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Annie Sprinkle
Love Artist
Annie Sprinkle
requires no introduction. She’s been the queen of adult entertainment
since the term was coined. From live sex shows in Times Square to her
current incarnation as a “Love Artist,” Ms. Sprinkle has been on the
forefront of erotica, pioneering every exciting new permutation of
porn—feminist porn, educational porn, female-to-male transsexual porn,
art porn—up until the present with her most recent contribution:
“cancer porn.” She has charmed and alarmed and basically done her
damnedest to wake people up to the thrill of their own sexual powers.
In between her art projects, educational lectures and extensive
travels, Annie had a few moments to fill us in on what she’s up to
these days.
ErosZine: You've had just about the longest career in "adult
entertainment" of anyone. Do you still consider yourself to be in the
biz?
Annie Sprinkle: Yes, I'm still in the biz. Basically I make my living
as an artist. But my art projects are often about sex and I still
promote some of my old sex films, recycled and redone. I have a new
release of my “Annie Sprinkle's Herstory of Porn” DVD. You can see a
trailer of it that I just put up on my web site, anniesprinkle.org, in
the shop. It's my film diary of 30 years of making sex films and it’s
one of a kind. I’ve added new features, like a chat with film scholar
Linda Williams about porn, and some clips from my performances. Plus a
film I made which no one has seen before called Art of the Loop. It's
clips from old 8mm loops—all kinds of loops—which I just love. Our
erotic heritage! In spades. It's quite nice. Also, I just taught a
workshop, How To Cure Sex Worker Burn Out, for sex workers. I do other
workshops, like Ecstasy Breathing. I’m very involved in whore culture
and whore politics. However I don't have sex with the public any more.
So I'm sort of an "alternative sex worker"—a post modern sex worker.
EZ: You've got a Ph.D. now! What was that journey like for you?
AS: I like having a Ph.D. It makes me feel a little more accomplished.
But I don’t think it has changed much, if at all, in terms of my work
or life. It just made me feel good to get it. And I liked learning more
about sexuality. There's always more to learn about sex. It's the best
topic in the world. My parents were both educators. I believe in
education—teaching and learning—especially about sex.
EZ: You've also got a recent book out, Dr. Sprinkle's Spectacular Sex.
I suppose the answer is obvious, but how is it different from all the
other sex books out there?
AS: My book is a sex life make-over book. It's for anyone that wants to
make changes in their sex lives. Transform themselves. I help people
find what works best for them and teach them how to create it. It my
life's work in a book. There are two excellent chapters on orgasm, as
well. I'm all about learning and teaching about orgasm.
EZ: You're calling yourself a "love artist" these days. How did you come up with that?
AS: I fell madly in love. Suddenly I was really fascinated with love.
Sex is under the larger umbrella of love. When the war broke out, amid
seeing how much violence and hatred and prejudice there is in the
world, my partner and I wanted to do something. So we decided to
generate lots of love. We have committed to doing seven years of art
projects about love. It’s a wonderful project, which I'm really
enjoying. People can go to our web site and see the documentation of
our projects. www.loveartlab.org.
EZ: And how does it differ/improve upon your previous incarnation as a Post Porn Modernist?
AS: "Post Porn Modernist" was really about moving from porn to art, in
my life, and trying to create a genre of sexually explicit stuff that
was arty and provocative in new ways. That was then, love artist is
now. Love artist can certainly include Post Porn Modernist. I'm still a
post porn modernist, and still make porn and erotica. On loveartlab.org
there are some new photos of me with my lover, called Hairotica 1 and
Hairotica 2. When I got breast cancer nine months ago, we eroticized
the experience of losing my hair when I started chemo. As far as I
know, it’s the first and only cancer porn out there. I like starting
new genres and expanding ideas of what porn and erotica is. Fun, fun,
fun! And needed. I helped pioneer feminist porn, edu-porn, F2M
transsexual porn, art porn…and I'm proud of that.
By the way, I'm all through with the breast cancer treatments. I did
chemo and radiation and am now good as new, with short hair for the
moment. It was quite an adventure. I got to keep my boobs, thankfully.
If I had to get cancer, I was very happy it was breast cancer, because
that ties in with all the boob-oriented projects I've done for decades.
EZ: It's pretty fucking brave to put a visual diary of your chemo
online. You even look like, well, like you're having a good time. Which
is inspiring as hell. At the very least, you're making the best of a
bad situation and possibly taking some of the scariness out of it for
other women. How have you been doing it?
AS: Yes, we did actually have fun with it. It was a very interesting
and exciting experience, the whole cancer thing. Fortunately I had
great doctors, great friends, great support and a great partner. Health
insurance was good, too, as well as a shaman, therapist, acupuncturist,
herbalist, etc.
EZ: And putting up photos of your actual surgery! I gotta say, you have
an uncanny ability to make just about EVERYTHING happy and fun!
AZ: Yes, why not? Everything can be fun if you let it be. Sometimes it
was difficult being so chemically altered with chemo, but still it was
interesting. And making art projects out of difficult things really
helps make it fun and much more doable.
EZ: How do you come up with all those art projects? You must be incubating new ideas every second!
AS: Funny you think so. The trick is finding time to do all the things
I want to do. Ideas are many. I also try and go see other artists and
performers I like. I saw an amazing porn art film by one of my favorite
artists, Marina Abromovic. Google her, she's brilliant. And watching
her film opened up some new possibilities, new doorways. She's drop
dead magnificent. So is Linda Montano, one of my favorite artists.
There are great people out there doing great things. I get inspired by
others too.
EZ: Your Free Sidewalk Sex Clinic is a great idea! Do you plan to keep doing it in other cities?
AS: Yes, we will do it in more cities. Next stop Austin, Texas. People
can go to anniesprinkle.org and check my calendar to see if I'm coming
to their town. The clinics are really fun. We love to do them. People
really enjoy them and benefit from them. There are photos of two
clinics on loveartlab.org. All kinds of people off the street come, sit
down and ask us all kinds of questions.
EZ: How is year two going of your project going so far? I've been loving ORANGE these days myself!
AS: We will be doing an all orange wedding in San Francisco on July
2nd. It will be telecast live online at our site, loveartlab.org, so
people can tune in. I sort of feel like that’s when the orange year
really starts. We’re doing a wedding once a year in a different color.
We've been very focused on a theater piece called Exposed: Experiments
in Love, Sex, Death and Art. We tour it. There’s a hot scene of us
under the covers in a bed onstage where we use a special camera to film
in the dark.
EZ: What new art pieces and projects do you have in mind for the Creativity & Sexuality year?
AS: We are pretty focused on the show, Exposed and our wedding. Both have sex and creative elements.
EZ: Anything you're feeling particularly passionate about today?
AS: I'm most passionate about Exposed. It's basically our love story. I
also love to cook and clean, and make love for hours. I'm all about
making love. It’s a classic case of a porn star/prostitute having a
secret fantasy of being madly in love and being a full-time housewife,
doing nothing but pleasing her beloved. That’s the fantasy I’m living.
I've been very happy with my life along the way and I'm extremely happy
and fulfilled right now. Living all my dreams. I just wish I had more
hours in a day. Life is going just a bit too fast.
I invite all readers of this to visit my two web sites and check out
what I'm up to. If you’re interested, please invite me to your town!
I'm always up for new gigs. Meanwhile, check out my new book and new
DVD. And spread the love.
EZ: Thank you, Annie. We will!
[Written March 2006]
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