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From Stephen Elliott
Writer, performer, educator, and activist David Henry Sterry talks about the deep cultural roots of shame associated with the American sex industry, and how freeing it can be to bleed out the truth about our lives as buyers and sellers of sex.
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Antonia Crane sits down with sex blogger and erotica writer Lady Cheeky for an interview about her journey to passion, positive body image, and orgasm via True Blood.
...moreIf you didn’t catch them already, you’ll want to see the two awesome features we ran this weekend.
First, Antonia Crane interviews Jill Soloway, writer, producer, and director, about her film Afternoon Delight, which earned her the US Dramatic Directing Award at Sundance.
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Years later, Bombay is still fresh in my mind and in my bones. As a visitor, I was naïve and lost. When I hear bells, I still see statues of Ganesh in a cool, stone temple and smell sandalwood incense.
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Daphne Gottlieb talks about Dear Dawn, a collection of letters written by Aileen Wuornos to her childhood friend from prison prior to her execution in 2002 .
...moreRumpus columnist Antonia Crane has a piece up at Salon about the curse/blessing of being a stripper with thick legs.
A preview:
...moreWe’d done this before, dancing for a week in Hawaii and making piles of cash. My goal was to pay my student loans; Trixie’s was her credit card debt.
I was dying to interview Oriana Small about her porno memoir Girlvert.
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Every Halloween, the ghost of my 11 year-old self haunts me. She’s in the candy aisle at Rite Aid gorging on fun-size Twix bars. She’s wrapping candy corn lights around her neck. She’s trying on a vampire costume grinning through plastic fangs with a scraggly black wig in her eyes.
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I didn’t analyze production levels or consider marketing strategies. I didn’t say to myself, “Tonight you’re going to get with the jack-off program.” I was a dime-a-dozen girl doing a customer service job, and that job demanded more and more of me whether I liked it or not.
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Remember how MetaFilter linked to Antonia Crane’s “Paying to Play: Interview with a John”?
The piece inspired an interesting conversation that’s still going down over there. Check it out?
“I think part of what makes this piece successful is that both Antonia and Max engage difficult ethical questions without presuming to answer those questions.”
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To use a tennis analogy, I played all four corners in an attempt to interview clients. I hit up escort friends of mine with long-terms regulars, old clients who were articulate and thoughtful and guys I’d never met who had contacted me with sex work-related questions.
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The Polk Inn stood out in the tenderloin because of all the beige and glass next to junkies selling stolen bicycles and gizmos out front.
...moreLos Angeles centered, quarterly literary journal Slake is on its fourth publication. The “Dirt” themed issue features work from an array of talented writers including Lauren Groff, Luke Davies, Aimee Bender, Rumpus contributor Melissa Chadburn and columnist Antonia Crane.
...moreAt ZYZZYVA, Rumpus columnist Antonia Crane interviews Cheryl Strayed about Wild, rebuilding, Sugar, and more.
“I bring a lot of the wisdom I gained on my hike into the “Dear Sugar” column. The most important one is that we always have a choice about which direction to go—forward or back—and that no matter what happens, we must always keep walking.”
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In 2010, in New Orleans, thousands of Saints fans danced wildly in the streets in black and gold jerseys and ribbons, blowing horns and smacking tambourines. I commuted from LA to New Orleans to dance at Penthouse Club during the playoffs and arrived to work early to watch the game at the bar with the other dancers.
Mardi Gras was uncharacteristically dismal in 2010. I met a group of curvaceous, saucy strippers at 10 a.m. on Bourbon Street, where the air was thick with pizza and Red Bull vomit, 24-hour margarita shops and hot dog stands.
Rumpus contributor and wordsmith extraordinaire, Antonia Crane will be at tomorrow’s RADAR reading series event. She will be featured during The Hot Probs segment, in which she will alleviate all of your qualms and life problems with her best advice.
When and where: The Luggage Store, 1007 Market Street, Wednesday, May 11th, 7 pm
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[Editor's note: Some photos NSFW.]
I write between clients. There’s a yellow wall behind me, and fuzzy leopard print pillows on the floor.
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A Conversation with Cheryl Strayed, who is against sex work, and Antonia Crane who agitates for sex worker rights, about sex work and feminism.
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This is a response for Bedelia, who commented profusely about sex work, house moms, and her experience as a hooker for ten years on an earlier piece I wrote for The Rumpus.
...moreRumpus Radio Episode 6, Antonia Crane
We talk about sex in memoirs, what makes good personal writing, and the time she took me home from the airport handcuffed and hooded beneath a blanket in the back seat of her car. Direct download.
...moreYesterday’s essay by Antonia Crane: The Man I Gave a Hand Job in West Hollywood Will Surely Blow His Brains Out Before I See Him Again.
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Hey, if you haven’t had the chance to take a look at all the stuff Rumpus Books has been up to lately, you should probably do that now.
The Romanian is an enthralling memoir about Benderson’s consuming affair with a male hustler he encountered in Budapest, while doing research. I wondered about that timeless troll, desire, and how it has the power to dunk one’s entire world into chaos or turn a hillside into a sublime, electric lightshow.
This week, Rumpus Books reviewed three novels and a collection of poems. Come read!
I met Mandy Morbid while working at Cheetahs in Hollywood, a bikini bar that attracts broke slackers with a soft spot for suicide girls and strippers who don’t think they’re strippers.
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