7to13, which I’ve only done one show of so far. This is a really exciting time to work in the field of sexology, so I’m really stoked to see what could happen next!
