What Are You Working On?
Writers on their works in progress

Audacia Ray

writer, editor, organizer

Audacia Ray (website) is executive editor of the Utne Independent Press Award winning sex worker rights magazine $pread and editor of the new destination for sex website reviews, SugarClick.com. Her personal essays have appeared in the anthologies Everything You Know About Sex is Wrong and the forthcoming First-Timers: True Stories of Lesbian Awakening. In addition to being a writer and editor, Audacia is an alternative model, a safer sex educator, and a sleep-deprived hell raiser.

I've recently become the editor of SugarClick.com, which is a blog in a network run by Sam Sugar and Paul Scrivens, who thought it was about time that there was a good, serious network of blogs about sexuality and culture. SugarClick is sex website reviews; it's all original content written by myself and my team of fabulous writers.

Another thing I'm working on is a NYC sex blogger reading, called the Perverts' Saloon, which is taking place at Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Monday, April 3 from 8 to 10 pm. It will be hosted by the very fabulous Desiree Burch and will feature a bunch of NYC sex bloggers reading their writing, as well as writings from the blogs of others who are too shy to get up on stage.

I'm perpetually working on $pread magazine. At the moment I'm wrapping up edits for our spring issue, marking one year of $pread, which is damn exciting for us. We're releasing the birthday issue in conjunction with a conference called Sex Work Matters, where I'm co-moderating a roundtable with Melissa Gira (http://sacredwhore.org) called "Managing Roles: Sex Workers, Activists and Academics." The conference takes place on Thursday, March 30 at the New School and CUNY here in New York, but $pread is also responsible for organizing, the night before the conference, a party which will be an art show that I'm curating.

Oh, and also I'm working on a master's degree in American Studies. You know, in my spare time.

 
What led you to this project?

The organizers of Sex Work Matters asked $pread to help them out by throwing a party on March 29th to welcome conference participants and to raise the profile of the event a bit. $pread has thrown a party for each issue we've released -- its part of how we do fundraising to publish the magazine -- including a fashion show this past November and a Sex Worker Olympics in January, which included a challenge where participants had to wear stilettos through an obstacle course while not spilling a very full martini glass. For this event, however, we wanted to do something a little less raucous, where people could actually talk to each other, and we came up with the idea for the exhibition, Sex Worker Visions. The show will feature art by and about people who work in the sex industry.

 
What are you doing with this that you haven't done before?

I was a researcher and assistant curator at the Museum of Sex when the museum was just getting going with its inaugural exhibition, and there I learned a lot about sexuality and visual culture, though most of the research and collections work I did was on historical artifacts -- nineteenth century prostitute guide books, condom tins from the 1930s, handmade SM equipment from the 1950s, and peep show tokens from the 1970s. There's definitely a difference between curating history and curating art, but the biggest challenge is that work about the sex industry isn't necessarily sexy. I want to show work that is engaged with the issues that sex workers face, not just sexy pictures of pretty girls with shiny lipgloss, and there are lots of people who don't quite get this.

 
What are some of these issues?

One issue that faces sex workers the world over is stigmatization, which ranges from general sneering and quiet judgment, to disenfranchisement, arrest and violence. By displaying art that shows many perspectives on the sex industry, I hope to further to concept that sex work isn't a black and white issue of empowerment versus exploitation, but that there are many complex issues involved.

 
What's been rewarding about this project?

I absolutely love the collaborative nature of this project -- I'm working with the other $pread staff, the Sex Work Matters organizers, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center (where the exhibition will be displayed) as well as sex workers and artists from around the world. As a writer I spend an awful lot of time all by myself, in front of my computer, living in my own head and working everything out myself, so it's a really powerful thing to bring together all these people and get them talking and sharing ideas. Though I'm sure I'll be totally worn out by the time the opening happens, I just know that looking around the room and seeing the faces of people who support this project will make it all worthwhile. The artworks in the show will also be for sale to benefit $pread, so hopefully that will be rewarding as well.

Sex Worker Visions goes up at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center at 208 West 13th Street in New York on March 29th. That night there is an opening reception from 6 to 9 pm, which a lot of the artists will be attending, and will feature interactive art that exists for one night only, plus art that will be on display and open to the public through May. We'll also be selling the new issue of the magazine, plus two limited edition art posters with illustrations by Cristy Road and Fly, two women who've helped us out immensely over the past year by doing quirky drawings of sex workers for the magazine. In my optimistic fantasy, I hope to finish up the details and installation of the show the weekend before it opens, but I'm sure I'll be putting up labels and wall text fifteen minutes before the opening.

 
Talk a little more about $pread magazine.

$pread is a magazine by and for sex workers and those who support their rights. We are working toward a world where the lives of sex workers are self-determined by publishing a quarterly politics and culture magazine with critical writings by people in the sex industry. Content includes feature interviews with sex workers, articles on legal, political and health issues that affect sex workers, as well as lighter fare like a recurring feature called "Indecent Proposals," in which a sex worker tells a funny story about a strange client request and a Style section.

Links

The Sex Work Matters conference

Her Feb. 5, 2006 list of sex bloggers

Some photos on NoFauxxx; and many more here on BellaVendetta

A Nov. 22, 2005 interview on GoodieBag.tv

Her MySpace profile

See more What Are You Working On? interviews.

published 4 Mar 06 on Too Beautiful. email copyright 2006 Mark Pritchard, Bernal Heights, San Francisco