This week’s podcast features activist and journalist Ashlee Marie Preston. Ashlee is the first openly trans person to run for state office in California, as well as the first trans person to become editor-in-chief of a nationwide publication. Ashlee and Liz talk about how tattoos have been a source of empowerment for her; life as a survival sex worker; abstinence and how transitioning, by its very definition, doesn’t follow a linear path.
This week’s guest is Alice Little—likely the top earning legal sex worker in America, where she isthe #1 luxury companion at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Nevada. Alice holds degrees in psychology, sociology, physiology, and anatomy and is an advocate for legalized sex work and education. Alice and Liz talk about the logistics of legalized sex work, from licenses to law enforcement; the cornucopia of services she offers and clients she sees, and why we need to take down the whorearchy. Liz also asked her for tips on some of the most requested topics from the Sex Ed community!
A practitioner of BDSM, Mistress Velvet often made their straight, white male clients read and write essays about Black feminist theory. In 2019, Liz spoke with Mistress Velvet about the “whorearchy,” their post-work self care routine, why sex workers are being excluded from traditional sex ed, and how their academic studies have overlapped with their professional life.
This week, our guest is Midori, legendary sex educator, author and artist. Midori wrote the classic rope bible, The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage— the first English-language book on shibari. Liz and Midori cover bondage’s roots in warfare, incarceration and slavery as well as why, when tying up a lover for the first time, it’s important to maintain eye contact.
Dita Von Teese is known as The Queen of Burlesque. She re-popularized the art form in the 90s and remains its most well-known performer. She is also an author, model and designer. In this episode, real life bosom buddies Liz and Dita chat about the first time she discovered kink, how working strip clubs can prepare you for the real world and the unbridled joy of taking a pie to the face. Follow Dita @DitaVonTeese. To see more Dita, visit TheSexEd.com for a talk we had at The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
Lexington Steele is one of the most well-known male adult film stars in the world. Lex is a hall of fame porn-star with three AVN Performer of the Year Awards—basically the Best Actor Oscar for porn—and he’s still going strong today, two decades into his career.
Nina Hartley is a world-famous adult film actress, director, author, and educator. She first achieved mainstream recognition in the 80s and 90s for promoting sex-positive feminism. In this interview, we discuss Nina’s early training as a Registered Nurse, feminism in the 1970s, and sex as an artistic medium. You can find Nina at her website, nina.live and follow her on Twitter where she’s @ninaland. Watch a video here of a talk we had at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
Catherine was involved in sex work from a very young age, at her family’s direction. Catherine talks about the life of a young sex worker, the sacrifices that she made for her family, and her journey out of alcohol addiction.
Riley Reid is an adult award-winning superstar whose videos have been viewed over a billion times on PornHub. In this week’s episode, Riley and Liz talk about being the CEO of a porn brand with major millennial appeal; how YouTube is giving her a crossover fan base; porn and safe sex in the time of COVID-19; why she likes “vanilla” sex off camera and what she is learning about intimacy.
This book redresses the balance, revealing the history of the sex trade through the eyes of sex workers. These tales are brought to life by Whores of Yore creator Kate Lister’s witty and authoritative text, and illuminated by a rich archive of photographs, artworks, and objects offering insight into sex workers’ lives, challenging assumptions about this age-old trade.
Assuming the Ecosexual Position tells of childhood moments that pointed to a future of ecosexuality; how the two came together as lovers and collaborators, how they took a stand against homophobia and xenophobia, and how this union led to the miraculous conception of the Love Art Laboratory.
A Curious History of Sex covers topics ranging from twentieth-century testicle thefts to Victorian doctors massaging the pelvises of their female patients, from smutty bread innuendos dating back to AD 79, to the new and controversial sex doll brothels. Podcast guest Kate Lister deftly debunks myths and stereotypes and gives unusual sexual practices a historical framework, as she provides valuable context for issues facing people today.
After earning a good living by stripping and working as a dominatrix at a sex dungeon, Asa Akira built up a reputation for being one of the most popular, hardworking, and extreme actors in the porn business, winning dozens of awards for her 330+ movies. In a wry, conversational tone, she talks about her experiences shoplifting and doing drugs while in school, her relationship with other porn stars (she is married to one) and with the industry at large, and her beliefs about women and sexuality.
The sequel to Insatiable is a new book about turning thirty in the adult film trade. Internationally known as a porn star, Asa Akira's perceptive, funny, and straightforward writings on love, sex, death, marriage and celebrity come together in a surprising book of essays. Personally revealing as well as universal, Dirty Thirty marks the coming of age of a new literary star.
Revealing the performance art's glamorous gemini sensibility, Von Teese builds equally compelling cases for both the naughty and nice sides of burlesque. You'll grow to enjoy both the sweet taste of the tradition's sugar and the sting of its vixen-sprinkled spice.
Widely considered for a cross section of Americans spanning multiple generations the "People's Poet Laureate", Angelou's "And Still I Rise" declare's a brazen resilience, located not only within herself, but within any and all women bold enough to summon it.
Ecstatic pleasure, consensual pain, and awe-inducing precision: traditional Japanese rope bondage is not for the faint of heart or short on time. That said, those up for the challenge will find Midori's tour of this storied tradition as mesmerizing as it is thoroughly informative.
A lady never kisses and tells. A "hustler"—by contrast—is likely to spill several juicy beans, as Bowers does within this behind the screens peak at the Hollywood Golden Era's most elicit sexcapades. Odds are 5 to 1 that the only thing dropping faster than a world-famous matinee idol's trousers will be your jaw.
Lifetimes before matching a "right swipe" provided listless men with the opportunity for casual coitus, Los Angeles' brothels and bordellos thrived amid a Hollywood that was yet to fully form. Our site's own Madame, Liz Goldwyn constructs a fiction (based largely on actual events encountered within her extensive research) of flop houses, feathered lamps, and fast cash for love. This was how the West was done.
Temperatures rise and complexions grow flushed within these bawdy, Victorian tales of the erotic. Potentially hyperbolic flourishes hint at tinges of satire, but only for the purpose of spicing pleasure with giggles.
Wanna play in the big leagues? Ya gotta learn from a "Pro". Nina Hartley has "been there and done that" (both figuratively and literally) and in the process has compiled this encyclopedia of so-good-ya-gotta-try-it sex. Let no stone be left unturned (on).
Bataille considers—rather controversially—eroticism as it manifests in life, death, and all in between. Along the way, he dares to view war, mythology, and economies through his iconoclastically sex-centric lens.
When sex is not only political but also professional in nature, virtually nothing remains off limits. This snapshot of a male sex worker's days and nights spent on LA's gritty, 1970's streets leaves little to the imagination and few questions unasked (even if some remain unanswered).
Three tales of isolation frame legendary storyteller Kawabata's narrative exploration of sex as it effects the human condition. Though Japanese in their cultural contextualization, these glimpses into the expanses of sensuality prove universal in their unearthing of desire's hidden complexities.
