audacia ray • cinekink

>Many congratulations to CineKink alum Audacia Ray, whose new sexuality blog, Naked City, debuted this week at The Village Voice. While Audacia predicts that the blog will evolve over time, one feature that’s already up and running is Naked City TV, a weekly video show intended to “document and explore the personal and professional lives of people for whom sexuality is central.”

This week’s episode, a profile of Porno Jim (CineKink ’08/Hookin’ Up) and his live, porn-clip show, manages to capture both the engaging frenetics of Jim’s evangelistic presentations – and a few graphic moments of live-action Smurf-on-Smurf pornography:

>Lest we take as long with getting these photos out as we spent on finally putting together our wedding album, herewith a few images from CineKink NYC 2008!

First up, from photographic phenom Stacie Joy, some shots of the CineKink Kick-Off Gala.

Lux Alptraum and Molly Crabapple

JZ Bich, Dizzy Swank, Cherry Bomb, Ignacio Rivera

Here’s more of the set – or visit filmmaker Leah Meyerhoff‘s blog for another vantage.

And a few candids from around the festival taken by Viviane for Viviane’s Sex Carnival:

Boymeat and Lolita Wolf

Cory Silverberg, Jamye Waxman & Candida Royalle

And back to Stacie Joy, for still more of the CineKink scene:

Tanya Bezreh and Rachel Kramer Bussel

CineKink’s "Women Behind the Lens" panel

Including proof positive for the parents back home, no neglect – our birthday was celebrated indeed!

Lisa Vandever’s birthday!

>Tonight’s the coming out party for Sex in the Public Square, a new blog/social networking site put together by Elizabeth Wood and Chris Hall.

A little more “about” them:
We believe that sexuality is a fundamental component of human life, and that it cannot be excluded from “polite conversation” without losing an important element of democratic participation. We are working to expand the space available for discussions of all aspects of sexuality, and to build communities where respect and inclusion are the norm. We also believe that talk about sex needn’t always be “serious” in order to be “appropriate” and we welcome playful conversations that focus on the fun of sex as well as serious conversations that focus on things like policy, safety, and identity.

Taking place tonight and featuring readings by such perennial favorites as Rachel Kramer Bussel, Lux Nightmare, Audacia Ray – and perhaps even a CineKink morsel or two – more info on the launch is here.

>Actually, she would. A whichever-wave feminist who instilled her values by both word and example, she would no doubt be thrilled to have her daughter creating the type of pornography that helps make the world a place where a woman’s right to determine and enjoy her own sexual pleasure is a taken-for-granted aspect of daily life, right up there with equal pay for an equal day.

Especially if it were award-winning pornography.

Well, maybe next year. Instead, we’ll take our mother’s birthday as the ideal time to belatedly congratulate the winners of Good for Her’s 2007 Feminist Porn Awards

Hottest Group Sex Scene
Under the Covers | Candida Royalle; Femme Productions
(Alum CineKink 2006)

Hottest Trans Sex Scene
In Search of the Wild Kingdom | Shine Louise Houston; Blowfish Video

Hottest Straight Sex Scene
The Bi Apple | Audacia Ray; Adam and Eve
(Alum CineKink 2006)

Best New Star
Simone Valentino, Afrodite Superstar | Femme Chocolat

Hottest Gonzo Sex Scene and Hottest Diverse Cast
Chemistry 1 | Tristan Taormino; Adam and Eve

Hottest Love Scene
Matt and Khym | Tony Comstock; Comstock Films
(Alum CineKink 2006)

Hottest Couples Scene
Burning Lust | Skye Blue & Kelly Holland; Playgirl

Best Smutty Schoolteacher (educational)
Hearts Cracked Open | Betsy Kalin
(Alum CineKink 2005)

Hottest Dyke Sex Scene
Superfreak | Shine Louise Houston; Blowfish Video

Best Feature
The Masseuse | Paul Thomas; Vivid Video

Indie Porn Pioneer
Anna Span; Easy On The Eye Productions
(Alum CineKink 2006)

And CineKinkster’s mom will likely be extra proud of Audacia Ray (see above), whose book Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads and Cashing in on Internet Sexploration was just published (a movie and a book in one year?!?), an overview of the many ways that women are utilizing the Internet to explore and expand our sexuality.

Also grounded in feminism and drawing upon her own personal and professional experiences, Audacia talks to women about a range of interactions on the web, fro m those that exist solely in the online world to those that culminate in an actual meeting of the flesh. She considers the new audiences and markets that have opened up for adult products, with Internet commerce providing an anonymous and attractive alternative to the raincoat-infested – perceived or otherwise – brick-and-mortar outlet of yore. And she looks at some of the women who are using the web as a place to commoditize their own sexuality, both literally and in the representational sense as producers and purveyors of porn.

With a healthy dose of realism, Audacia paints an online world that is neither sensational menance nor utopian bliss. Detailing both potentials and pitfalls, she provides an engaging and balanced look at the particular vagaries – ie finding oneself oddly compelled to write in a somewhat stilted first-person plural voice? – of a slightly newish medium, along with the advances it might afford in realizing the progressive possibilities our mothers (literal and otherwise) put into motion.

Now, about that Equal Rights Amendment…

>Well, not all of them. Last night’s CineKink shindig at the Pioneer was a fabulous time, even if we didn’t have any naked people. That we know of, anyway. And it’s not like we never have naked people at our parties, but…anyway, Saturday night was the big release party for CineKink alum Audacia Ray’s brand new porn opus, The Bi Apple. A party that apparently featured many naked people.

For Audacia, who produced and moderated the panel, The State of Smut: NYC for last fall’s CineKink NYC, the new project represents her move from in front of the camera to producing and directing. As chronicled in her blog, Waxing Vixen, that move included many of the perils and tribulations one might encounter making independent movies of the non-explicit kind – excepting, of course, for all of those naked people. From a recently posted Q&A with her production manager:

This being a much smaller set, I didn’t really have the luxury of sitting around and doing any one thing for any length of time. I had all the bookkeeping responsibilities of a production manager, but when I wasn’t up to my elbows in receipts and model waivers, I was helping the PAs schlep cases of bottled water or holding the ladder for the set designer or setting up the lighting and backdrop for the photographer or installing an air conditioner or ordering lunch or, after several hours of frenetic activity, finding the coolest room in that sauna of a set that I possibly could and sitting with most of the crew in utter silence for an hour or two so that you could make smu.. er, art in a room down the hall. And occasionally bitching at the director for going overbudget.

It’s an interesting, ongoing discussion of the process and you’ll find many of Audacia’s moviemaking experiences of the past year, now moving into the distribution phase, detailed in the blog.

Along, of course, with many pictures of naked people.

>We’re losing sleep these days in our breathless anticipation of “The State of Smut: NYC,” a special CineKink panel taking place on Saturday, October 21 […read more…]

>Just 7,999,999 stories to go…

>CineKink NYC Photo Round-Up

>Get your wonk on!

>Mom would be so proud…

>We miss all the cool parties

>Investigating “The State of Smut: NYC”