Audacia Ray's Blog, page 75

Women’s Studies Professor Isn’t Listening to Women: Sex Workers Clash with “Experts” in Rhode Island

This is cross-posted from Sex Work Awareness.

[image error] Donna Hughes, a Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Rhode Island and an outspoken opponent of the sex industry, wrote a piece for the Providence Journal called RI’s Carnival of Prostitution. In the piece, she describes a hearing in which sex workers speak out for themselves and give their perspectives on legislation to re-criminalize indoor prostitution in Rhode Island. Learn more about about what’s going on (well, sort of) from the arc

Book Review: The Masters of Sex

Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love by Thomas Maier


rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m not generally in the habit of reading biographies (exception: I’ve read all the biographies there are to read about Victoria Woodhull), because I don’t really subscribe to the “great men” approach to history (I’m somewhat more susceptible to “great women”). I’d rather read about social movements and popular culture. That said, William Maste

My Criticisms: HIV, Porn, and Reponsibility

I’ve got a guest post up at Feministing about the new HIV cases in porn valley, with some slightly harsh words about the ways that testing and prevention are thought of as the same thing, and a call to responsibility. Here are a few excerpts from the piece:

This past week it was revealed that there are some new cases of HIV within the adult industry in Los Angeles. The LA Times and LAist have both covered the story, as have adult industry media outlets AVN and Xbiz. A stunning majority of straigh

Restricted Access to Online Sexuality Info: My First Funded Research Project

This year continues to be something of a banner year for me gaining legitimacy in the world. Remember when I went from being a sex worker, blogger, and porn director to being a professor and non-profit full time job haver? Yeah, that was pretty awesome.

The latest development in the Year of Legitimacy (it deserves to be capitalized) is this:

[image error] Sex Work Awareness has been named the United States country research partner for the Exploratory Research on Internet & Sexuality (EROTICS) research project,

2010 Sex Blogger Calender: Visions of Sexual Freedom

The 2010 NYC Sex Blogger Calendar is unique in bringing together several of NYC’s writers, filmmakers and sex educators with twelve outstanding photographers and incorporating the participation of the larger sex-positive community to our efforts to support Sex Work Awareness. Last year’s calendar made the Speak Up! media training for sex workers possible and with our community’s continued support, who knows what we can accomplish this year!

In addition to sponsorship opportunities, which you c

June 5, 2009 Akimbo Week of 6/8 (International Women’s Health Coalition)

Here’s what we’ve been checking out online this week:

The blog Five Rupees has an interesting post called Advertising Sexual And Reproductive Health In Pakistan: The Touch Condom Song, with a music video for the song in question.

The BBC reports on Indian sex workers in Tamil Nadu learning karate for self defense. The 45 second video is a must-see, partly because they’ve got a great solution to the issue of sex workers having their identities revealed in the media: everyone is wearing a Spider-

My Rutgers Class So Far

I feel like I’m getting the hang of this teaching thing. It’s pretty awesome. Since I’m pretty immersed in the teaching thing plus tons of other work, here’s a photo and some of my more favorite slides, instead of a grand ole post about how it has been going.

Readings, lecture notes, and videos are here.

Akimbo Week of 6/1 (International Women’s Health Coalition)

Here’s what we’ve been checking out online this week:

Global Voices had a bunch of great posts about sexual health and reproductive rights around the world. Among our favorites were East Timor: Thoughts on Abortion A Few Days Before Law Approval and Egypt: Anti-Male Circumcision Campaign

Out.com has a really interesting feature called No Man’s Land, about gay Iranian refugees.

In response to the murder of abortion provider Dr George Tiller last weekend, a few inspiring memorial websites have crop

Carol Queen & Friends: A Sex-Positive Soiree and Reading

So, uh, I’ve been working on this piece of creative writing with the aims of making a one-woman show. You know, in my spare time.

It’s getting to the point in the draft where I need some hard nudges and it needs to start taking shape a bit more. Also, I need to take some risks with it. As much as I value transparency in my activist and collaborative projects, I am weirdly and intensely private about projects that I’m doing on my own. When I wrote Naked on the Internet, I just hunkered down and wr

Akimbo Weekly Wrap Up (International Women’s Health Coalition)

Here’s what we’ve been checking out online this week:

Nicole Heidbreder, who is on IWHC’s New Leadership Committee and is also a doula with DONA International, was featured in a short MSNBC piece about home birth and doulas as coaches.

Johns Hopkins University has launched a new website, Resources for HIV/AIDS and Sexual and Reproductive Health Integration, which provides a comprehensive knowledge base for health professionals working to integrate the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS with sex