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Ducky Doolittle
Sexual Field Scientist
I first met Ducky DooLittle
years ago when she sent me one of her little Xeroxed zines with a note
saying, “I thought I smelled sex.” That was back when our p.o. boxes
were right on top of each other at the East Village’s 14th St. post
office. We struck up a friendship that blossomed into many kinky
collaborations, including the panty fetish zine Peek!, parties,
performances, fashion shows and all kinds of mutual admiration press
coverage. Ah, those were the days. Ms. DooLittle is an accomplished sex
educator now and her days of sitting in cakes are over. She’s currently
on the road touring the country to promote her new book, Sex with the
Lights On. I caught up with her between cities for a conversation about
the old Times Square, the tribulations of sex work and what’s in the
future for this saucy Sexual Field Scientist.
ErosZine: Congratulations on the book! How does it feel to be a published author?
Ducky DooLittle: I’m totally tickled! Sex with the Lights On has been a
long time coming. I really feel like I have made something beautiful.
I’m very proud of it.
EZ: Let's talk about how you got here: You've been a sex worker of some
sort for 17 years now. Tell us about all the different jobs you've had.
DD: I started out on 42nd Street. I was a peepshow girl at Show World,
a stripper, a nudie magazine model and a dominatrix. All of that work
paved the way for me to become a sex journalist for what I like to call
“cut-rate glossy porn magazines.” That led to writing for art, fashion
and men’s magazines. I also worked as a sex educator with the feminist
sex toy store Babeland. With time I became their lead workshop
facilitator and education coordinator. Today I perform on stage and
teach sex all over North America.
EZ: Which job did you enjoy the most?
DD: All of my jobs have either required performance skills or writing
skills. I think I enjoy it all and I really love the fact that I’m the
driving force behind what I do for a living. I’m the boss of me. It’s
been that way no matter what kind of job I have had. For example if a
strip club manager treated me wrong, I would just leave. I always knew
I was good at what I did and there were a hundred other clubs that I
could work in. Of course New York City has changed a lot since then. I
think NYC’s sex workers don’t have the same options we had back in the
1980s.
EZ: Which job did you like the least?
DD: I never liked working as a dominatrix. I was never very good at it.
It takes a lot of bedside manner and patience. People like to be flip
and act as though all a woman has to do is wear some hot leather and be
bitchy, but there is so much more to being a domme. To be good you have
to get invested in your client’s fantasy. You have to tune in to their
experience and be very present. I had no problem being a fantasy girl
on stage, from a distance or in a magazine, but to have to live,
breathe and play out their fantasies was more than I was able to do -
certainly on a daily basis anyway.
EZ: Working the peepshows on 42nd St. must've been interesting. And now
it's also somewhat historical. What are your thoughts on the cleaning
up of 42nd St., the closing of many strip clubs, etc.
DD: I miss 42nd street. When they tore down the buildings and wiped out
the sex emporiums I felt like they erased a piece of my history. There
are so many New Yorkers who feel the same. Times Square had been a
living monument to sex, crime, drugs, homelessness and prostitution.
Those are realities in our society and no matter how you try to zone
them out of existence, they will always exist. I liked 42nd street
because everyone knew what you could find there and everyone was there
for similar reasons. There was a certain sort of honesty in Times
Square that’s hard to find in life.
EZ: You've been fielding questions from kinky freaks, as well as just
the sexually curious, for over a decade. How did all that experience
help you with your book?
DD: There are 200 questions answered in my book. All real questions
from real people. When I teach sex workshops at sex toy shops,
universities or even church groups, what I’ve always done is pass out
blank index cards and pencils. I ask my audience to write down any sex
question they may have. This makes it so the brave and the not-so-brave
can participate on the same level - anonymously. Over the last eight
years I saved every single index card. I filed them meticulously by
body part or sex act. When it came time to write the book I realized I
could write a book with the help of every person I had ever encountered
in my workshops. My name may be on the cover, but this book belongs to
hundreds of people. We wrote it together.
EZ: Now you field questions online. Does that mean way more work?
DD: After 10 years of doing online sex advice I cannot keep up with the
incoming questions, which is why it was time to write the book. Now
everyone can have this entire collection of questions available to them
at any time. Beyond that, I tour extensively so people show up at my
live appearances and get more.
EZ: Are the questions more "normal" now? Cause I always found that the real freaks were into snail mail correspondence.
DD: Normal is always a relative term! When I was doing nudie photo
shoots for adult magazines I got my most fringe letters and questions.
I really enjoyed fielding questions about things like panty fetishes
and foot fetishes. At this point in my career I get the most enjoyment
out of speaking to and educating college age individuals. So I think I
attract more base level and less perverse questions. Honestly I like it
all. I enjoy being accessible yet totally open-minded.
EZ: Do people still send you dirty pictures and comix and stuff?
DD: Yes and I love it! As a model I was illustrated by some amazing
artists like Robert Crumb, Bob Fingerman and Stu Helm. This brought me
all kinds of sex/art geek attention. I also still collect and
correspond with lots of smutty, creative zine editors. Beyond that, as
I tour I go to all of the indy shops like Reading Frenzy (Portland),
Come As You Are (Toronto), The Tool Shed (Milwaukee) or Quimby‚s
(Chicago). In these shops you can still find independent, highly
creative underground smut.
EZ: Your zines were always so beautifully crafted. Do you miss the personal touches of snail mail correspondence?
DD: Thank you. I do miss the days when my post office box was full of
odd letters from fans, quirky publications and picture postcards from
around the world. To cure my hankering, I still do limited edition
zines and still maintain my p.o. box. I do zines in limited numbers
just because I don’t have the time to do ongoing mail order. I usually
post on my blog when something new comes out and they are swallowed up
in a few days. It’s fun but not like the old days when a young woman
could have her own little industry just by self-publishing little zines!
EZ: You've traveled around the country performing and teaching and met
people face to face. Do the questions differ from state to state?
DD: Totally! I just did a couple workshops in Minneapolis. I was born
and raised in Minnesota so I was a little nervous performing there for
the first time. I was so happy to find the workshops sold out and they
really got all my little jokes about the Mid-West and how repressed our
culture can be. It was beautiful. I like teaching in San Francisco
because people there are not so isolated around sex. They want to
really pull apart ideas and theories around sex and we have some
incredible, sexy workshops in the process. Meanwhile in New York City I
find people come ready to take lots of notes and head right home to use
what they learn! New Yorkers don’t fuck around. One thing I love about
teaching sex and performing on the road is that I find pockets of
beautiful, progressive minds in every city.
EZ: You're currently on a tour to promote your book. How do the
audiences differ now that you're an author? Do you feel people are
taking you more seriously?
DD: The audiences have always been wonderful but the best part about
having a book out is that I have so much to say that I could never
answer every question and say it all in a one- to two-hour performance.
Now that I have a book, people can take a piece of me home with them.
The information is not fleeting. It’s a great feeling when someone asks
a question about how to feel good in their skin or how to shake up
their relationship and I can give them a bit of face to face fuel and
back it up with an entire chapter on those subjects. Another great
thing is that by reading my book people are really starting to see how
hard I have worked, how sincere I am and that over the years I have
amassed a great body of knowledge.
EZ: You used to perform quite a bit. I always loved your cake sitting!
Tell us about your transformation from clown to one woman show to
serious author.
DD: I’m always changing. After being a stripper and a peepshow girl I
became a nightclub go-go girl and burlesque dancer. My most famous
burlesque act was when I performed as the cake-sitting clown named
Knockers! At the same time I was doing some comedy bits in New York
City and touring that material. That’s a lot of work for a limited
amount of reward. Teaching sex and writing about sex has made it
possible for me to move into using my more of my brainpower and given
me the ability to make a better living.
EZ: And do you still perform?
DD: I‘ve never stopped performing, I just stopped appearing in
nightclubs. Today I do limited engagements at theaters. And teaching
sex workshops has actually made me a better performer than ever. I
regularly do one- to two-hour performances. These extended speaking
appearances have sharpened my chops. Today I’m selling out large
teaching venues and moving more toward bigger theaters and
storytelling. In 2007 I’ll be back on stage doing a one-woman show
where I mix stories with sauce, with sex advice. The show is called
Knock Out. I believe it’s my best work yet.
EZ: You're totally self-educated and you've read a million books to get
there. Which ones did you find the most informative? Interesting?
DD: Wow. There have been so many books that have changed my life. I
find the best books are the ones that make a person feel less isolated
in life. When it comes to sex I’ve loved Sex Work: Writings by Women in
the Sex Industry because it taught me that there are so many women,
from many different backgrounds, who have worked the sex industry and
found it to be a wonderful, horrible, creative and devastating
experience. Usually all at the same time. I also liked My Secret Life
because it was a personal, shameless account of a gentleman whoring in
Victorian London. It was a nice display of how things never change,
only individuals change. Most recently I’ve also enjoyed Hobo by Eddy
Joe Cotton and Education of a Felon by Edward Bunker. Both books are
about rough and tumble street kids. Being an orphan and homeless as a
teen I could totally relate.
EZ: How is your book different from other sex education books?
DD: Sex with the Lights On is different in that I’m not trying to tell
anyone how to have sex. I didn’t make an outline of what I think you
should know. I let the people tell me what they want to learn and I
simply respond according to their desires. This book is accurate,
non-clinical, accessible, funny and sexy. It’s not easy to be all of
those things at once, but I do believe that’s where I’m most talented.
I can take what otherwise might be hard material to relate to and I’ve
made it entertaining to consume. This book is also different in that I
made sure that the text reads giver/receiver rather than he/she. I
tried to make it so that individuals of every gender or sexual
orientation could pick up this book and find themselves in the
material. It was paramount to me that the book be as inclusive as
possible because everyone needs and deserves pleasure.
EZ: And what's in the future for you?
DD: Expect more books. More stage shows. More photos and adventures in
my blog. Most of all expect the unexpected and catch me while you can
because I never stay the same! And I like it that way.
[Written June 2006]
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